Apocalyptic pirates 4, p.4
Apocalyptic Pirates 4, page 4
Chapter 3
“Dia!” Letty squealed.
I spun around, but in my haste to get out of the room, I’d forgotten how close behind me Letty was, and I bumped right into her.
“Ow!” she gasped.
“Sorry!” I was trying to cover my eyes but my rifle had got tangled with Letty’s, and I couldn’t unhook my gun from hers, and the whole thing was turning into a scene from a Laurel and Hardy movie.
“Jeez, guys, relax.” Dia sounded amused more than offended. There was a rustling sound. “There, look, I’m decent again.”
I finally managed to get the strap on my rifle untangled from Letty’s gun. Then I slowly turned around.
Dia had pulled on the plain, white-ribbed tank top she was wearing before. Even though she’d covered her chest, I couldn’t banish from my mind the glimpse of her that I’d seen in that split second, though… The smooth curve and spill of her body, the soft lines of her belly sweeping up to reach the heavy olive globes of her breasts, and the tantalizing peaks of her rosy nipples.
Even now, although she was wearing a shirt, her long tanned legs were on full display, and I couldn’t tear my gaze away from the voluptuous roundness of her thighs and the sight of her full, juicy ass in the wardrobe mirror. She was wearing a black lacy thong that I thought I recognized from Ally’s drawer, and although it might not have been Dia’s first choice of underwear, it was doing her ass all kinds of favors.
“I’m sorry,” I blurted out. “We should have knocked.”
“What, knock on all of the bedroom doors in case I was in here trying on outfits?” The corner of Dia’s mouth crooked up in a grin. “That’s very thoughtful of you, Drew.”
“You’re trying on outfits?” I tried to make my voice sound normal and not as though all the blood in my body had suddenly rushed straight to my cock.
“Oh, yeah.” Dia gestured to the bed, and for the first time I registered the huge pile of clothing on the bedspread. “There’s so much designer shit in here, it’s unreal.”
She held up a slinky black dress and showed it to Letty.
“I thought this might look good on you,” she told the Southern woman. “It’s Prada!”
“Ohhhhh, my.” Letty’s eyes went wide, and she rushed over to hold up the dress and measure it against her body. “Oh, that’s gorgeous.”
“Try it on,” Dia urged her.
“Oh, no,” Letty laughed and shook her head. “I’m happy to play dress-up back at the yacht, but I’m not stripping off here.”
“Suit yourself.” Dia stuffed the dress into the bag. “Let’s take it back to the boat, though. You can try it on later.”
“Sure,” Letty agreed.
The two women started going through the clothes piled on the bed and holding them up to see what might fit who.
Dia didn’t seem at all bothered by the fact that she was just in her thong and little tank top. She made no move to grab her shorts, which were on the floor by her gun.
The Latina woman looked up and caught me watching her, and a little smile tugged at her mouth. She didn’t look away, and as we stared at each other, a flush spread across her face. I felt my heart beating quickly in my chest, and there was an aching need in my body that tingled all the way through me right down to the ends of my fingers and toes.
“Oh, look at this!” Letty exclaimed.
Her voice broke the spell.
Dia looked at the dress that Letty was holding up, and I promptly went through to the lounge area of the suite to try and calm my throbbing cock and pounding heart.
There’s nothing like some terrible decor to kill a raging hard-on, and the lounge was decked out with the same intensity as the bedroom. All the furnishings were the same obnoxiously bright shade of red, and there were pictures of parrots on every single bit of wall space that could hang them.
There was an odd little cabinet on the far wall that was almost hidden by the world’s worst hanging tapestry. I pushed it aside, opened the cabinet door, and discovered a safe inside.
“Welllll, hello gorgeous,” I said with a smile.
This was a win. This must be where the hotel guests could store their valuables. If there were safes in all the rooms, there could be all sorts of things inside.
Finding the right combination would be an impossible task, but I remembered the keys that Letty had found at the front desk.
