by Matt James
My face is forcibly turned, and Jill kisses me really, really har... Oh, sorry, lost my train of thought. Anyways, after five passion-filled seconds, we part, and she pats my dirty face. Again, she doesn’t actually say the words “thank you,” and after our impromptu make-out session, I don’t much care whether she does or not. Her lips, and tongue are all the thanks I need.
“Ready?” I ask, grinning like an idiot.
“It’s not like we have a choice.”
She’s right, and I return my attention to the door and raise my gun. Slowly, I push, opening it inch by careful inch. The world on the other side is void of life, but not of death, as I’ve come to expect. The port side deck is covered in swimsuit wearing patrons.
The decking itself is slick with blood, but because of the angle, and rain, most have since drained away. I carefully step out and look left and right. Not seeing anything moving, I head for the railing and take in our current position.
The first thing I see is that we’re way too high to jump down to what’s left of the pier. Even with it being a smaller cruise ship, it’s still plenty tall, and Jill and I are a good thirty feet off our landing zone.
The other thing I see, and something that gives me hope, is that the lights that line the pier are still working. Sort of. Most are lit, some aren’t. Either way, it wouldn’t be entirely dark down there. Another thing I notice is the carcasses on the beach surrounding the pier are those of sea life…and people. The aura coming off the pier slightly illuminates the sand around it. Within the light, I see shadows—movement.
“Frank, look.”
I look away from the beach and follow Jill’s finger north. There are four sets of ropes and pullies further up the deck. We rush for them and stop, peering over the edge once more. There, in the aura of the ship’s external lights, and smashed against the pier, are two of the four hardtop lifeboats. Even from this high, I can see the bodies within them. One of the smaller boats has been flattened, pinned between the ship’s hull and the heavily fortified pier.
Regrettably, the lifeboat had been caught in a horrible spot as the ship came to a halt. I scan the immediate area and find that the other two getaway vessels are nowhere to be seen. They hopefully got away before the ship careened into the pier. Then again, they’d be no match for what awaited them on the open water.
“Maybe someone made it,” Jill says, looking hopeful.
Instead of answering her with my real belief, I grab ahold of the rope and test it. While plenty strong enough to hold the weight of one man let alone that of a lifeboat full of people, I’m not sure of its current state. The integrity of the pully could’ve easily been compromised during the wreck.
“I’ll go first,” I say, climbing up the rail before Jill can argue.
The metal groans as I scale it, but it holds. The rope and pully seem fine when I put my weight into them. Jill quickly reaches out and steadies the line, squeezing both my hands as she does. I wink and wrap my right foot around the rope, pinning it in place with my left. It’s the same trick I learned in school. If your arms start to give out, you can literally stand in midair by applying pressure to the rope with your feet.
Keeps you from burning the shit out of your hands too.
Releasing some of the pressure with my feet, I slowly begin my descent. Every now and again, I take a look under me to make sure I’m still aligned with the pier. I’m relieved to see that I am, and I look back up to Jill. She’s watching me intently from twenty feet above, a look of concern slathered on her face.
I wink again, which causes her to smile in the dimming light of the setting sun. The time of day was another reason we needed to get off the water. I can think of a lot of terrible things right now, but getting caught on the water with no fuel, all the while getting hunted by God-knows-what below the surface…
The thought makes me shiver.
Worst case, we’d float out to sea before being pulled under by something bigger than our Kraken friend.
Shaking away the vision of an Unseen-Moby Dick chewing on me, I continue my escape, happy to leave the Blood Boat behind. Jill leans out further just as I touch down. I swiftly draw my gun and quickly check the area around me. Satisfied that I’m alone, I wave for Jill to start her descent…but pause, hand in the air.
Reapers are approaching her position from the forward and rear sections of the ship. Some of them are even scaling the boat itself, climbing their way to her on the outside of the vessel. I witness them pierce their bladed arms right into the ordinarily resilient hull—and they do it with ease.
