Chapter 21
Twenty One
Sloane
By the end of the week, the aquarium had changed; it became quieter.
Not because the city outside had gone silent, but because the life inside the building had changed, too.
Every day followed the same routine—long, exhausting hours of cooking everything that might spoil. The cafeteria, storage rooms, and even the little employee break areas were stripped bare. We cooked until the air inside the building hung thick with oil, salt, and roasted meat.
Everything that could go into the freezers went into the freezers. Rows of labeled containers stacked like bricks of survival.
Strange, doing something so domestic while the world outside died, but food meant life now, and every bit mattered.
The hardest part of the week, though, hadn’t been the cooking but the relocation of the sharks.
We spent two days moving them from the main interior tank to the exterior ocean holding pen. Nets, gates, slow movements, patience. Dangerous work even in normal circumstances, and both of us ended up soaked, bruised, and barely standing by the time we finished.
Now we stood together on the inside platform overlooking the holding tank. We watched as the tide crept in. It was time.
The heavy ocean gate loomed beneath the waterline, separating the tank from the open sea beyond. Once it lifted, nothing would keep them here anymore.
“They’ll be fine,” Callan said beside me.
I nodded.
“I know.”
And I did.
Sharks belonged to the ocean. Aquariums only ever served as temporary addresses for animals built to travel hundreds of miles of open water, but, well—watching them circle below us, something pulled in my chest, almost like saying goodbye to something bigger than fish.
Callan worked the manual lever slowly, and the mechanism groaned as the gate rose.
For a moment, nothing happened until the first shark noticed and turned toward the widening gap, sensing the current pulling through from the open ocean.
No hesitation. It slipped through, gone.
One by one the others followed, vanishing into the blur of green water beyond the barrier, each disappearing fin sinking into me a little more.
Final.
Because it undeniably—irreversibly—was.
When the last dorsal fin slipped beneath the surface and into the open sea, Callan lowered the lever. The gate slid shut with a deep metallic thud.
The tank stretched out before us, enormous and empty.
Neither of us spoke.
Callan exhaled.
“Well,” he whispered. “That’s done.”
I swallowed against the knot in my throat.
“Yeah.”
Done.
We walked back, our footsteps echoing louder than they should have through the building.
Frank remained; he drifted through the massive central tank that ran the full height of the Aquarium, the tall column of water stretching from the bottom level up through the spiral walkways.
Slow. That ancient, unhurried way he had of moving through the world, like time answered to him and not the other way around.
Callan rested his arms on the railing, watching him glide through the dim water below.
“If things get bad,” he said after a moment, “we’ll release him too.”
I looked down at the enormous animal circling beneath us. Frank had lived in captivity a long time—maybe too long.
But even so, his chances stood better in the ocean than trapped here once the food ran out. The world changed, and people didn’t build aquariums to last through the end of it.
Frank turned gracefully in the water, light catching along his broad back before he disappeared again into the deeper shadows.
Callan pushed off the railing.
“Come on. We should keep working.”
I took one last look at the tank.
At the shape drifting somewhere down in that quiet dark, I turned and followed Callan, carrying with me the steady, certain knowledge that eventually—
Frank would go home too.
* * *
That night we climbed the ladder to the roof like we had every evening since we first contacted the fishing boat—our new routine.
The sun was sinking low over the ocean as the wind pushed a cold breeze across the rooftop. Callan crouched beside the marine radio, turning the knobs while I stood near the edge of the building, watching the dark water stretch past the marina and into nothing.
Every night we called, and every night the SS Mariner answered.
Callan keyed the mic.
“This is Bay City Aquarium calling SS Mariner. Come back.”
Static crackled through the speaker.
I held my breath.
Then the voice came through.
“Bay City… this is Mariner…”
The signal crackled, weaker than usual.
Callan leaned closer, adjusting the squelch knob.
“Captain, you’re breaking up. Say again.”
The reply came back strained, like a man speaking through clenched teeth.
“Good to hear you… tonight.”
Something about his voice made my stomach drop.
Not the calm, steady tone we’d grown used to.
This sounded worn out.
Callan caught it too. His hand paused on the dial.
“Are you alright out there, Captain?”
A long pause before the man answered.
“No, not really,” the captain said, honestly.
The wind whipped hard across the rooftop, and I turned toward the radio.
“We’ve been holding offshore like we said,” the captain continued, “but we’re running into trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Fuel.”
My hands tightened at my sides.
“And food.”
The words sat there in the static, heavy and plain.
Callan’s jaw shifted.
“How many people are with you?”
Another pause. Longer this time.
“Just the two of us.”
Callan and I looked at each other.
“Two?” Callan repeated.
“Me… and my boy.” The captain’s voice splintered on the last word. “He’s sixteen.”
Callan ran a hand through his hair and blew out a slow breath.
“How bad are your supplies?”
“A couple of days’ food,” the Captain admitted. “Less if my kid keeps eating like a teenager.”
Despite everything, I let out a quiet breath that might have been a laugh—the smallest human sound.
Callan leaned against the railing beside the radio.
“What’s your plan?”
The captain didn’t answer right away.
When he did, his voice sounded almost deflated.
“Truth? We don’t have one. If we burn the last of the fuel trying to reach another port and there’s nothing there…” He trailed off.
Callan stared out toward the horizon.
I watched him think. Watched him turn something over behind his eyes, the way he always did—quiet, deliberate, already three steps ahead of the words.
Then he keyed the mic.
“Captain.”
“Yes?”
“You said it’s only you and your son.”
“That’s right.”
Callan glanced at me.
I knew that look.
Not a question. A decision already made, looking only for confirmation.
I gave him a small nod. He turned back to the radio.
“The aquarium is secure. Heavy steel doors. Reinforced glass. Generators still running. We’ve spent the last week preserving every scrap of food we could find—freezers are stocked full.”
I stood still, arms crossed, listening to him lay it out piece by piece. Calm. Measured. The way you talk someone down off a ledge.
“There’s also direct access to the marina,” he added. “Deep water berth. Protected from the open coast.”
The radio crackled.
Then the captain said carefully, as if he didn’t trust what he’d heard—
“You offering us somewhere to land?”
“Yes.”
No hesitation. Not even a breath between the question and the answer.
“You can dock here; the Aquarium has a private slip and dock,” Callan said. “We’ll guide you in during high tide tomorrow night.”
Silence filled the channel. Several long seconds where only the static breathed.
When the captain spoke again, his voice had gone rough. Stripped raw.
“You’d do that for two strangers?”
Callan looked out over the dark ocean. The wind pressed against us.
“Right now,” he said, “no one is a stranger; it’s just living and dead.”
Another pause; the captain exhaled—a slow, shaking sound that carried more relief than any words could have.
“Alright,” he said.
“We’ll be ready for you.”
“You might’ve just saved our lives,” the captain whispered.
The signal faded, the static rising to swallow his voice.
“Bay City Aquarium,” he added, barely there now, “we’ll see you tomorrow night.”
Then the static took everything.
Callan set the mic down on the ledge beside the radio.
The rooftop stretched around us, wide and empty.
I looked at him.
“So,” I said. “One captain and a sixteen-year-old.”
He nodded.
“Yeah.”
The wind pushed across the roof again, carrying the smell of salt and cold water and the faintest edge of something I couldn’t name. Something that might have been the future arriving, whether or not we were ready.
“Think we can handle that?” I asked.
Callan stared out toward the black horizon where a boat waited somewhere in the dark. A father and his son. Running out of time.
“Yeah,” he mumbled.
“I think we can.”