Minutes to Burn

Chapter 67

Even with a mask, Justin's visibility underwater would have been extremely low. Hiding sea-urchin-dotted stretches of coral and sharp lava ledges, the inky water enveloped him. He progressed steadily toward the tuff cones, his strokes regular, his breathing calm. He surfaced frequently, the cloud-hazed moonlight seeping across the waters and his own wan face.

His foot tangled in a strand of seaweed and he doubled over under-water, calmly freeing himself. He resurfaced and swam slowly in circles, glancing around through the darkness. He felt for the flashlight but did not turn it on.

Turtlebacking slowly, he floated on the ripples and looked at the stars above. Orion was clearly lit, the point of the arrow like a beacon. As he headed back through the darkness, the near-full moon broke clear of the clouds. The first of the tuff cones was about fifteen feet away from him. He would have swum directly into it had the moon not made its fortu-itous appearance.

He gripped the side of the tuff cone, breathing hard, then eased his way around it, kicking gently to the next one in the chain. He swam qui-etly, the dark slumbering forms of the sea lions dotting the nooks of the rock. When he reached the third cone, he swam about five yards west, then dived beneath the surface and kicked to the bottom. He hit sand in seven strokes. The moonlight filtered beneath the surface for the first several feet, but down at the bottom, it was pitch black.

He drifted for a moment, his body limp, suspended in perfect black-ness. Once his torso had oriented toward the truest angle upward, he kicked, paddling fiercely until he broke the surface. He was barely winded.

His fingers were white when he released the flashlight. He clicked the switch and headed down, following the yellow-white shaft of light. He followed a sharp slope, the sea bottom about ten feet deeper at the far end. He paused when his feet struck sand, the flashlight illuminating a band of water across the bottom.

Tightening his grasp on the flashlight, he bent his legs beneath his body on the sand, raising the flashlight as he started to push off from the bottom. It shot a beam of light in front of him and he jerked back, his breath billowing out in a burst of bubbles.

Directly in front of him, no more than an arm's length away, was the head of a large blacktip reef shark. Its mouth opened, revealing row upon row of razor-sharp teeth, and Justin threw himself supine as it glided above him, knocking his face with the leathery bottom of its jaw.

Before shoving off for the surface, he followed the shark with the light until it glided up the slope and out of view. Then, he kicked up hard, pushing a few meager bubbles from his nose.

He gasped when he broke the surface, sucking in a mouthful of water. He swam to the nearest tuff cone, ignoring the barking sea lion he'd awakened, and gripped it tightly as he regurgitated a mix of salt water and mucus.

He clung to the tuff cone for a few minutes, breathing steadily until he calmed. Kicking west again about fifteen yards, he swam to the bot-tom, scanning with the flashlight. He returned to the surface more quickly than he had before.

The second and third dives were equally fruitless. He was breathing heavily again by the time he surfaced from the fourth.

Cameron ran into the forest until the searing pain in her lungs became too much, then she collapsed. Since it was night, the mantid could roam anywhere on the island; the forest, with its myriad hiding places, was probably Cameron's best bet.

She was heavily scented with her sweat, Tank's blood, and the rotting flesh of the body from the freezer. She stared at her damp, stained shirt, soaked with the Darwin virus, and knew she'd have to wash off as soon as she could get back to the water. There was no way she was going to risk another trip to the beach, though. Not until sunrise. She thought of the antibacterial gel at base-that would be her first priority in the morning.

She resisted the urge to page Justin given they'd agreed he'd contact her once he reached shore. She'd just have to trust that he'd be okay on his own for now.

She searched among the Scalesias, trying to find one tall enough for her to scurry up and hide. The mantid could reach her in a tree, but if Cameron was up off the ground, she'd at least have more warning of the creature's approach, and be out of her probable line of sight and scent. Finally, Cameron came upon a tall, skinny quinine tree, towering feet above the smaller Scalesias. It was perfect, though the lowest branches thick enough to support her weight were at least thirty feet up.

