MEG: Nightstalkers Read Online Free Page B

shore. The late afternoon sun reflected brightly off the lighthouse’s lens; waves lapped along the shoreline of Dead Man’s Cove—bloody waves.
    The couple was less than fifty yards from the rock strewn beach when Eric saw the first dead orca … then the second.
    And then he was airborne.
    The twenty-four-ton albino had launched its upper body out of the water just ahead of the kayak, the underside of its lower jaws striking the deck of the bow so hard it flipped the plastic craft’s stern into the air like a catapult, tossing Eric Germata out of his cockpit and over the outstretched jaws of the Meg into the shallows.
    The fifty-six-degree water might as well have been electrified. Seconds after sinking, Eric was scrambling awkwardly to his feet, stumbling onto land past the eviscerated remains of a beached juvenile bull orca that was bleeding out in Dead Man’s Cove.
    Eric dropped to his knees in shock, the island spinning in his vision.
    Then he remembered the girl. “Ashley?”
    He stood, searching the cove. The shallows were littered with the bobbing, bleeding, butchered members of the orca pod, many still alive and squealing. Twenty yards from shore Lizzy’s bloodstained dorsal fin cut slowly across the surface, her thrashing caudal fin frothing the sea pink.
    Eric’s eye caught movement. The others had come ashore a quarter mile to the south. He took a quick head count—Ashley was not among them.
    Then he saw their touring kayak.
    The craft had washed ashore, intact but upside down. Eric struggled to roll it over. He took one look inside the bow cockpit, turned his head and retched.
    Ashley was still inside the watertight compartment, at least her lower torso was. Her body had been severed at the waist; her upper torso having been bitten in half as she was flung head-first into the breaching Megalodon’s open mouth.

 
    2
    Dubai Land Central International Airport
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
    Located in southern Dubai, the Jebel Ali International Aerotropolis is an $82 billion complex comprised of five-star hotels and shopping malls, sixteen cargo terminals, over 100,000 parking spaces, and a high speed express rail designed to whisk upwards of 120 million passengers a year to their destinations within the UAE.
    It was just after seven p.m. local time when the JetBlue commercial jet inbound from San Francisco International airport touched down in Dubai to a rousing applause from its passengers.
    None were as grateful as David Taylor.
    The twenty-one-year-old’s nerves were shot, having spent nearly sixteen hours seated next to his friend Jason Montgomery. Monty was a former Marine Recon medic who had his brain scrambled from a roadside explosion while he was deployed in Iraq. It wasn’t enough that the big chested, broad shouldered, heavily tattooed man with the shaved head and six inch “devils” goatee looked like he belonged in a biker gang, but the long trip in a confined space had exacerbated Monty’s bi-polarism, causing him to rant gusts of random observations almost nonstop.
    “Hey Meg-Boy, did you know the word ‘tax’ comes from the Latin taxo , meaning ‘I estimate’? Did you know ninety percent of people who hire housekeepers and babysitters cheat on their taxes. The Bible has about seven hundred thousand words. The Federal Tax Code has three million seven hundred thousand words. Are you eating your peanuts? Humans can survive longer without food than they can without sleep. Sorry, was I keeping you awake?”
    It had taken three sleeping pills and a miniature bottle of scotch for the man with the words, “PAIN DON’T HURT” inked around his neck to finally pass out—at which point his snoring kicked in.
    A grizzly bear made less noise taking down an elk.
    David was exhausted but afraid to sleep, fearing a night terror and its accompanying “blood-curdling” scream. As bad as Monty was, the fit and tan athlete with the long brown hair and matching almond eyes could be more