Clickers III Read online

  Tony shrugged.

  “Did I mention,” Amethyst said softly, “that Jennifer Wasco is on the island? You know her, yes?”

  “Jennifer? She’s on Naranu?”

  “Yes.” Amethyst nodded. “She is part of a research team that was recently dispatched there.”

  Onyx stepped forward, holding a black leather brief-case. It hadn’t been in his hands a moment earlier. Tony was sure of it. Wondering where it came from, he nodded at the briefcase.

  “So, in addition to reading minds, you guys do slight of hand tricks, too? Can you pull a rabbit out of a hat?”

  Onyx didn’t answer.

  “No?” Tony shrugged again. “Well, then how about this? Can you pull my dick out of my pants? Or maybe an elephant out of your ass?”

  Onyx didn’t react to the taunts. His face impassive, he handed the briefcase to Amethyst, who opened it and took out some eight-by-ten color photographs. He held them up so that Tony could see them.

  “These were taken less than an hour ago via our remote viewers. I trust that you recognize her?”

  “Fuck…”

  The series of photographs were all of Jennifer, running in terror across a tropical beach, pursued by both Clickers and Dark Ones. There were other people with her, but Tony didn’t recognize any of them. He assumed they were her colleagues—other scientists and researchers. The quality and resolution were enough that Tony could see the fear etched in Jennifer’s expression.

  “Fuck,” he repeated.

  “Understand this,” Amethyst said. “The events taking place on Naranu are happening as we speak. By the time the international community acts, it will be too late. She will die unless we get to her. If you don’t want to act to save the world, Tony, then perhaps you’ll act to save your friend.”

  Ruby licked her lips and stepped forward. “It is very easy to adopt a new name—a new identity—and pretend that doing so erases the mistakes of your past. It’s much harder to actually forge a future that is free of those past sins. I see that you struggle to do so. Perhaps this can be the first step toward real redemption.”

  Tony stared at them, glanced back down at the photographs, and then up again.

  “I assure you,” Amethyst said, “these are not fakes. Jennifer Wasco is on that island right now, fighting for her life.”

  “Well shit,” Tony said. “Why didn’t you just say so in the first place? When do we leave?”

  Nodding, Amethyst stood up and turned to the others. “Onyx, untie him. Diamond, take our other guest outside. Contact the circle and tell them we’ll need him picked up at the airport. Then we—”

  “No,” Tony interrupted. “The lawn jockey comes with us. Seriously. I’ve got enough blood on my hands. I’m not just gonna stand by while you fuckers do God knows what to him just because he had the bad luck to be outside of my apartment.”

  “I’m afraid that’s out of the question.” Amethyst shook his head.

  “Then I’m not going. Have Ruby read my mind—tell me I’m bullshitting you.”

  “He’s not,” she confirmed. “His will and intent are clear to me. He’ll refuse to come along if we don’t do as he asks. He means it.”

  “You’re damn straight I do. I don’t want his body showing up in a ditch somewhere, and then the cops trace him back here to my place. Screw that. He’s coming along for the ride.”

  Amethyst sighed. “Very well. We don’t have time to argue. He can accompany us. But when we get there, his blood will indeed be on your hands—and I assure you, Mr. Genova, that is a very likely possibility.”

  Onyx untied Tony while Diamond did the same to the newcomer. Tony stood, stretching his muscles and flexing his fingers.

  “Just let me grab my gun.”

  “I’m afraid we can’t allow that,” Amethyst said. “Both of you will be issued weapons once we reach our destination. We’ll also debrief you in full during the flight. Now, if there are no further delays?”

  “Actually, I gotta use the can real quick.”

  Amethyst started to protest, but Tony cut him off with a wave of his hand.

  “No funny business. I promise. Seriously, unless you want me to piss in your ride on the way to the airport, then I’ve got to take a leak first. I’ve got a weak bladder. Used to drive my partner, Vince, nuts with it. We’d drive from York to Atlantic City or Philly or someplace like that, and he’d have to pull over three or four times so I could piss.”

