* * *
“Good riddance,” Shalie spat. She knew she should feel maybe a little bad that Jack died, but she didn’t. Not with Callum gone. She hugged Dillon as tightly as she could trying to convey her sincerest desire to protect him, even from himself.
“Uh oh,” Nick mumbled behind her.
This couldn’t be good. She looked out the helicopter to find the ladder taut. Gabby must still have a rung in her mouth. And she was strong, very quickly the helicopter was tilted, being dragged by the shark.
The pilot fought to right the chopper but it was nearly vertical, its blades just inches from the water.
Spray was getting kicked up and into Shalie’s face. She held onto the seat, keeping both her and Dillon in the chopper.
Nami wasn’t so lucky. The girl slid out the chopper door, only catching a rung of the ladder at the last minute. Her feet skimmed the water. That couldn’t last for long. Shalie would have loved to help, but she was barely keeping Dillon and herself in the helicopter.
Not that it would matter much longer. Gabby was about to pull the whole thing into the ocean.
Then Quax came up to Dillon and handed him something.
* * *
Dillon held the cool metal in his hands.
“I can’t do what I need to with that inside of me,” Quax said.
Dillon didn’t know what his friend meant until Quax dove from the helicopter and splashed into the water then disappeared from sight.
“No!” Dillon screamed, again, completely without effect. Why was everyone leaving him?
The helicopter inched toward the water, it’s blades not cutting through the surface. It wouldn’t be long now.
Then the ladder snapped and the helicopter veered away from the water. The pilot wrestled with the controls, then got them upright several meters above the water. He then went to fly them west.
“We’ve got to wait for him!” Dillon yelled.
He watched the water, but nothing.
“If he survived he would have come back straight away,” Shalie said, trying to tug him back from the door.
“No, he’s coming,” Dillon said, wiping tears from his cheek.
But Quax didn’t surface. Instead a titanium leg floated to the surface, bobbing aimlessly.
“Dillon, we’ve got to go,” Shalie said. “The pilot says we’re low on fuel.”
When Dillon didn’t respond, Shalie gave the signal to the pilot and Dillon watched as they zipped away from Salechii, burying two of his favorite people.
He collapsed into Shalie’s arms. “He’s gone. Quax is gone too.”
She tipped his chin up though. “No. No, he’s not.”
“You saw him,” Dillon sobbed not carrying that everyone saw it.
“His body may be destroyed,” Shalie said. “But you’ve got everything that made Quax in your hand.”
Dillon opened his fist and looked at the metal square. He hadn’t recognized it before, but it was Quax’s emotional intelligence chip.
Tonaka leaned over. “I can build Quax a new chasse and install the chip within a week.”
He could have Quax back, but not his father, never his father.
Dillon closed his fist again, bringing it over his heart and cried.
* * *
Nick watched the boy sob in Shalie’s arms. The kid had it rough. First to lose his mother to cancer then his father to this stupid island. He couldn’t imagine how the kid felt.
At the least Jack had gotten what was coming to him. Nick hoped he suffered as much as Dillon was.
Nami’s hand slipped into his own as they coursed over the water heading to Cairn.
“Do you want to tell her or should I?” Nami said nodding to her mother.
Nick wasn’t quite sure what Nami was getting on about, then it hit him. Oh yeah. That.
“Well, as a great big thank you for rescuing us,” Nick said, “I’m divorcing you on Monday and Nami and I are moving to Aspen.”
“Are you serious?” Talia asked. Those cat-like eyes narrowing.
Nick was braced for the searing scolding he was sure to get. “Yes.”
“For real?” Talia asked. “You aren’t just threatening me with it, you’re really going to do it?”
“Yes,” Nick answered, again, prepped for anything, including having to jump out of the helicopter because right now those seas might be safer than staying in the helicopter with Talia if she went ballistic.
“Oh thank god,” Talia said. “Finally. My friends were starting to take bets on whether or not you were ever going to pull the trigger on it.”
