Crimson Waters. James Axler

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      Chapter Two

      “What way?” Jak said. “Only see water.”

      Ryan stood at Krysty’s side on the white coral sand. The others had gathered nearby.

      “You have to learn to look below the surface, Jak,” J.B. said.

      Ryan was doing so, and frowning. The water close to shore was shallow and as clear as glass, but he wasn’t sure what it was he was seeing.

      “It would appear to be a road,” Doc said, bending over like a feeding crane to peer into the water. “Made out of cyclopean blocks. Limestone, I would say.”

      Mildred’s forehead creased into a frown. “That sounds like the Bimini Roads,” she said. “Except aren’t they off the Bahamas? And I don’t think the Bahamas are all that near to here, are they?”

      Ryan polled the others with his eye. They looked as blank as he felt.

      Doc blinked at Mildred like a newly hatched baby bird. “Dear lady,” he said, “I fear the rest of us have little idea what you are saying. Except that, yes, the Bahamas lie far to the northwest of here, beyond the island of Hispaniola. Quite near the east coast of Florida, in fact.”

      “So, what would subsurface blocks like this be doing here?” Mildred demanded.

      “Who knows?” Ryan said. “Why care?”

      “The road, if that’s what it is, seems to lead right past that next island,” Krysty observed. She flashed that smile Ryan loved so well, as dazzling as late-morning sun breaking bright off the wavelets.

      “If the road leads to the next island,” Ryan said, “it’s the closest thing to a way off this sorry bare-ass rock that we’ve got. I’m going.”

      Doc straightened and shot the cuffs of the white shirt he wore beneath his frock coat. “And we shall follow,” he said. “As usual.”

      * * *

      “OW! SHIT.”

      “What is it, Mildred?” Krysty asked.

      They were wading through thigh-deep water, following the big oblong blocks of pale stone. Ryan led, holding his Steyr Scout Tactical longblaster at the ready. Behind him marched J.B., cradling his Uzi. Then Mildred, Krysty and Doc, who flourished his swordstick in the hot air with every sloshing step. Jak brought up the rear, scowling around at the water as if expecting something to dart through it and bite them.

      As it appeared, something just had. “My leg,” Mildred said. “Something stung me just now. Right above my right boot.”

      Jak pointed. “There!”

      What he was pointing at moved fast, but Krysty had good reflexes. She looked in time to see something like a silver shadow, long and slim as the concealed blade of Doc’s sword, dart away through the water.

      Looking back at Mildred, she saw a dark cloud puff into the water by her leg.

      “’Cudas!” Jak shouted.

      “Barracuda,” Doc said doubtfully. “I didn’t think they were known for attacking humans. Swimmers, perhaps. But certainly not walking ones. Or even waders.”

      Balancing precariously on one leg against the slow ocean current, Mildred hoisted her right leg out of the water. “Somehow I don’t think this one got the memo, Doc,” she said.

      Evidently not. Krysty saw a red slice, vivid against the coffee-with-cream skin of Mildred’s calf. Blood flowed freely to drip into the water.

      “Ace on the line,” J.B. said. “That blood could draw sharks.”

      “Screw sharks!” shouted Jak. “More ’cuda coming!”

      Quickly Krysty looked around. Sure enough, the shallow Caribbean waters, so deceptively peaceful on the surface, swarmed with sinister shiny shapes just below. Some circled just out of range. Others...

      Mildred jumped one-legged straight out of the water. “Fuck!” she screamed. Through the roiling water Krysty saw a lean shape lance past, just where the woman had been standing.

      With a rattling roar J.B. cut loose a burst from his machine pistol. Water spouted in an arc twenty feet from where Mildred was splashing back down. She came down on both feet but teetered. Krysty grabbed her wrist and kept her from toppling.

      The fall itself was no danger, obviously, but to be floundering around, depending on her own modest human swimming abilities, while contending with a shoal of killer fish could be deadly.

      A corpse bobbed to the surface. Its belly was white and showed the tips of black tiger stripes. Jaws filled with razor-edged teeth gaped. A round eye stared blankly. An inky cloud surrounded it.

      “Good shooting.” Ryan hefted his Scout but didn’t find any targets worth a precious 7.62 mm round.

      “Strike, more like,” J.B. called. “I was mainly looking to scare the nuke-suckers off. Or at least back. Bullets don’t travel for shit in water, anyway.”

      “These barracuda seem unnaturally large,” Doc said. He had his sword drawn and pointed toward the water. “I do not recall them growing significantly longer than six feet, yet yon specimen is a good nine or ten feet long, and some of his kindred seem longer still.”

      “Mebbe muties,” Jak said with a snarl of distaste.

      “Keep moving, everybody!” Ryan said. “They’ll chew us to bits if we just stand here gaping like a pack of stupes!”

      They moved into a slow-motion run, raising hip-high waves. Krysty held her snub-nosed Smith & Wesson Model 640 in her hand, but their wakes made it difficult to spot the finny horrors close by.

      Then again, if they were that close it was probably too late to do anything about them, anyway. Seeing a shape arrow at her from about thirty feet off to her right, Krysty snapped a shot at it. The .38-caliber slug kicked up a foot-tall jet of water. Whether the bullet hit the ’cuda, or even came near, she didn’t know. The fish sheered away.

      And she felt an impact against her own left calf. She looked down to see another ten-foot fish whip away from her. By reflex she looked down. It had ripped the tough denim of her jeans, but she saw no blood and felt no sting of salt water on a fresh wound.

      “Go!” Jak shouted from right behind her.

      J.B.’s Uzi snarled again. Ryan’s Steyr went off with a hard crack that seemed to hit the water and skip like a stone; Krysty felt the shock wave on her cheek as she started into forward motion again.

      “They don’t like the bullets hitting near them,” Mildred said in satisfaction, letting her big, ZKR-551 handblaster settle back online from a shot.