The woman was right. A huge gash along the thing’s side bled copiously into the sea water, and the enormous body actually looked dented. It gave the impression that it was hanging on for dear life.
What could have caused that?
The answer was obvious. The container had dropped onto it. No matter what kind of monster you were, getting hit with a load of air conditioners bound for South Korea would quickly turn a good day into a bad one. The miracle was that it was still alive.
Alive and tensing to propel itself onto the deck with its tail.
“Back! Back! Back!” Cora shouted. She pulled the nearest of her companions along with her as she retreated from the colossal surge.
A huge wave washed over the deck. Ania was swept off her feet and into the container deck. Out of the corner of her eye, Cora saw the forklift get lifted by the water, and push most of the workers over the edge as well. That was their bad luck: the pile of containers was much lower over there… the fall would not be fun. The forklift itself stopped just short.
But that was as far as she could watch her surroundings. The water knocked her down and she had to grab onto one of the crushed railings with her free hand to keep herself from going over as well.
The remaining water rolled back off the ship as quickly as it had arrived. Cora checked to see who she’d managed to save.
“Damn. Just my luck,” Cora said when she realized the person in her grip was the scientist lady who’d caused the whole mess in the first place.
“Thank you,” the woman gasped, spitting out water. Then she turned to look at the ship’s side and smiled. “Kali,” she said. “You’re magnificent.”
The woman stepped towards the monster, which lay panting on the side, half on the ship, half in the water, right between the group and the lifeboat.
Worse, the ship was leaning even more than before. Cora could hear containers sliding around behind her. Off in the distance a crash announced that one of them hadn’t quite held. The Captain’s efforts to get the ship grounded hadn’t borne fruit yet either, although she could see that they were moving a little. All that seemed to achieve was to sink them faster.
She suspected they no longer had time to get to the lifeboats at the rear of the ship.
Spotting Sked limping towards her, she pointed towards the monster. “We need to get through!” she shouted. “Can we go over the containers?”
He shook his head. “They’re all jumbled up. That last hit knocked a bunch of them over.”
“Fuck.” She walked over to the edge and looked down into the container area. Sked was correct; there was no way to climb that mess.
“Help,” a tiny voice said from beneath her feet. She bent to look, and found Ania barely holding onto the edge. Her fingers were white, bleeding where the rough metal had torn at the skin.
Cora bent down, grabbed her by the wrists and pulled her up, amazed once again at how little the woman weighed. It was like lifting a small child, despite the fact that Ania was around five-foot-eight.
With so many things happening at once, she nearly missed the movement behind her. Lai, bleeding from a scalp wound and holding his hand over his head, was weaving drunkenly towards the monster, either unable to see what he was stumbling towards or too dazed to understand the significance. Finally, he sat down against a pile of debris that had been left there by the receding water. It looked like the box an air conditioner came in.
She took two steps towards him and stopped. As soon as she started moving, the monster’s head had snapped over, its enormous slitted eye fixed on her.
Cora froze in place. If she tried to help Lai up, all she’d end up doing was to draw the monster’s attention to her boss. He was close enough that, if the creature extended its neck, it could easily swallow him up. The only reason he was still alive is that the monster hadn’t noticed him.
“Dammit.”
Worse, the creature would see him any moment even if Cora didn’t do anything to make it happen… which meant she had to act fast.
But what could you do against something that size? She’d seen men pouring complete magazines into it, and the monster took about as much notice of it as it would have of a gnat. She couldn’t call for air cover, and the nearest tank was probably in India somewhere.
Or was it? Her gaze fell on the forklift, humming to itself just a few yards away. The long forks… well, she thought, you could put out an eye with one of those things.
Cora sprinted towards the machine, slipping a bit on the wet steel of the deck. She jumped into the seat—the operator had either made a run for it or been washed away by the wave—and began to maneuver, trying to get the forks pointed at the monster’s head.
To her horror, Lai was attempting to stand.
“Dammit!” she shouted as the forks caught on what had to be the only railing still standing. She tried to back up, but there wasn’t enough room for the long vehicle. Instead, she hit the lever that controlled the tines. If this thing was designed to lift containers, the winch mechanism had to be seriously strong.
The motor’s whine increased in pitch as it struggled against the steel railing. She smelled ozone.
Then, with a loud gunshot-like crack, the bolts gave way and the forklift was free. Cora turned the little wheel and pointed it where she wanted it, then adjusted the height of the near-side fork to be at eye-level with the monster.
She knew she’d only have one crack at this, but it was all lined up the best she could. She pushed the accelerator lever forward.
And was suddenly pulled back into her seat by an iron cord from the railing which had wrapped itself, unnoticed, around her chest as she maneuvered.
The pressure was awful; the cord pulled back as the forklift attempted to surge forward. Something popped in her chest, and she screamed in pain and rage. She watched helplessly as Lai staggered towards his death. Just a few more yards and the thing wouldn’t even have to move in order to swallow the man.
The steel rope suddenly gave way. It must have come off whatever it was snagged on and the enormous forklift’s spinning tires found traction. It sped straight towards the monster.
