by Jake Bible
“Way to sugar coat it, D,” Shane said.
They turned to their right and headed for the Zodiac that was left all alone a few feet up from the high tide line on the beach. All of the croanderthals were occupied dealing with Darby and Thorne or running and scrambling from the giant dinosaur that was even busier making snacks out of them.
“Lucy? Answer me,” Shane snapped as Lucy’s head lulled against his cheek. “Lucy!”
“What?” she grumbled in a sleepy voice. “Stop yelling at me. Too loud.”
“Tell me some dick jokes,” Darren said.
“Really?” Shane responded.
“Whatever it takes,” Darren snapped.
“Fine,” Shane said. “Hey, Lucy? Remember how fun it was to mock my penis? You got anymore good ones you’ve been saving up?”
“I have good ones,” Lucy replied quietly. “Which is more than you can say, little balls.”
“Okay, now we are going after all of my genitalia,” Shane said. “Awesome.”
“What’s two inches and grows to six inches when you stroke it?” Lucy asked, smiling a crooked smile.
“I don’t know, Luce, what is two inches and grows to six inches when you stroke it?” Shane asked.
“Yeah, you’d have to ask,” Lucy said. “Because you’ve never made it passed the two inches.”
“That was awful,” Darren said, laughing. “Tell another one.”
“How many dicks does it take Shane to screw a chick?” Lucy asked.
“How many dicks does it take?” Shane asked as they progressively got closer to the Zodiac.
“One,” Lucy said. “Just one. Which is more than you have.”
“I should let her die,” Shane said. “No one should have to suffer jokes this lame.”
“I’m dying, asshole,” Lucy whispered. “Fuck off.”
They got her into the raft and eased her to the bottom then Darren turned to wave the others over.
“Fuck,” he said.
Shane looked up and saw Thorne and Darby surrounded by croanderthals while Max and Mike were busy trying to draw off as many as possible further down the beach so the shooters on the B3 could pick them off.
“We can’t wait,” Darren said and looked at Shane.
“Go,” Shane said. “You’re a better sailor. You’ll get her on board faster than me.”
Darren handed him a knife and a 9mm.
“Kill ‘em all,” Darren said as he started shoving the Zodiac towards the surf.
“That’s the plan,” Shane said. He turned and looked at the brutal chaos. “Hey, Uncle Vinny! Got room for one more?”
Shane started to run towards a group of croanderthals, but they all spun around and fled. He thought it was because of them then realized the mutant T-Rex was moving fast in their direction.
“Oh, fuck,” Shane said as he realized it was coming at him as well. He turned and took off after Darren and the Zodiac. “D! Hold up!”
***
Ballantine pulled his eye away from the rifle scope and looked over his shoulder as he heard voices coming up from the main hatchway. He ignored the look he received from Dana and focused on the person that was last to step through the hatchway.
“Carlos, we need that cannon, now!” Ballantine shouted. “I also need you to focus the beam so it can hit a specific target on that beach!”
“You what?” Carlos snapped then he looked at who was standing at the railing. His eyes went past Kinsey and fixed on Ingrid. “Why does she have a rifle? She can’t shoot!”
“The hell she can’t!” Kinsey snapped without looking away from her scope. “The girl has a gift! Looks like we have another shooter on this ship!”
“I may assign her to Team Grendel,” Ballantine said. “If you don’t hurry your ass down there and bring up the cannon right this damned second!”
“If it is heavy then I will gladly help carry it,” Ronald said.
“Yeah, it’s heavy,” Carlos snapped as he turned on his heel and headed back through the hatchway, uttering various curses and insults in a muffled voice.
“I shall return,” Ronald said to Gunnar. “Please watch over Dana for me. She is not to be trusted, unfortunately.”
“You got that right,” Ballantine said, returning to his scope and squeezing the trigger twice before looking back at Gunnar. “Gut her if you have to.”
“What the hell?” Gunnar mumbled. “Your relationships need work, Ballantine.”
Ballantine only laughed and went back to sniping.
