An old childhood ditty ran through Mildred’s head repeatedly, and she wondered at the capacity for the human mind to try to find distraction at times of distress. It was an old couplet, a song from when she was still an intern. Something that guy Rob who was in her path class used to play in his car all the time. Some kind of long-hair shit when she was listening to Rick James. She hadn’t thought of it in years, except that it made a lot of sense all of a sudden, some piece of junk hidden in the recess of her memory and coming out now that it was appropriate—now that it had some kind of function to fulfill.
Part of her mind was rambling through this, and the other part was that silent scream itself, pain and terror with no outlet as her paralyzed voice could not give vent.
It was the same for all of them. Lying prone and defenseless, they had been unable to do anything to prevent the villagers taking revenge on them whilst preparing them for the fishing expedition. The inhabitants of Ewelltown had clustered around the six poles, using the paring knives to slice through their clothes. Not reducing them to ribbons, but making small cuts and tears, almost with an air of precision. The cuts were designed to break the skin, slicing across the surface to open wide cuts that were shallow, and gently ooze blood in small trickles that began to stain the cut material, soaking into it before starting to leak out.
The cuts were maddeningly painful. Taking the very nerve endings at the surface of the skin, they were sharp and insistent pains that wouldn’t have been disabling, but were halfway between the pain of a deep cut and an itch, doing little more but inspire the desire to scratch—something they were unable to do, leaving them half insane with the insistent torture of the cuts.
While the villagers worked on them, the old man Leroy and the woman Collette, who had been among the villagers bringing in the companions, had gathered together their outer clothes, backpacks and the bag in which J.B. carried their ammo and explosives. They hadn’t bothered to check the contents, not caring what the bags contained. They had another concern.
“Erik, a word,” Leroy murmured, pulling his chief away from the area where the cutting—almost ritual in nature, so calm were the villagers in taking their revenge—was occurring. As the hatchet-faced elder of Ewelltown walked away, anyone stumbling upon the scene would have assumed that another catch was being calmly gutted, so perfunctory was the way in which the cutting was taking place. The companions were obscured to outside view by the crowd clustered around them, their invisibility lending the scene an everyday air.
Leroy said nothing as he led the elder to the collection of outer clothes and bags. “Their things,” he said. “What shall we do with them?”
“Does it matter?”
Collette shrugged. “Not sure. Me ‘n’ Leroy been talking about it. They seemed to come from out of nowhere, and they ain’t part of no convoy that’s trying to get past the desert. But mebbe there are others looking for them, and mebbe those others wouldn’t take too kindly to our chilling them in such a manner—never mind that they took some of ours.”
Erik chewed that over and nodded slowly. “Good point. Guess you’re right about that. We should get rid of them where they can’t be found. Weight them down and dump them overboard after we’ve got rid of these fuckers and the big fish.”
Leroy and Collette assented, and Erik walked back to where the companions were being bloodied for bait.
“They ready yet?” he asked in an almost offhand manner.
One of the villagers turned to him. “Hard to tell when they can’t scream.”
Erik screwed up his face in thought. “Tell you what. Leave them be about now. We don’t want them so far gone that they don’t move about in the water. The more they thrash, the more they’ll churn up that blood smell and attract our little problem.”
The villagers grinned crookedly. “That’ll be good to see.”
Under the direction of the village elder, the villagers stepped back, their knives disappearing as soon as they’d appeared. The companions were left lying on their poles, breathing as heavily as the paralyzing effects of the toxin would allow, still unable to utter any sound.
Twelve of the villagers, two per pole, took hold of them and removed them from the perch, walking down the dock to where a fishing boat lay at anchor. There were several such boats moored around the bay, but this one had been tied up for a specific purpose. There were six lines running from it, made of a thickly woven hemp.
The poles, with their bloody cargo, were dropped roughly onto the dock, and six metal rings were driven into the head of each pole with sledgehammers. The insistent ringing impact of the hammering made the heads of each one of the companions ring, aching until it felt as if each blow was directly into their cortex. Not that the villagers cared. They couldn’t see if it was causing discomfort, and would only welcome it if they knew.
Once this was done, and the rings tested for strength, the ropes from the fishing boat were passed, one through each ring, and securely tied.
Now the boat was ready to cast off. The crew made ready, and within ten minutes had untied the vessel, ready to sail out into the bay, watched by the silent villagers.
The rope payed out as the boat pulled away from the dock, taking up the slack. Each of the companions was aware of this, could see the coil of each rope as it decreased until the lines were pulled tight, and yet none could say a word or move a muscle. All they could do was try to brace themselves for the moment when the ropes would pull tight and the poles would begin to move.
