by Matt James
“Better than being some stiff who can’t handle himself.”
“Definitely,” Jill agrees, eyeing the same poor bastard.
“Hey…” I say softly. Jill looks up at me. “Pay attention to where you’re stepping, not to what you’re stepping on.”
“There’s a difference?” She looks sick to her stomach.
“There is.” It may not make sense to her, but it’s how I’m holding my shit together.
Blood doesn’t bother me. Whose blood it belongs to, does.
We finish our climb and nearly trample one another through the door. Acting as one lung, we both inhale deeply. I grab Jill and hug her hard. Then, I aim my gun and put a bullet in the head of an Unseen just as it rounds the corner. Not a second after I had wrapped my arms around Jill did it appear out of the closest crisscrossing hallway. We were lucky that it didn’t detect us first while we were prone and unaware.
“Dammit, Frank!” Jill yells, holding a hand to her ear. While not deafening by definition, the close-range shot had surely hurt her eardrums.
“Sorry—but look!”
She does and quickly snaps her gun up, finding nothing except more bodies.
Including the fresh one.
“Goblin,” I say, seeing his face from here. “It’s alone?”
The few times that I’ve run into these assholes, they were never alone. Ever. Goblins, or the men that have turned, travel in ravenous packs. The creatures snap and claw at one another while they roam the land in search of their next meal. I was once able to observe their behavior from the safety of a library back in Manhattan, awed and disgusted all at once. I even slept in a bathroom that night.
Ah, the memories…
“Um, Frank,” Jill says, standing over the Unseen man, gun still aimed at his head. “This isn’t a goblin.”
“Siren?” I ask. A woman with short hair maybe?
Jill shakes her head. “Not a woman either.”
“What is it?” I ask looking down the hall.
“Not sure, but it was a man at some point.”
“What?” I ask, heading back to her now, confused. “I thought you said it wasn’t a goblin?”
“It’s not, Frank.” She clicks on a small flashlight. “It’s a man, but it’s also not a goblin.” She looks at me as I step up next to her. “It’s something new.”
Great.
“Ho-ly shit,” I say, seeing the blades where its hands should be. “Well, that’s different.”
Squatting next to it, a reaper I decide to call it, I marvel at the scythe-shaped blades protruding from its scarred wrists. And instead of the Grim Reaper’s singular weapon, this reaper wields two similar ones. I curl my nose when I notice that they’re made of bone, not metal. Seeing that the blades are a natural growth, makes the deformity even worse to me. Regardless of their makeup, the weapons would be perfect for broad, powerful slashing attacks.
Right… Kill them quickly—before they get too close.
I stand. “We need to be careful of these things. There’s no telling how else they’ll differ from their northern cousins,” my shoulders fall, “but I’m willing to bet the farm that these reapers aren’t the only new sub-species we’ll encounter here.”
Jill doesn’t comment on the name, seemingly understanding the similarity between the creature and the popular personification of death.
“You mean besides cursing more, driving poorly, and talking with a hideous accent?”
I grin at Jill’s comment and move off. She thinks like me more than she’s willing to admit. The only difference is that I’m more comfortable with being me while in public. Jill, the lawyer, well, the former lawyer, was the master at hiding her true self. Being a cop, I had no need for such a filter.
“Frank,” Jill says, stopping in place. “The other meteors.”
My eyes open wide. “Crap, you’re right. Each brought their own changes, didn’t they?”
“What about what happened in New Jersey?”
Her question is a good one. We experienced first-hand what the radiation could do. I had to put a bullet in a good man's head shortly after arriving there because of it.
“Maybe their initial burn causes one set of changes… Sirens, goblins, and so on.” I scratch my head. “Then, as they continue through the sky, they radiate another form of mutating energy altogether?”
“So,” Jill says, “not only might there be some of the New York creatures here, but there are also some newbies as well?”
I shrug. “Looks like it.”
