Monster Girl Islands 2

by Logan Jacobs

“That sounds like her,” I chuckled around a bite of food. “Anyway, I am glad it’s going to work out. I am going to get some help to gather the couple of rowboats the raiders left behind. I want to inspect their design and see if I can reuse the wood for a new boat, too.”

  “I just saw the twins come through with some stuff from the courtyard,” Nerissa said. “They might be willing to help you.”

  “Thank you.” I leaned forward and kissed Nerissa on the cheek. “By the way, no need to worry about me mating with Sela. She kind of attacked me on my way here.”

  “Well, that woman doesn’t waste an opportunity,” the queen laughed.

  “She sure doesn’t,” I agreed as I made my way toward the door. “I am going to find some help and head down to the shore.”

  “Bye, Ben,” Nerissa called after me.

  I found the twins in the courtyard, and they were huddled together as they looked at something I couldn’t see. When I got close enough, I saw it was the slingshot we’d found on the dead raider after the funeral for Tiana.

  “Figure it out yet?” I asked.

  “Not really,” Zarya said and turned to me with a frown. “I know you called it a slingshot, but do you know what it does?”

  “Yep.” I smiled.

  “Of course you do,” Darya laughed and shook her head. “Mind showing us?”

  “Sure.” I leaned down, picked up a hefty sized stone, and showed them how to load it in the sling. Then I pulled it back and let the rock go flying, and the stone hit a tree hard enough that it got wedged into the trunk.

  “Gods,” Zarya breathed with wide eyes.

  “Damn.” I whistled as I glanced at the slingshot in my hand. My new super-strength never ceased to amaze me.

  The twins took off running toward the tree to get a closer look at the wedged stone. I followed behind them and got there to see it had gone a lot further into the tree than I’d originally thought.

  “Wow!” Darya exclaimed as she turned back to me with her mouth agape. “We need to make more of those! They would be great for shooting birds and lots of other things.”

  “We can do that,” I laughed, “since we will have a lot of time for that when the storms hit, plus some target practice time. For now, though, I was wondering if the two of you would go with me to collect a few of the boats that the raiders left on the shore.”

  “What do you want to do with them?” Zarya asked with a curious tilt of her head.

  “I want to get a general concept of how they were built and see if I can salvage any of the wood to build my own,” I explained as we exited the courtyard and moved away from the palace.

  The eastern shore was beautiful as the afternoon sunlight gleamed off its calm, blue waters, and there were half a dozen row boats beached along the shore. It was hard to believe a huge battle had just happened here, and I resisted the urge to take a swim in the inviting waters. Instead, I stayed focused as I pulled the first boat further up the sand away from the water.

  The woodwork was nice and much cleaner than I would have expected when I considered how ugly the fat brutes who built them were. The inner wood was smoothed out and sanded down, with two row-benches across the middle that sat in between the paddles and their holders. I curiously flipped the boat over to look at the underside and to see how to replicate that, as well.

  The bottom of the boat was coated in a thick, black layer of what looked like tar. It reminded me of what I might find back where I’d come from in the middle of a street that had been torn up and repaved. In the center of the boat, though, the tar had been scraped off by what looked like rock marks, and all that was left were little trails of splintered wood.

  Then I noticed two holes burrowed into the underside of the boat that had been submerged into the water, right where the tar used to be.

  “What the hell did that?” I wondered out loud.

  “Did what?” Zarya asked as she leaned in to see what I was mumbling about.

  “See those holes burrowed into the wood?” I pointed them out to her. “Something is eating the boat.”

  “Well, that’s disturbing,” Darya mumbled as her face contorted with disgust.

  “Yeah, and inconvenient as fuck,” I muttered.

  I got in close, and then I noticed some heinous looking worms inside the holes. They looked a bit like long slugs, and they wiggled slowly when I jabbed at the wood with my finger.

  “What the fuck?” I muttered as I squinted at the grub looking things.

