Carrion Safari

by Jonah Buck

  Worms poked out of Razan’s pale flesh in a writhing mass. His mouth hung open, and a knot of worms slithered where his tongue should have been. His eye sockets were filled with constant wriggling motion. Bigger worms pulsed and throbbed under his skin, feeding on the very muscles they were replacing. Soon, Razan’s body would be no more than a skeleton encased in hundreds of oversized worms, all of them working together to move his limbs and help feed the whole.

  Razan’s remaining arm reached over and grabbed some of the offal torn from Creighton’s body. The arm jittered and shook as the worms tried to coordinate by feel. A second later, Razan’s dead claw hands grabbed up the red mass and brought it back. The hand stuffed it directly into the gaping gunshot wound in Razan’s torso, feeding it to the worms inside there. They didn’t seem the least bit concerned that Denise had blown off Razan’s other arm.

  Firing again, Denise blew Razan’s head off. The heavy caliber bullets disintegrated what remained of Razan’s head and launched the resulting debris into the jungle.

  Razan simply kept coming, though. His corpse pulled itself the rest of the way out of the grave, despite missing an arm and a head. The body kept coming toward them, flopping out of the grave and clawing its way forward with its remaining arm.

  Denise fired again, this time straight into the corpse’s center of mass. Whereas the shots to the head and arm merely tore those peripheral extensions off, a shot directly to Razan’s chest from close range distributed the impact throughout his whole body.

  In a split second, Razan all but flew apart. Rotting meat and stinking worm shreds sprayed across the beach. The incredible impact all but liquefied Razan’s already-decaying flesh. A pair of legs twitched and scissored wildly inside the grave, but the rest of Razan was simply gone.

  The worms that had survived burrowed back under the beach as quickly as they could. In other places, worms that had been chopped in half by the blast flailed across the sand.

  Breathing hard, Denise turned her attention back to Creighton. He didn’t look good. His eyes had gone glassy, and his skin was pale and clammy-looking. Blood continued to gush out of the hole in the middle of his belly, though the flow had dwindled. That wasn’t a good sign, though. It simply meant there wasn’t a lot of blood left in his body by that point, and what was left was rapidly leaking out onto the once white sand. Now the beach was a dozen different shades of crimson.

  “Silas, I need help lifting Creighton up. We’re going to have to drag him to the Hookstadt.” Denise was looking over Creighton’s injuries. Moving him was a bad option, but their other choice was to leave him here on the beach out in the open, where he was all but guaranteed to die before they could get back, either due to blood loss or because something found him. She didn’t have any supplies to take care of him here.

  “Silas?” She turned around to see why he wasn’t rushing to his friend’s side and helping her.

  He and Jubal were both facing the opposite way. She followed their gaze across to the edge of the jungle, and then she followed it up…and up. The booming footsteps they’d heard earlier had been getting closer, and her rifle blasts were enough to give their position away.

  One of the Komodo dragons was staring down at them, raised to its full fifty feet of height. At the ragged edge of the jungle, it towered over the scrubby trees and bushes that clung to the sparse, rocky soil.

  It stood only a few feet away from a large, white statue that looked like a screaming beast head. When she first saw those sculptures, Denise thought they might be a panoply of strange gods or idols. But they weren’t; they were warnings to everyone who ventured onto the island. Here be dragons.

  The massive Komodo dragon took a step forward, clearing the jungle in a single bound. Its foot pressed into the sand, leaving a footprint that Denise could lay in with her arms and legs outstretched and probably still not touch the sides. The dragon was a walking apocalypse. A prehistoric biological catastrophe. A throwback to times of gods and monsters.

  Silas turned to her. “Run.” He pulled out a pistol, aimed it, and shot Creighton in the head in a single movement. Creighton’s head whipsawed back in a puff of red, and he collapsed on the sand.

  Denise couldn’t tell if what she’d just seen was admirable or horrifying or both. There was no way to save Creighton. Perhaps he was better off like this.

  She ran anyway. Silas and Jubal took off after her.