Jill sees it too and practically leaps onto the rope. I quickly snag the bottom of it before it can whip by me. Hopefully, I can give Jill a little bit of an easier climb down.
Damn, I think, looking up.
She’s struggling to wrap her foot ar0und the rope. Then, just as she does, her hands slip, and she kicks out, flailing, dangling thirty feet over the pier. If she falls…
“Hang on!” I shout, cheering her on. “Come on, baby, you can do it!”
“Not! Helping!” Jill yells back.
She screams in frustration but calms down enough to rewrap her foot around the rope. While my climb was controlled and smooth, Jill’s is chaotic and jerky. She slides five feet and screeches to a halt. Over and over again…
I’d probably be doing the same thing if I had a horde of monsters chasing me.
“You’re doing great!” I call out. “Keep doing what you’re doing!”
“My hands!” she cries, her voice catching. “They’re burning!”
Fuck.
While Jill knows what she has to do, her legs aren’t strong enough at the moment to properly aid her arms. Halfway to me, I witness her feet release the wet rope and Jill clutch onto it with a squeeze and a wail of agony.
“Fraaank!”
“I’m here, baby!” I let go of the rope with my right hand and start taking potshots at the fast-moving wave of reapers. “I know it hurts, but you have to keep moving!” The reapers have all turned and started to descend the craft as well, crawling over it like a colony of ants on a toy boat.
“I’m trying!” she screams. She’s angry, but not at me. I know what she’s going through. She’s pissed at herself and the situation.
In between whimpers, she growls and starts up again. Fifteen feet above me, she lets go and falls. Even though I know it’s going to hurt like hell, I don’t move. I brace myself and catch her. In reality, we both crash into the hard pier with me taking the brunt of it. Jill bounces off me and rolls away, clutching her hands to her chest as she does. I’ve had “rope burn” before, but not like what she has right now. Even without inspecting the damage, I know Jill’s hands are in bad shape.
Groaning, I get to my feet, feeling my already bruised ribs ache anew. I can’t even remember what injury in New York caused the pain, but it was probably several different ones.
I pull Jill to her feet and quickly usher her along. Luckily for us, her lower half still works fine. The rest of the pier is listing heavily to the left, but otherwise, it seems sturdy and intact. Florida piers are made to withstand some pretty heavy surf—even hurricane force winds and whatnot. The Lake Worth Pier has even survived a collision with a friggin’ ship!
It makes me proud to be from around these parts. If a pier can survive the apocalypse, then why can’t we?
The thwapping of tentacles makes me think I might have celebrated a little prematurely—both the pier’s survival and our own.
“It’s…back,” Jill moans, still clutching her hands to her chest.
“No,” I say seeing multiple sets of smaller tentacles. “This is something new.” I look behind us just as the first set of reapers step onto the pier.
Well, something else new.
4
We’re forced to slow our escape and carefully tiptoe around a giant hole in the pier. As we skirt around it, I get a good, hard look at the newest of Johnny-come-latelies.
“What the fuck?”
Jill’s potty mouth doesn’t bother me in the least. I was about to say the exact same thing.
At first sight, I think the tentacles belong to more of an oversized octopus, like the one that sunk the cutter. But like in many other instances, I’m dead wrong here. Instead, the cephalopodan appendages act as the legs of a centaur-like human.
The Greek horsemen are described to be half-human and half-horse. And like the mythological centaurs, this Unseen variation is also human on top and animal on the bottom—but not that of a horse...
Some of our new friends have eight legs while others only have three. The one constant between them all is that they move like you’d expect an octopus to move.
And, yet, I’m calling you a squid.
The first, and closest, squid to appear is actually a woman. It’s the first time I’ve seen an Unseen woman that wasn’t a siren. My eyes dart to the mass of reapers and my jaw drops. They’re equally female as well. It just so happens that the ones we encountered on the ship were all male.
