Crimson Waters Read Free Page B

commotion. Which apparently was exactly what sharks liked, because the other fins in sight were making a beeline toward their flailing comrade.
    Most of them. J.B.’s Uzi loosed off another burst as one came close from the far side. A beat later, Ryan’s longblaster boomed.
    Then, before Krysty even realized the island was nearby, Ryan was standing in water to his shins, shouting at them to power on as he swung up the Steyr to put another shot into a charging shark. J.B. stopped to stand beside him and lay down covering fire with his machine pistol. The pistol slugs might or might not actually hurt the sharks underwater, but the tubby gray monsters sure didn’t like the impacts in the water nearby.
    Then they were on a white beach. Krysty toppled and fell forward.
    * * *
    “H OW ARE YOU DOING ?” Ryan asked, squatting beside Krysty where she sat in the shade of a palm tree near some brush.
    She smiled wanly and gripped his offered hand with hers. Mildred knelt on her left, clucking in dismay as she did her best to tend the cuts Jak’s boobied jacket had left in her arm.
    “Better now,” the redhead said. “Thanks to you, lover.”
    “We’re not home free yet,” Ryan said, standing. “Just on a different island.”
    “Jak and Doc think they might find fresh water,” J.B. said. “Plus the road keeps going to the next island, whatever that’s worth.”
    Ryan rose and peered into the distance. About half a mile to the north stood yet another island. This one was large, at least a couple hundred yards by about a quarter mile. The next one looked larger still.
    “Still got to get there,” he said. “And those ’cudas are still around. Sharks, too. Even if that last bunch got bellies full of each other, there are still lots of sharks in a whole bastard ocean.”
    “Well, see now, Ryan,” J.B. said. “I aim to do something about that.”
    He had one of their precious few blocks of C-4 moldable plas-ex and was breaking it into quarter-kilo chunks and stuffing those into detonators. The explosive had been scavvied from a recent find.
    “Shock waves propagate better in water than in air, John Barrymore,” Doc said, walking back along the beach. “Would not those bombs you are so cleverly improvising pose as great a threat to us as to the sharks?”
    “Find any drinking water?” Ryan asked.
    Doc sat down in the shade of some kind of bush and mopped his forehead with a handkerchief. “No. Jak was circling the other way. Perhaps he’ll have more luck. He has a better nose for such things than I.”
    “There,” Mildred said, cutting off the end of a roll of gauze she’d wound around Krysty’s upper arm and standing up. “That ought to keep you from bleeding to death.”
    “Thank you, Mildred,” Krysty said.
    Mildred grunted. “Glad to help. Makes me feel useful.”
    She looked at Doc. “I’m no expert on underwater blasts. But I believe shock waves in water pose danger mostly to internal organs. And mainly through bodily orifices.”
    “So if we keep our bungholes out of the water,” Ryan said, “we should be green.”
    “Not exactly a medically precise description,” Mildred said, “but close enough for the Deathlands. Of course, good thing we don’t have lawyers anymore, so you can’t sue me for malpractice if I’m wrong.”
    Doc smiled sadly. “No lawyers indeed,” he said. “Ah, it just goes to show. Even a war taking billions of innocent lives has a bright side, if one looks closely enough!”

Chapter Three
    “Yonder she lies,” the old one-legged black boatman said grandly. “Nueva Tortuga. Or NuTuga, as the folk who live there like to call her.”
    “If I am not mistaken,” Doc said, “this is the island of Nevis we see before us.”
    “So ’tis,” the boatman said.
    “Call me Oldie of the Sea,” he’d told them. “Or call me Ishmael. Just don’t call me late for supper.” Then he’d laughed and laughed, so hard it was infectious despite the fact the joke was older