Meg: Hell's Aquarium (7 page)

“Mrs. Taylor?”

—prep them for the worst. If you think those animal rights assassins were nasty before, you haven’t seen anything yet—

“Mrs. Taylor? Are you okay?”

She looks up at the doctor, settling her quivering right arm with her free hand. “Me? Fine. My daughter . . . how is she? Did you finish the tests?”

“She’s resting. Basilar skull fractures are rare, more common with race car drivers during sudden speed accidents. It’s what killed Dale Earnhardt. Anyway, Dani’s MRIs were negative for blood clots in the brain. But she did suffer a bad concussion and trauma to the rib cage; we’ll be keeping her in intensive care just as a precaution. You can go back and see her now. Your husband’s already there waiting for you.”

Terry follows the specialist through the intensive care unit to one of eight stations separated by a blue curtain. Jonas is seated by Dani’s bed, while their daughter sleeps, her injured body hooked up to IVs and monitors.

He greets his wife with a hug. “You okay? Never mind. Dumb question.”

“Don’t say anything in public. Let the professionals do their jobs.”

“I wasn’t even thinking about the Institute. Terry, Dani could have been killed . . . and David—”

“Not now, Jonas.”

“No, now is when it needs to be done! Our son has pushed and prodded and coaxed us into letting him work with these monsters since he was fourteen. Well, guess what . . . come Monday he’ll be entering the kill zone, and I just think the two of us need to stop this insanity before—”

“Shh, that’s enough! For Dani’s sake, no more arguing.” Jonas stares at his daughter. He checks his watch. “It’s late. Dani’s in good hands. We should go.”

“You go. I’m staying.”

“Then I’m staying, too.”

“No. You need to find David. I sent him to look after Mac. Trish said he wasn’t handling the boy’s death very well. She’s afraid he might drink.”

A velvet night sky hovers like a glistening cathedral over the imposing presence of the Pacific, each silent swell rolling through the darkness unabated until it crashes in a dull roar that echoes across the deserted shoreline. The arena is empty, too—save for four armed security guards and two lone figures seated high up in the western bleachers.

Mac lays his head back on the cool aluminum bench, allowing the ocean’s pulse to soothe his rattled nerves. “Okay, kid, I’ll concede the point. What I saw in ‘Nam was probably a helluva lot worse, but when you’re in a war your brain’s wired differently. Watching the life flow out of that boy . . . this one’ll haunt me the rest of my days.”

David nods. “Turk’s Bar and Grill is still open. Wanna get pasted?”

“You testing me?”

“Sort of.”

“Don’t play head games with your Godfather, kid. If I was going to drink I’d be drunk by now.” He rubs the stress from his eyes. “Trish send you after me?”

“No.”

“You’re a lousy liar.”

“Okay, but she was worried.”

A dull, metallic
thud
echoes across the arena.

“Tell my wife I called my sponsor, and I’ll get to an AA meeting later this week.”

“Maybe you should tell her.”

“I will. Eventually.”

“You scared of her?”

“Hell, yes. Trish is a good woman, but she’d leave me in a New York minute if I fell off the wagon. Can’t let that happen.”

“You love her that much, huh?”

“Nah. I’ve just gotten used to three square meals a day and clean underwear.”

David smiles, then abruptly sits up as his ears register another
thud
, this one followed by heavy splashing. “Angel?” He leans out over the western rail, his eyes tracing the nearly submerged walls of the canal until the concrete border disappears a hundred yards away into the black Pacific. Somewhere out there, lurking beneath the dark surface, is a force of Nature that no longer wishes to be penned.

From his vantage point, David is still too far from the ocean-end of the channel to see Angel’s soft, bioluminescent glow.

More splashing, followed by heavy reverberating wallops.

Mac stands. “That’s coming from the Meg Pen. Come on.”

David follows him down the bleachers to the main deck and past the northern end of the lagoon and over a concrete bridge to the Meg Pen’s main tank—an open pool that descends three stories below the deck to the main gallery.

There are five of them—all females—their names decreed by public opinion on a website contest that took place six weeks after they were born. The three “runts,” each now over twenty-five feet and five tons, had been designated Angelica, Mary Kate, and Ashley. The latter two names had been selected following an Internet campaign to name the pair of identical runts, who refused to feed during their first month, after the famous child actors-turned-models. Being good sports, the Olsen twins showed up at the naming ceremony and even fed their namesakes . . . albeit from a safe distance.

The remaining two sisters seemed to have been born from a different litter. At forty-six feet and twenty-one tons each, they were nearly twice the size of their three smaller siblings and far more vicious.

Elizabeth, or Lizzy for short, was pure albino like her mother. The voting public (swayed by various Euro pe an blogs) had named her after Elizabeth Bathory, the worst serial killer in Slovak history. In 1610, the infamous “Countess of Blood” had been charged with the torture and deaths of hundreds—mostly young girls. Her cold savagery seemed to match the personality of the stark-white juvenile, who often took a calculated second position to her more ferocious twin, Belle.

