“Terrence, I want you in the bridge, ready to start this hunk of shit up at a moment’s notice,” Dom said over his shoulder. He was already running aftward. “Set your watch for five minutes. Got it?”
“Aye, aye, Captain,” Terrence replied.
Dom set the timer on his smartwatch to match. Memories of his fishing trip with Thomas whirred through his mind. After renting a boat out of Key Largo, they had spent the day motoring around the glistening waves of the Atlantic. But on their way back, just a mile from shore, the motor had died suddenly, stranding them.
It had turned out there was nothing wrong with the motor itself. Someone had set up illegal crab fishing pots. One of the ropes tying a pot to a small gray buoy had gotten tangled in the propeller and forced the motor to a stop. It had taken Dom and Thomas a good fifteen minutes to defoul the prop. If something similar had happened here, he’d have to fix it in less than a third of that time.
Without another thought, he ran to the stern of the ferry and jumped over the side, diving into the murk below.
The muddy water rushed past Dom, tearing at his bandages. Ice shot through his vessels as the cold enveloped him. He opened his eyes. While he could barely see his hands in front of his face, a chorus of mysterious sounds greeted him, reminding him of the SCUBA diving trips he had once relished. Clicks and gurgles rubbed against his eardrums as he pulled himself through the water, following the muck-encrusted hull along the stern.
His hands traced the rusted, grimy metal. A shiver crept through his flesh, caused by a combination of terror and cold. The strange underwater sounds had sent his imagination running wild. Were there crocodiles in the river? And could they be transformed like the Imps had been? Good God, what would that look like?
Dom tried to push those nightmarish fantasies from his mind. He was down to four minutes. His hands touched something long and slimy. His instincts, primed by his increasing terror, made him think he’d discovered a waterlogged python.
But he didn’t recoil. Instead, his fingers followed the rope until he found one of the massive exposed propellers of the ferry. The rope was indeed entangled around the prop, just as Thomas had guessed. Dom glanced at his smartwatch. Time was slipping away. His lungs burned as he pulled his knife from its sheath and worked it into the rope. The slippery algae prevented him from getting a good grip, and he made several attempts before the blade finally bit into the rope.
One by one, the strands snapped.
Dom eyed his watch. Three minutes, and he was not even halfway through. He would not make it much longer without another breath. If he couldn’t finish this, the Hunters would have to escape in the damn lifeboat after all. The murky water gurgled louder in his ears. It was almost as if the Congo itself were mocking him, telling him it would eat him and his crew, chew them to pieces, and spit them out.
He couldn’t save Renee. He couldn’t save his crew. He’d pushed them mercilessly, tirelessly into unknown territory against unknown enemies in a quixotic quest to vanquish an enemy that could only be seen under a high-powered microscope. He yelled a curse into the depths of the river, and the words came out as a stream of bubbles, unheard by anyone.
-20-
“Screw this,” Meredith said, standing up in the lifeboat. She shed her pack and rifle. “I’m not waiting any longer.”
“Meredith!” Terrence yelled from the bridge. “Don’t! I’ve got to send the lifeboat off in two minutes!”
Meredith didn’t bother answering him. She sprinted across the deck and then threw herself over the stern. The water swallowed her in its icy grip a second later. She bobbed at the surface. A ghostly pain stung the spot where her ear had been shot off, but she ignored it as she searched for a sign of Dom.
Bubbles burst about ten feet from her position. She swam toward them and then dove. Her hands reached Dom before she saw him. He spun on her with his knife in one hand. She caught his wrists, fighting against him, and then pulled his head close to hers until she was peering into his icy blue eyes. Those eyes narrowed a second before he turned back to his work. She understood what that meant. He wanted her to leave, to return to safety, but he also knew there was nothing he could do to stop her from helping. Almost immediately, she realized what he was doing and started sawing away at the rope from the other side.
They worked feverishly. Meredith’s thoughts were centered on the man she loved, laboring next to her at a dizzying pace even as her lungs screamed for more oxygen. Dom was acting like a demon had possessed him, first claiming to have heard human cries in the jungle, then going crazy on the Skull that had attacked Renee, and finally diving in here alone despite his injuries.
