Aaron heaved everything in his stomach over the side of the boat. The stench of his own vomit bounced back in his face as the acidic water feasted on it and spewed out the revolting fumes. He crumbled onto the floor of the skiff and buried his head in his gloved hands. Feeling the slight sting from the acid residue, Aaron recoiled and wiped himself off with the towel, which had also been burned.
He couldn’t escape it. It surrounded him. They surrounded him. Just when Swartzman started believing in Aaron, he found out that he should have never relied on him. He had failed the man who trusted him with his life. No. Failed wasn’t a strong enough word. He had ruined him. He had obliterated him. The brilliant mind that had sparked so many amazing discoveries had been delivered into the hands of the monsters he had fought against. Swartzman’s head would become the mantelpiece of their colony. The mini cyborgs he had studied would rule his brain.
“I screwed up.” His voice choked with tears. “Oh, I screwed up big time.”
As he sat on his ass and listened to the acid munching on his boat, Aaron chided himself for not reacting faster. If he had shot the turtle with the rifle instead of cowering in the back of the boat, Swartzman would still be with him.
Aaron could hardly move. He knew sitting in the decaying boat would land him besides Swartzman as part of the colony. Moni would be left with Mariella, while not knowing how dangerous she is. He’s the only one Moni trusts. And with Swartzman gone, no one else with a shred of credibility can reveal the truth about the lagoon.
Aaron got behind the steering console. He cast one more glance into the water.
“Moni, I won’t let this happen to you.” The words made his heart tremble.
He pulled his hood down over his head, and strapped on his scuba mask in case the deadly water splashed him as he raced toward the shore. He had more business on the mainland, but he was closer to Merritt Island so he turned the skiff east and headed for the slim southern portion of the island and its numerous docks. He wouldn’t spend one more second on that horrid water than he had to.
Aaron aimed for a dock at the end of a pier that led right onto the street fronting the single row of homes. They had paid a pretty penny to enjoy water views on both sides, but he doubted that many members of the Lexus crowd had stayed behind when both bodies of water started stinking and defacing their yachts. He hoped at least one of them stuck it out at home. After what he had just witness, he needed a bathroom so bad.
He nearly dumped one in his wetsuit when he saw what emerged from the lagoon and blocked his path ashore. Its horse legs lifted its grotesque body out of the shallow water fifteen yards from the end of the dock. It had the muscular thighs of a stallion, but the scaly snout and toothy jaws of a gator at the end of its long horse neck. As if the legs weren’t enough, it had a pair of pale human arms awkwardly jutting from the base of its neck like parts on a Mr. Potato Head toy that didn’t belong. The black, rodent-like nails on its fingers didn’t fit either but they gave Aaron the impression that the cyborgs didn’t give this mutant arms so it could shake hands. It didn’t have a tail for swatting flies either. Instead, its creators had played pin the venomous snake on the horsy’s ass.
Now, Aaron regretted taking Mariella horseback riding. At least he hadn’t brought her to the zoo with the lions and elephants. This horse-gator-man-snake looked nasty enough with less than fifteen seconds to think about it. Even with his skiff charging at 30 miles per hour, the beast stood there like, “Bring it on, punk.”
He popped his mouthpiece in and turned on his oxygen. Then he realized that diving into the water moments before impact wouldn’t work out too well. The mutants usually came in teams and the cyborgs had no shortage of backup. They would have another genetically altered baddie waiting for him underwater. If he bailed this far from the dock, he wouldn’t make it.
Aaron eyed the rifle. He doubted it would slow a creature boasting the size of horse and the constitution of a gator for long.
He could try steering around it. That hadn’t worked with the possessed sea turtle. Those juiced-up horse legs could probably run down a Ferrari. If he felt like seeing Moni again-not to mention catching a wave on the bonsai pipeline one day-it would take a circus trick better than anything he had landed on his board. The half-baked plan sprouted from his brain in a flash. Aaron knew that if he wiped out, he wouldn’t paddle back ashore from this one.