When it happened, it wasn’t a sudden jerk, as might have been expected. Instead, as the boat was still building up a head of sail, the combined weight of the poles stopped them moving suddenly. The ropes stretched and creaked as the momentum of the vessel started to overcome their inertia. Slowly, they began to move, scraping across the dock, banging over the uneven boards, shaking every bone in their bodies. And then they reached the point where there was no wood beneath them.
For one moment each of them seemed to hang in the air, free of the dock but not yet falling. To those villagers watching from on the dock, it seemed to be only a blink of the eye before they fell into the waters of the bay, but for each of the companions as they hung helplessly in the void, it was a moment that stretched forever as they prepared themselves as best as they could for hitting the water below.
There was barely time to tense muscles that moved, ignoring the pain that slithered across their cut skins like a living creature, and to draw a deep breath, filling their lungs as best as possible, before the warmth of the day and the lightness of air was replaced by the cold of the water and the heaviness of the liquid around them. The sudden cold and the hard impact of hitting the surface at speed was almost enough to drive the conserved air from their lungs, allowing the cold water of the bay to seep in. It moved around their bodies, making the cuts neither better nor worse, the pain merely different.
Doc spluttered, losing air and trying to replace it, his body working independently of his brain, drawing water into his lungs that made him cough, the cold fluid in his throat and nostrils. Ryan and J.B. held it together better, losing some air with the impact, but restraining the urge to suck in more when it would only be water.
Krysty and Mildred both felt the strength begin to return to their limbs, feeling seeping back, in some strange way spurred by the sudden shock of cold. They managed to keep most of the air in their lungs, both controlling their respiration, starting to flex and move muscles that were cramped by the sudden cold but nonetheless beginning to respond.
Jak fared best of them all. The albino was wiry and tough, and had spent many years learning the arts of hunting, including the ability to stay immobile, almost without breathing, for hours on end while waiting for his prey to come into view. Right now, that ability to keep breathing contained, and to conserve oxygen, was the most useful. Perhaps because he had absorbed less toxin, plucking the dart quickly from him; or perhaps because his constitution was better able to cope with its effects, Jak was now beginning to regain full use of his muscles and limbs.
The poles didn’t remain under the water for the whole time. They broke surface then dipped again, giving the companions a brief snatch of time in which to gasp in air before the water closed over them once more. The fishing boat began to gather speed as the wind took its sails, and the pilot guided it out of the bay and into the salt waters beyond.
The poles on which the six companions were trussed twisted and turned with the movement of the boat and the flow of the current as the sea met the fresh water of the bay, which in itself was at the mouth of a river. The poles turned in spirals as they bobbed up and down on the surface.
The salt water hit them, increasing as they moved out from the bay, the salt seeping into the cuts, mingling with the blood and irritating nerve ends that were already ragged and sore from the fresh water.
And yet, in some way, the pain galvanized them, made them fight harder. Independently of one another, the same thought went through each of their minds—there was no way that they were going to have come this far to be chilled by a bunch of fish, fish that were now beginning to mill around them. There was no indication that the big game for which they were bait was anywhere near, but in the waters where the salt and fresh mixed uneasily, small schools of other predatory fish were attracted by the trail of blood that mixed in the spume of their wake and floated down into the depths as the waters settled. Following this trail, the small fish were catching up with them, nibbling at their flesh, the sharp pains of razor-teeth contrasting with the irritation of the cuts, the attacks opening up the cuts so that there was a larger trail of blood in their wake. Each of them bucked against the fish, trying to shake them off, but it was almost impossible as they were so securely tied to the poles.
They were saved by the fact that the boat hauled them rapidly out beyond the range of the fresh water, driving the small fish back into their own environment.
As they moved through the water, and the use of their muscles and limbs began to return, they each fought to loosen themselves from their bonds. It was far from easy, as the knots on the ropes securing them were tight and the rope itself was made slick from the water. Fingers with feeling just returning to them were slow, clumsy, and felt twice their usual size.
Jak was the first to free himself. He used his control over his own muscles, and the water swelling the fibers of the rope, to flex and expand the space he took up within the confines of his bonds, forcing the sodden rope to pull tighter against him until it reached the point where it felt as though he had taken the bonds to their limit and they were threatening to cut into his already sore and bloody skin. Then he relaxed, breathed out, and his body became smaller—almost unnoticeably so, but just enough to give him the fraction of an inch he needed to slip one arm free. With this done, there was more space within the bonds for him to move. He was able to free his other arm. From there, it was a relatively easy task to maneuver his body in such a way that he was able to pick at the bonds that bound his legs and feet to the pole, loosening them enough to slip free. Not that this was as simple as it sounded. The boat had picked up pace as it moved into the sea, the winds outside the confines of the bay catching the carefully drawn sails so that the vessel was speeding toward its destination. That meant that the poles in tow were moving at a rapid rate, taking a bruising buffeting from the currents in which they moved.
