Ken Douglas - Gecko

“ Now it’s ready to go.” He wrapped a powerful right hand around her jaw, squeezed, forcing her mouth open, forcing the barrel in.

“ Suck on that.” He laughed again, a devil’s laugh. “I could blow your head right off.” He pulled out the gun and Donna gasped for air as he ran the barrel down to her breasts, first covering one nipple, then the other, then he took it down further, to her sex.

“ I’d shove it in, but I’ve got something else I want to shove in first.” He pulled the gun away, eyes glazed. “Almost no recoil with this wonderful weapon. It’s because of the rotating barrel.”

She squeezed her eyes shut, sickened by the sight of him.

“ Ah, you’re not interested.”

She tried to will him away.

“ Open your eyes.”

She refused.

“ I’ll shoot off your kneecaps. It’ll be very painful for you.”

She opened her eyes.

“ That’s better. Now we can talk.” He tossed the gun on the bed and pulled off his shirt, revealing a dirty tee shirt. His body odor was overpowering.

“ It’s true I don’t bathe much anymore. I suppose it’s been the anticipation. I’ve been wanting you for a long time.” He pulled off the tee shirt and leered at her. “Do you like the accent, the Nazis had so much to offer, it’s a shame they lost.”

“ You’re not German?” She was confused.

“ Of course not, the accent’s affected.”

“ I don’t understand.”

“ Come on, you know me.”

“ Ngaarara,” she whispered.

“ Yes.”

She squirmed against her bonds, wishing him dead and gone.

“ I didn’t think you had it in you,” he said, changing the subject as he unzipped his pants. “You cast your spirit halfway around the world, even I can’t do that.” He paused, staring at her. “You cost me a good deal of money and several years of pleasure. I only wish there was some additional torture I could induce to make you pay for your sins, but time is short.”

He flipped his erection out of his pants and she flinched as its single eye stared at her.

“ It is large, isn’t it?” He massaged himself. “I like it when it works out that way. Sometimes I get a body with a small one, they work fine, but they don’t frighten the young girls nearly as much as something like this.” He pulled on himself.

Her eyes were frozen wide and she struggled against the ropes.

“ I will be able to masturbate to your deflowering for years upon years, enjoying you forever.” He stopped massaging himself and dropped his pants. He laughed, a devil’s rasp, as he stood before her, naked.

“ After I fuck you, I’m going to call in my German bully boys. They’re going to stuff you in the oven.”

She pulled harder against the ropes.

“ We have a very modern industrial galley on board, including an oversize stove, perfect for you. You’ll be cooked alive and I’ll have every delicious scream on video.”

Jim pulled himself up on the first rung of the dive ladder and caught his breath. He transferred the knife from his mouth back to his right hand and quieted his heart by taking long deep breaths. He was in a hurry, but he didn’t want to blunder foolishly over the side and get himself killed before he had a chance to free Donna. He climbed two rungs of the ladder and poked his head over the rail.

The man on watch had his back to him. He appeared to be watching the four old Maori men beyond. They were involved in a heated argument of some kind. Jim climbed up over the rail, glad that Mohi was doing his job. If he had any doubt about how to handle the man on watch, the black sweater and seaman’s cap he was wearing made up his mind. The last two men he’d met who were dressed like that had tried to kill him. Jim eased up behind the watchman and silently slit his throat.

He saw the Maori men start toward the boat, but he didn’t have time to wait for them. He slipped down the open hatch and found himself looking down a long companionway, with cabin doors on each side. He eased down the corridor. Donna could be in any one of these rooms, he thought, but he knew differently when he heard a familiar voice traveling from beyond the partially open door at the head of the hallway, and all of a sudden he knew what the connection between himself and Donna Tuhiwai had been.

“ I have so much to get even for, fucking you and burning you doesn’t seem like enough. If only I had more time.” The voice and the accent almost threw him into shock. Maybe the man called himself Manfred Penn now, but that wasn’t the name that Jim knew him by.

He moved quickly down the corridor, taking the plastic enclosed gun out from the front of his wet pants as he walked. He stopped just before the door, took the gun out from the plastic bag, took a deep breath and kicked the door open.

“ You?” a bald, clean shaven Bernd Kohler said.

“ Me!” Jim pulled the trigger, but a scream filled the night air, throwing a chill through his spine and throwing his aim high and wide. The hairs on the nape of his neck stood on end as Bernd Kohler answered the scream of the gecko with one of his own. Before Jim could fire again, Kohler dashed up into the galley, tore through the hatchway and was gone.

In seconds he would be up the ladder to the pier and away and there was nothing Jim could do about it, because he couldn’t leave Donna tied and naked. He moved quickly to the bed.

“ What’s that? He nodded toward an automatic pistol as he sliced through the ropes.

“ A madman’s gun.” She grabbed it the instant he’d freed a hand. “Mine now.”

“ We have to hurry,” he said.

“ Don’t have to tell me twice,” she said. “Let’s get out of here.”

“ Not yet.” He took her hand and led her out of the salon, up into the galley. They backed against the wall opposite the hatchway, as far from the hatch and the adjoining windows as they could get.

Donna gasped as the giant reptile shot out of the water, a second scream escaping from its shark-like mouth.

Jim braced himself against the bulkhead as it flopped back into the dark water. A third scream tore through the night as it shot back out of the ocean, again soaring over the rails, but this time it landed on the deck. It was through the hatchway in seconds.

Kohler cowered and hid at the bow, behind the anchor motor, naked and cold. He heard the Maori men up front when he came out the galley hatchway on the starboard side. He kept low, peered around the galley and saw them. They came down the port side toward the rear and he scuttled forward up the starboard side to the crew quarters. He stayed low and the Maori men went by on the other side of the boat without seeing him.

He wondered what had happened to the crew. They were supposed to be on watch, not drinking down below. He eased himself around the anchor motor and climbed down into the crew’s forward cabin. He didn’t need the lights to know they were all dead. Even the woman. Those men might have been old, but they were Maori. Kohler respected them. They knew how to handle an enemy.

He pulled a body off a lower berth, tore the mattress off the bed. He smiled to himself-Monday and the girl were going to die. He pulled up the plywood cover, reached inside the hidy hole under the berth and pulled out an M-16 assault rifle.

He was a slave to his anger. He didn’t bother putting on any clothes. He climbed out of the crew quarters, keeping low as he moved around the anchor motor. Then he slipped through the forward hatch, down into the corridor below. His pet would get them from the stern, he’d come at them from the bow.

He didn’t give a thought to the Maoris on board. After eliminating the girl and Monday, he’d dive naked into the sea. As long as the gecko lived, he’d be safe. This body would die, but he’d get another. It was time anyway, he was tired of being a German.