  “Gross,” Zarya breathed as she recoiled.

  As I studied the wriggling worms, I suddenly remembered stories about shipworms destroying wooden vessels much like termites would a log house. I’d never had to deal with them in all of my sailing and Coast Guard years since boats were built out of metal and fiberglass in my world. This was going to be a serious problem since I didn’t have anything to build a boat out of other than wood.

  “I’ve never seen anything like that,” Zarya said. “Do you think they live in the wood or in the water?”

  “My guess would be the water,” I replied, “or we would have seen them before.”

  “They are really hideous,” Darya said with a total look of disgust on her face as she backed away from the boat.

  I had half a mind to pick one up and throw it at her, but goofing off wasn’t really on the agenda today.

  “What do we do about them?” Zarya asked as she inspected the holes with a wrinkled nose.

  “Well, see that black stuff?” I asked as I pointed to the tar, and both warriors nodded. “Where I come from, we call it tar. It’s usually made of oil and coal, but you don’t have that here. So, we need to figure out another way to produce something similar. We can cover the bottom of any boats we make with the stuff, and then those damn worms won’t be able to chew us apart while we’re in the middle of the ocean.”

  “Thank the gods for that big brain of yours.” Zarya grinned at me.

  Even after all the time I’d spent on this island, and after I’d pledged myself to it, the complete and total trust the women showed me still managed to make my heart skip a beat.

  We checked the rest of the boats for anything useful and found two more slingshots. Then we flipped the other four boats over, and found they’d been sealed with undamaged tar, which meant those damn worms had left them alone.

  Perfect.

  We’d sure as hell need more than four of these boats, but the less work we had to do, the better.

  “Let’s pull these up on shore and out of the way, and we can send some women out later to haul them up to the village,” I instructed the twins.

  Just as we turned to head back to the village, a low rumbling sound echoed from the nearby jungle.

  “What was that?” I muttered as I turned toward the sound.

  Then a huge fucking boar burst out of the tree line and came charging at us.

  “Watch out!” I yelled as I drew my sword.

  Both of the twins jumped immediately from the boar’s initial path, but it didn’t take long for the beast to swing around and attempt to gore us with its massive tusks. I didn’t really want to get into striking distance of those tusks, but all I had with me was my sword, so I didn’t have much choice if I wanted to kill it.

  “What should we do?” Zarya yelled as she and her sister darted to my side.

  “Get behind me but draw your weapons!” I shouted. “This one is out for blood!”

  The twins followed my instructions, and I heard the rasp of their swords leaving their sheathes as they crowded at my back.

  But I only had eyes for the boar as it circled back around and pawed at the sand.

  The beast kept its head down and its tusks angled right at me, which was going to make killing it difficult if I couldn’t get access to its neck. The boar proceeded to snort angrily as it continued to circle around us and tried to find a weak spot in our defenses. It pawed at the ground in increased agitation before it finally made a move.

  The boar readied
itself for another charge, but then I saw something fly over my head and smack it right in the eye. The beast squealed and reared back in pain and exposed its neck beautifully to me, so I jumped at the chance to cleanly slice through its neck and remove its head. Hot blood sprayed all over me as the animal fell to the ground with a loud thud, and then his head rolled several feet away.

  I turned around to see Zarya grinning like crazy and holding one of the slingshots we’d just found.

  “Did you shoot that bastard in the eye with the slingshot?” I asked with a laugh.

  “Yes, I did!” she giggled. “I wasn’t sure it would do much good, but it gave you the opening you needed!”

  Darya was doubled over in laughter at her sister’s impromptu actions.

  “Nice shot!” I chuckled and wiped off my sword.

  “At least you didn’t shoot your own eye out or hit Ben,” Darya gasped through her giggles. “I saw the thought cross your mind!”

  “I can’t say it didn’t,” Zarya laughed, “but I didn’t know what else we were going to do!”

