Meg: Origins by Steve Alten

we’d worry about that after we stole the chopper.”
    “Makes sense.”
    For the first time in as long as he could remember, Jonas Taylor smiled. Then he followed his new friend and fellow inmate out the door to steal a helicopter.

Excerpt
    Now that you've read Origins , you're ready to sink your teeth into the first course:
Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror
    THE BLEEDING WHALE CARCASS bobbed along the calm surface, its stench overpowering. There were no wounds appearing along its dorsal side, so Jonas grabbed an oar, using it to manipulate the bloated carcass, bobbing it up and down in an attempt to flip it over.
    “Lose that oar, it cost you another twenty dollar!”
    Mac rolled his eyes. “Okay, Jonas, now what?”
    “I need to see the underside of this whale.”
    “Yeah? You planning on getting in?” Mac shined his light on the carcass. “Lots of blood in the water, you’d think there’d be sharks.”
    Jonas stopped to think about that when something illuminated in Mac’s flashlight beam. “Mac, shine your light near that bleeding wound, that’s it, right there.”
    The beacon settled on a triangular white object jammed in between an exposed section of the whale’s ribcage just below the waterline.
    “Christ,” said Jonas, “I think that’s a tooth!”
    “A tooth? How big did you say this megala thingy was?
    “Sixty feet.” Jonas looked around the boat. “Mac, I need something to pry it out with.”
    “What am I? Mr. Goodwrench?” Mac opened a toolbox. Removed a hammer and handed it to Jonas. “And don’t drop it, or Happy Harry here will charge me another twenty dollars.”
    Jonas leaned over the side, attempting to pry the tooth from the whale’s rib using the back end of the hammer.
    Mac grabbed the oar, assisting him.
    The tooth flipped high into the air, Jonas leaning out and catching it—
    —as an ivory-white jaw, as large as a double garage, gracefully broke the surface along either side of the whale’s remains. Massive teeth, the uppers as wide as dinner plates, clamped down upon the dead humpback… and submerged, taking the entire bloated carcass with it! Mac and Jonas stared at the surface, pie-eyed. Felipe crossed himself.
    Seconds later, the whale carcass burst to the surface again, bobbing free.
    “Okey dokey,” Mac said, “That’s all the proof I’ll be needing.”
    Felipe backed toward the motor and gunned the engine. It flooded, coughing blue smoke, then died. Grabbing the hammer from Jonas, the Philippine native tore off the engine’s hood and proceeded to whack the motor with the hammer, the blows reverberating across the deck.
    Jonas yelled, “Felipe… no!”
    “Too late.” Mac pointed to starboard where a stark-white dorsal fin was rising as it surfaced, slowly circling the boat.
    Jonas felt his throat constrict. “Leaving now would be a really good thing.”
    Mac moved toward the engine, pushing Felipe aside as he hurriedly checked the spark plugs. He tried the engine again. It spewed more smoke and died.
    The dorsal fin changed course, moving slowly toward the boat. Underwater, the Meg ’s albino snout grazed the boat’s keel, tasting it—
    —jolting it with enough force to knock Jonas and Mac off their feet. Felipe tripped over his crab trap and fell into the water.
    Jonas grabbed the oar. Searched for Felipe—
    —whose scream was suddenly cut off by an enormous splash.
    For a long moment, Mac and Jonas just stared at the surface, waiting. Then Mac hurried back to the engine, grabbed Felipe’s hammer, and started smashing it against the motor as he tried to turn it over—
    Miraculously, it started! Grabbing the wheel, he gunned the engine, veering them away from the carcass, steering them toward land.
    The shoreline beckoned two miles away.
    Mac looked at Jonas, visibly shaken. “Christ, that poor bastard—”
    “Uh, Mac?” Jonas pointed behind them.
    A twenty-foot-high wake was racing after the boat, an unseen luminous mass pushing