by Josh Law
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Hook~
Chapter 1:
Chapter 2:
Chapter 3:
Chapter 4:
Chapter 5:
Chapter 6:
Chapter 7:
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10:
Chapter 11:
Chapter 12:
Chapter 13:
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THANK YOU MESSAGE
Hook~
Seven helicopters had begun to circle the Jaguar like vultures awaiting his flaming death. Nicolas Avalon drew in a heavy breath and blew it out.
He looked to his brother Alex with a wistful smile. To think that all of this had started with the day somebody hit him with a car. He reached and clapped his brother on the shoulder, wincing at the effort it took to move his own arms, back turned to ribbon flesh.
“Well, there’s one good thing to come out of all of this.”
“What?” Alex shook his head, giggling almost hysterically. How could his brother possibly find something good in the practical end of the Free World?
“The Jaguar’s controls are super-easy. It’s like anybody can be a ship captain these days. Even Chance Vierra.” He twisted around on his boot heels to where Chance fought with the wheel. He cringed and waved a stray a hand and continued in his epic struggle to propel the ship out of the incessant automatic fire.
“Alright, let’s try to look alive while we’re dying boys. We’re leading this parade!” Nick reached along the deck and scooped up two of the discarded rifles the guards had dropped when the jaguars had attacked them. He threw one to his brother and began to scale the small ship’s sole mast. Alex understood instantly. Chance held his breath. This was insane, even for Nicolas Avalon.
He scaled the slender mast with a single hand, the rifle balanced over his shoulder. He smiled when he realized his brother was behind him. The sails were still hanging limply from when they’d slackened the lines so that he and the jaguars could climb out of the pit.
The Jaguar was constructed as a luxury cruiser. There were no machine gun mounts. Even with the highly advanced control system and impressive engines Guatavita’s technicians had assembled, it wouldn’t be able to outrun the American warships. This was nothing less than suicide, but Nick and Alex might be able to snipe a few of the helicopter pilot’s out of their seats from the crow’s nest.
Chance gasped as muzzle loaders shook the waters. The boat pitched. Nick reeled catching one of the sail’s yards and his brother’s hand in the same motion. The rifle had slipped and he’d caught it under his arm. Such an awkward position was nigh impossible to retain in regular circumstances, but with helicopter fire descending like hailstorms, it was unthinkable.
Alex laughed in spite of everything. The brothers were suspended in animation. How strangely precious each moment became when each may consciously be one’s last. They understood every thought without uttering the first sound. Nick swung Alex long. He reached up and grabbed the nylon netting around the base of the crow’s nest with his free hand. He twisted about, wrapping his legs around the mast and scrambling up. Nick’s hands were now free to stumble into the net.
“We’re not exactly crack shots yet, Alex. Aim for the control boards if you can or the pilots. It’s more than picking them off. We want to make sure the things will crash into each other. Think fireworks. Hey, right? Chance?! Keep this thing swiveling.” Nick moved the rifle to his shoulder and snapped the bolt back. Alex sat up and let him use his shoulder as a gun rest. Of the two, he’d proved to be the better aim in Cipriano’s firearm classes. He’d only need the air to rest his weapon on.
They moved in perfect sync. Alex was the one to decide when they should fire. The signal was a sudden rigidity in his jawline. Nick felt his finger squeeze the trigger in response and heard both rifles fire at the same time. That was one way to teach a boy to shoot. Nick smiled as one of the pilots fell over his controls. The other was fighting electric sparks from a shattered dashboard. They’d been circling each other like a raven’s ballet, but now the helicopters collided nose to nose.
The explosion threw the brothers backward. They landed on stomachs and free hands along the slack lines, swinging back to the deck that was burning with roasting shards of choppers that were grating themselves like metallic cheese in the sky above them. Chance danced at the wheel, trying to dodge stray pieces of helicopter frame and blade that stuck into the bodies of the dead guards. One flew through the Jaguar cage, cutting a path that the cats could climb through at their leisure. Fortunate for the boys, they were far too motion sick by reason of the constant serpentine effort to avoid the trigger happy crowds.
“Your adoring public is getting pretty restless, Nick. Think it’s time we brought this party to shore?” Chance gritted his teeth. Waker’s Island was visible now, but still a mile out.
“Yeah, about that. There’s a hopping crowd. We’ll have to cut line. Any suggestions, Cap’n?” Nick rubbed the back of his neck.
Alex dropped to his knees noticing that one of the radio mics was beeping on the belt of a dead guard.
“Yo, Nick! Phone’s for you! Fella by the name of Whitehorse? Ring a bell?” Alex tossed his brother the walkie.
“Lazarus, copy.”
“God players after you again, boy?”
“James Whitehorse! Good to hear your voice, man!”
“Right. Son, trouble just follows you like the black dogs of Hell, doesn’t it? Looking out my window at the moment and I don’t like what I see.”