I know I shouldn’t be shocked at the revelation, but the last time I encountered a siren, she was ten-times smarter than any of the male goblins. One even tried to rip off my arm while simultaneously trying to eat my face.
Jill’s make-out sessions are sooo much better, by the way.
The squid-lady turns towards us and sneers, but her attention is only directed our way for a short time. One by one, the squids face the swarming reapers. Six in all, the sextet shockingly, and viciously, lash out at their Unseen relatives.
But, these are all newer variations, I remind myself.
While somewhat copasetic in New York, the Floridian Unseen might not be as “friendly” to one another as I’ve come to expect. It may end up being a good thing in the end too. All of these creatures will not have their focus solely on us. We, humanity, aren’t the only things on the menu down here.
That’s the second time I’ve mentioned ‘people’ and ‘menu’ now.
I glance down into the hole in the pier and see that the water lapping ashore is red. Of course, the lights around me are working—lucky me! The one time I’d like to be in the dark, literally and metaphorically, I’m not. There is so much blood between the beach and the ship that the ocean itself has turned red with blood. And no, Moses isn’t here. Jill is on the opposite side of the ruined section of the pier, biting her lip as she’s forced to use her injured hands to steady herself.
The pair of squids that are nearest to the reapers reach out with their tentacles and ensnare one of them each. Most of the reapers are just tossed into the water, but not all of them… While the luckiest of the reapers sail into the rain-filled sky, some are brought in close and gnawed on. Each of the larger creatures go for the jugular snapping their mouths shut, sounding like two pieces of wood slapping together.
With each resounding crack, a reaper either loses their throat or their head entirely. It’s a terrible sight and one I’ve never been happier to see. It seems that the two sects of Unseen view one another as natural enemies, or at the very least, a more dangerous threat than Jill and me.
Probably good that we didn’t join the fray.
If we had, both the squids and reapers could’ve just as easily teamed up against us. Now, they’re fighting over us…
Jill and I finish our trek around the breakage in the pier at the same time and don’t stick around to see which side is victorious in the waging battle royale. I make sure to keep a steadying hand gripped around Jill’s right triceps while we run towards the building sitting at the beginning of the pier.
There are two ways around Benny’s, one to the left, and one to the right. The left side has completely collapsed in on itself, making the right-hand path our only available option right now. Fishing rods are everywhere when we arrive. Casting a line from the pier is something any fisherman should do when visiting—I mean, should have done. Now, all you’ll catch a snapping beak to the throat…
The predatory shrieks are deafening as we push through the chain-link gate to the restaurant-side of the pier. The gate is there because Benny's, or possibly the city, charges people a couple of bucks to go out onto the pier. Lame, I know, but it is what it is.
Ugh.
I sneer when I almost grab the severed hand dangling from the gate. I presume that it wasn’t there before the shit hit the fan. Who knows, maybe it was? I haven’t exactly been to Lake Worth in a while. Some parts of the area were pretty rough…even before the monsters arrived.
A call resembling what I’d imagine a dolphin high on bath salts would sound like resonates around us. I turn around and see a squid being overrun by a group of reapers. Its shouted cries cease shortly after, though. One of the reapers gets in close and slits the squid’s throat with a swift jerk of its arm, quieting the larger Unseen forever.
I almost feel bad for the eyeless creature.
Almost.
It did just unknowingly save us…
Back in Manhattan, every single Unseen monster seemed to have the same overlapping goal. Kill, kill, kill. They’d work together to take down a fresh meal, even if it was just a single victim. Come to think of it, I don’t ever recall seeing a goblin or siren nibble on a corpse of any kind.
Not even the animals that turned.
Dogs, polar bears, oh my!
Seriously, though, I wonder if they can be starved out… Is that what’s happening here? Is this their last resort with so much of their prey dead or gone? Will they eat something besides human?
Too many questions still.
