Starcatchers 01 - Peter and the Starcatchers

by Dave Barry, Ridley Pearson

  Slank whirled to shoot it, but Little Richard, bellowing in pain, moved faster; he brought his massive left fist down on the she-fish’s head. She emitted a blood-chilling screech and fell away into the dark water.

  The cave filled with hisses now as the other she-fish erupted in a frenzy of furious motion. Little Richard screamed in pain as another set of teeth sank into the back of his left thigh; he reached down frantically, trying to knock the thing away. The water around the two men foamed and boiled; Slank swept his pistols back and forth, but could find nothing to aim at; the she-fish were moving too fast, and mostly underwater.

  And then they were gone.

  For a moment there was no sound in the cave but Slank’s breathing and Little Richard’s moans as he felt the pain of his wounds, especially the jagged hole in his leg.

  Then they surfaced, perhaps twenty feet away. Five—no, six—of them. One of them, the one Little Richard had struck, was clearly hurt, possibly unconscious; the other five were supporting it, making odd, low noises. They were moving away slowly, toward a bend in the cave wall; as they rounded it, Slank could see them looking back toward the men, could see the fury in their glowing blue eyes, could see…

  Wait a minute. There was something odd….

  Why can I see them so clearly?

  Slank squinted for a moment, and then he realized what it was: there was light coming from somewhere around that bend, from deeper in the cave.

  Something in there was giving off light.

  “Come on,” he told Little Richard, moving toward where the she-fish had disappeared around the curve.

  “What?” said Little Richard, grimacing in pain. “You want to follow those devil things?”

  “Yes,” said Slank, pushing forward, excited now. Little Richard, not wanting to go, but afraid of being alone in the dark water, followed. They reached the bend in the cave wall, and Slank, holding his pistols in front of him, inched forward until he could see around it.

  “Well, well,” he said softly.

  Little Richard leaned around to see, and gasped.

  In front of them was a little cove, at the back of which was a rock ledge, perhaps thirty feet across. Lying on the ledge, to the right, was the injured she-fish, still being attended to by the five who had carried it there. Arrayed along the ledge, and in the water in front of it, were many more—Slank estimated two dozen—she-fish. Behind them, on a pile of rocks at the center of the ledge, was the source of the glow that filled the cavern.

  The trunk. It was battered and lopsided, light streaming from its many cracks.

  “It’s mine,” said Slank, mostly to himself.

  The creatures, keeping their glowing blue eyes fixed on the men, moved slowly toward the center of the cove, gathering in front of the trunk.

  “I don’t think they mean to give it up,” said Little Richard. “They’re protecting it.”

  “Yes, they’d want to keep it,” said Slank. “But I don’t mean to let them.” He turned to Little Richard. “Go get it,” he said.

  “Me?” said Little Richard. “But…”

  “GO GET IT,” barked Slank, evoking a flurry of hisses from the she-fish. “If they come at you,” Slank continued in a calmer voice, “I’ll shoot them.”

  Still, Little Richard hesitated.

  “If you don’t go in there,” said Slank, “I’ll shoot you.”

  Little Richard stared at him for a moment, and saw he meant it. Turning back, he took a breath, and began wading toward the she-fish.

  The creatures began darting nervously side to side; the hissing increased. Little Richard glanced back over his shoulder, pleadingly, toward Slank, but found himself looking down the barrel of a pistol. He turned away and took another step toward the creatures, who were very agitated now, opening their mouths as they hissed, revealing those terrifying teeth.

  It happened in less than a second. One of the she-fish shot from the pack, mouth agape, straight for Little Richard. As he threw his hands up, the cave rang with the sudden sound of a pistol shot, magnified by the stone walls. Incredibly—for the creature was moving very fast—Slank’s aim was true: the pistol ball struck it in the neck, and it fell back with a gurgling sound, blood spurting from the wound.

