Within seconds he caught up with the group. He’d had to guess which way Quax would have taken the kids and Dillon had guessed right.
“We’re almost there,” Quax informed him.
The robot was right. They only had one more passageway and then the stairs up to the surface.
“Come on,” Dillon encouraged the slower moms. “It’s just a little further.”
A nearly hysterical woman grabbed his arm. “What is all of this about?”
“Straight ahead,” Dillon urged.
Dillon pushed his way through the throng of worried parents and children and caught up with Quax. He was carrying two toddlers that insisted on playing with his chin.
“We can’t avoid this tank,” Dillon stated. “Just keep them moving no matter what is going on.”
Quax nodded as they turned the corner. The hallway ahead was flooded with natural light. The water created a twinkling pattern on the floor. It all looked so peaceful and serene. Until you looked around the corner. The enclosure was filled with sharks. Like packed full. It was like a shark convention out there.
Dillon pulled his head back.
“That bad?” Quax asked. Dillon could only incline his head. “Oh dear,” Quax commented.
Dillon had to pull it together. If he lost hope, so would everyone else. He sucked in a breath and turned to the crowd behind them.
“Guys, we’ve got a special treat. Before you all leave, the sharks are going to say goodbye, but we can’t dilly dally, okay? We’ve got to get to the boat before it leaves, all right?”
The kids, unaware of his ruse, cheered and clapped. Ah, the ignorance of youth.
“One, two, three, go!”
Dillon and Quax took off running and the children along with their parents sprinted down the hallway.
The shark, very keen on movement all turned in their direction, chasing alongside.
“Keep going!”
“Hi, Mister Shark!” Teddy yelled, waving to a tiger shark that wanted to eat him.
“Hurry, hurry!” Dillon encouraged, praying that this enclosure was sound.
“I don’t think those sharks want to play,” one of the parents commented. Clearly if they had the breath for that, they weren’t running fast enough.
“Move it!” Dillon yelled, mainly at the parents as the sharks kept their noses to the glass.
Finally they passed from the glass tube into a steel hallway.
Pulling ahead, Dillon cranked on the hatch’s ring and opened the door. Outside the hurricane had kicked up. His dad and several QXs were on the far side of the remnants of the docks.
“Get back!” his father yelled, gesticulating wildly.
Dillon had no idea why until he turned to find a shark on the deck. It looked like a bully, his jaws snapping and his head jerking from side to side. His father and the QXs were trying to prod him back into the water.
Stepping back, Dillon slammed the door shut. Quax nearly ran into him.
“What’s wrong?” Quax asked. The QX must have surmised the answer as he commented. “Oh, that’s a bummer.”
By now the rest of the group caught up. One of the parents stated, “I thought we were in a hurry?”
“The boat isn’t quite here yet,” Dillon lied. He’d seen the boat just off the coast, but he wasn’t about to admit the truth and panic everyone, including himself.
* * *
The crossing of the catwalk had been far longer and more tedious than Tonaka had hoped. If only he were strong enough to carry his wife.
The clack, clack, clack of her walker grated on his nerves. They had to get across, like now. The sharks below circled in tighter and tighter circles beneath them.
He felt his throat constrict in equal measure. Where were all the robots? All the staff? Hadn’t any of them seen their predicament?
“There you go, Nica,” Tonaka encouraged even though he wanted to snatch the walker out from under her and hurl it as far away as possible.
From the side, Tonaka saw a fin speed up. Speed way up. It came straight at them. Well not at them but at the base of the catwalk. He hit the strut head on, making the walkway sway precariously. Tonaka shoved Nica toward one of the few remaining guardrails.
Unfortunately the action caused his feet to give out and he slid from the catwalk toward the edge. Lashing out with a hand, he grabbed a strut as his feet went over the side. Dangling from the metal, he could only watch in horror as the shark circled back around, making another run.
This time though, Tonaka didn’t think that he was going to be content with just hitting the catwalk.
With powerful flicks of his tail, the shark surged forward, coming out from the water, flying toward Tonaka, his mouth wide open, ready to eat.
Only not toward Tonaka, toward the catwalk.
Nica didn’t seem scared, she just said, “It is better it’s me. Tell the children --”
She never finished her sentence as the shark sailed over Tonaka, snatching his wife and her walker, then diving back into the depths.
“No!” he screamed. “No,” he choked out.
There was a theory that if you spent enough time with someone you began to share your electrons. That instead of randomly cycling through to any other atom, your electrons preferentially cycled with the person you loved. And when that person you loved was no longer there, your electrons did not know where to go.
Tonaka just hung there from the scaffolding, with a body full of stranded electrons.
He was sorrowful down to his atomic level.
Then the shark spit back out the walker. It flew through the air, clanged against the catwalk, nearly hitting Tonaka, then fell to the bloody water roiling with sharks. Then it too slowly sank below the surface.
The only strength Tonaka could summon was for his children. He had to survive to tell them how brave their mother was and that her last thoughts were of them.
“Dr. Yashimoto!” a voice called out. A QX robot. It hurried across the catwalk and grabbed his wrist. “Let me help you.” The QX pulled him up and onto the metal causeway.