Once he was free, Jak’s main problem was to keep hold of the pole. The force of the water was such that every twist, turn and bump threatened to throw him off, making it hard for him to make any more progress once he had freed himself.
Ryan and J.B. were also using similar tactics to free themselves. The Armorer struck lucky in that the rope binding him was frayed in one small portion, and the action of the water combined with his attempts to free himself caused it to give way. The rope, its tension now broken, fell away behind him into the water, and the sudden freedom and its subsequent momentum nearly pitched him out behind the pole. He swore heavily to himself and managed to keep a grip, turning himself around so that he was able to grasp the slippery pole and work his way up toward the hook and the length of rope that was holding it to the boat.
Soon, Ryan, J.B. and Jak were in a position where they were able to see one another over the ride of the surf. Looking up at the boat, they could see that the crew was paying little attention to the progress of their captives, They had taken it as an absolute that the six people tied to the poles would be unable to move, and so concentrated their attention on piloting the vessel to the area where their target predators were known to swim.
This gave the companions a chance. It was going to be hard, but it was all they had. Each would have to climb the slippery, flailing rope that linked them to the boat, hoping that they wouldn’t be spotted during their progress—if they were, then they were easy targets—and that they would then be able to overpower the crew. However many may be aboard.
The ropes and poles were close enough for them to be able to see one another clearly, but not enough to exchange words—even in a shout—over the roar of the water.
Krysty and Mildred had also freed themselves in a similar manner, and they could be seen. But there was no sign of Doc. A feeling of unease spread among the five. Ryan, Jak and J.B. indicated with hand signals that they would try to scale the ropes connecting them to the boat. Mildred and Krysty, who were the closest to the pole on which Doc was still secured, signaled their intent to try to free the old man.
It was a close call as to which of the groups had the harder task. The ropes were pulled tight to the boat as they towed the poles, but with the changes in weight as the companions moved off the staves, this tautness may alter. To be thrown from the rope if it bucked too heavily would almost certainly mean buying the farm. That was if the crew didn’t spot them and fire on them.
But Mildred and Krysty had to leap from their own ropes to the one attaching Doc to the boat—in Mildred’s case, that meant crossing two ropes, as she was farther away from Doc than the redhead. Each jump would mean risking falling short and crashing into the sea, with the chance of the poles following behind slamming into her and knocking her unconscious…something that would almost certainly mean buying the farm.
What else could they do? If Doc had come around and was having trouble freeing himself from his bonds, then he needed assistance. Even more so if the toxin had been more effective on him than the others, and he was still paralyzed. The longer he remained at the mercy of the sea, the greater the chances of him breathing in salt water and drowning, the greater the chances of the predators for which they were intended as bait attacking him as they neared the target area.
The thought that Doc may already be nothing more than fish food had crossed the minds of both women, but neither would give it any countenance. They hadn’t come this far to just leave Doc to his fate on the chance that it may already be too late.
Not while there was still hope. It was the same reason that Ryan, Jak and J.B. were risking climbing up to the boat. Not until the last breath had been dragged screaming from their lungs would any of them consider giving in to fate.
Krysty and Mildred exchanged glances, and the physician gave the briefest of nods. Her companion nodded back and turned to face the rope and pole carrying Doc. It was moving at speed, and also veering from left to right in an erratic pattern dictated by the currents it crossed. Kirsty pulled herself up to the top of her own pole, wrapping the rope around her hand to anchor herself as she tried to gain a foothold on the slippery wood, hauling herself up from a lying position until she was on one knee, then planting her feet on the wood. Her muscles protested at the strain of keeping balance and adjusting to an uncomfortable crouch as she settled into a stance where she had both feet on the pole, and could still keep her hand secured.
Her sentient hair, sensing that this was a moment of triple-red danger, was gathered close to her scalp, wrapping its tendrils so protectively around her neck that she felt as though it might inadvertently choke her. She ignored it and watched as her intended target swam in and out of range. She was trying to judge the rhythm of its movement, to gauge the best moment for a leap from pole to pole. But the pole moved erratically and she’d just have to rely on blind instinct.
She unwrapped her hand from the rope, so that only her balance was keeping her on the pole, and tried to clear her mind completely. She remembered those far-off days when she was a child, growing up in Harmony. Mother Sonja and Uncle Tyas McCann, the two people who had meant more to her than the world then, had always told her that the power of Gaia ran through her, and that even if she didn’t call upon it, all she had to do was trust in it. The Earth Mother would guide her.
Mildred would have called it following your gut, and watching Krysty from behind, she could see the change come over her as the Titian-haired woman let her instincts flow. From a tentative crouch, she seemed to suddenly grow more fluid and graceful, body tensing lightly before she leaped into space.
Krysty herself hardly knew that she had jumped, only that she had blanked her mind and let her body take over. Suddenly she was sailing through the air between the two poles, feeling the splashes of surf against her exposed skin, the salt tingling in her still open cuts.
