The Crocodile's Jaws: An Alice in Deadland Adventure (Alice, No.7)

by Dhar, Mainak

  The other Biters streamed in behind Bunny Ears and the workers began to scream. John ran towards them and herded them into a room and latched the door. When he turned, he saw something that astonished him. The Biters were standing around Bunny Ears, as if waiting for his command.

  John had seen Alice exercise that kind of power over Biters, binding them with a loyalty that overrode their seemingly instinctive desire to attack people. Somehow, through the years he had spent with Alice, Bunny Ears had taken on that mantle of leadership, and he didn't even need the tattered book that Alice wore around her waist.

  John opened the door and the old man whom he had seen being beaten outside peeked out.

  'The Biters…'

  'Don't worry, they will not hurt you. Bunny Ears is a friend and he will not let any harm come to you.'

  The man looked skeptical, but he had other, perhaps bigger worries on his mind.

  'That white man is still up there. He ran up the stairs when you came in, and he has my daughter with him.'

  John nodded at Bunny Ears to wait and crept up the stairs. He winced at the creak of the old floorboards under his boots, but he had no real advantage of surprise anyways. As he came to the top of the stairs, he saw a narrow corridor with a single closed door on either side. There was no light coming out from under either door and if he opened the wrong door, he could be a sitting duck for an attacker coming up from behind the other door. He crept closer, and then paused beside one of the doors, his back flat against the wall.

  He whispered just loudly enough to be heard.

  'Vasili?'

  It was an old trick in the special forces community, because hearing one's name usually triggered an involuntary response. A slight shuffling noise came from the door across the corridor. He had his rifle ready but he didn't want to open fire, since he wasn't sure if the girl would be in harm's way, so he kicked the door open and rolled to one side as a burst of automatic weapon fire shredded the wall behind him. He leaned over the edge of the doorway and put a single shot into the shooter's boot. The man screamed in agony and released the girl, whom he had been holding as a human shield. The girl ran out into the hallway and John was inside the room in a second, throwing the man to the ground and holding him in a chokehold with one hand.

  'Please, don't kill me.'

  A Russian accent? Here, in the middle of Karachi? He had seen the Cyrillic script on some of the equipment captured during the attack at their settlement, but had not thought much of it, since Pakistan had been awash in weapons from all sources before the Rising.

  John looked at the man's eyes and he decided to make a deal.

  'Okay, you live, but you need to take me to where my friends have been taken.'

  When John dragged the bleeding and whimpering Vasili downstairs, he found the girl he had just rescued in her father's arms. The Biters were milling around, with Bunny Ears standing between them and the humans.

  John dumped Vasili on the ground at Bunny Ears' feet.

  'He'll take us to Alice. If he tries anything funny, bite his head off.'

  Vasili needed no more prodding. He was pleading to have his wounds tended to and when he tried to grab John's leg, he was rewarded with a kick to the ribs.

  'I shot you through the calf and from what I can see, the bullet went clean through. I'll bandage you but don't expect any more mercy from me. You have no reason to expect more humanity than you showed the people here. Now, where are Alice and the kid?'

  Vasili looked away, and John was ready to strike him again when Neha came up behind him.

  'I know where they are, but I can't take you there by myself. He will have to get you near the dock where they come ashore to pick up supplies.'

  John looked at her, wondering where she was going with this. He had assumed they would have a hideout or base somewhere in the city and had been planning on how he could co-ordinate an attack with Bunny Ears and his Biters.

  Neha sensed his bewilderment. She had been born just a couple of years before the Rising and had no idea of what submarines were, so she used the words that meant sense to her.

  'They're in a ship that can go under the water.'

  For a few seconds, John just stood there, taking in all the implications of what she had said and what it meant. A submarine? How would he assault that? The Biters would be of no use at all, and he would have to head out into an enemy bastion out in the sea all alone.

  'We need to talk and get him to talk. Only then can we get a plan.'

  Neha had a fire in her eyes now, sensing that now there was a chance to get her revenge on the captain and his men.

  'I can tell you all about what's happening on that ship and who's there. There's an old school building nearby where we can hide for the night.'

  'Great. What's your name?'

  'Neha.'

  Bunny Ears swiveled towards her on hearing the name, and kept staring at her. As Neha walked out with the others and John hauled Vasili to his feet, he looked at Bunny Ears, who was rooted to the spot.

  'What's up, buddy?'

  He froze when he heard the words, 'Neeeeeha… Neeeeeil. Neeeeha.'

  ***

  Alice was on her way to the bridge, trying to think of something she could do. Zohar was back in their room with an armed guard posted outside and Nikolai and two more men were with her.

  When she entered the bridge, a flurry of activity greeted her. Four men had already been sent to the landing zone, where they would recon the area and set up an ambush with their local thugs. Nikolai and others would come closer to the time of the landing to reinforce them. Alice had shared the co-ordinates of the stretch of highway based on the map in her tablet to Arjun. Part of her had felt guilty since the soldiers coming would most likely have no idea of what Robertson's plan was. They were coming to remove a threat to their homeland, and would be walking into a trap that Alice had helped set.

