Final Scream (27 page)

Gabriella almost walked past their departure point, but her peripheral vision saved the day. She led her group through a sliver of a passageway leading up to the dormant volcano’s inner cone. Even though the outside air was choked with ash and embers, the calmer twilight atmosphere was brighter than the tunnel’s blackness. She motioned up at a tapered trail winding its way to the rim and told them to move as quickly and safely as they could. She planned to meet them on the slope past the rim, and she hoped she could keep that promise.

She avoided telling them about a possible Shabacco ambush at the top. If that happened, there was nothing she could do to prevent it anyway, so why needlessly worry the others? She ducked back into the passage and retraced her steps to E.V.A.N. Her appearance erased the confused expression on its comical face, and the Slayer grunted and bobbed its bony skull in greeting.

The quake intensified so much that she found it impossible to maintain her balance. Sensing the tunnel would tumble down on their heads any minute, Gabriella calmed the beast by patting its side and crossed her fingers that she had enough magic to teleport her and the Slayer out of danger. She waved her hand, and the pair materialized on the rim’s outer slope. The excited E.V.A.N. snorted loudly at the instantaneous change of scenery and nervously paced the steep incline.

Crow was the first to scale the volcano’s cone to the rim, and he wasn’t a bit surprised Gabriella used magic to move her and her huge friend to the upper slope. But the others were astonished she arrived before them. Their questions flowed like wine at a vineyard.

“In case you missed my magic act earlier inside the cavern, I am a bonafide witch, and I would appreciate it if you kept my secret under your hat once we leave Riai Island.” She hesitated. “Speaking of leaving here, I have a bad feeling the Shabaccoes might try to ambush us, so keep your eyes open.”

“So what do we do now besides wait for an ambush?” Noah Wright’s question was laced with sarcasm.

“I guess we should continue down the volcano to the beach and hope we can hop aboard somebody’s boat for a ride back to Hawaii.”

“Can I make a suggestion?” Crow asked.

“Shoot.”

“Would you conjure me a computer so I can reestablish contact with
Geronimo
? Maybe he can guide us in the right direction from his satellite bird’s eye view,” he suggested.

“Not a bad idea. It’s worth a try.”

A computer tablet materialized in his open hands, and he immediately contacted his creation.

Gabriella wiped stinging ash from her eyelids, creating smudges. “Anybody else have an idea to share?”

Sue Wright waved at Gabriella.

Gabriella rolled her eyes. “This isn’t school. You don’t have to raise your hand.”

Her hand snapped back to her side. “Sorry. I just saw the dead soldiers below us, so there might be more on the way. We should watch out for them, too. I’m sure the Pentagon wants E.V.A.N. back.”

The monster stomped its feet and bared its teeth below the rainbow colored snout at the sound of its name.

Noah spoke up again. “Take a look at that burned up giant over there. Ever see one before?”

No one replied.

“I didn’t think so. It’s as alien as E.V.A.N. and the Lothrans. My point is, and Reese here can back me up, there are worse creatures out here than you can even imagine.” He turned to seek Reese’s support for his claim, but she wasn’t in sight. He furrowed his brows, wondering where she could have wandered off to, and finally shrugged it off. She was probably squatting in the ash fog and would be right back. “Believe me, we’ve seen enough horrible monsters to haunt our nightmares for a lifetime.” He wiped his face. “And they all have one thing in common.”

“They want to hunt and eat humans,”
Geronimo
stated bluntly over the Bose stereo speakers in Crow’s computer tablet.

Noah nodded his accord. “That’s about the size of it.”

Neo and Nick squeezed into a discreet dead-end side tunnel, and they waited for their comrades and E.V.A.N. to trek out of sight before reentering the tunnel and heading back toward the collapsed cavern. A flashlight appeared in Neo’s hand so he could keep up with Nick’s alter ego, who easily saw through the gloom.

“Where are we going, man?” Neo asked as he sidestepped the ceiling rocks raining down on them.

A minute later, Nick halted at the edge of a seemingly bottomless pit and held Neo back with his powerful arm. “We’re going in the back way,” he said, as if Neo understood what that meant.

