Warriors

NINETEEN

The giant leeches fed twice more during the night. Each time Ada heard the sucking and crunching sounds, she considered fleeing. But there was nowhere to run, so she hid in the enclosed shelter of her capsized boat.

Not only couldn’t she run; she couldn’t flee, either. Her boat was ruined, the precious fuel was wasted, and she was stuck on this hellish island with limited water and food.

Depression washed over her like the wave that had stranded her here.

Her flashlight illuminated the dented bulkheads and toppled crates. Her broken toe was infected and throbbing. It had swollen to almost twice its normal size, making it excruciating to wear her boots, and almost impossible to fall asleep.

Sleep. That was all she wanted: to close her eyes and have a break from the living hell. She considered taking more painkillers. Not the weak ones. She was going to need the hard stuff to knock her out. But that would also leave her vulnerable to the monsters.

Ada reached down and unlaced her boot, then wiggled her foot free of its confines.

A flood of relief rushed through her toes, foot, and leg. It felt like taking a breath after being underwater too long. After enjoying a few moments of less pain, she took fresh gauze and antibiotic ointment from the medical kit. The toe was even more swollen when she unwrapped it. Thick pus wept out of the open wound where she had used tweezers to pull off the destroyed nail.

After cleaning and disinfecting it the best she could, she wrapped it with gauze, then fished inside the kit for the painkillers. There were two bottles of the anti-inflammatory she had been taking, and one sealed bottle of the hard stuff.

After a moment of looking at both, she opted for the same stuff as before, chasing down two pills with what was left in her water bottle. They settled in her sour stomach. Closing her eyes, she rested her back on the bulkhead.

Exhausted, injured, and nauseated, she finally dozed off sometime in the wee hours. She dreamed of the nightmarish leeches, only to jerk awake to that same horrid crunching.

They were closer now, feeding on something not far from her boat. Taking off her helmet, she put her ear against the metal, flinching at a noise that chilled her bone marrow.

The long, agonized wail reminded her of something she would never forget from twenty years ago: the relentless wailing of a baby dying of radiation poisoning in the Hive medical ward.

She remembered it like yesterday because that baby had been her little brother.

Whatever was making this noise was not human, but she was too frightened to open the hatch and look outside. Sitting idly inside was almost just as bad.

She pictured the leeches feasting on a mutant otter or some other mammal that had adapted to live here and was caught in the surf hunting for fish.

In her mind’s eye, the bloodsucking worms swarmed the creature, chewing through flesh and bone until there was nothing left, as they had done to the frog.

The noise came again, and Ada backed away from the bulkhead. She hugged herself, trembling.

Make it stop. Please make it stop.

She wanted to scream.

The leeches were far worse than whatever she had encountered on the research ships, and again she considered ending her life before they found her.

She was so very tired. Of the sounds of thunder and ocean. Of being afraid. Of waking to darkness.

At least on the airships there were lights. Out here there was just the black.

The wailing started again. She cupped her hands over her ears, but no matter how hard she pushed, she couldn’t block out the sounds.

She dug back into her medical supplies and pulled out the jar of the hard painkillers that she had been saving. A caution symbol marked the bottle that ITC had designed to survive for centuries. A laundry list of possible side effects ran vertically down the label. One read, Death may occur if…

The cries of the creature outside rose into long, plaintive wails. More than anything, it sounded like a child in distress.

But that wasn’t possible. No child could survive out here. Maybe no adult could.

This had to be her mind playing tricks on her.

Soon she would find out. She couldn’t stay in the damned cabin forever.

No, you have another option, Ada.

A painless option that let her choose her own fate.

In a fleeting moment of fearlessness, she twisted off the cap. She brought the bottle to her lips and tried to shake pills into her mouth, but none came.

Tilting the bottle, she looked inside to see something wedged inside.

Using her pinkie, she fished out the blockage. It wasn’t the usual cotton ball she had seen in other pill jars. This was paper.

Probably more instructions and warnings.

She dropped it, and it landed on her thigh. Then she tipped back the bottle and shook three tablets into her mouth. She kept them on the tip of her tongue for a moment, considering what she was about to do.

You tried, Ada. You gave it your best, but this isn’t worth it.

And damned if she would let herself become food to a beast. Especially the horrid leeches.

She had no reason to live and no way off the island. No friends waiting for her back home. No family left. And maybe, just maybe there was something better after this bleak existence. A real paradise, without any cannibalistic barbarians.

Whatever happened next, she prayed it would let her see her mom and dad again. She missed them now more than ever. Maybe she would even meet the brother she never got to hold.

Either way, the infinite darkness of death was better than living in the darkness of the nightmarish wastes.

