“But it’s flooded,” her father noticed.
Oh yeah, that. Plus the whole tiger shark swimming in it. The shark was just cruising along the tube, like it belonged there.
“What do we do?” her father asked.
Nami looked to the schematic posted by the door. “We could back track, but at some point we’d have to cross a tube and they might all be flooded.”
“I’m seriously going to complain to AAA,” her father joked.
She was glad to see that his bad sense of humor was coming back. She’d been a little worried when he looked so pale earlier.
“Look,” Nami said pointing to the metal ladder next to the schematic. “We could go up and cross on the top of the tube.”
“That’s your plan ‘B’?”
“You got another one?” Nami asked. “At least here we can assess topside. There are a lot of other tunnels that don’t have that…Plus…”
“Plus?” her father asked.
“Plus, we’ve got to consider how the tubes got flooded. I don’t see this one broken.”
“What are you saying?” her father asked slowly.
“Well I don’t think any human or robot did this…”
Her father cocked his head to the side. “You aren’t suggesting that the sharks did this?”
Nami just shrugged. “I don’t want to see what they’ve got planned for an encore. Our best bet is to get to the control room.”
“That is something we can agree on,” her father said. “But I’m going first, make sure it can hold your weight.”
She moved out of the way to let her father pass. He climbed up the metal ladder, Nami followed closely. She could do this. Great white sharks, or sharks in general weren’t mystical creatures. Unbeatable. Lebowski had proven that. They were afraid too. Not of much, but they could be turned back. Somehow that made them less than gods in her head.
Her father stepped off the ladder and held out his hand to her. She took it, allowing him to pull her to a standing position.
From here everything looked fine. The winds were blowing hard with pelting rain, curling the water into tiny waves, but if you didn’t know better, it looked like a beautiful resort.
Luckily Nami knew better. Her father took a few quick breaths, pumping himself up.
“We’re going to be okay,” Nami said. It was weird to be the one doing the reassuring.
“We’ve got to flat out run,” her father said. “No stopping. No turning back no matter what.”
Nami nodded.
She took her father’s hand as they stepped onto the glass ceiling of the tube.
“Here goes nothing,” her father said then charged forward. Even with deck shoes it was hard to find purchase on the rain slick glass, but somehow she kept up with her dad.
Then the first shark tried to attack them from below. Snapping its powerful jaws, clearly frustrated that its lunch was still running away. Then another and another attacked the glass.
Thank goodness it held. For now. Nami didn’t know how much longer.
“We’re almost there!” her father cried out. He sped them up.
That’s when Nami’s foot slipped. Her hand fell out from her father’s. She scrambled to keep upright, but started sliding down the glass. The sharks outside the tube must have been licking their lips if they could.
Nami tried to dig her fingernails in, but it was glass as slick and unforgiving as it could be.
A dorsal fin broke the water behind her. It was coming straight for her. She squeezed her eyes shut. This was so unfair. Just when she’d gotten over her phobia it had to come true.
Then she was jerked upward. Her father caught her, pressing her to his chest, carrying her to safety. He jumped the last four feet of the tube, landing them on the dirt. They rolled over just in time to see the shark’s fin dip beneath the water.
She hugged her dad, “You are so my action hero!”
Her father laughed, hugging her back, “Now I don’t just play one on TV. Suck that Michael Bay! Saying I’m too old to play the lead? Suck it!”
CHAPTER 19
Callum entered the control room feeling hopeful for the first time since disaster had struck. Yes, they were suffering catastrophic failures, but the bulk of the island and its population might be saved.
“Sir, you better see this,” a tech stated.
Walking over, Callum glanced to the screens. While the board was red, flashing, blinking, red, so far there were no more fatalities. He wanted to keep it that way.
“The cameras fritzed, but this is footage from one of the machine shops,” the tech explained sounding nervous.
“Well, put it up.”
“You might want to brace yourself,” the tech suggested.
Really, after losing an arm to a Great White then everything else that happened here? Now he needed to brace himself?
“Put it up.”
The tech complied.
Callum watched as two figures entered the shop. They clearly were being pursued by something and under the circumstances, he could only imagine it was a shark, or worse, sharks.
Then he recognized the woman. “Shalie!”
The tech nodded. “And Jack.”
“But I just saw Jack out on the dock.”
“This footage is from ten minutes ago,” the tech informed him.
The camera feed from the hallway showed a bull shark trying to get into the room. Callum’s eyes though had a hard time leaving Shalie’s panicked face as she realized she was trapped in the pen with the baby Hammerheadss and rising water.
Helplessly he watched as she turned her face to the camera, screaming his name, “Callum!”
She had needed him and he wasn’t there. He reached out and touched the screen, “Shalie, no, no, no.”
Then the screen went to static.
“What happened?” Callum demanded.
“The camera went underwater.”
“Get somebody out there!”
“We already did,” the tech stated. “As soon as I saw this.”
“And?”