Cora had wanted to jam the lever and jump off, but at the last moment, she realized that the fork was off target. She moved the wheel a tiny bit to the right.
Bingo!
The fork entered the eye straight on at full speed, driving itself a yard into the monster’s skull.
The thing roared. It was a colossal sound, comparable to standing beside the howitzers when the artillery guys fired them. She’d be deaf for a few days, she knew. She was already starting to jump off the forklift; she suspected the monster must be mortally wounded, but even if it wasn’t, it would be distracted. She could save Lai.
The cord that had snagged was still snug against her chest, biting into her skin and compressing her. She looked down to see that it was a cord of steel cables wrapped around the roll cage of the forklift behind her.
It was going to be a bitch to get out of the thing. It seemed to have managed to tie itself in knots upon knots.
She struggled to free herself, but she could barely move.
“Guys,” she called to a wide-eyed Sked watching from twenty yards away. “A little help over here.”
He’d barely taken a single step when the creature roared again and twitched. Death throes or something else caused it to lift its head off the deck.
Such was the massive strength of the prehistoric monster that the forklift followed.
The monster overbalanced and began to slide over the deck.
The forklift went with it.
Cora pulled at the cable, but it was too tight for flesh and blood to move.
The monster slowed slightly as the water caught it. Driven by the weight of the forklift, the tine in its eye buried itself all the way in, bringing Cora face to face with her nemesis.
“Well, if you weren’t dead before, you’re definitely dead now, you ugly, motherfucking piece of shit.”
Then the sea arrived, and talking was out of the question.
She tugged at the cord cutting into her flesh, but it was impossible to budge. She tried to slip over it, under it, anywhere. It was too tight.
Finally, her hands lost their strength and her lungs felt like they would burst.
Don’t breathe in.
Don’t breathe in.
It was her only thought. Only two lungs full of water awaited if she let her discipline slip. She needed to keep trying. There had to be a way out of the forklift.
Her fingers were no longer responding.
Her lungs were about to explode.
Don’t breathe in.
Don’t breathe in.
Cora breathed in.
Chapter 23
Sked rushed to the edge of the ship and looked into the water. The only thing he saw were bubbles. Monster and forklift had sunk well out of sight.
He waited for Cora’s head to bob up, stood there looking down as dazed survivors of the wave ambled around him.
A few minutes later, a hand on his shoulder woke him from his trance. A voice beside him said: “She’s gone.”
He turned to see the doctor standing beside him, expression unreadable. The man’s other hand was on Lai’s arm, keeping the billionaire from walking away.
“She can’t be,” Sked said. “A woman like that is indestructible.”
“No one is indestructible.”
They looked out over the water for a few moments. Sked grunted and turned back.
“Where’s Akane?”
The doctor pointed. Akane was visible striding along the bow of the ship, with Sabrina in tow going around the container deck. She seemed to be in a hurry, impatiently tugging on the scientist.
“What’s she doing?” Sked said.
“She appears to be heading for the other monster.”
“Why would she do that?”
The doctor’s features hardened. “I wouldn’t venture a guess.”
Sked shot off in pursuit, not waiting for the doctor, Lai or Ania.
Even dragging Sabrina, however, Akane’s head start was too large to overcome. He was still rounding the front of the ship when Akane stopped to face the remaining beast.
He sped up, hoping she wouldn’t do anything rash.
***
Akane glared at the scaled ugly facing them.
The scientist woman was sobbing uncontrollably. Akane turned to face her. “They’re not so pretty close up, are they?”
Anger flashed in Sabrina’s eyes. “Of course they are. They’re wonderful. I’m not crying because you want to kill me. And I’m definitely not scared of my baby. I’m crying because of what that dyke back there did to Kali.”
“These things have names?”
“Of course they do. They’re living, feeling creatures. Much better than the likes of you.” She wiped her eyes. “But I wouldn’t expect you to understand. You’ve probably never loved anything but yourself.”
“Spare me,” Akane said. “I don’t need to listen to a lecture from a mass murderer.”
The scientist laughed. “You people live such tiny lives. Safe in your little world where nothing ever changes, with your little phones and thinking that you’re important because you have a couple of followers on your social media accounts. Even when you die, you’ll never understand just how insignificant your ridiculous lives are.” She pointed up at the monster panting against the deck. “I have done something that doesn’t fit into your limited scope, so you need to call me names. Who cares? Do you think I’ll lower myself to your level to argue with you? I don’t need to. I’m not one of your obedient little members of the flock. You people who argue about politics and TV programs, who can’t even see just how utterly worthless you are.”
Akane studied the woman. The scientist looked like she was about to collapse. Bleeding from both legs and pale as a ghost, she should have zonked out long ago. Only her insane drive was keeping her awake. “And I suppose you can see just how worthless I am?”
