A New York Nightmare!

by Barry Hutchison

  “I don’t think that thing’s going to do much good,” Denzel warned him.

  “Don’t be so sure, Denzel. Size isn’t everything!” said Smithy.

  He shot at the shark. The red blob fell, pinged off the monster’s hide, then tumbled off into the fog.

  “No, you’re right, that was rubbish,” Smith admitted.

  “Ragnarok!” Denzel shouted. “It’s here. Pull us up!”

  Nothing happened. Well, nothing that didn’t involve Denzel and Smithy continuing to dangle from a rope above the ghost of a prehistoric shark, at least.

  “I’m not convinced he heard you,” said Smithy. He let go of Denzel’s hands and floated in the air beside him. “Want me to pop up?”

  Denzel gaped at his friend in surprise, then down at his own hands. “Wait, why was I holding you up? You can fly!”

  “I’ll go tell thingummyjig to pull you up,” said Smithy.

  “You pull me up!” Denzel yelped. “Fly me out of here.”

  Smithy shook his head. “Not strong enough on my own. I could probably slow you down if you fell, but that’s it. Be right back!”

  “Wait!” Denzel cried. He pointed to the weapon slung over Smithy’s shoulder. “Give me the bazooka!”

  “It’s not a bazooka, it’s a Boomzooka,” said Smithy. “Look, it’s written on the side.”

  “I don’t care!” yelped Denzel. “Just give me it!”

  Smithy glanced back at it. “I don’t know. It’s probably pretty dangerous.”

  “Hello! Giant shark!” Denzel cried.

  Smithy looked down. The shark was close enough to pick out details now. A fin. A dark eye. Many, many teeth.

  “Fair point, well made,” Smithy admitted. He unhooked the bazooka and handed it to Denzel. “OK, back soon. Don’t go anywhere.”

  “I’ll try my best,” Denzel said. “But hurry!”

  Smithy shot upwards and was quickly lost in the fog. Denzel studied the weapon, his hands shaking. He was almost grateful for the fog. Without it, he’d have been able to see the ground, and if he could see the ground he’d probably be frozen with fear.

  Instead, he was able to get his shaking under control long enough to spin the end of the launcher weapon towards the approaching shark, then squeeze off a shot.

  KAWOOOSH!

  Some sort of energy missile exploded from the bazooka’s muzzle. Unfortunately, Denzel had pointed it the wrong way, and it streaked backwards away from the approaching shark, while at the same time launching him forwards on the rope as if he was on a tyre swing.

  Somewhere in the distance, something exploded. Denzel hoped it was nothing important.

  He swung back down just as the shark charged. Its scarred snout emerged from the fog first, followed by one cold, dead eye. It snapped hungrily, but Denzel’s swing took him out of its path, and the monster had to turn its whole body before it could come in for another attack.

  “Hurry up!” Denzel shouted upwards, as he wrestled the bazooka around the right way. The Megalodon had already pulled off a full turn, and was racing back towards him again, its powerful tail hurtling it through the fog.

  Denzel braced himself and pulled the trigger. This time, he had pointed it in the right direction. He was sent hurtling backwards by the momentum as the missile spat from the bazooka and exploded against the shark’s head.

  The monster thrashed and spasmed violently. It had felt that one. To Denzel’s dismay, though, it didn’t explode, implode, turn into vapour or any of the other things he’d been hoping the weapon might do to it. Instead, it just slowed down for a while, spent a few seconds drifting aimlessly, then jerked back into life.

  As he swung, Denzel looked down at the weapon. There had been three little red lights illuminated on the barrel when Smithy had given it to him. Now there was one. One shot left. One last chance to stop this thing before it swallowed him whole.

  Or worse – swallowed him not whole.

  The hook jerked suddenly. At first, Denzel thought his belt had snapped, and let out what he felt was an entirely appropriate amount of screaming.

  When he didn’t start plunging towards the ground, though, he realised what had really happened. The rope was being pulled up. Rok was reeling him in!

  But not quickly enough. The Megalodon, sensing it might be about to lose its prey, swam faster, its head snapping left and right as it used all its strength to close the gap. Denzel fumbled with the bazooka, but before he could fire, a shape streaked up from below and slammed into the shark’s underside.

  No, not a shape. A person.