She hit the pole heavily, the wood thudding into her rib cage as she wrapped her arms around the pole, the air driven from her stomach and lungs by the sudden impact, the wood coming at her with a sudden force as it changed direction in the current. She could feel it under her; she had made it. But little else registered for a moment as she fought to get the air back into her lungs, gasping heavily and coughing as some salt water went down her throat. She was aware of something softer than the wood beneath her legs, and realized that she had partly landed on Doc.
Even in the middle of the surf, clinging for grim life to the pole, it occurred to her that it would be ironic if she’d tried to save him and only broken his neck on her landing.
No time to think about it. Taking air deep into her lungs, feeling the oxygen pump into her brain, she moved up, using the ring driven into the top of the pole as a handhold while she maneuvered. She wanted to get a better look at Doc before she started trying to free him, and also leave room for Mildred to make her way across.
“Lord, if I get out of this, remind me to try to find somewhere to lead a nice quiet life…” Mildred muttered to herself as she saw Krysty land. Now it was her turn to make the first leap onto Krysty’s now empty pole.
Problem was, the lack of weight meant that the damn thing was waving around with an even wilder arc in the crosscurrents behind the boat.
Mildred blew air out and shook her head, took a deep breath and just jumped.
The pole moved toward her as she was in midair. It was like slow motion, as though time had slowed to allow her to see everything clearly everything like the piece of wood being caught in another swell and being whipped away from the arc of her trajectory, leaving her with only water to fall into.
She snaked out an arm without thinking about it, and her hand closed around the rope securing the pole to the boat. As she hit the water, the weight and momentum dragged her hand down the rope, the burn making her yell and take in a mouthful of salt water. Coughing and spluttering, ignoring the burning in her chest and the burning on her hand, she flung out her other arm and got a stronger grip, hauling herself toward the empty pole, which she clung to with a sense of relief.
Dammit, this was only the first jump; she still had to reach Doc and Krysty.
Looking across as she steadied herself, she could see that Krysty had started to check the old man for signs of life, and also try to free him from his bonds. There was little time for her to waste. She shot a glance toward the boat: so far they had been lucky. No one on the deck had given them a second glance while the vessel was moving into the target area waters, but sooner or later they were duty-bound to check the bait. What would they say when they saw Ryan, Jak and J.B. inching their way up the ropes toward the back of the vessel, ignoring the buffeting of the sea and staying focused only on their progress?
Shit, if they were making progress—and they were just over halfway to the stern of the boat—then she sure as hell should move herself.
Mildred steadied herself and made ready to jump again. This one may prove a little easier, as the extra weight Krysty’s presence had brought to Doc’s pole meant that it was no longer moving so wildly and erratically in the water. It was reacting less to the current, and the arc of movement was smaller. There was a good chance that she could make this jump with ease.
Mildred blinked twice, didn’t think and jumped. She aimed for the very top of the pole, hoping to catch the metal ring for a handhold. She’d managed to judge that right, and she wrapped her fingers around the metal, feeling the wrench on her shoulder as her momentum tried to carry her past the pole and into the churning sea beyond. For, at the last, she had overestimated the movement of the pole in the water, and her jump had almost taken her past it.
Cursing incomprehensibly, she flailed with her free hand to gain another hold and felt fingers like iron clamp around her flailing forearm, hauling her onto the pole where she nestled up against Doc. Looking up, she could see that Krysty’s eyes were glowing with a strength that she was drawing from something other than herself. It wasn’t the power of Gaia that Mildred had seen her draw on in the past, with devastating effect both to her opponents and herself, but rather it seemed to be some kind of reserve within herself.
Hell, I must have some of that somewhere down inside myself, Mildred thought, her resolve hardening. If she needed any other encouragement, the sight of Doc gave it to her. The old man was deathly pale, his skin almost whiter than his mane of hair that was plastered to his skull. His eyes were open, but were staring without focus, the whites only showing as they rolled up into his head, seeing only some vision that was within and nothing of the outside world.
First they had to get Doc free, then they had to bring him around enough to climb up to the boat under his own steam. The first would be relatively easy, even though she and Krysty had nothing but their broken-nailed and bleeding fingers with which to unpick the salt-swollen, slippery knots. It was the second that may prove to impossible, for once Doc was gone, there was no knowing when he would come back…or even if, for every time might be the last.
Without speaking, the two women worked on the old man’s bonds as he lay against the pole, moaning and muttering to himself, lost in some strange world of his own imaginings. They picked at the knots, sometimes only with one hand each as they gripped the pole and those lines still secured to protect themselves from the buffeting of the ways. It was an irony that their being on the pole made it easier to work on the knots. The drag of the extra weight on this pole had significantly cut down on the amount of movement in the water.