“Yes!” Sabrina replied. “Yes, I can. And do you want to know why? It’s because unlike you sub-humans, I can actually see the beauty in human progress. I know the wonder of having changed the world in a real and tangible way, and not because I wrote a clever tweet. People like me can see the rest of you for what you are: just wastes of space, taking up resources that could be better spent on making more beauty. The deaths on that island weren’t murder, they turned irrelevant nothings into food for magnificent experiments. Dung into wonder.” She turned to face the enormous monster, and took two steps towards it. “I created this. Me. By myself. The only thing I got from any of you were the resources, money I needed to make it all work. You could never have done it. This is my baby, born of my vision.” Another step closer, but Akane noted she was very careful to stop a prudent distance from the jaws. “If you can stand here and tell me you don’t see how wonderful this is, you’re either lying or an utter imbecile.”
Akane glanced at the monster. “Yes, it’s very impressive,” she replied laconically. “But you know what would be even better?”
“What?” Sabrina replied, naked challenge in her tone.
“Watching you take a closer look.” She gave the scientist a healthy push in the back. The woman tried to slow down, but on those injured legs, she had no chance. Sabrina stumbled forward five steps.
The huge eyes locked on her and the monster struck, lightning fast, all traces of laziness gone.
Sabrina tried to scream, but all she managed was a weak yelp before the enormous teeth closed around her.
Akane turned away as blood spattered onto her face.
As she wiped away the gore, she realized she was smiling broadly. “Now that was beautiful,” she said.
***
Sked stopped running when he saw that Akane was walking in his direction. Nearly fifty yards still separated them, but he could see her grin.
“Your girlfriend is a violent nutjob,” Dr. Pendalai observed as they watched her approach.
Sked chuckled. “Is that the kind of medical terminology they use in Sri Lanka?”
“Yeah. We stopped using ‘batshit crazy’ because it was deemed offensive to refer to the mentally ill in that way. But that woman has some issues.”
“I can’t argue with that,” Sked replied. “She has her good points, though.”
“Shut up, you two.” They both turned to see Ania, an angry expression on her face, stepping between them. “Akane is wonderful. And you two… men…” she spat the word with considerable disdain, as if it were the worst insult she could think of, “can never understand the things she’s gone through. Besides, isn’t the woman she just killed the one who made the monsters? Didn’t she hurt a lot of people? And wasn’t she just going to keep hurting people if she survived all of this? Akane did the right thing.”
Then she was running headlong, and met Akane in the middle, embracing her.
Sked shrugged. If Akane didn’t want to tell her new ward that the death of that woman had been ordained by a contract on the woman’s life as opposed to any particular concern for humanity on Akane’s part, he wasn’t going to say anything. It had been a little more dramatic than Sked expected, but one of the reasons Akane was always in trouble was that she had a flair for the artistic that went beyond mere brutality. She’d fed that bitch to her monster because it was the right way for that particular woman to die.
Either way, she’d be picking up the bounty.
Sked raised an eyebrow as she came into view. “Are you quite done? The ship is sinking, and we need to get off as soon as we can.”
“Whatever,” Akane said. “If you were so worried about that, you should have left without me.”
Sked cursed her internally. She was very sure of him, secure in the knowledge that no matter what insane stunt she pulled, he would be there like a loyal dog to pull her chestnuts out of the fire.
He turned back and began to walk towards the lifeboat without another wor
d.
Even though it was much lower in the water, the ship seemed to be moving a little faster than before. He wondered how long that would last… he could see water sloshing around in the lower reaches of the container deck, a few dozen yards below them. And it must have gotten well distributed, because the ship had leveled out, no longer listing to one side.
He grinned. Hopefully, those little bastard dinosaurs couldn’t swim. He’d grown to hate those things… even more than he hated the big ones.
Lowering the lifeboat proved simple enough. Between Sked and the doctor, they got it down without much more than a couple of rope burns.
As they began to row away, two people jumped off the Stern Liberia and landed with a splash in the water behind them.
“Help!” they called. “Let us on.”
Sked would have left them there, but the doctor’s stern visage convinced him that with a ten-kilometer row ahead of them, another couple of oarsmen would come in handy.
He was enormously surprised to see that the people they’d picked up were the man and woman from the central control room where they’d destroyed the sonic control for the big monsters.
“Funny meeting you here,” he said as they boarded. “Didn’t fancy going down with the ship?”
The guy responded. He sported a dark bruise under his chin and Sked vaguely remembered hitting him in the head with his shoulder. “We didn’t fancy going anywhere under the command of that mass-murdering bitch.”
“What changed your mind?” Sked said. He wished someone else would pick up the conversation. Rowing while talking was exhausting.
The woman replied. “We went into Williams’… Sabrina’s… room and found some extremely disturbing video footage. You were telling the truth.”
“No shit, Goldilocks,” Akane said. “Did we sound like we were bullshitting you?”
The woman seemed taken aback by Akane’s forthrightness, almost as if she expected to be welcomed with open arms for making the enormous sacrifice of admitting that someone else was right and she was wrong.
“Before you answer that,” Sked said, “could you each grab an oar and row? I want to get out of range of the ship’s security people. They have guns.”
Lost Island Rampage Page 23