The Tank

by Rick Chesler

  But then Boyd was pressing a beer into his hand, music was turned up, the homeowner was assuring him that the neighbors would not complain before midnight, and the first attendees were arriving. Kane got into the swing of the event, meeting and greeting, having at least a brief conversation with each guest, sniffing for trouble, especially with the ones he didn’t know.

  One of these latter was a woman maybe only a little older than he was, early thirties, he guessed, wearing cutoff jeans and a tank top with a local airboat operation logo on the front. She certainly looked local, but he’d never seen her before. Not that he’d been here all that long, but he noticed she hung back a little from the others, sipping a beer in a yellow Styrofoam holder. He was about to approach her when Cody clapped him on the back.

  “Four sharks! Hell yes, it is on!” Apparently, he needed no reply, for he moved onto a group of people a few feet away, leaving Kane to stare at the tank. He glanced at his watch. It was still early, and he knew it was smart to let the interest build, allow more people to show up, build some suspense. He felt a little more relaxed because this time, per their arrangement with José, the fisherman was going to collect the sharks and release them when he headed back out to the reef tomorrow. At first, he’d said he would just eat them, process them for food or maybe bait, but Kane wouldn’t hear of it. “Like I said before, it’s a catch and release with a little detour between the catch and the release. We’re having a little fun with them, but knowing they get to back to the wild afterward makes it okay for me. If we kill them afterward, that’s not something I want to be a part of.”

  So they’d worked out a deal where they paid José a little something extra to release them back out on the reef, and that way Kane and Boyd would avoid potential run-ins with Fish and Wildlife when they tried to let them go themselves.

  So now it was just a matter of turning out a successful match, and by the looks of things, so far so good. It was kind of a shame, he thought, looking around at the gathering crowd, that this was all going to end pretty soon. Unless they kept it going after he left, but he doubted it. In a way, he’d like that, but it would be out of his hands at that point, and he wasn’t about to drop any hints that he was skipping town.

  Judging by the number of people here, Kane thought, it wouldn’t be too long before these matches would be shut down, anyway. It was just as well he would be taking his money and running. He was about to go find one of his roommates and see if there was anyone else they could invite. No point in holding back now—it was time to draw as big a crowd as possible for these last couple of matches—when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

  He turned to see the woman in the cutoff jeans smiling at him.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Heather put on what she hoped was her best flirtatious smile. “Hey, I’m Jenna.”

  Kane stared at her for a second, trying to place her. Should he know her? He didn’t think so. Just somebody saying hello.

  “Hi.”

  Women were not on his mind. He was in the middle of orchestrating his exodus from the states and any kind of distraction was the last thing he needed. Still, he was getting ahead of himself. She’d only said, hi, after all.

  “You the one who runs this show?” She jerked a thumb back toward the tank, where the four reef sharks circled above a backyard that at one time in the geological past would have actually been covered in ocean water.

  Kane had mixed feelings about this question. One the one hand, he didn’t like implicating himself if her line of inquiry stemmed from something negative, such as an animal rights activist. On the other, she might want information on how to place a wager, or know someone who wants to compete or something like that. He decided to own up to it but to distance himself a little by saying, “I’m one of the people. What do you need?”

  “Just wanted to say I think it’s a really great idea.” She looked back at the shark tank. “It’s getting around town, and everybody thinks it’s so cool. What’s your name, anyway?”

  Kane eyed her for a second, but nothing about her betrayed anything unusual. “Lyle.” He extended a hand. “Nice to meet you, Jenna.”

  Heather took his hand and he noted she had a solid grip. As soon as she let go, another man walked up to Kane and said, “Sorry to break things up, but Lyle, I need a word with you.” Kane told Jenna bye and he walked a few feet away with Boyd, who began talking in low tones. She looked around quickly to make certain she was unobserved, and then snapped a picture of Kane and Boyd as they conversed, before returning the smartphone to her pocket.

  #

  “Guess who just called me?” Boyd asked Kane.

  “The neighbors, complaining?”

  A shake of the head. “Nope, Parker. He says he’s on his way and he wants a match.”

  “What? What about his leg?”

  “He says it’s not that bad, that in water he can support it. He might be delusional, though.”

  “Might be? Yeah. Aren’t there other guys who want a match?”

  “Yeah, but Parker’s sort of the champ so far, so, shouldn’t we give him a shot? He’d probably draw more wagers, too.”

  That did it for Kane. If Parker was crazy, so be it. “Tell him we’re doing two matches tonight—another double header—and he’ll be second.”

  Boyd nodded, held up his phone, and turned away.

  #

  Four guys actually argued over who would get the first match until Kane settled it literally with a roll of the dice. “Highest roll gets it. Tie goes again until one is highest.”

  Boyd took Kane aside after he’d selected the winner, who walked over to the tank. “Why not let them all go? At least two of them before Parker?”

  This idea was more tempting to Kane than Boyd knew, but Kane still disagreed. “Part of the draw is the limited number of matches. If we run too many, there will be less action on each one. And the animals will get tired out and not be in good condition. I want those sharks in top shape, that’s what makes this interesting.”

