A clawed foot struck from nowhere.
Karl’s roundhouse kick sent Larry flying into the window-wall; it shattered on impact, and he stumbled backward through the jagged frost. The narrow catwalk’s railing kept him from traveling over the edge.
Tellstrom lunged through the opening, seized Larry’s snout and forced it down hard against the railing.
Blood splashed from Larry’s nostrils; he lifted his knee into Karl’s crotch, hoping it would have the desired effect.
It did.
Tellstrom released Larry’s skull to cover his own throbbing groin; he bit his thin lip against the pain, then took a serious step forward.
Larry retreated; he ducked, then thrust and scratched at Tellstrom. There wasn’t much room to maneuver on the catwalk, and Karl tracked his every move.
“Murderer!” Tellstrom bared his ravenous teeth as they danced about on the ledge. “You killed my mother!”
Murderer!
Natalie’s final word, the raving of a disturbed individual. Larry saw that so clearly now.
His eyes locked with Tellstrom’s. “I’ve never killed anyone in my life. But you’re hurting everyone I love, so I’ll start with you.”
Karl lunged at Larry with single-minded ferocity, pinned him against the curved glass; his mouth opened wide, revealed jagged, bone-white triangles ready to rip out Larry’s throat. Suddenly, Tellstrom halted his killing stroke, his gaze focused on something beyond his intended prey.
Although he couldn’t turn his head, Larry saw something reflected in the pitch-black mirrors of Tellstrom’s eyes; a skeletal face with a permanent grin, rancid flesh sliding off the bone in great wet clumps. It took Larry a moment to realize the apparition was Susan.
Karl’s eyes bulged until they gained the appearance of cannonballs; his jaw opened and closed to mouth a denial, and the cold, confident manner was bleached from his striped face. For the first time in his life, Tellstrom was terrified.
Larry took advantage of the moment; he kicked Karl hard in the abdomen. Tellstrom flew back against the wrought iron railing, teetered there a moment, then overbalanced and careened across the bar. Larry instinctively rushed forward, grabbed hold of Karl’s ankle and halted his descent.
Tellstrom craned his head toward the newest of Poseidon’s children; he snickered, then his face clouded over once more. “Am I supposed to thank you, Callisto? Am I supposed to say I was wrong about you humans now?”
“I’m not as human as I used to be.” Larry’s mouth formed a crooked smile, his serrated teeth gleaming with the glow of flames below. “And I can’t save everyone.”
Larry let go.
As Karl fell, his tail lashed out, slithered around Larry’s wrist and pulled him forward. The artist wrapped his free arm around the railing to keep from going over the side, wondering how long he could support the animal’s squirming weight.
“Feel like dying with me?” Karl called up, laughing like a madman.
Larry gave his answer; he bent down, clamped his teeth around the muscular tail like a sprung bear trap, and severed it.
Tellstrom screamed, blood spewing from the ragged stump where his tailfin had been; a long tongue of fire licked him, converted his body into a boiling, burning mass.
Larry spit the length of tail into the blaze, then pulled himself up, feeling the burn of his injuries and strained muscles. He remembered his ghostly helper and turned to face the glass.
“Thank you,” he said aloud.
Susan, if she’d been there at all, was gone.
The air changed, swirled around Larry like a maelstrom. He felt something warm against his back, an expanding bubble of hot air; when it suddenly burst, fire shot through the metal mesh at his feet.
SIXTY ONE
The lighthouse exploded in spectacular fashion; a jet of flame snuffed its revolving light, shot the glass-walled chamber into the night sky like a bullet from a gun. Metal, glass, and rubble rained down upon the waves at the base of the cliff, then sank beneath the tide. There was nothing left of Colonial Bay now, just an island of flame in a cool New England sea.
“I got you!” Hays shrieked triumphantly, waving the orb like an Independence Day sparkler. “You fucking paid for what you did to me!”
Peggy ran for the burning shore; Barbara reached out for her, but she broke free of the old woman’s grasp.
Christine intercepted her at the water’s edge, pushed her back and held her tight. “You can’t help them. They’re gone.”
