Past the Shallows Read Online Free PDF Page B

shark was touching his arm, touching his skin. It was squeezing into him, thrashing
     wildly. The shark was right on him.
    He felt something grab his legs. It was Martin, pulling hard – so hard it hurt. Miles’s ribs felt like they were going to
     cave in, let everything give way, and there was a sickening crack. Miles waited for the pain. He waited for the air to be
     sucked out of his chest, but someone else was yelling. Someone else was broken.
    The shark’s tail had hit Martin’s legs and he was down. Down on top of Miles.
    Now Miles could hardly even move his head. All he could do was watch the shark beside him fight. It was jerking itself back,
     inch by inch, in the direction it had come. Miles could see the curved teeth that spilled out in every direction, teeth that
     brushed against his skin. And the shark’s eye was on him now,full of strength and pride. The eye of a champion – a wolf of the sea.
    ‘We’re going over!’
    Dad was yelling from the far side of the deck. The boat must have been up on some crazy angle because he seemed to be hanging
     from the rails.
    They were going over, tipping over.
    They were going to go in the water.
    A crack ripped through the air, an explosion that blew his ears apart. The shark began thrashing harder, stronger, and Miles
     could hardly breathe.
    ‘No!’ Martin shouted. He was trying to drag his body up and cover Miles. ‘Don’t shoo –’
    Another crack and someone was laughing. Jeff was laughing.
    Miles could see a bullet wound, blood oozing from the mako’s head. It shook and jumped, every movement bringing the water
     closer, and Jeff was closer now, standing right above Miles on a weird angle. He was still laughing when the shark’s teeth
     gnashed across his shins, ripping his skin open. Jeff made a hissing sound, cocked his rifle and fired again.
    Miles shut his eyes, sure that this bullet would lodge in his head, sure that he was dead now.
    And he didn’t move.
    But he felt the boat move, right itself. He felt all the weight that was crushing him lift away. Someone dragged him to his
     feet. Dad. He was saying something. It looked like ‘You OK?’ or ‘You’re OK’, but Miles couldn’t hear the words. His ears were
     gone, stuffed full of ringing.
    He stood there and watched Dad scramble to rescue debris that had been flung off the boat. The abs and salmon were gone, the
     tools and equipment. Almost the whole deck was cleared except for the ten-foot mako that now took up the whole mid-section
     of the boat. Miles looked down at his arms, his body. That shark hadn’t hurt him – not even a scratch.
    She lay on her side, her blue skin already turning grey, and Miles felt sick as he watched Jeff slice through her white underbelly
     with ease. Her stomach and insides slid through blood onto the deck.
    She was pregnant.
    Jeff hacked into the full womb and three pups spilled out; two dead and half eaten, the other trying to swim in its mother’s
     blood against the hard surface of the deck, tiny gills stretched open, black eyes searching. Jeff bent over and stabbed it
     through the head, grinning as its body came up on the long knife,still fighting. He chucked it at Miles and laughed as he wiped blood off his face.
    Miles caught the baby in his arms. It was dead now, black eyes fixed.
    It was fully formed, more than half a metre long, maybe only days away from being born. It would have survived if Jeff had
     just let it go, let it slide off the back of the boat. It had made it this far, battling its siblings, killing and feeding
     off them. Waiting. It would have been born strong, ready to hunt, ready to fight.
    Miles felt the engine through his boots. They were moving, but Jeff was still busy with his prize, busy decapitating her.
     He hooked the head on the winch and started pulling it up. The grotesque and bloodied thing rose, bullet wounds clearly visible;
     all three to the head, the last right between the eyes. With a metal rod, Jeff slid the