Mega 5: Murder Island Read online

  No answer. Silence.

  It dragged on for close to thirty minutes.

  “Who am I?” Darby asked from across the infirmary. She sounded exhausted. She sounded small and weak.

  No one in that room was stupid enough to assume that meant she wasn’t as dangerous as ever.

  “Who am I?” she repeated. “Who am I?”

  Silence again for several long minutes.

  “Who am I?” she asked from the opposite side of the infirmary.

  “Darby, please, just chill,” Max said. “You’re safe here. You want to know who you are? So do we. We’ll help you figure out who you are. We’ll get you stabilized and then ask Ballantine some serious questions.”

  At the mention of Ballantine’s name, Darby hissed. She was right next to Max again.

  “Ahh!” Max cried out, startled by her sudden proximity.

  “Hey. Darby,” Shane called. He was right there too.

  There was a heavy thud, a quick yelp, and then a second thud and a loud thump.

  “Shane? Darby?” Max said.

  “Shane?” Gunnar asked. “What did you do? Shane?”

  “Nut shot,” Shane squeaked.

  His hand found Max on the table and he leaned heavily on his brother.

  “Ha! Hurts, don’t it?” Max laughed.

  “Where’s Darby?” Gunnar asked.

  “By my feet,” Shane said. “I clocked her. As soon as I can bend over without pissing myself, I’ll tie her up.”

  “That doesn’t work very well,” Max said.

  “I’ll make it work,” Shane said. “Then we find the others and I get the elves to build us a cell made of kryptonite so super psycho here can’t escape.”

  “Hey, be nice,” Max said.

  “Dude, I am being nice,” Shane said. “Nut shot.”

  “Yeah, okay, but don’t get in the habit of calling her a psycho,” Max said. “She might be able to hear you even if she is passed out. You don’t want that shit festering in her subconscious.”

  “Shit, bro, I didn’t think of that,” Shane said. “Great. My nuts hurt and now I’m freaking out that she’s dreaming of killing me.”

  “Guys?” Gunnar said. “Hey, you notice something?”

  “What, Gun?” Shane asked. “What should we be noticing? We’ve been a little busy.”

  “The ship, dumbass,” Gunnar snapped. “It’s steady. Or not going up and down anymore. We must have gotten through the storm.”

  It had been a terrifying hour with Darby loose. But the hope of being out of the storm gave all three of them a little strength.

  “I’ll find some light and get the elves,” Shane said. “Sit tight.”

  “Ha fucking ha, bro,” Max replied.

  “Hopefully, it doesn’t take long to get the power back,” Gunnar said.

  It did take long. It took very long.

  Forty-five minutes later, the eye of the storm passed by the Beowulf III, and they were plunged back into the nightmare they thought they’d escaped from.

  But Darby was secured. They hoped.

  It was a terrifying several hours.

  ***

  Dawn light woke Nivia, and she slowly untangled herself from the cramped shower. Her muscles ached and she was beyond thirsty, but she was still alive. It was the little things.

  Careful not to move parts that didn’t want to move, Nivia got to her feet and stretched in the tight space of the head. She frowned at how she stank and looked back at the shower she’d spent the night in. A hot shower was exactly what she wanted, but she didn’t dare waste the fresh water. She hadn’t done an inventory on her water stores yet.

  No need to waste water on a shower when she was surrounded by crystal blue. Yes, it was salt water, but it would wash away the stink of sweat and the alcohol coming out of her pores.

  As Nivia left the head, she instantly regretted the second bottle of champagne she’d indulged in. Her stomach lurched, her head began to pound, and her mouth felt like it was full of sand. She needed to get something in her belly before she threw up, so she headed for the galley.

  The beetles hadn’t made it in. She sighed with relief then clamped a hand over her mouth. She waited out the nausea. When it passed, she returned to her original task.

  Still half a box of water crackers sitting on the counter. She finished those off, forced herself to drink two tumblers of water, then stared longingly at the coffee maker. No power, no coffee. She’d have to work on the generator today. That was key. Get the generator working, get the engine working, get the ship moving, and get the hell away from the island.