Belle, affectionately referred to by the staff as “Bela the Dark Overlord,” was the only Megalodon offspring born with pigmentation. Though her head was pure-white, the rest of her dorsal surface was a dark charcoal-gray from her dorsal fin to the upper lobe of her tail, giving her a rather bizarre, sinister appearance. Named after Belle Gunness, the infamous “Black Widow” who teased and killed fourteen of her suitors back in 1908, Belle was the brawn to Lizzy’s brains, an aggressive predator who often had to be separated from the pack before feeding time.

It is not feeding time, but the pen is in turmoil.

Dr. Jonathan Stelzer, the Institute’s director of marine biology, is frantically calling out orders by the iron rail that surrounds the illuminated azure aquarium as workers attempt to close the titanium gate behind Mary Kate and Ashley. The two panicked Meg pups are swimming in tight circles along the near side of the tank. On the opposite end of the aquarium, sub pilot Steven Moretti is climbing inside the
Jellyfish
, the acrylic sphere-shaped submersible rigged to its truck boom. The head of animal husbandry seals the hatch, tugs on his lucky turquoise baseball hat, and gives the thumbs up.

Moments later, the sub is swung over the tank and quickly lowered into the water, remaining tethered on its cable leash.

Mac sees Dr. Stelzer and hurries over to him. “Jon? What the hell—”

“The sisters!” Stelzer points to the far end of the tank where a three-foot, ivory caudal fin cuts erratically back and forth along the surface, shadowed closely by a far larger pale dorsal fin. “Lizzy has Angelica by the pectoral fin, and she won’t let go.”

David sees a dark shadow shoot past them underwater on a collision course for the two albino creatures. “Belle . . . she’s attacking.”

The lead-gray caudal fin lashes a great, arcing swath of water through the air as Belle strikes the pinned runt.

Moretti submerges the
Jellyfish
in time to witness the underwater assault. Lizzy is on Angelica’s right flank, her jaws firmly secured around her sibling’s pectoral fin. The bite is not meant to inflict damage but to control the smaller Meg; still, blood flows freely from the savage wound—

—exciting Belle. The dark-backed Megalodon glides beneath the
Jellyfish
and attacks Angelica’s exposed left flank, tearing into the runt’s thick, white hide with her sharp, juvenile teeth.

Moretti activates the “predator prod” as he races in after the darker Meg. Protruding from different angles along the spherical hull, the six steel lances pack 5,000 volts of electricity—more than enough to ward off the aggressive sisters. Striking Belle along her pelvic fin, he chases the dark predator away.

Angelica’s gushing flank is now enshrouded in a bloody haze. Descending the sub beneath the wounded runt, Moretti attempts to strike Lizzy with one of the prods—

—while above the tank, a hoisting crane rolls along a pair of tracks embedded in the concrete deck. The steel expanse stretches across the width of the Meg Pen. A heavy-duty cargo net is being readied atop the yellow beam, fifty feet above the surface.

After several attempts, Moretti finally manages to jolt the albino sister. The ghostly brute reluctantly releases its death-grip on its smaller sibling—

—as Belle charges the
Jellyfish
, only to be stung herself from a different protruding lance. The dark-backed Megalodon quickly circles along the eastern divide of the tank, falling in formation below her albino twin.

Moretti speaks quickly into his headset, “Angelica’s free. Drop the net!”

The cargo net is released. Moretti uses the sub’s robotic claw to position it in place over the wounded runt. Angelica is swimming erratically, her right pectoral fin enveloped in crimson clouds of blood. Maneuvering the submersible along Angelica’s left flank, Moretti powers down the predator prod lest he accidently strike the injured Meg. Glancing down at his sonar, he tracks the two larger sisters—

—who are swooping in from behind! Swiveling around in his pilot’s chair, Moretti catches sight of the siblings charging him head-on, their heads appearing as large as his entire sub. Quickly, he reactivates the prods, the Megs’ ampullae of Lorenzini instantly detecting the electrical impulse. The creatures veer off at the last second, spinning the
Jellyfish
like a top in their wake.

Moretti pumps his foot pedals, using bow thrusters to steady his vessel.
Smart fish.
The pilot wipes beads of sweat from his forehead, then swivels around to face Angelica. The creature is caught head-first in the cargo net. Activating the submersible’s two robotic appendages, he secures the netting around the runt’s abdomen.

The maneuver elicits a reflexive slap from Angelica’s caudal fin. The injured predator arches its back in pain as it attempts to swim away, succeeding in only pushing herself deeper into the entanglement.

“Jon, she’s secure, but watch her abdomen. I think Bela struck her there pretty good.”

Above the tank, a pair of winches activate, retrieving the cargo net and its 10,470-pound catch. Gently, Angelica’s body rises out of the water, her wounded twenty-five-foot torso twisting and flexing like a snake.

Dr. Stelzer makes his way to the holding tank—a circular shallow pool used as a “Meg ER.” His medical assistant, Fran Rizzuto, prepares a half dozen syringes, filling each ten-inch steel spike with a chemical synthesis of Tricaine Methanesulfonate—a powerful anesthesia designed to calm the fish and reduce injuries. Then, she screws the last syringe into the business end of its fifteen-foot reach pole. “Six syringes, each packing 5,000 milligrams of MS-222 should be enough to put her under while we scan her injuries.”