The Shadows Attack 9 



Van Brunt, 13, still in the water, saw it too. It was the biggest, blackest 

 fish he had ever seen, and it was streaking for Lester Stilwell. Lester 

 screamed. Charles saw the big black fish strike, its body suddenly twisting 

 as it hit Lester, and Charles saw that the fish was not all black, for as it 

 rolled it exposed a stark white belly and gleaming teeth. And Charles 

 knew, to his everlasting horror, that he had seen a shark. In an instant, 

 it all but closed its jaws about Lester's slim body and dragged him be- 

 neath the reddening waters of Matawan Creek. Lester had neither time 

 nor life to scream again. 



Lester's pals and other boys who had been swimming nearby scamp- 

 ered out of the water. Some ran into Fischer's bag factory at the creek 

 and summoned workmen to Wyckoff^ Dock. Others ran up the steep dirt 

 road from the creek and raced to the center of town. Now, where 

 Captain Cottrell had walked, there was panic, and screaming, naked 

 boys. Boys who had seen the shark were yelling, "Shark! Shark! A shark 

 got Lester!" Along the shore by the dock, those who knew only that 

 Lester Stilwell had gone under were calling his name: "Lester! Lester!" 

 Out of this tumult somehow came the report that Lester, "a boy who 

 took fits," had been seized by an attack and was drowning. All that the 

 townspeople knew for sure was that a boy was in trouble at the creek, 

 and men, women, and children began running there to help him. Among 

 them was Stanley Fisher, who had ducked into the back of his dry-cleaning 

 shop only long enough to put on a bathing suit. 



"Remember what Captain Cottrell said," Mary Anderson, a Matawan 

 teacher, shouted at Fisher as he ran. "It may have been a shark!" 



Fisher stopped for a moment. "A shark? Here?" he asked. He looked 

 immense as he stood there, towering above Mary Anderson. "I don't 

 care," he said, as if finally answering some inner doubt. "I'm going after 

 that boy." 



Then, turning to his errand boy, 8-year-old Johnny Smith, who was 

 standing nearby, Fisher said, "Take care of the store until I get back." 

 And Fisher sprinted to the creek. 



The son of Commodore Fisher took command at Matawan Creek. His 

 quarterdeck was Wyckoff Dock, and his enemy was a shark. Some 200 

 townspeople, including Lester Stilwell's mother and father, lined the 

 dock and nearer bank. Fisher soon had men in boats, poling for Lester's 

 body. Someone brought a roll of chicken wire to the dock. Fisher or- 

 dered a couple of young men to get into a rowboat and string the chicken 

 wire, weighed down with stones, along the bottom of the creek, down- 

 creek from the dock, where the channel was about 20 feet wide. Fisher 

 knew there was a deep spot, ofi^ the farther bank, directly opposite the 

 dock. There, he believed, the shark was lurking with Lester's body. 

 Fisher's plan was to flush out the shark, driving it into shallower water 