Three of the squids are left, and so are about fifty reapers. While the demented side of me wants to stay and watch the fight, the part that has the most control turns and runs. Jill needs medical attention. We both could use a rest either way—especially with nightfall coming any minute. Right now, it’s dark because of the storm. If, and when, it clears, it’ll be really, really dark on the coast. I’ve been to this beach at night before. You can’t see for shit unless you’re on the pier, which is usually closed at sundown.
Holding up at night was the smartest thing I had done in New York, even though my need to see Jill again burned even hotter. There was no power on the island, making it dark as hell at night. The Unseen have excellent hearing and a bloodhound’s scenting ability. I have to assume that their cousins to the south do too—every new species we end up coming across will.
The outdoor bar is a hellscape. It was a favorite spot for beachgoers to head before, after, or during their time on the sand. While looking for food and water should be a priority, it’s not right now. Jill and I snacked a few hours ago, eating the last of our rations from South Carolina. We found a variety pack of travel-size Doritos and seven bottles of some generic brand water.
With it being so close to the end of the world, I’m not overly worried about the food and water supplies drying up any time soon. Unless people start to hoard it all. I have no problem looting a convenience store it if means surviving a few more weeks. I may be a cop at heart, but the survivor in me is at the helm until I deem everything to be hunky-dory.
Which is to say, never again.
Maybe there are major cities with power? The lit pier gives me hope. But if they do…it’s probably temporary.
As soon as Abaddon fell from the sky, the whole of Manhattan lost power due to an EMP-like effect. It wasn’t a traditional “electromagnetic pulse” since other technological dependent things like cars still worked. I still don’t have a straight answer as to what really happened. Even the military couldn’t come up with anything concrete.
When we pass by Benny’s covered bar area, I notice that one of the tables has three glasses on it. Two are the usual pint-size, but one is small, plastic, and has dolphins on it. A child’s cup. I think that might be the worst part about all of this. Those that were slaughtered weren’t only adults. A lot of them were kids.
Jill heads for the parking lot with me in tow. Luckily for us, the assault on the pier seems to have drawn the attention of every
thing alive in the area. The parking lot appears to be deserted…minus the people that didn’t make it out. I really need to stop being surprised to see them. At this point, it’s more common than seeing anyone walking around while still having their eyes…and souls.
Halfway through the parking lot, a chorus of howls stops us in our tracks. Back-to-back with Jill, we slowly turn in unison, but there’s nothing except more howls. The pack of, whatever they are, is still far off. I recall the fight we had with the Unseen-dogs in Manhattan. They were as savage as their human relatives.
“Frank, look.”
I see it. Further to the west, at the very back of the lot, is a rectangular lump. It sticks out amongst the other, smaller vehicles and in the dying light, I recognize the shape. It’s not quite an RV, but it’s still a good amount bigger than a minivan.
A Winnebago?
“Go,” I say softly.
She nods and heads out, keeping her head down. We’re fifty feet from the vehicle but our path is choked off, and we’re driven to zigzag through a miasma of car wrecks to get there. And like the casino floor, the dead slow us down as much as our roundabout trek.
Still, we’re making okay time.
A bang and a bark stumble me, and I yank Jill low behind a pick-up truck. Motioning for her to stay down, I turn and stand just high to look over the rear bed. There, off to the south is a dog the size of a black bear. At least, I think it’s a dog.
I mean, it’s not like we have wolves here or anything.
Then, another smaller, but still augmented dog, joins its packmate. Then another, and another. How in the hell did they find us with all the blood? A cool breeze hits my back, and I understand. We’re downwind from them.
“Fuck.”
Jill hears my mumbled curse and takes a look for herself. Her eyes say the same thing when she sees them.
Fuck.
I duck back down and slowly continue toward the Winnebago. It’s our best option right now. We need cover regardless of what may or may not be hunting us. There’s no real way to tell whether the pups are, indeed, looking for us or are just here to investigate the carnage on the pier. We might possibly have Lady Luck on our side. The realist in me disagrees, though.
