He launched himself onto the surfboard and began paddling back out to sea, though in the pit of his stomach he knew it was a vain gesture. The shark was powering toward his flank and as he glanced over he caught a terrifying glimpse of a large dorsal fin cutting through the water.
He felt like it wasn’t really happening, like he was watching himself perform scenes from a disaster movie. But was it Jaws or Apocalypse Now?
Charlie don’t surf.
Luckman felt as if his arms were paddling in wet tar. He roared at the world in a defiant attempt to drive them faster. He knew the shark was winning the race – and all he had in front of him was a cyclone wire fence.
He sensed the creature’s jaw open and rolled off the other side of the surfboard and into the water. The raging animal tore a massive half-moon chunk out of the surfboard then swam straight underneath him. Desperately he tucked his legs into his chest and another wave passed through the enclosure. If he’d still been on the board it would have lifted him over the fence. He struggled to the surface, battling furiously against the pull of his boots and the drag of the board, expecting the shark to strike again at any moment. He pulled the board back under his body. Anger and fear pumped in his chest and ears, but he was grateful for small mercies – the surfboard was grievously damaged but still, at least, in one piece.
At this spectacularly inconvenient moment the Focal building’s superstructure finally gave way. Two floors at water level were instantly compressed on top of one another and the sound was like cannon fire. Fragments of glass and wood and metal flew through the air around him like shrapnel. A massive slab of concrete crashed into the water centimetres from his head and the concussion of the impact lifted him airborne. He somehow managed to keep a grip on the surfboard and hit the water upside down. He flipped himself back over and emerged above the surface into a thick, choking fog of pulverised concrete. There was no air left to breathe and he coughed violently as he involuntarily sucked in a lungful of powder. But coughing only made it worse; more of the dust hit his throat and lungs. He stuck his mouth down on the surfboard in an effort to somehow filter out something breathable. He had to get out of here.
Behind him he could hear the chain reaction as the rest of the building shattered. And in that instant, when things couldn’t get any worse, he knew he would survive. The sixth sense that had kept him alive time and again on the battle fields of the world spoke loud and clear. Where it came from he knew not, but he trusted it more than his own sense of logic. He chanced a quick glance skyward. The building was tipping slowly towards the open ocean.
It was falling away from him.
Luckman put his face down on the board again to snatch another half breath of dusty air then once more began to paddle away as he felt a wave lift the height of the water. The shark reappeared. Damn. He’d hoped the falling concrete had killed that fucker. No such luck, and the predator wasn’t going to let dinner escape without a fight. Luckman kept paddling madly as the shark lunged. Again at the last moment he rolled off the surfboard. Another bite would snap the board in half, and in his heart he knew what came next.
But the shark was caught.
In the fence.
Its teeth were snarled on the wire. The flailing beast was less than a metre away, but it couldn’t get to him. Somehow the last wave had lifted him over the fence.
“Fuck you!” he screamed, taunting the beast. But he knew it wasn’t over yet. The falling concrete must have breached the fence somewhere. Sooner or later, the shark would find its way out. Weak with relief, he regathered the surfboard and flailed his tired arms in the direction of another approaching wave. As the board surged he leapt to his feet without a second thought.
A white water world of death at the QT Hotel was close by, but at this point it seemed like the least of his worries. The calm resolve of his survival instinct had kicked in and he knew he had to turn the board. This time he put more body weight behind his efforts. He pushed down through his legs, careful not to overbalance, and the board responded. He shot past the moiling white crash of the lip and onto the open two-metre face, which reared up in front of him with speed and awesome force. The power of the moving water sent an unholy shudder through the damaged surfboard but, though falling would still be easy, he managed to stay upright. Because he knew it was his only option. Content to steer a straight line course across the face, he cruised smoothly and focused on keeping the nose out of the water and thus avoid being bucked off the board. For one blissful moment the world went quiet. He realised it had stopped raining and, for the briefest instant, it was like time ceased to exist as the wave unclenched its fist and carried him to safety.
Eight
The epiphany was fleeting. When he was safely in the lee of the hotel the wave petered out where the water became deeper. The dust was still thick, but at least he could breathe. He lowered himself back down onto the damaged surfboard and began to paddle roughly in the direction of where he hoped he would find Mel.
She appeared from out of the dust fog.
“There you are, thank God. You all right?”
“Yeah,” he told her, breaking into another coughing fit. “I think I swallowed half your building.”
“I really thought you were a goner, man.”
He tried to smile, but could only come up with a grimace. “I, um, found your shark.”
He showed her the chunk bitten out of the surfboard.
“Holy crap. You OK? You bleeding?”
“He missed me.”
“Let’s get out of here,” she decided.
Luckman had no problem taking her up on that. They paddled through the remnant branches of an old Moreton Bay fig. The water was calm here – protected by a line of smaller building remnants near the old beachfront that had become a reef. They were approaching another high-rise.
“That looks like a good place for us,” he decided.
She stopped paddling and peered down into the water.
“Shark?” he inquired, trying to pull his feet up.
She shook her head and tried not to laugh. “No. I just realised we’re paddling over Ocean Avenue.”
“Another of life’s rich ironies,” he said, grinning in relief. As he gazed down he spotted a school of bream swimming directly underneath them.
The building presented a new set of problems. Finding a way inside was by far their best bet, but climbing onto a balcony would be next to impossible. The balustrades were solid glass that fell flush with the balcony floor. There was nothing to hold onto. The floor closest to them was half submerged. Here the balustrades were visible just above the waterline. They might be able to stand on one of them and reach up, but there was little more than a finger hold on the floor above.
“Come on,” she insisted, “we’ll give it a try. You hold my legs and I’ll try to pull myself up.”
“It’s not gonna work,” he told her.
“Then what do you suggest?” she asked, for the first time letting weariness and frustration creep into her voice.
“We could swim in through the flooded level and maybe look for the fire escape.”
“Or, we could just cling on here and wait for the chopper,” she offered.
“We’re sitting ducks if we stay in the water. God knows what happens here as the tide changes. There could be a huge rip. Then there’s the sharks. Not to mention hypothermia, exhaustion and dehydration.”