Shooting Stingrays

Josh grabbed a compressed-air dart, loaded it, waited, and saw that the others had done the same.

The first ray came fluttering down, the stinger in his tail twitching back and forth, as if it belonged to a huge cat.

“Don't everybody fire. We'll have to fire volleys so that when some of us are reloading, the others are still armed,” Val yelled. “Jake, you and Wash and I are one group, the rest of you the other group. Get ready, and the first group will fire.”

The rays swam above them like great birds. “That's what they do,” Val said. “They get down on top of you and smother you. Get ready, they're all hitting at once. One— two—three—fire!”

Jake, Wash, and Val fired quickly—the first beast was only ten feet away—and all three spears sank in its midsection, penetrated hide, and went off with a muffled sound Josh heard even through the water. The ray suddenly flipped over. Writhing wildly, it tried to swim away but had gone no more than twenty feet when it began to sink, absolutely motionless.

“Here comes the rest of them,” Reb yelled. “Our turn now.”

Josh yelled, “You and Dave take that one on the right, and we'll take the other two.”

The giant ray began to settle as the spears flew upward. Unfortunately two missed, and it was Val with his group who had reloaded who were able to drive the others off.

Val was the hero of the hour. “Stay together, fire volleys, wait till they get down right over us, but watch out for those stingers.”

That was exactly what they could not do. Three big rays came in at once, and while the Sleepers killed two of them, the other one suddenly covered Reb, who had moved off to one side.

Frozen with fear, Josh saw the stingray settling down on his friend.

Reb reached up and tried to shove the huge, rough beast away. It didn't work. Then Reb turned his compressed-air gun toward the stingray's leathery stomach.

“Here she goes!” Reb cried.

The dart fired off, drove into the beast's middle, but apparently at such an angle that the ray was only wounded. It turned and began to flutter away, and then the wildly twitching tail suddenly collided with Reb's right leg.

Josh left his sea beast and swam quickly down. “Are you all right, Reb?” But Reb's eyes were turned upward in his head, showing only the whites.

“Got to get him out of here!” Grabbing Reb's arm, he pulled him back to the group and found that the rest of the rays seemed to have been discouraged and were slowly withdrawing, their huge wings moving slowly.

“Reb got hit by a stinger. We've got to help him.”