Apex Predator Thriller Series Collection (Including the blockbuster new shark park thriller, Salechii)

by Carolyn McCray

  With a clunk, the emergency lights came on. They were far dimmer than he remembered. Their world was now a dank twilight.

  Everything was gone. All his data. All of his control. Gone. Just like that. No monitoring. No electrified fences. No nuclear option.

  He had nothing. Everything he had built to safeguard Salechii was gone.

  He hadn’t felt this helpless for a long time. Seven years to be exact. The stump of his arm remembered that time well.

  * * *

  “Dad!” Dillon shouted at his father. He’d never seen him like this. He was always the first to recover from anything. Always the first on the ball, getting things going. But now his dad was just standing there, slack-jawed. Unmoving, only his eyes flickering back and forth like he was playing a really bad video over and over again.

  “Dad!” he shouted, grabbing his father’s good arm, shaking him.

  “Yes? What?” his father asked as if Dillon had just woken him from a deep sleep.

  “We can do this,” Dillon said. “We’ve got it.”

  “But… but we don’t have any systems online for you to find the kids and get them safely to the shore.”

  Dillon pointed to his head. “This system is online. I met most of the kids earlier today and I know the routes by heart.”

  All those weeks clambering around under the island was really going to pay off. Plus they had been lucky. Most of the families with children had been housed nearest to the pet park. They could scoop them all up at once.

  Quax also stepped forward. “I too have memorized the children and their room numbers and am very familiar with the waterless routes.”

  His father seemed to start to come around. “Good, good. Go then. We’ll work on getting the power rerouted and the systems back up.”

  Dillon beamed at his father. He was back. “I’ll take them to the western dock.” Then he realized that the western dock was gone along with all the other docks. “Or at least where the western dock used to be.”

  It wasn’t pretty out there, but if that boat showed up, they’d find a way to get the kids on it.

  “Let’s go,” Dillon said to Quax as they set off at a run. There was no time to spare.

  “Be careful, son,” his father shouted after him.

  “You know it!”

  * * *

  Nami combed through her hair. The hot shower had been nice. Even nicer was how not freaked out she was. Granted she was back in her closet, but that was only to be expected.

  Something about seeing a Great White turn tail and run had changed something fundamental inside of her. Sure she was still scared of Great Whites, who wouldn’t be, especially after what happened with Rusty. But her irrational fear that one was going to come through the drain spout had pretty much evaporated.

  She felt oddly lighter. Free. Not that she wanted to live in Malibu. She was totally holding her dad to the Aspen thing. Besides they needed to get out of Dodge when the news of the divorce hit.

  Plus she needed somewhere for her stable full of thoroughbreds.

  Nami heard a sound then a voice softly call her name. Her dad.

  “Yah, in here,” she called out.

  The veranda doors opened to reveal her father. He too was recently showered.

  “Look, before you start,” Nami said but her father put his hand up.

  “I’m not here to bust your chops.” He looked down and strangely subdued. “I’m here to see if I can join you.”

  “Of course,” Nami said, moving some of her crap over to make room for her dad. “What’s wrong?”

  “The shutters in my room won’t go down and I am not staying in there.”

  With a shiver he sat down next to her. She wrapped her arms around him. “Is it just gauche of me to tell you I told you so?”

  “Yes,” her father answered with a smile.

  “Okay, I won’t then,” Nami answered back, giving him a big hug. “The first twenty four hours of shark phobia are the worst, but we’ll get through them, I promise.”

  He leaned his head on her shoulder. “Thanks. I feel better already.”

  * * *

  Tonaka stared at the in-room screen. It was still blank. Before it, along with all the rest of the electronics in the room had gone down, the screen had instructed them to stay in his room.

  His tablet however, told him a completely different story. When he had been in the control room, he had hacked into the mainframe. He was seeing what the control room saw and he saw the evacuation order for the children. Which he totally understood. But would Callum not consider his wife Nica equally vulnerable?

