Cry For Tomorrow (25 page)

I couldn’t help laughing at my sister’s enthusiasm—it was nice to see her smiling again. “Well, I’m guessing, but I think we’ve only gone a couple of miles so far, and all I know about our destination is that we’re headed for this White Rock City where Rainor intends to get a few answers from his superiors before we decide whether we want to help them out or not.”

The sun had risen high in the sky when Rainor called us to a halt at the edge of an unusually large cluster of rocks thrusting through the sand in the shallow water at the edge of the beach.

“Okay, we’ll be heading inland from here on. We’re going to make a stop at a little village not far from here. There are some folk living there that I need to speak with. Hopefully they can give me a little insight into what’s happening at the palace right now.”

“That sounds okay to me,” answered Ben. “Just how fa”

Whatever he was going to ask was lost when the dog went insane, barking and snarling at the boulders on the landward side. She repeatedly ran at the rocks and circled back again with her hackles raised and teeth bared.

“Dusty! Come here, girl!” I couldn’t see what had set her off but I wasn’t taking any chances. “Everybody take cover!” I warned, but my street-smart friends were already ducking into the scant shelter offered by the rocks.

“Rainor! What’s going on?” demanded Ben as he peered around the side of nearby boulder. His weapon was in hand and ready.

“I don’t know.” Rainor leaned from the cover of a pile of rocks a short distance away.

Jake’s head appeared beside him as he leaned out to make eye contact with me. “Halie, do you think you can send the dog into those rocks to flush whatever is in there?”

“No way!” I tightened my grip on Dusty’s collar to keep her from doing just that. “
You
go chase it out! I’m not letting my dog get eaten by some hungry ghoul!”

“Damn! We can’t just hide here indefinitely!” Rainor cussed and stood, preparing to walk out into the open, but Jake grabbed his arm to stop him.

“Wait, let me see if I can give them a little nudge.”

I watched as Jake moved to the front of the rocks. Bracing himself against them, he closed his eyes. A moment later, the smaller rubble lying across a rock formation at the landside edge of the beach began to quiver and shake. In moments, even the largest of the boulders in the pile was vibrating and the smaller rocks had begun tumbling to the sand.

The ghouls hiding in the rocks erupted in a wave of warty flesh and wooly hides. Shouting and grunting, they waved sticks and threw stones as they hobbled into the open. The whole attack would have been funny except for the fierce determination etched on their misshapen faces.

It took a few minutes but I finally spotted Kelly and Jennie hiding in the cover of a large pile of rocks not far behind me. Satisfied that they were safe, at least for the moment, I returned my attention to the creatures staggering toward us. They ranged from huge, hump-backed monsters with snaggled teeth to things with human faces and bodies that flopped along the ground on flippers. Darting along between all of them were a half-dozen of the Skorks Rainor and I had seen on the beach last night. There were only about a dozen of the ghouls, plus their entourage of goblins, but it was plain that they intended to do as much harm as possible.

Rainor and Ben opened fire on the pack of ghouls closing on us and two dropped to the ground and lay quivering.

Reluctantly, I released my grip on Dusty’s collar and drew the sword from its sheath. “Stay close to me, girl,” I whispered, hoping the dog would mind.

When one of the ghouls waddled within striking distance, I stepped from behind the rocks and onto the open beach to give myself some room to swing the sword. I drew the sword back and waited, but before the ghoul could reach me, Dusty launched herself at its feet, snapping and biting. When the ghoul tried to kick her, she locked her jaws around its thick ankle and sank her teeth in. Furious, she began twisting and growling as if she intended to rip it from its leg.

Howling in pain, the ghoul revealed a mouthful of jagged teeth as it tried to reach the creature attacking it.

“Oh, no, you don’t!” I lunged, stabbing the point of the blade into the ghoul’s throat.

Eyes running with yellow puss refocused on me and a gurgling sound rose from the ghoul’s ruined throat even as it reached with four-inch long claws for my face. They barely brushed the ends of my hair before the arm went limp.

When it still didn’t fall, I stepped to one side and drew my sword back, intending to stab it again but, like a windup toy that had run down, the ghoul’s legs began to wobble and the body to sway. Dusty tightened her grip on the ankle she was still chewing on and used her weight to drag the ghoul’s leg from under it.