Closing her eyes, Jill holsters her gun for the moment and rubs her temples with her palms, trying desperately to knead the frustration away. Opening her eyes, she sighs and lets her hands fall away, looking very tired. I give Jill the ability to let her guard down when she needs a break like this.
I don't let mine down for one second.
I don’t give myself any breaks unless I don’t have a choice.
“Come on.” I reach out for her. “If there’s one of these things, there’s bound to be more.”
Jill nods and draws her gun again. Gripping it tightly, she follows me as I make a b-line for the port-side of the ship. It’s the side leaning into the pier and the one we’ll need to use as our exit.
Unfortunately, the most direct route to the other side is going straight through the spooky casino. It’s dark except for a few random slot machines and blinking overhead lights. We stop and gaze out over the space.
“Damn,” I whisper, pointing at the shadow shifting deeper in the room.
Jill leans into me. “Think we can go around?”
I shrug. “I don’t know, probably, but it may take more time.”
Jill’s eyes say it all. She wants to get off this boat ASAP.
Me too.
“Watch our asses.”
Blowing out a long breath, I step forward, gun up. Jill does the same, staying directly behind me. She has no issue being my backup. While a competent woman in her own right, Jill isn’t me. She’s brave, but if I had to bet on who’d freeze up out of the two of us, I’d bet against my wife every time.
I used to routinely get the question of whether or not I was in the military at some point. The answer was an emphatic “no.” I may be a rock in situations like this, but those guys are on an entirely different level. That's the difference between Jill and people who don't really know Jill and me. She knows that I’m actually scared shitless right now. She just happens to be more afraid than me and is physically showing it.
The stairs into the bowl-like room are short but ominous. They make it feel like we’re entering an arena of pain. I half-expect a set of iron bars to slam down and lock until only one of us survives.
A slot machine goes nuts off to the right, making Jill and I cringe and duck beneath an empty card table. Next, the lights in the room wink out and a godawful shrieking sound rises up around us. After a moment of terrifying darkness, the lights flicker to life.
What I see makes me almost piss myself. Slowly, I put a finger to my lips. Jill nods, acknowledging my plea for peace. When I raise my gun and look past her, Jill’s body tightens. She knows that whatever has spooked me is directly behind her.
A figure that wasn’t there just seconds ago.
Once more my finger goes to my lips and then I nod my chin towards the pair of shredded pants and blood-stained, bladed arms. While we dove beneath the table, one of the reapers had silently ghosted itself into position.
Hopefully, it just wants to be dealt into the next hand.
Fat chance, and I ready my own gun, unsure of how to continue with the situation. Jill is too close for me to get off a clean shot without putting the barrel of the weapon up against the side of her head. I could potentially injure her while trying to save her life. So, for now, I only hold up a hand, telling her to sit tight and wait.
We do so for an excruciating, long five minutes. Our friend does nothing else except stand there and rhythmically sway back and forth. It’s waiting for som
ething to move and is in no rush to leave.
Shit.
Starting to panic a little, I look around and find something of use. The poker chip has a “$100” printed on it and might be exactly what I need. Any other day, I would’ve gladly pocketed the thing and walked away, but not today...
As if I’m a three-toed sloth, I slowly shift my weight to my left leg and turn my shoulders. Now in a better position, I toss the chip back toward the steps into the casino. It stays airborne long enough for me to curse myself for slinging it too far. Did I ever mention that I’m good at hurling a Frisbee? If the chip travels too far, the reaper might not—
The chip lands with a soft tink and gets the reaper moving immediately. It leaps onto the table with ease, showing off its agility in the process. Glass shatters on the floor beside us, thrown from the tabletop above. Playing cards and poker chips, hundreds of dollars’ worth of them, spill everywhere too.
After sniffing the air, it dismounts our table and slides across the marble floor, hardly making a sound. The only noise it does make is that of its blades as they drag along behind it. It’s the same shrieking sound I heard before we hid.
Hmmm.