Shinnying up the trunk, she rested about ten feet off the ground, clutching the trunk with her thighs and arms. The bark felt harsh through her thin tank top. She humped her way farther up until she reached the lowest limb, which she grabbed like a pull-up bar, letting her feet swing free. Tucking her knees to her chin, she rolled upside down, hooking her legs over the branch and using the trunk to pull herself upright.

She looked around, noting that the branches of the other trees were not as close as they had seemed from the ground. Her escape route was questionable; if she got sighted, she'd probably be pinned down. For the time being, she was too exhausted to move, but she would force herself to stay awake.

Straddling the branch, she leaned against the trunk, pressing her forehead to the rough bark.

For the first time in nearly eighteen hours, she let her muscles go limp.

Justin moved over two strokes west, as he had before each dive, and tried again. When his feet hit bottom, he gazed along the column of light. Something glimmered in the sand, a bright yellow streak. Swim-ming over to it, he uncovered the fluorescent stock of the speargun and pulled the weapon free. Sand swirled around him like confetti, and he held the long, slender speargun before him for a moment, as if admiring it.

Surfacing, he swam to the tuff cone and rested. He pressed his cheek to the rock as he bear-hugged it, twisting his hips to protect his groin. Breathing deeply and evenly, he rose and fell with the water against the tuff cone.

The spear gun had no sling, and he tried unsuccessfully to secure it tightly to the flashlight sling. Finally, he struck out for the island, holding the speargun and paddling mostly with his other hand. The speargun lopsided his stroke. He switched hands, shaking out his biceps as he pro-pelled himself forward with both legs. The rhythm of his kicks and breaths was almost hypnotically steady. To his left, a sea lion shadowed him, watching his progress with what appeared to be amusement.

Each time he surfaced, his breath came harder, and soon he was coming up for air every other stroke. After a while, the hazy outline of the island up ahead became visible. The sea lion dipped beneath him and popped up on his right, barking playfully.

Justin's pace was painfully slow by the time he was within a hundred yards of shore. A glow was already lighting the sky, the gray edge of morning.

He looked for the sea lion, but it had suddenly vanished.

Stopping to tread water, he wheezed until his breathing had some semblance of regularity. He breaststroked a few yards quietly, careful to dodge the jagged edges of the broken reef.

His head snapped up suddenly, and he expertly pivoted in the water, staring behind him. He continued to tread water silently for a few more moments, watching the surface closely. Something large swept by him about fifteen feet away, sending a ripple in his direction. An eddy sucked at his feet. Then the water around him stilled.

His hand tightening on the speargun, he gazed for shore, which was about seventy yards away. The sand sloped gradually; at thirty yards out, it was only five feet deep. Despite the glow along the edge of the island, the waters were still dark.

Something broke the surface, but by the time Justin whirled around, there was nothing but a spiral of ripples and a sinking fin. He raised the speargun defensively but gazed at the sole spear for a moment, then low-ered it. Pulling the sling free from his shoulder, he palmed the flashlight, flicking the switch with his thumb.

There was a sudden movement in the water, a wake headed directly at him. The furrow of water was about ten yards away when he heaved the flashlight as far as he could to his left. He folded his arms around the speargun and sank with it, motionless.

The wake had nearly reached him when the shark switched directions, veering off after the flashlight. Underwater, Justin caught a glimpse of movement and then a wall of water struck him as the shark turned.

He kicked to the surface and swam as quickly toward the beach as he could without splashing, sidestroking and keeping his eyes on the waters behind him. When his feet hit sand, he crept forward, still keeping his splashing to a minimum. Sunrise was a good half hour away, but the lines of the beach and the cliff were visible. He continued wading until his chest was clear of the ocean, and soon the water was down around his stomach.

