Devil Sharks

by Chris Jameson

  “Good man,” Harry said. “A smart husband knows when it’s time to obey.”

  A day—even hours—before, Alex might have snapped at him. Instead, he only smiled and reached out to take a cup of the sliced fruit.

  Harry cocked his head. “No riposte? I’m almost disappointed.”

  “Nah, man. You’re right. I’m a smart husband.”

  “But you’re wondering how I became such a font of wisdom on marriage. Trust me, it happened after I was divorced. You learn a lot when your life falls apart.”

  Harry reached into the cooler and drew out a bottle of Kona Lemongrass Luau, a Hawaiian beer. “You want one?”

  “More than my wife wants fresh pineapple.”

  Harry opened the bottle of beer and nestled it into the sand, then plucked another from the cooler and did the same. He drew out a lime and expertly sliced it into wedges, twisting two of them and garnishing the mouths of the beer bottles before he handed one to Alex.

  “To better days,” Harry said.

  Alex took the bottle of beer. “These might be the better days.”

  “I’ll drink to that.”

  They clinked bottles. Alex pushed his lime twist down into the neck of his beer while Harry squeezed his lime, letting its juice drip down into the bottle. A kind of quiet covenant formed between them in that moment, more than just a détente. Alex knew he could never forgive Harry for the past, but he found himself willing to judge an old friend by the man he’d become, not the man he’d been.

  Each of them took a swig of beer.

  “You’re still a jackass,” Alex said quietly, wanting this part of the conversation to be private. It felt intimate, this moment of reparation. Gabe was close enough to hear them but courteous enough to pretend to be minding his own business.

  Harry smirked. “But absent malice, my friend. Absent malice.”

  They both drank again. Alex hoisted the cup of pineapple. “I need to deliver this.”

  “Of course. After you do, though, I’d like to go and take a look at the Coast Guard station. It’s a weird little pilgrimage I’ve undertaken.”

  “You want to see where your father spent his time here,” Alex replied.

  “I guess I want to see if he left any echoes behind.”

  “Echoes?”

  “Just to see if I can feel him,” Harry said. “Not like a fucking medium or anything. I’m not that spiritual. I don’t mean actual ghosts. But if I can imagine him there, inside that building, maybe I can know him a little better.”

  Alex tilted back his beer and took a long sip. “You’ve been in a lot of therapy since the last time I saw you.”

  Harry laughed. “What gave me away?”

  Alex turned on his heel in the sand. “I’ll go with you. Just give me a second.”

  As he walked the pineapple back to Sami, Harry stood and faced the whole group. “This is a personal journey for me, guys. You should absolutely stay here and chill. Have another drink; eat your fill; go for a swim. Just enjoy this place. Hardly anyone in the world will ever see it, and none of us is likely to ever see it again. But if you’re curious and you want to check out the Coast Guard station, I’m happy to have you along.”

  Alex crouched by Sami. She took the cup of pineapple from him, reached in for a piece, and popped it into her mouth.

  “Okay if I stay here?” she said quietly.

  “Absolutely. I’m going with him, though.”

  “I’m glad. It obviously means a lot to him.”

  Alex sipped his beer thoughtfully. He knelt and kissed Sami on the cheek, and by the time he rose once more to his feet Cat and Luisa were also standing. The three of them joined Gabe and Harry, and then all five were walking along the shore of the atoll. The flowers were splashes of vivid, joyous color and the ripple of the surf was calming, but the abandoned Coast Guard station loomed quietly ahead, and the five of them were strangely somber as they walked, drinks in hand, into Harry’s unknown history.

  * * *

  Sami used her fingers to pluck another chunk of pineapple from her cup as she watched the quintet walk along the shore. A rustling of sand beside her made her turn. Alliyah had knelt there, some kind of tropical mixed drink in one hand. She offered it to Sami.

  “Orchid Sunrise,” Alliyah said. “I just invented it.”

  “What’s in it?” Sami asked.

  “Secret recipe. Just try it.”