The reaper walks as if his blades weigh a ton. Instead of keeping his evolved weaponry up and ready to fight, he struggles to keep them by his side, pulling them along behind him like two heavy rolling suitcases. I bet if he was forced to yank them forward at a high rate of speed, he’d dislocate his shoulders.
When I shot the one earlier, he had yet to detect us, so we hadn't got to see how he moved. I assumed that the creature moved lightning quick based on my preconceived knowledge of the species. Yes, the reaper moves like a Navy SEAL when he can, with power and purposed grace, but I’m curious as to how the thing actually uses his blades in a fight.
He shows me seconds later.
Sniffing the air, the reaper heaves one of the blades up and over his head in a long and awkward looking arch. Then, like a woodsman chopping a log between his feet, he brings the blade down. While slow, the strike is devastatingly powerful. It’s as close to a walking guillotine as I have ever seen. The creature’s blade tip slams into the marble flooring, like a sledgehammer, and pierces it with ease. I can’t see it, but I’m confident that the poker chip was obliterated.
Okay then, I think, shocked, keeping low and backing away. Still kill them as quickly as possible. Studying my opponent usually pays off, but in this case, it doesn’t help much. If anything, it cost me a hundred bucks.
I look over at Jill and see her open-mouthed gaze.
“Go,” I say quietly. “Keep your head down and don’t stop.”
3
We don’t stop—mostly because two more reapers appear seconds after we attempt our escape. Now, instead of silently trying to avoid conflict, Jill and I take down the Unseen behind us with a barrage of bullets. I put two in its chest, while Jill puts two more in its stomach. The third of her bullets misses entirely and blows apart a slot machine back near the poker table.
Bells ding and party sirens blare. Then, chips pour out into the prize bin beneath the machine. It’s the best thing that could’ve happened too. The other reapers stall their advances, looking toward the sound instead. The inaction gives me the time I need to line up a perfect headshot.
The thing’s brains blow out all over the face of the nearest reaper. With two down, the remaining creature thinks better of taking us head-on and disappears into the shadows behind a row of slots.
“Shit,” I say, speaking at my usual volume. “Keep going. We need to get out of here.”
We don’t need to keep our voices down any longer. He knows we’re here. No use mixing up our words by talking in tones that are too hushed to hear.
Jill gives me a look that says, “duh,” and begins to slowly back away. I stay put for a few more seconds, just in case our buddy shows his ugly mug again. Even with the reapers as the newest addition, the creatures, including the goblins, are pretty much the same. Mangy, disgusting, and savage.
Interestingly enough, the room is mostly silent. I figured I’d hear the shrieking of the reaper’s blades as they drag across the floor. I guess they don’t always do it. Maybe in a fight, they pick them up for stealth purposes.
“Wonderful…”
Cautiously, we creep away from the mass of poker tables and navigate through the bodies surrounding them. Just like every other room we’ve been in, including the stairwell, the casino floor is blanketed with the non-living. Walking backward while trying not to trip on an arm or leg…or head, is proving extremely difficult.
Looks like the casino was close to capacity when the changes occurred.
Off to our right, toward the stern of the ship, a ballast blinks to life and then explodes. But within that quick and sparse light, Jill and I see another five reapers stalking toward us. Then, nothing, minus the random chime of another slot machine. Red warning lights are the only illumination now, and they create a ghastly scene, bathing everything in the room in the crimson shade of blood.
Even though it was already crimson.
“Run!” I hiss. “Run now!”
Jill flees, with me right on her ass. Earlier, we tried to avoid defiling the dead by stepping on them. Now, we trample them as if they were a part of the floor and nothing else. Liquid splashes beneath our shoes, reminding me of when I used to stomp in rain puddles as a kid. My lower half is drenched in blood, and I do everything in my power not to hurl.
The room is set up in the shape of a circle—I see that now. The card tables are at the center of the space with the slots surrounding them in a pair of half-moon arcs. I only see two entrances into the miasma of machines, one of them being behind us and the other straight ahead. That being said, I’m pretty sure we’re going to run into more reapers any second as the creatures follow the lanes of slots to our right and left. We have no choice but to cross directly into them at an intersection.