Accelerating to 40 miles per hour, he closed the distance on the mutant. The creature cracked its massive jaws open and wiggled a purple tongue that clamored for a taste of his innards. Aaron steered the ship to the right so hard that it felt like someone had slammed on the brakes. Except watercrafts weren’t built like cars. The skiff tipped over on its way to capsizing. Aaron leapt off the tail end of the boat. As he flew through the air in his scuba gear, the momentum carried him roughly in the direction of the dock. With a quick glance back, he saw the horse legs flatten the steering console that he had stood behind a second ago. The mutant tore through his boat, but the craft carried out a crucial final mission by knocking the hunter away from its real target.
Aaron splashed chest down in the acidic water. So much for being like007 and landing on the dock with a martini in hand, he thought. His head bounced off the strange glassy surface on the bottom of the lagoon so hard that it cracked his face shield. Aaron stood up in the waist-high water before anything nasty penetrated his mask. He had overshot the dock, but he stood as close to the wall of stones lining the shore as he did to the pier. Seeing that the wood pillars were going crooked as the acid ate away at their bases, he chose the shore. Aaron prayed that the acid wouldn’t devour all of Merritt Island too.
When Aaron lifted his left foot up, it stung like a bitch. He hoisted it out of the water and bent it across his waist so he could see his heel. His wetsuit had torn there. The acid hadn’t broken his skin, but it had burned it red.
“Not much further,” Aaron muttered as he hopped on one leg across the slippery glass through the shallows. He moved a handful of inches at a time. If he put his left foot back in the water and toughed it out, he could reach shore in seven seconds. The vivid memory of Swartzman’s raw muscle, and bones boiling and his head falling off his body on its way to the worm-like colony kept Aaron’s exposed foot well above water.
He heard a burst of water behind him. Without wasting time turning around, Aaron grimaced and plunged his exposed foot into the water. The acid scorched his heel. It felt as if he were wearing a red-hot skillet on his foot. As long as it didn’t burn though his skin and give the microscopic invaders an opening, he might make it. Something started threshing through the water at his back.
In a few long bounds, Aaron reached the wall of stones lining the shore. He threw his exposed foot atop the barrier first. It throbbed as he pulled himself onto the rocks, and rolled onto the grassy shoulder along the road. He wiped his foot dry on the grass, but even that didn’t dull the burn. He ditched his scuba mask and tank. Before he could examine his heel, Aaron heard something smack the stone wall. Scooting back toward the road and taking sight of it, he saw milk white hands that didn’t belong to any true human.
The dolphin flopped ashore under the strength of the arms welded on its torso. It flashed its jagged teeth at Aaron. Forgetting his throbbing heel for the moment, Aaron leapt to his feet and scurried backward. He didn’t understand why a dolphin would pursue him on land until it curved its tail underneath it so that its body formed a “C”. Then it posted its arms before it. The mutant resembled a backwards tricycle. Crawling with its arms and scooting on its tail, the dolphin made right for Aaron.
He turned and ran down the street. Or he tried, at least. With his heel in such pain that he couldn’t set it down on the sun-baked asphalt, his left foot helped him as much as a peg leg. Frantically hobbling along, Aaron knew he could run ten times faster when healthy. He had two-thirds of a mile to go before he reached the bridge. He must have been right about the yuppies abandoning their waterfront homes, because he didn’t see a single car in the driveways. No one would bail him out with a rifle blast this time.
He peeked over his shoulder, and didn’t feel all that good about what he saw: a huge set of enhanced dolphin jaws closing in on him. Even though it walked like a three-legged dog, the mutant still had a beat on him. And if he didn’t hurry it up, another one of its buddies might show up and split the meal.
Screw the pain, he thought. Aaron shifted into a full sprint. Every time his exposed heel struck the hot pavement, the agony shot up his leg. He struggled to stay upright. He made it past two houses before he couldn’t take it any longer. Aaron settled for hobbling and knowing that he had bought a little more time. Then he caught sight of something awesome in one of the yuppies’ yards. He took back everything bad he ever said about them.
Aaron scooped up the skateboard, set it in the street and hopped on. He only needed one good foot on there. Aaron sped away from the lumbering dolphin. Normally, he would have grinned and exclaimed something like, “Shredding!” but Aaron found no reason for celebration.
He couldn’t run forever-not on a strip of land about a mile wide with a bridge over the deadly water separating him from the mainland. At least he still had a sliver of hope. Swartzman had nothing, thanks to him.