by Jones, K. J.
“Well, one is helping me out by having a big iron cross inked to his chest. He is shirtless. And well-armed.”
“How many?”
He took up a hunting riffle and checked it’s scope.
“Five. Getting off a skiff. How far am I seeing?”
“About fifteen hundred yards, considering the angle.”
“Here. You get them.”
“You don’t want to try?”
“I’d prefer them to be dead than me to try at a crazy distance.”
“Fair enough.”
They switched rifles.
“But you still have to do the calculations,” he said.
“Are you wimping out on the math?”
He smiled from behind the scope. “You're my spotter.”
She told him the bullet drop over the distance, including the angle downward, and the wind direction and estimated velocity. Then she watched through the hunting riffle scope.
The butt of the riffle rested against his shoulder. The barrel lay in the notch on the wooden pane. His left hand hung motionless to his side to not interfere. To move the riffle, he moved his body. Man and weapon were one.
“Firing.”
Iron Cross readjusted his gun belt and fell backward. The guy next to him looked at his buddy in perplexion. Stepped towards him and received a bullet in the back, dropping him forward. The three who were getting out of the skiff paused and looked at their friends. A hit on the right shoulder of one. The other two got the picture: sniper. They ducked down for cover behind dock lockers.
“Now it gets interesting,” said Ben. “This either draws out until they stand up or we call in reinforcements to do the ole street battle.”
“Should I call?”
“First, make sure these assholes aren’t hitting the same channel. Do you remember that insulting code we created?”
“I’m not sure I can say that.”
“C’mon, Catholic girl. You look cute when you blush.”
“Ha-ha. Funny, Running Elk.”
He slightly chuckled. Not wanting to displace his aim by a stronger laugh.
6.
Matt heard the dirty phrase in Phebe’s voice on his radio. He gave the fist to stop to the others. “Something’s up.”
He waited, listening, holding the loot team behind cover on the street. Nothing came through his earpiece. He shook his head to Mullen’s imploring eyes.
They hadn’t made up call signs. A big mistake. Matt remembered mention of what Raven’s had been as a scout sniper in the Marine Corps. He made up one for Phebe, hoping they catch on. “Black Bird and Mama Bear, sitrep?”
“She’ll hate that,” Mullen whispered.
Matt shrugged, she’d have to suck it up.
Phebe’s voice came back, “We have five homosexuals north of the cruise ship. Two dead. One wounded. Two hiding. Over.”
“Homosexuals?” Mullen mouthed.
“She’s trying to insult to provoke them.”
“Not a good job at that.”
“She’s a nice person.”
“She’s the decapitator.”
Matt gave another shrug. “Need some lemonade? Over.”
“That’s the best we got?” Mullen asked.
“We need to work on codes,” said Jayce.
“Affirmative,” she responded. “Over.”
Matt looked at the team of young faces. Granted, he wasn’t much older than Karen and Jayce when he joined the Army. And he was younger than Mullen when he was in a war. But they looked painfully young to him. Three of them had parents who’d lose their minds if they were killed. He wished he had Tyler.
“Mullen, you’re with me. You three, back to the house.”
“Why?” Jayce demanded.
“Orders. Go.”
Jayce blew out air in dislike. But he followed Karen and made sure his little sister was with him as they moved out.
Matt and Mullen ran the streets to reach the target area of just north of the cruise ship.
Phebe’s voice called for reinforcement from Tier One. Brandon was the only one to respond. He was with Eric at the Nazi house to bring in outdoor cameras for the project. He replied he was moving that way.
But no reaction from Mazy and Peter.
As Matt ran, he said into the radio, “Tier Two, respond?”
Nothing from Tyler.
“What does that mean?” Mullen asked him.
“We keep going to the target location.”
Much to Matt’s dismay, they found Phebe on street level. So much for trying to protect the baby. She wasn’t even wearing the specialized vest.