I went back through to the bedroom and found that the women were packing away a lot of the clothes into the bags.
Dia was fully dressed, and although a part of me was regretful, I knew it was probably for the best. There was no way I’d be able to concentrate if she hadn’t put her shorts back on.
The thought of her and Letty trying on clothes together out here was enough to make my cock explode. I hastily pulled myself together, though, and tried to focus on the matter at hand.
“I figured since we didn’t find any food here, we’re good to fill the bags with other things,” Letty explained.
“Good idea.” I nodded. “Do you have those keys from the front desk?”
“Yeah.” Letty took them out of her pocket and handed them to me. “Did you find something?”
“Yeah, a safe.” I went back to the lounge area, and Letty followed me while Dia carried on packing up the clothes.
I tried the keys from the keyring into the lock on the safe, and the third key opened it.
Inside there were two iPads, an iPhone, and a couple of handheld gaming consoles, all with their charging cables neatly wrapped around them.
“Wow, we really struck gold here.” I dumped the electronics into my bag. “These will be great for trading.”
“Are you sure?” Letty queried, and when I raised my eyebrows in confusion, she clarified. “I just mean, I thought you might like to keep some of this. The gaming stuff.”
“I guess I hadn’t really thought about it,” I replied with a frown. “I used to be a pretty avid gamer when I was younger, but I haven’t done it for years since there’s not much time for it when you’re raising a kid. I enjoyed it, though.”
“Why not take these along with us, then?” Letty suggested. “They’ll be a nice thing for you to do in the evenings.”
“I guess it seems weird to be gaming,” I admitted. “I feel like I need to be on high alert all the time, and it doesn’t feel right to relax.”
“Drew.” Letty put her hand on my shoulder and turned me about to face her. “You know you don’t have to be on high alert all the time. We’re not Sammy, we can defend ourselves as well.”
“I know, I know.” I ran my hand through my hair. “It’s just, old habits are hard to break, you know?”
“I do know.” Letty smiled and smoothed my hair back down again. “But if you run yourself ragged, you’re not helping anyone. You take such good care of us, but you’ve got to remember to take care of yourself as well.”
“You’re very wise.” I smiled. “Okay. I will try to relax. Do you want to join me for a game sometime?”
“Oh Lord, no,” Letty exclaimed. “I wouldn’t have the faintest idea of where to start with one of those things.”
“You’re not a gamer, then?” I grinned.
“Absolutely not.” A gleam came into Letty’s eye. “You should ask Dia. I bet she’s into all of that.”
“Maybe,” I acknowledged.
Letty carried on grinning at me, and I felt my face color. I knew that she’d seen me looking at Dia, and while I was glad that she was amused, I could have done without her highlighting it.
“Anyway.” Letty tucked a stray curl of hair behind her ear. “Shall we see what the other rooms have to offer?”
“Yeah, that sounds good,” I said. “We don’t want to leave Ally and Shannon on the yacht for too long. Let’s make sure we hit all the cupboards and cabinets in the bathrooms for toiletries.”
“Yes, sir,” Letty agreed and motioned for me to lead the way.
Dia had finished filling her bag with clothes, and she joined us as we went and scoured through the rest of the rooms. Dia had already raided them of all suitable clothing, but we went through and tried all the safes for valuables and bathrooms for toiletries.
By the time we’d seen all of the rooms– all of them with their own special kind of terrible decor– our bags were full of bounty. We had shower gels, shampoos, conditioners, styling products, iPads, tablets, phones, and the gaming consoles. Letty was very pleased with one room where the shower cubicle was full of specialty haircare products like silk scarves, long-toothed combs, and a specific kind of hairbrush that she’d pounced on with a little cry of glee.
“Oh, my god, it’s a Denman brush!” she’d squealed and then laughed at the blank bemusement on my and Dia’s faces.
There was a door at the end of the corridor that at first I thought led to a fire escape, but as we pushed it open we found a little stairway that opened up onto a sweeping rooftop garden.
