And here it is, the next chapter of our double drop Friday - happy reading!
NINE
Sabre toothed tiger. Eidon ran those three words around and around his mind. They were absurd. The stuff of museums and dirt piles and history books. Three words for long dead things that had no place on the decks of the Silver Queen. But still, a chill ran up Eidon's spine. The roar of the shadowed beast echoed in his ears.
"Get your hands off of me," the man from the Hydra growled as medics and doctors tried to force him back down onto the bed.
"Sir," said the ship's chief medical officer, "I need you to lie back for me."
The man from the Hydra tore his arms free of their grip. "There isn't time for that."
"I'm afraid you might be confused, Mr...." The good captain was as composed as ever, the wrinkles in his forehead, the same ones that usually meant Eidon was about to be punished, were suddenly a comfort. The three words spoken by the man from the Hydra hadn't rattled his dad.
"Bruce," the man said. "Melvin Bruce."
"Mr. Bruce. You've suffered a traumatic event, perhaps we should discuss this when you're feeling better."
"There is no feeling better," Melvin Bruce snapped. His voice was like pebbles in a blender. "Not with those things onboard. And if there's one you can bet there's more."
That sent another shot of dread through Eidon's body. More? And then he remembered, up on the Cloud Deck--
"We saw another set of prints," Celia offered quickly. "There's definitely more than one of them."
"Mm hmm," Melvin Bruce nodded, swaying slightly as he turned to look at her. "There were six that attacked the Hydra. Looks like they're still hungry."
Eidon swallowed.
"Mr. Bruce, really," the good captain chided.
"You got any guns on board this ship?"
Melvin Bruce might as well have sucked all the air out of the room. Everyone stared, dumbfounded. What kind of maniac asked something like that? And it was then that Eidon looked at the man who called himself Melvin Bruce. Looked passed all the blood crusted to his hair, through all the grime and sweat and bruises. Deep, dark purple half moons hung heavily below his red-veined eyes. They were sunken, as if he were starving. And they moved about the room quickly, the way a trapped dog's might. He looked, Eidon thought, positively insane.
From the way the captain frowned, Eidon could tell his dad was thinking the same thing. But even though Melvin Bruce looked crazy, what scared Eidon most was that he didn't believe he was.
"No, of course not," the captain finally answered.
Melvin looked away. "That's a problem then."
The good captain shook his head, "Alright, I think I've heard quite enough."
"No wait. Dad"
But the good captain held up his hand, the signal Eidon had been given since birth to shut up. But he didn't want to shut up. Didn't want Melvin Bruce to shut up. They needed to know what was prowling the halls of the ship.
Franklin's hand took hold of Eidon's, the hundredth time Eidon had let him do it that day. "Aren't sabre toothed tigers extinct?"
Melvin Bruce nodded. "That's right little man, they're supposed to be."
"Which is why," reasoned the good captain, "you don't need to worry about them--"
"I said supposed to be, captain," Melvin Bruce said, a razor's edge to his voice. Eidon thought he looked like he was shivering as the man winced, working out a pain in his shoulder. "They ain't extinct anymore. Not after we woke 'em up."
"Woke them up?" asked Eidon.
"There were twelve of us on Dr. Troyer's crew," explained Melvin, his shivering intensifying, rattling his words. "Six paleontologists, one cook, the captain and his three crew men, and one marine biologist who had no business being out here in the first place." Eidon watched as Melvin Bruce closed his eyes, swaying more as if he might fall over. "Them cats," he said. "Five of them. They came out of the fires. It was our probes that set off the underwater volcano. And it was the fires that they crawled out of."
"I said that's enough!" The good captain's booming voice broke up the image flashing across Eidon's memory of the red burning beneath the ocean waves. Captain Miller's composure was cracking. And if the good captain was getting worried, that only made Eidon more afraid. "Sully," his old man said to one of his officers, "take my son and his friends to my quarters."
"No dad," Eidon started, but the good captain wasn't about to hear his protests.