Jill doesn’t seem to notice this as we approach. She’s running as fast as she can, glancing down every few steps to spot her next landing point. From out of the red-lit shadows comes a giant blade, swinging directly for Jill’s throat.
“Duck!” I yell, but it may have been too late.
I watch as the reaper cleaves into…a slot machine, just barely missing my diving wife. Jill heeds my warning and dips her head, leaping forward as she does. I even see a lock of her raven hair poof into the air.
My inner Maxwell Smart takes over. Missed her by ‘that’ much.
With his arm lodged deeply into the slot machine, I slow and casually aim my gun at the back of his head. I pull the trigger without another thought, splattering grey matter everywhere. The reaper’s lifeless body slumps to the floor but stops halfway, staying mostly airborne because of the blade still being wedged tight.
I turn and shriek, almost losing my head in the process. Now, I’ve never professed myself to be the best at the limbo, but, hot damn, I’ll beat anyone if it involves a reaper’s blade!
Bending backward, I fall to my knees. Like Jill, the blade clips my hair going by, almost taking off the tip of my nose along with it. Now off balance, I aim my gun over my head, looking upside down at my fugly attacker. It snarls just as I pull the trigger of my gun.
A hand latches onto my jacket, and it takes everything in me not to scream like a girl again. Seeing that it’s Jill helps squelch my fear. She pulls me to my feet and shoves me forward. I even think I see her trying to hold in a laugh.
We finally make it to the far stairs without further incident but don’t stop to smell the roses. Together, we take them two at a time and continue our noisy escape. The dash through the portside hall is short and sweet. I assume the lead and come to a stop just inside the outer door, catching my breath. With no way of knowing what’s waiting for us on the other side, we’ll have to revert back to our cautionary ways for the time being.
Jill is shaking as she breathes, knowing that she had almost lost her life. I am too, for that matter.
“You’re welcome, by the way.”
She smiles back and it’s enough of a “thank you” for me. Even if I didn’t love her, I would’ve still warned her of the reaper’s attack—and she knows it. I turn and put my hand on the door to open it, but I’m stopped.
My face is forcibly turned, and Jill kisses me really, really har... Oh, sorry, lost my train of thought. Anyways, after five passion-filled seconds, we part, and she pats my dirty face. Again, she doesn’t actually say the words “thank you,” and after our impromptu make-out session, I don’t much care whether she does or not. Her lips, and tongue are all the thanks I need.
“Ready?” I ask, grinning like an idiot.
“It’s not like we have a choice.”
She’s right, and I return my attention to the door and raise my gun. Slowly, I push, opening it inch by careful inch. The world on the other side is void of life, but not of death, as I’ve come to expect. The port side deck is covered in swimsuit wearing patrons.
The decking itself is slick with blood, but because of the angle, and rain, most have since drained away. I carefully step out and look left and right. Not seeing anything moving, I head for the railing and take in our current position.
The first thing I see is that we’re way too high to jump down to what’s left of the pier. Even with it being a smaller cruise ship, it’s still plenty tall, and Jill and I are a good thirty feet off our landing zone.
The other thing I see, and something that gives me hope, is that the lights that line the pier are still working. Sort of. Most are lit, some aren’t. Either way, it wouldn’t be entirely dark down there. Another thing I notice is the carcasses on the beach surrounding the pier are those of sea life…and people. The aura coming off the pier slightly illuminates the sand around it. Within the light, I see shadows—movement.
“Frank, look.”
I look away from the beach and follow Jill’s finger north. There are four sets of ropes and pullies further up the deck. We rush for them and stop, peering over the edge once more. There, in the aura of the ship’s external lights, and smashed against the pier, are two of the four hardtop lifeboats. Even from this high, I can see the bodies within them. One of the smaller boats has been flattened, pinned between the ship’s hull and the heavily fortified pier.