She picked up her water bottle and downed the pills, then swallowed two more for good measure. Once she finished, she put the bottle down on a crate and rested her head against the bulkhead.

The crying continued outside, though not loudly enough to drown out the sounds of the leeches consuming its body. How it was still alive mystified her.

But soon, the horrifying noise would be gone. Soon, Ada would be at peace. No more monsters. No more pain. No more being sick. Only the infinite quiet of death.

She let her body relax, accepting her fate.

You tried. You gave it your best.

The cries came again, whimpering now, like a baby. Ada opened her eyes and picked up the bottle again to take more, to make sure she had enough in her to finish the job.

Then she saw the paper on her thigh. It wasn’t instructions.

She blinked and picked it up, holding it in the glow of the flashlight.

Ada stared at the note. X had put that in the bottle knowing she might use the pills for exactly this. He had known.

He did care. He did want her to survive.

Otherwise, he wouldn’t have sent you out here.

She had thought he’d doomed her, but he had given her a chance, and now he was offering her a second chance.

Several minutes had passed since she’d swallowed the five pain pills. She found herself wondering why.

Why give up?

She had a broken toe and a bellyache, and there were monsters outside. Big whoop.

“Coward,” she muttered.

She had seen plenty of boats on the beach that could be seaworthy. All she needed was one with a sail. The excuses and fear had made her a coward, but no more.

Without another thought, she jammed her finger down her throat. She leaned over the crates and vomited into the bilge. Then she did it again. She gagged herself until there was nothing left in her stomach but pale-yellow foam.

When she was finished, she wiped her mouth. Her throat burned from the acid. For the next few minutes, she pulled out the supplies she needed to get her head back into survivor mode, starting with antibiotics to fend off the infection in her toe, and then the antinausea pills.

Next, she ate one of the energy bars she had salvaged, filling her stomach. She stuffed the rest of the bars in her vest pocket. Finally, she drank several swigs of water.

By the time she was done, she felt like a new person. Not quite confident enough to take her machete outside and fight the leeches, but confident enough not to piss herself worrying about them.

She grabbed the machete. If they came for her, she would make it expensive for them.

It was this thought that made her realize that the crunching had stopped, and the wailing had subsided to a whimper.

She put her ear against the bulkhead again. There was a new sound—something moving outside in the sand.

Ada eyed the hatch. She would have to get back down into the bilge water to reach it. She hadn’t planned on doing that until the leeches were gone, but the only way she could know was by checking.

Using the utmost caution, she lowered herself into the calf-deep water with the machete and the flashlight. The waterproof boots sloshed through to the hatch. Once there, she switched off her flashlight and calmed her breathing.

Just one look. Only one.

She slowly pushed on the broken hatch, using her shoulder to open it. Lightning streaked through the sky right when she did, illuminating the concrete walkway connected to the pier in the distance.

She waited for another strike, giving her eyes a chance to adjust to the darkness.

All she could see were amorphous shapes.

She focused on the beach, where the whimpering seemed to be coming from. But the sound was on the other side of the capsized boat. To see what it was, she must leave the shelter.

Another jag of lightning lit up the beach.

She didn’t see any leeches out there, or any sign of what they had eaten during the night.

Curiosity brought her out of the cabin.

The irony hit her then. Only minutes ago, she had tried to kill herself. Perhaps she was trying to again. But she had to see whether the leeches were gone.

Only then could she move on to plan B: find a boat with a sail and get the hell off this godforsaken island.

She ducked under the hull of her boat. Bringing up her flashlight, she turned it on and raked it over the beach.

Nothing.

Machete in hand, she moved out onto the sand. Using her light as a guide, she walked around the other side to search for the source of the wailing.

When she saw it, she froze.

A hairy face with wide eyes stared back at her.

It was some sort of small primate with dark-black hair and an almost humanoid face. But unlike the creatures on the ghost ship, this one didn’t have any robotic parts, and it didn’t try to kill her.

The creature looked away from Ada, uninterested in her. She followed the big brown eyes to the beach and shined the light on bloodstains in the sand.

The leeches, it seemed, had consumed this creature’s friend or perhaps parent. The small monkey-like creature was crouched on a rock, its back slightly hunched. It reminded her of Jo-Jo, a stuffed toy she’d had as a kid.

Unlike most of the mutant creatures she had seen, this one was cute. But looks could be deceiving. It could have a mouthful of sharp teeth, and retractable claws hidden on those hairy fingers.

Everything that had adapted to live out here had weapons.

The creature sulked, whimpering again, black lips quivering.

Ada couldn’t help but feel bad for the baby monkey.