Why couldn’t he ask for help? Didn’t he trust her?
Maybe something had possessed him.
Fear. Hopelessness. Regret.
Whatever it was, it didn’t matter right now. The final sinews of rope snapped, and the bulk of the algae-sodden cord drifted to the river bottom, disappearing in the clouds of silt. The rest of the rope was still wrapped around the prop, but it hung loosely now. Meredith and Dom scrambled to untangle it. With the tension gone slack, it finally came off and snaked away beneath them.
Meredith and Dom kicked for the surface. They exploded from the water, reaching for the hull. Meredith found a handhold and hoisted herself up, screaming in her comm link as soon as she had air in her lungs.
“Terrence! We got it! Don’t launch the lifeboat!” She threw herself over the gunwale and reached down to lend a hand to Dom.
“Start the ferry!” Dom roared.
“You got it!” Terrence called back over the comm link.
Meredith stood half-hunched over, her hands on her knees as she caught her breath. Goose bumps prickled her flesh, and she fought against the chill as she straightened, water still sluicing off her soaked fatigues.
Dom clasped her shoulder. “Thanks.”
Meredith raised a single eyebrow. “Thanks? That’s all you have to say?”
A glimmer of a smile twitched at the corners of his lips. It grew wider as the engines growled to life.
“You did it, Chief,” Miguel said over the comm link. “You fucking did it.”
“Terrence, full reverse,” Dom said.
“Aye, aye, Captain,” came the cheerful response.
The ferry’s engines rumbled louder, and water churned in violent eddies along the stern. There was only one problem—the ferry wasn’t moving.
Dom didn’t need to say anything. Meredith sprinted up the ladders with Dom shadowing her. Meredith pressed her binos to her eyes and scanned the forest. It didn’t take her long to spot the shaking tree limbs and scattering birds. Something big was coming their way, but that wasn’t all. Violent shrieks and blood-curdling howls pierced the din of the ferry’s engines. The noise had called all the nearby Skulls for a potential feast.
Meredith’s heart hammered in concert with the screaming Skulls. “We’ve got three minutes max before those things get here.”
The engines roared louder as Terrence adjusted the thrust on the beached ferry.
“What’s going on, Terrence?” Dom yelled, shouldering his rifle.
“I got this,” Terrence yelled through the open door of the pilothouse. “Brace yourselves!”
The ferry jerked suddenly. Metal groaned, and the wrecked cars on the bottom deck crunched together. They had made it. They were free and floating in the river. Meredith hooted in victory, unable to contain her joy. Despite every loss and disaster it had taken them to reach this point, she would never turn down the opportunity to celebrate when she could.
Terrence guided the ferry into the middle of the churning waters. Jenna, Andris, and Glenn stood at the gunwale near Meredith, scanning the shoreline. Miguel helped Renee back into the pilothouse. She still seemed out of it, stumbling as she walked. But besides the bruises covering her skin, she looked okay—at least externally. Meredith guessed she’d suffered a nasty concussion. Lauren could confirm that when they gave the medical tea
m their sitrep.
The Skulls’ continuous chorus had not let up, and Meredith refused to let her guard down until they were safely moving. As Terrence swung the prow of the ship away from the riverbank, Skulls trickled out from the jungle. They surged into the water, their voices echoing across the waves. The current swept most of the spike- and bone-plate covered monsters away.
But not all of them.
“My God,” Jenna said, her voice sounding weak against the din.
Miguel crossed himself and then shouldered his rifle again.
“Don’t fire unless they look like they’re going to board,” Dom commanded.
Normally, they would open up on the terrifying creatures indiscriminately. But this time, there were simply too many. All the ammunition they’d brought wouldn’t be enough to put a dent in the horde crashing through the shallow waters along the bank.
“Full forward, Terrence,” Dom said.
Terrence leaned over the wheel in the pilothouse and pushed the throttle all the way forward. The engines emitted a long growl before settling into a watery gurgle as they drove the ferry up the river.