“The back way to where?”

Nick ignored the request, seized Neo’s wrist, and together they vanished from the tunnel din. When they reappeared, the pair stood in the center of the 1950s-like alien city, complete with dazzling chrome buildings and sidewalks.

“Where the hell is everybody?” Neo asked as he stuffed the flashlight into his back pocket. An assault rifle materialized, strapped to his shoulder.

“We’re the alien invaders here, so I imagine the women and children are safely tucked away someplace beneath the city,” Nick responded as he scanned the empty buildings, windows, and sidewalks. “But we’re being watched. I can sense it.”

“Cameras?”

“Yeah. But the Shabaccoes have a few dirty tricks up their sleeves as far as we’re concerned, and each one means death to someone in our party. That’s why we came down here, Neo. We’ve got to stop them from killing Gabriella and the others who are outside and climbing down the volcano as we speak.”

Neo was confused. “Hey, if we can’t find the bastards, how are we supposed to stop them?”

“You ready to fire that gun?” was Nick’s odd reply.

“Uh, yeah, I suppose. Why?”

“Because we’re going where no man has gone before.”

“A
Star Trek
quote.” Neo slapped his forehead. “What next, a quote from John Glenn?” he added sardonically.

Nick smiled, grabbed his friend’s wrist again, and teleported them to a vacant, circular lava chamber that was converted into a safe haven hundreds of feet below the city like a bomb shelter. What appeared to be self-powered electric torches dimly lit the vast space, at least two hundred feet in diameter. In the center, a modest structure approximating a miniature airport control tower or Seattle’s Space Needle stood alone. The entire adjacent area was devoid of buildings or other objects. Neo tapped Nick’s broad shoulder.

“See all the windows around the place?”

“Yeah. So what? They don’t bug me as much as your late father’s castle arrow loops.
Those
make for nasty ambushes.”

“Yeah, but I wonder if there are Shabacco warriors watching our every move behind them, waiting to break the glass and fire their odd weapons at us.”

Neo just nodded grimly.

Nick cast an eye over the dark glass windows. So far, no Shabaccoes. “Let’s get this show on the road.” His chrome eyes targeted one section of the windowed wall and blasted it inward to coal black pebbles and dust. The shattered glass peppered the aliens standing behind the windows into sieves. Neo tightened the grip on his rifle as he waited for the backlash. It didn’t take long.

The strange sphere crowning the central building lit up like a Christmas tree and spun like a stationary top. A mysterious yellow force field radiated out from the whirling object, expanding from a small halo bordering the building out toward the chamber walls. Neo tossed a stone into the light, curious to find out if the yellow glow was dangerous. There was a loud snap and crackle as the brilliance consumed the stone. Curiosity sated.

“Jesus, Nick, did you see that?!”

“Damn right I did. Now watch this.”

He lowered his silvery eyelids as the menacing yellow light approached their position.

“Whatever you’re going to do, man, do it quick!” Neo pleaded, his eyes as large as dinner plates.

Nick mentally pictured the subterranean chamber minus the peculiar gyrating sphere in the center. By the time he raised his eyelids, the building and its destructive light had vanished.

Neo was both amazed and frightened. “How’d you do that?”

“Magic. The aliens didn’t leave me any choice.”

“Yeah, I hear you. They don’t fight fair, and neither do we. Now what?”

“We pay the Shabacco leaders a little visit.”

Suddenly, there was an explosion of sound similar to the twang from a wood-bodied Dobro guitar. Neo and Nick ducked and narrowly avoided an invisible sound wave that struck the wall behind them. It exploded and showered them with small stinging particles.

Another twang, then another. And another.

“We’re sitting ducks out here, Nick!”

Nick pushed his friend to the floor while he jumped aside and closed in on the shooters. There were multiple alien targets, and Nick rapidly released his own destructive forces. The chamber floor shook as the newly blasted walls crumbled to black dust and debris.

The nose of an oddly shaped weapon passed through the breeched window behind Nick and was about to shoot him from point blank range.

“Look out!” Neo shouted, but the warning came too late.