“Wow!” Dia exclaimed. “This is fancy.”
There was a little gazebo set up, and an archway that was covered in some kind of creeping vine with bright purple and white flowers. A little path picked out in white stones wound between pots of flowers and a small ornamental pond, and eventually ended up at a little bench by the edge of the guard rail that bordered the roof.
Even though the rest of the hotel was ugly as fuck, I had to admit that this little garden was actually pretty nice.
We went to the edge of the roof and looked out at the view. From here we had a great view of the rest of the island, and to the left I could see the yacht down by the dock.
“Look, there’s Shannon on the deck,” I commented and waved to her.
She was too far away to see us, but it gave me a warm little boost of pride to see how stern and alert she was as she stood at the front of the boat with her rifle ready.
In the other direction, we could see for miles across the rest of the island.
My eyes swept the horizon, but then the warm glow left my body entirely.
The roads leading away from the resort were littered with abandoned luggage. There was a broken Jeep, an Audi with smashed windows, a BMW with its dented hood popped wide open, and a little Mini that had been almost entirely flattened, like a marshmallow stepped on by an enormous foot.
I didn’t have to think too hard about whose enormous foot might have caused that wreckage.
The island must be full of dragons.
“Jesus,” Dia breathed.
“Yeah,” I agreed grimly.
Letty took a step closer to me, and I put my arm lightly around her shoulders as I carried on scanning the horizon.
A mile or so beyond the resort was a wooded area that once must have been covered in palm trees. Now there were only a few trees remaining upright, and they stuck up into the air like the last few teeth in an old man’s gums. The rest of the trees had been ripped out of the ground and broken up, and the bare earth showed through as dark deep scratches had been scored into the ground by dragon claws.
We’d seen this kind of site and behavior before, and it only meant one thing.
“It’s another nest,” I said, and a sinking feeling of dread seeped into my stomach. “Fuck.”
“Shiiiiiiiit,” Dia breathed.
“Why isn’t anyone doing anything about this?” Letty huffed, and she slapped the guard rail in frustration. “We haven’t seen any news stories about this, and it’s like the only people talking about the nests are the ones who have actually seen them. But no one is responding who can actually do something about it…”
“It’s the conspiracy, Mulder,” Dia said grimly.
“Don’t joke about it,” Letty protested.
“I’m not.” Dia shook her head and glared out at the view. “It’s shitty. It’s the government and militaries who should be protecting the citizens from things like this. It’s honestly insulting that they aren’t putting their resources to proper use. Papi must be so frustrated.”
“Well, at least I can capture this one on film,” I said, and I pulled my phone out of my pocket and got ready to film a shot of the horizon.
I tried to zoom in and show details about the torn up trees, but the phone’s camera wasn’t strong enough, and the image became too blurry. I sighed and zoomed out again until the lens refocused.
“You should narrate it,” Dia suggested. “Someone might see this but not know what it means.”
“Really?” I felt a bit self-conscious about the idea of talking in one of the videos. I wasn’t an influencer, or whatever they were called.
“Hey guys,” Dia said in a high-pitched voice very unlike her usual husky tones. “Welcome to my vlog. Today we’re going to be talking about dragon nests.”
“Hey guys.” Letty batted her eyelashes and matched Dia’s influencer voice. “So today we’re doing an unboxing, and you’ll never guess what we’ve got today! It’s dragon eggs!”
“Oh, my god,” I groaned. “That’s the kind of crap Sammy watches with her friends.”
“Go on, Drew,” Dia urged with a grin. “You’re already internet famous. Let your adoring fans hear your voice.”
“If I die cringing, it’ll be your fault,” I warned her before turning the camera back onto the horizon.
I hit the record button and scanned the area.
“Um,” I began. “Hey guys.”
Letty and Dia giggled quietly, and I shot them a filthy look.