  “It was a good call,” I assured her, “and it definitely made my job easier.”

  “I will run back to the village and get the hammock,” Darya said with a grin. “This boar is the biggest we have killed, and it’s going to be a chore to drag it back to the village.”

  “Grab some extra hands if you can,” I called out before she took off.

  After Darya disappeared from view, I looked back at the headless boar and started thinking about the situation. Something was bothering me about this attack.

  “Zarya, have you ever seen a boar this far from the jungle?” I asked.

  “I was just thinking about that,” she replied with a frown, “but no, I haven’t. It makes me wonder, though. The beast was quite agitated and definitely on the defense.”

  “You think it was running from something?” I questioned.

  “I think it’s a distinct possibility,” she said, “but what would be big enough to scare a beast of his size? And scare it bad enough to act so irrationally?”

  “I really don’t know,” I groaned, “and I don’t think I want to know.”

  Right about then, Darya and Mira came running up with the hammock so we could load the boar up and take it back to Hali in the kitchen.

  “I was just asking Z if she’d ever seen a boar so far out of the jungle,” I said to the two women, “and she hasn’t. Have either of you?”

  They both thought for a few moments and then shook their heads.

  “Any ideas what would drive it out here?” I asked them. “It totally went against nature leaving its protective habitat like that.”

  “I can’t think of anything,” Mira mused with a furrowed brow. “The boars have always been what we feared the most about entering the jungle. I don’t really want to think about anything that could scare one of them.”

  “That’s exactly what I was thinking,” I sighed. “Alright, let’s get this bad boy loaded up and back to the palace. Regardless of why it was out here, the damn thing is huge, and I know Hali will be glad to see it.”

  We worked together to get the boar in the hammock, since the son of a bitch had to weigh a good two-hundred and fifty pounds, was awkward as fuck to move, and on top of that, smelled like hot, fermented garbage.

  “Sweet Christmas,” I groaned. “If I didn’t know how far this fucker would go to feed us during the storms and how good it will taste, I would leave the bastard here.”

  All three of the women just laughed at my bitching and helped me get the damn boar centered on the hammock. We were about to head back to the palace when I remembered we were leaving something behind.

  “Let me grab the head,” I said, “or the dragons will have mine. That is apparently the best part, according to them.”

  I walked over to where the head had rolled right up to the line of the jungle, and grabbed it by one of the super sharp tusks. These bad-boys were going in my collection, for sure. I just needed to figure out what I could do with them.

  I headed back to where the women were, but then I heard the most terrifying, bone chilling, bestial scream from the jungle behind me.

  All three of the women’s eyes grew huge, and they drew their swords.

  I ran back to them, dropped the head on the hammock, and turned with my sword drawn.

  Then another scream rocketed out of the jungle, and it was aimed right at us. The four of us brandished our weapons and turned toward the monstrous scream, ready to take on this new and unusual beast head on.

  I was damn thankful for the boar, but I sure as hell wasn’t thankful enough to let this fucker live, especially with a deadly, terrifying screech like that.

  But just as I was readying myself for a big ol’ monster battle, a giant crash came from somewhere in the jungle.

  A crash that sounded suspiciously similar to a felled tree.

  Then another, identical crash followed it, but this time, I could see it really was a tree falling. The giant, tall palm trees, with trunks as thick as three of me, were falling down in the dead center of the jungle like some hand had swept down and decided to knock them over as easily as you would knock over an unwanted weed.

  Holy fucking shit. Whatever managed to do that had to be huge. Like, Godzilla had a baby with a kraken kind of huge.

  Yet another tree fell, even closer to the four of us, but this time, it was followed by two of those loud, long screeches.

  Whatever this was, I knew our swords and slingshots were no match for it. We needed a fucking canon.

  “Let’s get the fuck out of here!” I yelled as we grabbed the hammock and started moving as fast as we could.

