by David Bishop
He'd been pleasantly surprised by how warm a welcome Kissy gave him when he arrived. Paxton talked a lot about his aspirations for the Oriental girl and how sweet she was on him, but he knew most of it was bravado. He hadn't been in the bar for weeks, giving her plenty of time to forget him and transfer any genuine affection she had to some other grunt with a fat wallet and an empty heart. Hell, he wouldn't have been surprised if Kissy hadn't remembered him at all. Instead he walked in to a hero's welcome from the beautiful young woman. She wrapped herself around him like a silk kimono, eager to feel the warmth and protection of his embrace. Eventually the new manager told her to get back to work serving the other customers.
So Paxton had taken up residence on one of the bar stools and ordered a row of drinks, all with tiny paper umbrellas. More than anything else, that was what he'd recall most about his sojourn in the Hawaiian Islands: paper umbrellas in drinks and the smell of hibiscus flowers, accompanied by the soft, soothing sounds of ukulele music and crashing waves. Never mind the humidity, the way your sweat made every shirt stick to your back in under a minute, or the constant threat of rainstorms and war. Oahu was a lush green tropical paradise and Paxton was sure as hell gonna miss it. He leaned over the bar and tugged on the manager's florid shirt. "I ain't seen you in here before, have I? What's your name, pal?"
The manager scowled at Paxton. "Nabuko Kimura... pal."
"What happened to Kissy's brother, 'Suzo?"
"Tetsuzo had to go back to Tokyo, family emergency."
"Is that right?" Paxton looked over his shoulder at Kissy. She smiled and gave him a little wave. "Funny, because Kissy doesn't seem upset about any family emergency that I can see, and she's 'Suzo's sister."
Kimura's eyes narrowed. "You know family well?"
Paxton turned back to the new manager. "Not really. I've always been kinda sweet on Kissy, but her brother didn't approve of us two."
"I'm not surprised."
"I figured if he was out of the way, I might have a chance with Kissy."
"All things are possible."
"You said a mouthful there, pal." Paxton pulled another dollar bill from his pocket and slapped it down on the bar. "Give me another of those drinks with the umbrellas, and have one for yourself out of the change."
"I prefer not to drink while I'm working," Kimura replied.
"Didn't anybody ever tell you the customer's always right?" Paxton slurred. "Go on, have a drink, one drink, it can't kill you."
The manager smiled. "Not me, but others might not be so fortunate."
"Suit yourself, Tojo."
Kimura's good humour faded. "My name is Nabuko Kimura, not Tojo."
"Whatever you say, pal!" Paxton picked up his drink and staggered over to where Kissy was wiping a table. A Japanese man was sitting there, his face sour as curdled coconut milk. Paxton ignored the customer to snake an arm around Kissy's comely waist. "Hey, doll, how's about you and me going back to your place for a private party? I hear your brother's away, so we shouldn't be disturbed. What d'you say, Kissy? Is it a date?"
She looked past him to the glowering figure behind the bar, terror in her eyes. "He told you what happened to Tetsuzo?"
Paxton nodded. "Said your brother's headed back to Tokyo, some kinda family emergency." He winked at her and nearly fell, his balance badly compromised by drinking so much alcohol in so little time. "So, you want to blow this pop stand and come with me? I can show you a good time, Kissy."
"I don't know. Kimura will be angry if I leave."
"That jerk? Don't worry about him. I'll protect you," Paxton promised.
"She does not want to go with you," the nearby customer said.
"Is that a fact, Jack?" the marine slurred.
"My name is Hitori, not Jack."
"I don't care if you're Emperor Hirohito," Paxton smirked. "The lady's with me and that's all you need to know."
Hitori stood up, his eyes ablaze with anger. "You dare use the name of a living god, you drunken dolt!"
"Hey, he may be a god to you, but he means nothing to me."
"You will pay for your blasphemy with your life," Hitori promised.
"Oh, yeah? And who's gonna make me pay, Tojo?"
"It will be my honour."
Paxton laughed. "You and whose army, pal?"
