Breeding Ground Part 8

"Okay," he said quickly, his eyes wide but otherwise looking rational. Sweat covered his face, drenched the part of his uniform s.h.i.+elding his torso. "Okay."

"We're nearing the mouth," Alex whispered. "Paddle us dead center between the two teeth."

Peac.o.c.k and Vlad immediately obeyed. They were trying to paddle as fast as possible without making too much noise. On one hand Alex realized that they wanted out and they wanted out now, just like her, but on the other hand they'd all be goners if they splashed around too much. A fact that had everyone's nerves on edge.

They immediately knew when they entered the mouth. Long rows of smaller, razor-sharp teeth jutted out from the top of the sickly enclosure. Bits of flesh from a recent kill dangled from the roots of each one. Alex swallowed roughly.

The secondary teeth weren't as big as the primary teeth, but just as deadly. If this thing woke up and closed its mouth before they got out, Alex thought, her stomach twisting into knots, they'd all be cut to ribbons.

"We're almost out," she murmured as the raft floated between the two huge incisor-like teeth. "Another thirty seconds and we'll be in the open waters."

Thirty seconds later, they were out. "Don't look back yet," Alex whispered as she held the Laser-5 in a ready-to-kill fas.h.i.+on. "Let's just keep moving."

The others had no idea what the predator looked like and, she thought, it was probably best if things stayed like that until they got further away. Otherwise, they'd all go into a panic. But, as if he couldn't help himself, Peac.o.c.k braved a look over his shoulder once they got another twenty feet out. "Oh Jesus," he said quietly, but with panic clearly tinting the words. "Oh holy G.o.d, we've got to find land. We've got to find land!"

John lifted his gaze up to the creature-then probably wished he hadn't. "Oh my G.o.d," he said hoa.r.s.ely, his chest heaving up and down. "We've got to get out of here."

The creature's skin was a s.h.i.+ny, latex-looking black that perfectly matched the uniforms of the crew. It possessed a serpentine head that was so ma.s.sive in diameter as to be startling-easily bigger than a four-story house. If it was any indication as to the size of its cranium, the slit to each of its nostrils was longer than five people together, one piled atop the other. If this thing woke up, they had no hope of survival.

Alex realized that she was grasping the Laser-5 far too tightly between her palms. She relaxed her hold just a bit, preparing to use the weapon should the smallest sound or movement come from the creature. She refused to consider the possibility that a Laser-5 might not wield enough juice to kill something of such ma.s.sive proportions. Her heart was already beating far too fast-she didn't need to add to it by considering the grisly possibilities.

"Are there extra oars?" she breathed out, her gaze mesmerized by the sight of the huge thing. She couldn't seem to look away from it. "John and I can help paddle."

"Nyet," Vlad grimly answered. He squeezed his eyes shut just before his blond crew-cut was showered by a spray of water caused by a gust the creature's nostrils made on an exhale.

"Just go as fast as you can now," Alex ordered. "Paddle us fast."

"There's land!" John announced, his voice hopeful but hushed. "Paddle northwest!"

Alex turned her head in the direction John was pointing. Her eyes widened, both in disbelief of what she was seeing and awe.

The mountainous terrain approximately two miles out was obsidian in appearance and had a bizarre jagged structure. It looked more like a felled meteor than a mountain range, but then this Earth was not the planet it had once been. The Martian red sky attested to that fact as easily as the glossy black mountains did. The gargantuan predator they were steadily veering away from served as another, deadlier, reminder.

Don't think about that-don't think about that...

Off in the distance, curls of smoke rose up from all over the mountain range. Of human invention or natural means she couldn't tell, but from the rather steady formation of the smoke curls it was probably the latter. Pools of lava maybe. Or boiling oil perhaps.

Fifteen minutes later they'd paddled close enough for Alex to make out that the eerie mountain range had a metallic appearance, which probably meant the composite of it was more iron ore than dirt.

