Whenever people ask me about “Demon’s Treasure,” I tell them, “It’s about scuba diving.” But since everyone always wants to know a little more, I’ve included an exerpt from one of my favorite scenes:
JANSEN SWAM toward several jagged timbers that curled up from the sand like the ribs of a horrible monster. There was a flicker of movement and he turned to see an enormous moray eel poke its head from a hole in the rocks.
Holy cow! he thought, fanning himself to a stop.
The eel was thick as a baseball bat, black as ink, rows of ugly teeth gleaming from a cavernous mouth.
Man, that’s no eel … that’s Eelzilla!
The enormous eel turned a vile eye upon him as if sizing him up.
Perhaps wondering how he’d taste for dinner.
Jansen couldn’t help feeling repulsed. He knew that an eel holed up like that could latch onto a diver, anchor itself in the rocks, and then hold on until the diver drowned.
An eel that size could do it, too, he thought. There’s no way you could get free of it. And even if you could, you’d catch some face-rotting disease from those slimy teeth.
Eelzilla watched him for another moment then—giving him a final, malevolent glare—slipped slowly back into its hole.
Jansen shivered again.
Okay, he thought. Important safety tip: stay away from the rocks!
He turned back toward the wreck and instantly spotted a large, coral-encrusted hulk.
A cannon!
Jansen swam quickly over and settled on the mud beside the huge gun. He reached out and touched the old, rusted iron.
Wow!
He was more certain than ever the wreck was the remains of a warship, a pirate ship, or a treasure galleon. And he felt a thrill as he touched the cold iron. After all, it was one thing to see a pirate ship in a movie.
But to kneel on the bottom of the ocean and actually touch a gun no one had seen or touched in four hundred years …
That was awesome!
His imagination clicked into action, and in the silence could almost hear the roar of the desperate battle. He could see the flash of guns and smell the acrid, eye-stinging smoke as it enveloped the ships. Could hear the shouts and screams of men fighting for their lives.
This is so cool!
He looked around, spotting more timbers jutting from the sand. And in the middle of it—
Something moved over the wreckage. Jansen felt chills as he recognized it.
It was a shark—a sleek 12-footer—gliding over the wreckage.
It was coming right for him.
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e a lot of talks, and one of my favorite bits is a comedy routine about scuba diving with sharks and manta rays. Even though “Demon’s Treasure” is a taut, young-adult thriller, a few jokes from my routine slipped in. The other day I received a note from a young reader who’s heard me speak; he laughed out loud when he remembered the jokes in the book from my talk.
Shane Barker's Adventure Books 