"And stay with them," Captain Miller said. "I don't want you to take your eyes off them for a minute, you hear me?"
Before Eidon could argue, a high pitched beeping sound cut through the room, and Melvin Bruce's eyes rolled back in his head.
"Get back," shouted the chief medical officer, pushing everyone who wasn't medical staff back. "I need everyone out of here."
"We can't let them off the ship," Melvin was rasping, fighting to stay conscious. "We gotta kill 'em here. End it before they reach land!"
"Dammit, Sully!" Captain Miller roared at his officer. "I said get them out of here!"
A flurry of arms and noise and shuffling exploded around Eidon and before he knew what was happening, the sheet around Melvin Bruce was drawn, and he was pushed, along with Celia and Franklin, out into the hall by Officer Sully. The sounds of emergency spilled out the infirmary door, and Eidon's heart began to race. Five, Melvin had said. Five? Could they be here? On the Silver Queen, a ship with no guns? What were they supposed to do against five of those monsters? End it, Melvin echoed in his head. Before they reach land.
Officer Sully clicked on his flashlight. "Come on," he said. "I'll get you back to your rooms."
They followed Officer Sully down corridor after corridor, Eidon's limbs twitching with nerves. It's on the Cloud Deck, he tried to remind himself. There's no way it could get off the Cloud Deck.
"Do you--" Franklin stuttered beside him, "do you really think there are five of those...sabre tooths on the ship?"
Eidon wasn't sure how to answer that. He hoped not. He looked to Celia, but she said nothing, her sea-glass eyes blank and unfocused while she thought.
"Mr. Bruce is suffering from hypothermia," said Officer Sully as he walked ahead of them, "among other things. He doesn't know what he's saying."
Franklin bit his lip and Eidon was just as doubtful. As much as he wanted to believe Melvin Bruce was just a ranting crazy person, they'd seen the beast themselves. In shadow, but still, they'd seen enough of it to know -- Melvin Bruce was probably completely and utterly sane.
A cool palm gripped Eidon's left arm -- Celia.
"Did you hear that?" she asked.
Eidon paused and listened: silence. He should have been relieved. Should have been happy not to hear the rumble of the creature. But instead, the silence sent goose flesh up his arms. No signs of life at all. It was as if he was standing on a ghost ship. How much longer could he handle this?
He shook his head but Celia wasn't looking at him. She was looking everywhere, her eyes darting this way and that as if she was trying to spot the sound on the air.
"What?" he asked her.
"You didn't hear it?"
"Hear what?"
And then a smell, old and dusty wafted into his nostrils. He tensed, remembering how the beast had smelled when they'd faced it at the elevators. But it was so faint, Eidon couldn't be sure he smelt anything. His mind was playing tricks on him.
"Step lively, guys." Officer Sully had come to a stop outside a familiar grey door -- the captain's quarters. Had they made it already? The officer slid a key into the lock and beckoned them forward.
Celia hurried to the door, her face pale, and Eidon followed, suddenly desperate for the safety of the cabin he'd thought of as a prison just a few hours ago.
Everything was as he left it, the shades on the windows half drawn. The TV sat silently in the middle of the room, begging for Eidon to turn it on, to watch his favourite show, Duel at Dawn, and in that moment it was all he wanted to do. Curl up on the couch with a Coke and a bag of dill pickle chips and shut off his brain while Armstrong Sterling defeated yet another rampaging hoard of undead bandits and pretend that today never happened.
But it did happen. Seeing Franklin and Celia standing by the windows told him that much. Today had definitely happened.
There was a cough and Eidon looked back to see Officer Sully still standing in the hall. "Well, I'd better be getting back," he said. "Will you kids be alright?"
Would they be? Eidon wasn't sure. After what he'd seen, he couldn't be sure of anything.
Thanks for reading Lava Cat Cruise Ship! I’ll be back with Chapter 10 next Friday, but if you don’t want to wait, consider becoming a paid subscriber and access the ebook!