Hunkered behind a derelict SUV, she gave hand motions to convey the situation and the bad guys’ locations, just as if she had been through armed forces basic training.
Brandon slid in beside them, breathing heavy from a full-out sprint the whole way.
Ahead on the dock, rats gave away the locations of the dead and dying. And the hiding living – a leg came out and kicked a rat away.
The leg received a bullet. The man screamed in pain, followed by a deluge of curse words.
“I’ll go around,” whispered Brandon.
Nods.
Phebe signaled Matt to go around to the other flank and fan out. When he didn’t comply, she glared at him. With a sigh, he obeyed. But not without giving Mullen a signal to stay with her. She rolled her eyes.
Her M4 hung by its strap. She had the hunting riffle and watched through the scope. The machete’s blade hung on her back in a homemade sheath.
The bad guys had limited cover. Two were profusely bleeding from GSW. The other two were barely concealed behind dock boxes, where renters of marina slips could store their water hoses and such. Nothing stopped the wildlife from checking out what was happening. They smelled blood.
Phebe smirked. Henderson hadn’t briefed his buddies about the sniper. Maybe Ben hadn’t shared that tidbit of info. Henderson died before the rat population exploded. And he didn’t seem too in touch with nature to know how the alligators were behaving.
A stand-off that could last a while cut short by an alligator coming up on the dock to check things out. It snapped at the rats in its path. The bad guys opened fire on the reptile. Brandon and Matt opened fire on them.
“Three birds,” Brandon said. “Two bullets.”
“End it for the gator,” said Matt.
Brandon walked the dock and shot the wounded alligator through the brain. He kicked at rats who wanted the first bite.
“The others? This guy is still squirming.”
“Do it hands-on, Pell. Save bullets.”
Ben called out through the radio, “Maze, Sul, respond. Over.” Nothing. “Tyler. Respond. That’s an order. Over.”
Phebe pressed the earpiece in her ear, listening. Worry rose. “Something’s wrong.” She stood. “You guys got this?”
Thumbs up.
“Heads on spikes, Pell.” She slid the machete across the tarmac.
He sighed. “Fine. Wrong, but fine.”
Matt watched her and Mullen run off.
“Let’s check their skiff,” he said.
“They’re well-armed.”
“Yeah. A paydirt for us.” But concern kept happiness from rising.
7.
“Is the ship tilting worse?” Mullen asked. He kept up with Phebe’s long-legged sprint, adrenaline forcing him to gain speed he rarely had.
“Shit!” She raced to the end of the cement pier, removing her shoes as she went.
He tackled her.
“Get the fuck off of me.”
“It’s gator pool. Gimme the throat mic.”
She yanked it off and handed it to him. The earpiece withdrew from its attachment to the mic. He took the radio off her belt and, focusing on this, she turned the tables on him.
“No!”
She dove into the water.
“You crazy asshole.” Into the radio, “The ship is sinking. Pheeb just dove into the water. I need backup h
ere. ASAP.”
8.
Matt and Brandon dropped the decapitated bodies into the water in the hopes of drawing predators to them and away from Phebe.
“Fucking insane she is,” Brandon said.
“Start their engine.”
“Oh. Good idea.”
The key was still in the ignition of the double outboard engine boat.
9.
The water level rose at a slant in the pantry. Emily had preserved the food by getting the door closed, but may have sealed her fate in the process. No way to escape. To keep her head above, she climbed the shelves. She had no idea what was going on outside the door. If the others were even still alive. From the amount of water coming around the pantry door, she suspected they were all gone.
The hinges wouldn’t last long. She’d join them soon.
An image of her dead corpse holding bags of rice flashed through her mind. Maybe her body could be rescued and buried. Her wooden headstone would read: She died but protected the food.
She laughed.
“Totally fits my life. Oh, Safta. Maybe joining you soon.”
Her voice sounded so alone in the filling room.