  Behind them, the dragon roared, a noise like a volcano erupting. It took another yawning step forward, its foot coming down squarely on Creighton. The massive weight caused bits of Creighton to go squirting across the sand. When the dragon took another step, he was stuck to the underside of its foot like a candy wrapper, reduced to a gummy ruin.

  The Hookstadt lay ahead on the beach. A single lantern light burned in the bridge. Maybe they could make it. Maybe. The dragon’s footsteps were drawing steadily closer, its every stride covering an amazing distance.

  Denise willed herself to lift her legs higher, to pump her arms harder, to squeeze every ounce of speed from her battered body that she could. Each step sent twinges into her muscles like they were being prodded with hot irons. Everything hurt.

  But the alternative was to feel a lot more pain very suddenly and then never feel anything again. Her lungs were like bellows, drawing in great gasps of air and pushing them back out. Her legs were like pistons. She tried to clear her mind of everything except taking the next step, moving incrementally closer to the beached ship each time. Even if they could just crawl inside one of the rents in the armor near the prow, they’d be safe. The Komodo dragon was much too big to follow them inside.

  Suddenly, a new noise caught her attention even above the sound of the dragon’s footsteps, a sound she would always remember and dread. The howl came from behind them, quickly picked up by a matching call and then another.

  Some of the villagers had broken loose from behind the wall. Denise didn’t know if they finally managed to climb the wall or if they ripped Harrison’s gun away from the door and scrambled out into the night from there, but it ultimately didn’t matter. They were loose now, and they had her scent.

  She risked a glance backward, and she saw shapes running on the beach behind the Komodo dragon. They were gaining rapidly, running on all fours like wolves. Their eyes were sickly yellow searchlights in the darkness, bobbing along as they gained on their quarry.

  The Komodo dragon was only a hundred feet behind her now, covering twenty feet for every ten she managed. However, the SMS Rear Admiral Hermann Hookstadt lay just ahead in all its rusting glory.

  This was their only chance at safety. Everything else was simply too far away. Denise reached the edge of the hull, Silas and Jubal right behind her. The metal at the prow of the ship was crinkled up like melted chocolate where it had smashed directly into the beach and ridden up onto the sand. There were plenty of places where the rivets shot loose and the welds gave way and the carefully laid steel rolled back like taffy.

  Denise dove through a hole about eight feet wide and four feet high and found herself in what had probably been the ship’s forward magazine. Artillery shells the size of infants lay scattered on the floor, their casings slowly corroding and accumulating a thick patina of grime. Toppled, damaged machinery that was probably built to load the shells up into the guns lay strew about in heaps of rusted junk. She looked around.

  There was no way out. Only a single, thick blast door led out of the room, and it was dogged shut. However, there was no going back now to try to reach a different part of the ship.

  Behind them, the Komodo dragon had reached the ship. The beast raked its huge claws against the hull, trying to peel the metal back further. Rusted and old, the hull groaned and squealed, but it didn’t give very far. Not even a monster that size could do much against naval armor.

  Denise wasn’t worried about the Komodo dragon, though. She was more worried about the escaped villagers. Unlike the dragon, they could fit through the same hole she, Silas
, and Jubal had come through.

  “You’ve led us right into a corner, you bitch,” Jubal said.

  Rather than respond to him, Denise simply body checked him into the wall on the way to the blast door. She took the butt of her Savage 99 and banged it against the hatch. “Balthazar! We’re in the forward magazine. Let us in,” she hollered.

  Hopefully, Balthazar was actually in the Hookstadt as opposed to dead in a ravine somewhere. Hopefully, he noticed them running toward the ship from his camp on the bridge. Hopefully, he not only noticed them but ran down so he could let them in. Hopefully, he wouldn’t just let them all die down here. Denise had to rely on hope. She didn’t have much of anything else left at this point.

  “We’re about to have company,” Silas said, holding his own rifle. Outside, the villager things had reached the outer edge of the ship. Denise could only see their glowing eyes from where she was standing.