Meredith’s finger rested on the trigger guard. The ferry’s acceleration was much too slow for her comfort. She readied herself for yet another desperate fight.
A shrill, animalistic cry sounded out above the yells of the Skulls throwing themselves into the water. Meredith’s eyes flicked to the trees where the cries emanated from. Through her optics, she saw smaller Skulls—the Imps. Their long arms coursed with gray muscle between the thin plates covering their limbs. Bumpy ridges covered their foreheads, and their eyes glimmered with a hot intensity. Diabolical tails swished back and forth, stitched with menacing spikes.
“Fuck,” Jenna muttered. “I used to think monkeys were cute.”
One of the small monsters swung on a branch from its prehensile tail, shrieking madly.
“Is that one doing what I think it’s doing?” Meredith asked, keeping aim on the beast.
“I think so, sister,” Miguel said.
“Spread out,” Dom said. “Open fire if they try to jump.”
Before he could finish the order, the swinging Imp flung itself into the air. It soared over the Skulls drowning in the river’s depths. Its lanky arms pinwheeled, claws splayed and teeth bared. Meredith opened fire. Bone chipped and fragmented, and the impacts sent a gout of blood and gore gushing from the wounds. The Skull’s limp body smashed against the hull of the ship and then splashed into the river. The water swallowed the corpse.
“This is not how I remember Planet of the Apes,” Miguel said.
“I’d laugh at the damn things if they weren’t so damn vicious,” Glenn said.
The other creatures in the trees cried out in anger and unadulterated bloodlust. They launched an all-out airborne assault on the ferry. Bodies twisted and fell as the Hunters levied volley after volley into their determined ranks.
But still they threw themselves at the ferry, growing even more incensed and ferocious with each of their brethren they lost. Meredith’s rifle shuddered against her shoulder as she poured rounds into the stubborn bastards. All it would take was one of those monsters making it past the wall of lead. And then, with a hollow thud of bone against metal deck, one did just that. Then another. Then a third. The Imps hit the ferry like hail straight from hell.
“Miguel, don’t let those bastards get into the pilothouse with Renee,” Dom growled.
“Yes, Chief!”
While Jenna and Glenn continued their increasingly futile efforts to ward off their attackers, Dom gestured to Meredith to watch the ladders. She tensed, waiting for the telltale clatter of bony claws against metal as the creatures scrambled toward them. The first monster that showed its jagged face received a three-round burst from her rifle. She wheeled around on another one when its claws curled around the lip of the gunwale. Bullets peppered the creature and the bulkhead beside it. Dom sprayed another three Imps with lead.
There was a brief reprieve. The bark and chatter of their rifles quieted as they searched for their next targets. The chorus of the howling Skulls on the shore continued, but Meredith used every ounce of focus she could muster to concentrate on the light tapping of footsteps from the lower decks where the brunt of the creatures had landed.
On the shore, a tree trunk broke in half, pushed aside by a massive claw as if it had been nothing more than a stalk of corn. A loud roar blasted through the jungle. Another thicket of trees bent outward and then burst into splinters as the behemoth at last came into view. Its eyes, each the size of a human head, locked onto the ferry, and Meredith could see the throbbing red blood vessels in the monster’s sclera. Its skull was sloped and elongated, punctuated by bony protrusions, and it wore a crimson beard around its mouth—no doubt the remains of its last meal. The rest of its body was still shadowed in the darkness of the woods, as if it didn’t want them to experience the full terror of its monstrous form.
Not yet.
“What in the hell is that?” Glenn said.
Meredith had never seen the big man so shaken, so terrified. The enormous creature opened its mouth to reveal a set of fangs large enough to put holes in the ferry. It let out a bellow that shook the glass in the portholes and resonated in Meredith’s bones. Never had she felt so small and insignificant.
Andris patted his tactical vest out of habit, but it would take more than a little C4 to take that thing down.
Meredith’s voice sounded thin as she asked, “Terrence, how fast can this ferry go?”
-21-
Frank pulled back on the collective, sending the chopper higher. The navigation lights no longer illuminated the child in the window of the training school’s office, but he couldn’t forget her face.