  “Go ahead. But please hurry.”

  Smiling, Tony ducked into the bathroom, straddled the toilet, and unzipped his fly. His legs and arms tingled as the circulation returned to them.

  “Damn,” he muttered. “And here I thought I’d be sitting alone tonight, all drunk and maudlin. Now I get to play civilian advisor to a bunch of paramilitary occult nut jobs and see Doc Wasco again. Tell me my life ain’t working out, Vince. Too bad you ain’t here to see it, you fat fuck.”

  The Elder hissed as he watched from a comfortable, secure vantage point—a hundred feet up a sheer rocky cliff that was lush with vegetation—as his soldiers ran the invading humans off the beach and into the jungle. The wet sand turned red as the slaughter reached its peak. Even from this distance, the Elder could smell the blood, borne to him on the salty sea breeze. He made a soft trilling noise as he watched the carnage below.

  The humans were no match for the Dark Ones and their Clickers. They’d been unaware of the humans’ presence when they emerged from the ocean, intent on waking Great Dagon. Their occupation of this most holiest of places had been an abomination. The Elder had suggested to his brothers that they wait and watch. Were the humans going to increase in number? Was their stay temporary? Naranu wasn’t very heavily populated to begin with. The human population that lived on the island were the indigenous people who’d inhabited the island for over forty thousand years and had served as guardians and sacrifices to Dagon. These new humans, though, were like the main-landers that had slaughtered the Elder’s brothers not so long ago. Sadly, the Elder’s suggestion had been overruled. So incensed were the rest of the Dark Ones at the humans’ presence—the killing had begun almost immediately.

  The Elder gnashed his teeth as he watched his brethren rend the fleeing humans. Half a dozen of them scattered into the jungle, screaming in unison as they were chased down and killed.

  It didn’t matter that his soldiers would catch and slaughter each and every one of them…what mattered was that the natives had allowed these humans on the island.

  That was unthinkable—and unforgivable.

  They had allowed the sacred spot, the most holiest of shrines, to be desecrated.

  The Elder roared. A flock of macaws took flight at the sound,

  squawking in fright. The Elder began to crawl down the lush vegetation, gripping strong vines and branches as it made its descent. Once it reached the jungle floor, it would head toward the beach where it would confirm that these new humans had been slaughtered. If there were stragglers, it would send its brethren out to destroy them. But in the meantime…

  …in the meantime, Dagon had to be appeased.

  Before the desecration of His holy shrine was discovered.

  His reptilian nostrils flared wide and his gills slapped uselessly along the side of his neck. The Elder glanced up at the moon, visible through the clouds, and calculated how long it would be until sunrise. With each passing generation, their kind became more resistant to the light, but they would still need to find shelter before the dawn. He wasn’t worried. If all went according to plan, there would be no further sunrises. Before tomorrow’s dawn, Dagon would be awake and the rains would begin. Soon, the planet would be more hospitable to their kind, and humanity would be extinct.

  Half a dozen Dark Ones were gathered around a small pile of human corpses. Their gills smacked wetly together as they rummaged through the bodies. The Elder bleated once at them. The circle must be protected! The Dark Ones answered, then departed to carry out the Elder’s orders, scattering to
different corners of the island. Their hive mind was at work now, working as one solid unit, bringing them all together. Their revenge would be fulfilled.

  The Elder scanned the beach. Human corpses littered the shore. Some were decapitated, others mutilated beyond recognition, others partially devoured and little more than bubbling froths of flesh due to the Clicker’s potent venom. A few of the humans had been cut in half by the Clicker’s massive claws. As always, the Dark Ones had used the Clickers to their advantage, herding them out of the ocean and up the beach in a mass attack, in some cases using them as mounts to drive the smaller Clickers forward. The element of surprise had been even more apparent here, on Naranu, where the Dark Ones had been living in their most secret of homes, their most remote conclave. For it was here that the secret to the universe lay.

