Jaws by Peter Benchley (1974)
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In this extract, a woman goes for a swim in the sea with deadly consequences.
The great fish moved silently through the night water, propelled by short sweeps of its crescent tail. The
mouth was open just enough to permit a rush of water over the gills. There was little other motion: an
occasional correction of the apparently aimless course by the slight raising or lowering of a pectoral fin. The
eyes were sightless in the black, and the other senses transmitted nothing extraordinary to the primitive
brain.
The land seemed almost as dark as the water; for there was no moon. From a house behind the dunes on
the beach, lights cast yellow glimmers on the sand. The front door of the house opened, and a man and a
woman stepped out onto the porch. They stood for a moment staring at the sea, embraced quickly, and
scampered down the few steps onto the sand. The man was drunk, and he stumbled onto the bottom step.
The woman laughed and took his hand, and together they ran onto the beach.
“How about a swim?” she said. “It’ll clear your head.”
“You go ahead,” he replied. “I’ll wait for you here.”
The woman walked to where the gentle surf washed over her ankles. She called back, “You’re sure you
don’t want to come?” But there was no answer from the sleeping man.
She backed up a few steps, then ran at the water. At first her strides were long and graceful, but then a
small wave crashed at her knees. She faltered, regained her footing, and flung herself over the next waist-
high wave. She continued walking until the water covered her shoulders. There she began to swim – with
the jerky, head-above-water stroke of the untutored.
A hundred yards offshore, the fish sensed a change in the sea’s rhythm. It did not see the woman, nor yet
did it smell her. Running within the length of its body were a series of thin canals, filled with mucus and
dotted with nerve endings, and these nerves detected vibrations and signalled the brain. The fish turned
towards the shore.
The woman continued to swim away from the beach, stopping now and then to check her position by the
lights shining in the house. She was tiring, so she rested for a moment, treading water, then started for
shore.
The vibrations were stronger now, and the fish recognised prey. The sweep of its tail quickened, thrusting
the giant body forward with a speed that agitated the tiny phosphorescent animals in the water and caused
them to glow.
The fish closed on the woman and hurtled past, a dozen feet to the side and six feet below the surface. The
woman felt only a wave of pressure that seemed to lift her up in the water and ease her down again. She
stopped swimming and held her breath. Feeling nothing further, she resumed her lurching stroke.
The fish smelled her now, and the vibrations signalled distress. The fish began to circle close to the surface.
Its dorsal fin broke the water, and its tail, thrashing back and forth, cut the glassy surface with a hiss.
For the first time, the woman felt fear, though she did not know why. She guessed that she was fifty yards
from shore. She could see the line of white foam where the waves broke on the beach.
The fish was about forty feet away from the woman, off to the side, when it turned suddenly to the left,
dropped entirely below the surface, and with two quick thrusts of its tail, was upon her.