  “Weinberg!” Denzel cried.

  Weinberg had the drone-like device Denzel had seen in the weapons crate strapped to her back, and one of the gauntlets on each hand. She pressed both palms against the Megalodon’s hide and something like an electrical charge rippled through it. The great beast turned its head and snapped at her, but a blue light flared on the backpack and Weinberg zipped down, out of its reach.

  “Denzel, the mouth!” Weinberg cried. She caught hold of the Megalodon’s bottom lip, pulsed another couple of glove-blasts into it, then yanked down as hard as she could.

  Denzel froze as, for a moment, all he could see was the shark’s teeth, blood-red mouth and gaping, cave-like insides.

  And then, with a twitch of his finger, he fired the last remaining shot down the shark’s throat. As before, the momentum launched him up and backwards. Weinberg released her grip and turned, just as the Megalodon erupted in an explosion of ectoplasmic goo.

  “Yes!” Denzel cried, but his joy didn’t last long. The unexpected ectoplasm shower had done something to Weinberg’s drone pack. She juddered up and down in the air as the backpack’s power fluctuated wildly.

  “Uh-oh!” she hissed, then she diverted all the pack’s power into climbing. Tearing off the gloves, she tossed them aside and made a grab for the end of the bazooka, which Denzel was holding out to her.

  Her fingers brushed against the metal, but then the backpack shuddered again and she lost altitude.

  “Bit higher!” Denzel shouted. It wasn’t particularly helpful, he knew, but it was the best he could come up with.

  The drone stuttered, the blue light flickering, but then a sudden boost of power lifted Weinberg high enough to grab the bazooka. She clutched it with both hands and Denzel’s belt creaked in protest at the extra weight. His arms didn’t exactly thank him either, but he gritted his teeth and managed to hold on until they bumped against the side of the longship and two powerful hands heaved them aboard.

  They landed heavily on the deck and Denzel quickly unhooked the bent harpoon from his trousers.

  “Who is this?” demanded Rok, towering over them. Smithy stood beside him, grinning proudly.

  “It’s fine, she’s with us,” he said. “We thought she was dead, but … wait, you’re not dead, are you?”

  “No, Smithy,” said Weinberg. “Close, but not quite.”

  “Bah! I care not,” boomed Ragnarok. He shoved the Spectre Collectors aside and leaned out over the edge of the boat.

  Denzel stood up, then almost shrieked in fright when he saw who was working the ship’s oars. The boat had, in every sense, a skeleton crew. Eight skeletons, their bones yellowed and browning with age, sat on low benches, heaving the oars in perfect time. They all grinned at Denzel when he spotted them. At least, he thought they grinned at him, but maybe all jawbones looked like that.

  “Where is it? Where is the beast?” Rok demanded.

  “We blew it up,” said Denzel. “We got it!”

  “All right,” said Smithy. He jumped up and gave Denzel a high-five. Rok, on the other hand, looked less impressed.

  “Excuse me?” he said, turning slowly. “What did you say?”

  “We blew it up,” said Denzel.

  Half buried in his beard, Rok’s mouth twisted into a sneer.

  “I hope, for your sake, that I misunderstand what you are telling me,” the Viking growled. “So, just so we’re clear, tell
me again.”

  Denzel shot Smithy and Weinberg a couple of nervous glances. “Well, I mean, it was coming after me, it was going to get me, and so…” He swallowed. “I blew it up. I blew up the shark.”

  Rok’s snarl deepened for a moment, then he erupted in a loud, roaring sort of laugh. “Oh, you almost had me worried for a moment,” he said, grabbing Denzel by the back of the neck and shaking him violently. It was supposed to be a friendly gesture, Denzel guessed, but it almost took his head off. “Shark?” Rok laughed. “Who said anything about a shark? It’s not a shark I’m after. It’s the beast.”

  Denzel frowned. He looked across to Weinberg, but she just shrugged. Smithy was staring past him, his eyes wide, paying Denzel no attention.

  “So if it wasn’t the shark, then what’s the beast?” Denzel asked.

  Slowly, his arm shaking, Smithy pointed off through the fog. A squid-like tentacle, easily eight storeys high, curled up from beneath the surface of the fog.

  “I could be wrong, but I’m guessing that’s probably it, over there.”

