The kid rubbed his temples. “I don’t know.”
“When was the last time you saw Niki?”
“I told you. I think he was going to the waterslide. But he never came back. So I went back to his parents’ room. To tell Mr. Melnikov.”
“After you looked for him?”
“Yes.”
“But you didn’t see him? Or anyone else?”
“No. All I saw was that one waterslide running, and the big waves on the pool.”
“What waves, Sergei?”
“You know. The big waves in that pool.”
“Where the water comes out of the slide?”
On the screen, Sergei shook his head. “No. Big waves, all over the pool. Like waves at the beach.”
“Have you taken any drugs, sir?” Dennis asked him.
“What? No. I don’t think so.”
“Well, which pool are you referring to?”
“The one under the slide. And that’s all I remember.”
Dennis stopped the video. “That’s all. His story is full of holes, but it’s pretty consistent. What you think, Ash? Any ideas?”
Ashley frowned. They didn’t have any artificial wave machines at Oceanus. Certainly not in the Neptune Pool. “Can you see the waves he was talking about?” she said.
“It’s hard to tell on the footage, but not really. The water level in the pool did appear to be too high. It was overflowing onto the cement.”
“Why?”
“We don’t know that either.”
Ashley had just walked past that pool. “But it isn’t overflowing now.”
He raised his eyebrows again. “I know.” He stood to leave. “I gotta do my rounds real quick, before the show starts. See you there.”
CHAPTER 55
Dennis Gladwin refilled his cup with steaming black coffee and made his way across the still-dark resort. At a little before six a.m., it was damp and comfortably cool, the air smelling sweet and earthy. This time of day was always quiet, even at Oceanus. It was normally Dennis’s favorite time of day. But not today.
Mr. Barbas’s call had woken him a few hours ago. He’d been in a foul mood, having himself been awakened from his slumber by night-shift security. The Russian kid was missing, and the main outflow pipe for the resort’s network of aquariums had again become clogged, just as it had last week. Barbas had ordered him to hurry to his post. Dennis lived twenty minutes away from the resort, and had to hurry to get there by four.
Mr. Barbas had insisted that after poring over video footage and sending security personnel to look for Melnikov, Dennis was to pay particular attention to the water in Pirate’s Cove—the tank from which the manta would be removed. If silted, cloudy water was backing up to where visitors might see it, he’d been instructed to take action to keep all eyes away from the aquarium viewing areas. They might even need to postpone the manta relocation.
He understood the problem. News cameras would be at Oceanus today, and many guests also would be up early to watch the rare event. Nobody wanted the reporters or anyone else to start asking questions about why the tanks suddenly looked filthy, or if the health of the animals was impacted. A PR opportunity could suddenly turn into a PR nightmare.
As he neared the main aquariums, the handheld two-way radio clipped to Dennis’s chest harness crackled quietly as another guard sent a standard morning message to the security center. A shift change. Dennis adjusted the volume, turning it even lower. He passed a janitor on the lit path and said good morning to him, then turned off the main avenue onto a walkway that sloped downward. Underground, to the viewing tunnels. He’d start at Pirate’s Cove.
He descended the ramp into the underground tunnel, alone, the echo of his footsteps bouncing off the hewn rock walls. He reached the start of the viewing area for the resort’s largest tank. The first pane of glass was triangular in shape, starting in a point and then increasing in height to eight feet at the far end, where past a seam the next, taller viewing window began. A bit farther the thick panes of clear, shatter-resistant acrylic rose to many times his own height in the main viewing area. He sighed in relief. The water inside looked clear. Maybe the outflow pipe, which ran into the ocean, had cleared itself, or maybe maintenance had already somehow fixed the problem.
He waited there for a few minutes, sipping his coffee and watching schools of colorful fish move past. Soon, Spirit appeared at the edge of his field of view.