She pulled an energy bar from her vest. Then she pulled back the wrapper and broke off a chunk. She tossed it to the creature, but it just looked at it in the sand and went back to crying.

Ada took a step closer. The creature jumped away. She took a step back and looked at the beast.

It wasn’t really a beast at all. Standing about two feet tall, it was the size of a rather skinny toddler with black fur covering its humanlike body. Definitely some sort of monkey.

But how had it survived?

According to her wrist computer, the radiation was minimal here, but if humans couldn’t survive, how could these creatures? One thing she was still learning out here was that life continued to find a way.

“It’s okay,” she said. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

The monkey crouched back down. It whined, opening its mouth. It didn’t appear to have any sharp teeth or claws, but she was still waiting for it to reveal something horrifying.

Perhaps it would split down the middle, and a much nastier beast would jump out. Or it might spit acid on her, or perhaps…

Relax, Ada. It’s just a baby monkey.

The creature jumped again, making a new noise much like what she remembered monkeys making in the documentaries she’d watched as a child.

It jumped back and forth, suddenly agitated. When she moved her light, it raised a hand to shield its eyes from the glare. Then it turned and hobbled away.

“No,” she whispered. “No, come back.”

The animal darted into the vegetation crawling down the beach. Ada tried to find it with her light, but it was gone.

Lowering her beam, she heard a noise over the crashing waves on the beach. She whirled with her machete, knowing that she wasn’t what had spooked the baby monkey.

The leeches had returned, surging up the beach with the tide. They squirmed toward her, their gleaming spiked backs closing in like a school of demonic fish. A dozen of the slimy creatures snailed toward her.

One raised its head as it approached, opening sucker lips rimmed with teeth. Her brain screamed at her to run, but instead of flight, the fight instinct kicked in.

She strode forward, swinging the machete. The blade cut through gristly flesh, and purple blood ran out.

She yanked it free and hacked at the next creature, slithering a few feet away. The edge cut open a gash through the back. A third leech rose up like a cobra and darted toward her, only to stop when she jabbed the machete into its open mouth.

The point broke out the back of the head, and the thing went limp, pulling the stuck blade down with the weight of its body. Before she could get it out, a fourth leech slithered toward her, striking at her boot, and she had to let go of the weapon.

She jumped away and then fell on her back, with the flashlight still in her hand.

A tide of the leeches surged forward in the glow, sucker lips popping. She jumped up and bolted for her boat, looking frantically for something to fight with. The broken oar was the first thing she saw.

She grabbed it and impaled the nearest creature with the jagged edge where the paddle had broken off. The other sucker-faced abominations surged up the beach, making clicking noises. She struck them one by one, pounding them over and over until they were masses of spikes and pulp.

Killing each of the monsters felt oddly satisfying. She slashed, jabbed, and hacked until she was panting. Sweat dripped down her forehead.

After another few whacks, the last creature stopped writhing.

Lightning forked overhead, spreading a glow over her handiwork. A dozen monsters lay in pools of purple blood in the sand. She stood there, chest heaving, drenched in sweat, flush with a feeling she hadn’t known in a long time.

Pride.

While she caught her breath, the adrenaline that had masked her pain faded. It wasn’t just her toe that hurt. The same foot pulsated with pain from where a leech had sunk its teeth through the reinforced boot. She could feel it filling with blood.

Cursing, Ada hobbled over to retrieve her machete, when she heard a familiar noise behind her. She searched for the source with her light and found a hairy head poking above a cluster of purple roots that grew at the edge of the sand.

The little monkey hopped out of the vegetation and moved cautiously toward her.

She lowered the machete and the flashlight.

“It’s okay,” she said soothingly. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

The monkey hopped over until it was just a few feet away.

She thought back to one of the reasons she had popped all those pain pills. Now perhaps she had a companion. A creature to accompany her, as X had with Miles on his journey through the wastes.

But would it come with her, and could she care for it?

One thing was certain. She wasn’t going to Florida. She was going back to the Vanguard Islands, to fight for her freedom in the Sky Arena—assuming she hadn’t been right about the Cazadores.

She feared there wouldn’t be anything to return to if, by some miracle, she made it back.

First, though, she had to get her foot fixed up and then salvage a sail from another boat. She sure as hell wasn’t rowing all the way back to the islands.

Ada went back to her boat, and the monkey followed warily.

Halfway there, she saw something sticking out of the sand. Bending down, she brushed sand away from her rifle.

The animal hopped over and looked up at Ada, and for the first time in recent memory, she smiled.

This was shaping up to be a better day than she could have hoped for. She was still alive, and she had a friend.