I didn’t have time to make it make sense.
“I’m opening the main gate at the bottom!” The words came fast, half-shouted, my brain building the plan even as my mouth tried to keep up. “It’ll flush into the quarantine pool—out through the channel—toward the marina. Toward the boat.”
Sloane’s eyes widened as the pieces connected.
If I opened the main hatch connecting the aquarium system to the exterior water channel, the surge would carry them through and out of the building, into the holding pool, to the Mariner.
But there was a catch; there always was a catch.
I swallowed hard.
“I have to open the tide gate manually,” I said, “from the control room.”
Jeff understood immediately.
“Which means you’re still inside when it happens,” he said.
I didn’t answer; I didn’t need to.
Behind us, the guttural moans grew louder, echoing up through the hall as the dead pushed deeper into the aquarium. The sound multiplied, bouncing off glass and making it impossible to tell how many there actually were.
We had minutes. Maybe less.
“GO!” I shouted.
Sloane grabbed Ethan by the arm and shoved him toward the ramp that led to the maintenance hatch above the main tank. Jeff followed, shotgun in hand, positioning himself between the boy and the corridor behind them.
Sloane stopped at the base of the ramp.
She turned back to me.
For one second—one single, suspended second—her eyes found mine across the hallway. And everything we’d never said out loud, everything we’d buried under routine and arguments and the careful pretense of morning distance, passed between us in that look.
“Callan—”
“Go,” I said.
The three of them ran up the ramp.
I turned and sprinted in the opposite direction.
Alone.
The control room door slammed behind me, and I threw the heavy bolt across it, dragging a metal filing cabinet in front of the entrance for good measure. The legs screeched against the floor, the sound swallowed almost immediately by a loud thud from somewhere down the hallway.
Closer—they were getting closer.
I turned to the control panel, scanning the rows of old switches and levers. Faded labels. Tiny print. Systems designed for calm, methodical operation by trained staff during normal business hours.
“Come on… come on…”
My hands shook as I searched. Pump pressure. Tank circulation. Filtration overrides. Backupaeration.
“Where the hell—”
I saw it.
MAIN HATCH CONTROL.