  The Komodo dragon noticed them, too. It swung around and tried to scoop one up its massive claws. The villagers danced away, yapping and snarling. They were much more nimble than the huge reptile.

  “Balthazar! Open up!” Denise kept banging on the door.

  “Untie me. Give me a gun,” Jubal said. “We’ll shoot the sumbitches.”

  Silas already had his gun raised, but the villagers were moving too rapidly outside the entrance scampering around the Komodo dragon’s feet as it tried to snatch them up. The dragon snarled in frustration as it shot its claws forward and came up empty again.

  Silas pulled the trigger, and a roar filled the whole room. The blast was cataclysmic inside the confined space. Denise could feel the sound resonate through her whole body. An explosion of sand sprayed up outside, scouring the exterior of the ship.

  “No, you’ll kill them,” Denise shouted.

  “That’s the point,” Jubal said.

  “But they’re people,” Denise said.

  “Not anymore.” Silas reloaded his gun.

  The first of the villagers darted straight between the Komodo dragon’s feet and pulled itself into the interior of the ship with them. A second creature scampered around the dragon and also scrambled through the opening into the ship’s forward magazine. They approached together, claws raised. Drool dripped from their fangs.

  Denise swallowed. Now it really was down to them or her. Denise didn’t want to shoot them. They didn’t have any control over what they were doing. The moon had driven everything on Malheur Island into an unnatural bloodlust. She didn’t know if the human parts of their brain were still alert but powerless to stop any of this or if the islanders would all wake up in the morning with no memory of what happened the night before.

  Either way, they had friends and family. Killing one of the monsters would mean killing the person, too. Denise didn’t want to do that. They weren’t to blame for what had happened here tonight.

  She raised her rifle anyway. No matter how much she didn’t want to kill them, she wanted to be torn limb from limb even less. Her mind conjured up Harrison’s screams as he was ripped apart and eaten alive. The people they’d once been might not want to harm her, but the monsters they’d become sure did. Denise had reached the last resort. She looked down the rifle’s sight and planted them squarely on the chest of the first villager.

  TWENTY-TWO

  THE SECOND BOER WAR

  With a sound like a bayonet crunching into a tin can, the blast door behind them slid open. Balthazar stood in the narrow space opening and looked out at the scene unfolding inside. He saw Denise and Silas, armed and facing off against two of the creatures, as well as Jubal, still with his hands tied behind his back.

  “Get inside,” he said.

  Jubal scrambled backward and leaped through the narrow gap first. “Balthazar! Quick, untie me. These two have gone crazy. I need a gun, too.”

  Balthazar shoved Jubal aside. Denise was closer to the door, and she hopped through next, Silas hard on her heels. Realizing that their prey was escaping, the villagers lunged forward, howls erupting from their throats.

  Shoving his weight against the heavy blast door, Balthazar tried to push it closed before the monsters could reach it. But the door was made from heavy, extra thick steel meant to limit damage from an explosion inside. There was no way to open or close it quickly.

  A twisted claw shot through the opening before the door could close all the way, preventing it from shutting. A snarl rumbled through the hallway as the door clamped down on the hand near the wrist. The sound of claws scraping against the door from the other side, trying to push it open again, was loud in the hallway.

  Denise spun her rifle around and smashed the butt down on top of the hand. Bones crunched like beetles under a boot. The hand writhed as if an electrical current had been run through it and withdrew. With a final heave, Balthazar heaved the door shut and dogged it closed, sealing the monsters out. They would need an artillery battery to get inside now.

  Balthazar turned to his new company, looking them over. He stared long and hard at the ropes binding Jubal. He glanced at Denise and then frowned. He turned his attention to Silas instead. “Explain,” he said, gesturing at Jubal.

  “Creighton and I found him after hearing some gunshots. We think he’s the one that killed Andris Razan and Gail Darrow.”

  “Gail was killed?” Balthazar shook his head. He finally looked back at Denise. “I know you two were friends. I’m sorry.”

  “I…thank you.” She’d spent the entire trip avoiding Balthazar. Accepting niceties from him felt strange.

  “Who all is left?” Balthazar asked.