  The cave now filled with unearthly shrieks and screeches. Another creature, and now a third, lunged at Little Richard, and Slank fired again. This time he missed, but the sound of another shot, and its ricochet on the stone, was apparently too terrifying for the she-fish. As suddenly as they had attacked, they whirled and retreated. Grabbing their two wounded, the creatures flashed their powerful tails and dove, giving the men—and their terrible weapon—a wide berth, swarming from the cove and toward the cave entrance.

  Slank, still holding his pistols leveled, watched them go. Little Richard, barely believing he’d been spared, slowly lowered his hands from in front of his face, took a deep breath, and exhaled.

  “That was worse than spiders,” he said.

  “It’s a good thing,” said Slank, “they don’t know there’s but one shot per pistol.”

  Then he turned, slowly, savoring the moment, toward the glowing, now-unguarded trunk.

  “And now,” he said, “you’re mine.”

  CHAPTER 50

  EYES IN THE DARK

  PETER STUMBLED DOWN A STEEP SLOPE of hard-packed dirt that formed the interior wall of the Mollusks’log structure. He couldn’t see where he was going, as the dense tree branches overhead blocked out most of the fading dusk-light.

  After a few feet the wall became even steeper, almost vertical, and Peter lost his footing, falling…

  “UNH.” Peter had slammed into a body sprawled on the earthen floor.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  “Get off me,” hissed Tubby Ted.

  “Where are the others?” said Peter, scrambling to his feet.

  “Here, lad,” said Alf, his deep voice reassuring to Peter. “Over here.”

  As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw Alf’s big bulk, with the three smaller forms of James, Thomas, and Prentiss huddled next to him. They were in a corner of the space, but he couldn’t see how large it was; only two walls, disappearing off into the gloom.

  He took a step toward Alf, and his foot hit something hard and hollow-sounding. It skittered forward a few feet. James bent and picked it up, then dropped it, screaming.

  It was a skull.

  “It’s all right, lad,” said Alf, hugging the sobbing boy. “It’s all right.”

  “No it’s not,” said Prentiss. He was pointing at something, a pile of things. Peter peered at it. Bones. He looked around, and realized that the floor was covered with them. Bones and skulls. Dozens of skulls.

  Then they heard it, from somewhere off in the darkness.

  Another growl.

  “We have to get out of here,” whispered Peter. He turned back and tried to scale the wall, but it was too steep to climb, and he couldn’t gain either a handhold or a foothold on its smooth, hardpacked surface.

  “Here, lad,” said Alf, heaving Peter up onto his shoulders. But as high as Peter could reach, the wall was hard, and smooth, and steep.

  “It’s no use,” he said, and Alf set him back on the floor.

  Another growl, this one closer.

  The boys backed away from the sound, into the corner, Alf and Peter in front of them, all of them peering into the darkness, watching, listening.

  Another growl, still louder. And a scraping sound, like claws. And the rumble of a massive weight, shifting and dragging on the hard earth floor. Coming ever closer.

  James screamed again, and as he did they all saw what he saw in the distance, in the darkness, coming toward them:

  Two ovals, red, glowing, like coals, each with a cruel black vertical slit.

  Those are eyes, thought Peter. But they’re impossibly far apart.

  Another growl. The glowing eyes moved.

  CHAPTER 51

  “BIRD!”

  FIGHTING PRAWN A
ND THE REST OF THE MOLLUSKS stood outside the cage, silent, waiting. Waiting for the screaming to start, dreading it, knowing that once the screaming started, it would be much longer—hours, sometimes—before it finally stopped.

  The Mollusks took no pleasure in enforcing the law. But Fighting Prawn was their leader, the only one who had lived with the outsiders, and he had told them that this, difficult as it was—especially with children—was the only way they could protect themselves, and their island.

  And so they waited, as the evening sky darkened into night.

  Fighting Prawn, as always, stood closest to the cage, staring at it, absolutely still. The others gathered around him in a loose semicircle, all of them facing the logs, imagining what was happening inside, waiting, waiting….

  It was because they were facing the logs that they did not immediately notice the movement high in the trees just outside of the clearing. It was a small child, a girl of three, who saw it first; she cried out to her mother, her tiny voice making the grunt-click sounds for “bird.”