“I don’t know if you can see this properly,” I tried again. “But this is a dragon nest. It doesn’t seem like the news outlets are reporting on this, but if you didn’t already know, the dragons are breeding. We don’t know for sure yet how long their gestation period is, but we know that it’s short, so if you see signs like this nearby, you can bet that there’ll be baby dragons in your area soon.”
I zoomed in as much as I could on the broken trees.
“See here,” I continued. “This is the second nest we’ve seen so far, and both times the dragons ripped up all the trees in the area to make a little clearing like this one here. They seem to dig up the ground a bit as well. Maybe it’s a territorial marker? We don’t know yet. But if you see marks like these on the ground, there could be a nest nearby.”
I didn’t want to ramble on and on about it, so I turned off the camera.
“How was that?” I asked self-consciously.
“I’d like and subscribe,” Dia grinned. “Seriously, Drew, that was good.”
“I believe the youths would say ‘smash that like button and pound that Subscribe button,’” Letty said in her most regal tone.
“Oh, geez,” I chuckled and shook my head.
“But seriously, you were clear and concise,” Letty agreed. “And you didn’t ramble. I think you nailed it.”
“Phew,” I said with a relieved smile.
I clicked back through my phone to double-check that it had recorded everything okay. Then I stopped and peered at the phone.
“Um, guys?” I questioned.
“What? What is it?” Dia leaned over my arm to see.
I hit play on the video I’d just recorded.
I hadn’t noticed it at the time, but when I’d zoomed in to focus on the claw marks in the earth, I’d gotten a good shot of the nest in between the few remaining trees.
“There.” I hit pause and pointed to a spot on my phone screen.
“What is it?” Dia frowned. “I don’t see it.”
“Oh, my god.” Letty sucked in her breath.
“What?” Dia insisted.
I gave her the phone so she could look at the footage better. She squinted at the phone screen. Then her expression changed, and she looked up at us.
“These eggs have hatched,” she whispered.
“Yep.” I nodded. “Which means that there could be dozens of baby dragons on this island. And we don’t know where they are. Or how many there are. Or how much danger we’re in right now.”
All of us stared at one another. Then Dia looked out at the grounds of the resort.
“Is anyone else seriously creeped out by how quiet it is?” the Latina woman whispered.
“Oh, god,” Letty gasped. “The yacht. Ally and Shannon.”
“Let’s go,” I directed.
We ran across the roof back to the staircase. The door leading back into the hotel was shut, and when I grabbed at the handle, it stayed stubbornly closed.
“It’s locked,” I hissed. “It must have swung shut behind us.”
“That’s so dumb,” Letty wailed. “Why would you have that? It’s not a fire door.”
“I bet they want to keep upstairs access limited,” Dia mused. “You don’t want drunk tourists dropping their margaritas on the guests downstairs by the pool.”
“Stand back,” I said.
They backed up, and I took aim at the lock on the door.
Then I stopped.
“What’s wrong?” Letty asked anxiously.
“I’m an idiot.” I shook my head and took the keys out of my pocket that we’d taken from the front desk. I began to try the different keys in the lock.
“Just shoot it!” Dia hissed. She was hopping from foot to foot in impatience.
“What if the dragons hear?” Letty pointed out. “We don’t know how many might be hiding nearby, and a ridiculously loud gunshot will definitely catch their attention.”
“Yeah, okay,” Dia agreed reluctantly. “I guess I hadn’t thought about that.”
“Aha!” I fitted the right key into the lock, and it turned instantly.
“Yes,” Dia exclaimed.
“Well done, Drew,” Letty told me with a smile.
We thundered down the stairs, through the upstairs corridor, and then down back into the lobby. We ran out of the front door and down the gravel path.
When we hit the sandy parts, we had to slow down because the path was so loose, and I knew it wasn’t worth hurrying if one of us ended up with a broken ankle. Every little sound in the surrounding foliage set my heart leaping, and it was agonizing making our way through the sliding sands to get back to the dock.
Finally, we were almost at the end of the path.
I shoved aside a palm leaf in my path, and I could see the dock.
Then the sound of a gunshot exploded in the still air.
