Chapter 37 Tendrils of Compassion #2
“She’s right. Three, maybe four, but I can’t tell if they’re alive.”
“Well, we have to go in there, find out,” declared Lark. “We can’t let the elements or those unnaturally huge jellyfish kill them.”
“It could be a trap.” Azaleen’s demeanor pivoted on a pin. Gone was the friendly companion. In her place stood the icy queen, eyes sharp with suspicion, mouth grave. “What do you think, Jonas?”
“I don’t know about traps, but those mutated cubozoa can be deadly,” the skipper answered. His brow furrowed, and he scratched his beard. “Even the common box jellyfish’s tentacles’ sting can be life-threatening. These have been known to stop a man’s heart from beating.”
Wes hollered from where he stood near Diego and the wheel. “My Geiger counter is picking up radiation from the blob. Not lethal amounts, but they sure aren’t normal jellies.”
“But we have to help them,” Lark insisted.
“We don’t know where they’re from,” Luke cautioned, “or even if they’re alive.”
As they neared the mass of boat parts and sea menace, the air stank faintly of iodine and putrefaction , every gust carrying a whiff of something unnatural.
“There could be an explosive hiding in there,” Diego called across the length of the cutter, “rigged to blow when the bodies are disturbed.”
“Why would someone do that?” Skye asked. “Nobody knew we’d be out here.”
Azaleen seemed torn, her gaze flickering from the skipper to Luke to Lark and to the floating mass. Waves slapped the hull as the sailboat rocked. A tentacle coiled over the wrecked hull, waving toward a human figure lying there.
“Use all due caution,” ordered Azaleen. “Take us closer and we’ll see if they’re alive.” Lark sensed the queen’s tension and wished she could comfort her.
Jonas cupped his hands to his mouth. “Ahoy! Is anyone alive in there?”
Halcyon’s bow bumped into a jellyfish at the outer edge of the shimmer. Lark recoiled as a stinging filament slithered up the side, undulating like a poisonous worm.
Someone stirred, pushed up to a seated position, and waved weakly at them. “Help,” squeaked from his parched throat.
“Look!” Mate Flynn pointed with urgency. “Someone’s alive!”
Azaleen crooked a worried aspect at Pike. “I’ll take all due care,” he promised. “Rory, get up here with some ropes and poles. I’ll take the wheel.”
Skipper and mate moved into position while the VERT team stood by to aid the survivors or fight off attackers, whichever proved to be the case. Jonas cursed under his breath as the cutter wallowed through the drifting bells, his tiller hand twitching at every brush of tentacle across the hull.
Rory’s fair hair gleamed gold in the sun as it framed his ruddy face. With a line and a pole, he eased out onto the bow pulpit. “We’re comin’ to get ya,” he shouted to the survivor.
The blistered man who’d waved and called out shook the shoulders of two others, another man and a woman.
The damaged floating hull creaked, and a crate slid off into the mass of thrashing jellyfish, a menacing appendage flailing dangerously near the man’s leg.
Lark hopped up beside Flynn, taking a gaff from him.
He tossed a line while she hooked an edge of the wreckage and pulled it nearer.
The man fumbled with the rope, almost dropping it into the oozing gelatinous mass.
“Careful.” Queen Frost’s tone was layered with concern and command. Harlan aimed his gun, Jonas steady at the wheel. Diego and Skye hurled grappling hooks from their spot in the cockpit area, snagging a cleat.
“Here.” Flynn leaned over the rail, extending an arm.
The man tried to balance, to stand on the unsteady portion of hull.
The other man and the woman peered up at them with frantic eyes.
Lark pulled the unsteady platform until it clinked into the Halcyon.
The first survivor, sunburned and shaky, locked wrists with Flynn.
When he shifted his weight to climb up, the other man—who appeared much weaker—faltered, losing his balance, and toppled backward into a pulsing glob of deadly jelly.
A gasp arose from Lark’s team. The queen covered her mouth, her breath catching, eyes wide in shock. His screams tore the air as stinging arms dragged him under.
“Don!” the surviving woman cried.
“Look at me,” Luke ordered in a stern voice. She glanced up at him while Flynn pulled the moaning survivor over the rail. “We’ve got you now.”
Guiding him to the deck, Lark offered comfort. “Come with me. We’ll get you some water.”
“Don,” he moaned. “Matt, Chloe, Bart, everyone.” He sank to his knees on the teak planks and covered his eyes, a voiceless wail spilling from his twisted mouth.
