Expedition Beyond Read online

  The beast horde loped into rectangular formations along the water’s edge. Some, holding torches, stood and watched. Des guessed these torchbearers were captains. Des counted the edges of one rectangle: nineteen beasts by thirteen. There were ten blocks in all—two thousand five hundred beasts.

  The beasts were quiet as Shrive walked back onto his ship.

  He returned with a pole and what looked like a burlap bag. He planted the pole firmly into the sand in front of the beast formations. He removed a ball from the bag and thrust it with force onto the pole, then backed away, smiling.

  Puma’s curls dropped; her unseeing eyes had withered in their sockets.

  “The bastards!” Des gasped, infuriated.

  The warrior beside him vomited.

  He grabbed her hand. “Kill them,” he said, and she nodded.

  Shrive emitted a shriek that seemed to last for minutes.

  Des pulled his sword from the earth and ran down his line of warriors to a rock where Shrive could see him plainly.

  “Hey!” Des called as loud as he could. “Hey, asshole!”

  Shrive moved his head around jerkily, like a bird, keeping his eyes focused centrally while searching for the source of the sound.

  “Hey, asshole! Up here!”

  Shrive locked his eyes with Des, then growled loudly enough for Des to hear. He blew his horn four times.

  Four of the beast formations broke into lines. Des hurried back to his CD player.

  A thousand beasts were about ready to charge.

  Chapter 43

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  “E com á ralla ralla. Boose, boost!” Des commanded.

  The six young girls jumped to their feet, picked up lit torches from a fire-pit, fanned out, then ran down the cleared shooting galleries toward the beach.

  Des counted six long seconds. Halfway was a firebreak where they lit the gunpowder-laced dried vegetation stuffed under split logs. The fires spread quickly towards the beasts as the girls returned to Des.

  The beasts had only two ways to charge Des’ warriors: through the fire or climbing through dense forest.

  “Archers ready!” Des shouted.

  One hundred warriors stood on the path above and loaded their bows.

  The girls ran beneath drawn arrows, lighting them.

  “Aim…Fire!”

  Although most arrows fell short of their marks, a few were right on target; beasts screamed in agony as their wounds burned.

  “Archers ready!” Des called. “Aim…Fire! Alée!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Take command of the archers.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Des raised his sword high over his head, where rays of sunlight caught the blade and made it glitter.

  Ray-na’s team lit fuses.

  Des thumbed the play button on his CD player, and the Colorado Symphonic Orchestra began John Phillip Sousa’s The Washington Post march fortissimo.

  The beast torchbearers didn’t wait for another volley of flaming arrows. They signaled with their torches and beasts surged forward as cymbals crashed.

  Then the beach erupted with booming fireballs that blew through the middle of their charging ranks as the fuses reached the concealed gunpowder.

  Four hundred beasts had already passed before the explosions. Apparently oblivious to the sounds behind them, they ran up the mountain, staying at the edges of the shooting galleries to avoid the fire and using the cleared land for momentum.

  Des saw three beasts climb the tree from which the north soundstick hung. One beast broke the speaker in half and dropped it to the ground, where others chopped it with hatchets.

  Another three beasts climbed the soundstick tree to the south while others watched. A small bush rose up to attack one of the onlookers, hitting it on the back of the head with an iron hatchet. Another leafy growth rose from the ground to slit a beast throat with his knife. Suddenly aware of their danger, beasts started frantically pounding the foliage around them with their hatchets. A warrior’s arm extended spasmodically from the dense leaves as the beasts hacked at the bloody ground. Finally, one beast in the tree found the soundstick and bit into it.

  Rawool stood and smashed together the skulls of two beasts. As they fell, Rawool held aloft his fist holding a hatchet.

  Des saw Rawool exult as his men made mincemeat of the enemy surrounding them. The three beasts in the tree didn’t even attempt to climb down.

  “Guns ready!” Des said to his line of warriors as the charging beasts came into range.

  “Yes, sir!” they replied in unison.

  “Number one, ready.”

  In each group of three, one warrior stood and put her blowgun to her mouth. Two warriors at the far end knelt; Des knew they didn’t have a clear target and were following his instructions not to waste ammunition. The beast horde was closing in on them, so Des could wait no longer; there were plenty of clear targets for the rest.

  “Fire!”

  A volley of poison-tipped darts found their marks.

  “Two, ready. Fire!”

  As the first warrior in each group reloaded, the second fired.

  “Three, fire!”

  It took seven seconds to reload; every three seconds, a fresh volley of darts were unleashed on the beasts.

  “One, ready, fire!”

  Beasts stopped, screaming; others ran helter-skelter, disrupting the rest. The horde’s progress had been impeded.

  “Hold fire.”

  The standing warriors knelt.

  The beasts regrouped for a fresh assault, out of range of the darts.

  “Light the upper galleries!” Des ordered.

  The teenagers lit the kindling in front of the blowgun warriors. As the fires spread, the beasts disappeared into dense forest.

  Des moved his archers to the first line of defense, and the dart-gun warriors to the second—next to their war clubs.

  When the beasts reappeared through the fire in a dense grouping, Des shouted to his blowgun warriors.

