Apocalyptic Pirates 4, page 26
It was better that we parted on good terms and without the pain of ‘what if’s’ holding us back.
Dia broke the hug and hoisted the rifle higher on her shoulder.
“Come on,” she said in a gruff voice. “Let’s get this over with. Don’t want to delay you guys any more than you already have been.”
She went to the edge of the yacht and climbed quickly over the guard rail. We heard the crunch of her sneakers as she landed on the rocky quay.
“It’s okay,” I told Ally, and I pulled her into a quick hug.
Ally clung tightly to me for a moment before letting go and stepping back.
“I’ll take the yacht out away from the shore,” she said with a sniff. “I’ve got the phone in my pocket, so I’ll be ready when you call.”
“Great.” I planted a light kiss on her forehead.
The others were climbing over the guard rail, and I quickly followed them. We made our way along the rocky spit of the sea wall and clambered over the border onto the road.
I turned around, and with my hand shading my eyes against the sun, I saw the yacht sailing away from shore. I couldn’t make out Ally in the cockpit, but I raised my hand in a wave and hoped that she might be able to see it.
Then I turned around and headed with the others into the Old Town of Cartagena.
Dia showed us where a little path broke off from the main road and sloped upward to take us through the wall surrounding the Old Town. We came out in a narrow street that was surrounded on both sides by tall houses.
The architecture was beautiful, and the buildings were painted in bright shades of yellow, teal, orange, red, and coral pink. Many of them had white balconies with ornate carved railings, or decorative archways that led to tiny, cobbled courtyards.
But many of the balconies had been destroyed, and the sidewalk below was littered with splinters of white wood. The arches were pocked with bullet holes and broken brickwork, and the bright painted walls were disfigured with black smoke stains. Savage claw marks were scored deep into the wooden door frames, and one courtyard garden was strewn with pieces of wood and metal that looked like it had once been a cart or wheelbarrow of some kind but had met a violent end in a dragon’s jaws.
I tried not to look too long at the various dried bloodstains smeared around, though, or the scattered, rotting lumps that had to be chunks of unfortunate residents. They were hard to define, though.
The city was deathly silent. The only sound was the crunch of our shoes walking over the broken glass and rubble that covered the streets.
“My mom’s apartment isn’t too far from here.” Dia spoke in low tones, but even so, the sound of a human voice was startlingly loud in such a deserted landscape.
“Where is everybody?” Letty whispered.
“Hiding?” Shannon suggested.
“Or dead,” Dia said.
I winced.
The woman really had a knack for pointing at the elephant in the room.
“They can’t all be dead,” I said in as firm a voice as I could manage. “We’d see more bodies.”
“Maybe the dragons ate them all,” Dia said.
“Jesus, Dia, you’re fucking relentless,” Shannon said in exasperation.
“I’m just saying,” Dia muttered. “We all saw those fleshy bits and blood back there.”
“Maybe they’re dead or maybe they’re hiding,” I said. “But either way, we should probably stop talking in case we attract attention. The people here could be gang members, or they could be innocent citizens trying to protect their homes, but we’ve no way of knowing which one we’ll be up against. All we know for sure is that we’re in hostile territory, and that there are fucking dragons on the loose here.”
The women nodded, and I breathed a sigh of relief that even Dia seemed inclined to listen to what I was saying.
“Alright,” I said. “Dia, you lead the way.”
Dia nodded, and we set off through the streets. We tried to move both quickly and quietly, and the weird tense atmosphere of the city put us all on edge.
The place was just so goddamn creepy. The more streets we walked down, the more it was obvious what a bustling and noisy place this would normally be. There were the smashed remains of what looked like market stalls, and the houses that still had their balconies intact had chairs and little tables set up for people to sit out there and watch the hustle and commotion of the street life going on down below.
The streets were littered with smashed pottery and scattered earth, and I was confused about where they’d come from until we passed another house that was less trashed than the others, and I saw that it had boxes full of flowers at every window. There were trailing green vines hanging from the balcony as well, and they fluttered sadly in the breeze like decorations at a party that no one had turned up for.
Beyond the several brown, bloody stains, there were plenty of signs that the dragons had been at work here. Deep claw marks were gouged in the painted wooden doors and window frames of the houses, and most buildings had had their doors completely broken in.
I peered in through the empty window of one of the houses, and saw the remains of what I guessed must have once been a cat. Its back half had been entirely chewed off, and I quickly moved on, but the sight had shaken me all the same.
As well as the dragons, it was clear that humans had helped some of the destruction take place. A lot of the houses had been set on fire, although none of the arson attacks appeared to be recent. The cloud of smoke we’d seen over the city seemed to have originated from the carnage we’d seen at the harbor, and thankfully the air was still clear enough here that Letty’s asthma wasn’t triggered.
I was trying not to be paranoid, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were being watched. It was a toss-up over whether our observers would turn out to be human or dragon, and I wasn’t sure which one I would prefer. From the state of the city, it didn’t seem like any humans we found would be much friendlier than the dragons.
Suddenly, a shrill noise rang out.