  Curious but a little afraid, Sami took the cup. She narrowed her eyes in suspicion, but Alliyah stayed mum, so Sami took a sip. At first she could only taste fruit—orange, pineapple, plus something else, some kind of berry. Then the alcohol kicked in, a rush of heat that inflamed her throat and brought a flush to her cheeks. The fruit flavors rolled back over the burn, soothing and sweet.

  “Wow,” Sami said, eyes watering a little.

  Alliyah laughed. “Good?”

  “Very good. And very dangerous.”

  “My trademark,” Alliyah said. “You have that. I’ll mix another.”

  Her husband had overheard the exchange. From his spot on the sand he raised his own drink. “This is when the party starts.”

  Sami lifted her cup to toast the thought, then saw that Alliyah’s gaze had drifted up the beach.

  “There’s a sight I never thought I’d see,” she said.

  “You mean Alex and Harry?”

  “Acting like they don’t hate each other,” Alliyah replied. “Yeah. It’s new. I like it.”

  The drinks flowed nicely after that. Everyone seemed to have adopted the Orchid Sunrise, its name inspired by the atoll. Sami had finished her first and happily accepted a second from Dev, who had taken over his wife’s mix-master duties. By the time the others returned, Sami knew she would be hammered. Not on the second drink—as powerful as these drinks were, she had a fairly high tolerance. But she anticipated being offered a third, and didn’t intend to say no.

  “Whoo, Sami,” Alliyah said as she took a long sip. “Nice to see you loosen up.”

  Sami could have taken offense at the implication, but after all, Alliyah wasn’t wrong. There’d been plenty of tension on this trip, and she and Alex had been tightly coiled from the beginning.

  “Alli-honey,” Sami said, “look around. You put the devil in this place with a drink in his hand and pretty soon he’ll be an angel.”

  They sat with their feet in the water, the surf rippling up past them. Sami felt the sand shifting under her with each white-frothed wave. Her feet and her butt sank deeper and she lay on her back and let her body sink in. She thought of snow angels. Sand angels, now. A smile touched her lips as the surf tickled her, and even with her arms spread out to either side she managed to keep her drink aloft.

  “Psst.”

  Eyes closed behind her sunglasses, Sami opened them reluctantly. She lolled her head to the right and saw Alliyah looking at her. In the moments her eyes were closed, Dev had joined them, the three of them making sand angels in the froth. Alliyah’s eyes sparkled with mischief.

  “Notice anyone missing?” Alliyah asked.

  Sami frowned. She sat up, wet hair plastered against her neck. She took a sip of her Orchid Sunrise and then glanced around. The three of them were alone on the rocky stretch of sand. Nalani and James had been there, tangled together, kissing and whispering to each other.

  “They went for a little stroll,” Alliyah said. “Very romantic.”

  Dev sat up and craned his neck. The broken pieces that made up the atoll were a ring, but these island fragments were the upper edges of a volcanic formation below the water, like the teeth of the volcano’s mouth. The inside edges of the broken ring were sandy, while the outer edges had rocky shores with slightly higher surf, waves that crashed and flowed between the fragments of the ring. Some of the fragments, including the one they’d chosen for their picnic, had coral ridges at the waterline. A ridge of coral and stone, as well as earth and flowers, rose a few feet behind them, and Sami assumed Nalani and James were on the other side.r />
  “They went swimming on the outer edge,” Dev said. He raised his drink in a mock toast and gave a little shrug. “I think they’re fucking in the water. If you think that sort of thing’s romantic.”

  Sami rose on her knees and turned to survey the fragment of atoll they were on. It was about eighty yards in width. There were trees far off to her right, where the Coast Guard station silently sat. Over the top of the ridge and the flowers, she could barely make out Nalani and James in the water, their heads above the waves. Whatever they were doing, it was intense and intimate and not meant for prying eyes.

  “Actually, I think it’s very romantic,” Sami said, averting her gaze and settling back onto the sand. “I just hope they don’t end up drowning out there.”

  “What about you, love?” Dev asked his wife. “Do you think it’s romantic? Should we go for a little swim ourselves?”

  Alliyah gazed out over the water inside the atoll’s ring. She seemed lost in thought, and it seemed to take a few seconds for her to realize Dev had been talking to her.