A deafening blast like a dozen discharged shotguns reverberated throughout the chamber, nearly rupturing their eardrums. Neo released his rifle and clapped his hands over his ears, but the damage was done. He swore when he saw the smeared blood on his fingertips, while the ringing in his ears refused to fade away. He looked around to see how Nick fared.

His jaw dropped.

His friend was tightly trussed in metallic netting, like a pig ready to hit the barbeque pit. Nothing high tech about
that
weapon, Neo mused, but it was certainly effective. For the moment.

Breaking out of a steel-like net was usually no problem for his buddy, so Neo was confident Nick could pull a Houdini and escape such crude meshwork. But his faith waned as Nick struggled to break himself free. He finally quit thrashing, rolled onto his back, and lay still.

Neo was about to grab his rifle and help Nick when a gun barrel poked his shoulder blades.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” a female voice commanded.

Neo slowly twisted around toward the callous voice. A scowling young woman and a military officer stood over him with a half-dozen Shabaccoes and ten soldiers watching her. All were armed to the teeth.

“Stay down where you are,” she ordered.

“Who the hell are you, lady?” Neo bristled.

One of the front-row soldiers advanced and cuffed Neo on the side of the head with his rifle butt. “You be more respectful when you address this lady!” the soldier growled before stepping back in line.

“That’s a fair enough question,” the thin woman said lightly, brushing stray strands of her auburn hair off her forehead. “I’m…”

“
The Superior
,” Nick finished for her.

The woman smiled. “Very clever, Nick. How did you know?”

“As soon as I learned Noah was a Terror Island survivor, I realized somebody must be watching over him. Somebody who wanted him to live. So that
someone
had to be you. You were the only other game show survivor.”

She lightly applauded his deduction. “Very clever. Too bad you can’t be as clever with the net. You see, I placed a spell on it, preventing you from escaping.”

Nick didn’t say a word.

“So who are you, lady?” Neo asked in a more reverent tone this time.

She chuckled. “Reese. Reese Morgan. And this is General Jamison, a member of the president’s Joint Chiefs of Staff.”

The Army general was well-groomed, with smugness etched into his wrinkled middle-aged face. There were streaks of gray in his close-cropped black hair below the sides of his cap. He bowed conceitedly, and his lean shoulders strained his Army uniform.

She glanced away from Neo and the general and gave her entangled prisoner the once-over. “Too bad you won’t live long enough to tell your cousin how I made a first-class fool out of him. Oh, and speaking of Noah, I’ve got to hurry back outside before the dear boy misses me. It’s imperative I be with them when I spring the trap that kills them all, including your precious fiancée. Goodbye, Nick.” She shot the officer an icy glare. “Kill them both
after
you receive delivery of the Shabaccoes’ weapons they promised us.”

“What’ll we do with the women and children hidden in the next chamber?’

Reese made a cutting motion across her throat with her forefinger as she smiled amicably at her Shabacco companions, who weren’t familiar enough with human signs to translate the diabolical gesture. They merely nodded respectfully.

The officer cracked a slight smile, too. “Consider it done, Miss Morgan.”

“I already do,” the young woman snapped coolly before vanishing.

Reese trudged out of the ash like a dark specter, her exposed skin streaked with black sweat. She grinned seductively and hooked Noah’s arm. “Sorry, nature called.”

“That’s what I figured.” He kissed her and pulled away, wondering why her lips were so cold in the hot, muggy atmosphere.

Gabriella knew Morgan was lying. Nature hadn’t called in the tunnel.
How did she manage to get past them and disappear?
Gabriella was pretty sure she knew how Morgan pulled it off, but she kept her theory to herself for the time being. “So which way do we go now, besides down?”

Reese stepped to the front of the group and appeared ready to lead them, so Gabriella decided to give the young woman enough rope to hang herself. She shot Crow the
Shhh
sign across her lips to keep him from volunteering
Geronimo
for the job.

After a brief pow wow with Noah, Reese spoke up. “Over that way.”

“She means west,” Noah added.