“Dr., hurry please,” the robot urged but when Tonaka couldn’t get his feet to move, the robot just picked him up and ran.
Tonaka watched the water as long as he could. Only when he lost sight of where he’d last seen his wife did the tears come.
CHAPTER 18
Shalie was as lost as Jack. Hopelessly lost. Yes, she lived here but having in-floor directions was kind of like having speed dial on your telephone. Quickly you forgot the actual numbers of the people you called the most. So was it the same with finding her way back to the control room from her lab.
The passages all looked the same, yet strangely foreign.
Jack had climbed up onto some pipes, looking out a narrow window at the top of the wall. “The boat is here. We’ve got to hurry!”
“To where?” Shalie said, leaning against a bulkhead. Her feet hurt. She had a headache and the lights didn’t look like they were going to come on any time soon.
“I can see the damned boat!” Jack shouted. “We’ve got to get out there.”
Shalie indicated down the hallway. “Be my guest.”
“We just need to find an outer hatch.”
Like they hadn’t been trying to find that this whole time. If they were on the surface, they could just see where they were going.
Jack looked to the schematic again. For being such an adventurer, he didn’t exactly have a great sense of direction. She didn’t either, but she also didn’t bill herself as a master explorer either.
“We should head that way,” Jack said indicating to the right.
Shalie rubbed her instep. “That’s the way we just came.”
“Naw,” he said in a thick accent. “We came from there.”
He pointed in the opposite direction. Shalie had given up arguing with the television host. He never listened to her anyway so why waste the breath.
“Go for it. I’ll be here when you get back,” she
said.
The great shark hunter, grunted and cursed something under his breath as he passed her, heading in the wrong direction.
It was almost nice to be alone. No huffing or puffing to try and blow Callum’s house down. She really just wanted to get back to the control room and find out what the hell was going on.
This must be what Callum felt without his right arm. She hadn’t been in contact with any of her robots for over an hour now. She felt lost. Adrift. They had become like her own appendages. Their abruptly severed connection hurt like a physical injury.
“Bloody stupid nawags,” Jack cursed as he came back around the corner. “Are you coming?”
Now that you are going the right way? Shalie wanted to say but bit her tongue. It wouldn’t do any good to antagonize the shark hunter.
Instead she rose and followed silently behind as they headed west toward the docks. That is if they could find a way up before they ran into whatever the problem was that had shut down all the electricity.
* * *
Children started to whine and complain that they needed to go to the bathroom. Dillon counted to twenty then cracked the hatch open.
No shark.
That was a good start. He looked over to his father who waved him over. “Bring them!”
Dillon turned back to the group. “Okay, everyone get your running shoes on. We’re going to cross the dock, then get the kids onto the boat.”
“What do you mean kids?” one of the parents asked. They hadn’t yet told the group that the adults weren’t getting on the boat.
“Remember, quick like a bunny,” Dillon said loudly to the whole group.
“But Mummy says I shouldn’t run on decks,” Teddy said. “I might slip and hurt myself.”
“Normally that would be true,” Dillon said. “But this is the one exception.”
Mainly because, you know, there were sharks that wanted to kill them all. Minor exception to your Mummy’s rule, Teddy.
Dillon opened the hatch. “It’s raining pretty hard, so pull up your hoods!” He turned to Quax, “You lead them out. I’ll take the rear.”
Quax didn’t acknowledge his words, but set out on the action of them. He rushed forward, still carrying the two toddlers. The rest of the group followed. Grumbling about the weather. Which, Dillon might add was the least of their worries.
* * *
They were lost, again, as water sloshed at their feet. Where was it coming from?
“I think we should have taken a left back there,” Shalie stated, pointing over her shoulder.
All she got was a gruff mumble back. This was ridiculous. Jack was many things, a tracker was not one of them.
Shalie was about to turn around when a loud “clang” then a “whoosh” sounded from down the corridor she had wanted to go down.
Carefully they both crept forward until a wall of water rained down from a stairwell. At the least she had been right, the passage had led up.
Unfortunately their tunnel was now flooding.
“Run!” she yelled, dragging a stunned Jack behind her.
They had to find a place to hole up if they couldn’t find a way up and out.
She tried each door as they ran. Each was locked. The water rose up to her knees.
“No!” Jack screamed. Shalie turned around to find the baby Hammerheads sharks dropping in from above. Their tiny dorsal fins cutting the water toward them.
“Ouch!” Jack yelled, swatting at the water. “Those little bastards have sharp teeth.”
Finally she found a door that was unlocked. She jerked open the metal to find a machine shop of some sort with a storage facility. A large caged-in storage locker.
“Bloody hell,” Jack cursed from the hallway. Shalie looked around the door. Something far larger than a baby Hammerheads was coming at them.
“Get in!” Shalie shouted, pulling Jack in with her. She slammed the door closed behind her.
Despite the door being locked, the larger shark, banged into it, warping the metal.
Water was pouring in through a vent. The tiny Hammerheadss, shimmied their way in too.