Peggy’s tail wilted; her shoulders trembled as she wept.
Christine closed her eyes, felt tears trace scalding lines down her cheeks.
The father of my child...gone...dead.
A loud hum filled Christine’s ears. Her eyes snapped open, and she saw Roger Hays; he’d turned the creators’ weapon on her.
•••
Ed DeParle dove at Hays, and his human guise melted away in an instant; he grabbed Roger’s arm, tried to yank it from the sculpted sphere, tried to save his little girl.
Raving passions flooded Hays; this creature, this freak, wasn’t going to steal his newfound power. It was his! His! Roger growled savagely and brought the orb crashing into the old man’s chin.
Ed lost his grip and was flung backward. Hays didn’t wait for him to regain his balance; he swung once more at the innkeeper’s face, used the relic like the ball of a mace. Ed deflected the blow with the ribbed fin that lined his arm; he spun rapidly, slapped Roger with his paddle-like tail.
Hays fell on his back, rage burning through his veins like acid. Several Charodon rushed to join the fight, but, when Roger leapt to his feet, the orb glowed like a dwarf star, arcing blue electricity in all directions, turning what was left of his hair into a crazed mane. An angry roar exploded from Hays’ ragged lips, and Poseidon’s children backed away, fear of their gods’ wrath ingrained within their collective mind.
Roger’s eyes fixed on Ed DeParle, and the weapon moved with them.
•••
Ed felt a desert wind pelt his face. He looked away, found his wife and daughter standing nearby; he sensed their panic, smelled it on their skin and saw it in their eyes. He’d devoted his life to the masquerade of humanity, to the protection of Colonial Bay, sacrificing everything, even his family.
Only one sacrifice left to make.
Ed lunged at Hays, deliberately grabbed the sculpted sphere. Heat swirled around the combatants, and Roger’s tattered black clothing rose and twirled in the forming cyclone; before Hays realized something was wrong, the orb exploded, discharged its full power. They became burning apparitions, bright specters that faded with Roger’s furious, dying scream.
SIXTY TWO
Earl Preston looked up, found the ferryboat’s wheelhouse; its windows were too dark for him to see within. They would have to have a radio up there, a way to call for help. He tossed a glance at Horror Show; the hitman’s mini-gun still fired, still kept the monsters at bay, but for how long?
The guardsman bolted, tore through a space between two wrecked cars, and Horror Show’s tracer fire split the air around him. Earl ducked; he stumbled and fell, then rolled back onto his feet to resume a staggering run. A red Dodge Caravan smoldered in his path; he hid behind it, pressed himself flat against the metal as bullets shattered its remaining windows.
That sonofabitch is shooting at me! I should have known I —
The Caravan shook violently behind him.
Earl looked up, saw shadows coalesce into an unimaginable form; before he could bring his gun into firing position, powerful talons reached down through the smoke and grabbed him by the shoulders. The Kraken rose up on dog-like haunches, lifted him off the deck toward its open beak. One of its facial tentacles brushed Earl’s cheek, ragged thorns coaxing blood from his skin.
Hot shells burst through the creature’s body; it screeched in Earl’s ear, pulled him down to the deck, then released its hold. Earl pushed the dead hulk off him and crawled away, watching as its skin color
faded from red, to pink, to gray; finally becoming a bleached, transparent white as the pigment factories of its chromatophores shut down.
Horror Show moved toward Earl from the whirling, heated smoke, the mini-gun still smoldering in his hands. The hitman’s stern expression was the same one Preston had seen in his father’s Gulf War photographs; it was the face of a man who’d seen enough death to become numb to it.
Earl held up his M-16. “That’s close enough.”
“What’s your fuckin’ problem?”
“You were tryin’ to shoot my ass off!”
“I was trying to shoot its ass off. Where the fuck were you goin’?”
Preston lowered his gun a bit, uncertain if he believed Horror Show or not. “The bridge. I need to radio for —”
Something dove at them from the roof of a black Infinity; talons outstretched, the bloody gristle of previous kills dangling between its gleaming fangs.