  The captain looked at her and smiled.

  'Things are moving just as I had planned. The plane lands tomorrow and in a couple of days, we go to Wonderland.'

  Then he turned to Nikolai.

  'I hope you've sent smart men. They need to ensure the pilots are unhurt and the plane itself is not damaged.'

  When he sensed some hesitation, he walked closer to Nikolai.

  'What's wrong?'

  'Sir, I would have wanted Vasili to lead them, but he hasn't come back from last night's trip to the factory.'

  The captain's brow furrowed for a second and then he relaxed.

  'He took that girl with him. Maybe he's just taking his time having fun. If he doesn't come by evening, send a couple of men to look around.'

  Alice tensed at the mention of Neha. Another life destroyed by the captain and his men. The captain caught her staring at him.

  'Just be glad I didn't slit her throat and throw her overboard. I've been reading the messages from your friends, and I get more and more interested in this Wonderland. Running water, electricity, fresh vegetables. I think I and my men are going to enjoy ourselves there.'

  That was precisely what Alice was afraid of.

  A man came running into the bridge.

  'Sir, our boat is approaching.'

  'Who's on it, idiot?'

  The man blanched and recovered his composure before replying.

  'Sir, it seems to be Vasili. But he may be hurt. I can see the uniform through my binoculars, but he's slumped over the steering wheel so I can't see his face.'

  'Did he get the supplies?'

  'I can see blankets covering boxes in the back.'

  The captain nodded, satisfied.

  'Looks like our goons managed to find some food after all and perhaps Vasili just needed time to complete the transaction and give them the krokodil. Have two men up to get him and the cargo.'

  As Nikolai barked his orders, Alice was reminded of just how precarious the captain's situation was, despite all his bluster and all the nuclear warheads his ship carried. While his onboard filters could get hi
m and his men drinking water, he had no fresh supplies of food, and depended on his local network of thugs to scrounge for food supplies and raid settlements in return for the drug that the captain and Nikolai had got them addicted to. Alice realized that the captain and his ship were like parasites, moving from place to place, sucking it dry of supplies and crushing the people there before moving on. They had done so to dozens of islands and ports so far, and now that Karachi was drying up, he had his sights set on Wonderland.

  Alice could not and would not allow such a fate to befall her people.

  She was led back to her room, only one man guarding her as the others were busy receiving Vasili and his shipment or preparing for the ambush. By now the captain figured that he had her on so short a leash that she would not dare attempt any resistance. She was just a few feet from the room where she and Zohar had been imprisoned when the man behind her stopped, talking into his radio mouthpiece.

  'Sir, Boris here. I'll be right there.'

  He looked at the man standing in front of the room and shouted out.

  'Something's up. They're asking me to go topside and see what's going on. Take her into the room.'

  As the man turned and ran, Alice walked closer the room and the guard prodded her with his gun.

  'Get in there, freak.'

  That was when the unmistakable sound of gunfire came from somewhere above her, and then a sound that she would recognize anywhere.

  A roar of pure fury from Bunny Ears followed by a bellowed scream.

  'Aaa… aa… lisssss.'

  The guard in front of her looked up involuntarily at the sound, and that was when Alice's hand shot out and her clenched fist connected with his trachea. The man's eyes widened as his hands came up to his neck and Alice brought her right elbow around in an arc, smashing his nose. As he went down, she grabbed the pistol from his belt and shot him once in the head. She took the keys from his belt and as she opened the door, she tossed the pistol to Zohar as she grabbed the guard's assault rifle.

  'Come on, kid. It's payback time.'

  ***

  TEN

  John ducked as a round glanced off the hull of the submarine and pulled Bunny Ears down close to him. Neha was right behind him. So far the girl had proved absolutely indispensable and fearless. She looked slight, almost fragile but clearly had a ruthless streak to her, perhaps born out of years of suffering and struggling to survive. She had been born to an Indian father and a Pakistani mother before the Rising, and they had been visiting relatives in Karachi when things went bad. Her father had survived and kept her alive, meeting up with other survivors and moving from place to place, scrounging to survive, trying to stay out of the way of Biters and bandits who now ruled the city.

  She had guided them to the berth at the old port where their boat was kept, awaiting Vasili and the food and supplies he was supposed to take back. She had told him that Vasili needed to radio in an all-clear for the boat to be allowed near the sub, and he had done so. Once John had realized that Neha knew enough to get him and Bunny Ears close to the submarine and that Vasili's old uniform fitted him pretty well, he realized he had very little use for Vasili any more. John would have put a bullet in his head but ironically it was Neha, who had suffered so much at the hands of Vasili and others like him, who stopped him.

  'He and his captain have been predators for too long. Let him realize what it means to be at the bottom of the food chain.'

  So Vasili had been set free in the old ruins of Karachi, unarmed and unable to run with the wound in his leg. John wasn't sure who would get him first—Biters or people who had slaved at the factory. Either way, Vasili was a dead man.