“No, Talia, I really am being serious. I want a divorce.”
“Hallelujah,” Talia responded raising her hands in the air and shaking them.
“Mom,” Nami said, seeming as confused by her mother’s reaction as Nick was. “There’s going to be a lot of media attention. A lot.”
“I know,” Talia said with a laugh. “This whole being married to Nick Flack had run its course. But now? Now that media attention is going to take me to a whole other level.”
“So you’re not upset?” Nick asked.
“I’m getting half of everything?” Nick nodded, but Talia clearly wanted some clarification. “Even foreign subsidiary rights?”
True to his word to Nami, he nodded. “Everything.”
She didn’t deserve most of it, but Nami was right, better to keep Talia happy otherwise she could put Gabby to shame.
Talia rubbed her hands over themselves. Kind of like the witches in the movies did, only Nick didn’t think she was doing it ironically. He thought she was doing it for real, hatching her evil plan as they watched.
“Your sexuality is going to come out, along with the affairs,” Nick commented.
“I know, I know, how delicious, right?” Talia said still rubbing her hands. “Dancing with the Stars is going to pee themselves, they’re going to want me so achingly. Another bad girl to rehabilitate.”
Watching his wife try to figure out how to leverage the breakup of their nearly two decade marriage, Nick couldn’t thank shark park enough for bringing him to his senses.
* * *
Nami looked back over the ocean. Salechii was gone, just gone. You couldn’t even see the radio tower’s antennae any more. It just seemed like open ocean.
All those lives lost? It was all just stupid.
She shook her head.
Would the pain go away as quickly as the island? She looked over to Dillon. He had stopped crying, but still sat slumped against Shalie’s shoulder. She didn’t blame him in the least. He should be whipped after everything that happened.
Yet strangely she was buoyed as the pilot announced they were only five minutes out from Cairn.
It was like she was starting a whole new life. She was parting with her mother on the best of terms. She wasn’t afraid to take a shower anymore and she had a boyfriend.
Not too bad for a carnage filled weekend.
They skimmed over the water as the eastern coast of Australia came into view.
Nami’s mother sighed. “I missed a runway for this.”
Yes, saving your daughter is such a burden. Nami didn’t say anything or even roll her eyes. Her mother had come through when she really needed her. Never again could she complain about how her mother didn’t care.
Rapidly they approached the small town’s airport. The place was strewn with debris from the hurricane. Trees trunks, palm fronds, and strangely, bicycles.
The helipad was fairly clear though so the pilot set them down. The helicopter was barely down when her dad flung open the door and they all piled out.
Nami felt giddy on dry land, real dry land that didn’t require struts, supports or guide wires. If it weren’t for the haunted expression in Shalie and Dillon’s eyes she would have run around in a circle with her hands in the air, screaming for joy. Or dropping to her knees and kissing the ground.
Instead she kept her response to grabbing her dad’s hand and swinging it back and forth a
s they crossed the tarmac to the terminal. Her mom had a private plane waiting to take them to Sydney and from there Aspen, baby.
A young man, tall and thin, like way thin, approached. How would her father describe it? Rail thin. That’s what this guy was. He was dressed in casual khaki shorts and a Billabong tee-shirt with flip flops on his feet. He carried a stark orange and yellow surfboard under his arm.
“Hey, I’m Skinny Jimmy, is this the helicopter to Salechii?”
All the joy Nami felt leeched out of her body and was replaced by sheer revulsion at the sound of the shark park’s name. “Um, no,” she stammered out.
“Really? Because a Mr. McClay sent me tickets and instructions,” Skinny Jimmy stated. He patted his surf board. “I’m going to be donating this to the park. It’s the last board Gabby took a bite out of before she was captured.”
He leaned the board out showing the huge chunk taken out by the shark. “I don’t know if you’ve been around many Great Whites, but they are impressive, man.”
Nami didn’t know what to say. She just stood there like the rest of them, staring at the young surfer and his board.