He froze, eyes trained on the shadowy form on the beach ahead. Fat, round, and lifeless, it could have been a segment of log. Focusing on the form, waiting for the beach to lighten, he inched forward. He held the speargun above his head, wincing each time water dripped from it and made a vibration in the water. His lips trembled as he stepped…waited…stepped.

His arms and his knees were starting to wobble slightly when he paused. He stepped forward once more, easing his bare feet onto a rib of lava.

The beach lightened infinitesimally, and large footprints came into view, leading from the top of the trail to the form on the beach. They were the tracks of a four-legged animal, each one forked at the top where the bifid claw had pressed into the sand. He looked back at the form on the beach, now visible-it was a grown sea lion, viciously halved, its tail and rump missing. Fresh blood leaked from the wound, staining the pro-truding plugs of blubber. The eyes were black and glossy like dark mar-bles.

The sand around the body was kicked up, but the footprints became clear again a few feet over, continuing down and disappearing into the ocean. Justin's eyes immediately went to the waters around him. He piv-oted slowly, silently, lowering the speargun.

Behind him and to the side, mere feet away, the mantid pulled her body from her underwater crouch, the water draining from her head and gathering in her broken eye. The spray from the splash covered the back of Justin's head.

He lowered his chin to his chest, teeth clenching. "Cameron," he whis-pered, just as the mantid tore into him.

Cameron's transmitter vibrated once, startling her from sleep, and she shifted her weight, nearly falling from the tree. She activated the unit, and the air immediately filled with the sounds of thrashing. She heard her husband's screaming, and she knew she had lost him.

She leaned back, trying to block out the horrible sounds. Her entire body started shaking, her arms quivering so severely she almost lost her hold on the trunk.

Justin's cries lessened, and then she heard an awful rasping noise, splashing, and what sounded like flesh tearing. The transmitter clicked off.

The mantid attacked Justin even before he could turn to face it, but her legs were unaccustomed to the water, and she mistimed her strike. Hit-ting Justin with the outside of her femur, she sent him tumbling over himself in the water. He yelled, sucking salt water into his lungs, his shoulder scraping against lava. When he surfaced, the mantid hovered over him. The smooth backside of a flying leg struck him on the jaw before a hook swiped a chunk of flesh from his left shoulder.

Stumbling, he spit hard as if clearing vomit from his throat. The blow had cracked his tooth and spilled blood through his mouth. He gagged against the thick fluid, staggering on his feet in the water. The spines of a sea urchin sank into his feet, but he did not respond to the pain.

The creature loomed before him, nine feet of spikes and armor. She lowered her head, regarding him for a moment as her jawlike legs scraped together and then apart.

He dived to his side, rolling over his right shoulder and readying the speargun for when he surfaced. He fired as soon as he came up, aiming for the broken black hole of the eye. It hit the edge of the cuticle around the socket and stuck. The mantid's body contracted, air screeching through the spiracles and bubbling the water as her legs flailed. She stumbled back, shaking her head from side to side, the spear protruding ridiculously.

Justin dragged himself toward the beach on weak legs. He was losing blood at an alarming rate from his shoulder, and he blinked hard, as if trying to clear his vision. The water splashed around his thighs, slowing his pace. Behind him, the creature thrashed in the water, but he didn't turn around; he plodded heavily toward the beach.

Stumbling onto the sand, he went down on a knee. He tried to rise again but could not. He fell flat on his chest and stomach, sand pressing into his nose and mouth. He turned his head and fought to stand up, as the mantid lumbered to shore behind him, but went limp on the sand.

With all her thrashing, the mantid finally snapped the spear against a raised leg. The spear stock sticking out from her head, she made her way slowly to shore, pausing above the still, sprawled body. A chunk of flesh slid from her claw, thunking on the sand. Embedded in the soft pink underside was a small metal disk, Justin's transmitter. The mantid watched the body for another moment, but it did not stir.

Stepping heavily around Justin, she began the long walk back to the forest.