“There is nothing to be done for him,” Dana said. She glanced over at her ship and her eyes widened. “Oh my god…”
Blood coated every inch of the upper deck. There were quiet moans and some cries for help. Those stopped quickly as the Harris-Logan thing went from survivor to survivor and crushed their skulls, sending spurts of blood shooting up into the sea air. It looked over at the B3 and roared then grabbed a railing and swung itself up onto the platform outside the bridge.
“What is that?” Dana asked.
“Dr. Timothy Harris,” Ballantine responded without stopping his firing. “You remember Timothy, don’t you? That kid that kept calling when we lived in Boston? You said he was bordering on being creepy. I think he stepped over the border.”
“Everything you touch…” Dana let the words hang there and then just folded onto the deck, her butt hitting the hot metal with an unceremonious whump.
Gunnar held his knife to his side and watched her closely.
***
A jagged hunk of rock tore into Thorne’s side and he fell to a knee in severe pain. Darby grabbed him under the armpit and yanked him back up.
“No quitting!” Darby shouted, using her rifle butt to shatter the croanderthal’s skull that attacked Thorne. “Fight, goddammit!”
“I am,” Thorne said, gasping as the wound in his side stretched and blood squirted out. “I got this.”
Darby let him go and blocked an attack from another croanderthal. The thing tried to sweep her legs, but she perfectly timed a stomp and snapped his leg off at the knee. The creature screamed then shut up as Darby crushed his face with her rifle.
A hard blow to the back of her head sent her reeling and she stumbled into a pack of four croanderthals who immediately began to pummel her. At least until one of them was snatched up in the jaws of the giant T-rex that wasn’t really a T-rex. The other croanderthals scattered and fled, leaving Darby on her knees, blood pouring from a gash across her left eyebrow and her right ear swelling to an unsafe size.
“Hey!” Max yelled just as the mutant T-rex gulped down another croanderthal and started to turn its attention on Darby. “Hey, you scaly fucker! Over here!”
The beast whipped its head about and roared at Max.
“Shit,” Max said as he took a couple of steps back. “I don’t think it liked being called a scaly fucker.”
The monster faced Max and then began to run full on towards the Reynolds brother.
“Go!” Mike yelled, yanking at Max’s arm. “Come on!”
“I guess that distraction worked,” Max said, huffing and puffing as he and Mike sprinted across the sand. “Too bad it’s going to get me killed.”
“It’s going to get the both of us killed,” Mike said. “Dickhead.”
“The thing wanted to munch on my lady and I’m the only one that gets to munch on my lady,” Max said.
“Jesus, if that’s the last image I have in my head before I die, I am so going to haunt you in the afterlife,” Mike shouted.
***
Thorne watched the beast take off after Mike and his nephew. He knew there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. There wasn’t a damn thing he could do about much considering he was surrounded by croanderthals. They encircled him and Darby, their wide brows glowering, their razor sharp teeth on full display.
“What the fucking point is there to any of you?” Thorne snarled. “Bunch of fucking savages jerking off on some deserted island.”
&n
bsp; “Not deserted,” the Liu croanderthal said as she stepped from the circle to face Thorne. “We here. We live. No desert.”
Darby took a swing at the woman thing, but her blow was blocked and she was sent falling back against the legs of those that had her and Thorne surrounded. Rough, gnarled hands picked her up and shoved her back in the center.
“What do you want?” Thorne asked. His shoulders were slumped and his chest heaved up and down as he tried to catch his breath. “Just tell me what you want.”
“I tell you,” the Liu thing said. “Leader want Ballantine. Me break Ballantine.”
“He’s never going to set foot on this beach,” Darby said. “He’ll let us die first.”
She said it with some venom that the Liu croanderthal couldn’t help but smile at. It was a nasty smile. All teeth and blood.
“You hate Ballantine,” the Liu croanderthal said. “You hate like leader me hate.”
“I hate like Darby me hate,” Darby said. “No one else hates like Darby me hates.”
“Can we not talk like them, please?” Thorne said. “Have some dignity before we die.”