  “Two, ready. Fire!”

  The darts hit the leading beasts. Des checked the ammo supply on his warriors’ mats. Only one dart remained in front of each team, and the beasts were only forty meters away, preparing for a final assault.

  “E-yah-ho!” Des screamed.

  The archers laid flat on their bellies. The dart-gun warriors set aside their weapons, and picked up forked branches with gunpowder-filled banana leaves. As each was lit, it was hurled at the advancing beasts.

  The beasts turned, but retreated slowly. The teenagers dropped their torches in the fire-pit and ran up the slope.

  Des raised his sword. “Fire down!” As his arm fell, the shooting galleries’ fires abated.

  Warriors with war clubs sounded battle cries as they chased after the remaining beasts. The beasts turned once to confront them, then ran with the warriors close after them.

  Des saw injured beasts on the beach being murdered by their own kind and stacked in piles. Two more formations on the sand broke apart, as five hundred beasts readied to storm the mountain. Torches flashed a signal and the beasts began running, as another thousand waited in four formations by the sea.

  Des signaled Adeyo, who disappeared. A drumbeat started to roll.

  The pursuing warriors retreated, parting to each side below Des as the fresh beast troops thundered up the mountain.

  “Roll!” Des shouted to his archers.

  They rolled into piles of three and held their arms over their heads.

  The sound of racing horse-hooves was deafening. Each of the warriors on horseback carried a war club or a sword. The newest contingent of beasts was halfway to where Des stood when the horses ran full-bore into them. Meanwhile, the warriors just below Des fought back towards the beach as Rawool and his men closed
in from the south; the archers sent volleys of arrows into the swarm.

  The beasts were retreating!

  But Des’ elation was short-lived. He looked past the melee on the mountain below him and saw two more beast formations readied to charge, leaving another five hundred still in reserve. The horses were stopped as they engaged in battle.

  Des signaled Adeyo, who changed his drumbeat. His troops were now the ones retreating, guarded by the archers above and the horsewomen below.

  When the last warrior had reached the path, and the horses were above Des, the beasts were in hot pursuit only fifty meters away.

  “Fire, up!” Des yelled.

  Beasts screamed as the flames rekindled.

  “Alée, have the archers shoot across the fire—the beasts are on the other side.”

  Des ran towards Sight Rock, seeing that some archers were shooting in that direction. When he reached the vantage point, he realized what had happened.

  Beasts had forded the river; hundreds were massing on the path eighty meters from his closest warrior. He had been outflanked and outnumbered. The flames would soon weaken, and they would be overrun.

  “Allay, allay ipsay, Adeyo! Go!” he shouted.

  The warriors retreated.

  “Alée, regroup at Adeyo’s. I’ll stall them.”

  Des flashed his sword at the beasts. They flashed back with teeth.

  He ran back down the path to where Anastasia was standing by a tree.

  “The beasts are coming from the river,” he said. “They want me. Go with the others. They will follow me.”

  “They want me, too,” she said, grabbing his hand. “Quickly, the museum!”

  Beasts lumbered towards them as they climbed.

  The door to the museum was open. As they ran across the grassy clearing, Des heard scratching and scraping. A beast appeared at the doorway, pulling the door closed.

  “No you don’t!” Des whacked off the beast’s arm with his sword.

  As the beast screamed, Des and Anastasia slipped inside, pushing the door shut and crushing the skull of a beast who had begun to enter. Des drove the interior bolts home as the door shook violently.

  He whipped around to survey the museum’s interior, aware that beasts might already be inside.

  Torches in wall sconces flicked and sputtered in the surreal silence. Sword at the ready, Des searched the display aisles. He motioned for Anastasia to stand still in case he needed to wield his sword.

  There were no beasts in the museum.

  “Des,” Anastasia whispered, then pointed upward.

  Strands of straw flittered from the slits in the roof.

  Des drew the ring of keys from his belt, unlocked the door to the powder room and went inside. There were enough kegs left to power an explosion that would send mudslides to the beach, smashing any beasts remaining there.

  Anastasia screamed a warning.

  Des saw a burning torch spreading fire on the floor. He extinguished it in an urn, then pushed over the urn, which shattered, pouring water across the remaining flames.

  It sounded like thousands of insects were chewing on the roof. The slots were too narrow for beasts to penetrate, but Des knew what they were planning. He removed a torch from the wall and waved it overhead as he walked around looking through the roof-slots. The roof was covered with beasts using claws, hatchets and even teeth to widen the slots. One beast poked his head through the ceiling near the rear wall, then pulled back. Another beast dropped into the museum with a third right behind him.

  Des waved his torch at them and readied his sword, unaware that a beast dangled over Anastasia, his hand extended.

  The beast grabbed Anastasia’s shoulder, sinking his razor-sharp nails into her flesh and pulling her towards the roof.

  When she screamed, Des wheeled around, flashing his sword through the beast’s wrist.

  The beast’s severed hand, still impaling Anastasia, fell to the floor. Des laid his torch on the spilled water and dropped his sword. He pulled the claws out of Anastasia’s shoulder as blood streamed down her arm.