Dark shapes moved through the water around the poles, large enough for their wake to cut across the wake of the boat and cause another crosscurrent. As Mildred looked up, one of the shapes broke surface briefly, tiny cold eyes and rows of razor-sharp teeth showing in a wide mouth, tiny specks of foam covering the blunted snout.
It was like no shark she could ever remember seeing in the years before the nukecaust: larger, maybe thirty to forty feet in length, and about half that in width and breadth. It was bulkier, less streamlined. It probably ate enough sea life to feed an average ville every day; they had to find an area, strip it of its marine life, then move on. No wonder the fishing village had been desperate, their stock depleted by this beast, and… She tried to count the shapes as they moved around the boat and the poles, scenting the blood. She reckoned on at least a dozen, perhaps as many as twenty. They moved so fast it was impossible to tell.
All she knew now was that they had to redouble their efforts and get themselves—and Doc—out of the ocean. If the sharks didn’t get them, then the villagers would. They were the intended prey of these beasts. How long before the crew took a look over the stern of the boat to see if the sharks had taken their bait, only to find the bait was biting back?
While Mildred and Krysty worked at Doc’s bonds, Ryan, Jak and J.B. were slowly inching their way toward the boat’s stern. They concentrated on going hand-over-hand, palms raw. Each movement was like white-hot needles into their palms as their body weight pulled them toward the water. For Ryan, as the heaviest, it was the worst, but the one-eyed man gritted, biting his cheek until he could taste the same blood in his mouth that ran down to his wrists.
The ropes swung wildly as the lightened poles were tossed around freely in the crosscurrents behind the boat, threatening with each move to throw the companions off and into the water if their grip slackened for a moment. They hung beneath the ropes, moving hand-over-hand with their ankles wrapped around the rope to secure them, the rope burning their already raw ankles and calves as they moved upward.
Their progress seemed interminably slow, but was fast enough for them to each be at least halfway up to the stern when the sharks began to circle the boat. Ryan caught sight of one of the dark, massive shapes from the corner of his eye as he weathered a sudden tug and swing at the rope. He cursed, as he knew that it would bring the crew to the side of the boat, and all three of them were currently in a vulnerable position. He couldn’t get a good look at the other two—wouldn’t want to, as to twist his body to try to catch sight of them would be to risk losing his own grip or impede his own progress—but figured that they wouldn’t be that much ahead of him, if at all.
In fact, Jak was making rapid progress. The albino hunter had focused the immense strength of his will into ascending the rope with the minimum of effort and the maximum of speed. Ignoring the pain from his hands and calves, and concentrating instead on breathing steadily, timing each movement of his hands and legs to work to the rhythm of his breathing, he was moving toward the mooring of the rope on the rail running around the vessel’s stern. He didn’t look up, neither did he look down. It didn’t matter, he could do nothing to affect what may go on above or below. All he could do was get up that rope and leave the rest to fate.
On the deck of the boat, the eight-man crew that had been chosen by Erik to pilot and man the vessel on its journey was relaxing before it had to tackle its enemy. Two women—one of them Collette, who had been in the hunting party—and six men were on board. They were at the prow, armed with remade Heckler & Koch MP-5s, flare guns and scavenged air-pressure harpoons. They had no idea if the SMGs would be any use against the creatures, knew that the flares would be explosively effective if they hit at close range, and trusted their fisher skills to use the harpoons when the creatures came in range.
They were watching the waters ahead, apprehension churning in their guts. They were hunter-gatherers, not warriors, and a predator like the school of sharks that had devastated their fishing stocks was an enemy that they had no experience tackling. All were hoping that the bait they dragged in their wake would attract the school, and as they saw the dark shapes move in the water, and start to cluster at the wake of the boat’s backwash, they snapped out of their relaxation and primed their weapons.
The companions’ belongings and blasters, weighted and ready to be dumped overboard as per the orders of Erik, sat neglected in the corner. There had been too much to consider on the way out. In much the same way, the crew hadn’t thought to check what was happening to the bait they trailed behind them. If they gave it any thought at all, it was merely to wonder if they would still be alive when the predators came in to take them. If they were, then their thrashing in the waters would stir up the bloodlust of the school and attract them all to the one area for a cleaner chill from the fishermen. And besides, to still be alive when the sharks began to eat them would be a suitable fate for those who had chilled people from their village so mercilessly.
So when they saw the school of predators approach and begin to circle the vessel, when they had primed their weapons, when they had steeled themselves for the battle, when they turned to the stern of the vessel…
When they did all of these things, the last sight they expected to greet them was the wraithlike vision of Jak Lauren, dripping wet, hair clinging to his skull in tendrils, white scarred skin covered in a film of blood from still open wounds, blood that also stained his clothes and trickled down his arms and over his hands, which hung free at his sides. He was breathing heavily but steadily, and stood slightly forward, resting on the balls of his feet, poised to spring. His eyes blazed like malevolent hot coals, boring into those who faced him, the fury in them making them flinch.