The only thing left to do was hum a jazz song. One of her safta’s favorites she had heard the whole of her childhood.
10.
Phebe reached one of three blast openings in the ship’s hull. The predators were vacant as far as she could see. Using a balcony railing to keep herself from the suction to catch another breath, she let go and dove.
The rush was fast and furious.
Panic rose as she ran out of lung oxygen but still hadn’t found the surface.
Her knees slammed into something hard. Through her floating hair, she saw it was stairs. Her hand felt a metal railing. All effort in pulling herself up.
And up. And up.
She coughed out water as she crawled onto an angled damp stair landing.
“Second drowning, Baby Sullivan.”
She rested on her back. Her feet dangled in the rising water.
“Where are we?”
The railing was copper. The stairs wide. A scan around, all sorts of furniture floated. A lot of chairs and plates and glasses.
“The dining hall?”
The problem with a cruise ship was there were multiple dining halls. One team was looting kitchen pantries. The other going for the water tanks. She tried to pull out of her memory the map Ben had her memorize days ago and place it on this flooding distorted terrain.
A familiar voice. Another auditory hallucination? This time of Peter’s voice instead of Syanna.
“Hey, hotshot!”
She turned and saw two emergency rubber rafts, tied together. Peter and Mazy paddled the first one. Chris, Tyler, and Dr. Jenkins in the other.
“What the hell?” she asked.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Peter demanded.
They paddled towards her.
“What are you doing?”
Mazy said, “They have life rafts on cruise ships.”
“Okay.”
“We have to get Emily.”
“Are you guys dead?”
“No,” said Peter. “Are you?”
“No. Don’t think so.”
“We’re gonna have a serious talk about you being in here. Get in the fucking raft, lunatic.”
“I was coming to rescue you.”
“Again? Serious talk later.”
The lead raft came to her. She climbed over the side and dropped to the bottom.
“Such a fucking lunatic.”
“I was rescuing.”
“Serious talk.”
11.
“We’re here,” said Brandon. “Now what?”
“I don’t know.” Matt scanned the water as if that would do something. “I’ll go down to get her.”
“Ah, Matt, as much as I’d like her saved, the suction is kind of bad here. You could be dead, too.”
“She’s not dead!”
“Whoa. Okay. Don’t bite off the head, dude.”
Matt pulled off his shoes.
“No. Do not do this.”
“She’s not dying.”
12.
Could alligators or sharks kick in the pantry door? Was that part of their repertoire?
Emily regretted her lack of watching Shark Week. She’d know their capabilities. Was Jaws accurate? A boyfriend once made her watch it. He laughed the whole time, while she hid under an afghan and never wanted to go on the water again. Even bathtubs were suspicious.
Something banged ferociously at her pantry door. Since her ears were in the water, the sound distorted. Perhaps this was what a sinking ship sounded like.
Hinges gave. What air space she had disappeared. Her face fully submerged.
A painful pull on the top of her hair. She felt herself go sideways, then up.
Air. She gasped.
Arms under her arms, she felt herself pulled and dropped onto something warm and wet. She coughed.
“Wakey, wakey,” Peter said to her.
“Up,” Mazy said.
Emily realized she laid on Mazy. She scrambled to her knees, head spinning, and realized she was on a raft.
This was not supposed to be the Hebrew Afterlife.
“Klingon afterlife,” she muttered through coughing.
“What?” Mazy asked. “Never mind.” She shoved Emily out of the way.
“This is not Sto-vo-kor,” said Phebe. “I’m told we’re not dead.”
“But you weren’t here,” Emily croaked from a raw throat.
“Yeah. Long story.”
“Hotshot,” Peter said. But then scowled at what the second raft was doing. Despite their drowned cat appearances, the three were grabbing floating food. “Okay. Whatever. Our next problem is getting out of the sinking ship.”
“It’s still tied up,” Phebe said. “It can’t sink much further.”
