Repairman Jack [07]-Gateways (48 page)

“We’ve caused some hurt, though.”

“Not enough,” Dad said, his expression grim. “After what they did to Anya, they…” He swallowed and shook his head. “They shouldn’t be allowed to live.”

“I don’t think we’ll be able to kill all twenty guys.”

Dad gave him a strange look. “I said they shouldn’t be allowed to live. I didn’t say we should do the killing.”

Oops. “Oh. Guess I misunderstood.”

“You’re scaring me, Jack.”

“Sometimes I scare myself.”

Just then Jack heard something that sounded like a scream. He looked over toward Carl but couldn’t find him in the dark. Then lightning flashed and he saw him rolling on the ground as he fought something that had clamped onto his right shoulder. Jack couldn’t get a good look at it, but whatever it was, it wasn’t alone. More of them were lifting out of the cenote and weaving toward Carl. The one that had him was too close for Carl to shoot at, so he was using the shotgun as a bat. But Jack could see that he wasn’t getting anywhere.

He slapped his father on the back. “Stay here and keep firing at the boats. Keep them pinned down. When you reload, forget the slugs and fill up on shot. I think we’re going to need it.”

“Where are you going?”

“Carl needs a little help.”

Rising to a crouch, Jack pulled the Ruger from under the poncho and ran through the rain. Lightning flashes lit the scene, and as he neared Carl and got a better look at what was attacking him, it almost stopped him in his tracks. The thing clinging to his shoulder had the head and saber-toothed jaws of a viper fish, the shelled body of a lobster on steroids, and two pairs of long, diaphanous wings. Another of its kind was gliding in for its own piece of Carl.

Jack stopped, knelt, took aim with the Ruger and fired. He scored a hit. The big Casull slug tore into the flying thing, leaving only a spray of greenish blood and a pair of still-flapping wings. Then Jack leaped next to Carl, rammed the Ruger’s muzzle against the eye of the thing chewing on him, and pulled the trigger. This time, not even the wings remained.

Carl groaned. “It hurts, Jack!” His left hand was covered with blood where it clutched his shoulder through the shredded poncho. “Oh, God, it hurts!”

Jack took only a quick look, wincing at what looked like exposed bone and a dozen crystalline teeth still buried in the ragged flesh, then turned back to the cenote. Three more of the things were up and coming their way. He grabbed the Benelli and started firing. The semiautomatic action let him get off four shots quickly. They weren’t all direct hits but the shot tore up the wings of the ones it didn’t dismember.

“Where are your shells?” Jack shouted.

Carl jutted his chin toward a box on the ground. His teeth were bared in agony. He seemed in too much pain to speak.

Jack started reloading the Benelli’s magazine. If he’d known he’d be facing these things he would have had Abe send down flechette rounds.

“Think you can walk?”

Carl nodded.

“Okay, then. Get over to where my dad is. I’ll cover you from the rear.”

Spreading out had been a good idea against the clan, but it meant certain death against these things. Time to circle the wagons.

“It’s Semelee,” Carl gritted as he lurched to his feet. “She’s controllin’ them.” Then he staggered off.

Jack turned back to the cenote and found half a dozen more of the things hovering over the opening in a cluster. He ducked behind a palm trunk and fired once into their center, knocking down two. They fell into the abyss but were replaced by four more.

Jack felt his stomach knot. This wasn’t good. He hadn’t brought enough ammo. But he’d brought his father and Carl. That made him responsible for them.

In the background he heard his father firing methodically, rhythmically, at the boats.

Save some of that ammo, Dad, he thought. We’re gonna need it.

And now another four joined the flock. But they didn’t swarm his way…their movements were sluggish and they didn’t seem to know he was there. They milled about, looking confused. What were they waiting for? Reinforcements?

If more were coming up from the cenote, maybe Jack could ambush them along the way. He unclipped a grenade from his belt—only a couple left—pulled the pin, and lofted it toward the cenote. It passed through the swarm and down into the opening. A few seconds later he saw a flash, heard a boom, but that was it. The ones fluttering over the hole didn’t even react.