The hitman reacted instantly with his mini-gun, and his shells all but obliterated the monstrosity before it could even shriek. He continued firing until the last empty casing flew from the rotating chamber, until the roar of its discharge became the whine of empty friction. Horror Show tossed the exhausted weapon down, barely missing his own foot, then grabbed the Berretta from his waistband.
Flashes from the hitman’s anti-personnel weapon illuminated other nightmarish contours waiting in the wings.
Earl opened fire with his M-16, blew holes in the creatures’ unfamiliar anatomies, his mind consumed once more with his father’s death. Had the man been afraid, as Earl was now? Had he been thinking of his family? And then, Earl Sr.’s voice was angry in his brain: Don’t worry what the fuck I did to get killed, Junior. Just calm your ass down and think this through. The man who goes ahead stumbles so the man who follows may have his wits about him.
He saw a metal staircase to the upper deck and called for Horror Show to follow him.
The hatchway to the ferryboat’s cabin stood ajar.
A dead man lay at the foot of the controls, scratched and mauled. The wheel stood unbridled, lazily moving from side to side as if denying the carnage.
“Guess that’s our captain,” Earl muttered from the doorway.
Horror Show pushed past him, stared out the broken window at the front of the cabin; thick smoke from the deck below hid their destination. The hitman pulled a granite shard from his pocket, one side glassy, the other rough; it appeared to have been chipped off a monument of some kind. Horror Show rubbed it, as if he were trying to summon some genie to save them.
Earl entered the room; drops of fluid fell from the ceiling, struck his shoulder. His eyes shot upward, saw something alive in the shadows; its black coloring had camouflaged it, made it appear one with the darkness. It hung there like a spider, silently watching and waiting for someone to wander beneath it.
Horror Show was that someone.
“Look out!” Earl cried.
The hitman’s gun rose toward the roof of the cabin. Shrieking, the animal instantly inflated, became a spiked balloon; it reached out for him with clawed, tree frog hands. Horror Show fired, parted the thing’s skull; it fell from its roost, leaking fluids and gasses, filling the chamber with its stench.
Earl coughed, then took the ship’s wheel; sluggish, like driving an eighteen-wheeler when he was used to driving a compact car. He studied the instrument panel, looked for anything that made sense. Much of the glass was either shattered or covered in clotting gore, making the information beneath impossible to read.
Horror Show smiled. “You can drive this piece o’ shit?”
“Naw, not this fucked up.”
As Earl looked out the window, a sudden breeze fanned smoke from his view, allowed him a glimpse of red and blue strobes.
Police cars?
He saw a striped guardrail, saw the concrete barricade of a boat landing, and realized they were seconds away from collision.
“Get down!” he shouted, then pushed on Horror Show’s back.
The barge struck shore at full throttle.
•••
Officers ran from the boat landing as fast as their feet could move them. Sheriff MacIsaac dared a glance over his shoulder, saw the hull loom after him as the ferry beached itself like a huge metal whale; he slid across the hood of his cruiser, hit the ground at the same instant as the barge.
The dock’s concrete ramp exploded on impact; huge chunks of debris flew into parked police cars, shattered lightbars and windshields, dented hoods, and caved in hardtops. A rusted “loading and unloading” drawbridge toppled with the shriek of rending metal, smashed the red-and-white-striped barricade before it exploded into airborne splinters.
What remained of the ramp kept the ferry from coming entirely ashore, but inertia sent its cargo sailing forward. Cars flew twenty to forty yards; a Rav 4 crashed into the dock’s control booth, a Honda Civic flattened one of the nearby cruisers — a woman dangled from one of its broken windows, her head hanging by a thread of tissue; a church bus struck pavement and skidded, its windows glazed in blood and filled with a jumble of arms and legs. Scattered fireballs lit the smoke-filled sky, and then it was over; the screaming roar of chaos faded to a gentle crackle of flames.
MacIsaac’s head rose from between the safety of his legs. He’d lived more than half a century, but nothing he’d seen, neither real nor imagined, could ever match the site that greeted him. It was the Apocalypse, dropped smack dab at his feet.