“With our luck, we’ll go right to Sto-vo-kor, like Emily said.”
“At least we’re the honored dead.”
Peter nodded.
Emily scowled at them.
“You’re the one who said Klingon afterlife,” Phebe said. “Unless it’s the bad place. What was that called? The dishonorable dead place?” She turned to Peter for the answer.
“I think it was a boat.”
“Would y’all shut up about that,” Mazy snapped.
“Why not have a Star Trek conversation?” asked Peter. “We’re trapped until the ship settles.”
“We need osmosis.” Phebe put her arm around Peter, happy he was alive.
“I’ll hug you, lady, but we’re still having words later.”
“We’ll be dead long before then.”
“If we’re gonna die, then I totally want to know why Emily said Klingon afterlife as her, like, dying words.”
“I have no idea why I said that. Ex-boyfriend.”
“Gotta be ex,” Phebe said. “Can’t picture Brandon knowing it.”
“Yeah,” said Peter. “No one named Brandon could be that cool.”
The couple looked at each other and burst out laughing.
“We’re coming up on the ceiling, y’all special needs married people.”
“Let’s go back to the lobby then.” Peter took up his paddle. “I’ll do the heavy work, wifey. Retain some of my manhood.”
“Oh, God. Is that your problem?”
“You’re very emasculating.”
“You are oversensitive.”
He laughed as he paddled. “That would be absolutely the first time in my life I was ever called that.”
“Not towards other people. Towards your own ego.”
Mazy said, “Shut up, y’all, or I’m gonna hit the both of you with my paddle.”
“She’s pissed cos her hair’s frizzy,” Peter whispered to Phebe.
“The beatings will begin soon.” Mazy turned around and yelled, “Stop collecting food and paddle, assholes.”
Everyone had to
lay flat to get under the top of the doorway of what had been the kitchen swinging doors. The rafts skimmed the frame at the sides. Hands reached out and pulled them through.
Out of the kitchen, the ceiling wasn’t higher in the wait staff corridor. Phebe and Emily grabbed the light fixtures to help the tethered convoy move forward.
Mazy bellowed, “Why are we dragging? What did y’all do?”
Tyler and Chris looked guilty.
“We got food in a net we come up with,” said Chris.
“I am not going to drawn inside a cruise ship.”
“I ain’t gonna starve to death on land.”
“Argh!”
“You sound like Big Moe,” said Peter.
“Y’all ain’t right in the head. Does anyone’s radio work?”
“Big old negative on that,” Chris said from the second raft. “They ain’t waterproof.”
“Wait,” said Peter. “I’m hallucinating Matthew now.”
“Hey, kid,” Chris hollered. “You dead, too?”
Barefoot and clinging to the same brass railing at the stairs, Matt looked at them and shook his head. “You are all alive?”
“That’s up for debate,” said Peter. “Want a lift?”
“Where did you get rafts?”
“Why is that mystifying all of you?” Mazy asked.
“See,” Phebe said to Peter. “He was going to rescue you, too.”
“No, babe. He was rescuing you.”
The first raft was too full, so Matt rolled over the side of the second raft.
“Hey, kid.”
“You call me kid one more time, I’m going to shoot you.”
“Man, you are testy.”
“What’s the plan here?”
“This is as far as we got. We may be dead –”
“Shut up, Chris,” Mazy reprimanded. “How did y’all get in here?”
“Too much suction.” Matt pulled cans out from under him. “Try for the way up. It should be wide enough for these.”
“We always came in through a sliding glass door,” said Tyler. “But it’s gonna be under the water now.”
“Where’s the lobby from here?” Peter asked. “People who were here before we sunk – where’s the lobby from here?”
“I think this way.” Phebe pointed.
13.
“I don’t know what to do,” Brandon radioed Ben. “Over.”
Brandon was on the bad guys’ skiff on the other side of the ship. Every now and again, he engaged the engines to keep the suction current from pulling the boat.