“Sorry about the curbside damage, man. Hey, is there any way you could maybe help us out? Islands equipped with the goods, right? You know, I thought the Feds put heavy guns around the fence to keep bad neighbors out?”
“Right you are. We have a bit of a problem, though. I managed to dig my way out of the snake hole, but we’ve got your proverbial rattler on the loose. We won’t have as many riflemen to the guns if you understand what I’m saying.”
“This rattler got a name? We don’t have a Benedict Arnold in my ranks?” Nick crunched the walkie his fist, its plastic body popping in agony.
“Not exactly. This one was never a friendly. You see, they’ve used that serum they made from your Daddy’s blood and extracted natural fluids and they resurrected Dr. Lucien Swift. Nero is on the roof, son. Fiddle and all.”
“My God!” Nick held the mic away from his mouth fuming. Alex watched him wide-eyed.
“Okay, so you’re right, White. We’ll have to improvise. Have any suggestions? A man in my position would appreciate all the counseling he could find.”
“That I do, son. There are these fancy canisters of gas on the island. I’ve not really seen the like before, but then I missed most of the 20th century on the count that I was sleeping in my Grave, and the 21st has just gotten started off well. Point is, the gas can be shot from the guns I’ve got. It’s harmful to regular people because it’s some kind of poison they’ve made out of the Prescott 1 serum.”
“That’s no good. It won’t hurt myself and my siblings, but my Mama and her compadres are
also on board these rigs!”
“I understand that, Nicolas. Fortunately, there is also an antidote canister. The Doc he always comes up with a solution to counter something should his test get beyond him. I find it to be rather intriguing despite the fact that I despise the man.”
“Oh, good! This might not be as totally impossible as it appears when you look around yourself. I guess maybe only half again as impossible. What am I yapping about? Can you get to that stuff and shoot it off in my airspace? Safely and unhindered?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Fire at will then, Whitehorse! We’re bringing the party to you!” Nick lowered the walkie, grinning like the Devil’s cat at his brother.
“Hey, he’s pretty fly for an old, undead guy, not so? Let’s move, boys! First things first.” Nick pulled his shirt off and waved down Tito’s ship. They were neck and neck anyway, within decent earshot.
Tito brought the boat around where the two crews were spitting distance from each other.
“Alex! Chance!” Renee Vierra was hopping up and down, dancing for joy that her adopted son and her brother were alive.
Marilyn Avalon leaned over the rail, reached, and grabbed her son’s hand.
“Hi. I knew you’d make it. Somehow.” Her face was twisted with pure exhaustion. It was amazing that the woman was even standing up. They hadn’t been able to stop for breath since Mexico and their situation tested the utmost limit of reality’s bounds.
“Hey, Mom.” Nick smiled and clutched her hand. He looked up at Cipriano who stood patient and silent by his mother’s side waiting for Nick’s report. Nick swallowed. This man had truly become a champion of his cause. He could never thank him enough for it, despite the fact that he insisted it saved his own skin.
“The boys on the island are about to release a super-toxin. It won’t be harmful to me, Alex, or the kids because it’s made out of our father’s adrenal extract. They’re also going to release an antidote for the rest of you. Don’t kick these canisters off the ship, despite uncomfortable side effects. Both kinds will save your lives in essence and cut the grass enough to where we can make a zig zag for the Waker’s shoreline.”
Cipriano grinned, showing his damaged teeth.
“Kid, since when do gangsters turn down the possibility of a free high?” He winked and clapped his hands for his gangs’ attention, relaying Nick’s message in urgent Spanish.
“So, you fools actually found a way for this frenetic crap to be possible!” Brandon shouted from the crowd, pushing his way forward to the guard rail. Nick grinned at his little brother as the insanity of their situation was brought home.
He looked from each face. Bacardi stood armed to the teeth with a box of grenades that Tito had on the house. There was Sally with Dr. Clark. Peyo stood behind Renee, flashing a mocking grin at Alex who’d collapsed to his knees on the blazing Jaguar deck, bush-winded.
Nick swallowed as he heard the muzzleloaders deploying the canister and felt them whizzing overhead. They were small and aluminum. If they collided with anyone, luckily, the wound we be about as bad as getting pelted with large hail.
He’d brought them into this frenzy. He swore on whatever combustible material kept his soul ablaze that he would bring them out of it again. Even if that meant Hell or High Water for said soul.
“Land Ho!” Chance was stomping his feet and waving. They were almost to the island.
They all stood transfixed as the hum of engines died in the air. The pilots were dropping like flies. Helicopter, plane, and warship alike piled atop one another, one after the other, a plague of locusts dropping in the sun’s fury.
They landed with the crescendo of metals colliding. Then a fire rose. White, at first, searing hot, melting the siding off their own boats, forcing them aground like the avenging angel’s hand scooping them out of the water and onto the Waker’s rocks.