Before Darby could respond, the Liu croanderthal grabbed Darby by the throat and lifted her off the sand. It carried the woman out of the circle and towards the surf, shaking her like she was made of nothing.
“BALLANTINE!” the Liu Croanderthal shouted. “I have friend! I have her! I kill! You come or I kill!”
There was a far-off voice and the Liu croanderthal frowned.
“I no hear!” she yelled.
Then her face exploded and the back of her head opened wide sending croanderthal brains splattering against the mutants that stood and watched. The headless corpse stood there for a second, its grip still strong on Darby’s throat, then it toppled over and Darby cried out as she gasped for breath.
Thorne pushed himself to the ground, nearly burying his body in the sand as shots rang out over and over again.
In seconds it was over and as he lifted his head, all he could see were croanderthal corpses piled up three high.
“Darby?” he called, spitting sand.
“Yeah,” Darby replied, her voice a harsh croak.
“You gonna live?” Thorne asked.
“Yeah,” Darby replied.
“Good,” Thorne said.
He began to relax, but a roar down the beach forced him to push up onto his knees so he could see past the piles of corpses.
“Dammit,” he said as he watched the mutant T-rex chase Max and Mike.
***
The Zodiac was winched into place and Darren and Shane both stared at who greeted them from the railing.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m alive,” Popeye said. “Get over it.”
“Okay,” Darren said cautiously. “Where’s Gunnar?”
“Here,” Gunnar said and hurried over to the raft. “What do you need? Are you wounded?”
“Lucy,” Shane said as he helped Darren get her out of the raft.
“Again?” Gunnar snapped. “Okay, no more trips to islands for this girl. Jesus Christ.”
He checked her pulse and frowned.
“Let’s get her to the infirmary now!” Gunnar yelled. “And I need O negative blood ASAP, so get ready to donate, people!”
They carried Lucy’s limp body past Kinsey, Ingrid, and Ballantine, who were lowering their rifles and taking deep breaths.
“Good shooting,” Darren said to Ballantine then looked at Kinsey. “You too, ‘Sey.”
“Ingrid was the superstar, ‘Ren,” Kinsey replied. “She deserves most of the credit.”
“Does she?” Shane asked. “Good to know.”
A roar from the beach made everyone pause.
“God dammit!” Ballantine shouted. “Where are Ronald and Carlos?”
“We are here, Ballantine,” Ronald said, hefting the wave form cannon over his shoulder like it was a rolled tarp. “Please do not yell so much. It is irritating.”
“We all second that notion,” Shane said.
Ronald set the cannon by the railing and let Carlos make several adjustments to the machine.
“Are we ready?” Ronald asked. “Who will be taking the shot?”
“I can,” Ingrid said. “I know how this works.”
“And she’s found her inner sniper,” Kinsey said.
“This isn’t a sniper rifle,” Ingrid said as she stepped to the cannon and flipped a switch. She smiled up at Ronald. “Can you rotate it twenty-five degrees to the right, please?”
Ronald made the adjustment and Ingrid stared out at the beach across the bay.
“Breathe through the shot,” Shane said.
“Shut up,” pretty much everyone else replied.
Ingrid breathed through the shot.
***
Max screamed at the top of his lungs as he felt the hot breath of the mutant T-rex on his head. The stench from the giant maw was enough to make him want to puke, but he didn’t want his last seconds on Earth to be filled with vomit, so he controlled his gorge and just kept screaming.
Mike was right next to him, but wasn’t screaming. He was saying variations on almost every major religions’ wrote prayers that he could think of. He also wanted to vomit from the stench.
The giant monster’s footfalls made the ground shake underneath them and Max stumbled, stumbled, then fell. He face planted right into the sand and was ready to kiss his ass goodbye when he felt a force press him down against the beach. He thought he was being crushed by one of the thing’s feet, yet he didn’t feel his bones breaking or his internal organs leaking out his asshole.
What he did feel was about two tons of guts splatter about him, coating everything, from surf to tree line, on the beach in former mutant T-rex. He shoved what he thought was the thing’s giant pancreas off his legs and looked around, wiping gore and sand from his eyes.
