Reaching the dive platform, Marissa hauled herself up onto it. Exhausted, she was content to sit for a minute with her legs dangling in the water and her back against the stern of the boat. As the boat rose and fell, the platform was alternately submerged up to her navel, then dry.

Marissa removed her mouthpiece and shoved her face mask up on her forehead. After wiping her eyes, she reached up and grabbed the rail that ran around the stern. Still she didn’t stand. She continued to sit on the dive platform. It seemed that the motion of the boat was worse than the surge.

“Guess I’m just a landlubber,” she told herself. She was embarrassed such relatively calm seas could have such an effect on her, but then she had always been susceptible to motion. As a child, she had often gotten carsick.

While she was waiting to feel better, Marissa became aware of progressive movement around her legs. Bending over, she saw a profusion of small, eager fish darting about. Looking more closely, she saw bits and pieces of fish go by with the current, then a larger blur of what looked like blood and entrails. The building school of fish was busily feeding.

Marissa was preoccupied and baffled as she watched this growing feeding frenzy of colorful tropical fish. But then things turned serious. Out of the blue streaked a five-foot barracuda-type fish which tore through the offal before disappearing as quickly as it had appeared. The smaller fish, which had scattered upon the larger predator’s arrival, soon returned in ever greater numbers.

Marissa’s blood ran cold. By reflex she drew her legs up onto the dive platform. Just as she did, more coils of intestine went by in a swirl of dark color that had to be blood.

Above and beyond the sloshing of the waves against the boat’s stern, Marissa heard distinct splashing noises. Standing up, she peered into the boat. Moving to port so that she could see better in the direction the noise was coming from, Marissa spotted two men. One was on the smaller boat she’d seen from below; the other was on the Oz itself. Both were busily emptying buckets of chum into the water. With the breeze Marissa caught a fetid whiff of decaying fish.

Rafe was nowhere to be seen. Turning back to look at the water off the stern, Marissa saw a widening patch of blood that was now staining the surface dusky red. Fish had begun leaping from the water in their frenzy for the food.

Marissa shouted at the men. “Hey!” she yelled. “There are divers in the water!”

The men’s heads shot up and they glanced at Marissa. She noticed one was Asian. Then they went back to their task, furiously dumping the rest of the offal.

“Rafe!” Marissa yelled.