Kissy got between the two men, her face blanched white by fear. "Paxton, you drunk, you don't know what you saying-"
"I may be drunk but I don't need this jerk telling me what to do."
She leaned closer to him. "He can hurt you, Paxton. He can kill."
"So can I, darling - that's my job. I'm one lean, mean, killing machine. Hell, I've already laid out one man tonight, what difference is another gonna make, right? I'll be rotting in a cell from now on, might as well go out in a blaze of glory, know what I'm saying?"
"You said you would protect me," Kissy whispered, her voice trembling.
"Of course I will! Marines are the best trained fighters in the world."
Hitori hissed something at Kissy in Japanese. She looked at him and nodded her obedience before stepping aside. Once she was out of the way, Hitori moved closer to Paxton. "If you had any honour, you would apologise for abusing our emperor's name. If you do not, the consequences will be pain."
"I ain't apologising for nothing!" Paxton shouted. He twisted around to the sailors and soldiers at other tables nearby. "Did you hear that, boys? Our little, yellow friend here expects me to say sorry for just mentioning his emperor's damned name!" There were murmurs of dissent from the crowd inside Tokyo Joe's. Paxton nodded his agreement before turning back to face Hitori. "I ain't doing it, Tojo. You want to see some pain? I'll give you pain all right!"
Hitori's lips slid back into a snarl of hatred, revealing his vicious fangs.
"Sweet baby Jesus," Paxton whispered. A moment later he was flying through the air, propelled by a mighty punch in the chest delivered by Hitori. The drunken marine thudded heavily into the bar, splintering the bamboo cladding, before slumping to the floor. "What happened? What hit me?"
"I did," Hitori replied, his voice a savage growl of fury. He strode towards the stricken, helpless Paxton. "Prepare to meet your death!" But two marines attacked Hitori before he could reach his target, their size and strength enough to knock him over. Within moments three sailors had joined in, throwing themselves at the Japanese who dared attack a US marine. Hitori howled like a caged animal and smashed two of them away with a single blow. They staggered backwards, blood gushing from their wounds.
One of the sailors clutched at his neck, where a razor-sharp talon had severed his carotid artery. "I think the yellow bastard's killed me!" he gasped.
Hitori sprang to his feet, tossing aside the remaining attackers as if they were rag dolls. "It was my pleasure," he hissed, licking fresh blood from his fingernails. Everything inside the bar and grill stopped, as if frozen in a single moment of horror and disbelief. Hitori twisted around, studying the faces of the sailors, soldiers and pilots around him, savouring their fear and anger. A vicious brawl was about to turn into a massacre. He looked at Kimura behind the bar and smiled. "Lock the doors, Nabuko. It's time for us to feed."
Kissy dived under a table when the killing began, so she didn't see the full horror of what happened. But within a minute the floor around her resembled that of a slaughterhouse, awash with blood, chunks of severed flesh and discarded flaps of skin. She heard men shouting in anger and screaming in fear, their cries like those of wounded animals. She watched as the dead and the dying were flung aside by two murderous figures standing near the bar. Most had their necks ripped open, by tooth or claw she couldn't tell, but the butchery was just as effective either way. Beyond the corpses Kissy could see Paxton slumped on the floor, his clothes stained crimson by blood sprays and splatters. His head was tilted awkwardly to one side, but his chest was rising and falling, so he must still be alive.
Paxton had promised to protect her from these monsters, though he did not realise what that mean
t at the time. If she could get him out of this makeshift abattoir, perhaps there was a chance they could escape the wrath of Kimura and his associate. Kissy waited until another cluster of American servicemen plucked up the courage to hurl themselves at the two fiends in the centre of the bar. Once they'd passed her hiding place, she crawled towards the bar on all fours. As Kissy traversed the corpse strewn floor, she did not dare look up to see how the bloody battle was progressing. The cries of pain and howls of anguish from the latest victims told her everything she needed to know.
