The Great White was big. Twenty feet long at least, and it acted as if it hadn't seen a boat before. Kendle was sure just the simple shot of a flare would get rid of it, but she had no flares, no gun, no knife, no gas, and no radio. She was adrift on a dead stranger's boat somewhere in the Pacific Ocean - the sole survivor of a passenger manifest that had numbered over a thousand.
The shark was circling the boat again, and the red-skinned woman braced herself to follow through with the plan she'd made. Fight back or die had served her in the past and it would now as well.
Bump!
The boat rocked and her grip tightened.
Bump...Bump!
More violent this time and there was an awful creak of waterlogged wood that got her up on her knees. Her boat wouldn't take much more, and she would likely only get one shot. She would have to get closer.
Kendle rose onto her knees near the side of the boat, not feeling the splinters digging into her clothes and skin. Her attention was focused on the shark streamlining her way for another hit, this one likely an attack. It too had heard the water-weakened wood.
She sucked in a breath as the great white came in high on the water, the hunter moving in for its meal.
"Aaaahhh!"
Kendle swung the claw hammer with all her strength, the boat dipping precariously with her violent movement, and she buried the hammer in one of the shark's cold eyes.
Blood squirted, and the surprised predator jerked downward, yanking the weapon from her grip. It disappeared beneath the murky waves, tail thrashing against the battered boat. One shot and she had nailed it. Was it enough?
Her eyes searched intently, her heart relaxing a little more with each second that passed. She'd lost her fishing hammer, but kept her life and her boat, and that was a fair trade as far as she was concerned.
Kendle moved back, keeping her eyes on the waves, but after starting to doze off as the adrenaline rush faded. It was gone. Her heart fell. Like her world. She had no idea where she was. The gas had run out a long time ago, and she was alone, at the ocean's mercy.
Her bluish-gray eyes searched the waves as they swelled and dipped around her, finding nothing but debris and endless water. Forcing herself to ignore the waiting tears, she got out her strings and began to tie a square of net to "fish" with.
"Fifty days and nights," she muttered, cracked lips aching, skin a constant bruise from the lightest touch. In all that time, she hadn't seen anyone, not a ship in the distance, not even a plane overhead. Surely, they had found the liner by now, counted bodies, and started a search for survivors. Hadn't they? Shouldn't she have at least seen a plane by now, one of those big 747s? They wouldn't be able to see her, of course, but just knowing she wasn't alone would be a comfort.