Apocalyptic pirates 3, p.7
Apocalyptic Pirates 3, page 7
There was one drawer in the monitor desk. I pulled it open and found some scattered drawing pens, a rock-hard lump of something I thought was ancient Plasti-Tac, some string, far too many crumbs, and a ring of keys.
“You found them!” Shannon exclaimed.
I lifted the keys out of the drawer. There was a small green plastic dinosaur toy dangling from the ring along with the keys. It looked like it might have come from a Happy Meal about fifty years ago.
“Drew.” Shannon’s hand suddenly gripped my arm. Her voice was shaky. “What’s that?”
I followed her gaze. She was staring at the monitors, and as I looked too, I saw a sudden flash of movement on one of the screens that showed a view of the hallway near the hospital lobby.
I froze. My breath caught in my throat.
It was difficult to make out details on the old grainy screen, but it showed an abandoned hospital gurney. And something moving behind it.
It was between us and the way out. We were trapped. We’d have to fight our way out.
My mind whirled as I tried to figure out if there was another entrance or a fire exit that we could find, and if we could make it out of there before the creature got bored of investigating the gurney and decided to try and find something more exciting to do, like biting the heads off two scavengers.
The thing moved on the screen again. Static blurred, and then the screen cleared, and all the breath whooshed out of me in a sudden gust of relief.
Shannon’s death grip on my arm relaxed.
“Oh, my god,” she gasped and burst out laughing. “It’s just a raccoon.”
Relief coursed through me, and I couldn’t help but laugh, too.
“Shit,” I gasped. “I really thought it was a dragon. It must have come in through one of the broken windows.”
Shannon hitched the bag higher on her shoulder. “Can we go? I know I said I liked hospitals, but this one is starting to make me change my mind.”
“Let’s go.” I grinned and jangled the keys at her.
We headed out of the security break room back the way we’d come. I hadn’t realized how far we’d walked, but it felt like a much longer journey back to the storage closet than it had been to leave it. I almost thought we’d taken a wrong turn somewhere, but then I spotted the familiar door.
We darted inside the storage closet, and I held up the keys to try and find the right one. There were three keys in total on the ring, and they all looked identical.
“This is like one of those fairy tales,” Shannon said. “Like Labyrinth with the two doors and the talking handles.”
“Well, I wish this thing could talk and give me some advice on which key to pick,” I said.
One of the keys was a little smaller than the others, and when I held it up to the cabinet it looked like this might be the right one that would fit the lock.
I pushed the key into the lock.
Immediately, the loudest alarm I’d ever heard in my life started to blare out over our heads.
Shannon and I stared at each other in horror as the sound blasted out, and from far too nearby, I heard another sound:
The terrifying roar of a horde of dragons as they were alerted to the fact that their lunch was nearby.
Chapter 5
“Holy shit!” Shannon yelled over the sound of the alarm. “What now?”
I looked around frantically for any new solutions that might present themselves, but the room was as empty of help as it had been half an hour ago.
Fuck it, there was no other way except for Shannon’s wild west dreams to come true.
“Stand back!” I shouted and waved at her to go and stand in the hallway.
Shannon’s eyes bugged out as she realized what I planned to do. Knowing her, it could have been nerves or pure excitement.
I backed up into the doorway and took careful aim with my rifle at the prescription box on the wall. It wasn’t a small target, but I wanted to avoid the potential for ricochet as much as I possibly could. I squeezed the trigger.
The sound of the gun going off in these tight quarters was almost as deafening as the siren wailing overhead, but my aim was good. The lock shattered, and the door to the cabinet swung open.
There was no time for Shannon’s careful military packing now. We shoved everything in the cabinet into the last remaining suitcase. Shannon zipped it shut, I threw the strap over my shoulder, and we booked it the hell out of there.
We charged back the way we’d come through the hospital lobby. Shannon skidded on the leaflets spilled over the shiny floor, but I grabbed her arm, and we made it out the front door in one piece.
Outside, the alarm was quieter, but now I could clearly hear the noise of our next threat. A raucous screech split the air in the distance, but it was getting closer and closer with every second.
The satellite phone started to buzz in my pocket. That must be Ally and Letty on the boat. They must be able to see the dragons coming our way. I didn’t want to think about what kind of terrifying extra details they might be able to provide on the situation from their vantage point.
“We can’t just run down the road back to the marina while the dragons are awake,” Shannon cried. “We’ll be picked off in seconds.”
I spun around and tried to spy somewhere we could hide.
“There!” I grabbed Shannon’s arm and pointed to a bus shelter a little way down the road. “We can hide there while they’re distracted by the alarm.”
We ran hell-bent-for-leather down the road to the bus shelter and pressed ourselves against the back wall. My heart was pounding, so I took deep breaths to steady myself.
There came another screech overhead, and the leathery flap of enormous wings. I risked poking my head the smallest amount around the edge of the shelter wall, but then I ducked back again as a shadow lurched over the ground.
I waited a second and then stole another look.
