Robinson Crusoe 2245: (Book 2) (24 page)

They ran through a set of narrow structures bearing oval windows that looked like mouths. They opened into a courtyard of old buildings that led to a faux town.

They passed under a half arch of a twisted, metal structure named
Titan
that swelled into the sky. Robinson wasn’t sure what he was looking at, but its soaring height made him reel.

Friday led Robinson toward a one-story structure at the top of a low hill. They were scaling a winding, broken path when a flash of gray moved past them on their left. Robinson fired three more shots, but none appeared to hit. The creature emitted a terrifying, guttural roar.

Deja vu washed over Robinson. He remembered the cat people suggesting their deity had returned. Other memories of the river and the train ride to the caves had him asking if the same creature had been hunting him all that time.
But why him? It made no sense.

As they summited the hill, they pushed through a revolving glass door and entered the single-story building. The rain ceased abruptly. The quietude was jarring. The room was full of upturned tables and chairs, most surprisingly intact. So too were the floor-to-ceiling windows that made up three of the four walls.

“Watch the door while I scout the back,” Robinson said.

Robinson pushed through swinging doors into a kitchen. The rear door looked reinforced. No one had been inside in a very long time.

“Do you think it’s a Render?” Robinson asked when he returned.

“I don’t know,” Friday answered. “I’ve never seen one move so fast. And I heard the Flayer king discussing how their numbers were decreasing, but no one knew why.”

“Maybe I can fill in some blanks about that later.”

“What is this place?”

“An amusement park,” Robinson answered. “I read a story about them once in the library. Back in the old times, people looked for ways to scare themselves. Life was too boring, I guess.”

Friday looked out the window at the massive steel structure beyond.

“So much I do not understand,” she said.

A lightning strike shook the building. Outside, rain was falling in torrents, creating rivulets of fast-moving water that poured off the mountain behind them.

Friday was about to say something when she froze. Robinson wheeled around and saw it.

Standing in front of the circular door was a hulking creature on four legs. It had mottled skin and a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth. It looked terrifying from afar, but when the lightning flashed again, its golden eyes glittered.

Robinson knew those eyes. “It can’t be,” he whispered.

“What is it?” Friday asked.

“The night you rescued me from the airfield. The night Resi … died. I ran into a pack of dogs that night. Its leader got away.”

The alpha dog sniffed at the door, but it clearly couldn’t see inside. It snarled as it stalked around the building to look for another entrance.

“For the past few months, I’ve felt something following me. Tracking me. I thought I was being paranoid.”

“There is no such thing as paranoid. There is prepared and dead.”

“Well, we know which one this bitch has got to be,” Robinson said as he raised the pistol. The alpha dog craned its head, but when the hammer fell, there was no explosion. Robinson cursed, realizing the shell must have gotten wet.

He was reloading when Friday said, “It’s gone.”

Robinson looked up to find the sidewalk outside vacant. And then without warning the glass wall behind them shattered, and the alpha skittered into the room.

The alpha crouched and leapt at Friday, its howl wracking their ears. Friday brought the axe down hard across the alpha’s shoulder the exact instant its claws tore into the meat of her forearm. Robinson thrust the pistol into its holster before picking up a chair and charging.

The mutated dog reared back but clawed the legs of the chair again and again as Robinson backed Friday toward the revolving glass door. Robinson threw the chair as the alpha ran at the glass, cracking it. As they pirouetted out, the beast got caught inside. Friday swung the axe again, this time severing two digits from the Alpha’s paw. It roared in pain and wrenched backward. Robinson and Friday seized the moment and ran.

They were halfway up the hill when they heard the alpha escape. A torrent of muddy water was pouring down the cement steps, but there was nowhere else to go. Robinson and Friday desperately grasped at the handrails until they stumbled into the biggest ride of the park. Friday threw a metal gate across the entrance, and Robinson wove an old rusty chain through it moments before the alpha arrived.

The alpha attacked the gate. It bowed but didn’t give. The beast stalked menacingly up and down the fence, its eyes rooted to its prize.

The interior of the ride was made up of several tracks and a number of large, oval carts. The front of the ride had eroded away, leaving the tracks dangling like branches over the small river that ran ahead there. To the rear, another fence pushed up against the mountain, and water spilled through it, funneling toward the front of the ride.

The alpha tested the gate twice more before jaunting off toward the back of the ride. There, an open-mouthed tunnel led to a precipice.

“It can’t reach it, can it?” Friday asked.

Her question was answered when the fabricated tunnel suddenly bowed and cracks appeared in the concrete abutment.

“It’s trying to leap up there,” Robinson said. “We need something to barricade it with. Give me a hand.”

He rushed for one of the ride’s upturned cars, but it was too heavy to move.

Behind them, the tunnel bobbed again, and a paw appeared, clawing in an attempt to scramble up.

“Hurry!” Friday said.

Robinson looked around and tore a piece of rebar from the wall. He raced back to spear the joints holding the tunnel in place. The metal rods groaned as the weight of the tunnel stretched it. A popping noise followed fractures in the concrete. The alpha reached a second paw for the end of the tunnel, fighting to get its head up.

The entire tunnel began violently ripping away, but not before the alpha’s hind leg took purchase and it vaulted inside.

Friday tossed the axe to Robinson as she picked up an old cart door to use as a shield. But just as the alpha was racing toward them, the abutment snapped in half, and the entire tunnel pitched away. A roar of mud and water spilled into the ride, the deluge whipping the alpha off its feet. Robinson realized what was about to happen.