  Getting onto the submarine had been easy enough. A sentry had lowered a ladder and had barely had time to register that it was not Vasili looking up at him before John had shot him. John had climbed up the ladder as fast as he could and when another guard appeared above the hatch, John had killed him as well. But a third had appeared and engaged him in a firefight that had now been raging for a couple of minutes. Bunny Ears and Neha had joined John and he knew that he was running out of time. He no longer had the element of surprise on his side and he had to get inside before more reinforcements came or the hatch was simply closed.

  Bunny Ears pulled Neha to one side as another bullet came their way. Something about learning Neha's name had changed Bunny Ears. He was insanely protective towards her, and seemed to be trying to communicate—saying the name Neil over and over again, and then grunting in frustration when he was unable to give voice to the thoughts in his head. Neha had been mortified at first to be in such close quarters with a Biter, but like all humans who had crossed paths with Bunny Ears, she was realizing that there was much more to him than an undead monster.

  The guard had steadied his aim to fire another shot when he was suddenly pulled downwards, back inside the submarine through the hatch. John threw caution to the winds, worried that they would be closing down the hatch, leaving him and Bunny Ears helpless to do anything. However, when he reached the hatch, he saw familiar blonde hair emerge.

  Alice grinned as she saw John and Bunny Ears a few feet behind him, and then her look changed to one of concern.

  'Come on, we don't have a lot of time!'

  As they raced through the narrow corridor below the hatch, Alice filled John in briefly on the predicament in which she had found herself. Alice called out to Neha.

  'Do you know where the weapons room is?'

  Neha nodded and pointed to a corridor leading to the left. John followed Neha down the corridor, with Alice hoping that they got there before the captain's men manning the weapons realized what was happening and fired their missiles.

  Alice continued towards the bridge, with Bunny Ears and Zohar just behind her. As they passed a corridor to their right, a man emerged from a room, armed with a rifle, perhaps alerted by the gun battle above. He saw Bunny Ears and his eyes widened. He raised his rifle to fire but it clicked harmlessly. In his panic, he had forgotten to thumb the safety off. He never got a second chance as Bunny Ears barreled into him, knocking the rifle out of his hands with one blow and then throwing the man against the wall. Alice kept running, hearing the man's screams echo behind her as Bunny Ears finished him.

  She was almost at the bridge when Zohar shouted something. She turned and that saved her life. Something hit her hard from the right, followed shortly by the deafening echo of a gun fired in an enclosed space. She was thrown hard against the wall, and blood spurted from the wound in her left shoulder. If she had not looked back at Zohar while running the shot would have hit her head. Zohar brought up his pistol to fire but their attacker kicked the boy's feet from under him and he went down. Another hard kick to the body and Zohar was still.

  'Now, you witch, let me carve you up before we burn your city down.'

  A hulking figure emerged from the darkness before her, holding a pistol in his right hand and a curved hunting knife in the other.

  It was Nikolai.

  ***

  From John's interrogation, Vasili had been an officer of some sort, in theory second only to the captain, but in practice third in line behind a man called Nikolai, who headed the marine detachment on the submarine and provided the muscle the captain needed to enforce his will. John was hardly an expert on submarines but on several occasions had been deployed or picked up by US Navy subs after missions, and he knew that the sub they were on was a very big one, nuclear-powered from what little Alice had told him. He had seen the long flat deck on top, ringed by circular hatches, launch tubes for intercontinental nuclear missiles.

  He paused outside the door to the weapons room.

  'Who's normally in there?'

  Neha was beside him, back flattened against the wall like him and breathing heavily from the exertion of the last few minutes.

  'There's a man called Mikhail. He's old and seems different from the rest—he never mistreated me or anyone else that I saw. I think the captain keeps him alive because he'
s the one who knows how to operate the weapons and keep them in working order.'

  'Anyone else?'

  'The captain doesn't really trust anyone, so every time I brought food for Mikhail, there was a guard in there with him, perhaps to ensure he did what the captain wanted.'

  John digested all that. Blundering in, guns blazing, into a room where a frightened man sat with his finger on the button that could unleash nuclear hell did not sound like a smart idea. The men above had been taken by surprise, but the guard inside would now be on alert after hearing the shots. Alice had said the men were marines, and John had worked with Russian special forces before the Rising, tracking down a renegade Serbian general accused of war crimes. They were well trained and ruthless, and if there was one thing he had learned in all his years of being a Delta operator and of surviving after the Rising, it was that there was no glory in fighting fair—what mattered was winning and stealth and subterfuge often were more important than brute force or indeed fighting skill. In that same mission in Serbia, he had bonded with a couple of the Russian troopers and had picked up some rudimentary Russian, including a phrase which he had heard almost every day as they had gone out on one wild goose chase after another based on faulty intelligence.

  He tapped on the door and spoke in an authoritative voice.

  'Mikhail, lozhnaya trevoga.'

  The guard inside motioned for Mikhail to keep sitting at his console and walked to the door, relieved that someone was calling out a false alarm. The last few minutes had been nerve-wracking. Nikolai had radioed in saying he would have the commotion checked out, but then there had been no news after that. Were they under attack? What was going on? It was a relief to hear that it was a false alarm, but a part of his mind also began ringing alarm bells. A part he should have listened to more—a part that would have made him question who this voice belonged to.