Happy Friday, my ferocious fire feline fans! I’m here with the LAVA.
We’ve finally arrived - we’ve made it to the final five chapters of my b-movie creature feature mayhem that is Lava Cat Cruise Ship! If you missed the previous chapter, find it here. And if you are new to LCC and want to start at the beginning, you can find the first chapter here!
Or if you’d like read ahead and access the full ebook - and the ebook for the companion novel, Zombie Shark Highway consider upgrading your subscription to become a paid subscriber! What?! Two books?!
Also, Lava Cat Cruise Ship does not go out to subscribers as a newsletter. Each chapter is posted exclusively on Substack, so readers can only find this fiery feline adventure by finding it on the platform. Word of mouth is the most important way humble internet serial fiction finds its readers, so if you’re enjoying Lava Cat Cruise Ship, I would be oh so grateful if you told a friend, shared it with a reader you think might like it.
ANYWAYS, let’s get to the LAVA!
TWENTY
Eidon threw himself on the floor of the dinghy, one hand digging into the rubber, the other clutching the gun as the ocean exploded around him. Plumes of lava erupted like pillars reaching skyward, raining down and churning the waves.
He had to get off the water. Had to get back on the Silver Queen.
How? She was so tall, so massive. It wasn't like he could just pull up and hop on deck. He cursed himself for being so stupid -- he came this far with no plan for getting onboard? He'd seen how they rescued the men from the Hydra. They had to lower a crane from the Cloud Deck and raise the rescue boat sixty stories. There would be no one to lower the crane for him now.
A surge of panic overwhelmed him. He was stranded, in a little dinghy that didn't stand much of a chance against this water.
He needed Celia. Needed her to help him get on board. Maybe he could signal her somehow. Maybe he could --
A burst of lava exploded behind him, driving a wave -- a massive wall of water -- straight at Eidon. He cried out as the wave surged beneath him, picking up the little boat and hurling it at the Silver Queen. Eidon's body slammed into the Silver Queen's hull, and when he dropped back down into the dinghy, the boat was swamped with water. He felt frantically under the flood for the gun, finding it by his knees. He grabbed on, clutching it to his chest as he tried in vain to bail out the water with his cupped hands.
A crack, louder than thunder, sounded somewhere to his right as another geyser blew skyward. And another. Another. The ocean was a battleground, like the gods of ancient times had suddenly decided to go to war. Eidon clung to the gun and the dinghy, unable to do anything against the onslaught that had him pinned against the Silver Queen.
And then he heard another blast, more deafening than any that had come before. Eidon looked up and saw the eruption, bigger than all the others, fire skyward by the bow of the Silver Queen. The ship's groans became a scream as the side of the plume blasted through all sixty stories, ripping the Silver Queen open like scissors through silk.
Eidon gaped at the cruiseliner's open wound, all the decks exposed to the sulfuric air.
And the water.
It spilled in to the first few levels.
It would only climb higher, only pull the mighty ship down.
The Alaskan Princess had to get there soon. Or there might not be a Silver Queen left for it to save.
Eidon screamed into the air, furious at the ocean, at the saber-tooths, at the Hydra, for bringing this nightmare into his life. How much more could go wrong? How much more was he supposed to survive?
Eidon screamed until his throat was raw, and his energy spent. He slumped in the dingy, eyes blinking back tears as he stared at the hole in his father's ship.
And then he laughed.
The sound rose up from somewhere in his belly and couldn't be stopped.
Because as hopeless as the situation had become, one thing, Eidon realized, was working in his favour.
Eidon now had a way on to the Silver Queen.
He took hold of the throttle and drove the dingy along the side of the cruiseliner, headed straight for the gaping wound in her bow.