  “What?” she said. Then she must have realized what he’d said, for she shot him a lopsided grin. “Maybe you should go for a swim. Cool off a little.”

  Dev drained his drink, set the cup down, and ran into the surf. He dove into the water, knifing under the surface. The crystal-blue clarity made it easy to follow him until he kicked deeper. Down there, a shadow seemed to envelop him. Sami could still make him out, but now the details were gone. For a few moments, Dev might have been anything down there, a dolphin or a sea monster. He broke the surface and waved to them before swimming farther from the shore.

  “I’m a little more conservative than Nalani,” Alliyah said quietly.

  Sami turned and propped herself on an elbow, studying the other woman. “At the moment, I’m starting to think even Luisa is more conservative than Nalani.”

  Alliyah rolled her eyes. “Luisa’s all talk. Or mostly talk, anyway.”

  “I understand it, though,” Sami said. “Nalani and James. We’re only here for a few hours. Some lunch and drinks and a chance for Harry to visit with the ghost of his father.”

  “Ghost?”

  Sami ran her fingers through the surf that rippled along the sand, washing in and washing out. “Not a real ghost. The memory, I mean. It feels like an early midlife crisis or something—whatever he’s going through. Whatever it is, we’re here. Feels like we’re out on the edge of the world, the kind of place sailors used to worry they’d reach the end of the Earth and sail right off a cliff into space.”

  “Your husband called it paradise,” Alliyah reminded her.

  “It is. It’s the wild, out here. That’s all I’m saying. If a place like this makes Nalani and James feel … liberated, like the ordinary rules don’t apply, I understand that.”

  Alliyah smiled without looking at her. “Is that your way of telling me that you’re ready for your third Orchid Sunrise?”

  “I might take a swim first. You going to come into the water?”

  “Not just yet,” Alliyah said.

  Sami sat up and brushed sand from her elbow. She rose to her feet. Alliyah had kept staring out at the water, presumably watching her husband. But as Sami looked on, she realized Alliyah wasn’t tracking Dev’s movements at all. Instead, the woman’s eyes scanned the expanse of water inside the atoll’s ring as if searching for something.

  “What are you looking at?” Sami asked, swiping sand off her butt.

  “I thought I saw something.”

  Sami frowned. “In the water?”

  Now Alliyah stood, too. She didn’t bother to brush herself off.

  “A fin,” she said.

  Sami smiled. “You’re funny.”

  “I’m not being funny.” Alliyah stepped into the surf, walking until she was thigh deep, still scanning the quietly undulating surface of the expanse of ocean within the atoll’s ring. She hadn’t started to call to Dev, to ask her husband to get out of the water, but she looked like she was thinking about it.

  “Maybe it’s a dolphin,” Sami offered.

  “Do you ever see just one dolphin, by itself?”

  “I think so. I don’t know. But even if it’s a shark, they don’t normally just attack people without being provoked. Do they?”

  Alliyah glanced at her. “Maybe not. But that doesn’t mean I’m in a hurry to go swimming with one.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Harry kicked the door hard enough to crack the frame.

  Alex wasn’t so drunk that it didn’t concern him. “You sure this is a good idea?” he asked. “Breaking and entering on federal property?”

  Harry ignored him. Luisa and Cat hung back, drinking, watching from a respectful distance. If they were troubled, neither one showed it.

  “The place is abandoned,” Gabe explained, as if he spoke for Harry. And maybe he did.

  “Even so. If nobody cared whether we went in there, it wouldn’t be locked up.”

  Harry shot another kick at the door, his foot landing next to the knob. Another crack, and this time a gap opened. Just a quarter of an inch, but it was clear the door was about to surrender.

  “Nobody’s been here for at least a decade,” Harry said, pausing between kicks. “Anywhere else it would already have been wrecked and covered in graffiti by kids using the place to party.”

  The rationalization didn’t work for Alex, but he’d said his piece. He kept his mouth shut as Harry launched one more kick. The frame split around the lock and the door swung inward with such force that it cracked against the inside wall. The doorframe had been weak, but the lock had been solid. Strong.