Dennis smiled and tapped the tank lightly as the huge ray neared, seeming to grow in size as he moved in front of Dennis. He was flat and diamond-shaped, with two hard, horn-shaped fins marking the sides of his gaping mouth. He swept slowly by, propelling himself with wing-like movements of his broad, triangular pectoral fins.
“Good morning, big fella. You ready to head back to sea?”
Ashley would be happy to see this ray go home. He remembered that when she’d been a little girl, back home in the Abacos, she’d always been interested in everything that swam in the ocean or crawled on the sand. And she always wanted to save everything, even the damn cats that kept killing off her neighbor’s chickens. He’d always figured she might go off to some university, to become a biologist maybe. Or some kind of activist. Then again, nobody from Two Finger Cay had ever gone to college.
Instead, they both worked here.
He needed to fly back home soon, hop the ferry to the cay. He hadn’t been back in a while, to see his grandkids. Too busy working. He rarely left Andros anymore.
He watched Spirit swim off, and then continued down the tunnel, past a darkened underground gift shop and a set of restrooms, toward the next big aquarium. He passed a trash bin and tossed in the empty foam coffee cup, then rounded a corner and spied the start of the exhibit.
Shark Alley also housed many of the aquarium’s largest fish—nurse sharks, reef sharks, groupers and the like. Just not the mantas, or the more aggressive hammerheads or sawfish, which each had their own tanks. Looking into the exhibit, he stopped when he stepped in a shallow puddle.
He looked down. The cement floor was drenched, and there was standing water in a few shallow depressions. Unless someone had been working down here, there was probably some sort of plumbing problem. Or the tank was leaking from above, where there was a narrow gap between the rock ceiling and the acrylic panes more than twenty feet above his head. Mr. Barbas would not be happy.
But he was relieved to see that, at least at first glance, the water in this tank also looked clear. He moved farther down, inspecting the acrylic panes, but didn’t see any cracks or leaks. It would take an incredible force to break the thick, shatterproof pane.
He paused as he reached the highest section of the wall. During the daytime, the gap above it allowed more light into the tunnels from the outside world, and offered ventilation. Here the thick imitation glass was streaked with dried salt water.
He could immediately see why. The tank was fuller than usual. Normally the waterline was a good foot below the upper rim of the clear acrylic, but now it was right at the top. Any small wave now would cause the water in the tank to splash over, to run down the outer face inside the underground viewing tunnel. It must have something to do with the clogged outflow pipe.
At least he knew now why the floor was all wet. He’d say something as soon as the aquarists arrived, which would be very soon since Spirit was departing this morning.
He looked into the tank, at the curved contours of artificial coral on the far wall, the structures rising in the center that mimicked features in a natural reef. The colors the fake corals added to the exhibit were hard to discern by the weak lights of the tank, without the sun overhead. A few small fish passed by. The water was clear, but something was wrong—
“Dennis, you there?”
Dennis flinched, and then lowered the volume of his handheld radio, realizing he’d accidentally turned the dial the wrong way just before he’d headed down into the tunnels.
“Yeah, I’m here,” he muttered. “Damn near gave m
e a heart attack, though.”
He lifted the radio out of the harness and pressed the talk button. “Ronnie, I copy. What’s going on?”
“Just talked to the boss man. Good news. Water’s flowing again.”
“Pipe’s not clogged no more?”
“That’s right, Pop.”
Dennis thought, Then why is the water level still so high?
Clogged, unclogged, clogged. Wait a few hours and the damn pipe would probably be clogged again. He lifted the radio back to his mouth. “Tanks One and Two look good, but the water level in Two is high. Headed to Three now.”
As he lowered the radio, a drip of water struck his forehead. He wiped it away. Now there’d be even more damn condensation down here. If they didn’t disinfect these subterranean tunnels as often as they did, there’d be mold everywhere.
“Copy,” Ronnie said. “You coming back by the booth first? Freshen your coffee?”