  “Hard astern!” roared Rok, in a voice that almost made Denzel’s eardrums explode.

  The skeletons began to row in different directions, as two others adjusted the ship’s sail. The ship slowly began to turn, the carved dragon head angling around towards the towering tentacle.

  “What is that thing?” Denzel asked. He wanted to ask more, but his whole body had gone rigid with fear, and just getting those four words out had been hard enough.

  Rok laughed and slapped Denzel on the back. It was like being pranged by a small family car. “That, lad, is the great beast itself. Behold, the mighty Kraken!”

  The Viking turned and shouted back over his shoulder. “Harpoons at the ready! There’ll be no getting away from us this time!”

  The skeletons all jumped up from their benches. The oars continued to row all by themselves. Normally, Denzel would have considered this to be pretty amazing, but what with everything else going on, he barely even noticed.

  “What are you going to do?” demanded Weinberg. Even though Rok was practically double her height, she had her hands on her hips and was fixing him with a look that bordered on being aggressive.

  “Nothing for a female to worry her pretty little head about,” said Rok, without so much as glancing Weinberg’s way.

  Denzel winced. From the way Weinberg’s expression darkened, that remark hadn’t gone down well.

  “Answer the question,” she said. “What are you going to do?”

  With a distracted sigh, Rok half turned and shoved Weinberg back. She reacted quickly, hooking one arm around his wrist, bending back his thumb, then swinging her whole body up so one foot was pressed against the big Viking’s throat.

  “I am a Vulteron in the Seventh Army of the Enlightened,” she told him. “You are an unauthorised Spectral Entity within the boundaries of my jurisdiction. You will answer the question.”

  Smithy leaned closer to Denzel. “That’s the most awesome thing I’ve ever seen,” he whispered.

  Rok snorted in amusement, raised his arm, then flicked. Weinberg sailed several metres through the air and slammed into the ship’s mast, before flopping on to the deck.

  “Oh, no, I take it back,” said Smithy. “That was.”

  “Stay out of my way, child!” Rok warned her. Around him, the skeletons were racing across the deck, all carrying spears with ropes attached. Their bony feet tick-ticked on the wooden floor as they scurried to the bow of the ship. Or, as Denzel thought of it, “the front bit”.

  Weinberg flipped back to her feet and began charging along the deck. Denzel caught her before she could try another attack.

  “Whoa, whoa, wait!” he said. “Stop. What are you doing?”

  “He’s an unauthorised Spectral Entity,” Weinberg said. “I’m taking him down.”

  “Well, I mean, yeah, that’s one way of looking at it,” said Denzel. “Another way of looking at it is that he’s about to stop a giant—”

  “Huge,” added Smithy.

  “—ghost octopus from, well, whatever it is giant ghost octopuses do.”

  “Pie,” said Smithy.

  Denzel frowned. “What?”

  “It’s octopi. Not octopuses.”

  “It’s not,” said Denzel. “People think it is, but it isn’t. We did it in school.”

  Smithy pulled a surprised face. “Really? Well, there you go. You learn something new every—”

  “Guys!” snapped Weinberg. She gestured to where Rok was now standing right up on the bow, one arm hooked over the dragon’s head. Behind him, his skeletal crew stood behind the carved railing, spears raised. Each spear was attached to a length of chain, and each chain was fastened to a heavy metal plate affixed to the deck.

  “Oh, yeah, sorry,” said Denzel. “My point is, do you really want to have to take down a giant octopus? Or is it better to leave him to it?”

  Weinberg ground her teeth together, chewing the idea over. “I mean … I guess I could wait,” she said. “But the second he’s done, we’re sending him back to where he came from.”

  She yanked the last of the smaller weapons from Smithy’s belt, turned a dial, flipped a lever, then unfolded the whole thing until it was five times the size. “We call this the Thingamajig. It can be adapted to suit most battle situations.”

  Smithy stared longingly at the weapon, then looked down at the tiny ray gun he was still holding. “Can mine do that?” he asked.

  “Depends. Do you want it to work afterwards?” Weinberg asked.

  “Well, ideally, yeah,” Smithy replied.

  Weinberg shrugged. “Then no. Sorry.”