There were two of the scaly motherfuckers on the hospital roof. One was bright red, and the other was a lurid yellow, and they clawed at the cables and equipment on the hospital roof as they tried to figure out where the alarm was coming from.
“It’s a good thing you’re not Ally,” Shannon whispered, and her voice suddenly in my ear made me jump.
I turned to look at her and raised an eyebrow in a question.
She grinned and nodded to the spot on the wall where I’d put my hand.
I looked and realized that I’d put my hand right in the middle of an old wad of chewed up gum. I grimaced and snatched my hand away, then glowered at Shannon, who just grinned in amusement and clearly found the whole thing very funny.
Another screech ripped through the air, and I watched as another dragon flapped and lurched overhead as it followed the alarm’s siren song. This one was lime green, and it almost overshot its target and had to haul itself onto the hospital with a lot of ungainly flapping and frantic scrabbling with its clawed feet. It moved awkwardly, with a funny hopping motion like a chicken, and I guessed it was hurt somehow.
“Traffic lights,” Shannon breathed in my ear and chuckled quietly.
I looked again and grinned when I realized she was right.
The dragons were red, yellow, and green, like the colors of a traffic light.
Still, I doubted they were parading themselves for our amusement, so I gave the skies a quick scan to see if any other dragons felt like making an appearance. These three seemed to be the main local attraction, and I couldn’t hear any more screeches, so I wagered that this was it for now. They were distracted by the alarm, so this was our chance.
“You ready to run?” I whispered to Shannon.
She nodded and hiked the bag higher on her shoulder. “Let’s go.”
I took one last look around, and then we tore out of the bus shelter.
The bag was a dead weight bumping on my hip as I ran, and the rifle strap was cutting into my neck. I forced myself to run faster, and as we reached the end of the road, the marina came into sight.
We were almost there, we’d almost made it.
A familiar high-pitched shriek rang out behind us. Shannon’s pace faltered.
“Don’t stop!” I yelled. “Keep going!”
Then a bright blue dragon launched itself out of the treeline on my right and headed straight for us.
I skidded to a halt and slid the rifle off my shoulder. I took a breath to try and calm my pounding heart, aimed, and fired.
The blue bastard toppled out of the sky with a scream that hurt my ears. It skidded along the ground and clawed at the dirt to try and find a purchase, but the force of its fall was too much for it to find control.
I took aim again and fired.
The dragon spasmed, threw back its head, and roared.
I fired again, and this time the dragon’s head snapped back, and it fell to its side, motionless.
Shannon was ahead of me now, and I started running again.
We were getting closer and closer to the marina, and I could see the yacht properly now. Ally and Letty were on board waiting for us, and as we got closer, Ally ran to the wheel so we could leave as soon as we were on board.
And then a shadow fell over the road, and another dragon landed with a thud that shook the ground. This one was green, like the color of poison, and it opened its huge red mouth and roared at the top of its lungs.
Shannon and I stumbled to a halt, but in an instant I knew what I had to do.
“Here,” I said and slung the second bag off my back and gave it to her. “Take it and run. Get back to the yacht.”
“Drew, no!” Shannon’s eyes were wide and horrified. “We’ve both got to run!”
“Shannon, there are more of these bastards on the way!” I shouted. “Take the medicine back to the yacht, and I’ll cover you.”
“Drew, we both know I’m the better shot here–” Shannon began.
“And that’s exactly why you have to run,” I told her. “You’re too valuable. I’ll cover you as best I can, but you have to get the medicine back to the yacht, and when you’ve made it, we can take the dragons on from both sides.”
“Okay.” Shannon wasn’t happy about it, but she slung the second bag over her shoulder.
I took aim at the green dragon blocking the way and fired.
The shot pierced a hole in the bastard’s leathery green wings, and it screamed in rage and barreled right for me.
Shannon ran off the road to dodge the dragon and then swung around to the path as she ran for dear life back to the yacht.
I threw myself out of the way and took aim. The motherfucker was as big as a house, but my aim wasn’t excellent when I was in motion, so the shot went wide.
“Fuck!” I cursed.
What the dragon had in size, it lacked in mobility. It tried to slam on the brakes once it realized it had missed me, but it moved clumsily, and by the time it had managed to turn itself around, I was on the road and backing away toward the marina.
It snarled and bared its huge fangs, each one as long as my forearm and dripping with strings of saliva.
“You’re an ugly fucker, you know that?” I sneered. I took aim right between its gleaming green eyes.
The shot rang out.
The dragon’s head jerked back with the force of the shot, and it bellowed out a furious cry. It shook itself with a flapping sound that reminded me of the wind filling the yacht’s sails, and its limbs thrashed as its claws gouged deep furrows in the earth. Then it charged forward.
I released another shot, and another.
Shit, it was still coming.
Another cry rang out over the treetops, and to my horror another cry answered it. Three familiar traffic-light colored shapes lurched into the sky as they left the hospital roof. Their eyes locked straight onto me.
“Oh, shiiiiiiiiit,” I breathed.
