Dectra Chain d-7

by James Axler

  "Have some careful, Doc!" Lori shrieked, hurling herself on the raft and grabbing at the old man's waving ankles, pulling him back to a perch of precarious safety near the center of the craft.

  The rest of them slowly climbed aboard, Jak remaining on the beach to untie the final tethering rope from the cold rocks. He ran down and hopped on with a nimble ease that made Doc spit into the sea in disgust.

  The ebbing tide carried them quickly away from the shore of the island and into the open sea.

  Chapter Eight

  To Ryan's relief there didn't seem to be any current in the sound that they couldn't handle. Though the raft of plastic drums was clumsy and difficult to steer, their combined efforts with their paddles kept it going in roughly the right direction, toward the misty shore of what had once been known as the state of Maine.

  "Sea's damned cold," Doc complained as their craft butted into a long, gray roller, sending up a shower of bitter salt spray.

  Slowly Ile au Haut began to fall away behind them. Ryan took a moment to see that a lot of the top of the mountain had gone, leaving an awkward, crooked shape that concealed the main entrance to the redoubt. He guessed that this had been a result — direct or indirect — of the nuking and probably accounted for the fact that they'd never been able to find the Visitor Center and Initial Indoctrination Module. The earthslide had whisked it into a smear of stone.

  "Stop lazing, lover," Krysty panted. "Many a mile to go before we sleep."

  "How far d'you figure we've gone?" he asked J.B.

  "Not far enough, Ryan."

  "Halfway?" Jak gasped. It wasn't entirely clear whether it was a question or a statement.

  "More than half," Donfil replied, still digging in his clumsy paddle with a rhythmic, almost mechanical drive, the water swirling in tiny circles about the tip of his blade.

  "Yeah. Half is done. Two halfs done, way I feel now." Lori pushed her blond hair out of her eyes and continued paddling.

  Doc was resting, chest heaving. "I was never much of an oarsman in my university days, I fear."

  "More of cocksMan, Doc?" Jak grinned. But the old man was so tired from his labors that the crude joke didn't even prompt a blush.

  "Just shut up and keep rowing," Ryan ordered. They were about two-thirds of the way across, and it was now possible to make out the trees above the shoreline. But the tide was turning, and their progress seemed to be slowing.

  * * *

  "Gonna make it," Ryan gasped, lips peeled back off his strong white teeth in a feral grin.

  The raft was bobbing along steadily, now only a quarter mile or so off the beach ahead of them. Every yard of progress was harder than the one before as the swirling tide worked against their efforts. Some of the ropes were becoming loose, the drums rattling and banging against one another. Also, Ryan noticed that they were slowly settling deeper in the water, indicating that some of the chemical containers had tiny leaks.

  Lori and Doc had both given up, tired out from paddling. Krysty, Jak and Donfil were all laboring, breath rasping, sweat-soaked. Only J.B. and Ryan kept up a steady stroke, plowing their way remorselessly north.

  Away to their left and a little beyond them, Ryan had noticed some kind of disturbance of the sea. But the rise and fall of the long Atlantic rollers made it hard to see what was happening. There was some spray and tossing white water, and a horde of screaming black-capped gulls.

  But the muscle-tearing effort of fighting against the pitching of the raft distracted him from trying to investigate the incident any further.

  Two narrow promontories of jumbled granite boulders stuck out into the sea for a couple of hundred yards, sheltering the beach from the wind, giving an area of calmer water. Once they were within the horns Ryan relaxed a little, knowing they could almost glide in from there. The others also felt it, smiling at one another. Donfil spread himself across the cans, allowing his long arms to dangle into the sea, peering down.

  "Very clear, the water," he said, voice lifted above the lapping of the waves on the nearby beach. "Must be thirty feet deep, but you can see nearly all the way to the bottom."

  "Any buried treasure?" Doc asked, lifting himself on one elbow.

  The Apache shook his head, his jet-black, shoulder-length hair trailing into the water. "No. Lot of sand and some rocks."

  Doc was chirpier now that they were so close to safety. "I dabbled somewhat in ichthyology in my youth."

  "You what?"

  "Ichthyology."