  Third tumbler of water in her hand, and feeling slightly better, Nivia made her way up on deck. The beetle swarm had done a number. The yacht looked worse than before, like someone had let a pack of Rottweiler puppies loose on it. Chunks and hunks were gnawed out of everything. It took her close to an hour to inspect the yacht fully. Thankfully, it was all superficial damage. It was ugly, but once she got the engine working, the yacht would be fine to get underway.

  She drank more water and squinted against the sunlight coming off the ocean. That was no way to nurse a headache. Nivia decided to be indulgent and go hunt for her sunglasses.

  But she stopped halfway to the hatch and frowned. Had she seen something? Hard to know with the tropical morning sun stabbing into her brain. But she was almost positive she’d seen a shape.

  Instead of fetching her sunglasses, Nivia found the binoculars and pointed them out at sea. The horizon appeared close enough that all she had to do was reach out and touch it.

  The same could be said for the ship that was listing dangerously to its port side.

  Nivia pulled the binoculars away and studied the horizon without enhanced vision. The storm clouds were long gone. The ocean was calm and beautiful. And there was a grey dot far off. Binoculars back to her eyes and she confirmed she wasn’t just seeing things. The listing ship was still there. The grey dot was real, and if the currents were strong enough, it would be within yelling distance to the island by mid-afternoon.

  Not that Nivia knew what she’d yell to it. The ship looked to be in worse shape than her yacht. And it didn’t look like a pleasure cruiser. It screamed private corporation, like for an oil company or something in that vein. There was an official vibe. Nivia had seen plenty of those kinds of ships because of the various corporate holdings her family owned pieces of.

  The official vibe didn’t overwhelm the obvious distress the ship was in. The way it listed, Nivia was forced to reassess her timeline. Current or not, the ship may not stay afloat long enough to get within shouting distance.

  She set the binoculars aside and went below to hunt for her brother’s telescope. He loved that telescope and kept it wrapped in its case at all times except for when he felt like gracing everyone with its presence. Nivia wasn’t anywhere as respectful or careful as she would have been only a couple days earlier. She tossed the wrapping aside and tucked the telescope under her arm as she hurried back up on deck.

  She found the grey dot, which was growing into a grey blob, and put the telescope to her eye. It was heavy as hell, and she really needed to find the tripod for it, but she didn’t want to waste time searching for that. Not that she expected to find it since the last she saw the tripod was up on deck before the storm. Anything that had been up on deck was now lost out to sea or several feet underwater in the cove. She’d deal.

  The telescope brought the upper deck of the ship into close detail.

  People. The ship had a crew and they were scrambling around the upper deck, doing something that looked strangely like trying rig sails. Which was weird since that was not a sailboat she was staring at. She studied the ship closer and realized it looked like a research vessel. Yet it also had a militaristic feel to it. Nivia couldn’t put her finger on it, but something didn’t fit.

  She kept scanning the ship and her gut feeling was quickly verified as she saw someone up in the crow’s nest. Someone staring back at her thro
ugh a scope mounted to a very big rifle.

  Nivia froze. She wanted to yank the telescope away, but didn’t want to show the man with the rifle how scared she was. She also wanted to keep an eye on the man with the rifle. If there was a muzzle flash, she wanted to see it. At that distance, she wouldn’t hear the crack until the bullet had hit her. Nivia had dated a cop for a few months back when she worked the ER and had unwillingly learned a lot about firearms and the reality of ballistics.

  The rifleman shifted and Nivia jumped in surprise. Not a rifleman, but a riflewoman. Did that make things better? Was the threat less because the person holding the very large rifle had boobs? Women could be cold-blooded killers too. It was the 21st century and TV and film was full of sexy, uterus-owning, gun-slinging chicks.

  The woman with the very large rifle gave Nivia a wave. Nivia had no choice but to wave back.

