Furious by Jeffrey Higgins (top 10 novels to read TXT) 📕

onto the deck and stepped over the lifelines. I balanced on my toes, ready to jump. Where was the shark? My foot slipped on the gunwale and I held the lifeline for support. Blood dripped down the hull. My foot bled, worse than before. The blood would attract the great white and draw it to me like a trail of breadcrumbs. I had to distract it and buy time to swim to the Odyssey. I looked at the yacht and my gaze fell upon the pile of intestines.

It has to work.

I climbed back over the lifelines and ran forward, I knelt, held my breath, and scooped the intestines into my arms. They squished and unraveled as I gathered them against my chest. The stench of death enveloped me. The intestines slid through my hands, like slithering snakes. Blood soaked my shirt.

I stepped gingerly across the wet deck to the port side. I leaned over the side and heaved the intestines into the air. They hit the surface with a sickening flop and blood and bile spread across the surface. A demonic chum. Seawater seeped into them and they started to sink. No sign of the shark.

I reached between the safety lines and slapped my palm against the hull to lure the great white. Still no shark. I balled my hand into a fist and banged with all my strength against the side of the boat.

The shark burst out of the water beneath the intestines, filling its mouth with the sailor’s remains. Its jaws gnawed on the meat as its nose soared high into the air. It hung there for a moment, intestines dangling from its mouth, then plunged beneath the white foam. The impact splashed cool water over the gunwale, drenching me.

It had attacked from below—without warning.

Blood dripped off me onto the deck and ran over the gunwale. It was now or never. I jumped into the cockpit, grabbed a cushion off the couch, and hurled it over the transom.

I climbed over the lifelines, hesitated, and then ripped off the bloody tee shirt. I wadded it into a ball and threw it over the port side near the stew of intestines. I gazed into the black, bottomless abyss below me.

I jumped.

The water hit me like a slap in the face. Cool water tingled my legs below the surface. I kicked my feet and scooped my hands trying to doggy paddle. I flailed, barely keeping my head above the surface. The shock from the temperature change snapped me out of my panic and focused my mind. I had committed and there was nothing left to do but swim.

I swept my arms through the water toward the cushion. I reached it in two strokes and pulled it under my chest. It kept me afloat and subdued my fear. The Odyssey was almost fifty-five yards away. I aimed for the stern which was low enough for me to climb on board—if I made it.

I balanced on the cushion and kicked, trying to keep my knees locked as my father had taught me. I paddled with my arms, reaching in front of me.

Forty-five yards.

I focused on the sailboat and did not look back. There was no point. The Odyssey drifted away from me, but I gained on it.

Forty yards.

The cushion maintained its buoyancy, no doubt designed to serve as a flotation device, and it compensated for my lack of form. I chose not to think about how much my arms thrashing on either side of the cushion resembled a seal from below. I skimmed across the surface, driven by terror.

Thirty yards.

Something splashed beside me and my heart leapt. Another splash and then another. Small, gray fish jumped out of the water. Scared fish. Fish running from a predator below—something big.

Twenty yards.

The fish flew around me, into me, bouncing against my body.  Terror drove them into the air as the great white neared.

Ten yards—so close.

“I love you, Emma,” I shouted.

Fish swirled in a jumble of fear. They bounced off the stern and around the boat. I kicked as hard as I could, but I needed to be faster. I sensed it beneath me.

I dove off the cushion and swam for the boat.

I reached above my head and touched the Odyssey, grasping the transom with both hands. I scissor kicked, propelling myself out of the water. My chest landed on the gunwale. I reached for a sheet and pulled myself onto the deck, lifting my feet over the transom.

Behind me, something slapped the surface, splashing me. I turned and looked. The surface foamed white. The cushion had disappeared.

I crab-walked away from the edge until I backed into the steering wheel. I pulled my knees against my chest and rubbed my legs and feet. Everything remained attached and intact.

I made it.

CHAPTER SIXTY

Brad’s screams echoed across the space between us.

I stood on the Odyssey’s deck and watched the Karna burn. Flames burst through the windows and reached high into the air. The breeze carried a toxic, chemical odor. There was nothing I could do—nothing I wanted to do.

Hearing Brad burn to death was awful, a fate I would not wish on anyone, but the Brad I had known—my Brad—no longer inhabited his body. The virus had eaten away his brain, leaving a homicidal, flesh-eating monster in its wake. Watching the creature he had become feast on that innocent sailor had numbed me. My Brad could not have done that. No human could.

Rabies had released something wicked and heinous inside Brad—traits he had kept hidden. Maybe his violent tendencies had always been there, waiting for a physical or societal trigger to escape. Maybe the virus inside him had eaten away his nerves and removed his capacity to control his primal instincts. The Indonesian government needed to destroy every bat inside the Pura Goa Lawah cave, before it transformed more people into demons.

Long, orange tendrils of flame burst through the stateroom hatches and Brad’s screaming stopped. His nightmare had ended. A huge plume of black smoke poured