  "What's that, Doc?" Krysty asked.

  He dabbed spray off his face. "It is, my dearest flame-headed lady, the study of big fishes that have little fishes to bite them. And little fishes, smaller fishes and so on, ad infinitum." He cackled with laughter at a joke that nobody understood.

  "You read all 'bout fishes?" Jak asked. "How they kill?"

  "Yes. I recall that these chilly waters off the northeastern states were particularly fruitful for the larger fish and mammals of the oceans."

  "Sharks and whales? We had them not far from my ville when I was a boy," Ryan said. "Some big bastards, so the fishermen said. I never saw none of them that big."

  "I never saw any," Krysty corrected.

  "You haven't done that in an age," he complained, keeping the rough paddle dipping and pulling.

  "Haven't needed to, lover." She smiled.

  "This used to be a big center for the Yankee whaling industry when I was a shaver," Doc reminisced. "New England's bravest. Battling monster whales from cockleshell dories. All done now. They got hunted near to destruction. Right whales, blues, sperm whales. Lots of species, I'm ashamed to say. Man's inhumanity to his fellow creatures that... What was that?"

  The raft tipped suddenly, sending solid water across its rough deck of bound timbers. As quickly as it had rocked, it became still again.

  "See anything, Donfil?" Ryan asked, half standing, holding his hewn branch like a harpoon, hefted against any threat.

  The shaman rolled over, water dripping in slow beads from his hair. Behind the glasses his eyes were invisible, but his voice was slow, and oddly, artificially calm.

  "You asked if I saw anything, Ryan Cawdor?"

  "Yeah. What?.."

  "I saw grinning death, my brother. That iswhat I saw."

  Krysty had one hand just on the edge of the raft, barely touching the surface of the icy waters. But she gave a sharp cry of shock as she felt something brush against her.

  "What?" Ryan said.

  "Gaia! Something very big, lover. Skin rough as sandpaper. But... Oh, so big."

  "Fish," the Indian managed to say. "Bigger than any fish I ever heard of. Bigger than me. Bigger than this raft. Maybe bigger than the island. Moved slow on us, and I saw its eye look up and eat into my soul. Coldest deadest thing I ever saw."

  "Where is it?"

  Lori was standing, pointing ahead of them, where the calm water lapped toward the shelving beach, now mocking them from a hundred yards away.

  "Saw the water move like folding in on itself," she said quietly.

  "Big whales and sharks can be curious," Doc offered. "It's possible he's just nosing around us. Nothing better to do."

  "Turning," Jak said, pistol drawn, the long barrel of his satin-finish .357 glittering in the cold sunlight as he pointed to their right.

  "Get ready," Ryan warned.

  "Holy..." Doc began, but the word was choked back in his throat.

  It was another feigned attack, the creature swimming ponderously under the raft, its back scraping on the bottom of the chemical drums, making the whole thing rock from side to side. Ryan peered down at it, holding the G-12 ready in his hands, the control set on full-automatic. It wasn't an occasion to mess around with single shots.

  "Maybe it'll fuck off," Lori said hopefully, voice an octave higher than usual with the tension.

  "Maybe," Ryan agreed. "You're the damned expert, Doc. What d'you say?"

  "I say it's some sort of mutie crossbreed monster, half Orcinus orca."

/>   "What?"

  "Killer whale. The black coloring and head shape show that."

  "What's the other half?" J.B. asked, mini-Uzi in his right hand, eyes scanning the placid waters of the bay.

  Doc cleared his throat nervously. "From the look of the rest of it and the way it rolled as it made its pass at us, I fear that it might be Carcharodon carcharias."

  "What the hell is that?" Ryan asked. "Sounds like something you'd pick up in a frontier gaudy house, doesn't it?"

  There was no answering smile. "That would be a blessing compared to this, Mr. Cawdor. Carcharodon carchariasis the proper name of the great white shark."

  * * *

  "A painted ship upon... upon... I forget what." Doc glanced at the still water.

  Ryan had ordered them to stop paddling, guessing that the splashing might be attracting the beast. The raft was wallowing lower in the sea, the small waves kissing its sides, occasionally lapping clear over its top. The tide seemed to be turning, holding them in place. Not easing them in toward the shore. Not sucking them back toward the open Lantic Ocean.

