coming!”
Quickly Krysty looked around. Sure enough, the shallow Caribbean waters, so deceptively peaceful on the surface, swarmed with sinister shiny shapes just below. Some circled just out of range. Others...
Mildred jumped one-legged straight out of the water. “Fuck!” she screamed. Through the roiling water Krysty saw a lean shape lance past, just where the woman had been standing.
With a rattling roar J.B. cut loose a burst from his machine pistol. Water spouted in an arc twenty feet from where Mildred was splashing back down. She came down on both feet but teetered. Krysty grabbed her wrist and kept her from toppling.
The fall itself was no danger, obviously, but to be floundering around, depending on her own modest human swimming abilities, while contending with a shoal of killer fish could be deadly.
A corpse bobbed to the surface. Its belly was white and showed the tips of black tiger stripes. Jaws filled with razor-edged teeth gaped. A round eye stared blankly. An inky cloud surrounded it.
“Good shooting.” Ryan hefted his Scout but didn’t find any targets worth a precious 7.62 mm round.
“Strike, more like,” J.B. called. “I was mainly looking to scare the nuke-suckers off. Or at least back. Bullets don’t travel for shit in water, anyway.”
“These barracuda seem unnaturally large,” Doc said. He had his sword drawn and pointed toward the water. “I do not recall them growing significantly longer than six feet, yet yon specimen is a good nine or ten feet long, and some of his kindred seem longer still.”
“Mebbe muties,” Jak said with a snarl of distaste.
“Keep moving, everybody!” Ryan said. “They’ll chew us to bits if we just stand here gaping like a pack of stupes!”
They moved into a slow-motion run, raising hip-high waves. Krysty held her snub-nosed Smith & Wesson Model 640 in her hand, but their wakes made it difficult to spot the finny horrors close by.
Then again, if they were that close it was probably too late to do anything about them, anyway. Seeing a shape arrow at her from about thirty feet off to her right, Krysty snapped a shot at it. The .38-caliber slug kicked up a foot-tall jet of water. Whether the bullet hit the ’cuda, or even came near, she didn’t know. The fish sheered away.
And she felt an impact against her own left calf. She looked down to see another ten-foot fish whip away from her. By reflex she looked down. It had ripped the tough denim of her jeans, but she saw no blood and felt no sting of salt water on a fresh wound.
“Go!” Jak shouted from right behind her.
J.B.’s Uzi snarled again. Ryan’s Steyr went off with a hard crack that seemed to hit the water and skip like a stone; Krysty felt the shock wave on her cheek as she started into forward motion again.
“They don’t like the bullets hitting near them,” Mildred said in satisfaction, letting her big, ZKR-551 handblaster settle back online from a shot.
“Yeah,” J.B. said. He fired a single shot from his mini-Uzi. “But when I said we had plenty of cartridges, I didn’t mean enough to keep blasting them into the ocean all day to frighten fish.”
Jak snarled a curse. His handblaster roared. Lighting off right behind Krysty, its muzzle-blast made her ears ring, and the shock slapped the back of her head like an open palm. A .357 Magnum revolver had the nastiest blast of any handblaster she’d encountered, nearly as bad as Ryan’s 7.62 mm longblaster.
“Fucker bit!” Jak said, evidently meaning it bit him . He uttered a scream of triumph as another barracuda bobbed to the surface. It had the front part of its head and whole upper jaw blown away.
Though it made her stumble slightly as she continued to run through the warm water, Krysty glanced back. She saw the floating corpse bounce as one of its fellows hit it from below.
“They eat their dead,” she called.
Ryan had slung his longblaster now in favor of his 9 mm SIG-Sauer handblaster. Its cartridges were
Quickly Krysty looked around. Sure enough, the shallow Caribbean waters, so deceptively peaceful on the surface, swarmed with sinister shiny shapes just below. Some circled just out of range. Others...
Mildred jumped one-legged straight out of the water. “Fuck!” she screamed. Through the roiling water Krysty saw a lean shape lance past, just where the woman had been standing.
With a rattling roar J.B. cut loose a burst from his machine pistol. Water spouted in an arc twenty feet from where Mildred was splashing back down. She came down on both feet but teetered. Krysty grabbed her wrist and kept her from toppling.
The fall itself was no danger, obviously, but to be floundering around, depending on her own modest human swimming abilities, while contending with a shoal of killer fish could be deadly.
A corpse bobbed to the surface. Its belly was white and showed the tips of black tiger stripes. Jaws filled with razor-edged teeth gaped. A round eye stared blankly. An inky cloud surrounded it.
“Good shooting.” Ryan hefted his Scout but didn’t find any targets worth a precious 7.62 mm round.
“Strike, more like,” J.B. called. “I was mainly looking to scare the nuke-suckers off. Or at least back. Bullets don’t travel for shit in water, anyway.”
“These barracuda seem unnaturally large,” Doc said. He had his sword drawn and pointed toward the water. “I do not recall them growing significantly longer than six feet, yet yon specimen is a good nine or ten feet long, and some of his kindred seem longer still.”
“Mebbe muties,” Jak said with a snarl of distaste.
“Keep moving, everybody!” Ryan said. “They’ll chew us to bits if we just stand here gaping like a pack of stupes!”
They moved into a slow-motion run, raising hip-high waves. Krysty held her snub-nosed Smith & Wesson Model 640 in her hand, but their wakes made it difficult to spot the finny horrors close by.
Then again, if they were that close it was probably too late to do anything about them, anyway. Seeing a shape arrow at her from about thirty feet off to her right, Krysty snapped a shot at it. The .38-caliber slug kicked up a foot-tall jet of water. Whether the bullet hit the ’cuda, or even came near, she didn’t know. The fish sheered away.
And she felt an impact against her own left calf. She looked down to see another ten-foot fish whip away from her. By reflex she looked down. It had ripped the tough denim of her jeans, but she saw no blood and felt no sting of salt water on a fresh wound.
“Go!” Jak shouted from right behind her.
J.B.’s Uzi snarled again. Ryan’s Steyr went off with a hard crack that seemed to hit the water and skip like a stone; Krysty felt the shock wave on her cheek as she started into forward motion again.
“They don’t like the bullets hitting near them,” Mildred said in satisfaction, letting her big, ZKR-551 handblaster settle back online from a shot.
“Yeah,” J.B. said. He fired a single shot from his mini-Uzi. “But when I said we had plenty of cartridges, I didn’t mean enough to keep blasting them into the ocean all day to frighten fish.”
Jak snarled a curse. His handblaster roared. Lighting off right behind Krysty, its muzzle-blast made her ears ring, and the shock slapped the back of her head like an open palm. A .357 Magnum revolver had the nastiest blast of any handblaster she’d encountered, nearly as bad as Ryan’s 7.62 mm longblaster.
“Fucker bit!” Jak said, evidently meaning it bit him . He uttered a scream of triumph as another barracuda bobbed to the surface. It had the front part of its head and whole upper jaw blown away.
Though it made her stumble slightly as she continued to run through the warm water, Krysty glanced back. She saw the floating corpse bounce as one of its fellows hit it from below.
“They eat their dead,” she called.
Ryan had slung his longblaster now in favor of his 9 mm SIG-Sauer handblaster. Its cartridges were
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