The tech brought up still pictures. “And they found this…”
The first photo was of the machine shop’s door torn off its hinges. The next was of the storage pen ripped to shreds.
“Where is Shalie?”
“They only found three of the baby Hammerheadss,” the tech said. The robot thought the bull shark… well… he got everything else in the room.
Callum sat down hard onto a stool. The chair nearly tipped him over backwards, not that he would have cared if it had. It felt as if all the air had been sucked from his lungs. That all the blood had stagnated in his gut. He couldn’t have moved if you’d paid him a million dollars.
Then rage replaced grief. “Jack!”
Callum spun around in his chair, spotting the bastard in the back of the control room. He grabbed his shotgun on the way. Using his shoulder, he shoved the shark hunter against the wall and brought the shotgun to his chin even though it just had blanks in it.
“You left her to die, you bastard!” Callum said digging the barrel into Jack’s unworthy flesh.
“Oy! She locked herself in there,” Jack tried to explain.
“Dad!” Dillon shouted, rushing over. “What are you doing?”
His son jerked the shotgun out of his hand.
Callum, panting in fury, “This bastard left Shalie in a room full of sharks.”
* * *
Dillon couldn’t have heard correctly, could he?
“He did what?”
“I’m sorry, son,” his father said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Shalie is dead.”
No. No, that couldn’t be true.
“And Jack is responsible,” his father finished.
“I didn’t have the keys,” Jack implored.
“You could have looked for them rather than running to save your sorry ass,” his father commented.
Shalie was dead and Jack let her die.
Dillon p
rimed the shotgun, shoving it into Jack’s belly. “You bastard!”
“No, son, you were right,” his father said. “This isn’t the way.
With hot tears streaming down his face, it certainly did feel like the right way. Shalie had been the closest thing he’d had to a mother in years and this arrogant, cowardly bastard had left her for dead.
“Let the law handle him,” his dad implored.
Jack snorted, “There’s no law against self-preservation.”
“Perhaps not,” his father said, “But for all the coral damage you did?” His father squeezed his shoulder. “Son, he’s going away for life for that, you don’t have to do this.”
The memory of Shalie sweet, reassuring smile filled Dillon’s vision. Yes, he did have to do this. He couldn’t let Jack get away with it all.
“Dillon,” another, softer voice called to him. His father’s hand slipped away as Nami’s hand covered his wrist. “Don’t do this.”
He looked up, his vision blurred by his tears to find the beautiful girl standing next to him. She was soaking wet and looking a little like a drowned rat, but still radiant.
“Please, don’t,” she said. “There’s been too much blood spilt already.”
Dillon’s hands began to shake. Was he being reasonable or a coward if he let the gun go? Dillon was unaware the gun contained only blanks.
“You don’t have to do this,” Nami whispered. “We won’t let him get away with it, I promise.”
Dillon let the gun slip through his fingers. His father caught it before it hit the ground.
“Right choice, gangee,” Jack said with a smirk.
Dillon cocked back and punched him square in the nose. Blood spurted out of his nose.
“That’s the second McClay to hit me,” Jack snarled. “You’re going to pay.”
“No,” his father said. “You are going to the brig.” His father indicated to the robots on standby. “Take him.”
“No!” Jack screamed as the robots dragged him away. “You can’t lock me up. Look at what happened to Shalie.”
“Yes,” Dillon said, spitting in Jack’s general direction. “Look at what happened to her.”
Once Jack disappeared around the corner, Dillon’s anger fled with him. All he was left with was sorrow. Nami pulled him into a hug. He dropped his forehead to her shoulder and cried not caring how it looked to the rest of the staff.
* * *
Nick wished he could join Dillon on Nami’s shoulder. He’d only known Shalie for less than a day, yet she had been his healthiest relationship with an adult female. He deeply grieved the potential of what could have been.
Callum patted his son on the back, then stepped up to a small dais in the front of the control room. All eyes were on the founder of the park.
“Look,” Callum said. “I’m not a four star general. I can’t rouse you with a grand speech.” The director scanned the room until his eyes fell on Dr. Yashimoto. The guy looked strung out. His eyes were bloodshot and his face a ghastly pale as Callum continued, “but what I can do is tell you that we have all lost people that were dear to us.” The man choked up a bit and had to clear his throat before he continued. “But we’ve still got dozens of guests that we are responsible for. Like Nami said, there has been too much blood spilt today. Let’s make sure no more of it hits the water.”
The room nodded, even the robots.
“So we just have to hunker down. Accept that fact that the park is now the shark’s territory. We keep to dry land. They can’t flood that. We stick to the above deck buildings. We only need to survive for the next day. As soon as the cyclone blows through, the coast guard will come and evacuate.”
Callum fixed his eyes on each and every staff member. “Can we hold it together for twenty three hours?”
“Yes,” came the anemic response.
“Did you say yes?” Callum upped the volume. “Can we hold it together for twenty three hours?”
“Yes!” came a more enthusiastic response.
“Did I hear you?”
“Yes!” the room shouted.