  Should she not be evacuated with the rest?

  “Come, Nica, we need to go.”

  “But we are supposed to stay in our rooms,” his wife responded. She looked so tired. He shouldn’t have insisted she swim with the whale shark. Had he known how stressful the rest of the day was going to be.

  He pointed to his tablet. “We have new orders. Come, come.”

  Across the enclosure he could see that other units still had power so the blackout was located to only one grid. He felt confident that Callum could get the control room and this block back up soon.

  Tonaka helped his wife up from the bed and brought her walker over to her. She gripped the handles tightly. “I’m not sure if I can Tonny.”

  He tapped a few commands on his tablet. “One of the robots should be here soon. But let us get as far as we can to meet them.”

  Nica nodded and shuffled forward. His heart ached to see her so. Perhaps he should simply let her nap and hope for the best. Then he noticed a shark slip by his room. It was a tiger shark.

  The problem? This wasn’t the tiger shark pool.

  There was no waiting.

  He opened the door manually and led his wife out into the hallway. He put a hand under one elbow, giving her additional support.

  “It’s only two short tunnels away.”

  * * *

  Shalie jumped as a loud clang shook her laboratory. She was on emergency power. Callum had created an amazing ecofriendly solar powered facility, but even he was rational when it came to back up power. He’d installed propane generators for all the large facilities. Hers being one of them.

  Unfortunately that generator made a hell of a lot of noise. Noise that was right now attracting a rather large shark. She’d seen what Gabby had done to the electrical room.

  She ran across the room, trying to get to the generator to turn it off before Gabby came through that wall.

  Her hands shook as she turned the handles to the generator room. It was locked. Why was it locked? Given that it would only turn on in an emergency, why was it locked? And none of the electronic locks were hooked up to the backup power so she had to sort through the keychain. She never used her physical keys so she had no idea which ones went to what.

  Bang…bang…bang. Gabby was nothing if not persistent.

  Shalie fumbled with the keys, trying each one in turn until one finally fit. She turned it with a clunk as Gabby rammed the room again, knocking the key out of the lock. But the door was already unlocked. Shalie jerked open the doors, diving for the off switch.

  The metal wall between her and Gabby was bent and warped. It wouldn’t take many more hits to break through.

  The engine sputtered to a stop. Another bang. Shalie backed away, holding her breath. Waiting, watching, listening.

  No more bangs. Gabby must have been distracted by another sound.

  Shalie prayed for whoever that was.

  Then the door to her laboratory burst open and Jack ran through.

  “You came for me?” Shalie asked, shocked that Jack had thought of anyone but himself.

  “Hell, no,” the television host said. “I’m bloody hell lost.”

  Okay, that was more like it.

  “I’m trying to get to the west dock. There’s an evacuation.”

  “That’s only for the children,” Shalie said.

  “If there’s a boat, I’m g
etting on it,” Jack said turning around back out the door.

  Perhaps he was right. The boat was for juveniles after all.

  CHAPTER 17

  A cheer went up in the control room as a few monitors came back up. Good for them, Knightly thought. Where are the rest?

  He wanted to know exactly how far away the boat was. That would warrant a whoop, not a few flickering lights.

  “There!” Callum said pointing to the furthest screen. “He’s doing it, he’s really doing it.”

  On screen, Dillon and that annoying robot had a gaggle of children behind them, like a wake of snotty midgets.

  “Where’s the boat?” Knightly asked.

  “We don’t have a visual,” one of the techs stated, “But radar is back up. They should be here in about ten minutes if the wind doesn’t change.”

  “Good,” Callum mumbled as he looked over the few screens they had back. “Is that passage flooded?” Before anyone could say anything, he pointed to another screen. “And what are those people doing out of their rooms? Is that Tonaka and his wife?”

  “Sure looks like it,” Knightly stated. He recognized the Japanese scientist and his cripple wife. She’d stepped on his toe with that damned walker.