  The riflewoman set the rifle aside and yelled at some of the people down on deck. Nivia risked it and turned her focus onto the crew. Several of them had stopped and were shielding their eyes as they looked towards the island. Nivia was regretting the return wave.

  She switched back to looking at the riflewoman, but she was gone, having climbed down out of the crow’s nest. Bad? Good? Nivia didn’t know.

  She scanned the ship for a few minutes more then reluctantly went below deck to eat a little more and grab a towel. Nothing she could do about the people on the ship. But she could do something about the stink wafting off of her body.

  Nivia stripped down and dove headfirst over the side of the yacht. She spent the next few minutes scrubbing herself with a washcloth and very salty water. Her eyes never left the horizon and the ever-approaching ship.

  ***

  “There’s a boat in that cove,” Lucy said as she stepped into the conference room. The scene would have been comical, what with the ship listing and everyone holding onto the conference table to stay in place, but the looks on the faces that turned to her made any idea of comedy an impossibility. “Looks like a yacht that’s taken a beating. I saw a woman with a telescope on deck, checking us out.”

  “Armed?” Thorne asked.

  “No,” Lucy said. “She looked like a tourist. She’s fit, but soft. Not military or professional. The yacht probably got stuck in that cove when the storm hit. It’s missing its main mast.”

  “You were saying?” Thorne said and turned to Ballantine. “If the island is so deadly, then why is this woman still there?”

  “Because it sounds like she’s not on the island but on a yacht in the cove,” Ballantine said. “That still makes her unbelievably lucky.”

  “We need fresh water now that the elves say they can’t fix the desalinator without a total rebuild and we’re brutally short on other supplies,” Darren said. “We don’t have a choice.”

  “You were going to take us to the closest island,” Kinsey said. “So what’s the problem?”

  “This is not that island,” Ballantine said. “The storm took us way off course. This is a different island. It is not a viable island.”

  “What about that woman on the yacht?” Lucy asked. “She’s surviving as a tourist. We’re actually trained. We can get supplies and get off the island fast.”

  “And back to what?” Lake asked.

  He looked like he’d gone several rounds with a world heavyweight boxing champ. His skin was mottled with bruises and one of his lips was swollen so much that it almost covered the other one, making his speech sound lisping and drugged.

  “The ship is sinking, folks,” Lake stated. “The B3 is going down unless we can get it into dry dock and patch the hull.”

  “Can we patch it in that cove?” Lucy asked.

  “Dry dock,” Lake insisted. “Dry and dock. That cove is neither of those.”

  “Just asking, don’t be a dick, Lake,” Lucy grumbled.

  “No one be a dick,” Thorne said. He focused back on Ballantine. “We don’t have a choice. Is there a facility on this island that has supplies? Is there somewhere we can dock and repair the ship? What is this place and what are we looking at?”

  “First, we always have a choice,” Ballantine said. “Especially when it comes to an island like this.”

  “You want to play word games, go ahead,” Thorne said. “But I am deadly serious, Ballantine.”

  “So am I!” Ballantine shouted. Everyone froze. “My apologies. I shouldn’t have raised my voice.”

  “Just tell them,” Dana said quietly. “Tell them the truth. Tell them what island that is out there. Be honest, Ballantine. Be honest with your friends. It’ll cost you nothing.”

  “My friends?” Ballantine asked, puzzled. He looked at the faces that were pointed at him as if he was seeing them for the first time. “Huh. Well, I suppose… Huh.”

  “What is this island?” Thorne asked, his voice filled with exhaustion.

  “It was my first cleanup island,” Ballantine said. “I had to abandon it because my plan worked too well. Anything that steps foot on that island will get cleaned up, all the way down to the bone. Maybe even through the bones, too. I don’t know. I haven’t been here in several years.”

  “Does it have the facilities and supplies we need?” Thorne asked.

  “Dry dock,” Lake added.

  “No dry dock, but there is a place we can harbor,” Ballantine said. “We’ll have to do underwater repairs, but we have the gear to do that.”

  “We need a dry dock,” Lake said. “Or we might as well be using duct tape.”