  Boyd looked back at the reef sharks. “You really just don’t want the animals to get hurt, do you?”

  “No, I don’t. I told you how I feel about that.”

  “I’m not saying we should let them get injured or anything like that, I’m just saying I think they can handle more than two matches…”

  Kane narrowed his eyes a little, starting to lose his patience. “I don’t care what you think they can handle, Boyd. Okay? Why don’t you get in there for a match, Mr. Tough Guy?”

  Boyd appeared taken aback, offended even. “Take it easy, why don’t you? Fine, two matches it is. Geez.” He walked away and Kane shrugged. Tonight and one more, and this would all be over. He was glad to see the new contestant—Greg Hines was his name—climbing the tank ladder. He was even more glad to see Boyd doing his job collecting the wagers.

  He wasn’t so happy to hear how he had altered the match in order to up the bidding. “Fifteen minutes. This time the match is for not ten, but fifteen minutes.” Kane turned to look at Greg up on the platform to see if he was hearing this little detail for the first time, too, but he merely nodded and continued limbering up with his stretching exercise, looking down on the four reef sharks circling the perimeter of the tank.

  Boyd glared at him across the yard, as if daring him to challenge him on the new time limit. He did not. It was only five extra minutes after all. He watched Boyd approach the woman he had just met—what was her name, Jenna—and ask her if she wanted to bet. He could see by her body language she was reticent to participate, but Boyd kept pushing, and after a little more of it, she relented and put some bills into the pot.

  #

  Kane climbed up onto the platform with Greg, who got tired of watching the four reef sharks in the tank and signaled he was ready to start. The sharks had no predictable behavior that he could figure out, so he decided it was best to simply get on with it. A lot of people crowded around the tank now, over a hundred, Kane guessed, with more still straggling
in. Word was getting around. Kane supposed that, whether he stuck around or not, that these matches had a limited lifespan, in this area, anyway.

  But he shoved these thoughts aside as Greg spoke to him. “Are we going to do this, or what?”

  Kane looked at the young man, shirtless and literally holding a knife between his teeth like he was staring in a rerun of that ancient TV show, Sea Hunt. “Are you ready?”

  “I’m ready! Let’s do this already!”

  Kane leveled a gaze at him. “There are four sharks in there. Be careful.”

  “I can count. Put me in, coach!” He grinned at Kane and then waved to the crowd. Somebody yelled back, “You won’t make it five minutes.”

  Kane turned and raised his hand up to the countdown button, and a cheer went up around the octagon. Greg climbed down the ladder without even a last glance at the sharks. He dropped into the tank without taking the rungs all the way down, knife still clenched between his teeth.

  “Fifteen minutes!” Kane refereed.

  Greg waded right out to the center of the octagon. He stood there in the center, still holding the knife between his teeth for some reason, as he started turning in slow circles. The sharks made wider circles around the man, hardly interrupting their standing pattern. It was as if an invisible whirlpool carried everything in the tank—sharks and human—in a counterclockwise gyre.

  Until it wasn’t.

  Sometime after Kane announced that three minutes had elapsed, the sharks suddenly and without warning changed their pattern. Kane had no idea why. Greg hadn’t changed what he’d been doing. There were no external factors—no one banging on the tank or throwing anything into it—that he could see.

  “Watch it, man!” came an anonymous cautioner from the spectators.

  Each of the four sharks darted and twisted erratically, their movements extremely quick and unpredictable. Greg finally shifted the knife from his mouth to his right hand, but otherwise continued turning slowly around. One of the gray reef sharks nosed up at him from below and in front of him, butting into his stomach. No sooner had he bashed it out of the way with a swipe of his left fist to the gills than a second predator latched onto the back of his leg, low on the calf, biting into the Achilles’ tendon.

  Greg screamed out, unable to deny not only the pain, but the shock and general brutality of the animal assault, so sudden and so powerful. Worse, while he attempted to turn around so that he could strike the fish and attempt to dislodge it from his tendon, another shark came at him from the opposite direction—now his back—and sunk its teeth into his side while whipping its head back and forth. Blood clouded the water and Greg yelled out again.

  By the time he thought to bring his knife down on the shark in front of him, another reef shark was ripping into his left side. Many people screamed now at the realization they were watching a real-life shark attack. Greg swung the knife, and it glanced harmlessly off the triangular scales of the marauding fish, scraping his knuckles raw in the process, though that was the least of his problems.

  He was losing a lot of blood, and due to his severed Achilles, he could no longer put any weight on his right leg. He slipped underwater, scrambling to get his head back up, but the fourth shark joined in on what was rapidly becoming a feeding frenzy. Thrashing fins and arms were everywhere, whipping up a front of reddish water.

  Kane grabbed the life ring attached to a length of rope that they’d added as a safety feature. It was quicker to toss the ring to a struggling contestant than to jump in and wade with them back to the ladder. But Kane doubted whether Greg would be able to grab onto it, so embroiled he was in the shark battle. But when he saw the man’s face come up, streaked with crimson, and look right at him, mouth parting in a scream, he knew he had to try. He tossed the life ring into the tank, and watched as it landed only a foot in front of the victim.