  Denzel turned the bazooka over in his hands. All three lights were now dim. He pulled the trigger to check if it was empty. Luckily for all concerned, it was.

  “Can you reload this?” he asked, holding it up.

  Weinberg shook her head. “Not here.”

  “Great. So what do I do?”

  “You could hit people with it,” Smithy suggested. “Not us. Bad people, I mean. Or bad octopi.”

  “Octopuses,” said Denzel. He held the bazooka like a club and gave it an experimental swish. It was better than having no weapon at all, but only just.

  “First wave, go!” Ragnarok’s voice rumbled the deck beneath their feet. Up front, four skeletons hurled their spears into the fog.

  Even before the first lot had found their target, the second wave was stepping up, spears held above their bare skulls like javelins.

  Three of the first waves hit the exposed tentacle with a series of slightly squelchy thunks. Ragnarok clenched a fist in triumph, then pointed to the left, where a second tentacle was rising out of the mist, uncurling as it reached for the ship. The suckers on the tentacle’s underside were the size of tractor tyres, and Denzel couldn’t shake the feeling that harpooning this thing was only going to get on its nerves.

  “Wave two, unleash Hell!”

  Chains rattled across the decks as the spears flew. All four found the target this time. The tentacle snapped back as the hooks sunk into its flesh.

  “We’ve hooked it!” Ragnarok boomed. “By Odin, after all these centuries, we’ve finally hooked it!”

  “Great,” said Weinberg. “Well done. Now what?”

  The chains jerked tight as the monster sunk back down beneath the fog. With a clank of metal, a groan of wood and a scream of Denzel, the longship dipped sharply at the front, until the back end was angled upwards into the air.

  Denzel and Weinberg skidded down the now sloping deck, kicking and scrabbling at the wood. Smithy, who was less affected by gravity, hung back for a minute before clearly deciding it looked like fun, and throwing himself after them.

  “Oof!” Denzel hit the front railing of the boat, just before Weinberg crunched into him.

  A moment later, Smithy slammed into them both, shouting, “Wheee!”

  Thanks to the whole “ghosts v gravity” thing, Rok and the skeletons were all stan
ding on the tilting deck with no difficulty whatsoever.

  “It’s going to pull us down!” Denzel cried.

  “Aye, maybe,” Rok admitted. He held out a hand and the air around it shimmered. A large, double-headed battle-axe materialised in his grip. His fingers tightened around the twine-wrapped handle. “But maybe not!”

  With a wink, the big Viking ran towards the bow. His long blond beard flapped in the wind as he threw himself over the edge. Raising the axe above his head, Ragnarok shouted something as he plunged into the fog. It was in a language Denzel didn’t understand, but he was pretty confident it involved quite a lot of swearing.

  And then he was gone, and there was no sound from the ship except the clanking of the chains and the creaking of the wood.

  Smithy stood up and peered down into the fog. There was a sort of delirious expression on his face. “I so want to be like him when I grow up!”

  A skeletal hand caught him by the back of his neck. Smithy frowned as the ghost’s bony fingers squeezed. “Hey. You’ve grabbed my neck,” he said, in case the skeleton somehow hadn’t noticed. It clamped another hand on his throat and began to squeeze, trying to choke the life out of him.

  Smithy shot Denzel a slightly awkward look. “I think he’s trying to strangle me. Bit embarrassing.” He addressed the skeleton again. “You do know I’m a ghost too? This is going to get you nowhere.”

  Denzel gulped as three of the other skeletons turned to glare at him, their toothy grins seeming to creep higher up their cheeks as they fixed him with their hollow stares.

  “Uh, is it just me, or do you get the impression these guys don’t like us?”

  “The Viking was their leader,” Weinberg said. “Without him, they’re resorting to their natural state.”

  “Which is?”

  “Pretty unpleasant.”

  One of the skeletons giving Denzel the evil eye began creeping towards him.

  “Back off,” Weinberg warned. The skeleton skulked closer, its fingers curving into claws. “I am a Vulteron in the Seventh Army of the Enlightened,” said Weinberg. “You are an unauthorised Spectral— Oh, forget it.”

  She squeezed the trigger of the Thingamajig and a thin beam of energy streaked from the barrel. The skeleton exploded like an overfilled water bomb, splattering the deck in a fine mist of ectoplasm.