Blood Island

by Tim Waggoner

  He reached out to Bonnie, intending to take both of her hands in his. She jerked her hands back as if she was afraid that he intended to attack her, but then she relaxed – just a little – and allowed him to enfold her hands within his own.

  “We must leave, my dear, and I’m afraid we simply can’t go without you. We need you to make us look good when the media interview us after this whole awful mess is over.”

  Bonnie looked at him for a moment without any indication that she’d understood a single word he’d said. But then she gave him a fragile smile and nodded. He returned the smile and gave her hands a squeeze.

  Boyd spoke then.

  “If we’re going to leave, we should do it now. The sharks will be here soon.” A pause. “They’re smarter than you think.”

  Everyone looked at the man as if he was crazy – Jarrod included – but then Tasha said, “He’s right,” and Jarrod decided to take Boyd’s warning seriously.

  “Let’s get moving,” Pete said. He pointed his machete toward the living room window. “Is the fire escape out there?”

  Susan nodded, and Pete stepped toward the window. He pulled the curtains aside, unlocked the window, and opened it. Pete wasn’t really Jarrod’s type, but he liked the man’s take-charge attitude. But then, he supposed it was only to be expected from a stunt man, a literal man of action.

  Pete stuck his head through the open window to take a look around. If this had been a movie, Jarrod would’ve expected Pete to let out a bloodcurdling scream as a mutated shark bit his head off. But that didn’t happen, and Jarrod let out a breath that he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

  Pete pulled his head back in and turned to look at them – excluding Shari and Tamara, whose eyes he hadn’t met since they’d returned from Susan’s bedroom.

  “I’ll go first. Susan, you want to bring up the rear?”

  “Sure.”

  “Good. Everyone else will go between us. Take your time, make sure your footing is solid but keep moving. And I know it’s a cliché, but don’t look down.”

  “Are there any of them out there?” Bonnie asked.

  “There’s no sign of them,” Pete said.

  Tasha stood on her tiptoes to whisper in Jarrod’s ear.

  “It wants us to go to the roof, and it’s afraid if we see sharks on the ground, we won’t leave the apartment.”

  Jarrod wondered what it was, but there was no time to worry about that now. He’d ask Tasha later – if they were both still alive then.

  Pete climbed through the window onto the fire escape. Without turning to see if anyone followed, he started heading upward. Tamara moved to go next, but Shari cut her off with a glare and followed after her husband. Tamara seemed amused by Shari’s actions rather than upset, and she went next.

  “I’ll go second to last,” Boyd said. “I’ll be in a better position to observe that way.”

  Jarrod and Susan exchanged a look, and the woman shrugged as if to say Whatever the crazy fucker wants.

  Jarrod had continued to hold onto Bonnie’s hands, and now he let go of them. Only for a moment, though. He took her right hand and without being prompted, Tasha took her left.

  “Come along, dear,” Jarrod said. “Tasha and I will help you.”

  The wild fear was back in her eyes, but she allowed Tasha and Jarrod to lead her toward the window. Tasha went first, and she gently pulled Bonnie after her. The makeup artist hesitated a moment, but she went through. Jarrod – relieved they’d gotten Bonnie this far – climbed out onto the fire escape with them. The metal was covered with rust, but the structure seemed sturdy enough. He looked upward and saw Pete, Shari, and Tamara were already near the rooftop. The fire escape rattled as they ascended, filling the night air with noise. The racket worried Jarrod. Weren’t sharks supposed to be drawn by noise? No, it was vibrations in the water that attracted them. He didn’t know if the animals even had ears. However they sensed vibrations, could they do so through the air? He didn’t think so, but then, these were hardly normal sharks, were they? Who knew what kind of senses they had or what they were capable of physically?

  Tasha began climbing the fire escape’s stairs and Bonnie followed. Jarrod could see Bonnie was shaking like a leaf in a hurricane-force gale, but she kept moving, which he took as a good sign. He followed, making sure to grip the thin metal railing tightly. He felt feverish and lightheaded – no doubt his body’s response to the stress of the situation – and he wanted to avoid passing out, falling off the fire escape, and plummeting down to the alley below. Hardly a dignified death. Besides, if he was the hero of this adventure, it was his duty to survive – at least until the story’s climax.