  More than ten minutes had trickled by, without any further sign of the monster whale-shark. All of them were trying to watch for it, but a light wind had sprung up, sending ruffling cat's-paws across the surface of the water, making it impossible to see below.

  Ryan's finger was still tight on the trigger of the automatic caseless rifle. He was about to tell the other six to begin paddling again.

  The creature came up almost directly beneath them, like a nuke exploding from its silo. The only hint of warning was the circling, wailing gulls.

  Ryan's razor-honed reflexes saved him from being thrown off the raft. He and J.B. were the only two able to cling on; the other five were hurled into the frothing water.

  Ryan glimpsed the little doll eye that stared blankly at him from inches away. There was an exhalation of stinking air and the gleam of row upon row of serrated teeth. The raft was pitched over, heeling vertically, then pulled back to the level by the weight of water in the leaking drums.

  A flash of polished black skin, dappled with white, and then the monster was gone again, sliding with an awesome, effortless power beneath the turbulent waves.

  A head count showed four swimming. Five, as Doc popped up like a cork from a bottle, gray hair lank around his face, arms flailing, legs kicking desperately.

  "Back on the raft!" Ryan yelled. "Quick. 'Fore it comes back."

  "Can't see the bastard!" J.B. shouted, head turning from side to side, the muzzle of the Uzi tasting the damp air like the tongue of a snake.

  Jak was nearest and hauled himself aboard, shaking his hair like a terrier. He gave a hand to Donfil. The shaman balanced on the timbers like a waterlogged stick insect, his glasses hung over one ear, fumbling for his new Smith & Wesson.

  Krysty reached the raft, looking over her shoulder, green eyes wide in terror of the creature lurking invisibly below and behind her.

  Lori was helping Doc, but neither of them was making much progress. The old man seemed to be trying to persuade the girl to abandon him and save herself. She was ignoring him.

  "There!" Jak screamed, his voice loud enough to shatter crystal, cracked with horror.

  Ryan saw it.

  A huge dorsal fin, rolling lazily out of the sea, was fully fifteen feet long, which meant the predator had to be unthinkably large. Sixty or seventy feet was the hurried guess. The sunlight shone on the skin, showing the tiny shellfish dotted over it.

  "Wait as long as you can!" he yelled to the others. There was no way of knowing what effect their bullets would have on such a beast.

  Krysty was aboard, hands shaking with shock. Lori and Doc were still a dozen yards away, laboring toward the raft.

  "It'll roll on its back before it finally strikes!" Doc shouted, straining to keep his face clear of the water.

  "Let it have it when it rolls!" Ryan bellowed, trying to steady himself against the raft's uneven movement.

  The whale-shark was closing in, and Lori and Doc weren't going to make safety.

  "Now!" Jak cried as the black body turned, revealing the white throat and belly, and the massive gaping jaws that snapped open in a cavernous grin.

  It was no time for subtlety. Ryan squeezed the trigger, feeling the G-12 buck against his hip, blowing the entire magazine in a couple of seconds. He tried to keep the rifle trained on the same spot, below the tiny black eye, where he hoped there might be something vulnerable, like a spine.

  J.B.'s mini-Uzi coughed out a full mag, and both Jak and Donfil fired their handblasters again and again, the heavy-caliber bullets ripping out chunks of bloodied flesh.

  But the mutie was so enormous and its functional system so primitive that the rounds from the two Magnums did no more than mildly irritate it. The Uzi was a little more effective.

  The Heckler & Koch G-12 destroyed it.

  The self-lubricating, nylon-coated rounds were fired at nearly three times the normal velocity. Their lethal peculiarity was that the rounds themselves stopped quickly, but their kinetic energy carried on, sending deadly shock waves rippling through the body, pulping flesh and muscle into torn tatters.

  Fifty bullets hit the vicious predator in an area little larger than a soup plate. At less than fifty-foot range their effect was extreme termination.