  Alex hung back while the others entered, first Harry and Gabe, then Luisa and Cat. When he stepped over the threshold, he expected the place to smell musty. And it did, but not nearly as bad as he’d anticipated. There were floral smells here, the salt tang of the sea, the damp reek of dusty concrete and wood swollen with humidity. He followed the others past a reception desk, staring at the walls as they moved deeper into the building. He’d expected posters or banners on the walls, portraits of whoever was President when this place shut down. Typewriters, Rolodexes, maybe even some rotting mattresses on top of rusting bunks. Instead, the large room just past the reception area looked like Whoville after the Grinch had been there, not even a crumb left behind.

  “Wow. Scrubbed clean,” Luisa said.

  The room was so barren that it took a few seconds for Alex to realize it must have been office space. He could picture cubicles in here. There were phone jacks spaced about ten feet apart on each wall. The front and back walls had small box windows that were rimed with salt on the outside, making them almost opaque.

  Cat went to the back of the room and tried to scrape at the window to look out, but she had no success. On the far wall was another door, which hung partway open. Harry paused as if to collect his thoughts before he went through the door with Gabe in his wake.

  “How many men do you think were stationed here?” Cat asked.

  “Not sure,” Luisa replied. “Any women, do you think?”

  “Depends what year, I guess,” Cat replied. “Tight quarters for men and women who are far from home.”

  “You’re suggesting lots of hot sex took place in this building?” Luisa said.

  “If these ugly walls could talk.”

  Alex drained the last of his beer. It had gone warm and the lime had overwhelmed the flavor. The fruit lodged in the neck of the bottle and he gave up on the last few drops, setting the bottle on the floor in the corner of the old office space.

  When he looked up, Gabe had returned, filling the doorway.

  “You guys should get in here.”

  Something about his tone made the small hairs prickle at the back of Alex’s neck. Cat started asking questions, but Alex figured the answers were beyond that door. Gabe stepped out of the way to let them pass. They moved down a corridor with several doors on either side—the quarters for the Coasties stationed here, Alex figur
ed. Some of the doors were open and others closed. Through one open door, Alex saw a bedroll on the floor. Blankets and a pillow. Someone’s dusty, crinkled shoes. A small tower of empty beer cans. Through another open door he saw an actual bed. Metal frame, thin gray mattress—U.S. Armed Services issue, most likely—so the Coast Guard had left something behind after all. He imagined the other rooms also had beds in them.

  But the Coast Guard hadn’t left the beer cans stacked like that and those shoes weren’t government issue.

  “Gabe?” Alex asked, glancing over his shoulder.

  Cat and Luisa had stopped to look into the room with the bedroll and the beer cans.

  “In the mess,” Gabe said, gesturing for Alex to keep going.

  The mess. What the military called the kitchen—or, really, the cafeteria where their meals were eaten. During his time in the army, Alex had eaten some of the worst food of his life in the mess, but usually he’d been so tired he had barely tasted it.

  He reached the end of the corridor, turned left and then right, and found Harry standing alone, studying an enormous map of the Pacific that had been affixed to the wall of the mess hall. There were other maps, but it wasn’t the maps that drew Alex’s attention now. Jackets and sweatshirts were draped over abandoned office chairs. A weathered Oakland A’s baseball cap hung from a hook on the wall. Most of the tables were dusty but otherwise bare, but several … at the front of the room … were stacked with cases of bottled water, beer, and coffee pods. A gleaming Keurig sat on one table, plugged into a wall socket, barely any dust on it at all. There were sleeves of cups, plastic tubs of sugars and creamers and utensils.

  Blood smeared the floor by that table and there were streaks on the table itself. On the plastic packaging of a case of water. A bottle of water lay on the floor, bearing a bloody handprint. On the sill of the small window above that table, someone had lined up dozens of empty bullet shell casings.

  We shouldn’t be here, Alex thought. An image of his daughter, Tasha, rose in his mind, and he wished he and Sami were at home with their little girl.

  “Harry,” he said. “What the hell is this?”