He was one against eight, and unarmed, but he had surprise on his side. And he had the ice-cold heart of vengeance. They might try to chill him, but all he had to do was hold them until Ryan and J.B. reached the stern, as he was sure they would.
For a second, nothing happened. Jak faced the eight-strong crew and they were too stunned to react. If Jak could make his first move count, then he would have the initiative.
Like an unholy avenging angel, Jak sprang forward into the midst of the crew. Fortunately for him, they had been clustered together in the center of the deck, about to allocate sections of rail from which to fire. He took advantage of that, knowing that as long as they were in a cluster, he could take down more than one with a single impact.
Jak was small, but strong. He got a lot of lift from his leg muscles, and his momentum over the short distance was enough to send the eight-man crew flying in all directions. Blasters and harpoons scattered across the deck as the unprepared fishermen found themselves in the middle of a whirlwind. Although he had no weapons—his knives were in his jacket, along with his Colt Python—he had his hands and feet. Despite the cuts and ragged rawness of his flesh, he was still wearing his combat boots, and his fingers and palms were hard ridges of muscle, sinew and skin that had been honed over years of fighting and hunting. Ally that to the intense anger and red mist of hate that he felt for the people who had treated himself and his friends in such a manner, and it was little contest.
Outnumbered, he first struck out at those who were still armed—two men with flare guns. One of them brought his weapon up to fire directly into Jak’s face, but found his arm snapped as the albino youth gripped his wrist like an iron band and twisted it back. He yelled a high-pitched scream of shock more than pain, and before the note had left his open mouth he found himself pitched into the other flare holder. A woman of about forty, she had the flare gun grasped in both hands and aimed at Jak. When she squeezed the trigger, Jak swung his first opponent around so that his body was between them. The flare exploded with a dull, loud “whump,” splattering the ribs and waist of the fisherman as it hit him. He made no sound this time, as he had no lungs left from which to expel air. The woman slumped to the deck, in shock over the fact that she had just chilled one of her own.
But this was no time for reflection.
Jak was already on to his next target: Collette, whom he recognized from the woodlands, was bending to retrieve an MP-5 that lay on the deck, where it had fallen in the confusion. Jak noticed that she was still wearing that stupe bullet belt across her chest. He noticed this as he took a flying kick at her, the sole of his combat boot crunching into the side of her head, knocking her jaw and temple toward an acute angle. She grunted, feeling her vertebrae shatter at the base of her neck as they failed to take the strain of being twisted with such sudden violence. She felt little more as the lights dimmed on her world, the MP-5 clattering to the deck once more from her nerveless fingers.
Two down, one out of action…but the other five had scattered across the deck, leaving him vulnerable whichever option he chose to take.
Or perhaps not. Without registering it on his always impassive face, Jak noted that Ryan and J.B. had reached the rail and were hauling themselves over. As the five crew members were facing him, they hadn’t spotted the companions. Jak launched himself off to the left, to tackle a fat man with a harpoon gun. This took their attention away from the section of the stern where Ryan and J.B. had arrived.
Jak didn’t see what happened next. He relied on his friends to get it right while he took on his man. Like a stupe, the fisherman waved the harpoon gun as though he wanted to use it like a club. Perhaps, in the back of his mind, he wanted to save the harpoon for their original target, not realizing that he would never get the chance to use it this way unless he dealt with Jak.
The albino teen stepped in toward the man, ducking under his swing with ease. The movement left the fisherman’s torso open and undefended. It was almost too easy as Jak hit him in the chest with the heel of his hand, shocking the heart. The fisherman gasped for breath, trying to suck air into lungs that didn’t want to work. It distracted him some more and left him open to a blow to the throat, straight fingers, hard like rock, that caved in the cartilage around his windpipe and made a mess of the artery and veins that fed his brain.
While he attended to his prey, Jak also drew the attention of the other crew members. There were four in all, ranged in a semicircle around the middle of the deck. Jak had deliberately chosen the one isolated man to attack because of his position. If the fishermen had been fighters, they may have questioned this strange tactic… But they had little combat experience and didn’t think to look at the deck to their rear.
With a quick exchange of glances, Ryan and J.B. divided the four into pairs, electing which two to take out. Both were exhausted, but they were driven by adrenaline and the will to survive.
As the crew members prepared to fire on Jak with MP-5’s and harpoon guns, they hesitated, not wanting to risk taking out their own man. It was a hesitation that was to cost them dearly. Ryan and J.B. both attacked at the same moment, choosing to tackle a crew member wielding an MP-5. Neither man expected the attack, and as they were grabbed around their throats, the blasters were jerked up into the air, the chattering of blaster fire audible over the roar of the ocean.
