Wesley let the strength drain from his body. His hand pulled away from his pistol. Relief spread across his face, but it immediately pulled tight again.
Cowboy hadn’t lowered his rifle, and murderous intent emanated from every inch of him.
The two young people stood there unable to do anything, and a second later their eyes caught a fiery shot. Unlike a pistol, this had a roar like a rumbling in the earth, and it shook the stand of trees. Meg and Wesley only turned to look because the anguished cries of a beast had risen behind them.
A black form was in the process of lying down in the midst of flying gore. Even before the realization that there’d been a vicious beast coming up behind them could flash through the pair’s minds, there was once again a burst of flame and a thunderous roar that shook them both. Straightening up from the hunched positions they’d taken, they turned their eyes in the direction the shots had gone.
Quiet had returned to the stand of trees, as if there hadn’t been any shooting at all just now. In a thicket about thirty feet ahead of them a bloodstained gray body writhed weakly, but that wasn’t what held the trio’s attention.
“That second shot—what did you see?” Wesley asked, his query sounding oddly shaken. He was staring at Cowboy’s face.
“A person. One dressed in black.” The tough’s voice sounded terribly hollow.
Before Meg could ask him about something, he said something else. It was the very thing she’d meant to ask.
“Only, maybe he wasn’t human after all. That was one good-looking man.”
III
Wesley carried the sheriff’s body back to the bay. Though the water that’d protected the three of them had since evaporated, the spider’s threads had seemingly lost their stickiness, turning to dust when anyone touched them.
On their way back, Meg’s mind turned to the matter of the “good-looking man” Cowboy had seen. In fact, it’d be safe to say he completely filled the girl’s thoughts. The most important question—what exactly he was doing on the island—didn’t even occur to her. Meg’s memory struggled simply to re-create the beauty Cowboy had recounted. Yet when they returned to the bay and found no one else there, she had no choice but to return to her senses.
Blue had begun to tinge their faintly fogged world, where there were only the furtive sounds of the breeze and lapping waves. Though Wesley and Cowboy shouted for them time and again, no one ever appeared. The trio split up to check out the buildings and the boats tied up at the dock, but their efforts were in vain.
“Where the blazes did they run off to?” Wesley spat on returning from one of the buildings. His words were swallowed up by the thin fog.
“I don’t figure they were attacked by anything. No matter how off-guard they might’ve been taken, I don’t think they could be carried off without a fight. Maybe they fell under a spell or something?” Cowboy murmured.
“They just set out on their own!” Meg snarled. Looking over at Wesley, she continued, “Every bit of food and water stashed in the boat is gone. Pardon me, but I’m just gonna come right out and say it. Those jerks never had any intentions of taking orders from you. We’re lucky to be rid of them, but they took off on their own—I think that’s the truth of it.”
Wesley’s face was devoid of emotion as he looked over at Cowboy, who looked away for a minute before nodding his agreement.
“I see. Not much we can do about that. But let me make it clear that since they’re not following my directives, they’ll be considered civilians who landed on the island of their own accord. In other words, they’re guilty of stealing our food and water. They’ll receive no compensation, and I’ll only give them the bare minimum of aid as a sheriff’s deputy. You’re an exception to that, but just keep it in mind.”
“Sure thing,” Cowboy said, and the lawman watched to make sure he raised one hand. The bounty hunter continued, “So, are we gonna head off, too?” He gave a toss of his chin in the direction of the path they’d returned on.
Flustered, Meg said, “Not without food and water we can’t. Why don’t we go back first and gather the people and stuff we’ll need before coming back? This island belongs to the Nobility! No telling what’s hanging around out here.”
Wesley hesitated. He knew Meg had a point. Under the circumstances, that would be the best course to follow. However, his pride wouldn’t allow him to run away just because his food was gone and his compatriots had disappeared. What’s more—
“Look at that, Meg.”
The deputy had just turned toward the bay so that he’d be facing Meg, and it was in that direction he pointed. Cowboy had already noticed the same thing.
