Children of the Storm by Dean Koontz Page B

son.”
        “Why do you say that?”
        Peterson frowned, looking at the choppy blue sea on the windward side of Distingue, but it was not the slightly angry waters which had generated the frown. He said, “It's hard to pin down. But if you ever meet him, you'll understand why I said that. He's-cold, withdrawn, very sober. He gives you the feeling-I don't know how-that he's only the form of a man, that inside he's completely hollow.”
        “I see.”
        She turned to the lovely scenery and didn't ask any more questions. She didn't want to have to listen to any more answers.
        
        Later that afternoon, when they went swimming off the point from Seawatch, several hundred yards out in the Caribbean, using the Lady Jane as their base, Sonya experienced the extremes of reaction to her new circumstance: optimistic enjoyment-and fearful anticipation of disaster.
        The joy came from the simple act of floating and frollicking on the brilliantly blue-green waters of the Caribbean, the sun beating down hot and steady, the sky high and wide and unbelievably blue, gulls circling high overhead like monitors of their pleasure. Peterson had brought the Lady Jane through the wide mouth of a submerged coral reef shaped like a semicircle with its open face towards shore. This natural crescent formed a breakwater that cut the roiling waves and left only a gentle in and out swell that Sonya gave herself over to. She lay on her back, gently moving her hands to keep herself afloat, sinking and rising, bobbing at the dictates of the gentle sea. Bill floated beside her, bronze already but growing even more tan, an extremely handsome man, very gay and very vital, the perfect sort of man to be with on a day like this in a place such as this.
        Then came the fear.
        Something brushed Sonya's feet, startling her into a sudden, loud yelp, so that she sank, thrashed, gained the surface again.
        “What's the matter?” Peterson asked.
        “A fish, I guess,” she said. “It touched me, and I wasn't expecting anything like that.” She laughed, but stopped laughing when she saw that the incident did not amuse him at all.
        He was staring intently at the water around them, as if he could see down through the glaring surface.
        “Sharks!” he snapped.
        “What?”
        But she had heard.
        She had heard too clearly.
        “Swim for the boat,” he advised. “Make as much noise as you can. Forget about being a good swimmer; just thrash the water to a boil. Noise scares them off.”
        In a minute or so, they were both standing on the deck of the Lady Jane, dripping saltwater on the polished boards, safe.
        “I always thought the reef formed a barrier against them,” Peterson said; wiping his face with a towel. “But they must have come in from the landward side, through the open end.”
        Sonya was shivering so badly that her teeth chattered together like clamshells. “Would they have hurt us?”
        “They might have.”
        “Are they still there?”
        He pointed.
        “I don't see-”
        And then she did see: the hard, black fin, thrusting out of the water like a knife, circling, moving rapidly, now lost in the glare, now visible again.
        “How many?” she asked.
        “I saw two,” he said.
        As she watched the shark circle and circle, as if waiting for them to come back into the water, her joy evaporated altogether. It seemed, to her, that the shark was a portent of things to come, a sign to beware-to be cautious.
        The sea no longer appeared to be as beautiful as it was only minutes ago…
        The sky was far too bright.
        The sun, instead of warming and tanning her, seemed fiercely, unmercifully hot and she realized, belatedly, that she might as easily burn as tan.
        “Let's go in,” she said.
        He started the engines.
        Dinner was even better Wednesday evening