Both J.B. and Ryan used the men they were tackling as shields, turning so that their immediate opponents formed a barrier between themselves and the two free crew members. As they choked the life from their struggling, flailing opponents, they made sure that the free men—one of whom carried a harpoon, the other an MP-5—couldn’t get a clear shot at them. As his opponent began to lose consciousness, becoming more of a deadweight, Ryan felt him slump into him, and he reached around to take the SMG as it began to slip from his grasp. Before his human shield had a chance to completely fall free, Ryan already had the SMG raised and rattled off a burst before the crew member opposite him had a chance to open fire. The one-eyed warrior’s burst stitched a ragged, bloody line across the crewman’s torso, running from his waist up to his neck, which exploded in a gout of blood where the carotid artery was ripped open. The crewman staggered back to the rail, where he teetered unfeelingly for a moment before pitching over the side and into the ocean.
J.B. had almost throttled the life from his opponent, and as the crewman dropped, the MP-5 fell to one side, leaving J.B. exposed if he wished to drop the unconscious man and grab the SMG. The Armorer knew he couldn’t safely get the blaster if he kept hold of his shield, and it seemed as though the man opposite knew this, grinning with relish as he raised his harpoon gun and waited for J.B. to make his move. The grin suddenly turned into an expression of mute astonishment. He looked down at his side and noticed that the end of a harpoon was sticking out from just beneath his armpit. He turned his gaze back to J.B. with something approaching bemusement before falling sideways to the deck. The Armorer looked over and saw Jak holding the harpoon gun he had taken from his own opponent.
But there was no time for thanks. They had taken out the crew, but Mildred, Krysty and Doc were still in the water, and the predatory sharks were closing in…
Ryan was at the stern rail. He could see that the women had Doc free of his bonds, but the old man was still barely conscious, and it was all they could do to keep him on the rope. There was no way that they could get him up by themselves, and time was running short: the sharks were sniffing around, getting closer with every passing moment.
Except for a few that were clustered around a foaming pool of water some 150 yards back…
Of course—Ryan realized what had happened. Some of the predators had latched onto the crewman who had pitched over the side, and they were too preoccupied with his corpse to bother with Mildred, Krysty and Doc.
“Grab the crew,” he yelled over the sound of the ocean. “Look…”
J.B. and Jak both followed the direction of Ryan’s arm and could see the frothing, bloody pool in the middle of the sea. They knew immediately what he meant, and moved to gather the chilled crewmen. Taking them one at a time and swinging the bodies so that they sailed over the rail and into the sea, they worked their way through the seven chilled.
The eighth member was the woman who had chilled one of her own with a flare gun; it still sat uselessly in her hand as she sat staring into space. Ryan went across to her, crouched in front and took the flare gun from her unresisting grip. He said nothing; he could see that she was a million miles away. He couldn’t throw her to the sharks when she was alive, in spite of the fact it was what she and her fellow crew members had been doing to the companions. She was no threat now; they would wait and deal with her later.
There were more important matters to attend to: with the seven corpses now in the sea, the blood and meat was attracting the predators away from where Mildred, Krysty and Doc were huddled on the pole. Ryan leaned over the stern as far as he dared and yelled down at them.
“Hang on, we’re gonna pull you up,” he yelled.
As they looked up, Mildred and Krysty wondered how the hell the three exhausted men were going to haul up three people and a wooden pole. They were still wondering when Ryan disappeared from view. At least the sharks had gone for the moment. The bait of the chilled fishermen had worked, and sections of the sea were now frothing pools of blood, salt water and entrails.
Back on deck, Ryan and J.B. had located where the ropes for the trailing poles were tied. They were knotted through metal loops at the base of a sail mast.
“Jak, think we can do this?” Ryan asked, indicating the individual loops.
The albino youth grinned. “Not get up any other way.”
But all three of them knew that it wouldn’t be easy, and they had little time before the predators finished with the corpses tossed to them, and came in search of more meat.
The first step was to untie the rope attached to the pole with Mildred, Krysty and Doc. As this was also the heaviest, it was the most risky to handle. But there was no other way. Ryan and J.B. took as much slack as they could and braced themselves while Jak unpicked the reef knot tying the rope to the loop. He yelled when the knot was loose, and the two men strained every muscle to try to keep the rope stable as Jak fed it from the loop, then played the slack around the sail mast before reknotting it to one of the other ropes.
“Done,” he yelled when he was finished.
Ryan and J.B. tentatively let loose the rope, testing if it would hold steady. It did.
Then, while they kept a wary hand on the rope, Jak untied from its loops the rope to another three of the poles, attaching them also to the one rope. There were now four poles attached to one that was still looped. One of these poles—the occupied and heaviest—was wound around the mast.