Dennis scrutinized the water inside the aquarium. “No. I’m gonna finish checking the other tank—”
He stopped. He realized what was bothering him about the tank.
They’re all gone.
“Stand by, Ronnie.”
Another drop of water struck the top of his head, but he ignored it, transfixed on the tank. He stepped toward the acrylic glass. The small fish were still in there, but this was the main shark tank. Those little fish were just in there for food.
But where were all the sharks? Where were all the bigger fish? The stingrays, and groupers?
He started to raise the radio to his mouth again. Paused. His memory wasn’t what it used to be. Had he forgotten to read something? An e-mail? Maybe they’d moved these sharks as part of the manta ray’s relocation today. Had someone already said something about that to him?
“Dennis, what’s going on?”
He scanned the water. Maybe the sharks simply were concealed behind the artificial coral formations. His eyes settled on one part of the rock wall, off to the side. It was much larger than he remembered, bulging outward too far, almost closing off the space between it and the fake glass. As if it had . . . grown.
As he stared at the rock, it moved. Swelled out even farther, in front of his eyes. He blinked. It was pulsing.
He took a step backwards. A small wave of water splashed over the top of the acrylic wall and ran down the outside, streaking the clear pane. He looked up, thought he saw something red moving above him, and then closed his eyes as buckets of water suddenly rained down on him. Was the glass cracking?
He turned to run, but immediately slammed into something that knocked the wind out of him. Thick and wet, it wrapped around his midsection.
Squeezed.
His radio clattered to the ground. On it, he heard Ronnie calling for him again.
In pain and confusion, he began to pound his fists on the wet mass enclosing his body. He heard his ribs crack, and his mouth opened in a silent scream, but there was no air in his lungs. He felt his feet lifting off the ground, and realized he was spinning in slow spirals as the fleshy, reddish mass continued to coil around him.
CHAPTER 56
Val stared at her breakfast cereal, moving the granola around in the milk with her spoon. She’d hardly eaten anything. She was feeling sick again. Like she might throw up.
She stood and walked outside onto the back patio of the guesthouse, and closed her eyes, breathing in a gentle morning breeze off the water. After a moment, she felt better and opened her eyes. On the eastern horizon, where the sun would soon rise over the ocean, there was an angry dark orange over the water, backlighting the darkness of building clouds. A rare late-winter tropical storm had been forecast for today, and it would be cooler. She crossed her arms to ward off a sudden chill.
She tried to push away the worried thoughts, the mixed emotions, as she tried to enjoy the early morning light. She hadn’t slept much. And she’d still said nothing to Will. Even though she was now becoming convinced.
But she couldn’t really be pregnant. She wasn’t ready now. They weren’t ready. And she couldn’t actually have a child. Could she?
She’d lost her first pregnancy, as a stupid teen, even before she and her mom had been able to decide what she should do, or what to tell her dad. Even though she’d felt some relief back then, knowing she wouldn’t be a young mother trapped with a baby right after high school, she had cried. Had felt so sad that the baby that had started inside her was gone.
After that, the doctor had recommended a D&C, to rid her body of the “unnecessary tissue.” But something went wrong. The trauma from all the scraping had left her uterus scarred. Permanently.
She was infertile. Or so she had thought, until she had unexpectedly gotten pregnant once again, last year. She and Will hadn’t been practicing birth control, as she had thought there was no need. This time, she’d been planning to move forward despite her demanding career, and they had been so excited.
But she’d lost that child as well.
She took a deep breath. Closed her eyes and tried to enjoy the relative silence. She began to feel sick again. She wondered again if what she had felt in the ocean when she’d gone lobster diving—what Mack had thought was induced by the Navy’s antipersonnel sonar—had simply caused some sort of lingering symptoms. Maybe that’s all this was.
But that had been a week ago, and she hadn’t felt sick anymore once she’d been out of the water a few hours. She thought of the Obeah woman. What she had said to her—
“Mornin’, Val.”