The limp body crumbled to the ground and the head rolled back until it was hanging by a thin strip of skin at the base of its skull. The heart continued to pump blood from the gaping wound for several moments longer before it stopped beating.

“Leave it, Dusty!” I ordered when she returned to savage the body. I was reaching for her collar when she whined and jerked her head back. Shaking her head, she spit the mottled red and black blood from her mouth before moving away from the dying creature.

It occurred to me that the ghoul’s blood could have been toxic, but I wasn’t given time to think about it. Two more of the ghouls were closing in on me—one was the flipper-man and the other looked almost human, except for his furry, wolfish snout full of teeth. Apparently unafraid of the snarling dog that had returned to guard me, they circled closer.

Waving my sword in a slow arc before me, I was trying to decide which was the greater threat when the head of the flipper man exploded. I looked back over my shoulder and nodded my thanks to Ben.

“Halie! Look out!” he shouted, too late.

Shrieking in surprise, I tried to avoid the wolf-head ghoul lunging for me. Unfamiliar with true battle, I’d made what could have been a fatal mistake—I’d taken my eyes off an enemy. Jaws lined with rows of dagger-like teeth snapped shut on my arm before I could move.

I twisted, trying to free my arm even as I used the sword gripped in my other hand to chop at the creature’s leathery back. Bloody chunks of soft flesh exploded from the wounds I was inflicting. From the corner of my eye, I saw the red and white swirl of Dusty’s coat as she leapt to my defense and tore at the creature, repeatedly biting and slashing at its arms and legs.

When I finally managed to jerk my arm free I was expecting to see blood,
my
blood. I nearly fell down in relief when I realized that the bloody mess smeared over my arm like over-ripe fruit was actually the ghoul’s teeth.

Ignoring its multitude of bloody wounds, the ghoul dodged the dog and came after me again. “Come on, Big Ugly—I’ve got more for you!” Angry that I’d been caught off-guard I spun and landed a solid kick in its gut before slashing it again. Between my attack and the dog viciously savaging it, the ghoul was finally over-balanced.

Staggering, it swayed for a moment, giving Dusty barely enough time to abandon her grip, and landed on the ground with a sodden
thunk!
The dog darted in for a final bite of a quivering leg.

“Halie! Are you okay?” Ben grabbed me by an arm and spun me to face him.

“Yes, thanks for the warning.” I blushed and wiped some of the slime off my face.

Over his shoulder, I spotted a pair of skorks slinking from the cover of some rocks, creeping toward us. “We’ve got more company,” I warned Ben as I pulled away from him.

He spun and pointed his weapon, intending to shoot them, but instead of attacking us, the skorks veered off and pounced on the dying ghoul. It squalled faintly and fell silent as the goblins began feeding on it.

“That is just totally gross,” I gasped in disgust before turning in the direction of Jake’s shouts for help. He and Jennie were bravely holding off a cluster of ghouls. At first I couldn’t locate Kelly, but her now familiar battle-cry drew my attention to a cluster of rocks where she had managed to corner one of the nasty little skorks. I was trying to decide who needed help most when Ben shook my shoulder.

“Help your sister, I’ll give your friends a hand,” he ordered as he shifted the revolver in his hand.

I gave the dead wolf-ghoul and the skorks scavenging the corpse wide berth as I ran toward Kelly. I’d nearly reached her when her opponent saw me coming. Shrieking, it dodged under Kelly’s cane and scuttled off into the underbrush.

“I think it’s had enough of me,” she laughed as we watched the ugly little creature slinking into the shadows.

Before I could respond we were interrupted by the distinctive sound of a taser set on kill. “Sounds like Rainor’s got things under control.” I looked around for him, but he must have been behind the rocks further in from the water. “Come on, we need to check on Jake and Jennie.”

By the time we reached them, the last of the ghouls were retreating into the rocks. Ben fired several more rounds at the ground and the bullets kicked up little puffs of sand behind the ghouls flopping and rolling into the cover of the rocks and brush.

“That should keep them from coming back,” laughed Jennie.

A rustle of bushes nearby drew our attention to a lone skork, sneaking up on the frogg where he was hiding in a nearby cluster of rocks. I took a step to go to its aid but Jake held a hand up to keep me back.

