SHARKS

Jonas awoke and stared at his hand.  It was covered with dried blood.  He was in the Abyss Glider capsule, bobbing on the surface of the ocean.  Sunlight glared through the Plexiglas sphere, half in water, half in air.

I've been dreaming, he thought.  I've been dreaming . . .

He crawled to the window, peered out at the sky.  The horizon was empty.

How long have I been out?  Hours?  Days?

The water beneath him rippled with sunlight.  He stared down into it, waiting for the shark.  He knew she was down there.

Out of the gray depths, the Megalodon appeared, rising up toward him like a rocket, jaws wide, teeth bared, her mouth a black abyss—

*        *        *        *        *

Jonas woke up in a sweat, gasping for breath.  He was alone in his hospital room.  The digital clock read 12:06 a.m.

He fell back on the damp sheets and stared at the moonlit ceiling.  He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

The fear was gone.  Suddenly he realized he felt better.  The fever, the drugs—something had worn off.  I'm hungry, he thought.

He got out of bed, put on a robe, and walked into the hall.  It was empty.  He heard the sound of a TV down the corridor.

At the nursing station he found the MP sitting alone with his feet on a desk, his shirt open, downing a submarine sandwich while he watched the late news.  The boy jumped when he sense Jonas standing behind him.

"Mr. Taylor . . . you're up."

Jonas looked around.  "Where's the nurse?"

"She's stepped out a minute, sir.  I told her I'd . . . I'd cover for her."  He stared at the bandage on Jonas's head.  "You sure you ought to be out of bed, sir?"

"Where can I find something to eat?"

Cafeteria's closed till six."

Jonas looked desperate.

"Y'all can have some of this."  He picked up another half of the bulging sandwich, held it out for Jonas.

Jonas stared at it.  "No, that's all right—"

"Please.  Go ahead and have as much as you'd like."

"All right, sure, thanks."  Jonas took the sandwich and began to eat.  He felt like he hadn't tasted food in days.  "This is great," he said between bites.

"Salami and cheese sub is hard to come by out here," the young man said.  "Only place I know is halfway around the island.  Me and my buddies, we make the trip once a week, just to kind of remind us of being back home.  I don't know why they don't open something closer to the base.  Seems to me . . ."

The kid continued talking, but Jonas wasn't listening.  Something had caught his eye on the television.  Fishermen at a dock were unloading a great quantity of sharks from their boats.

"Excuse me," Jonas said.  "Can you turn that up?"

The MP stopped talking.  "Sure."  He raised the volume.

" . . .over one hundred sharks were caught off Zamora Bay.  Local fishermen apparently have found an expanse of ocean off Saipan that has yeilded the largest catches this century.  They're hoping their luck will hold out through tomorrow.  In a related story, twelve pilot whales and two dozen dolphins beached themselves along Saipan's northern shore.  Unfortunately, most of the mammals died before rescuers could push them back out to sea.

In other news . . ."

Jonas turned off the volume on the TV.  "Saipan.  That's in the middle of the northern Marianas, isn't it?"

"That's right, sir.  Third island up the chain."

Jonas looked away, thinking.

"What is it, sir?" the MP asked.

Jonas looked at him.  "Nothing," he said.  He turned and headed back down the hall.  Then he stopped, came back, handed the boy the rest of his sandwich.  "Thanks."

The MP watched Jonas hurry back to his room.  "Sir," he called after him, "you sure you're all right?"