To her amazement, Kissy reached Paxton's side unscathed. She tried to move him, but he was a dead weight, far too heavy for her to shift unaided. I have to wake him up, she realised, it's our only chance. Kissy clamped her thumb and forefinger over Paxton's nostrils, pinching his nose shut. That got his attention, as his eyelids fluttered open, revealing bloodshot eyes within. "Ssssh," Kissy whispered in his left ear. "We have to get out of here!"
Paxton looked past her to what she had avoided seeing. His eyes widened in disbelief and his mouth opened to cry out. Kissy shoved her fist inside his lips to silence him. "Say anything and they'll notice us, understand?"
Paxton nodded, tears welling up in his eyes at what he was witnessing.
"We have to go," Kissy urged, "now!" She slowly withdrew her hand from inside his mouth, before crawling away towards the door that led out on to the beach. Paxton followed, keeping low to the scarlet smeared floor. As they neared the exit a corpse flew past them and slammed into the door. The force of the impact shattered the lock, and the door opened a crack, revealing the empty beach beyond. Paxton shoved the corpse to one side and put his shoulder to the door, forcing it further open so they could escape.
He fell out through the gap, leaving Kissy alone inside. She followed him, but the buttons of her dress got caught on the doorframe's splintered wood, as if the building didn't want her to escape from the massacre within. Kissy tore at her dress, trying to rip it free, but that only made the snags worse. She didn't want to look back, but she had no choice. When Kissy twisted her head around, it was all she could do to stop herself from screaming.
Kimura and Hitori had slaughtered more than fifty customers inside five minutes. The two monsters stood in the centre of the room, surrounded by a ring of corpses, many of them torn limb from limb. All the victims had been attacked at the neck, some so savagely that the throats had been completely ripped asunder. Lifeless eyes stared from an untidy pile of decapitated heads, while the floor, ceiling and some of the walls were awash with fresh blood. The creatures responsible for the carnage were supping on their final victims, both bloated by feeding, stomachs distended by all they'd consumed.
Kimura tossed aside the sailor whose blood he'd been drinking, the body landing with a sickening splutch among the other corpses. He belched and licked his bloodstained lips, idly picking a scrap of pink flesh from between his teeth. Kimura glanced around in search of survivors and his gaze fell upon Kissy, still trapped in the doorway. He hissed at her, nudging Hitori with an elbow to get his associate's attention.
Kissy looked away, concentrating all her energies on trying to get free. She ripped and clawed at the splintered doorframe, all too aware of the two monsters moving towards her, whispering guttural threats and curses. Despairing of her plight, she wrenched herself free, her dress tearing apart as she fell on to the beach, the sand still warm from the day's sun. Kissy scrambled to her feet and ran to Paxton, who was staggering towards the surf. "Not that way!" she shouted. "We have to get away! They come for us!"
The marine whirled around, his eyes wide with fear. "Where can we go?"
"My home," Kissy said, "up in the hills. We safe there!" She grabbed his arm and dragged him to a narrow alley that ran between Tokyo Joe's and the neighbouring warehouse. As they passed the doorway to the bar and grill, a hand shot out from within and tore at Kissy, its talons slicing her left arm to the bone. She cried out in pain but kept going, shoving Paxton ahead of her.
They stumbled out on to the street in front of Tokyo Joe's. Kissy couldn't believe her luck when she saw a cab waiting outside, its motor already running. She ran to the vehicle and wrenched open the back door for Paxton to climb in. "Please, you must get us out of here!"
"No can do, this taxi is reserved, missy," the driver replied.
"My name is Kissy, not Missy!"
"I don't care who you are. Unless your name's one of the two I've been given, you can't ride with me tonight."
Kissy looked around, expecting Kimura or Hitori to burst from the bar and grill at any moment. Both men were drenched in blood, so they might think twice before coming out into the open, but they'd had no qualms about slaughtering a bar full of servicemen, so she couldn't depend on that stopping them. "Please, we have to go. We have to get out of here, now!"
"I told you, I need a name first."
"My name is Kissy Nagara!"
"That's not one of the names on my list, miss."
She paused to think. Who would pay a taxi to wait outside a bar all night, unless... "Kimura! My husband's name is Kimura!"
The driver smiled. "Why didn't you say so before? Let's get going!"