She turned her head and braved a look back at the water beast. Still asleep, she thought, nibbling on her lower lip. Please stay that way. They were well away from the sea creature now, but not yet close enough to land to escape if it was to awaken. She stared at the closed eye she could see from her vantage point, as if transfixed by it, as if willing it to stay closed.

We didn't make it this far to be snake food. Stay asleep you b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

Alex kept up her vigil for the next twenty minutes. The raft was almost to land. Close, so d.a.m.n close...

Stay asleep. Stay asl-

The eye flew open.

Alex's breath caught in the back of her throat. Her wide, light green eyes made contact with the diamond-shaped iris of a ma.s.sive silver one. "Paddle faster!" she ordered, her heart rate climbing. "Paddle faster!"

John's head swiveled around to the side. His gaze rounded. "Holy mother-faster!" he bellowed out to Vlad and Peac.o.c.k. "It woke up! Move faster!"

It knew they were there.

Alex watched in surreal horror as the sea creature closed its gaping jaws with a sickening moaning sound and reared its gargantuan head. Its fangs bared, it rose up from the water at least fifty feet before a high-pitched keening sound erupted from its throat.

Sleeping beauty had awoken. And she wanted to hunt.

Alex detonated the Laser-5 without hesitation, firing a series of electrical pulses at the mammoth beast that would have instantaneously sizzled a lesser opponent to a crisp. "s.h.i.+t!" she yelled, as she reached for one of the two electrical bombs in the pouch on her belt. "The Laser-5 isn't even fazing the thing!"

John added his firepower into the mix. He detonated a series of electrical pulses, aiming for the vulnerable throat. The sea creature moaned as if in pain-or p.i.s.sed-but otherwise emerged unscathed. The visible part of its long, snake-like body began moving toward the life raft at an alarming speed.

"Aim for the eye!" Alex yelled out to John as she fiddled with the timer on the first electrical bomb. "Maybe that will stun it!"

"I can't get it in my sights! It's-G.o.dd.a.m.n it-paddle faster!"

Alex broke out into a cold sweat as the black sea creature drew frighteningly closer. She could tell by the way it was rearing up that it was preparing to drop its gargantuan head into the water as fast, and with as much deadly force, as its bodyweight could muster.

Think, d.a.m.n it! Think!

If it dropped its head this close to them using all of its might, the raft would be ripped to pieces by the resulting tidal wave. If they weren't killed by the impact outright, their bodies would scatter overboard-and they'd be eaten alive.

Think!

Alex set the electrical bomb to detonate in thirty seconds, preparing to hurl it at the beast. Thinking quickly, she recalled that Methuselah II had probably been swallowed as it free-fell from the sky.

This is your one and only chance, Commander Frazier. Don't f.u.c.k it up...

Praying that her hunch was right and that the sea creature's innate reflex would be to open its gaping jaws for anything it espied in its peripheral vision, she threw the bomb as high into the air as she could, aiming toward the mammoth serpent's eye. She smiled slightly, her breath shuddering, when the creature swallowed the electrical bomb whole.

Twenty seconds to detonation.

Please have enough juice.

"Don't tell me what's happening!" Peac.o.c.k shouted as he and Vlad continued to paddle with the full force of their combined musculatures. Their jaws were clenched, their vein-roped arms bulging, as they gave it everything they had in them. "I don't want to know!"

As if in slow motion, Alex watched in horror as the creature's head came barreling down towards the water. We're going to die, she thought. We're going to-

John's Laser-5 aimed true, piercing the beast's retina. The sea creature half-bellowed and half-hissed as its head stopped in midair, its neck visibly recoiling from the a.s.sault. "Die, f.u.c.ker!" John raged.

It fell backward, submerging into the water, knocking its upper length back a solid hundred feet. The resulting current jarred the raft twenty feet in the opposite direction, closer to land. John fell overboard, the only one of the four to have been standing at impact.

"John!"

Ten seconds to detonation.

Please, G.o.d, please...