  Boyd and Susan followed after Jarrod, and now all eight of them were on the fire escape. Jarrod could feel the metal vibrate beneath his hands and his feet, and he hoped the old fire escape could withstand having so many people climb it at once. He imagined the bolts that held the metal construction in the building beginning to pull away from ancient, crumbling brick, pictured the entire thing falling away from the building and pitching them all off, imagined them tumbling toward the ground where the sharks – who’d arrived soon after they’d begun climbing – waited for their heaven-sent feast. But the fire escape held, although it did feel more than a little wobbly by the time Jarrod reached the access ladder to the roof. Pete, Shari, Tamara, and Tasha had already climbed up it and were standing on the roof, save from the sharks. At least for the moment. But Bonnie had stopped halfway up the access ladder and refused to go any farther.

  “I can’t do it!” she said, a sobbing hitch in her voice. “I can’t!”

  The woman had successfully fought her acrophobia up to this point. But now that she was out in the air and exposed, her fear had taken hold of her once more.

  “Of course you can,” Jarrod said. It took every ounce of acting skill and experience at his command to make his voice sound calm and reassuring, when all he really wanted to do was shout for Bonnie to quit fucking around and hurry the hell up before the goddamned sharks figured out how to climb the fire escape.

  “You’ve done makeup for how many actors in your career?” he asked. “Hundreds, I’d wager.”

  At first he thought she wasn’t going to respond, but she said, “Yeah. Something like that.”

  “And out of all these people, how many were thundering assholes or insufferable cunts who made your job harder than it had to be?”

  She surprised him by letting out a strangled laugh.

  “Most of them,” she said.

  “If you can deal with all of them, then you can certainly climb a few more rungs to get to the roof. The others are waiting there to help you. All you need to do is start climbing again.”

  She didn’t move for several seconds, and Jarrod began to think he would end up yelling at her after all, but then slowly, hesitantly, she began to climb once more.

  The people on the roof shouted encouragement to her, as did Jarrod and Susan. Boyd just watched her, silent and expressionless.

  Jarrod didn’t know what happened. Maybe the ladder – a narrow, rusted thing that didn’t look strong enough to hold a child let alone a full-grown adult – pulled away from the wall several inches, startling Bonnie. Or maybe she was sweating so much in her terror that her hands slipped off the rungs. Or maybe she was shaking so badly that she couldn’t make her hands grip the next rung tightly enough. Or – and this was the worst possibility of all – maybe the idea of falling and dying quickly sounded like a better option to her than being torn apart by monster sharks. Whichever the case, Bonnie fell off the ladder.

  Jarrod tried to catch her, but her left shoulder hit the edge of the fire escape’s railing, and she bounced out of reach. He watched, horrified as she plummeted to the ground, and he didn’t understand why she was so quiet as she fell. Maybe she was too scared to scream. Or maybe her falling had taken her by surprise and she hadn’t had time to process what was happening to her.

  As Jarrod looked down,
he saw that a pair of sharks had taken up position below the fire escape, their umbilical cords stretching toward opposite ends of the alley, indicating the direction they’d each come from. The sharks looked up at Bonnie as she fell, and Jarrod was put in mind of the way a dog watches a treat its owner is about to toss to it. These creatures had the same laser-sharp focus and air of eager, barely restrained anticipation.

  Before Bonnie could hit the ground, the sharks leaped upward to catch hold of her in midair. Jarrod had no idea how the damn things could jump with those tiny insect-like legs of theirs, but they managed. One shark caught hold of Bonnie’s right leg, the other her left arm. They bit down, getting a good hold on her limbs, when they landed with a combined thud, the sharks yanked and tore Bonnie’s limbs from their sockets in sprays of blood.

  Bonnie screamed then – loud and high – but her screams didn’t last long. When the sharks finished with Bonnie, they looked upward at Jarrod and the others, and while the creatures were incapable of anything even approximating human expression, Jarrod couldn’t escape the impression the fucking beasts were grinning.