  Her eyes were wide. Des followed her gaze.

  At the far end of the museum, a dozen beasts stood with whips and drawn hatchets. Their sharp teeth gleamed.

  They charged.

  Des yanked Anastasia to her feet as he grabbed up his sword.

  “The powder room,” he said.

  They dashed down the hallway, but the beasts were gaining ground quickly. Des barely managed to swing the door shut and run his sword through the iron rings into the casing before the door shook fiercely.

  The sword held, and the door remained closed. Des ripped off the bottom of his tunic and wrapped it around Anastasia’s blood-soaked shoulder. Half naked and weaponless, he looked through the opaque glass window to see the shadows of faces looking back at him. If the beasts had understood what glass was, they would have shattered it into a million shards with their hatchets. But they obviously didn’t know, so they began scraping and clawing around its edges. The rotten mortar was coming out easily, so it wouldn’t take them long.

  “Anastasia, do you have fire with you?”

  She pulled flint and strike rod from her pocket and handed them to Des. He went to the remaining kegs of black powder, and used one to hit against the edge of another. It split open. Des carried the split keg back to Anastasia, leaving a powder trail behind him. When he reached the door, he threw the keg back onto the others, where the staves cracked into dust.

  He kissed Anastasia lightly.

  “They won’t take us alive,” he said.

  The bottom of the window opened a crack; the scraping sounds grew louder.

  “I love you,” Anastasia said, apparently accepting their fate.

  The window flapped open and a beast stuck his face into the room, smiling wickedly and showing all his teeth.

  Des lit the fuse.

  Chapter 44

  The beast disappeared.

  Des heard the outer museum door screech open over the crackle of the burning fuse, then a flurry of running feet. The opaque window flapped back and forth, then crashed to the floor and shattered.

  Des quickly broke the powder chain with his foot and the fuse fizzled out.

  Anastasia said excitedly, “Listen! The horn. The masters are calling the beasts back!”

  Des heard the horn blowing in the distance. He pulled his sword from the door and guided Anastasia outside by her good arm.

  A beast ran past them and down the mountain before Des could raise his sword, but the beast hadn’t even noticed them.

  Soon the horn stopped sounding, then Des heard another noise, one he knew well, a loud budda-budda-budda.

  “What is that?” Anastasia asked.

  Of course she didn’t know, but Des’ company had made the machinery behind the sound.

  “That, my dear, is the sound of giant war clubs. No, it’s actually the sound of deliverance from evil! Come on, let’s go see!”

  It sounded to Des as if the whole United States Army was rattling off rounds below them. He and Anastasia passed many dead beasts and some dead warriors.

  As they neared the beach, the shooting stopped.

  Des saw the back of a man in fatigues, standing alone with bullet chains crisscrossing his torso. Shrive lay dead near his feet. Des dropped both his sword and Anastasia’s arm and started running towards him as tears streamed across his face.

  It had to be Mitch.

  “—and fucking don’t come back!” the unmistakable voice boomed. Mitch held his fist high in the air.

  The ramp to the beasts’ boat rattled closed, and the paddles began churning.

  Mitch turned as Des approached.

  “Oh, hi, Des,” he said as casually as if they were passing on a Sunday afternoon walk. “We could tell who
the good guys were right away...Hey, slow down!”

  Des plowed into Mitch and they tumbled to the sand.

  “You…” was all Des could manage to say.

  “Calm down,” Mitch said, running his fingers through Des’ hair.

  “What the hell took you so long?”

  Mitch looked surprised. “Didn’t you hear?”

  “Hear what?”

  Mitch shook his head. “They closed the fucking ferry.”

  Des burst out laughing, and Mitch laughed, too.

  Anastasia collapsed onto the sand.

  As Des ran to her, Mitch boomed, “Medic!”

  Des cradled her head. An Army medic skidded to his knees while opening his bag and checked her pulse.

  “She just passed out,” he told Des as he cracked open smelling salts and waved it under her nose.

  She came to, startled.

  “It’s okay, my love,” Des told her.

  “Any news you want to share?” Mitch asked.

  “This is my wife, Anastasia. Anastasia, this is my best friend, Mitch.”

  Mitch grasped her hand. “Pleased to meet you, ma’am.”

  The medic unwrapped the cloth from her shoulder.

  “Some pretty nasty wounds you got here.” He opened a small package and pulled out iodine-soaked sponges. “This may sting.”

  As he started prepping the wounds, Alée trotted over, concerned.

  “She’s fine, Alée, just a little weak,” Des said.

  “Where the fuck did you find such beauties?” Mitch said, eyeing Alée with a smile.

  “Be careful, Mitch—Anastasia understands everything, and Alée can figure out most of what you say.”

  Mitch kept his eyes on Alée, who smiled.

  Des said, “Mitch, this is Alicia, who everyone calls Alée. Alée, this is Mitch.”

  Mitch held her hand with both of his and didn’t let go, but Alée didn’t seem to mind.

  “Alée, will you stroll down the beach with me?” Mitch asked.

  Alée giggled and said, “Abba.”

  “I’ll take that to mean yes,” Mitch said.