Scott Sigler - Nocturnal - A Novel

“Damn, I’m good,” the old man said.

More monsters were closing in from the right and also from the left, where Adam fired away with his five-seven.

John reached for his grenades.

Hands and feet tied, Pookie fought to standing position. He had to act. The fat kid — the one who had breathed fire at Bryan — was only a few feet away, looking down into the hole in the deck. Pookie pushed off both feet and hopped toward the boy.

Got to keep my balance, I swear I’ll hit the treadmill if I get out of this alive …

The boy heard Pookie coming; he started to turn but he was too late. Pookie threw himself at the boy’s legs. The boy wavered for a moment, arms whirling, then he fell into the hole.

Bryan saw the fire-breathing kid fall through the hole in the deck. The dying words of a burn-covered teenager flashed through his mind: demon, dragon .

He aimed his five-seven and fired three times as Jay Parlar’s killer crashed down to smash face-first into the broken wood. Bryan jumped high again, this time putting his right foot on the second deck and pushing off that, the one-two leap carrying him up to the main deck — he had scrambled fifteen feet straight up , just like that.

Bryan found himself standing over Pookie Chang.

“Untie me for fuck’s sake!”

Bryan holstered the five-seven and drew his Ka-Bar knife. He sliced through Pookie’s ropes and helped the man to his feet.

A big, resonant voice screamed from inside the burning cabin. “Elle brûle … elle brûle!”

Explosions echoed from the ledges, joining the cacophony of gunfire, crackling flames and the echoing screams of fear, pain and anger.

Bryan drew the five-seven, then gave it and the knife to Pookie. “Cut everyone loose!”

Pookie nodded and ran toward Chief Zou.

Bryan’s other five-seven had to be around here somewhere, or maybe he’d lost it below, but either way he didn’t have time to find it. He looked up at the crucified Erickson thirty feet above — he couldn’t leave the man up there. Bryan ran to the mast … made of human skulls ?

All the eyes … all the teeth .

Bryan jumped onto the mast, his feet breaking skulls as he climbed. He was so strong now, so agile; he scaled the mast like a chimp shooting up a tree trunk. His ravaged left fingers screamed in white-hot complaint, but there was no other choice.

He found himself face-to-face with the Savior.

ba-da-bum-bummmm

Bryan stared at Jebediah Erickson. Jebediah Erickson stared back.

This was his brother .

Bryan hooked his left arm over the crossbeam. With his right hand, he grabbed the spike sticking out of Erickson’s right palm.

He met Erickson’s eyes again. “You ready?”

Erickson’s bloody, split lips smiled. “I’m glad I was wrong about you.”

Dangling thirty feet above the deck, Bryan yanked the spike free. Erickson snarled, but he didn’t cry out. Blood splattered down on the white skulls and the dry wood below.

Bryan swung behind the mast and moved to the other side. He again hooked his left arm over the crossbar, grabbed the spike pinning Erickson’s left hand and ripped it free.

The old man slid his right hand behind the mast, holding himself up as he bent at the knees and reached down with his left to yank at the spike nailed through his feet.

Another explosion, more screams — John and the others were using their thermite grenades, using everything they had. The air started to fill with smoke. Bryan felt the cabin fire’s heat even from up here on the mast.

“Bryan!” Pookie’s voice from below, followed by gunfire.

Bryan let go and dropped. He bent his legs as he landed, absorbing the impact but still stumbling to the right. Mr. Biz-Nass cowered at the base of the skull-mast. Zou and her daughters ran to him. Robertson had the knife and was cutting away at Verde’s ropes. Pookie stood tall, firing away at an advancing wave of white-robed men. The masked men would fall or flinch, but there were too many for him to stop them all.

Spreading flames danced up from the deck’s dry wooden planks. Some of the white robes were already burning. Blast-furnace heat billowed away from the ship’s cabin — in those flames, shimmering images of man-shaped creatures moving, trying to get inside.

The slide of Pookie’s five-seven locked. Empty. Bryan hadn’t given him the extra magazines.

Bryan gripped his broken pinkie and ring finger. With a grunt, he snapped them back into place. He slid his right hand into his left-arm sheath and came out with the ceramic knife. He forced himself to do the same with his ruined left hand — each fist held one of the slim killing blades.

Pookie backed up. His foot caught on a broken board and he fell to his ass. The Halloween-masked white-robes reached for him but Bryan rushed forward, cutting and stabbing. Slice-slash-slice — bodies fell, red blood painted long, wet splashes on white fabric. He kicked out, the sole of his foot smashing into a chest, sending the man flying back into the flames. In seconds, not a single masked man remained standing.

A flash of heat made Bryan reactively stamp his feet — flames licking the cuffs of his pants. He turned and ran back to the skull-mast. Biz-Nass and Robertson were there, helping Erickson to his feet. Zou held one of her daughters, Verde held the other. The fire’s heat seemed to press invisible fists against them all, forcing them to lean away, to shield their faces. They blinked madly, coughed against the thick smoke that filled the cavern like a fog.

He urged them to the tip of the shipwreck. “To the prow, go, go!”

“Bryan!”

Pookie was pointing back down the deck.

Fifteen feet away, the nerdy kid crawled out of the hole in the deck. Blood sheeted his face. His glasses were twisted and wobbly on his broken nose. He stood, golden Zippo in hand. Behind him, Pierre rushed out of the flaming cabin, long mouth open in a roaring, skewed-jawed snarl, flames dancing on his back and from his shorts.

Pierre and Bryan locked eyes; the dog-face was coming for him.

Erickson grabbed the knife out of Bryan’s left hand. The bleeding, half-naked old man stepped forward and threw it.

The blade whipped through the air and slid into the nerdy boy’s distended belly. The boy dipped inward at the waist like he’d been punched, shock and surprise etched behind his bent wire-rims. A stream of thin, white vapor jetted out of the hole in his gut.

A flaming Pierre ran right through that stream.

The flame caught the vapor and shot back into the boy’s bloated stomach like a reverse flamethrower. His belly blew open in a fireball that swallowed Pierre and threw the monster forward. Engulfed in flame, he tumbled into the people packed on the prow, knocking Erickson and Biz-Nass hard to the deck before landing heavily on top of Amy Zou, pinning her beneath his burning body.

Bryan dropped his knife and grabbed Pierre’s ankles. The flames scorched his hands, but he ignored the pain long enough to yank Pierre off Zou and toss him a few feet back down the deck. The big creature seemed limp, weak. The skin on Bryan’s hands sizzled. He started to reach down to beat at Amy Zou’s burning clothes, but Sean Robertson and Rich Verde were there, rolling Zou over to smother the flames.

A girl’s voice: “You killed my daddy.”

Bryan turned toward the voice. Little Mur held the knife he’d dropped. She stood over the smoldering dog-man. Pierre lifted a hand to stop her, but he was too weak and too slow. Before Bryan could reach Mur, she clutched the knife in both hands, point down, and plunged the blade into Pierre’s right eye.