“Mike?” he called out.
“Here,” Mike replied, extending a hand from the middle of a pile of intestines. “I don’t want to be here though. Help.”
Max got to his feet and staggered over to the pile of dino offal. He tossed looped guts this way and that and finally got Mike free.
The two gore-covered operators stood there for a second then looked down the beach at Darby and Thorne.
“What the fuck just happened?” Max yelled.
Darby shook her head and pointed at the Beowulf III.
“Well, duh,” Max replied. “You good?”
Darby gave him a thumbs up.
“Uncle Vinny?” he shouted.
Thorne raised a thumbs up as well where he sat on a pile of croanderthal corpses.
“Ok. Looks like we’re all good,” Max said. “I’m going to sit down now.”
He plopped to the sand and sighed.
“Ah, that feels good,” Max said.
“I’m going for a swim,” Mike said. “Wash some of this off.”
“Monsters in the bay,” Max said.
“Son of a bitch!” Mike yelled. “I fucking hate this place!”
Chapter Twelve- Just Another To Kill Ya Sunset
The crew of the Beowulf III sat in deck chairs and faced the other ship. They were wrapped in various bandages, slings, casts, and antiseptic creams. A flask was passed down the line of chairs, making its way three times before it was drained and empty.
“You’re sure he’ll be alright?” Ingrid asked, leaning forward to look at Ballantine a few seats away.
“That’s what he said,” Ballantine replied. “And I trust Ronald to know his own limits.”
There were the sounds of breaking glass and crunching metal from the other ship then the Harris-Logan thing went flying up from the lower decks.
“NOOOOO!” the thing roared. “This is my ship now! I will leave here and take over the world!”
“He’s got a more fucked up ego than you do, Ballantine,” Max said.
“Oh, I doubt that,” Ballantine replied.
“Have I missed anything?” Gunnar asked as he stepped
onto the deck. “Ronald alright?”
“So far,” Shane said, patting an empty seat. “Take a load off.”
“Can’t,” Gunnar said. “Lucy is still not out of the woods. She lost a lot of blood. I’m going back to the infirmary right now. I just wanted to see if—OH, DAMN!”
Everyone jumped from their seats. Or the ones that felt like jumping did. They cheered and clapped their hands as Ronald lifted the Harris-Logan thing over his head then brought it down across his knee, snapping the things back in two.
There was a long, low howl and then silence.
Ronald walked the corpse over to the side of the ship and threw it overboard. The sounds of the sea dinos chomping down on the thing’s body quickly followed.
“We win,” Ballantine said, clapping politely. “Thank you, Ronald!”
Ronald waved to everyone as they thanked him as well.
“Okay, Grendel,” Thorne said, hefting himself to his feet. “One last sweep then we let Cougher go scavenge for parts.”
“You are sitting your ass down,” Darren said to Thorne. “You are in no condition to do a deck by deck sweep with that wound in your side.”
Thorne looked to Gunnar who shook his head.
“Not a chance, Vincent,” Gunnar said.
“Fine,” Thorne said. “But I want open coms the whole way. I ask what’s going on and you answer me before I even ask the question.”
“Control freak much?” Max whispered loudly.
“Come on, Grendel,” Darren said. “One last mission then we help haul equipment over here.”
There were some complaints, but not many since everyone was simply glad to still be living and able to haul equipment.
The deck cleared off quickly, leaving Thorne and Ballantine alone in the chairs.
“You know I have a lot of questions,” Thorne said.
“And you know I probably won’t answer many of them,” Ballantine laughed. “Hell, I probably don’t have answers to half of them, anyway.”
“Nothing on that island made sense,” Thorne said.
“You’re telling me,” Ballantine said and turned to look Thorne directly in the face. “I set this island up to recreate prehistoric biospheres, with some modern touches added, in order to study new creatures and how they react in different environments. The scientists I put in charge went well beyond that, lost their fucking minds, and turned it all to shit.”
