Jamie Freveletti - Running Dark

From that moment forward, Emma felt her world switch into slow motion. She hauled the arm that held the pistol out from next to her body, preparing to shoot the raging man. Sumner, too, shouldered his weapon to aim, and the pirates continued to crawl upward. The raging man, Emma, and Sumner fired at the same moment. The raging man went down, a bullet in his heart, and Sumner dropped, landing on Emma.

The weight of his landing on her squeezed all the air out of her lungs. She felt the warm flow of blood ooze onto her cheek. Sumner groaned and stayed still, his body heavy on hers. Emma wanted to scream, but her shock at seeing his blood seemed to freeze her lungs. She twisted to slither out from under him. He moaned again, twitched, and slid off her. She watched him reach for the Dragunov with his left hand. Blood poured from his right arm. A pirate loomed over them both, holding his gun like a baseball bat. Emma rolled onto her back, aimed her revolver, and pulled the trigger.

The gun gave a hollow click, barely audible. Nothing happened. The pirate’s eyes, which had widened at the sight of her pistol, narrowed. He flipped his own rifle back into firing position. Emma pulled a pen from her pocket and jammed it into the pirate’s foot at the arch. She left it hanging there, grabbed another, and jabbed him again. When she glanced up, she saw that the man was shaking, trembling, his mouth jerking. He still held the gun, but it hung down at his side while his muscles spasmed. His finger was curled over the trigger, and the gun erupted. Bullets hammered into the deck in a crazy pattern all around her. She found her voice and started yelling, pushing herself backward, bumping into Sumner, who still lay behind her, while she used her feet to scuttle across the planks.

Several more pirates appeared at the railing, grasping the horizontal slats and climbing hand over hand.

“Sumner, can you shoot?” Emma threw the question behind her. She felt him move in response.

At that moment Block burst out of a nearby door. He stopped, then aimed and shot a stun gun. Emma watched darts attached to trailing wires zip out of the front and connect with a pirate’s chest and shoulder. He yelled and dropped to the deck, writhing. Behind Block came Herr Schullmann and Stark, who wielded a long steel pipe. He stepped up to the men at the railing, pulled back the pipe, and slammed it into the nearest pirate’s skull. The man let go, falling backward into the sea. Block fired again, hitting a second pirate who had succeeded in getting one foot over the railing. His eyes rolled up in his head when the electricity entered his body.

Schullmann gazed down the deck, and Emma heard him give an anguished cry when he saw Marina lying on the boards. He ran toward her, ignoring the chaos all around him. A pirate aimed at her from the railing, preparing to shoot her again. Schullmann threw himself toward her as the man fired, and his body jerked when the bullet entered his chest. Block was reloading when more pirates reached the railing. Emma stood up and turned to help Sumner rise. His right arm was slick with blood.

“Go to the bridge deck!” Stark yelled. He kept swinging the pipe, slamming it onto the hands of the pirates as they grabbed at the slats to climb upward. A grenade, fired by Hassim, flew past the railing and exploded when it hit a skiff floating below them. Emma figured he had one warhead left. Hassim disappeared around a corner, heading to the other side of the ship. She could only pray that he didn’t meet a new pirate force on that side.

Sumner was up, but he seemed to sway on his feet. Block reached out to grab his elbow and steady him.

“We’ve got to retreat up the stairs. Emma, you out?” Sumner’s voice was strained with pain.

Emma nodded. “Only the pens.”

“Then go!”

Sumner placed the Dragunov strap over his head and jogged to Herr Schullmann and Marina. He checked for Schullmann’s pulse, then shook his head at Block. Together the men lifted Marina, Block carrying her body while Sumner held her legs. She hung from their grasp, her hair flowing downward.

Emma reached the stairwell door at the same time as Block. Stark was next. She stepped back to allow Sumner and Block to maneuver Marina’s body through the doorway. The young woman’s face was parchment white and immobile.

Cindy darted in next. “Here.” She shoved some pens into Emma’s hands.

Emma stepped in the stairway last, swinging the door shut as she did. A pirate’s fingers wrapped around the edge. She grabbed the interior handle with both hands, and the two of them engaged in a tug of war, with Emma trying to keep the panel shut and the pirate attempting to yank it open. She let one hand go long enough to slam a pen into his index finger so deep that she felt it rattle against bone. He let go. She closed the door.

The stairwell felt cool and dark after the heat from the decks, and the sounds were muted. She scurried to the top of the stairs, where their first two buckets sat on the landing. She took a deep breath and held it as she dumped the first bucket’s contents into the second. The door opened, and sunlight flooded into the stairwell. The Somalis flowed into the narrow passageway. Emma hurled the empty pail at the men charging up the stairs. She didn’t stay to watch but ducked through the door leading to the bridge, closing and locking it behind her.

Every window in the bridge was shattered, but only two had actual holes in them. The remaining sections were cracked in a crazy splintered pattern, like the windshield of a car. The panels with the holes were opposite each other, as if a grenade had passed straight through. Block and the others were already across the room and out the other side. A long smear of blood left a trail on the floor. Emma wondered if Sumner had taken a bullet in a major vessel and was bleeding out.

She jogged across to the second set of buckets. At five feet away, a wave of toxic air washed over her. The others must have already mixed the gas. The door behind her burst open, and several men staggered into the room, bringing with them a second wave of noxious fumes. One dropped to his knees and started vomiting. His gun skittered across the floor toward Emma. The others gasped in huge gulps.

Emma reached for the door, but before she got there, the fumes overwhelmed her. Her eyes burned, and each time she inhaled, it felt as though she were pulling fire through her throat. Her vision distorted and her ears rang. The door appeared to undulate, making it difficult for her to locate the handle to open it. She dropped to one knee, doing her best to concentrate on the doorknob. She held her breath and grabbed it. The cold metal seemed to be the only stable object in the room. She turned it and threw herself past the opening. She lay there, half in and half out, and gasped in another breath of the gas, which seared her throat. She felt her stomach start to dry-heave, and she closed her eyes. Suddenly a hand wrapped around her wrist and someone dragged her on her back across the floor. She opened her eyes. Sumner’s face ebbed and flowed in front of her as he pulled her the rest of the way out of the bridge. Blood covered his torso, and she saw that his arm still bled. His face was sheet white, but his eyes shone with determination.

He hauled her to a landing and started upward, pulling her with him. Her spine bumped over each stair, and she was relieved when he reached the highest level. He pulled her into the sunlight and let go. Her arm flopped onto the boards, and she lay there gasping, with her head turned to avoid the sunlight. Spent ordnance was scattered all around her. She watched Sumner crouch down and crab-walk to the edge of the deck. He flattened onto his stomach beside a steel upright, which was all that remained of the railing. Emma crawled next to him and looked down.