  “We’re the only ones,” Denise said. She briefly recapped the deaths of Dr. Marlow, Gail, and Harrison. She had to speak with a knot in her throat as she mentioned what happened to both her friends. Silas covered how Creighton died and how they’d discovered Jubal in the area shortly after Gail was shot.

  “I didn’t do anything. Lies, all of it. Balthazar, you know me. Do I seem like a madman to you? I think she killed her friends and is trying to pin it on me. Untie me and we can throw her out there with those things. We’re not safe with her in here.”

  “Come up to the bridge with me. The Shield of Mithridates is getting close,” Balthazar said.

  They followed the large man down the narrow corridors of the Hookstadt. Without regular maintenance, the ship was slowly crumbling to rust. The thick, grey paint covering the interior was peeling off in sheets, giving the walls an unpleasant, scabby look. Their feet sent echoing footsteps down the long, dark hallways. Denise had to sling the Savage 99 over her shoulder in order to walk through the tight spaces.

  In a few places, Balthazar had laid lamps down, but most of the ship was dark. They passed rooms filled with overturned bunks or soldering supplies, but Denise could only see the vaguest outlines. Distantly, she could hear the wash of the ocean sloshing against the hull. Denise stopped dead as a long, wavering roar sounded from somewhere below them.

  “I sealed off the parts of the ship I was using,” Balthazar said. “But there’s so many holes in the hull that those things can go pretty much wherever they want on a couple of the decks. Don’t open any doors unless I tell you to.”

  They came to a staircase so encased in rust that Denise thought her eyeballs might get tetanus just from looking at it too hard. A skeleton occupied the space beneath the stairs. The body was still wrapped in the ragged remains of a German Imperial Navy uniform. Most of the corpse’s skull had been caved in, apparently smashed against the wall. Denise realized that not all the stains on the stairs were rust.

  Balthazar noticed where they were all looking. “There’s more skeletons elsewhere, too. Not a full crew’s worth, though. I don’t know if they were attacked by ahools, and they accidentally ran aground fighting them or if they beached themselves by accident and then died during the next full moon. I tried to get to the village to ask them about it yesterday, but they turned me back at their gates. I guess they didn’t want to talk to somebody they thought would
be dead soon anyway.”

  They moved up the staircase, taking each step carefully. The stairs groaned like stepping on them hurt terribly. A few flights up, Balthazar opened another door, and they found themselves on the ship’s bridge. Levers and bedraggled charts and broken glass greeted them.

  Balthazar had set up a cozy little arrangement with a sleeping bag and gas cooker in the back. Netting covered the windows at the front of the bridge to keep out flying intruders. At over fifty feet above the ground, he had an excellent view of this part of the island.

  At the moment, a large portion of that view was the back of a Komodo dragon. The behemoth had finally given up at peeling back the hull and was making its way toward the jungle.

  A chair and rifle sat near one of the windows.

  The radio crackled to life. Denise nearly shot it. She hadn’t had a chance to communicate with the Shield of Mithridates in so long she nearly forgot about the radios entirely.

  “Hello? Are you still there? What’s happening?” the radio asked. Denise recognized Hobhouse’s voice.

  Balthazar walked over and picked up the mouthpiece. “I saw some of the other hunters running toward the ship. I went down to let them in.”

  “There are other survivors? We haven’t heard from anyone else in a long time.”

  “Denise, Silas, and Jubal are here. Everyone else is dead.”

  “Denise, Silas, and Jubal.” Hobhouse seemed to consider that for a moment.

  “Put Denise on for a moment,” Hobhouse said.

  Balthazar handed her the mouthpiece without looking at her. “Hello?”

  “Denise? Glad to hear that you’re still with us. Do you know if that ahool you captured is still sedated?”

  She looked down at the radio. Hobhouse just found out that sixty percent of his expedition had been killed, and he wanted to know about the ahools.

  “We think Jubal killed Razan and also Gail. Silas and Creighton tied him up. We’ll be turning him over to you once you come pick us up,” she said, choosing to address the most important things first.