  The Elder roared, calling out to his generals. Two of them were close by and they emerged from the jungle’s shadow. One carried a spear never before seen by those who inhabited the surface, dragged up from the depths of the shadow at the bottom of the world. It was a spear crafted by hands far older than those of the first Neanderthal who’d walked the earth—a weapon manufactured by a race of people that had died out long before the natives of Naranu crawled onto the sandy beaches from their makeshift rafts that had carried them here from other neighboring Micronesian Islands.

  As the two Dark Ones approached, the first of the island natives appeared on the beach. The Dark Ones turned around and faced them, growing silent as more natives emerged on the beach.

  The roaring and screeching of the Dark Ones and Clickers that had chased the last of the new humans into the jungle were growing farther away. Far off in the distance, a tree fell over with a loud crash. Entire groves of vegetation steamed and hissed as they were decimated. There was what sounded like a building being destroyed. The Elder smiled at the sound. It was good. Such structures were a blight upon the island. Perhaps the natives hadn’t anticipated the surprise arrival of dozens of mainlanders, but at the very least, they should have stopped such development from taking place. They should have barred the newcomers from the island, should have driven them off with brute force. But they didn’t, so the Elder had to take action, and now the mainlanders were being slaughtered.

  The Elder paid no heed to the screams of the dying coming from the jungle, nor the sound of the roaring of his soldiers and the hissing of the Clickers as they rampaged farther inland. His attention was wholly centered on the natives, who were gathering quickly. Over a dozen had emerged, and they stood in a rough semi-circle, their eyes wide with fright.

  One of them stepped forward, clearly afraid. He was dressed in a long pair of shorts and nothing else. His face was weathered, skin wrinkled and hard as a walnut. His hair was black with flecks of gray. He raised his hands in a placating motion and began to speak, the words spilling out of him quickly in his native tongue, which the Elder understood. “Oh, esteemed one! Please, forgive us! These scientists, they have forced themselves onto our land! They have wreaked havoc on all that is holy and worthy while we have cowered before them, knowing they are unworthy of being in the mere presence of Dagon! But we had no choice…they threatened us with much violence, with much bloodshed, if we did not—”

  The Elder bellowed in a language that was universal to both their kind: Silence!

  A huge flock of birds took flight from the trees that bordered the beach, heading inland. The Elder sensed the flight of other creatures fleeing through the jungle but paid them no heed. His attention was wholly centered on the native, who stood cowering before him.

  The Elder flicked his forked tongue out, tasting the air. There was a strong scent of acidy urine in the air along with a strong current of fear.

  When The Elder spoke it was through a series of grunts and clicking noises that came from deep within its throat.

  The humans they had slaughtered would not have understood what he was saying, but the natives did because they shared a common language. Their language was old when Atlantis was young, was ancient when the natives first reached this island. “You are not truthful when you say that these newcomers threatened you with violence. I can smell the lie on you. It oozes from your very pores. Our kind has allowed you to live on this island since you climbed down from the trees. You have served as guardians. Some of you have served as sacrifices. You have done this in accordance with that which is written on the clay tablets of R’lyeh. In return, we have given you the gift your people crave more than anything: your miserable, wretched lives. And what do you show for your gratitude?”

  The native shook his head, his fear palpable. His fellow natives were backing away. They appeared ready to bolt. “Please, oh esteemed one!” the native said again, his voice pleading. “You are our Masters! We are here to serve you! Tell us how we may redeem ourselves! We will do anything you ask! We throw ourselves at your mercy!”

  “Mercy?” the Elder barked. If the Elder had the vocal capabilities for laughter, it would have laughed long and hard at this foolish human. “You have the audacity to ask for mercy? After allowing these humans to defile the holy site of Dagon with their presence? You know all too well what these mainlanders have done to our kind in the recent past. They tried to exterminate our race. Yet you welcomed them.”