Keeping the chopper low, Frank flew to the other end of the airport at a slow, deliberate pace, still trailing a parade of Skulls. He had more than enough fuel to reach Kent Island, and the helicopter was working beautifully. If he made it there alive, he could reunite with the Huntress. The crew would undoubtedly be hurting without the help of a handsome, hilarious pilot. He’d be part of the mission to stop the Oni Agent, saving countless lives around the globe.
But right now, only one life nagged at his conscience. No matter how logical, no matter how much it served the greater good, he could not leave that girl behind. He would rather risk his own life and this perfectly good helicopter than escape knowing he had let her die.
At the end of the runway, he waited for the mass of Skulls to clamber over the wrecked fueling trucks. The Skulls’ cries drifted up around the chopper, but Frank wasn’t scared anymore.
He’d been scared when he thought it was just his life at stake. But now that he’d seen that girl alone and frightened, he was pissed off. These monsters didn’t care that she was just a kid. They didn’t care that her parents and sister had already been taken away from her.
But Frank did care, damn it.
He steadied the chopper into a hover, still waiting for the monsters to pile up under him. If he timed it right, he could lead them away like some kind of badass Pied Piper and then soar back down to rescue the girl before the ignoramus Skulls even knew they’d been duped.
“Come on, ya’ land lubbers. Follow the big tasty meal in the sky.” He bobbed the chopper up and down, flashing the navigation lights, ensuring he did everything in his power to put on a good show for them.
He flew back and forth over the Skulls. A couple of them jumped, claws raking the air and coming up empty, before disappearing back into the horde.
The plan was working. He might save that girl yet.
He swooped the Bell down over the crowd again, playing them like a rock star hyping up a crowd. Frank guessed this mosh pit was a fraction more dangerous than the ones at a heavy metal concert. But even as the attention of a hundred Skulls fell on him, he noticed a stubborn pack that hadn’t strayed from the training school. At least three dozen were pressed against the front wall of the building. They scratched
at the windows and doors.
Those ones must’ve seen the girl when Frank did. They wouldn’t soon give up on the promise of a meal so close to their claws.
Frank’s hands wrapped so tight around the cyclic that his knuckles turned white. Sweat dripped from his forehead in rolling beads as he squinted, watching the Skulls assault the office. It wouldn’t be long before they broke the windows.
His fingers tapped the handle of his pistol. One bullet. One measly bullet.
Frank realized he had another weapon, a better weapon. And just like that, he had a new plan. It was idiotic. Absolutely foolish. But the other alternative was to let that poor girl get torn apart by a storm of bony talons and gnashing teeth.
“All right, boys and girls, fasten your seatbelts because things are about to get a bit...bumpy.” Frank pushed the cyclic, adjusting the pitch of the chopper until it leaned forward aggressively. He accelerated toward the swarm outside the office. The chopper engine wailed, straining, and a strange sense of delight and terror twisted through Frank’s gut like he was traveling down the first drop on a three-hundred-foot rollercoaster. He toyed with the collective, dropping the bird until the blades chewed up the overgrown wildflowers and long grass.
“Good. It looks like no one’s taken a goddamn lawnmower to this place in weeks!”
In seconds, he had narrowed the distance between himself and the office. The chopper’s blades sliced into the first Skull’s body, tearing limbs from its torso and turning its head into a pulpy mess. The ridiculous maneuver was something out of a Hollywood action move, and yet it worked. Frank imagined himself a Liam Neeson-type out to save a helpless child as he ground his teeth and pushed onward.
The rotor blades broke into the ranks of the Skulls, cutting them into fragments of fractured bone and crimson gore like chunks of meat in a food processor. Unfortunately, the fragile blades could only withstand so much stress. More wailing creatures fell to the slicing blades as he made another pass at the beasts, spreading flesh and blood across the tarmac. Only a dozen Skulls remained as Frank spun the chopper around to make a third attack. The bird accelerated, swooping low again, and he jockeyed with the controls until he was on a collision path with the nearest monster.
The Tide (Book 5): Iron Wind Page 13