Her father recovered first. “The opening of Salechii has been cancelled, I’m sorry to say. Let’s see if we can’t get your return flights straightened out.”
Nami would have put it a different way…
Run, Skinny Jimmy, run while you can.
Her father held out his hand to Skinny, “Can I borrow your phone?”
Skinny shrugged, handing her father a cellphone. “Sure.”
Nami raised an eyebrow.
Her father responded as he dialed a number. “I’m calling my agent. I’ve decided that I’m not doing Ishtar 2.”
OPEN WATER: The bridge short story between Salechii and Shark Park Nyet
CHAPTER 1
Callum heard the beat of the helicopter pull away from the park and fly off west until all he could hear was the wind. His chest collapsed inward with relief. They were safe. Shalie, Dillon and the rest. His sacrifice hadn’t been in vein.
He was clinging with his only hand to a pipe. His legs were wrapped around the metal, clinging to the cooper, breathing the trapped air. Somehow in what had become a mosh pit of sharks, he had navigated past them, slipping in the shadows until he could make his way back into the sinking facility. He knew the most likely areas to still have pockets of air and had taken the chance to go inside rather than try to rejoin the helicopter. He just couldn’t let anyone take any other chances on him and risk themselves. Not for him. Not the architect of this disaster.
Yes, there had been a saboteur, but it had been his arrogance to think he could control this many sharks. His arrogance and his undoing.
Buoyed by his success for about a whole five minutes, that lightheaded felling of success was beginning to wear off as the air above him became stale quickly. Could he really survive in the facility until cleanup crews arrived in a few days?
It seemed an impossible task. Not with about a dozen sharks still hanging around, cruising for an easy meal.
Callum shoved his doubts aside. He was alive. An impossibility already. So what if he had to pull off another miracle?
Then the tiniest dorsal fin in the world cut the water, heading straight for him. One of the hammerhead babies. For only a day old, they had proved to be quick cunning and resilient. It injured him physically to think of hurting something so small and cute, but it was not going on his grave stone that his luck had run out with a five pound shark.
Clinging to the pipe with his legs, Callum pulled a piece of pipe from his belt and once the little guy got close enough and lunged for a bite, he swung the pipe like a cricket bat and knocked the baby across the room. It swam around in a tight circle for a few moments, then came back for more.
“Come on,” Callum sighed. “Really? You don’t have something better to do?”
Apparently not. The baby swam forward, bringing its little bar-shaped head above the water as it attacked. Callum swung and connected again, sending the baby reeling.
He had to convince the baby he was not an easy target. Which was easier said than done.
The baby must have not been quite as brave by himself as he had been in a pack with his siblings. It swam in his direction then veered off at the last moment and swam back out the door.
Callum secured the pipe back in his belt as he eased his legs off the pipe. This air wasn’t going to last. He had to find another building. He was lucky that the tip of the island must have hit the seafloor, stopping the sinking process. There were still plenty of rooms that weren’t too deep and were accessible.
He turned the park’s layout over in his head, trying to figure out where he was and where he needed to go to next. God how he wished Dillon was with him. The boy would have known instantly, however he was equally glad that his boy was safe and sound.
Okay, the island tipped west to east. So he was in the eastern most quadrant. And from the equipment that had been stored in this room, it should have been one of the land based storage units.
They were laid out in a spiral pattern. Going from smallest to largest. This shack must have been at the edge so if he worked his way west, he should find larger and larger shacks, hopefully with more and more air.
Still he didn’t move. It was one thing to think about going back out there, it was quite another to actually do it. He’d lost one arm to a one great white and had nearly lost his life to another. There were Makos, Tigers, and large, full grown Hammerheads to contend with out there and he had nothing. No stun gun. No shark prod. Just a pipe. While it might have repulsed the baby, it wouldn’t work against anything longer than his arm.
But he was already getting a headache from the built up CO2 and ran the risk of getting lightheaded or even worse, disoriented if he stayed much longer.