There was one independent rope, and as Jak took it and attached it to the others, the ropes began to groan.
None of them had been sure if this would work in theory, let alone in practice. If it went wrong, they would lose their three companions to the ocean…and the predators who were lurking in the depths.
Jak looked up at Ryan and J.B., who were still keeping a wary hand on the rope attached to the pole with Doc, Krysty and Mildred. Their silence bade him to continue. Jak began to unpick the knot that kept the final pole—the one to which all the others were now attached—secured.
Ryan and J.B. tensed as they felt the shift in weight on the rope, and then released their grip as they felt the rope begin to move between their palms.
It was a slow movement at first, but began to pick up impetus as the ratio of the weights shifted. And it was movement in the right direction.
The idea had been simple. The weight of the unoccupied poles, if left free and unattached, would drag the occupied pole up onto the deck using the mast as a pivot. The unknown variable had been this: did the weight of five unoccupied poles add up to more than the single pole with three occupants? If it hadn’t, then the operation would have worked in reverse and they would have lost their friends to the sea.
But now, as Mildred and Krysty, clinging to Doc, found themselves being hauled upward, there were other problems for the three men on deck. As the momentum of the pole increased, it would be whipped across the deck and around the mast, and would cause considerable damage to the vessel on the way—damage they couldn’t afford, as the vessel was their only way of attaining land.
Ryan—who had located their belongings—had found his panga, and stood ready. “Climb! Hand up, Doc,” he yelled as they closed on the boat. Hurriedly, J.B. and Jak reached over the side and helped drag the old man, now coming around and able to assist a little in his own rescue, up onto deck. As Mildred and Krysty made to leap aboard, they were aware that the pole, suddenly decreasing in weight and leaping incrementally in momentum, was ready to unleash itself like a coiled spring.
Ryan was ready to slash at the taut rope with his panga, his eyes fixed on Mildred and Krysty. He yelled at them, “Now!”
As they leaped, he brought the sharp blade down in a slashing motion at the rope, hoping he could cut it that fraction of a second before the pole crested the rail and whipped across the deck.
He had no idea if he had succeeded. The end of the rope jumped up violently and caught him across the face, driving him backward across the deck in a mist of blinding red pain. He felt his head crack against the deck, and then nothing.
When he came around, he was aware that Krysty was leaning over him.
“Hey, lover, you should learn to duck,” she said softly.
Ryan winced as he moved his head. His skull felt as though it were made of crystal, ringing and ready to shatter at the first opportunity. “What’s happening?” he asked in a hushed voice.
“We’re heading toward the swamps. There’s hardly any food and water aboard. Guess they weren’t planning to be out that long, and we can’t go back that way, can we? Jak figures we’re near where we first found him, so mebbe we’ll land, get our bearings, see if we can find the people he left behind. Mebbe they got together the kind of ville they were looking for. Leastways, at least we know there’s a redoubt near there where we can jump.”
Ryan grinned. “Seems like you got it all worked out.”
A worried frown creased Krysty’s brow. “It’s not us I’m worried about. It’s really hard to catch the wind to take us the right way—too many changes out there. I’m worried we’re sailing into a storm, and it’s gonna take us way off course.”
“What about our guest?”
Krysty looked puzzled. “What about her? She’s a bit more coherent than she was. Shit scared we’ll chill her like the others, even though I’ve told her we would have done that already if it was our intent, but—”
“She was on crew, right?” Ryan interrupted. “She must know these waters. Mebbe she could help.”
“Why should she?”
“Because if she doesn’t, she’s liable to get chilled, as well,” Ryan answered simply. He groaned as he got to his feet. “Now where the hell is she?”
Krysty took him over to where the woman was sitting on the deck, huddled against the mast, looking sullen and withdrawn.
“Lady, I haven’t got time to fuck about with niceties,” Ryan said simply, squatting before her. “We’re all in shit unless you help. If you do, then we’ll let you go when we reach land. If not, then you’ll probably buy the farm with us because we’re not sailors. Can’t be plainer than that. Do we have a deal?”
The woman hadn’t been looking at Ryan as he spoke; she had been too concerned with the skies, which were glowering with low and ominous cloud banks, moving swiftly in the winds. She was also aware of the increasing pitch and yawl of the boat.
She looked Ryan in the eye, as if trying to see if there was any indication of truth or lies in that ice-blue orb. Finally she spoke.
“Guess I would be fishbait by now. Guess I may be if you’re really that shit at sea. Where you heading?”
“The swamps,” Ryan stated, opting to be straight with her.
She snorted. “Never do it unless I help. Storm’s blowing up, and it’ll drive northwest when you want to go south.”
“Then, lady, you’d better get off your ass and help right now,” Ryan said softly.
“Mebbe I will. Least I’ll stay alive a little longer, if nothing else…”