But there was no time to dwell on the horror show that was my current situation. The green juggernaut was still heading my way, and I loosed another round at its head.
Fuck, didn’t this thing feel anything?
“Drew!” Shannon yelled.
“I’m coming!” I threw the words over my shoulder as I scrambled back and fired shot after shot into the green motherfucker that was still barreling toward me.
The rifle clicked.
Fuck, I was out of bullets.
My head snapped up just in time to see the green dragon stumble. It was only a few feet away from me, and as I backed away from its path, it tripped over its own enormous clawed feet and plowed headfirst into the ground and lay still.
Its glassy blue eyes stared up at me, and blood trickled down from the bullet holes I’d left in its thick skull. I thanked whatever fucking deities might be listening that my shots had found their mark.
“Drew!” Ally and Letty yelled at me. “Drew, come on, there are more dragons coming!”
They weren’t wrong. In my moment of triumph I’d almost forgotten the traffic light trio, but as I looked up I saw they were getting closer by the second. These guys were a lot smaller than the gigantic creature I’d just taken out, and it was clear that they could glide for longer distances.
There was a string of abandoned cars by the side of the road leading to the dock, and the dragons were too smart to ignore this helpful line of take-off points.
The yellow dragon landed on a Jeep. The vehicle rocked and added its alarm to the general cacophony, and then the yellow dragon snarled, shook its head, and launched itself back into the air.
The two others followed suit. They left a trail of smashed car windows and blaring alarms in their wake as they completely totaled the row of parked cars.
Did an insurance policy’s “Acts of God” clause cover radioactive dragons? I’d have to ask Shannon.
I hitched the rifle over my shoulder and booked it toward the yacht. I hated turning my back on the approaching dragons, but I didn’t have much choice now that my gun was empty. Reloading was always an option, but I already knew Shannon was looking out for me.
So this was literally my fastest escape option.
A shot cracked out over my head, and I instinctively ducked.
Shannon and Letty were on deck, and Shannon had her rifle trained on the pursuing dragons. She said something to Letty, and the other woman swung her own rifle into her shoulder and took careful aim.
Both women fired at the same time, and a screech from behind me indicated that at least one of their shots had found its mark.
I was almost at the yacht. The wooden boards of the dock squealed under my feet.
“Come on, Drew!” Ally yelled.
Through the pounding in my head I could see the beautiful redhead at the ship’s wheel. She threw a panicked glance my way, and her lips formed my name in a silent plea.
The sight gave my exhausted muscles another boost of energy, and I cleared the few final feet and threw myself over the railings and onto the deck.
Ally yanked on a handle, and the yacht’s engine purred into life. Shannon and Letty stood like fearless sentinels at the stern and fired shot after shot at the oncoming dragons.
I lay flat on my back as my chest heaved, and I dragged down breath after breath of sweet, sweet oxygen into my aching lungs.
What had I been saying about keeping fit again?
Though in my defense I didn’t think that unexpected intense sprints and literally running for one’s life made their way into most HIIT programs.
Or maybe they did, I didn’t know people’s lives.
“Drew!” Ally must have put the yacht on autopilot, because now she dropped to her knees by my side.
I smiled up at the gorgeous redhead leaning over me. Her red lips were slightly parted, her eyes were wide with concern, and her cheeks were flushed pink with emotion.
“Hey, I’m fine,” I chuckled.
“Are you sure?” she asked with concern.
The angle of her posture sent her voluptuous breasts straining against the white button-up blouse she wore. The temptation to lie still and enjoy the view was very strong. So was the urge to reach up and undo the rest of the buttons that were holding her breasts in check.
Ally noticed where my eyes were looking and gave me a playful swat on the shoulder.
“Okay, now I know you’re okay.” She leaned back and ran a hand through her luscious red waves.
“Come back,” I pleaded and held out my arms to her. “I almost died just now, I need tending to.”
“Do you indeed?” Ally shook her head, but a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth, and she leaned forward again.
I caught her around the waist and pulled her on top of me until her nose was inches away from mine.
We smiled at each other, and Ally bent her head so her lips found mine. The kiss sent energy fizzing through me. Adrenaline and lust coursed through my limbs, and I tasted Ally’s mouth with a feverish desire.
“Can you guys stop canoodling for one second?” Letty hollered. “We ain’t out of the woods just yet!”
Ally sprang off me and ran back to the ship’s wheel, while I jack-knifed up off the deck and ran back to the stern.
The yellow dragon was still on the dock with its fangs bared pointlessly at nothing as it hissed in frustration. It hopped forward on three legs, with its front right leg curled up underneath its body where Shannon must have shot it.
The other two had landed on the nearest docked yacht, and as I watched, the red dragon launched itself at the next boat moored nearby.
It crashed down onto the deck and sent the crates and ropes that were stored there flying in all directions. It shook its head with impatience, snapped open its wings, and took a run-up for the next boat.
Letty lifted her rifle, but Shannon stopped her.
“We’re moving faster than that thing can play leapfrog,” Shannon said. “Save the ammo for now.”