“Mudslide!” he screamed.

They turned and ran for the front of the ride, but they were also knocked down. Robinson did the only thing he could: he grabbed Friday and pulled her into the last open cart on the tracks.

The cart immediately jolted forward. Robinson reached out to grab a bar, and it snapped against them, locking them into place.

Robinson and Friday screamed as the cart shot over the edge, straight into the river that was quickly filling with mud. But as they were dragged downstream, the cart spun around, and they could see the alpha standing at the edge of the ride, looking for any way to follow.

The cart was slammed in every direction, the muddy water spilling over them. The heavy base and rounded shell kept them from turning over and submerging, but both were retching from the influx that found their mouths and threatened to choke them.

The torrent only fed the ferocity of the river. The cart began to spin and spin. Friday clutched Robinson’s arm, unable to see with silt and muck in her eyes. Out of nowhere, the undercarriage of the cart struck something hard and whipped them toward the base of a collapsed bridge. Friday knew this was going to hurt.

“Hold on!” Friday screamed.

The cart slammed into concrete, tearing open the metal shell. More water spilled in, quickly rising past Robinson’s knees and legs. As it rose past his chest, he tipped his head up. Friday was wrenching at the safety bar holding them in place, but it refused to open.

Just when things couldn’t possibly get worse, Friday gasped. Robinson looked out to see the alpha in the water, its claws dug into an uprooted tree. It snarled as it hung on, scrambling to climb atop the tree as it drew nearer and nearer.

“My axe!” Robinson screamed.

Friday reached for the axe, but she fumbled it in the water. The alpha was barely a few feet away and prepared to leap, when a rifle shot struck the wood near its face. Friday looked up to see a shadow on the bank above them. The shooter took aim a second time and fired. Robinson finally managed to grab the axe, but when he looked back, the alpha was retreating behind one of the limbs.

Robinson watched as the mutated dog passed him by—those golden eyes locked with his, exposing a hate that was all-encompassing.

And then, suddenly, it was gone.

Through the blinding rain, a voice spoke just outside the car.

“Give me your hand,” it said.

Friday’s face lit with recognition and horror.

“No …” she muttered. “No!”

“Your hand,” the voice said again.

Robinson wiped the mud from his face and saw Arga’Zul. Flayers surrounded him. They were all armed.

Friday screamed again, but Robinson looked down to see her half of the security bar was broken. He was pinned, but she was free. Water continued to funnel in through the gash in the cart. It shook as the bridge pilings threatened to give way. There was only one thing to do.

“Friday,” Robinson said, strangely calm.

She shook her head furiously.

“No,” she pleaded. “Give me the axe!”

Robinson looked up at Arga’Zul again and saw no look of anger or triumph. He merely waited, hand extended.

“Please,” Friday begged Robinson. “I cannot lose you again.”

Water spilled over Robinson’s face. He hoped they washed away his tears too.

“I found you once,” he said. “I’ll find you again.”

Friday collapsed inward. She wanted to beg and plead. She was willing to die with him right then and there. But that would only break his heart first. And that, she was unwilling to do.

Friday leaned over and kissed him instead. Then she whispered into his ear. “I’ll wait for you. Forever if I have to.”

Robinson smiled. “I won’t be that long,” he said.

More of the bridge piling tore away. It was now or never. Friday reached out and took Arga’Zul’s hand. He handed her off to his Flayers before a rifle was put into his hands.

Robinson grinned, but before Arga’Zul could react, he swung his axe toward the base of the cart. After the second hit, it tore away.

As the cart bounded down the river, Robinson struggled to get free. Eventually, the metal holding him in place snapped, and he was cast into the river. He struggled against the heavy pull of the muddy waters, but the current was too much. His vision began to fade as his body was dragged over rocks and debris. He felt no pain.

Just when it seemed like all was lost, Robinson felt earth under his feet and pushed with all his might.

The flow of water slowed as he scrambled through grass and collapsed on land. He was barely conscious, gasping for breath, when someone pulled the axe from his hand.

Robinson heard voices speaking in a language foreign yet familiar. He recognized the order to kill, but the blow never came.

Instead, one of the men peeled back his torn shirt and gasped.

Robinson looked up and realized why.

The men surrounding him bore the same mark.

He had found the Aserra.

“There is no value in anything until it is finished.”

“The time has come to honor our agreement,” Vardan Saah said.

Baras’Oot sat on his throne, outwardly composed, but inside, he was fuming. That very morning, he’d been given the numbers of the wounded and dead. Over a third of his army had been lost in the explosions set off by the Big Hats. For that, his enemies would pay dearly. But here he was, less than twenty-four hours later, watching the flying peacock strut around as if he was the one who gave the orders. If he wasn’t desperate for what the stranger promised, he would flay him personally. He still might.

“If we don’t act now, I believe the weapons you covet will be lost,” Saah responded. “The same weapons—had they been in your possession yesterday—would have easily rebuked the advances of these interlopers.”

When Saah looked up, the king’s irritation was evident.

“It is not me you should be angry with, great king,” Saah said.

“No? Then whom?”

“Your brother,” Saah said, glancing at Arga’Zul. “He broke the terms with the train woman that ultimately forced her hand.”

Arga’Zul snorted. “You disapprove of my negotiation tactics?”

“I disapprove of any tactics that fail,” Saah answered.

Arga’Zul glowered at Saah as he stepped closer to him. He towered over the man.

“I would not fail with you. I could peel the location of these weapons from your tongue before you tasted your first drop of blood.”