In two long strides, he was behind the skork. Swinging his sword, he smacked the creature on the back of the head with the flat of his sword. The ugly little goblin was sent slamming, face first, into the damp sand. Sputtering and squealing, it rolled to its feet and twisted its head almost completely around on its neck to see who had assaulted it. Its face curdled like week-old slop and it’s large, poppy eyes bulged nearly out of their sockets in fear. Hunching its shoulders up around its long, floppy ears as if anticipating another blow, it scuttled off into the rocks.

We all knew that our situation was serious and potentially deadly, but the look on the goblin’s face was just too much. I nearly choked trying not to laugh, but the snickers and strangled laughs coming from the others destroyed what was left of my self-control—I busted out laughing.

With our attackers on the run, we’d let our guard down and were not watching the open beach behind us until Dusty went crazy again, barking and snarling at the water behind us.

“Take cover!” I grabbed Kelly by the arm and began dragging her behind a nearby boulder with me.

“There must be dozens of them!” Kelly gasped. “And they’re
huge!
What are we going to do, Sissy?” She huddled against me as we watched the dog race along the water-line, barking furiously at the pack of giant ghouls rising from the waves.

“I don’t know.” I looked down at the sword I was still clutching in one hand and knew that it would be a death sentence to try to take on creatures of this size. “There’s no way in hell I’m going to get within reach of those claws and flippers
and whatever
those other things are!”

Ben and Rainor had taken positions a few feet behind Dusty and were firing at the ghouls stalking steadily toward the beach. Trouble was, neither bullets nor stun were having much effect.

“We’ve got to get out of here, Sissy!” Kelly jerked at my arm, trying to get me to run.

“She’s right,” agreed Jake as he and Jennie slid in behind our rock, “and they won’t retreat until they know we’re clear.”

I just nodded as we began edging away from the beach. Another volley of hysterical barking reminded me of the dog, armed only with her teeth, valiantly defending our backs.

I stepped from the cover of the rocks. “Dusty!” I shouted to be heard over the weapon fire. “Dusty, come to me!” I called again. Something
hissed
past my ear, sending shivers up my spine.

Jake’s hand was on my shoulder and we slammed into the sand behind the rocks as a rain of missiles flew from the brush on the land side. Keeping my head low, I slid to the side of the rock and peered around it, hoping to spot Ben and Rainor. Had they been hit in the attack? Before I could raise my head enough to look, Dusty threw her big, sandy body on top of me, panting excitedly.

“Easy, girl, I’ve got you,” I tried to reassure her as I wrapped my arms around her neck.

“Keep going! Get out of here!” Rainor shouted when he saw that we were waiting for them. I was relieved to see that he and Ben had taken shelter in some rocks lying between the ghouls and whoever was firing the missiles. We were very effectively trapped in the cross-fire between the two forces.

“Halie!” Jake whispered in my ear. “I don’t think those missiles were meant for us.” He nodded in the direction of the heavy brush. “Watch, they’re aiming at the ghouls.”

And it was true. All around us, the ghouls were falling, victims of the barrage of short-shafted arrows protruding from their necks and backs.

The attack was over minutes later as the ghouls either collapsed to the sand or sank back into the water, where they were immediately swallowed by the dark waves. When the arrows stopped flying, I crept from the shelter of the rocks to stare in disbelief at the bodies of the dead and wounded creatures scattered along the beach.

“Hey, sis,” Kelly whispered from my side, “I’ve never seen ghouls like that before. What if they come back? How are we ever going to defend ourselves from something like that?”

“I don’t know Kelly, I really do not know.” I didn’t want to frighten my sister anymore than she already was, but these creatures were nothing like the phantoms we’d become so familiar with. Some of them had had heads that resembled sharks but were plainly amphibious, with pumping gills and stumpy arms and legs bearing long, dangerous-looking claws. Others looked like giant crabs walking on long legs with claws that clicked and snapped threateningly. Their humanoid faces looked like they’d been pasted between the wobbling antennae in the center of their heads.

“Halie,” Jennie jerked on my elbow to get my attention, “over there.” She pointed at a shark-ghoul that was prowling along the upper-edge of the beach towards a cluster of skorks that had slipped from the brush to feed on a corpse. Oblivious to everything except their hunger, they didn’t see it coming until it pounced. They scattered like a covey of quail but not before vicious jaws full of long, razor-edged teeth snapped shut on the slowest of their party.