“Come on, over here,” Shalie said, heading toward the storage pen. She ran over, but Jack climbed on top of a table and refused to budge. Shalie shut the pen door. The baby Hammerheadss tried to bite through the metal wire, but weren’t strong enough.
At the least she was safe for the moment. But maybe not as the water began to rise more quickly. Now it was up to her hip. She may have to fend off the Hammerheadss out in the room. Shalie tried to open the pen, but it must have latched shut. She fished her keys out of her pocket, but they slipped from her fingers and were washed away.
“Jack, get me the keys,” she said then saw a look in his eye she didn’t like.
He jumped from table to table until he reached a side door. “Sorry, lovie” was all he said before he fled.
Shivering, Shalie tried not to panic. Then the water climbed high enough that the small Hammerheadss slid through opening in the door that was underwater. Those wily baby Hammerheadss snuck their way through.
“Get back,” Shalie yelled, kicking and slapping at the tiny creatures, but there were too many.
And she became less and less effective as the water rose to her chest then to her neck. She couldn’t keep her head above water and fight off the Hammerheadss, no matter how tiny.
Dog paddling, gasping for air, she couldn’t believe this was how it was going to end.
* * *
The group stayed close together and blissfully far from the edge of the enclosure where the bull shark had escaped. They all headed to Dillon’s father who was standing on top of a stump to one of the slips. The fishing boat was rocking back and forth just off the shore. The QXs had already assembled a make-shift gangplank that spanned the distance between the shore and the boat.
His father one handed pumped a shotgun. “Listen up!” he shouted over the rain and wind. “The boat only has enough room for the children. No adults. I’m sorry, but it is the only way we can make sure the kids are safe.”
There was a lot of complaining in soft tones, but Dillon noticed that no one challenged his father directly.
“Nice and orderly, the robots are going to lead the children across,” his father warned. Quax led the way with the two toddlers who now started to cry, putting their hands out for their parents. The fishermen on the other side did their best to calm the little one’s fears. Other robots followed with the more crying children.
It was going rather seamlessly until a wild shark, one outside their island compound, leapt out of the water, snapping his teeth. He didn’t get anything, but the group acted as a panicked mob, pressing forward to the gangplank.
A gangplank that had not been built to hold a hundred adults.
“Get back!” his father yelled, but his warning fell on deaf ears. The gangplank tipped at an odd angle. People nearly tumbled off. Only through the quick action of the robots were they saved.
His father shot into the air. That got the people panicking back onto the shore.
“Let us get the children on board!” his father yelled. “Stay calm and we can save them.”
Everywhere he looked Dillon saw someone crying. Children on the boat crying for their parents. Parents on shore crying for their children.
“Teddy!” his mother cried, nearly flinging herself into the ocean. Dillon caught her around the waist, pulling her away from the water.
“You’ve got to stay here.”
“Teddy,” she sobbed, but Dillon didn’t let her go.
Another woman, too far for Dillon or the robots to catch, flung herself in the water, trying to swim to the boat.
What was she thinking?
Within a single blink, she was gone, jerked under by a shark.
This quieted the crowd.
“Please, please, please, step back,” his father begged the parents.
One man stepped forward though. Jack the Shark Hunter.
“I be
lieve we all deserve a chance to get off this island,” the cocky man sneered.
Some of the other parents rumbled their agreement.
“Well? Callum,” the television host challenged. “Who appointed you arbitrator of our fate?”
* * *
Callum pumped his shotgun. “I did. I’m not going to jeopardize the children’s safety for any of you. Especially not you, Jack.” He glanced over the crowd. “You want your kids safe, don’t you?”
There was a unanimous nod of heads. This was a crowd of parents after all.
Jack hadn’t counted on that.
“Test me, Jack, please, test me,” Callum challenged the shark hunter. Jack surveyed the crowd and realized it had turned against him. He backed down and melted into the crowd.
“Then this is the way it has to be,” Callum stated to the group. “Now get back so that we can remove the gangplank.”
The crowd obeyed, somewhat unwillingly, but it obeyed. The QXs removed the gangplank and the boat turned about against the waves. It came dangerously close to shore, but then motored its way back out to sea, heading for Cairn.
“All right, we’re all wet enough, let’s get everyone into the amphitheater. More boats should be coming soon.”
The crowd lingered along the shore for a moment more, waving to their departing children then everyone turned toward the opened door that lead back into the facility.
Callum jumped down from his stump, clapping his son on the back. “Great job, son.”
“No, you’re the one that rocked it. That crowd could have totally lost it.”
“Just a little old school crowd control,” Callum said, indicating his shotgun, it had been loaded with blanks, but the parents didn’t need to know that.
“Let’s get inside and get Salechii back up and running, shall we?”
“You know it,” Dillon beamed.
They had just dodged a bullet and they both knew it. Now if they could hunker down until those promised boats arrived, they might all just make it out alive.
* * *
Nami stopped. They had run out of waterless tunnels. “We’ve got to go through that one,” Nami said pointing ahead for her father’s sake. Although something seemed weird about the tunnel.
Apex Predator Thriller Series Collection (Including the blockbuster new shark park thriller, Salechii) Page 21