  * * * * *

  Jarrod wanted to turn away so he wouldn’t have to watch the landsharks devour Bonnie’s remains, but he also felt compelled to stand witness for the woman. Looking away would seem like a betrayal of her memory somehow. Tasha’s hand slipped around his and squeezed.

  I’ll watch with you, she said in his mind, and while he would’ve preferred to spare her the sight of the sharks eating their friend, he was grateful for Tasha’s presence. The others leaned over the edge and also watched, perhaps feeling the same sense of responsibility that Jarrod did, or perhaps out of an instinct to know one’s enemy.

  The sharks each gobbled several organs that had spilled from the two halves of Bonnie’s body, but that was all. They then got a grip on the halves with their teeth and began dragging the halves backward, tugging them toward the two different ends of the alley. When they reached the separate streets, they continued on until lost from sight. When the creatures were gone, all that remained were twin trails of blood covering the floor of the alley from one side to the other.

  “Where the hell are the damn things going?” Pete asked.

  “They’re taking the meat back home,” Tasha said. “To feed the Mass.” She looked around suddenly. “Wait. Did I say that out loud?” She glanced at Jarrod. “I’m starting to lose track of which voice I’m using.”

  She showed no sign of letting go of Jarrod’s hand any time soon, and that was fine with him. Right now, he could use all the support he could get. The weariness that was a symptom of his leukemia hit him full force then, the aftermath of the adrenaline and physical exertion of escaping Flotsam and Susan’s apartment. He felt suddenly dizzy, and he said, “I need to sit down.” He let go of Tasha’s hand then basically fell onto the roof ass-first. The impact jarred his spine and made his teeth clack together, but he barely noticed, and anyway, he was too fucking tired to care.

  “Are you all right?” Tamara said. “You’re not stroking out on us or anything, are you?”

  Jarrod thought dying from a sudden massive stroke would be preferable to dying slowly while cancer ate him from the inside out. But given the way the evening was going, he doubted he’d live long enough for either to happen. He’d most likely end up in a landshark’s belly before the night was over. That, or be fed to this Mass Tasha had spoken of. He didn’t know which would be worse – being eaten alive by his own renegade body or by mutant sharks. The sharks, he supposed, but that didn’t mean he wanted to find out.

  Boyd stared out toward the ocean with an expression of contemplative awe, but everyone else focused their attention on Jarrod, worry writ plainly on their faces. Except Pete, who was looking at Tasha, the newly sharpened machete gripped tightly in his hand. His expression was one of angry suspicion, and Jarrod feared the man might attack her.

  “How do you know what those sharks are doing, and what the fuck is the Mass?” Pete demanded. He took a step toward Tasha, not a very big one, perhaps even a subconscious one, and he raised the machete until it was level with his waist. Still not in attack position, Jarrod thought, but ready to go there if necessary. Everyone turned to look at Tasha then, their expressions mirroring Pete’s suspicion.

  Tasha looked from one to the other in turn. She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. How could it? Jarrod thought she had a lifetime of practice keeping her psychic abilities secret.

  Jarrod rose unsteadily to his feet, but once on them, he remained standing, and he considered that a victory.

  “It seems our dear Ms. Bates is a telepath. She can sense what those creatures are thinking.”

  “Is that true?” Susan asked Tasha.

  Tasha nodded. Then she pointed at them one at a time and spoke.

  “Susan – you’re wondering if your girlfriend on the other side of town is okay, but you’re too afraid to call in case she doesn’t answer.”

  “Boyd – the Mass has chosen you to document its activities, and you’re already thinking of ways to turn tonight’s madness into a million-dollar script. Maybe even one you’ll get to direct.”

  Boyd didn’t look at Tasha as she said this, just kept looking toward the ocean. But he acknowledged her words with a nod.

  Jarrod looked at Boyd and raised an eyebrow. “Really, Boyd? A screenwriter who has a secret desire to direct? Could you get any more cliché?”

  Boyd turned toward Jarrod, gave him a half smile and shrugged, as if to say, So I’m cliché. Big fucking deal.

  Tasha continued.