  The creature immediately lurched away from the swimming couple, tail beating, lashing up a great wall of spray, behind which Lori and Doc totally disappeared. Blood jetted from the mutie monster's body, staining the gray waters red-pink.

  "Got it," J.B. said laconically, throwing away his empty magazine, slotting in a fresh one from one of his many capacious pockets.

  The water foamed and boiled as the huge creature continued to thrash around in blind circles, blood flooding from the great body, darkening the ocean.

  "Totally," Ryan said. His own coat's pockets held spare caseless ammo for his G-12, enough for one full reload and a few left over. Once they were gone, he knew he'd have to dump the unusual blaster and pick up something more conventional.

  Lori came aboard, clots of blood streaking her yellow hair, pulling Doc after her. The old man was grinning apishly and he blinked away the water, watching the death throes of the leviathan as it dived and broached, dived again.

  "Wonderful specimen, my dear Ryan, quite wonderful. But such a shame you had to butcher it. Necessary, I suppose."

  "Yeah, Doc. You fucking suppose right."

  By the time they eventually grounded the raft on the beach of the mainland, the whale-shark lay still and dead in the bay, its carcass wallowing under the attention of thousands of seabirds.

  Chapter Nine

  The path was steep and narrow. There were the remains of old steps, blocks of crudely carved stone set in the loose earth. But time and weather had eroded many of them, sending them sliding down the hill toward the beach.

  With a great struggle Ryan and the others managed to haul their waterlogged raft high enough up the shore to keep it clear of the seaweed-strewn tidemark. The drums began to leak silvery drops onto the piled shingle, drying out.

  "With luck it'll float again when we need it. Long enough to get us back to the Ile au Haut and the gateway," Krysty said.

  Jak tethered it to some frost-riven granite slabs, holding it fast against their eventual return. "Now what?" he asked.

  "Now we go inland a ways. Find us some food and some way of getting dry. Look around some. That's what we do next," Ryan replied.

  "Must have been many small hamlets scattered about this part of New England, back before the darkening of the skies," Doc said, shivering in his soaking clothes. "Some of them were allegedly places of inbred oddities. I recall a writer called Hodgcraft, or some such... wrote of blasphemous entities and colors beyond space. Set many of them in this region. I strongly recommend that we be most careful."

  "Know what steps take if see real horror, Doc?" Jak asked, grinning impishly.

  "No, young fellow. What steps sh
ould I take?"

  "Long ones." The boy laughed.

  The cliffs had fallen in sometime in the past hundred years. The final ninety feet of the path had vanished in a blur of tumbled pines and furrowed mud slides.

  When they finally reached the top, Ryan paused and looked backward, across the stretch of ocean to the lopsided island. He saw that the other predators had scented the death of the mighty whale-shark. They were almost hidden by kicking spray, but he could make out the indistinct shapes of other sea creatures, tearing at the streaming corpse. The agitation had driven the gulls from the feast, leaving them to circle, screaming impotently, in a whirling cloud of hunger.

  "Which way?" Donfil asked, peering around at the shrubs and stunted trees that angled toward the land, away from the sea's gales. "Looks something like a road over there."

  They all followed the direction of the pointing finger. Among the scrub and trees, visible as it coiled over a low hill, there did indeed seem to be the dark ribbon of a highway.

  * * *

  Despite the coolness, their clothes were drying on them as they walked. If it had been nearer winter with the prospect of a hard frost, Ryan would have made sure they lit a fire immediately to dry out and warm up. Cold and wet were the two biggest killers in the Deathlands. Far bigger than stickies or crazies.

  "There's some sort of direction post up ahead," Doc called. Now fully recovered from the ordeal, he was striding along with Lori on his arm, pointing out interesting features of the land to the girl.

  The seven were strung out in a loose patrol formation, on what the Trader would have called a "condition green" assignment, where there were no signs of any threat or danger — which didn't mean that you ignored any possible threat. It meant you didn't bother with someone out at point or using flank scouts or a distanced rear guard.

  The post had fallen over at an angle, propped against the tumbled end of a picket fence. To have lasted so long in such a harsh climate the wood must have been amazingly well seasoned and protected. Doc and Lori were there first, and the old man bent to read the names on the four pointing fingers.