time.” The voice and the accent almost threw him into shock. Maybe the man called himself Manfred Penn now, but that wasn’t the name that Jim knew him by.
He moved quickly down the corridor, taking the plastic enclosed gun out from the front of his wet pants as he walked. He stopped just before the door, took the gun out from the plastic bag, took a deep breath and kicked the door open.
“ You?” a bald, clean shaven Bernd Kohler said.
“ Me!” Jim pulled the trigger, but a scream filled the night air, throwing a chill through his spine and throwing his aim high and wide. The hairs on the nape of his neck stood on end as Bernd Kohler answered the scream of the gecko with one of his own. Before Jim could fire again, Kohler dashed up into the galley, tore through the hatchway and was gone.
In seconds he would be up the ladder to the pier and away and there was nothing Jim could do about it, because he couldn’t leave Donna tied and naked. He moved quickly to the bed.
“ What’s that? He nodded toward an automatic pistol as he sliced through the ropes.
“ A madman’s gun.” She grabbed it the instant he’d freed a hand. “Mine now.”
“ We have to hurry,” he said.
“ Don’t have to tell me twice,” she said. “Let’s get out of here.”
“ Not yet.” He took her hand and led her out of the salon, up into the galley. They backed against the wall opposite the hatchway, as far from the hatch and the adjoining windows as they could get.
Donna gasped as the giant reptile shot out of the water, a second scream escaping from its shark-like mouth.
Jim braced himself against the bulkhead as it flopped back into the dark water. A third scream tore through the night as it shot back out of the ocean, again soaring over the rails, but this time it landed on the deck. It was through the hatchway in seconds.
Kohler cowered and hid at the bow, behind the anchor motor, naked and cold. He heard the Maori men up front when he came out the galley hatchway on the starboard side. He kept low, peered around the galley and saw them. They came down the port side toward the rear and he scuttled forward up the starboard side to the crew quarters. He stayed low and the Maori men went by on the other side of the boat without seeing him.
He wondered what had happened to the crew. They were supposed to be on watch, not drinking down below. He eased himself around the anchor motor and climbed down into the crew’s forward cabin. He didn’t need the lights to know they were all dead. Even the woman. Those men might have been old, but they were Maori. Kohler respected them. They knew how to handle an enemy.
He pulled a body off a lower berth, tore the mattress off the bed. He smiled to himself-Monday and the girl were going to die. He pulled up the plywood cover, reached inside the hidy hole under the berth and pulled out an M-16 assault rifle.
He was a slave to his anger. He didn’t bother putting on any clothes. He climbed out of the crew quarters, keeping low as he moved around the anchor motor. Then he slipped through the forward hatch, down into the corridor below. His pet would get them from the stern, he’d come at them from the bow.
He didn’t give a thought to the Maoris on board. After eliminating the girl and Monday, he’d dive naked into the sea. As long as the gecko lived, he’d be safe. This body would die, but he’d get another. It was time anyway, he was tired of being a German.
“ Down!” Jim shoved Donna to the right and dove left as the beast came for them. She heard him fire off a round, saw the gecko jerk when it was hit as she slammed into the side of the bed that, until just moments ago she’d been tied to.
A bolt of pain blasted into her back when she struck and the fancy Beretta Cougar pistol that the doctor loved so much went flying from her hand. She gasped for breath, wrestling for air as she clawed for the gun.
Air, she needed air. Her stomach spasmed, muscles clenching out of control. She couldn’t see. Where was the gun? She scraped the varnished floor with her nails in a vain attempt to find it, sweeping her hand back and forth as she battled for breath.
The gecko screamed, a sound somewhere between a baby’s bawl and a wolf’s howl. A banshee cry. The sound was huge, deafening, a wailing screech that set her nerves afire and ice pricks stinging up her spine.
“ It’s under the bed!” Jim shouted.
“ What?”
“ The bed.”
The gecko roared, a lion’s sound now, an angry hunter’s roar that forced her eyes open and drew her in. The beast was mammoth, every bit the size of an African lion. Its eyes were radioactive yellow, its saber-toothed fangs gleamed as if they were brand new and its green, lizard like skin shined as bright as a palm frond in a brilliant equatorial rain, but it was dripping deep red blood over the brightly varnished deck and from Donna’s position, flat on the floor, she saw that the reptile had a deep slit along its underbelly, like the fish her father filleted.
It looked like it was in pain.
It had been in this life for only a short time and already it felt pain. More than it had ever known in its long history. It was bleeding, losing its insides all over this smooth and flat place and its right shoulder felt like it was on fire.
It glared at the prey with the loud pain stick in its hand and roared, but the prey didn’t show its back, didn’t flee. Again, as in the life it so recently left behind in that place across the ocean, it was faced with prey that was not prey. It was confused. How was it supposed to know the difference.
It turned toward the woman sprawled out only a short leap away. That was prey. It was getting weak. It had to feed. Instinctively it knew the woman had not been selected for nourishment. Ngaarara had other plans for her, but it needed to feed now.
“ It’s all right, my pet, you can have her.” It heard Ngaarara’s voice in its head, the way it always did.
“ No you can’t!” another thought voice. This had never happened before. Who, what, how could this be? It was even more confused now. “Go away!” the stranger’s thought voice again.
“ Take the woman!” Ngaarara screamed the thought.
“ No!” the stranger thought.
It turned toward the woman and it knew who the stranger was.
Something odd was going on and Jim wasn’t exactly sure what. Donna and the gecko were staring at each other as if they were communicating. For an instant it looked like the beast was going to spring at her, but now it was holding its ground.
He got up, got into the shooter’s position, legs wide, two hands on the weapon. The gun might be old, but he’d hit what he was aiming at while he and his target were on the move, he couldn’t miss now. He sighted on one of the beast’s large yellow eyes, the one on the left.
Every fiber in his being said, shoot. But Donna seemed to be staring the thing down. He didn’t know what to do.
“ Very interesting,” the doctor thought and Donna heard him the way she’d been hearing Jim. “You are strong.”
“ You should take your pet and go,” Donna thought as she smelled smoke.
“ But you know I won’t,” he thought.
“ Yes, I suppose I do.” And all of a sudden Donna was able to see through his eyes. She saw the rifle in his hand, saw the door she’d seen earlier, the door that led into the salon. He was just on the other side of it.
“ I’ve waited a long time for my revenge, I’ll not be cheated when I’m so close.”
“ Smell the fire.” Donna thought.
“ What?”
“ You’re afraid now. I feel it.”
“ Bitch.” Any second he was going to burst into the room, rifle blazing.
“ Shoot!” Donna shouted as she rolled under the bed.
