Another explosion rocked the deck behind him, and he could hear St. Croix cackling in triumph. “Put that thing away, you idiot!”
Before he could say anything, Mason tossed him the machine gun. St. Croix caught it with a huff. He tossed Mason his grenade launcher, then shouldered the fifty. “Where?”
“East side! Tripod it to the deck!”
The three of them ran back across the platform, and St. Croix hit the ground, reassembling the mount before he even stopped moving. The barrel of the gun could shoot just beneath the railing, making the spot an ideal roost.
The shapes were coming up the stairwells now, and Mason counted a dozen more. Three of them toppled as Vy squeezed off a controlled burst. Mason fired and popped two more. The next wave came in a group, and he shot low, taking out their knees. Whatever the hell they were, however they'd been changed, they died just like men. And so Mason shot them just like men, chewing their bodies to bits with his rifle.
He looked around and could see the outline of the chopper through the steel supports on the northeast corner. “It's circling into position!”
St. Croix pulled back the lever on the fifty cal, aiming out through the beams.
“What is that?” Christian yelled.
“Be quiet!”
Mason listened, and he realized he could hear voices.
He jogged back to the railing, and when he reached the side, he saw exactly where the rest of Doctor Grey's Carrion things were. They were clustered around the metal supports beneath the barracks, hissing and spitting and climbing. In the middle, directly beneath the building, he saw Angus dangling from a hole in the roof. AJ was down to his underwear, clutching a rope that looked made of clothes.
One of the shapes leapt from the supports and grabbed at the man, but he swung out of the way. The thing fell, banged into a cross beam, then splashed into the water.
AJ looked up then, his gray eyes blazing. When he caught sight of Mason, he took one hand from the rope and made the little point-and-shoot gesture Melvin had done when they'd locked them in the room.
Spitting fury, Mason leveled his rifle straight at him. At that instant, the chopper rounded the platform behind him, and St. Croix opened fire.
4
AJ prepared to drop. He looked at the makeshift rope above him and calculated its length at about six feet. Well, only a forty-four foot drop instead of a fifty foot drop, he thought insanely. Then a bray of machine gun fire erupted from somewhere in the sky.
Mason lost his bead as bullets clanged off of the ground and ricocheted off of the steel. One of The Carrion shapes near him caught a stray round in the hand and dropped, following his hideous companion to the waters below. AJ could see through to the other side of the platform, the chopper hovering in the distance. Bruhbaker's men fired back in a steady stream.
The makeshift rope shook and tottered. Above him, Gideon's parka had taken a bullet, its orange sleeve sporting a tear the size of a prison snitch's asshole.
“Swing me,” he called upwards.
Gideon's face appeared. “What?”
AJ looked at the top deck where Mason was recovering. “Swing me!” he yelled again. “Get me over there!”
The rope began to sway, two sets of hands attached to the line. AJ tucked his knees to his chest and swung towards the deck, ending up about six feet away. His body rolled back in the other direction, and then he swung again. Four feet.
Mason stumbled to the rails, his AR-15 in hand.
AJ let go of the rope on the up-swing. He flailed through the air and slammed into the side of the deck, grabbing Mason's shirt through the rails. The big man slammed into the side and planted his feet, his rifle dropping somewhere behind him. He closed one hand around the steel bars, the other around his assailant's throat. AJ felt the cartilage in his Adam's apple crunch, the karmic reversal of his bout with Doctor Grey. Then AJ's hand groped something on Mason's belt: his own M1911, dangling loosely in Mason's holster. His thumb slipped upwards, and suddenly, the pistol was his hand. It was so unexpected that the gun went off, firing into Mason's meaty thigh. The shot blew the pistol backwards, and it flew out of his grip, falling into space.
Mason grunted, bringing a hammerfist down like a brick.
AJ dropped into free fall, but his hands shot out and grabbed the edge of the platform, saving him by inches. He let out a gasp, hanging over empty space like a failed rock climber. Mason grinned, raising a boot to mash AJ's fingers to pulp. But then, an object clanged off of a nearby support and hit the big man in the shoulder. It looked like an empty paint bucket. The man stumbled back on his bad thigh and collapsed to the deck.
“Hey monkey man!” It was Dutch, hanging off of the clothes rope behind him.
“Hurry up! I'm slipping!” AJ called.
“Throw me the gun first!”
“What gun?”
“The one you shot him with!”
“I lost it!”
“What?”
“I lost it! Just… swing over here! Hurry!” He could already hear Mason scrambling to his feet.
“Jump!” Dutch yelled.
“I can't make it!”
“I'll catch you! Jump!”
AJ did. He threw one foot up and kicked off of the platform, using every last bit of strength he had. Their bodies snapped together, Dutch throwing his free arm under AJ's armpit. AJ grabbed at him, expecting to fall straight after impact.
But he didn't.
“Nice one! Now for Christ's sake man, get your hand off my dick.”
AJ looked down. “Sorry.” He shifted.
“Get to the rope beneath me. You're on point, Ace.”
AJ looked back at the platform. It seemed a hundred yards from where he was holding on, and he couldn't believe that he had made it.
Mason was leaning over the rails, now without a rifle and without a pistol. He was staring, that look of rage etched onto his face. With a final glare, he turned and disappeared from sight.
“Hey!” Gideon shouted from above. “You okay?”
AJ squirmed. “We're a little busy!”
Dutch tapped him on the head and pointed. “Think if we jump over to those crossbeams, you can climb down?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“You can stay and die, I guess.”
AJ let himself down to the end of the rope. He could hear the fabric around Gideon's coat tearing bit by bit.
The crossbeam supports were closer than the platform though, and he grabbed onto one easily. He was completely below the body of the platform now, nothing but empty air and steel beneath him. And the tentacles, of course. Before he could start climbing, he found himself face to face with a large one, almost close enough to touch. Like Jin, he could see the hideous shapes trapped inside of it, but unlike Jin, he knew the thing for what it was. Gideon had made sure to tell them exactly where his crew had gone.
“Uh, Dutch…”
The thing inside the tentacle moved and a slit appeared, the flesh parting like vulva. The thing beyond — not five feet from him — stirred and squirmed.
“Dutch!” he yelled.
A pair of arms shot from the inside of the tentacle, swiping the air in front of his face.
“Go! Go, go!”
Dutch got moving, and AJ followed, wrapping his arms around the steel supports and climbing down one section at a time.
“This is a bad idea,” he whispered, feeling the ocean winds whipping at his back. “Oh yeah. Definitely a bad idea.”
He heard a squeal from above and saw Gideon climbing down their makeshift rope, his face scrunched in terror. They were all on borrowed time. If Mason found a gun or grabbed one of his men, the three of them would be nothing but big, barely moving targets. That wasn't even the worst of it: the chopper was coming around.