Free The Dark Shore (Atlanteans) by Kevin Emerson

around her mouth, and rubbed it over his own lips and chin. His eyes met mine, dead serious, his face slathered with the foam. I was about to ask him what he was doing when he lurched up.
    “Uhh,” he moaned, clutching at his stomach. He started to shake and made a spray of Lilly’s foam with his lips.
    “Hey!” Harvey looked frantically to Lucinda. “Luce! Turn it off! You dosed the boy by mistake!”
    “What?” Lucinda dropped the bags and started fumbling at her necklace. “I don’t—I didn’t—”
    “Aaaaa—” Leech made a convincing choking sound and staggered back. He slammed into our shopping cart, then spun around and lurched over it, making more retching noises.
    “Turn it off!” Harvey shouted.
    “I’m trying!”
    I pulled Lilly up to a sitting position, to get her arm around my shoulders.
    Leech reared up from the shopping cart, spinning back around, his eyes fierce. He cocked his arm back, a dark green object in his hand. One of the boccie balls. He uttered a guttural howl and hurled it.
    The ball struck Lucinda in the sternum. There was a brutal thud and she crumpled to the floor, making a hollow sucking sound and grabbing at her chest.
    “Luce!” Harvey’s eyes went wide and he seemed frozen in place. He never saw the second boccie ball coming. If Leech’s aim had been better, it might have killed him, but the ball glanced off the side of his head, making his eyes roll. He careened backward into the gas grill, sending it crashing to the floor, then staggered forward and fell through the coffee table in an explosion of glass.
    There was a thwump! of air and light. Flames leaped free and raced across the carpet.
    “Get the necklace!” Leech shouted. He saw me glancing at Lilly. “I got her.”
    I darted around the coffee table to where Lucinda was flailing on the ground like a tortoise on its back. Her attempts to breathe made a dry, wheezing whistle. Her eyes were wide, hands clutching at her chest, her mouth gaping for air like a fish out of water.
    I dropped down on my knees beside her and felt a moment of indecision and I hated myself for that, but I also couldn’t keep away the feeling that this woman needed help, that she’d been injured badly—
    “Acchht! Acchht!” I spun around to see Leech on the couch, bending over Lilly, who was convulsing again. He had his hands by her face. Her arms were beating at his back.
    “What are you doing?” I shouted, but he didn’t answer.
    I turned back to Lucinda and flailed at the loose folds of her clothes and the moist, flabby skin beneath, blistered with lesions. Finally, my fingers hooked around the necklace chain. I yanked on it, and the pull of the chain hauled Lucinda up by the neck for a second before it snapped and her head thudded back to the floor.
    Flickering caught my eye and I saw flames quickly sidestepping along the box-and-furniture walls.
    I shoved the necklace in my pocket and stumbled to Leech and Lilly. Just as I got there, Lilly doubled over and vomited all over her own legs and mine, a swirl of white foam and brown liquid thick with still-recognizable chunks of pastry and tapir meat.
    Leech turned away from her and stood up, breathing hard. “Okay, now me.” He looked up at the ceiling, took a deep breath, then started shoving two fingers down his throat.
    I understood, now. He was trying to get the neurotoxin out. Leech bent over and vomited dark brown, lumpy fluid. There was no white foam, as his capsules hadn’t yet been activated.
    “Your turn,” Leech said hoarsely. He started to cough. Smoke was clouding the air around us.
    “Never done it before . . .” I looked up to the ceiling and put my fingers in my mouth. Where did you press? I had no idea I—
    Weight crushed against my back and white-hot pain tore into my shoulder. Harvey growled as he tackled me and crushed me to the floor.
    “You bastards!” He roared into my ear, his breath hot against my cheek. “We have to do this for Ripley!