It echoed through the streets and seemed to completely fill the air.
Dia’s phone was ringing.
Chapter 16
Dia stopped dead in the middle of the street and fumbled her phone out of her pocket.
“Dia!” I hissed.
“Sorry!” She stabbed a button on her phone, and the ringtone abruptly cut off as she answered the call, but the sound still seemed to echo through the streets and bounce off the surrounding buildings.
I spun around with my rifle up to see if anything or anyone had heard the sound.
“Mom?” Dia’s voice broke, and she clapped her hand over her mouth. “Estás viva! No pude encontrarte– Mom, dónde estás ahora?”
“Too loud!” I gritted out.
But it was too late.
A screech echoed throughout the lonely streets.
Shannon, Letty, and I whirled around as we frantically tried to find the source.
“Drew!” Letty cried.
I followed her pointing finger up and saw a dragon on the roof of one of the buildings behind us. It raised its ugly, gray head and trumpeted out a wild roar. Its huge, clawed feet shattered the roof tiles and sent them flying as it leaped across the street to the roofs on the other side.
Its shadow fell over us as it jumped, and all three of us fired in unison.
The dragon screamed in pain and landed with a crash on the roof of one of the houses. Tiles fell and crashed to the ground as its feet scrambled to get a grip, and its wings flapped crazily trying to support itself, but it slid backward off the roof and plummeted to the ground. It tried to get up, but we were on it, and with three bullets in its skull, it collapsed and lay dead.
Any dragons that hadn’t heard the phone ring had definitely heard all of that, and even as the echoes of the shots died away, more screeches split the air.
“Fuck!” I hissed.
I barely had time to get my gun up before a dragon crawled out of the window of one of the houses. It balanced precariously on the balcony, and the wood began to groan under its weight. Shannon’s bullet took it out in one shot, but even as it fell, there were more coming.
A bright red dragon flapped overhead and landed awkwardly in the street behind us. It bared its teeth and roared at us before charging. But the streets were so narrow here that it barely had space to squeeze through the garbage and rubble, and its claws gouged deep tracks in the walls where its feet were too big to stay on the ground.
I fired once, twice, and blood spurted out from the holes in the dragon’s neck. It gurgled out a roar and stumbled.
“Drew, duck!” Shannon shouted.
I ducked, and something whizzed over my head.
Shannon had fired. And a baby dragon tumbled dead to the ground.
“Fuck!” I yelled. “Not fucking more of these little shits!”
The red dragon was momentarily distracted by the corpse of its demon spawn that Shannon had shot, and I used the moment to send a bullet crashing between its eyes.
It slumped to the ground as more shots rang out behind me.
I whirled around and saw Shannon aiming at two more baby dragons that had appeared. They were small and agile enough that the narrow streets posed no problem to them, and they were darting back and forth with their horrible chittering call.
But there were more adults on the way, and Letty was firing at a huge blue bastard that had forced its head out through the window of one of the houses and was trying to claw its way out of the frame. Her first bullet went wide, but her second caught the fucker in its gaping jaws, and her third sent blood spraying over the walls of the house as she opened a hole right in its jugular.
Behind us I heard the clattering and scraping sound of more adult dragons clambering over the rooftops. Tiles dropped like confetti on the streets and smashed into pieces. I couldn’t see how many there were, but I swung my gun up and fired at the one closest that I could see.
My shot tore into its front leg, and the beast shrieked as it stumbled and slid. It clawed desperately at the house walls, and its frantic claws sent tiles, paint, and plaster smattering down everywhere. I sent my next bullet into its wild orange eye, and it fell without a sound to the street below.
As it fell, a movement caught my eye.
There was a whirling, screeching, rainbow cloud of psychotic baby dragons at the end of the street. And they were rushing right toward us like the ravenous little minions we’d come to know way too well.
“Oh, shit!” I shouted.
I spun around. Shannon had dispatched the two babies she’d been dealing with and was firing at an adult that was on the roof of the house right next to us. The way ahead of us was clear.
“Run!” I yelled. “Guys, fucking run! Demon babies!”
The women’s heads whipped around. They saw the advancing flock of baby bastards and didn’t need telling twice.
We all sprinted as fast as we could down the street with all attempts at stealth forgotten. Dia was in the lead, and I was staggered to see that she was still on the phone.
“Dia!” I yelled. “Where can we go? We need to get under cover!”
“This way!” she gasped.
She darted left down a street, and we thundered after her.
The baby dragons were quick, but they didn’t yet have the stamina of their parents, and I knew if we could just keep going long enough, the tiny fuckers would tire themselves out. We were protected from direct attack by the adults by the narrow streets, so if we could find a way to stay away from open spaces, we should make it through this.
I was running without thinking beyond speed. My heart was pounding in my chest. My throat was dry, my lungs were burning, and my feet ached where my boots thudded over the uneven paving.
And then suddenly we were out in the open.
Dia skidded to a halt, and I almost cannoned right into her. The sun dazzled me for a few precious seconds, and it took me a moment to realize that we’d stumbled out into a wide-open plaza.