Breathing out several times, Callum gulped air before diving under the water. He pushed off hard from the side, giving himself as much velocity as he could. The next building shouldn’t be far, but he didn’t want to take any chances.
A ripple sent a bolt of fear through his muscles, but it was only a nursery shark. Probably trying to do the same thing as Callum, find a safe hiding place until all the big predators got bored and moved out.
Best of luck, buddy, Callum thought as he cruised past the small, docile shark. Once outside the shack, Callum stuck to the siding, inching his way down the outer wall, on the lookout for any large predator. At the least this wasn’t Indonesia. He didn’t have to worry about crocodiles.
Right?
He reached the corner. No more building. He was going to have to take a leap of faith and swim across open water to get to the next building. Looking out into the murky dark water, Callum was starting to question his strategy. Maybe he should strike for the surface and take his chances there. At the least there was oxygen up there.
But the surface was where the sharks were hanging out. That’s where they had been getting their meals lately. They would be swarming the area.
No, his best bet at survival for a few days would be to hide amongst the structures, keeping his “prey profile” low.
Pushing off the building, he swam across what turned out to be a short distance to the next shack. It was slightly larger than the last, with even more air trapped inside. The nursery shark followed, apparently thinking the human might find the best hiding spot.
Callum pulled the door open, swam in, surfaced and breathed in sweet, sweet air. You could still smell the palm trees and ocean breeze. If you didn’t know it, they were still on land.
Unfortunately he did know it. Luckily this shack must have been one of the supply ports for the cabanas. There were packaged snacks and even more importantly bottle fresh water. Getting up into the scaffolding, Callum braced himself above the water and cracked open a bottle and gulped it down. Next he opened a bag of pretzels and what would Dillon call it? Smashed on them.
They were gone as fast as his jaws could chew. Callum found a plastic ba
g and filled it with pretzels then tied it to his belt. Using his teeth to help tighten the knot he felt hope well inside. He had oxygen, food and water. With the not so minor exception of hypothermia, he was pretty close to figuring out how to survive for the few days he needed to before the investigators came.
He could do this.
Then a dorsal fin cut the water. Not a tiny one but a big one. Damn it.
All of Callum’s body parts were above the water line, but that didn’t mean the shark couldn’t leap for his meal. The dorsal fin had some faint stripes. An adult leopard shark then.
He might have gotten lucky. Leopards weren’t extremely aggressive, nor athletic. They liked their meals simple and straight forward without any drama. Callum sucked in a breath, as if holding it would somehow keep his hiding place more secret.
The leopard swam the periphery of the room, skimming right under Callum’s pipe hideaway. It was surreal since the room was sideways and the shark seemed to be swimming contrary to gravity. Then the shark cut across the middle of the room, heading for the door. Could Callum get that lucky?
Apparently not as the leopard turned tail and raced back into the room, diving deep, and hiding.
Which meant a larger predator was lurking.
Not good. Not good at all.
Then he saw it. A huge dorsal fin, coming right for the door. Didn’t he lock the damn thing? No matter there was a shark. At the least a bull shark if not a great white was headed his way. With that large a shark, it wouldn’t even have to jump out of the water to get him. It could just take a little bite and he was done for.
Only the shark was so large that it couldn’t fit through the doorway. It banged its body against the metal several times, but it did not bend. Then the shark tried to shimmy its way in. When that didn’t work, the shark turned and came back for another run, this time turning on its side, trying to thread the needle that way. Luckily it was too wide even in profile.
The fin passed by several other times, but each time it didn’t try to fit in again, then it was gone. Well, not gone, but out of sight. Even the nursery or leopard shark didn’t buy the “I’ve given up” act. That big shark was lurking around, waiting for one of them to leave the shack. Well, it wasn’t going to be Callum.
Apex Predator Thriller Series Collection (Including the blockbuster new shark park thriller, Salechii) Page 30