  “Get one of the robots out there and get them back to their room!” Callum barked.

  One of the braver techs stepped up. “Sir, all the robots are repairing pens, do you really want me to pull one from that to get Dr. Yashimoto.”

  “Of course not,” Callum breathed out. “You go.”

  The tech pointed to his chest, gulping. “Me?” he squeaked.

  “Yes, you,” Callum barked. “Now.”

  “But… but…”

  “My son is out there, so you can be out there, is that clear?”

  The tech drew in a deep breath. “Yes, sir,” and left the control panel.

  Yah, let Callum try that on him. He wouldn’t bolt and run from a simple glare.

  “Another tube flooded!” a tech shouted.

  “How can that be?” Callum demanded of his staff. “All the doors are supposed to be locked.”

  “Someone is unlocking them, sir. There is an electronic signal each time.”

  The tech brought up a flooded tube that led to a locked door. A large bull shark swam up to the door and skimmed past it with this belly. The light switched from red to green. The shark swam away until the new tunnel was flooded, then swam through the open door.

  “What the hell?” Callum muttered.

  Then it hit Knightly. “Susie!” he shouted before he even thought it through.

  “Your dead mistress?” Callum asked.

  “Yes, she had a key in her purse and I’m pretty sure that’s the shark that ate her.”

  Callum frowned and turned to one of his techs. “So does that mean that the bull shark has access to all guest related doors?”

  “It appears so,” the tech said with a gulp.

  “Then deactivate the card,” Callum ordered.

  “I’m not…I’m not sure that I can, sir. Those computers aren’t back online yet.”

  “Why not?”

  “Guest reservations is considered a low priority function, sir. I can only deactivate the key card through guest services.”

  “Then make it a priority,” Callum growled.

  The tech bent his head over, typing furiously. “Yes, sir.”

  * * *

  This was it, Dillon thought. There was only one glass tube to cross before they made for the surface. They could go around, but it could take them a while, especially with the gaggle of children they had behind them. The kids were actually seeing this all as an adventure. It was the parents that were asking a thousand questions that were slowing them down.

  He could see the glass door ahead, only there was a problem. The tube looked flooded how could that be? Then he saw the shark. A nice big bull one. Dillon watched as the shark swam close to the door. The red “locked” light flickered.

  What the hell was happening?

  “Get them out of here!” Dillon yelled to Quax as he rushed forward to the door. Just as the door’s lock flickered green, Dillon slammed his palm onto the control panel. The lock went red.

  Dillon breathed a sigh of relief until the shark made another pass. The lock tried to go green, but Dillon punched the button again. No way.

  The shark turned and streaked by. Dillon tried to hit the command in time, but he was too late this time. The lock went green and the doors started to open. Dillon tried to hold the doors closed, but they were operated on hydraulics.

  Water spilled into the tunnel. He had to turn and run before it was too late.

  Once he let go, the doors sprang open, letting in a flood of water. Dillon didn’t bother to fight it. The water was moving faster than his legs anyway.

  The shark couldn’t be far behind. Dillon didn’t look behind him. He couldn’t move any faster than he was. Plus he knew something the shark didn’t. There was a corner up ahead.

  Dillon was relieved to see that no kids were lagging behind. Quax must have gotten them past the flood door. Dillon threw a hand out, grabbing a railing and turned the corner on the rush of water.

  He flew down a set of stairs on the font of sea water. He hit the bottom grate hard. Only then did he look up to see the bull shark diving toward him, his mouth wide open.

  Dillon spun the hatch door’s wheel, opening it. He stumbled over the threshold, pulling the hatch closed behind him. He spun it locked.

  He stumbled back as a loud clang hit. The bull shark.

  Holding his breath, he waited, but that lock wasn’t electronic. So as long as the bull shark hadn’t learned how to turn a wheel, he should be safe.

