JAWS
CHAPTER ONE
Night Swim
The shark moves slowly through the dark water. It swims towards the shore, with its eyes and mouth open.
Between the sea and the land there is a long beach. On the beach there is a light from a fire. Sitting around the fire is a group of young men and women. They are talking and laughing.
One young man is playing a guitar and singing. Others are holding hands or kissing.
One young man looks over the fire at a young woman. She is beautiful. Her hair is long and blond. She looks at the young man, too, and smiles.
The man gets up and walks over to the woman. He sits down and they begin to talk. The man is drinking beer and the woman is drinking whiskey with cola. It is late in the night, and they are both quite drunk.
After some time talking and laughing, the woman puts her lips very close to his ear and whispers, "Do you want to go for a swim?"
"First one to the water wins," the man says.
She gets up quickly and begins to run across the sand towards the sea. The man gets up more slowly. His head feels strange.
"I drank too much," he says to himself.
The woman is far ahead of him now and running towards the water. The man tries to run after her, but he trips and falls in the sand.
"Wait for me!" he shouts, but the woman does not hear him.
As the woman runs, she begins to take off her clothes. First her shoes, one at a time. Then she lifts up her shirt and throws it onto the sand. She is topless now, her breasts moving up and down as she runs.
She stops quickly to take off her shorts and now, completely nude, she steps into the water.
The man trips again and lies on the cool sand. He is not able to get up now. His head is spinning around and around and his shirt is covering his face.
"Wait...for...me…" he tries to say. Then he falls asleep. His snoring is very loud.
The water comes up around her feet. It is a warm June night, but the water feels cold.
The woman calls back to the man. “Come and have a swim with me!” But there is no answer from him.
She runs into the sea, and soon the water is up to her shoulders. She begins to swim. She is not a strong swimmer, and her arms and legs are erratic in the water.
The shark swims a hundred meters from the beach. It cannot see the woman - it cannot see anything in the dark water - but it feels the sea move. The vibrations from the woman’s movement reach the shark. It turns quickly and begins swimming towards the disturbance in the water.
The woman swims away from the beach. After a few minutes, she begins to feel tired and she stops for a short time. Then she turns and begins swimming back to the shore.
The woman does not see it, but the shark’s enormous dorsal fin cuts the surface of the water. The shark approaches the woman from behind. The huge shark drops below the surface and increases its speed. It is close to the woman now, passing her rapidly on her right and two meters below the surface of the water.
The woman feels a wave of pressure that seems to lift her up and down in the water. She stops and holds her breath. She feels nothing more and continues to swim towards the light on the beach.
The shark begins to circle around the woman. It moves its tail in powerful strokes that agitate the small phosphorescent animals in the water. The shark’s body begins to glow with a terrifying green color.
For the first time, and without understanding why, the woman feels fear. She looks up and sees the firelight in the distance. She is about fifty meters from the beach. She can see the white waves hitting the shore. She begins to swim faster, her movements more erratic.
The great fish turns suddenly to the left and dives deep below the surface. With two powerful strokes of its tail it reaches the woman and attacks.
The woman feels something hit her right leg. At first she thinks it is a rock or a piece of wood. There is no pain, only a strong pull on her leg. She stops swimming and reaches her hand into the water to touch her foot.
She cannot find her foot.
She reaches towards her knee and she feels bone and skin and she knows the warm flow over her fingers is her own blood.Pain and panic arrive together. The woman screams a primordial cry of terror.
The fish swallows the leg without chewing. It turns and then turns again. Now it can smell the blood in the water.
This time it attacks the woman from below. It swims up fast with its mouth open wide and then closes with incredible force on her torso, pushing her out of the water.
The great jaws break bones and cut skin and turn internal organs into a jelly. The shark falls back into the water with the woman in its mouth.
There is a fountain of white water and red blood as the shark disappears below the surface. The fish shakes its massive head from side to side. Its serrated teeth cut through her body with little resistance.
Her body falls into pieces. The great fish moves back and forth through the cloud of blood. Its mouth opens and closes slowly. It is looking for other pieces of its victim. Some of them sink to the bottom of the sea, and other parts move towards the shore in the slow current. A short time later it begins swimming away from the shore, satisfied with its meal.
The man opens his eyes. It is dark and he feels cold. He stands up and begins to dress. It is then he sees the woman's shoes and clothes on the beach.
He picks up the shoes, shirt and shorts and begins walking back towards the fire. But she is not there. No one is there.
As his head clears, he begins to feel the first sensations of worry.