  “Tamara – you’re hoping Shari and Pete will be able to get past your affairs with each of them. You genuinely like them both and wish them no harm.”

  “Shari – you’re picturing yourself kicking Pete in the chest and sending him tumbling over the building’s edge to a horde of hungry sharks below.”

  “Pete – you’re thinking I’m kind of a spooky chick and you’re wondering if I’ll fuck you if we survive this night.”

  Pete’s face reddened with embarrassment, and Shari said, “For Christ’s sake, Pete, can’t you stop thinking about your goddamned cock long enough to –”

  She broke off, eyes widening. She pointed to the opposite side of the roof and screamed.

  Everyone, even Boyd, looked where Shari was pointing and saw a pair of landsharks climbing over the building’s edge and onto the roof with their tiny insect feet, umbilical cords trailing behind them.

  While Jarrod and the others had been busy watching Bonnie die, another pair of sharks had gained the roof via the fire escape on the building’s other side, and they were now trundling toward the small group of tasty humans, jaws snapping, crimson eyes gleaming.

  Susan raised her shotgun to her shoulder, aimed at one of the sharks, and squeezed the trigger. The creature’s head exploded in a cloud of red mist, and meat chunks sprayed the air. The landshark hit the roof, dead.

  “Got you!” Susan shouted, as much in relief as triumph.

  Not to be outdone, Pete stepped toward the second shark, machete held high. As a stunt man, Pete was perfectly suited for battling a mutant creature. He was fit and used to taking stupid risks.

  “Cut its cord!” Tasha shouted.

  Jarrod didn’t see how Pete could get at the cord before the shark could sink its teeth into him. The man needed a distraction, and Jarrod decided to give him one. Jarrod began walking toward the second shark, unsteadily at first but with increasing confidence. It seemed his old body wasn’t quite ready to give out on him yet. He moved at an angle designed to draw the shark away from Pete. Jarrod still felt too weak to run, but that didn’t mean he was helpless. He was an actor, and he’d performed under worse conditions than these. Well, perhaps that was an exaggeration, but not by much. He decided to go with a speech written for one of his favorite characters, vampire hunter Robert Fischer, from Night of the Blood Thieves. He spoke in a booming voice, hoping to attract the shark’s attention.

>   “You unholy creatures may believe yourselves superior to us mere mortals, and in many respects you’d be right. You’re stronger, faster, and more ruthless than we are. But we have one quality which you will never be able to match us, a simple four-letter word: L-O-V-E!”

  These were the corniest lines he’d ever delivered in a film, which was saying something given the sort of movies he made – and it had originally required seventeen takes to get the lines right because he kept bursting into giggles before he could get to the end of the speech.

  Corny or not, the lines had their intended effect. The landshark veered toward Jarrod and increased its speed, as if personally offended by the horrible dialogue he’d spoken.

  Everyone’s a critic, Jarrod thought.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Grady Silva had been head of Bridgewater’s sheriff department for the last twelve years. Before that he’d worked as a cop in Houston, and while he sometimes missed living in the city, overall small-town life suited him. Bridgewater had taken a real hit from Hurricane Janae, and it looked like the town would never recover, which was sad, but Grady figured towns had lifespans the same as people, and while Bridgewater might not be dead, it sure as shit was on life support. But he had less than two years until he could retire, and he figured if Bridgewater could keep limping along until then, he and his wife could return to Houston after he retired. Or maybe they’d settle in another small town, one that had a little more life left in it than Bridgewater.

  The movie people had brought some welcome excitement to town, and Grady and his deputies had enjoyed watching them work while providing “security” that the production really didn’t need. That was the reason he was out tonight “working late.” The movie people liked to hang out at Flotsam’s when the day’s shooting was done, and he liked to stop by and shoot the shit with them for an hour or two. He wasn’t starstruck by any means, and while he’d seen several of Jarrod Drayton’s movies over the years, he wasn’t a fan of horror. He liked talking with the movie people because they were a change of pace from his job, which after Janae had become mostly keeping people out of empty and condemned buildings, usually kids who wanted places to drink, smoke pot, and screw.