When Flynn stretched for the woman, a tentacle slapped his arm. Pain flashed across his face as the welt swelled, angry and red. He slapped a protective hand over the mark.
“Get to the galley,” Luke ordered, “and put some vinegar on that. Diego, go with him. I’ll pull her up.”
Eyes brimming with tears of pain, Flynn nodded and scurried along the rail.
“I’ll see to him.” Azaleen followed the young man. As the sailboat pulled free, the jellyfish swarm closed over the spot, as if erasing all trace of what had just transpired.
A short while later, with Flynn’s arm treated and bandaged, salve spread on the half-starved survivors, and reheated soup ladled around, Azaleen questioned the pair they’d fished from the sea.
“Who are you, and where are you from?” The team sat squeezed onto the benches in the cockpit, all but Flynn, who was sleeping before taking night duty, and Wes, who was seasick again.
The battered man looked late thirties, while the woman with him was much younger. Both suffered from dehydration and the effects of the elements.
Luke had searched their packs, and what he found told a revealing tale—Verdancian coins, Appalachian credits, and Republic notes; jewelry, watches, batteries; a waterlogged revolver; a box crammed with medicines, a roll of silk cloth, and tins of old survival foods like they found in the Tupelo bunker.
“I’m Jose Lopez, and this is my daughter, Sandy.” He seemed calm and was talking more clearly than before. “I can’t thank you enough. If you hadn’t come along and fished us out of that mess, we’d have all ended up like Don.”
“We weren’t going to sit by and watch you become a meal for radiated jellyfish.
” She leveled a pointed look at Lark. She had reasons for concern, not the least of which was what to do with these two.
The Halcyon was at capacity before they came on board, and they had only packed rations for ten, not twelve.
However, for some irrational reason, Lark’s opinion of her mattered.
She couldn’t bear the idea of Lark viewing her as cold and uncaring.
Lark caught her gaze, lifted a discerning brow, and nodded to her. Approval. That single nod warmed her more than the sun at her back. While showing no outward sign, Azaleen felt a small weight lift.
“We’re from a coastal village called Captains Cove,” Sandy answered. “There were six of us on our boat.” The teenage girl lowered her chin, salt-caked hair falling across her face. “They’re all dead now.”
“Where is Captains Cove?” Jonas asked. He puffed on a pipe, the sweet tobacco swirling around them while the cutter, back at full sail, raced to make up for lost time. “I don’t recall such a town.”
“It’s in Appalachia, isn’t it?” The queen stared authoritatively at Jose.
He nodded. “But we aren’t cult followers. I don’t even think the Oligarchy knows we exist. Vast stretches of wasteland lie along the coast, between our peninsula and the mountains. Our village mostly sustains itself with fishing.”
“And smuggling,” Luke added. “Or piracy. Which is it?” His glare was sharp enough to cut glass.
Jose didn’t flinch. “Scavenging.”
Sandy lifted her face, tearstains having carved lines through the dirt and sunburn. “We cruise up and down the shore, find things people left behind. Then we trade them with whoever. The pirates are the ones who wrecked our trawler.”
Luke had told Azaleen about the bullet holes he spotted in the broken hull piece.
“Then, your home is north of here?” Jonas asked. He nudged the wheel.
“A couple of days at the speed you’re sailing.
Listen, I have some Verdancian currency in my bag.
” Jose’s voice carried a thread of pleading beneath the calm.
“I’d gladly pay you to ferry us back to our peninsula if you’re headed that way.
It would be a near-impossible journey to get there from these shores because of the red zones.
” He gestured at the faint coastline off port.
“I’ll trade with you for passage to Captains Cove,” Azaleen agreed, “only for the ration tins and the medical kit. We’ve doctored your burnt skin and are feeding you from our stocks. This way, we won’t come up short for the duration of our travel.”
The queen hadn’t told them who she was and had signaled for the others to keep quiet as well—in case these were actually assassins. If so, their employer certainly made them suffer to appear authentic.
Jose reached out his hand. “Deal.”
Azaleen shook it, noting the rough skin, the scars, and the missing half-finger.
They aren’t assassins, she concluded. Lark was right.
Stopping to help was the honorable thing to do.
She was suddenly reminded of the pirates who’d attacked the scavengers’ boat.
Were they still out there? What other dangers awaited them?