For a guy who didn’t make inspirational speeches, Nick felt pretty inspired by Callum.
Nami and he had just proved you could outrace your fate. Just stay out of the water. A pretty simple motto.
Then an extremely loud screech filled the room, then an equally disconcerting twang. Suddenly the control room pitched to the left. Everyone was thrown to the side. Chairs slid, binders fell off tables, people crashed to the ground.
Nick grabbed Nami as his back slammed into a computer bank. Then equally suddenly a loud explosion sounded along with a deafening “pop” and the control room righted itself.
“What just happened?” Nick asked as everyone tried to pick themselves up.
* * *
Tonaka touched his palm to his forehead. It came back a bloody red. He must have sliced it open when he fell. The room spun a little as he righted himself.
“One of the support struts must have given out,” Callum stated.
“And then the ballast balloons kicked in,” Tonaka finished.
Callum nodded. “We might have righted, but we’re still unstable.”
Tonaka looked out the window. Before the winds simply buffeted the island, now it was pushing the island to the west, putting strain on the remaining struts.
“Is there any way to provide some thrust eastward?”
Callum shook his head. “We have minor course correction jets, but nothing to counteract cyclone strength winds.”
Tonaka had thought so. Well, so much for twenty-three hours. Tonaka voiced what Callum seemed reluctant to, “We are sinking then?”
Callum didn’t respond except for inclining his head.
“How long?” Tonaka asked the hard question. Someone had to.
The corner of Callum’s eyes crinkled as he squinted, clearly not wanting to say the words. “Twelve, thirteen hours at the most.”
“So if the storm dissipates quickly, we might see a rescue before we sink into the ocean.”
“If the other struts hold, yes,” Callum said.
Of course it was the opportune moment for another loud “crack” and the entire control room listed to the right. This time Tonaka held onto the edge of a desk. A loud hissing sound and a pop then righted the room.
Tonaka’s eyes asked the question everyone was thinking. How much time now?
“Four maybe four and a half hours,” Callum answered with a frown.
“Then a rescue team would already have to be on the way,” Tonaka said, looking out the window at the still strong Hurricane Ralph.”
“Basically, yes,” Callum stated.
The chances of that were slim to none.
* * *
Dillon could feel the worry of the room. It was like a physical force on his shoulders.
“Guys, we’ve still got the sleds and all of the lifeboats.”
“Which are rubber,” his father reminded him. “Do you know what the sharks are going to do with those?”
“But we are sinking,” Dillon reminded his father. His father’s eyebrow shot up so Dillon went on. “Which means the sharks will be able to get out soon. Don’t you think they are going to scram once they hit the open water? That is all they have been trying to do since they got here. Get out.”
He could see hope spark back into his father’s eyes. “You’re right. Us sinking may decrease some of the shark danger.”
“But we’ve got to keep blood out of the water,” Dillon said. “We’ve got to let the native shark population lose interest in us.”
“You, of course, have a completely different problem,” Tonaka stated.
“And that would be?” his father asked.
“The pressure differential,” Tonaka answered.
Dillon wasn’t sure what he meant but he could see his father calculating something in his head. But what?
His father frowned. “We’ve got to evacuate the guest rooms immediately.”
“On it,” Dillon said signaling to Quax. They couldn’t leave their guests trapped in their rooms to drown.
“This isn’t like the children, Dillon,” his father said. “You are going to have to cross dangerous sections to get everyone.”
“I know, dad,” Dillon said. “The QXs and I have got it.”
“Maybe you should just let the robots handle it,” his father suggested.
“Now that’s just very humanist of you, dad. I can’t send them in where I won’t go.”
His father gripped his arm. “Yes, you can.”
“But I won’t,” Dillon replied pulling from his father’s hold. “Come on, Quax.”
* * *
Nami watched as Dillon left. He was being so brave. Too brave in her opinion. But she knew firsthand what it felt like to be in a room that was flooding. And she was lucky enough to know the back ways. She couldn’t imagine if they’d had to face more than one tube on their own.
Her arms wrapped themselves around her waist. At least they were safe now. Well, as safe as you could be on a sinking island. Her father walked over to the bank of screens that were mainly back on.
“Look at that,” her father commented pointing to the lower left monitor.
It showed the dining room which was now flooded. A Nurse shark was cruising the buffet line where pieces of sushi floated in the water. He gobbled them all up in a row.
At least someone was having a five star resort experience.
She scanned the other monitors. Most of the underwater facility was flooded. That could not bode well for the island’s floatation.
“Now that we have the power,” Callum said, “Let’s get those bilge pumps going. Maybe give the sharks a little less real estate?”
The tech nodded. Nami watched as large covers moved in the floor of the tunnel and the motor started. The water swirled around the drain as the water level dropped in the tube.
“Can’t you dry a path for Dillon?” Nami asked.
“Great idea,” Callum said. “Track them and open up a way for them,” he said to the tech.
Apex Predator Thriller Series Collection (Including the blockbuster new shark park thriller, Salechii) Page 22