Kissy finished getting Paxton into the back seat and climbed in after him, slamming the door shut. "Take us up into the hills."
"Anywhere specific?"
"I give you address on way. Just go, now!"
"Your wish is my command." The cab rolled away from Tokyo Joe's with agonising slowness, before gently accelerating away into the night. Kissy looked back over her shoulder at the bar's entrance, expecting the two monsters to emerge at any moment. But the front door remained shut until she couldn't see it. Kissy looked at the drunken marine slumped on the seat beside her, unable to believe they'd escaped the massacre.
"We made it, Paxton," she said. "We're safe."
"Told you I'd protect you," he murmured before falling asleep.
Kimura saw the taxi drive away, watching through a window tinted red by congealing blood. "We should go after them. If they alert the authorities-"
"A drunken soldier and a Japanese waitress, claiming a bar full of US servicemen was massacred by two vampyrs? Nobody will believe them." Hitori remained in the centre of the room, surveying the carnage around him, "Not if we destroy the evidence first. We must burn this building to the ground."
"Agreed. There's a drum of gasoline in the storeroom, we can spread that around before starting the fire to make sure all the corpses are incinerated."
Hitori nodded. "I'll help you finish decapitating them. After that, my orders take me elsewhere. Can you find the fugitives before the attack?"
"I heard the girl mention the hills. She and her husband rent a house up there, according to the papers in his office. She'll take the American there. Kissy Nagara has no living allies on the island, and nowhere else to go."
"Do what you want with them, but make certain you reach Hickam Field before the attack ends, otherwise you could be trapped on the island." Hitori walked over to his colleague and rested a hand on Kimura's shoulder. "You've done well on this mission, Nabuko. You will not go unrewarded."
Kimura smiled. "Thank you, sir. It hasn't been easy, putting up with these Americans. The sooner we go to war, the better."
Hitori looked at a clock above the bar. "Then you don't have long to wait. Our planes will be overhead within twelve hours."
Wierzbowski opened his eyes and winced. There was a throbbing pain in his head so severe that it felt as if somebody had been using his skull for a baseball. He wasn't nearly as hot as before, but the surroundings were still a shimmer of movement and light. The recruit closed his eyes, giving himself a chance to prepare before reopening them. This time the shock wasn't so bad and things were more in focus. The last thing Wierzbowski could remember was being outside in the blazing sun, Sergeant Aimes berating their poor performance. Now the soldier was indoors, a pale cream ceiling overhead with a rotating fan suspended from it. He could smell coarse disinfectant, an
d that came from only one place: the base hospital. Something strange was digging into his left arm. Wierzbowski reached across to scratch it.
"You'll get better quicker if you leave that in," a woman's voice said. "That intravenous drip helped save your life earlier."
"Nurse Baker?" Wierzbowski asked. He tried to sit up, but a wave of nausea persuaded him against that. Instead he bent his head forward to see who was at the end of the bed. Martinez was standing to one side, while his bride was reading Wierzbowski's chart. "Did I miss the wedding?"
"Afraid so, big guy," Martinez replied. "We'd have kept you a slice of cake, but we didn't have a cake. Sorry about that."
"We were doing battery drills-"
"And you passed out. Smacked your head against the gun platform, blood everywhere. We had to stretcher you over here, took six guys."
Wierzbowski nodded at his chart in Baker's hands. "How am I doing?"
"Better," she said. "We're re-hydrating you, though that isn't finished yet, and the doctor's put you on anti-malaria drugs. Survive the next two days and you'll pass the worse of it. Right now, the best thing you can do is rest."
"I had malaria?"
"You still do. We don't think it's falciparum malaria, that's the most dangerous type, so you should make a good recovery."
"That's good," Wierzbowski agreed.
Martinez laughed. "You'd do anything to get out of being best man, eh?"
The patient shook his head for a moment before stopping, pain lancing across his skull. "I didn't mean to, honest."
"Don't worry, I'm only teasing you."
"Oh, okay."
Baker moved closer for a better look at Wierzbowski's head, swathed in bandages. "How's your skull feeling?"