On turning, Meg froze in place. She didn’t know when it could’ve happened, but the prow of the small boat that’d borne them there was pointed straight in the air. Not only that, but the boats belonging to the group of settlers were already pointed toward the heavens and shaking in their final moments as if they’d been torpedoed, slowly slipping underwater. However, it was no normal case of sinking.
“Are those hands—human hands?!” Meg cried, on the edge of madness, pointing at the countless hands protruding from the surface of the blue-black sea to grip the boats’ hulls.
Damp hair clung to expressionless, blue-black faces, looking like brutal wounds. One turned their way. Its eyes met Meg’s. Meg felt as if she were about to break off at the knees, but her ears—and those of the other two—were assailed by a voice that sounded like a noise an insect might make. It was pointing in their direction.
Those who clung to each and every vessel there turned that way in unison. Their expressions, their gazes, their complexions—the girl from the village was too afraid to even faint as the boats’ prows finally sank. It happened with such speed, it seemed as if they’d all been dragged down by some enormous sea monster.
The waters churned, and waves barreled toward the rockface. The spray reached all the way to the top. And from the spray there’d shot a human form. It landed on its belly a mere fifteen feet from where the trio stood.
It looks like a fish with hands and feet, Meg thought, fighting back her nausea. As a child, she’d often done an imitation of a fish. She’d seen drunken adults do it, too. It’d been something to laugh about then, but the real thing was truly disturbing.
There was one splash after another. Dripping water on the rockface all the while, nearly a dozen men and women closed on the trio. Like fish out of water, they puckered their mouths as they clawed across the ground with both hands.
“Are these—are they your villagers?”
Meg shook her head in response to Wesley’s query. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen them before—maybe they’re the ones who crossed over to the island?”
“Whatever the case, they don’t seem too accustomed to dry land,” Cowboy said, still not having taken the rifle off his back. He must’ve been supremely confident of his speed with it.
“Can you understand what I’m saying?” Wesley said to the fish people. “Are you the folks who crossed over to the island from the village? See, I came here from your village. I’m a lawman. Understand?”
A number of them made croaking sounds with their throats. Blue-black water spouted from their mouths and the sides of their necks.
“They’ve got gills! They’ve been changed,” Wesley said, drawing his handgun. This was too weird for him to handle.
“Hey, if you understand what I’m saying, let me know,” said the girl. “Yesterday, the folks vanished from my village. Are they all here? Are they on the island?”
Meg’s pained figure was reflected in muddied eyes. The blank look on their faces said they didn’t even know what they were doing. Suddenly a stream of black connected a fortyish man’s face and Meg. Her scream was prompted by the black water. The man had spat it out. As Meg covered her face and reeled, the man spat something else at her.
There was a roar of thunder.
Turned toward Meg with his handgun at the ready, Wesley was frozen in p
lace. It wasn’t his gun that’d blasted the thing to pieces.
“Here they come!” Cowboy said, swinging around the smoking barrel of his rifle.
Two of the three objects flying at the trio were blown to pieces, but one latched onto Wesley’s right shoulder. It was a little blue-black fish, but when it opened its tiny mouth it had rows of teeth like razor-sharp shards of glass. And it had bitten into the flesh of the young man’s shoulder.
Though he cried out in pain, Wesley shifted his gun from his right hand to his left and hammered it down on the fish’s head. Making the same noise the man had moments earlier, the fish with the pulverized head dangled limply from the young man’s shoulder. Its fangs were still sunk in his flesh. The blood gushing out stained its corpse red.
“Run for it!” Meg shouted, taking Wesley by the arm and dashing for the forest. Cowboy was right behind them. Though relief flooded through her chest as soon as they made it into the trees, Meg ran on.
“Enough, we’re good now, Meg,” Wesley told her, and she finally halted.
They turned around.
Cowboy was facing the bay with his rifle braced down by his hip.
“How’d it go?” Wesley asked. His breathing was ragged. Deep red had completely soaked his right shoulder.