  Nothing happened as Dillon let out his breath and began panting. That had been too close.

  Way too close.

  * * *

  “What’s that?” his daughter asked.

  Nick cocked an ear. Why did that make people think they could hear better? Was that few millimeter movement supposed to make that much difference? He’d always thought it was funny when the bionic woman moved her hair away from her ear, like that was going to matter to six million dollars’ worth of electronic equipment she had in her head.

  Then again, he’d had a big crush on Lindsay back then. Not of course after he’d worked with her on a Lifetime movie of the week, but he still had fond, fond, memories of the Bionic Woman. Other guys were all into Farrah Faucet. Not him. It was Lindsay all the way.

  “Dad, are you even listening?” Nami demanded.

  No, he in fact had not been listening. Then he heard it too. A tinny drip, drip, drip.

  “Something’s leaking,” Nick stated, opening the closet doors. Just under the shutters a line of water formed, leaking into the room. It wasn’t much. Yet.

  “I thought the shutters were supposed to be watertight?” Nami asked.

  Then Nick saw the problem. The shutter and its tracks were perfectly aligned. It looked like the room had tilted about two degrees and nobody told the shutters. The glass behind it must have cracked from the torque of the hurricane.

  As they watched the drip became a steady flow, soaking the thick carpet, forming a pool.

  “We can’t stay here,” Nick said. He looked to the television screen. It was still dead. No one there to give them instructions.

  Nami took his hand. “Come on, I think I know the back way.”

  Nick found he couldn’t move his feet though. The thought of going out into that underwater tube made his stomach flip. It was just unnatural. How could he not have seen that before?

  “Dad,” Nami reassured. “Remember the fear is just in your mind,”

  Nick nodded, not believing a word of it. The fear was out there in the form of sharks. Nami didn’t even know about the bull shark encounter. That had been terrifying but somehow because he had the sled, he had felt distant from the danger. In that whale shark pool?

  That had been them against the Great White. That was some
serious shit.

  “Dad, we’ve got to go,” Nami said tugging him to the door. “What advice did you give your protégé, in… well… every film?”

  Nick drew a blank.

  “Everyone is afraid,” Nami recited. “Courage is doing something anyway, or something like that, sorry, I really don’t pay that much attention to the dialogue to be honest.”

  Nick chuckled. He couldn’t let Nami be braver than he was. He squeezed her hand as they exited the room.

  He thought he was ready for the underwater view, but boy was he wrong.

  There were sharks, everywhere. They were coursing all along the tube, as if they were waiting for the all you can eat buffet line to open.

  Nami stiffened next to him. “That’s a lot of sharks.”

  “Yes, it is,” Nick confirmed standing equally still. “And I believe they aren’t the same species.”

  “Something serious must have happened while we were in the closet.”

  No kidding.

  * * *

  Tonaka helped his wife up the steps. No robot had come to their assistance. No matter. They needed to get to the west dock.

  “Oh my,” Nica said as they scaled the last step. In theory, they only needed to cross a catwalk over a pool and they would be at the location where the western dock once stood.

  There were multiple barriers to that simple plan however. For one, the catwalk had been damaged. The side rails had been ripped away by the hurricane. The second was the pool beneath them, rather than being the squid enclosure was now filled with dorsal fins. The pool was infested with sharks.

  Tonaka searched the path ahead. The catwalk itself looked pretty stable. There were only a few patches that had been damaged. He thought they were high enough up that the sharks couldn’t endanger them.

  “Don’t look down,” Tonaka said as he urged his wife forward.

  She snorted.

  “Take it one step at a time,” Tonaka reassured her. “The dock is just across the way. I will get you on that boat.”

  * * *

  Dillon grabbed the handhold of the stairs and put his instep of his shoe against the metal and slid down the railing. He jumped down onto the landing grate and ran. He could hear laughter. Laughter in the face of all of this. It had to be the kids.