Epilogue

Monterey, California

Two months later . . .

Though he is only forty-six, Tim Schulte’s hair is almost completely gray, an occupational hazard common among psychiatrists. Opening the door to his office, he ushers his patient in from the waiting room.

David Taylor is wearing a white tee-shirt and faded jeans, a double-wide 49ers sweatband over his right wrist. His brown hair is long and unkempt, hanging below his shoulders. He collapses in the leather easy chair, staring at Schulte’s diplomas. His almond eyes are vacant, hovering above dark circles.

“So? You’ve been on the new meds a week. Are you sleeping any better?”

“No.”

Schulte scribbles a note on his legal pad. “Let’s give them another week. Adjusting one’s brain chemistry takes time. And the night terrors . . . do you still wake up screaming?”

“Yes.”

“Every night?”

“Unless I’m drunk.”

“And how often does that happen?”

“Every night.”

“A bit excessive, don’t you think?”

“Adjusting one’s brain chemistry takes time.”

“David, therapy means very little unless you’re a willing participant.”

David says nothing. Stares out the window.

“Your mother mentioned to me that you and Monty moved into an apartment together. He’s the bi-polar fellow.”

“Is that a problem?”

“You tell me.”

“He babbles and I scream. We make a nice couple.”

“And the two of you get drunk together.” The psychiatrist waits for a response but gets nothing. “I understand your father’s been in touch with Kaylie’s parents. He said they wanted to meet you. It could be a good thing. Sharing grief can sometimes ease one’s sorrow.”

David’s eyes pan slowly across the room, locking in on Dr. Schulte’s. “Sorrow’s a funny thing. There’s the sorrow one feels when a loved one dies, say, of cancer; that’s a pretty bad sorrow. You feel empty inside. You share that grief with others. Eventually you move on. Then there’s a different kind of sorrow . . . like, say, I shove a gun in your wife’s mouth and blow her head into a million pieces. That sorrow’s a little trickier to deal with.

“Basically, you have three options. The first is to take the easy way out.” David pulls back the 49ers sweatband, revealing the three red, swollen wounds on the inside of his wrist, the slashes stitched together. “That option only works until you think about the repercussions, that you’re pulling your family into the same hell hole you’re wallowing in. Then it’s not so cool. The second option is to go numb while you talk about shit with professional sorrow sharers like yourself, as if anything said in this room’s going to change a thing.”

“And the third option?”

He stares at the psychiatrist’s blue eyes, his expression stone.

David stands to leave, pausing at the door. “This’ll be our last session. Me and Monty, we’re going away for a while. Call it a business trip.”

“Do you think that’s a good idea? You’ve only been out of the hospital three weeks.”

“Yeah, well, it beats the other two options. See you in my dreams.”

With a final wave, he walks out the door.

Juan de Fuca Strait
Vancouver Island, British Columbia

The northwest coastline of British Columbia stretches nearly seventeen thousand miles, incorporating countless islands, inlets, and bays. Vancouver Island is British Columbia’s largest island, separated from the mainland by the Strait of Juan de Fuca, a narrow waterway that connects Puget Sound and the Georgia Strait to the Pacific Ocean. Marine life is abundant in these nutrient-rich waters, which serve as feeding grounds for both local and migrating populations of humpback, orca, gray, and minke whales. For saltwater fishermen, the deep waters off Vancouver Island are home to Chinook and coho salmon, rockfish, lingcod, and the giant halibut—the major carnivore fish of the Pacific Northwest.

Now, a new species of carnivore has made this oceanic waterway its home.

The orca are transients, all of the resident killer whales having mysteriously vacated the area weeks earlier. There are six whales in the pod: two mature females, two calves, a juvenile male, and a thirty-foot, twelve-thousand-pound bull. They have been moving at a steady pace all day. Now they have slowed with the night to feed.

The big male is uneasy. Vocalizing frequently, it scans the dark sea using its echolocation as it leads the others toward their next meal.

The kill is fresh, the gray whale bleeding badly as it floats in the current. The females feed first, their three-inch conical teeth ravaging great bites from the bloated carcass, their young feeding off the scraps.

The male senses something large moving along the bottom. The creature circling below is longer than the bull and three times its girth. Slapping its fluke against the surface, the male sets the pod back in formation—

—as the second predator appears, closing fast.

One of the females leads the pod to the north, the other guards the calves. The juvenile male takes up the rear, the bull moving beneath the pod to discourage any attack from below.

Lizzy charges along the surface, baiting the bull.

The big male soars past the female orca to confront the albino—

—as Belle launches her attack from below. Cruising vertically at twenty knots, the lead-backed sister strikes the orca between its flippers, lifting the bull clear out of the water, its serrated teeth tearing open the male’s tender belly!

Lizzy moves in quickly, gnawing off the killer whale’s dorsal fin in one horrific bite.

The rest of the pod quickly alters its course as the two Megs slaughter their leader.

No other creatures approach the sisters’ kill. None will challenge their rule; the Strait of Juan de Fuca now belongs to Carcharodon megalodon. It is in these waters that Belle and Lizzy will birth their young, the pups protected from their parents within the rocky alcoves and shallows until the day that they, too, become sizable juveniles. Forced to territorialize other bodies of water, these young females will eventually beget their own kind, their internal fertilization defying extinction—Mother Nature setting a different course for her apex predator.

THE ANGEL OF DEATH IS DEAD—

—LONG LIVE HER QUEENS.

The Taylors will return in
MEG: Night Stalkers.

See www.SteveAlten.com for previews.