  The native trembled. Sweat poured down his brow. He was practically stuttering as he attempted to placate the Dark One a final time. “There were too many of them, my Lord. We tried to chase them off the island, but to no avail! They have walked all over us, they have not given us the respect we have demanded of them.”

  “Respect?”

  “We told them that out of respect for our ways and our god that they were to leave this island. When they refused, we threatened them with death.”

  “And you did not carry out your threats?”

  “Wanabi warned us against it,” the native said. “He said that if we did, then even more mainlanders would arrive, and that they would capture us and try us according to their laws, and that the island would never be free of them again. So we watched. The mainlanders called more of their kind to Naranu. We tried to warn them again—”

  “You didn’t try hard enough. And I’ve had enough of your excuses!”

  “Please, oh Father! We ask for your mercy. I will gladly give my life to you…in return of…”

  “Oh, I will have your life,” the Elder snarled. It stepped forward, pointing a taloned finger at the native. “I will have your life, as well as the lives of the rest of your pathetic tribe.”

  The Elder roared to his soldiers. “Ia! Ia!”

  The Dark Ones charged the circle of natives, who barely had time to turn around in an effort to flee before they were set upon.

  The Elder leaped on the tribal chief’s back and slammed one clawed fist into the back of his head. The chief’s eyes and brain matter flew out the front of his skull, splashing on the sandy beach with a wet splat before his body spun and hit the ground. The Elder straddled him and sank his teeth into the soft hollow of his throat as his generals chased down the tribe’s remaining members. He bathed in the hot spray of blood, relishing the feel of it against his scales.

  The Elder let his rage take over. He was blinded by it. As he let the rage carry him on, his mind went back over millennia, to other times when they’d had to slaughter Naranuans for similar offenses against Dagon. It was one thing to kill most of the tribe, leaving a few behind to repopulate the island; today, the Elder was bent on eliminating the tribe entirely—punishment for them allowing intruders here on this holiest of sites just as the stars were right to summon Dagon.

  The Elder stopped mutilating the body of the tribal chief and leaped after the remaining, fleeing humans, joining his generals in the hunt. The rest of the tribe had not gotten very far. Most of them were already dead, lying in pools of blood, their sightless eyes staring up at a star-filled sky. Two of the generals were tugging at either end of a native as the man screamed. The skin of the man’s abdomen stretched, grew taut, th
en snapped, spilling wet entrails and blood on the beach with a great splash. The generals picked each piece up and began to devour the remains. The smells of blood and death and shit were heavy in the air as the last vestiges of the natives were similarly killed.

  The Elder approached one of his generals, who was cornering one of the surviving humans against the edge of the jungle. The survivor was a young man, no older than sixteen. The boy’s face was smeared with ochre, his body nude save for a loincloth fashioned from vines and leaves. His hands were stained red with blood. The boy had given

  up being afraid and was trying to show courage. His eyes blazed, his lip curled upward in a snarl. The Elder grinned; in another time he might have let this one live. But not today. After the defilement the tribal chief had shown with this latest invasion, it stopped now.

  The Elder grunted at the youngster. “Prepare to die, boy.”

  The boy called back, his intonation of the old language perfect. “I will see you on the other side of the dimensions, Elder!”

  The Elder paused. Cocked his head at the boy. “You dare threaten me?”

  The boy pounced on the opportunity. “I have killed a white man—a scientist. I have joined your kind in the slaughter of the invaders. Wanabi was wrong when he told us not to drive them off. He was too weak. I am not weak, though. I would have killed more but Manabi, my father, one of the nine tribal chiefs, forbid it. He pulled me from the still-warm body of the white man I killed, and took me below ground, to the catacombs, to prevent me from fulfilling your glory. See!” The boy held out his wrists, which bore raw red marks from being tied up. “He intended to keep me prisoner.”

  “How did you escape?”

  “My uncle let me escape.”

  “Where is he?” The boy gestured at the litter of corpses strewn around them. “One of your generals killed him, your holiness.”

  “Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you?”