MEG: Nightstalkers by Steve Alten Page B

grabbed his duffle bag and headed outside. “Amanda, do you have an envelope there for me?”
    “Jason Montgomery … let’s see—”
    “His name is David Taylor.” Jackie Buchwald pushed him aside, grabbing her envelope from the confused producer. “Wouldn’t want you to get caught up in any head games, David.”
    Slinging her bag over her shoulder, Jackie jogged across the helipad and entered the tanker’s looming superstructure.
    *   *   *
    He was struggling to keep his head above water, each incoming swell a five-foot mountain concealing Kaylie. She was up ahead, her long, lean body slicing across a surface slick with oil and blood.
    Obliterating the sunset was the Tonga, the ship’s starboard flank towering overhead. Suspended from the tanker’s reinforced steel net was Angel, the Megalodon’s eviscerated lower torso gone, her innards a crimson waterfall which splattered into the Philippine Sea.
    He was swimming in it; the oil pouring from Angel’s ruptured liver … her hot blood coagulating in the cold Pacific. It was getting in his mouth—he fought the gag reflex, fearful of losing the girl.
    He paused to get his bearings, relieved to find her holding on to the buoyant escape pod.
    “David, hang on to the other side.”
    Barely able to lift his arms, David paddled over to his father’s submersible and held on, pressing his face to the glass.
    His father was sitting up in his cockpit, shaking his head.
    “Dad?”
    “I told you not to join the expedition, son. But you never listen. You’re just like I was—impetuous. Balls-to-the-wall … always thinking you can cheat death. There’s a price to pay, David. Always a price.”
    He glanced at Kaylie, who waved at him from the other side of the escape pod. “Good-bye, David. I enjoyed our brief time together.”
    “Please don’t go.”
    “Baby, don’t be sad. We both knew this was never meant to be. I have my destiny; you have yours.”
    As he watched, the Liopleurodon rose from the depths, its gargantuan crocodilian jaws widening around Kaylie.
    “Kaylie, wait! Will I ever see you again?”
    Reaching out, she held onto a curved dagger-like tooth to keep from slipping down the monstrous gullet. “Every night … until you release me.”
    The monster’s jaws closed, the beast returning to the depths.
    *   *   *
    “Ahhh! Ahhhh!”
    David shot up in bed, his body trembling, his T-shirt drenched in a cold sweat. He was in the belly of the beast—a swaying, groaning darkness with no perceivable dimensions, and he needed to get out!
    Hyperventilating, he fell out of bed onto a cold steel floor and crawled blindly until his forehead smashed into a ledge, the collision blasting stars in his vision.
    A passage opened on his right, a figure looming in the gray shadows.
    “David?”
    “Yes!” He tried to stand and smashed his head even harder.
    “Where’s your light switch?”
    A dull white florescent bulb flickered on high overhead, illuminating the eight by ten foot cabin. Steel bulkhead, no portal, bed frame bolted to the floor, small dorm-style refrigerator, metal toilet and matching sink.
    Embarrassed, he crawled out from beneath the bowl of the sink, rubbing his head.
    Jacqueline Buchwald helped him up. David’s eyes lingered over her bare feet and smooth tan legs, the loose-fitting gray sleeping shirt offering tantalizing hints of her naked breasts pressing beneath the thin cotton fabric.
    “What are you doing here?”
    “My cabin’s next door; you were screaming.”
    “Bad dream.” He sat on the edge of the bed, shivering.
    She searched through a pile of clothing, pulling out a clean shirt. “Put this on.”
    He pulled off the wet T-shirt, revealing an athlete’s muscular upper torso … and the thick three-inch red scars embedded along the palm-side of each wrist.
    He redressed quickly, covering the evidence of his attempted suicide with the wet T-shirt.
    “David, there’s no need to be embarrassed. It’s just a