That substance had been flammable as well as toxic to the human respiratory system. One fire became an insurgence. Prometheus unleashed. Hope dying in the Pacific skyline.
The World watched from their news streaming media as the ocean blossomed with fire and took a quarter of Guatavita’s corrupted U.S. fleet back to the depths with it. For the first time in history, Humankind truly understood the power of individuals in the World.
Chapter 1:
* * *
Before you go on and have a thrill ride in your imagination,
I just have a quick message for you
You can SCROLL TO THE END OF THE BOOK to read it or you could GO TO THE TABLE OF CONTENTS and CLICK "JOSH LAW'S THANK YOU MESSAGE"
I guarantee you that I’m not going to sell you anything or make you join a group or things like that
It’s just a thank you message that I know you deserve
* * *
They ran to him from every corner of the Island, breaking free of strongholds and chains, some even climbing out of test barrels of chemicals. It wasn’t all of them by a long shot, but some of them had managed to reach their fearless Lazarus and for them it was rapture.
Nick laughed, pulling his shirt back on as he ran into Whitehorse’s back-breaking embrace.
“That was beautiful, man! I’m speechless!” Nick’s hair was standing on end.
“Nicolas, my boy. You couldn’t be speechless if I sowed your lips together.” Whitehorse slapped Nick on the back. The boy bowed halfway over chuckling.
“Hallo there. You’re Alex, right?” Whitehorse turned to face Alex. His hair had bristled too from apprehension. Guatavita hadn’t begun to send out the legions and the Island was crawling with God knew what. He hadn’t heard what had been said about the resurrected mad scientist, but he knew from his brother’s outburst back on decks that there could only be something evil lurking in the darker parts of this sand dollar with a large building that looked like a distillery atop its single hill.
“The one and only at your service.” Alex performed a mock bow. Whitehorse chuckled.
“I can tell you two are brothers.” He shook his head.
“Meet the rest of my motley family, Mr. Whitehorse.” Nick extended a hand to indicate his mother, Renee, the Prescott kids, and the gangsters as they all came walking or running towards them. Marilyn collided with her son’s shoulders and spun him halfway around to hug him and kiss either side of his face.
“This is my mother, obviously.” He laughed and kissed her atop her head.
“Yeah, and this is mine.” Alex laughed as Renee ran to him and picked him up around the waist, hugging him like she was trying to break him in half.
“Well, I adopted him, but yeah he’s as much my son if not more than if I’d given birth to him.” Renee beamed, never having heard him say this outright. She jumped from him to Chance who stood silently on looking.
“Good to meet you, ladies.” Whitehorse tipped his old hat to them both. The dust stains on it from its long years hung on a distant relation’s wall told them how truly long it had been since he’d walked in the sun. This was one article of his original clothing that the historical society had convinced said relative to ship via snail mail to Waker’s Island. He wore Modern civilian attire on the rest of his person, chest covered in a bulletproof vest. During their frantic escape, the other Wakers had constructed make-shift body armor out of plates of steel they’d collected from the scrap piles a few hundred feet off the beach.
“Good to meet the mysterious army that helped save Durango from the Mad Science Apocalypse. “ Marilyn shook Whitehorse’s hand.
Cipriano stepped up beside her drawing protectively close. Chief Riggs drew closer as well, a brow raised. He was ready for whatever was coming.
“So, what are we up against here?” Cipriano’s face was wreathed in cigar smoke like a halo to his ominous power. Whitehorse glanced him over uncertainly and looked to Nicky.
“I’m assuming you elected not to tell them what I confided in you a moment ago?” He swallowed. This would be heavy news.
“The delicate subject matter is c
ertain to seriously rock my brother’s constitution. Not that he isn’t man enough! He just happens to have serious history with the situation. You remember, Mr. Whitehorse.” Nick swallowed and looked at Alex’s eyes that had gone wide. His lips had turned blue around the rims. He guessed without having to hear it. The idea had haunted his dreams in the midst of all the other things that he’d gone through. He wouldn’t be quick to forget the night he’d been hooked to the dead, frozen hearts of his slaughtered elder brothers.
“It’s Swift, isn’t it?” Alex chambered the rifle he was holding subconsciously, his whole body quaking now. Nick looked at him in amaze. He was swift on the uptake.
“They used that damned serum on the Doctor and brought him back from the Dead and he’s back to torment us yet again.” Alex’s knees turned to soft serve beneath him. Nick caught him around the waist and pulled him to his chest.
“It’s okay. You’re okay. He’ll have to go through me first, man.” Nick laid his face in his brother’s hair trying to catch his own breath. The thought of facing that maniac again…
Marilyn’s nose started bleeding. Rage was ripping her soul to a thousand different pieces, opening a new dimension out of each shard, deepening her resolve. She went to the boys and took Alex’s face in her hands.