  “Bird! Bird!” she said.

  “Hush,” her mother said.

  “Bird!” the girl repeated. “Big! There!”

  And then her mother looked up and saw it, and her shout of surprise and alarm caused the rest of the Mollusks to look up, too, shouting as the thing swooped through the high branches at the edge of the clearing, coming closer now, clearly far larger than any bird they’d ever seen, its shape difficult to discern in the near-darkness.

  The entire tribe was shouting and pointing now. Suddenly, the thing burst from the trees into the clearing, swooping low toward the Mollusks. Some screamed; others ducked; still others ran. A few men hurled spears toward the thing. But it was moving too fast, and in an instant it was over the wall, into the cage, out of sight.

  Fighting Prawn, standing calmly amid the chaos of his people, watched the swooping thing pass overhead; for an instant, as it disappeared, he thought that it looked like…

  But that’s impossible.

  And then his mind went to something the boy had said: “It’s magic, and we think it’s on this island.”

  CHAPTER 52

  MISTER GRIN

  THE GLOWING EYES WERE COMING.

  “Get behind me, lads!” shouted Alf, crouching, preparing to fight—but what, he wasn’t sure.

  Peter, ignoring Alf, dropped to hands and knees, looking in the gloom for a weapon. He grabbed a heavy bone—Must be a leg, he thought—then found its mate, which he handed to Alf.

  The thing was coming fast, now. The cage echoed with the sound of claws scrabbling on the floor, and massive weight being dragged closer, closer. Now Peter could see the massive, flat head. And now the glowing eyes disappeared from view as the thing opened the biggest mouth Peter had ever seen, lined top and bottom with jagged teeth as big as daggers, a gaping cavern of a mouth that easily could have taken him in whole. The cage echoed with a monstrous, bone-chilling roar. Then the enormous mouth snapped shut with a sound like a gunshot and the thing sprang forward at its prey.

  “NO!” bellowed Alf, leaping forward to meet it, swinging the leg bone down hard with both hands onto the massive charging snout, and right in time. The bone broke in two; the creature stopped for a moment, as if surprised. Then it snapped again, and lunged at Alf, who sidestepped, trying to draw it away from the boys. His ploy worked; the thing turned toward him, pivoting its huge body, sending its massive tail—a tail, Peter now saw, that was the size of a longboat—sweeping across the wall, sending Peter and the other boys flying.

  “COME ON, YOU DEVIL!” Alf was shouting. “COME ON AND FIGHT LIKE A MAN!” He was walking backward, trying to keep his eye on the monster as he looked around desperately for another weapon. Peter lunged to his feet and followed, careful to keep out of the way of that terrible tail, his plan being to toss the other leg bone to Alf. As the tail swept back and forth, Peter jumped over it as though it was a jumprope.

  “ALF!” he yelled.

  “STAY BACK, BOY!” shouted Alf. “ST—UNH.”

  Alf was down. He’d tripped on a skull, and he’d hit his head hard. He moaned and rolled sideways, but did not get up. The monster opened its mouth again; it would be eating Alf in another step.

  “NO!” screamed Peter, leaping forward, again dodging the sweeping tail, and bringing his bone-club smashing down on the thing’s hard, scaly back. “NO! NO! NO!” he shouted, each time striking it again. The monster whirled and snapped, moving far faster than Peter expected. Peter jerked his hands back just far enough, but the bone was caught, instantly crunched to splinters in the monster’s massive jaws.

  Now it was Peter’s turn to scramble backward, with the thing turning in his direction, coming after him…coming, coming…its glowing eyes strangely dispassionate, a hungry beast about to do its work. As Peter backed away, he simultaneously crouched and felt around his feet for another bone…for anything…He touched nothing but hard ground. He backed up some more. Hit something hard.

  The wall.

  He was trapped in the corner.

  The monster paused, as if knowing Peter had no way out. It halted and then slowly opened its massive mouth, close enough now that Peter could smell its musty, fetid breath. He could have reached out and touched the dagger teeth that were about to tear into his flesh.