If Reese was upset by Noah’s correction, she didn’t show it. “Right. I remember seeing a sandy stretch of beach down there when the Lothran flew me here. Most of the other beaches are rocky.”

“Then west it is,” Gabriella agreed, and they began their descent.

It wasn’t an easygoing hike. There were no paths to guide them, and the verdant jungle was teeming with flowery bramble vines, prickly understory, insects with voracious appetites for human flesh, and invisible creatures tramping loudly beside them in the tall vegetation. Skin slaps and repeated curses blended with the disharmony of insect buzzes, bird songs, rustling scrub, and strange animal cries.

They slapped and swore their way down the volcano for two hundred feet before Crow dropped heavily on a protruding boulder. “I can’t go on any farther like this. The damned jungle bugs are eating me alive! There must be a better way,” he complained.

“We can’t teleport to the beach, because the dark magic surrounding the island might divert us to Timbuktu,” Gabriella explained.

Noah stepped out from behind his mother. “Isn’t there some other magic spell you could cast to make our trip a lot easier? In case you haven’t noticed, Crow isn’t the only one in bad shape.”

Gabriella nodded and mulled over his request as clouds of the swollen blue mosquitoes descended on their helpless prey again to suck their blood. The group flailed and grunted, trying to keep the bugs at bay, but their stamina was dangerously low. Finally, Gabriella stepped away from the others, chanted a spell, and directed her spell into the lower jungle. A bronze wedge of light streamed from her left hand and bulldozed a broad pathway through the hostile landscape to the beach. A second spell sent the annoying bloodsuckers far out into the Pacific.

Her companions weakly applauded her magical solution before resuming their hike with renewed vigor. No one requested a short breather again. Reese confidently guided the group down the path and left the worrying to Gabriella. She was constantly on the lookout for a Shabacco ambush, even though she hadn’t seen any suspicious activity during their descent.
If the aliens planned to bump them off, what were they waiting for?
Then the answer popped into her mind.

They would spring their trap on the humans when they reached the beach.

Almost two dreary hours later, Reese raised her hand and signaled for everyone to stop. She smiled wearily. The thunderous crashing of large breakers on sand greeted their ears.

“Let’s get moving,” Reese said. “The beach isn’t far now."

“Wait!” Noah gathered everyone into a tight circle. “It might be smart for one of us to scout the beach before we all unknowingly stroll into a monster feeding frenzy. A bunch of nasty sea creatures like mermaids and mermen went after Reese and me non-stop while we hiked along Terror Island’s beaches. I don’t want to fight off any more of those bastards if I can help it.”

“He’s right,” Reese added. “I volunteer Noah for the job because he knows more about them than any one of us, including me.”

“I accept,” he said quickly.

Gabriella grabbed his shoulder. “Promise me you’ll be careful. Nick would have a fit if he knew I let you go like this,” she said. “If you run into any of your sea monsters, just yell your lungs out, and we’ll race down there to help you.”

Noah hugged her. “Thanks for caring, and I promise not to be a hero or anything like that.”

With that pronouncement, he climbed down through the boulders and rocks until his bare feet hit cool, gritty sand. He peered both directions and knew this mission wouldn’t be a piece of cake. Visibility was bad down there, too, with the ash and embers mixing with low hanging fog. He couldn’t see farther than twenty feet.

The sand vibrated beneath his feet as he set off to the north. The hissing waves reminded him of escaping steam as whitecap after whitecap thumped onto the shore, masking all other noises. Limited vision and hearing. He regretted accepting the job. This could easily turn out to be an unplanned suicide mission.

Noah walked on the wet sand at the farthest reaches of the frothy surf. If mermen were waiting in the shallows to pounce on the group, they would be sorely disappointed. He was the only one on the beach. Not much of a meal.

After several minutes, a large, hazy object made him leap to the side and catch his startled breath. He had almost walked into it! He slowly regained his composure and moved closer to the object.
What was the bulky, squarish gizmo?
It definitely wasn’t a space ship, and he was real glad about that.

He guessed the odd looking entity was nearly fifty feet in length and twenty feet wide. A bottom-hinged armored door shielded the front of the object when closed, but it was open now and formed a ramp. Noah walked into the surf and noticed a large propeller at the rear. This wasn’t an object. It was a water craft. A military troop lander.