If this were a movie like
Rio Bravo
, he’d stumble onto a crate of dynamite, conveniently left behind by a construction company, and use it to seal the cenote. But this was Jack’s world, not Howard Hawks’s. Things never seemed to work out that way for him.

He heard a scream behind him and recognized the voice this time: Carl again. He looked around and saw him staggering in a circle at the water’s edge. One of those things had its fangs buried in the back of his neck…and it was chewing…

Where’d that one come from?

Jack leaped to his feet and took off on a run. He couldn’t use the shotgun without hitting Carl too, so he pulled the Ruger. But before he could use it, Carl pitched over backward into the water.

That wasn’t all bad. The cenote thing didn’t seem to like water. It loosed its grip and buzzed back into the air, banking and gliding toward Jack. He already had the Ruger up. He waited until it was close, then fired at it head on. It dissolved in an explosion of green. As its wings fluttered to the ground, Jack dropped the Benelli and the Ruger and jumped into the water to help Carl, who wasn’t doing too well.

The water was waist deep and cool, its surface churning and bubbling from the wind and rain. The muddy bottom was slippery and sloped off on a steady decline. A bullet whizzed by, then another. Someone on the
Horse-ship
had spotted them. Jack heard Dad’s Mossberg boom, then a cry from the boat, and the bullets stopped coming.

“Carl!” Jack shouted as he leaned forward and stretched out his arm. “Give me your hand!”

Carl, with his poncho floating around him like a lily pad, thrashed and splashed and kicked his way shoreward. Jack grabbed his outstretched left hand and began hauling him in.

Suddenly Carl was jerked back. He let out a scream of pain and Jack was barely able to hold on to him as something pulled him back toward the center of the lagoon.

“Oh, my leg!” he wailed. “My leg! It’s Dora! She’s got me! Don’t let her have me, Jack!”

“I won’t, Carl.”

He started sobbing. “I don’t wanna die, Jack. Please don’t let her—”

And then his head plunged below the surface. Jack tried to dig in his heels but the bottom was too slippery. Another powerful tug pulled Jack forward so hard he went face first into the water. He was only under for a few seconds, but during that time he lost his grip on Carl’s hand. His feet found the bottom and he stood again, shaking the water from his face and eyes. He was shoulder deep now.

“Carl!”

Nothing. No reply, nothing but empty, wind-and rain-swept water stretching before him. He shouted the name again and thought he saw a hand break the surface and claw the air maybe fifty feet away. But it was there for only a second—if it was there at all—and then it was gone.

“Oh, Carl,” he said softly, staring at the spot. “You poor bastard. I’m sorry. So sorry…”

A lump formed in his throat. A good, simple man was gone. Jack had known him just a couple of days, but he’d come to respect him. He still didn’t know what had gone wrong with Carl’s right arm, but that didn’t matter. Carl hadn’t let it stop him from leading a useful life. He’d adjusted, with no apologies, no excuses.

A bullet whizzed by Jack and he realized he was a sitting duck out here.

My fault, he thought as he quickly waded ashore. If I hadn’t bribed him to take me to the lagoon, if I’d just said no tonight when he wanted to come along, he’d still be alive. Probably be sitting in his trailer right now watching his TV.

My fault. But not all my fault.

It’s Semelee…she’s controllin’ them.

Right. Semelee.

Jack reached the bank and climbed up onto the mud. He looked toward the cenote and saw maybe twenty of the winged things clustered over the opening. As he watched, they began to fan out and glide toward him.

His blood cooled at the sight. No way he and Dad could bring them all down, even standing back to back with shotguns. Some of them would get through. And once they got you down, you were finished.

Couldn’t stop the winged things…but maybe he could stop the one controlling them.

With the things trailing him, Jack ran back to where his father was still firing at the boats. He heard cheering from the decks as the clan spotted the winged things on Jack’s tail. They didn’t shoot. Probably thought it would be more fun to watch him get gobbled up like Anya.