Officer Eads moved toward the beached ship, but the Sheriff grabbed his shoulder to snap him back.
“Hold it, son,” MacIsaac said, distressed.
“There could be survivors.”
The sheriff nodded; he reached into his cruiser, grabbed the receiver from his police radio, and spoke into it. “Becky, you there?”
Her voice came through a curtain of static. “That you, Sheriff?”
“Yeah, Becky. I need you to —”
She went on anxiously, “My switchboard’s got more lights flashing than one o’ Walter Ferguson’s Christmas displays. I got somebody says they’re a doctor out there on the reef, and people calling in that it’s some kinda terrorist attack on —”
“Becky, right now I need you to get the fire department and some ambulances out here to the docks. We’ve got a three alarm, shit, four alarm blaze out here and Christ only knows what on the island.”
“Right away, Sheriff. Already called the Coast Guard.”
“Fine, Becky.” MacIsaac shoved his hand back into the cruiser; when it reappeared, the radio receiver had become a black flashlight. His eyes shifted from Eads to the wreck. “Let’s go.”
•••
The collision had thrown Earl against the ferryboat’s control panel. His left shoulder now swarmed with bees, but he was grateful for the pain; pain meant he was alive. He stood slowly and looked out the hole that had once been a window, his eyes sucking in the devastation. An angry child had thrown fireworks onto a Matchbox playset; amid the carnage, Earl saw policemen, their flashlight beams searching for survivors.
He felt a slap on his back and spun to see Horror Show standing behind him, holding out his hand. “Come on, Coast Guard boy.”
Earl looked at the hand, not wanting to shake it. “Call me ‘Coast Guard boy’ again.”
“Hey, I saved your fuckin’ life down there.” The hitman withdrew his hand, used it to give Earl a pat on the cheek. “Show some appreciation, huh?”
“I warned you about that thing on the ceiling. As far as I’m concerned, I don’t owe you shit.”
Earl left the wheelhouse, made his way down blood-soaked steps to the main level, and Horror Show followed; spotlights crossed them, and Earl shielded his eyes against the brightness. “Over here!”
The lights grew closer, accompanied by a voice. “You two all right?”
“Fine,” Earl told them
“What the hell happened here?” The man wore the golden star of a sheriff on his jacket.
Ear
l’s mother had often told him, “Truth tellers make no mistakes.” He stepped forward and cleared his throat. “Sheriff, my name’s Preston. I’m a Coast Guard Officer. A man named Roger Hays is responsible for all this —”
“Roger Hays...the millionaire?”
“Billionaire, actually.” Earl pointed to Horror Show and noticed the hitman’s jaw tighten. “He hired this man and others to blow up Colonial Bay and some...some rare animals that have been attacking ships off shore.”
“Rare animals? Like this?” The sheriff pulled a photo from his pocket.
Preston stared at the grainy picture of a monster; he paused for a moment before answering, wondering where the image came from. “I haven’t seen one like that yet, but...yeah.”
“Where’s Hays?”
“Dead.”
The sheriff rubbed the corner of his eye.
“You’ll find dead creatures all over this barge to back me up on that much,” Earl said, then he turned and sent his fist flying into Horror Show’s unexpectant face.
The hitman’s head jerked back, then nodded forward again; blood oozed from his split lip, and a stunned look glazed his eyes.
“Now you’re under arrest,” Earl told him.
SIXTY THREE
Sirens called from unseen ships in the distance, police, Coast Guard, or both. Time was short.
Christine wiped at her eyes and moved away from her mother, turned to face the clans that had gathered on the ridge; she cleared her throat loudly, and what followed was an impromptu eulogy, “When the fire dies, it’ll be as if Colonial Bay never existed...but for every ending there has to be a new beginning, for every...every death, there has to be new life. We’ll find a new home. My father just spared us the wrath of the gods to live as Varuna intended. That’s what Kar — what Karl wanted too. We have run, to get away if we can.” She surveyed the crowd, then added, “We have to live.”
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