“I should’ve known that right away,” he chastised himself aloud. Now he knew how all those dead soldiers reached the island. He cautiously moved on, searching for other signs of military presence, as well as the sea monsters. He estimated he hiked a mile and decided that was far enough to declare the coast was clear.

Noah was about to retreat back to the group when he saw another object out of the corner of his eye. His nose crinkled at a terrible malodor.
Dammit!
It was just his rotten luck to run into a mystery on the beach. Just when the coast appeared clear, there was
this
.

Against his better judgment, he continued northward to check out the dark, smelly specter. He held his hand over his nose to filter some of the stench as he approached it. Another troop lander! He moved closer and examined the indefinable dark lumps littering the ramp from a distance.

Black insect swarms obscured the lumps like miniature vultures, causing Noah to quickly glance the other direction. Those lumps were the eaten remnants of the soldiers riding inside the transport. It wasn’t difficult to see what happened. The military craft landed in a mermen hunting zone, and when the door was lowered and the soldiers started to disembark, they were slaughtered.

Noah had seen enough. It was time to report his findings.

He spit out death’s bitter taste and walked-jogged back to the group. Because of the poor visibility, he nearly ran into Gabriella a hundred feet from the transport grave site. He dodged her but twisted his knee in the process. He went down, and before he knew it, Crow, Reese, and Sue Wright knelt beside him and offered help.

“Thanks, but I’ll be okay. Just give me a minute. I think the shock stopped my heart,” Noah said, making a feeble attempt at humor. “What are you guys doing down here anyway? I thought you were going to wait for my return.”

“We heard you scream and hustled down here to rescue you,” Crow explained.

“But I didn’t scream,” Noah argued. “I’ve been as quiet as a mouse so I wouldn’t attract the mermen’s attention.”

“But we heard your scream as plain as day, dear,” his mother stressed.

Noah stood shakily and backed away. “I don’t know what you heard, but it wasn’t me.”

Gabriella was beginning to sense a trap, but she hoped she was wrong.

“Then who screamed?” Sue asked.

“Look, Mom, I was on the beach the whole time and didn’t hear anybody yell. Maybe it was the ocean playing tricks on your ears,” he suggested.

Crow looked scared. “We’ve established there wasn’t a scream, so I think we’d better get off this beach
now
! Something’s not right.”

“I agree,” Gabriella said. “Someone might have used magic to lure us down here.”

Sue immediately looked scared. “But why?”

Before anyone could answer, they heard a mind-bending roar, followed quickly by a momentous thump on the sand behind Noah. The menacing noises startled everyone, and they huddled together—except Gabriella. She expected the trap and was prepared to magically make the monstrous sea monster vanish.

Noah spun around and gazed at the familiar, scaly triangular head of a sea serpent! Gabriella calmly cast a protective spell around the group moments before another sea serpent rumbled ashore and knocked Sue flat onto the sand.

“Hey, didn’t you just cast a protective spell around us?” Crow exclaimed.

Gabriella was puzzled. “Yeah, I did. Or thought I did.”

The first serpent parted its enormous lips and prepared to strike Noah with its exposed fangs. “Well, I’ve got news for you—your spell isn’t working!” he shouted, scrambling between Gabriella and Reese.

Gabriella cast her spell again, with the same results. “Why isn’t my magic working?” she fumed. “Maybe the Shabaccoes blocked my spells down here.”

Reese Morgan chuckled. “I highly doubt that those idiots can block magic.”

Gabriella scrutinized the young woman’s haughtiness. “If it’s not them, then who?
You
?”

After a long superficial pause, Reese’s expression brightened. “Yep. Me.”

“You? Oh my God!” Noah cried.

“I’m afraid so. Sorry I had to deceive you like that, Noah. You’re a sweet guy, but you’ve got to die, too. I can’t play favorites here.”

Noah lunged at her, but an invisible force field around her violently repelled him.

“Play nice with the sea serpents.” Reese waved as she vanished. “Bye-bye.”