Free Apocalypse Unborn by James Axler Page B

southern sea shelf in great schools, killing and eating every creature they find. These are no triple-stupe, pea-brained fishes. They are organized, like a war party. Some among us believe they were once human. Now they breathe the air like porpoises, through the tops of their heads. They talk to each other under water. They swim faster than the fastest sailing ship. They chill with their razor teeth and the suckers on their hands and feet. They eat only flesh, the fresher the better. Last night, the taua slaughtered and ate my cousin Karetu and his crew. They pulled his ship apart to get at him. For islanders, revenge is a duty, and a pleasure. The creatures who have stolen our blood, shall give their blood. In buckets…”
    The crew standing behind the passengers sent up a howl, shaking their AKs in the air.
    “This ship is not as easy to break into as Karetu’s,” Eng continued. “When the taua come to chill us, we will face them and take their lives. You porangi are welcome to stand and fight at our side. Those who are too afraid to fight the taua should go belowdecks. Don’t block the stairways. Get in your bunks. Hide under your mattresses, and pray for dawn.”
    “And if things get inside ship?” Jak said.
    “ Taua can’t rip through iron, little korako ,” Eng told him. “But they will wear out their teeth and sucker hands trying. We will take our bloody vengeance on them, then pull back from battle. Below the metal decks, we are safe. They can’t sink this ship. They must eat to live. They will move on by daybreak, in search of easier meals.”
    Only a couple of passengers decided to go below and wait out the conflict. To the rest, it sounded like big fun. Like shooting fish in a barrel, despite the fact that Eng had said these foes were nothing like fish. The assembled scum of Deathlands began checking their weapons.
    Ryan carefully set the Steyr butt-first in a lidless plastic drum, leaning the forestock against the rim. This wasn’t going to be a long-range battle; it was going to be nose-to-nose. Or perhaps nose-to-blowhole. He unholstered his SIG-Sauer and racked the slide back a half inch, making sure the chamber held a live round. After checking his front pockets for spare full magazines, he tested the release of his eighteen-inch panga knife from its leg sheath. It came out of the scabbard like it was spring-loaded.
    When he looked up, the sky had changed from red to lavender. Out on the placid sea, in the distance, Ryan saw scattered disturbances. Boils. Rings. Bubbles. Signifying movements just beneath the surface. He couldn’t tell what was making them. Only that whatever it was, it was big—and plentiful.
    The captain ordered all the fixed deck lamps lit. From covered storage bins along the rails, islanders hauled out dozens more of the oil lamps, which they fired up and hung from the ends of long metal poles. At intervals around the perimeter they extended the poles over the gunwhales and lashed them in place, illuminating a broad stretch of the surrounding water as darkness closed on the drifting ship.
    Ryan moved to a corner of the stern, beside one of the racks of red, fifty-five-gallon barrels. The taua were coming, no doubt about that. Even without the boils and splashes, he could feel them, like a pressure, building on all sides, and from beneath. Without the wind, the night was very warm. Humid. He wiped the sweat from his gun hand on to his pant leg.
    Faint kissing sounds came from the blackness beyond the ring of lamplight.
    The familiar kiss of death.
    Ryan visualized a thousand bobbing pale heads, lipless mouths pursed, dead eyes closed tight. It was impossible.
    Stickies didn’t swim.
    He leaned over the stern rail, straining to see deeper into the dark. In the water directly below him, blood and air suddenly upwelled, a great undersea belch. The coppery stench it gave off made his throat slam shut.
    Then he saw them, about fifteen feet down. Squirming pale bodies, bodies