“You little bastard!” Meg said, making a grab for the fish still latched onto him. With a squeal she pulled her hand back. Though it should’ve been dead, she could distinctly feel the organs still working within it.
“It’s alive!”
It came as no surprise that Wesley peered down at the fish, but even Cowboy craned his neck, squinted his eyes, and said, “It’s sucking your blood!”
“What?”
“Look. The gills are moving. It’s inhaling. Only it’s getting blood instead of seawater.”
“What the hell is this?”
“You bashed its head in, but it’s not dead. Must be nearly immortal. And it came to suck your blood.”
Cowboy looked at Wesley. Perhaps the lawman read something in the bounty hunter’s expression, because Wesley’s face twisted horribly.
“Don’t!” Meg cried, reaching for Cowboy with both hands.
The bounty hunter stopped. He’d just been about to draw a bead on Wesley’s chest with his rifle. But Meg’s right hand gripped the pistol she’d pried from Wesley’s grasp.
“You were gonna shoot him, weren’t you? You can’t!”
The girl’s face was stiff with determination, but Cowboy gave her a wry grin and said, “Well, you stopped me, so you must know why I aimed to shoot him, right? That fish is in league with the Nobility. Meaning whatever it feeds on will turn into one of them.” He looked directly at Wesley, whose face was pale, and continued, “If we don’t take care of you now, sooner or later you’ll feed on us!”
His voice was like iron, and it carried a determination that rivaled Meg’s own.
A Demonic Spot beneath Blue Skies
chapter 3
I
No, you can’t do this!” Meg cried frantically. Her body trembled fiercely, and her eyes were hot and wet. She couldn’t let herself cry, though. “This is just a fish! There’s no saying it’s necessarily the same as a Noble. If by some chance it just happens to be a regular fish, you’ll be a murderer, with your own kind chasing you down for the rest of your days!”
“That still sounds better than hanging around with someone who might be a Noble. Lower your gun.”
“No way. Lower yours first. Please, let’s talk this out.”
“You think you can get a shot off quicker than me?” Cowboy asked, seeming to mock the girl with the question. “Your slug wouldn’t reach me till I’d killed you both three times over!”
“You’re probably right.”
“Yet you’re still willing to do this?”
“I don’t care how dangerous it is,” Meg said. “I can’t let you shoot someone on a fifty-fifty chance. And I won’t let you become a murderer.”
The killing lust that colored Cowboy from head to toe wavered suddenly.
“You have guts,” he said, casually turning his rifle toward the ground.
“Swear you won’t use it again?” Meg said to him, the handgun still trained on the bounty hunter.
“Yeah, so long as he’s still himself. But if I see the slightest hint of him turning into a Noble, I’ll shoot him dead without a word.”
“Fair enough,” Wesley said with a nod. Meg looked stricken, but the young man gave her a nod too. “If I start acting funny, plug away. That’s an official request.”
“Sure thing,” Cowboy replied.
Meg lowered the pistol.
Gently taking the weapon from the girl, Wesley said, “It’s okay, Meg. I’m gonna get rid of this bugger now.”
And saying that, he turned the barrel of his gun toward the parasite on his shoulder. Once he was sure no one else was in the line of fire, he prepared to pull the trigger.
There was a dull thud against the lawman’s temple, and he was knocked unconscious.
“What the hell are you doing?!” Meg cried, the corners of her eyes rising angrily.
Pointing to the gunstock he’d hit Wesley with, Cowboy told her, “It’s got a rubber pad on it. All he got was a slight concussion out of that. But just try firing off a shot now. Weird stuff would be all over us in a second!”
Meg had to admit he was right. This place was home to Nobles and their servants. Humans were no more than prey for them.
“We’ll set out once he comes to. Take a minute to cool down, why don’t you.”
And saying that, Cowboy tossed Meg something he’d had tucked in the back of his gun belt. It was a little spray can.
“That’s a cooling mist. Works as a painkiller, too. I’ve used all kinds, but this stuff’s the best.”