  “There is no dry dock,” Ballantine said. “So forget that option. You are a more than competent sailor, Captain Lake. Between you and Mr. De Bruhl, with help from the elves, I believe you can figure something out that is more effective than duct tape. Not that I’m knocking duct tape. Wonderful stuff. Very versatile.”

  “Supplies,” Thorne said.

  “Plenty,” Ballantine said. “The island was abandoned and everything left right where it is. There wasn’t a lot of time to evacuate the small staff that was in place. I didn’t feel it necessary to remove the cases of toilet paper and the boxes of saltines.”

  “How caring of you,” Thorne said. “Now, what the hell is wrong with this island? I want details, all of the details, so I can prep Grendel for our mission.”

  “What about medical facilities? Anything special? One of your super-secret mad scientist facilities?” Shane asked leaning against the far wall instead of gripping the table with everyone else. “Darby needs help, man.”

  “I’m not 100% sure,” Ballantine said. “Our original destination had the right facilities, but this island may not. It was strictly for cleanup, not for research. Simple lab, I think, but no brain scanners or mind manipulators.”

  He glanced at Dana and she gave him a soft nod.

  “He’s telling the truth,” Dana said. “We’ll have to wait to see the facility to know if we can fix Darby.”

  “You better be able to,” Shane said. “It’s breaking my heart to see my brother’s heart break. I don’t like to see my brother’s heart break. It makes me grumpy.”

  “Noted, Mr. Reynolds,” Ballantine said. “As soon as we repair the ship and resupply, assuming we live to do any of that, then we will head directly to the nearest island that has the facilities and equipment needed to help Darby.”

  “I’ll hold you to that,” Shane said. He pushed off from the wall and braced his legs against the angle of the floor. “I’ll tell Max the plan. With his leg, he’s out of commission. He can help coordinate from here while we hit the island.”

  “Do I get to come?” Lucy asked. “You’re down a man and I promise not to get shot.”

  “There is no one here to shoot you,” Ballantine said.

  “You assume,” Thorne said.

  “Oh, no, Commander, I am not assuming,” Ballantine said. “I can guarantee there is no one on that island, let alone someone with firearms. In fact, there is not only no human beings, but there is no animal life at all. Nothing lies on that is
land except for plant life. And fish. I will grant there are probably fish in the pools and streams. Also in the cove. But that’s only because they aren’t aquatic and can’t get to them.”

  “What aren’t aquatic?” Thorne asked. “What can’t get to the fish?”

  “My beetles,” Ballantine asked. “My carrion beetles. Or, as I like to call them since it has a much better ring to it, my night scarabs.”

  “Night scarabs?” Kinsey asked.

  “They turned out to be nocturnal,” Ballantine said. “One of the many surprises the little buggers had in store for me.”

  “What is one of the other surprises?” Kinsey asked.

  “Have you ever seen a scarab in person, Ms. Thorne?” Ballantine asked.

  “What? Like an Egyptian scarab? One of those big beetles?” Kinsey asked. “Sure. I’ve seen them at the zoo before.”

  “Ah, yes, at the zoo,” Ballantine said. “No, these are not like those. These are bigger.”

  “How much bigger?” Thorne asked.

  “A lot bigger,” Ballantine said. “They weren’t supposed to get bigger, but they did. Oh, and they fly. Fast. In large swarms. Thousands and thousands of them.”

  “Jesus,” Darren said. “Why do you have to make everything so fucking big?”

  Ballantine shrugged.

  “But they’re nocturnal?” Thorne asked. “We can hit the island safely as long as we leave before night falls?”

  “In theory,” Ballantine said. “But I don’t think I need to tell any of you how my theories work out sometimes.”

  No one replied. The looks on all their faces was answer enough.

  ***

  The waiting was driving Nivia crazy.

  Her husband, her brother, her friends, were all dead. Eaten by swarms of beetles. Beetles. Flying beetles that came out at night from an island that no one knew about.

  Nivia was ready to leave.