“Behind me, Dad! Incoming!”

Dad was crouched behind a tree, with the trunk between him and the boats. Jack dove for the ground, sliding through the mud on his belly as his father looked around.

“Where?”

“Right behind me!”

Lightning flashed and he saw his father’s jaw drop.

“Dear God! What are—?”

“Don’t talk, shoot!”

And shoot he did, pumping round after round out of the Mossberg into the air behind Jack. Jack didn’t look around to see what effect he was having. He assumed it was about as good as it got. He laid the Benelli across Dad’s knees for when the Mossberg ran dry, then seated himself back to back with his father and turned to the
Bull-ship
. If Semelee was anywhere, that would be the place.

He wiped the rain from his eyes and took aim at the superstructure. The big Casulls would rip through it, in one plywood side wall and out the other. He couldn’t be sure he’d hit Semelee, but at least he could distract her…

9

This was so hard…

Semelee crouched in the dark of the cabin and pressed the shells tighter against her eyes. The chew wasps hadn’t wanted to leave the sinkhole until the sun was down, but she’d forced them. She’d tried that yesterday and it hadn’t worked, but this time she was able to coax them up. Maybe it was the storm or the night like darkness up here. Whatever the reason, they came. But so slowly…like only one or two at a time.

Then, once she got them outta the hole, she could barely see. Had to be because of the sun. Even though it was hidden behind mountains of storm clouds, it was still above the horizon; she guessed that whatever was filterin’ through was enough to affect the eyes of the chew wasps.

But she’d been able to see Carl who was right close to the hole and shootin’ at the boats. Traitor to his kin! She set a couple of the wasps on him, then went back to draggin’ others up.

Suddenly one of the ones on Carl got blowed up. And then the other. She seen it was Jack doin’ the shootin’, and though she didn’t hate him like before, she couldn’t let this stand. She had to end it between them. One of them had to go. Semelee preferred Jack.

She had a whole bunch of the chew wasps up by then but couldn’t get them organized. They wanted to go here and there and it was just about all she could do to keep them together. Jack blasted a couple of them out of the air and then got four more with a grenade in the hole as she was pushin’ them up.

She had to attack with what she had, but couldn’t get the swarm to move. She could control one of them, though, so she sent it after Jack. Somehow it wound up on Carl instead. The wasps seemed attracted to sound and movement, and Carl had been makin’ plenty of both.

But she didn’t have to send Dora after Carl when he went in the water—Dora did that on her own.

Goodbye, Carl.

Finally she’d got the swarm to move. She didn’t know why she suddenly had more control. Maybe cause the sun got closer to settin’ while she was chasin’ Jack. Didn’t know, didn’t care, all she knew now was she was on the hunt. And though her stomach turned at the thought of havin’ to go through another chew-up with these things, it had to be done. The survival of the whole clan depended on her stoppin’ Jack and whoever was with him—probably his daddy.

As she guided the wasps after the runnin’ Jack, she heard the guys on the deck start to yellin’. She wished they’d shut up. The chew wasps kept wantin’ to turn toward the noise. The voices pulled at them. She had to keep forcin’ them to stay on Jack’s trail.

Suddenly a piece of the wall exploded and showered her with splinters as something whizzed by her head. She was already crouched on the floor in a corner. Now she dropped flat, and just in time too. Another big bullet smashed through the cabin, low this time, just about singeing her butt.

He’s tryin’ to kill me!

She had to move those chew wasps in on Jack and his daddy. Now!

The old man was shotgunnin’ them, so Semelee split the swarm into two groups. She veered one left over the water, and the other around back. She’d catch ’em in the middle and—

A third big slug blasted into the cabin then, but this one didn’t go all the way through. It plowed into one of the benches of the picnic table and sent it flyin’ against her. She cried out as it conked her on the head. She didn’t think—she put her hands up to protect herself and dropped the eye-shells.