“You’re not all bad, are you?”
Cowboy looked all around them, and once Meg had finished applying the spray he said to the groaning Wesley, “Okay, on your feet, Deputy. Your dad left you some mighty big boots to fill.”
Letting out a sharp breath, Cowboy fell to his knees. On the other hand, Wesley stood up. The lawman lightly nudged the tough with the same foot he’d driven into the man’s solar plexus.
“He’ll be able to walk soon enough. Let’s hurry up through the forest,” the lawman said, clapping Meg on the shoulder.
Seems pretty dependable, Meg thought, and she felt her chest growing warm. It was the same comforting sensation she’d felt so long ago getting a hug from her father when he came back from fishing.
In about ten minutes’ time they were through the forest. There were signs of things rustling about in the distance, but nothing came after the trio.
On exiting the forest, Meg scanned their surroundings apprehensively and said, “The others probably took a different route, but I wonder if they made it through okay.”
She was referring to the rest of the bounty hunters.
“Forget about those bastards,” Wesley spat. “More importantly—I’m gonna shoot this fish. You got a problem with that?”
“Do what you like,” Cowboy replied, sounding somewhat amused. He didn’t seem to hold a grudge over the kick in the gut the lawman had given him. Actually, he seemed quite curious to see whether the Nobles’ fish could be destroyed.
“Still,” the bounty hunter continued, “a big bang could cause trouble for us. Wrap some cloth around your gun. Hey, you’d better be quick about this. You’re looking mighty sickly!”
Meg handed the lawman a towel she had tucked through her belt. Wesley wrapped the whole gun in it, doubling up on the fabric around the cylinder. His weapon was a revolver, with a cylinder that turned every time a bullet was fired. But that meant there had to be a gap between the cylinder and the frame. If there wasn’t, the cylinder couldn’t turn. When the weapon was discharged, the sound of the gunshot could also escape through that gap. Just wrapping the barrel wouldn’t be enough to muffle the sound.
“Here we go,” Wesley said, ta
king aim and pulling the trigger.
There was a muffled report, and the fish’s body was blown clean off.
“What the—?!” Wesley shouted.
“Persistent little sucker,” Meg groaned.
The head of the fish still had its teeth deep in Wesley’s shoulder. A threadlike stream of blood dribbled from the creature’s pulverized portion to seep into the ground.
“Nothing left but its head . . . and it’s still feeding on him!” the girl exclaimed.
Saying nothing, Wesley cocked the hammer for a second shot. Since his target was even smaller now, he took careful aim—and the second bullet hit the fish’s head, blasting it to bits.
“That time did it!” Meg exclaimed, pumping her fist in spite of herself.
“Nope, not yet,” Cowboy countered with a shake of his head.
“What?”
“See for yourself.”
Even Wesley himself looked where the bounty hunter was pointing. There was no fish there anymore. However, a pair of white teeth remained. And to all appearances those teeth made sounds that suggested pleasure as they continued their weird work, sinking even deeper into the flesh of Wesley’s gore-stained shoulder and wringing out more of his lifeblood.
Wesley grabbed the teeth by the roots and pulled, but they didn’t budge and he soon relented.
“They’re curved like hooks, and sunk in there real good. No chance of getting them out without an operation. Luckily, the bleeding’s not so bad. We’ll keep going like this.”
“With things like that flying around, I’m surprised all of us were okay.”
“All of us?” Wesley gave Meg a glare that made her hastily button her lip.
“Okay, now the question is where to go next—got any good ideas, Sheriff?”
“Knock it off. I’m a deputy,” Wesley said, tying the towel around his shoulder.
But Cowboy replied, “No, you’re not.”
“Huh?”
“You stopped being a deputy the moment the sheriff died. Naturally, you’ve got to take on the sheriff’s responsibilities. Rise to the occasion, okay? From here on out, we’re gonna treat you like a sheriff. Isn’t that right, missy?”
Undead Island Page 4