  #

  Heather Winters was frozen in shock for the first time ever in her Fish and Wildlife career. She was watching a man be consumed alive by sharks, along with a hundred other people, most of whom were mortified right along with her, but a few actually cheered. She saw the life ring hit the water with a slap and that snapped her back into action.

  She considered running to her vehicle (an unmarked Jeep) to use the radio, but it didn’t look like the guy in the tank had that much time. Regardless of how fast these guys got him out of the tank, she knew if he was going to live he would need an emergency room, so she took out her cellphone and dialed 911. She was about to press the Talk button after the numbers were punched in when her phone was snatched from her hands.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” A man about five years younger than Heather looked at her phone’s screen and hit the button to end the call in progress.

  “Give me that!” Heather’s change in demeanor no doubt shocked the man, who backed up a step, but still held her phone.

  “You know the rules! No outside medical help unless it’s cleared by Lyle or Boyd.”

  “You idiot, that guy’s going to die unless he gets prompt medical attention the likes of which your friends won’t be able to provide!”

  He shot her a scrutinizing look. “Who are you, anyway?”

  She realized her mistake, of making herself look like the outsider she in fact was. “Jenna.”

  “You’re from Homestead?” He gave her a doubting look.

  “Flamingo.” It made her nervous to skirt the truth so closely, but it would also explain why maybe he hadn’t seen her “around.”

  “Swamp girl, eh?” He grinned. “Well listen, Jenna From The Swamp, he’s going to get the medical attention he needs, but when you agree to step into the tank, you agree to follow the rules.”

  “What rules are those? And who are you, anyway?”

  He leveled a stare at her that said, Really, are you challenging me? “I’m Cody, Lyle’s roommate. From Homestead,” he added, as if to emphasize that he was so much more of a local than was she, living all of thirty miles closer along the highway. “Look, I’ve got to go and help out. You can get your phone at the end of tonight’s match.”

  In spite of her hidden professionalism, Heather’s face turned red. “After the—it’s over, isn’t it?”

  “There’s one more match after this.”

  “What? Who’s going to want to get in there after what just happened.”

  He looked at her and shook his head, as if there was so much she didn’t understand. “You’d be surprised.” He held up her phone. “After the match.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  Kane, Boyd, and Cody crowded together atop the tank platform watching as Greg failed to grasp the life ring.

  “We’ve got to go in after him,” Kane said, gripping each man by a shoulder. Both of them appeared hesitant. “Come on! With three of us, we’ll be fine.”

  Boyd nodded and Cody grunted something unintelligible, but the trio launched themselves into the tank, all of its water now pinkish with Greg’s blood. The contestant flailed and wailed in the center of the octagon, still grasping his knife but no longer striking out with it in a coordinated way.

  “Make noise, yell!” Kane shouted as he and the other two men slogged out to the center of the tank.

  “Hey, hey!” Boyd shouted as he deliberately beat the water with his fists. Kane and Cody did the same, hoping to draw the four sharks off of their quickly succumbing victim. It took a few seconds, during which Greg was massacred some more by the sharks, but it worked. The reef sharks scattered as the newcomers neared, swimming to all points of the octagon.

  “Greg, we’re here, let’s go.” Kane reached him first. “Greg!” The gladiator was unresponsive. Kane went to put his arm around his own shoulder in order to pick him up but immediately felt that something was very wrong. The arm almost pulled away from the body at the shoulder, the extent of the wounds so great it had nearly been severed.

  “Grab him by the torso,” Kane said to Cody, while Boyd fended off the circling sharks, which kept their distance for th
e moment. Kane shifted to Greg’s other arm, and although that one had smaller bites all along its length, he found he was able to drape it over his own shoulder in order to carry him.

  “What happened?” Greg bellowed as Kane and Cody started to move him toward the escape ladder. Boyd backed up along with them, watching the sharks, not about to turn his back on them.

  “You’re okay, Greg. Just sit tight, we’ll get you out,” Kane said.

  “Did I go the time?”

  “Shh, buddy, don’t worry about that right now, just relax. We’re almost there,” Kane added. But although they only had about ten more feet to cover to reach the ladder, it was slow going, carrying Greg’s dead weight and watching for sharks all around them. As they moved out of the middle of the tank, Boyd turned so that he faced the same direction as the others. He warded off a curious shark in front of them, then whirled around only to find it necessary to repeat the process with another. Bloody saltwater splashed his eyes, stinging them, and he felt one of the sandpapery hides brush against the back of his leg.

  “Let’s move it, they’re getting riled up again,” he advised.

  But before they even reached the ladder, Greg started seizing, his body losing control.

  “He’s lost too much blood,” Cody guessed.

  “Keep moving, faster!” Kane returned.

  Up on the platform, two other guys waited, ready to help pull up the rescue team. It wasn’t until they got a little closer that Kane was able to tell that one of them was Parker. Even with his own shark injury, he’d shown up ready for his match, but now even his expression was one of revulsion. A tank full of foamy, red water with four sharks and four humans, in somebody’s backyard. Boyd fought off one of the sharks between them and the ladder. “Get him up there, I’ll watch your backs,” he told Kane, who nodded, face a mask of grim determination.