  Peter closed his eyes and held out his hands in a futile gesture of self-protection, and as he did…

  “Peter!” shouted a voice.

  Molly!

  He opened his eyes and saw her hovering above him, waving something.

  “Here!” she shouted, dropping it.

  He caught it. The locket. He fumbled frantically at it, but could not find a catch.

  “It won’t open!” he shouted.

  The beast moved closer, its jaws wide open.

  “There’s a button on the side,” shouted Molly.

  Closer.

  Hands shaking, Peter found the button, and the locket sprang open. Instantly his hands disappeared inside a glowing sphere.

  “Touch the inside part!” shouted Molly.

  Peter put his finger into the heart of the sphere, and immediately he felt his body start to rise, felt his feet leave the floor….

  Too late.

  He saw it in an instant; the jaws were closing, and they would catch him.

  Too late.

  Instinctively, Peter struck out at the closing jaws; his right hand, with the locket still in it, landed directly on the tip of the monster’s snout, which was suffused by the sphere.

  The jaws stopped, half open, half closed.

  The monster made a noise—not a roar, this time; more of a groan, or even a sigh.

  And then, slowly, slowly, the monster began to rise from the floor of the cage, its body perfectly still, and in the light from the locket, Peter—who was also rising, slowly—could finally see its true size. It has to be twenty-five feet long, he thought. Maybe thirty feet. It must weigh a ton.

  But it rose like a feather, the monster did; rose as easy as a bit of ash carried by a wisp of smoke, up, up, and then over the thick log wall. And then, with a flick of its tail, it drifted, still sighing, off into the jungle night.

  CHAPTER 53

  THE POWER

  BLACK STACHE, WITH SMEE and the rest of his raiding party crouched behind him, peered through the dense jungle into the camp of the savages.

  It looked to Stache as if the whole lot of them were praying to a giant wall made of wood and mud. They stood silently facing it, man, woman, and child.

  Stache was intensely interested in what was on the other side of that wall. For only moments earlier, he’d seen the boy—that boy, the cause of so much of Stache’s troubles—climb a bamboo ladder, say something to the white-haired old savage below, and then disappear over the wall.

  Where that boy is, the trunk is nearby. Stache was sure of it. He was eager to lead his men over that wall, but unsure of the disposition of the savages. And so he waited, and watched, and listened.


  “NO!”

  The shout—from a grown man—came from the other side of the wall. The man sounded terrified. His shout was followed by a loud, unnatural snapping sound, like…could that be a bone? Stache wondered what could snap a bone like that.

  Just then a little girl savage turned his way, pointed, and started shouting. Stache ducked, thinking at first that she’d spotted him. But then he heard a rustle in the branches above. He looked up, and gasped.

  A flying girl. Directly over them. Swooping like a bird.

  The same girl that had been on the ship. He was sure of it.

  “Sir,” whispered Smee, pointing, “there’s a mmmpph.”

  “I see her, idjit,” hissed Stache, clapping his hand over Smee’s mouth.

  The girl swooped swiftly across the clearing and, as the natives shouted and pointed in alarm, disappeared over the wall.

  Stache was worried now. All this flying, he was now certain, had something to do with the treasure he was after. The flying boy had gone over the wall, and now this flying girl. He decided that, savages or no, it was time to find out what was on the other side of that wall.

  He signaled to his men. They rose, drawing swords and pistols. Facing the clearing, Stache held his hand up, about to give the signal to attack.

  Then his arm dropped, limp, staring in astonishment. His men followed his gaze. Several shouted in alarm, but there was no danger of their being heard by the savages, who were now in loud disarray themselves, many shouting and running frantically to get away from the gigantic creature now emerging from behind the wall.

  A crocodile, Stache thought as the thing floated fully into view. A flying crocodile.

  Stache had seen crocodiles before; he’d seen dozens. But never one this large. Never one half the size of this monster. He stood, motionless, as the croc drifted his way, thirty feet in the air, its tail swishing back and forth lazily, its legs moving as though it were swimming. It passed almost directly overhead, then continued off over the jungle treetops.