“Shit!” Dia’s head snapped around as she frantically tried to get her bearings. “Sorry!”
I had a split second to decide what to do.
The square was surrounded by buildings on either side, and at the far end was a tall tower that looked like it might be part of a church.
“Dia!” I shouted. “What’s that tower?”
Even before I’d finished speaking, Dia started running toward it.
“It’s a church!” she shouted and then yelled into her phone. “Mom, get to the yellow church near the plaza– Rápida, sabes donde esta, la iglesia amarilla!”
The quickest way through the square was straight across, so we all took off after her. I heard the chittering and flapping of the baby dragons as they swarmed after us, and a roar as the adults that had been following us saw us out in the open.
“Shit, shit, shit, fuck!” I panted as the square filled with the skin-crawling sound of feverish dragon babies.
Tiles clattered and smashed in the wake of the adults’ path as they leaped from building to building. A huge yellow bastard flapped into the air and crashed into the roof of the house just ahead of us. Its impact sent a cascade of tiles and bricks smashing into the ground right in front of us.
We barely stumbled to a stop in time. Dia jumped back to avoid getting hit, and the dragon skidded over the collapsing roof, hurled itself to the ground, and blocked our way. It opened its jaws wide and bellowed.
It was so fucking close to us that I could smell the rank acid on its breath and see the light gleaming on the strings of drool hanging from its yellow fangs.
Without missing a beat, I raised my gun and slammed a rain of bullets into its face. It roared out a mist of blood that spattered in a fine red rain on the plaza paving stones. Then it lunged at me.
“Scatter!” I yelled.
I hurled myself out of the way, and the dragon’s jaws closed on empty air.
I skidded, rebalanced, and ducked as a baby dragon the color of dried snot flew over my head. There were more of the little fuckers whizzing out of the street into the square, but they were moving more slowly now, and some of them dropped to the ground and began charging awkwardly toward us.
I shot the little booger out of the sky, and it splatted into the ground with a satisfying thud.
Dia had her gun up and ready now, and she unleashed a volley of bullets into the big yellow dragon’s thick neck. It gurgled and coughed out more blood that bubbled out onto the ground.
Shannon and Letty were fighting back to back and taking out the baby dragons that were scurrying across the plaza.
The yellow dragon shuddered and twitched. I sent one final bullet into its skull, and its huge head thudded down on the ground as the light faded from its eyes.
Then a bellowing roar rang out from the rooftops as more dragons advanced on the square. I threw a wild glance around and saw three, then five, then more leaping across the roofs.
“Come on!” I yelled. “We’ve got to get to the church!”
We ran around the dead yellow dragon and finally made it to the other end of the plaza.
The church was set a little way back from the square, and we ran down a short back alley before coming out into a narrow street where the church loomed up in front of us. It was painted yellow with the huge, tall tower that I’d seen from the square, and it looked pretty fucking sturdy. The door was made of massive planks of thick wood and barred with iron. And it was locked with a huge padlock like something out of a fucking castle dungeon.
Dia hurled her backpack off her shoulders and started searching frantically inside.
I heard the chittering of baby dragons and the scratching of their claws over the paving stones. A screeching roar rang out from behind us, and there was a clattering clamor as more roofing tiles smashed under the adults’ weight.
“Now would be a great time to hurry the fuck up!” Shannon hollered as she stood poised with her rifle pointing down the street.
There was no time to look for another way in.
“Get back,” I yelled.
I raised my gun to shoot out the lock.
“Wait!” Dia cried. She’d found what she was looking for in her bag. She took out a pair of bolt cutters and attacked the lock, but she wasn’t strong enough to cut through the thick metal.
I put my hands over hers, and together we tried to force the cutters through the metal.
Shots rang out, and I heard agonized squeals as Shannon and Letty fired into the advancing babies.
“Hurry up, Drew!” Shannon yelled.
“There’s too many of them!” Letty screeched.
The padlock dropped to the ground with a thunk. I grabbed the handle and hauled open the door. It was a heavy fucker, but I dragged it open just wide enough for everyone to get through.
Letty and Shannon kept firing until the very last moment, and I heaved the door shut behind us.
A furious scream rose up from the babies outside as they realized we’d escaped. There was a frantic clawing and scratching at the door, but the wood and metal was too thick to buckle underneath their juvenile claws.
The air was cool and still inside the church. That was a good sign that the walls were thick– hopefully thick enough to keep the dragons out for now. Even the sounds from outside seemed muted and far away, and the loudest thing I could hear was the ragged sound of my own panting.
“Demon babies?” Shannon gasped between breaths. “Did you seriously scream ‘demon babies’ back there?”
I choked out a breathless laugh. “I panicked.”
“It was accurate…” Letty fanned her dewy face as she braced herself against a wall and caught her breath.
The church walls were painted white on the inside, and the ceiling was made of simple plaster and thick wooden beams. There was a row of narrow stained-glass windows set along the top half of both walls, and the back wall was painted in a red, white, and gold trellis pattern. There were three alcoves set in the wall with figurines in each one, and above them was a large heavy-looking crucifix.