  We’d fucked up someone’s dinner plans, and I sure as hell didn’t want to be the replacement.

  Chapter Six

  “It’s the biggest one I ever saw!” Hali exclaimed from the kitchen doorway as she stared down at the boar in our hammock.

  “That’s what she said,” I blurted out.

  All of the women stopped and stared at me like I’d just sprouted another head, and I really should be getting used to it by now since it happened on a daily basis. They just didn’t have any appreciation for well-timed juvenile male humor.

  Oh, well, at least I kept them on their toes.

  We’d managed to get the boar hauled back to the kitchen without becoming lunch ourselves, but the question of what the hell was in the jungle still loomed over me. I’d never heard anything make a sound like that. The best way I could describe it was a combination of a bird screech and a giant cat roar.

  I sure as hell didn’t want to meet a beast like that. Ever.

  “Hey, Hali,” I said and managed to stop the awkward stares. “Do you have any idea what kind of creature a boar like this would be scared of? Like, scared enough to run out of the protection of its jungle home?”

  “What do you mean?” she asked with a worried frown.

  “This giant bastard charged us near the shore, a good hundred yards from the tree line,” I told her. “After we killed it, we heard the hideous scream of some beast that had definitely had its next meal stolen. It wasn’t happy.”

  “What did it sound like?” she asked as her eyes grew big.

  “It was a cross between a bird screech and a big animal roar,” I said. “That’s the best way I can describe it. It was like nothing I’ve ever heard before.”

  The cook stayed quiet for a few seconds, and then she started shaking her head profusely with a chuckle.

  “That’s ridiculous,” she mumbled mostly to herself.

  “What’s ridiculous?” I urged.

  “There was this story my father used to tell us when we were little,” she sighed, “about the owlbear of the jungle. If you strayed too far in, it would snatch you up in its bear paws and eat your tender parts first with its sharp beak.”

  “Owlbear?” I gasped. “That’s some Dungeons and Dragons shit.”

  “I don’t know what Dungeons and Dragons is,”
she laughed, “but I am sure it’s just a story the elders made up to keep the younglings out of the jungle.”

  “Which brings us no closer to whatever the hell was actually in the jungle,” I groaned, “so I think it’s a good idea to stay out of there for now. I will have to put off gathering more bamboo until after the storms, it’s not worth the risk.”

  “There is still a shed full of bamboo reserved for bow making,” Mira reminded me. “We don’t really need the bows right now, so why don’t you use the bamboo for your first attempt at building something that will float?”

  “That’s a great idea,” I replied with a grin. “This way, it won’t go to waste during the storm season where it would likely just lay there and rot.”

  “Glad to help.” Mira smirked.

  With that decided, we worked together to get the boar gutted and cleaned so Hali could make quick work of it and get it ready for the storm season. After that, I made my way to the bathing chambers to wash all of the gore off me and to relax a bit. It had been a long few days since the battle, and I really hadn’t had a chance to even take a breather.

  I was laid back in the pool of hot water when a voice interrupted my thoughts.

  Are you well, dear one? George asked.

  “I am,” I muttered out loud, “just taking some time to relax and get my thoughts straight.”

  You have been quite vexed with responsibilities lately, he said, so you should take some time to rest.

  “George,” I asked before he slipped away, “do you know of any beast in the jungle that one of the giant boars would be terrified of?”

  Hmm, he hummed as he thought it over, there are legends of a great beast that resides there, but I always thought they were just a myth.

  “It wouldn’t be an owlbear, would it?” I chuckled.

  Not to my knowledge, he laughed. It was described more as a reptile with wings.

  “Definitely not an owlbear,” I said, “sounds more like a dinosaur, which is even more terrifying.”

  Do not worry yourself, Ben, my dragon reassured me, we will discover what it is after the storms if it is still plaguing the jungles.

  “Agreed,” I sighed, “there is no sense in worrying about it right now. The storms are definitely a more pressing matter at the moment.”