She jumped. Sturman had just walked out onto the patio, cowboy hat in hand. He’d slept on the couch last night.
“Good morning, Will. You guys leaving soon?”
“Yeah. Got to if we want to catch the show. Aren’t you coming?”
“I don’t think so,” she said. “Is your Navy pal joining you?”
“Wits? No. I’ll try to catch up with him tonight or tomorrow.”
They’d all planned to head over to Oceanus. She, Sturman, and Eric would watch a captive manta ray get transported to the ocean by helicopter, and Mack had said he’d head over with them to gamble in the casino. He claimed you always had better luck early in the morning.
Sturman moved beside her and studied her face. She looked away, back at the ocean.
He said, “What’s the matter. You doing all right?”
“Yeah. I’m okay.”
He nodded back at the kitchen. “Well, I saw your uneaten cereal. And you look kinda green.”
“I just feel a little nauseous. Maybe I ate something bad. You want to finish my breakfast?”
“No thanks. We’ll just bring something with us. Besides, I don’t wanna get what you have.” He frowned. “You sure you’re all right?”
She thought again of the Obeah woman. Her toothless grin. You big up, ain’t ya?
She said, “I’ll be okay. But I’m gonna stay here and rest. You guys have fun without me.”
He nodded, and looked at the eastern horizon. “Hopefully, they get this done before that storm gets here.”
Sturman hugged her and went back inside, yelling for Eric to hurry up. Val smiled. Will seemed genuinely excited. He’d really become fascinated with commercial aquariums.
She thought about the other things the Obeah woman had said. That this octopus, this lusca, if it did exist, might be feeding more than usual because it too was pregnant, or going to be. That it would have a den in which to raise its brood. But it just made no sense. If this was an undiscovered species, where were the others of its kind? Where were its young? People had to have seen them by now, right?
Why was she giving any weight at all to some old island sage? To some crazy old woman?
But she knew why.
Her hand went to her womb, and she felt another wave of nausea. What if the old woman was somehow right? What was she going to do? And what was she going to tell Will?
She heard the distant rumble of thunder.
CHAPTER 57
Ashley watched t
he huge manta ray glide past, revealing a pale underside vented with long gill slits. Despite his devilish appearance, with what looked like two horns jutting from his brow, Spirit was a harmless filter feeder. A favorite of the tourists. He’d been with Oceanus since the opening of the resort, already quite large when he’d been captured off the coast, and had grown quickly. He was now nearly fifteen feet across. The habitat in Pirate’s Cove, despite its size, could no longer contain him, and Mr. Barbas was keeping his promise.
Today, Spirit would go home.
Ashley stood in the dappled light of the softly lit, below-ground viewing tunnel. Most of the light usually came in from the aquarium itself, where sunlight refracted down through the water from the outside world. But the sun wasn’t up yet.
She smiled as the ray disappeared around a bend in the tank. She looked over at Barbas, who stood a short distance behind her, talking with a few of the aquarists. This was something she appreciated about the man. Even if he didn’t really want to part with a main attraction, and might have kept the animal forever if he could, at least he had the decency to listen to his aquarists and accept when it was time to—
“Ashley?”
She turned. Striding down the rock-walled corridor, in his proud but uneven gait, was Valerie Martell’s uncle. Beside him walked another rough-looking man she’d never seen before—much taller than Mack, younger, and wearing a cowboy hat.
“Mack! How are you, love?” She gave him a hug and kiss on the cheek.
“Same as always. How are you?”
“I’m all right, you know. What’re you doing down here? I thought they’d already closed off this tunnel?”
“Apparently not where we came in.” He thumbed at the younger man next to him. “Sturman here wanted to see the aquariums.”
She recognized the name from a conversation with Val. She turned to him. He wore a plain white T-shirt and jeans. He was attractive, but not in a Hollywood way—more like an old leather jacket, with stubble along his jawline and wrinkles creasing his skin. She could tell he’d led a hard life.
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