Apocalyptic Pirates 6, page 16
“Look, there,” Dia directed, and she pointed over my shoulder to a post a little further down the page. “Click on that.”
The post was titled: GROWING BACK MY (BIG) TOE
“Does it matter which toe it was?” Letty wondered.
“Babe, at this point nothing would surprise me,” Shannon said with a shake of her head.
The post only contained a link to a YouTube video, so I clicked through, and the video started playing.
It began with a close up on a human foot. It was scaly and yellowed, and the big toe was missing with only a red and partly scabbed-over stump remaining.
“Oh, my god,” Ally complained. “Surely that should come with a trigger warning.”
“Because of the blood or the state of those calluses?” Letty queried.
“Both,” the redhead declared.
The foot was covered in bruises, and the rest of the toes were a weird pale yellow color and threaded with sickly red lines.
As feet went, this one had seen better days.
The person holding the camera was breathing heavily. They zoomed in on their foot and then lowered it carefully into a saucepan that was full of dragon blood.
“Bleagh,” Dia groaned.
The person’s other hand came into frame. They were holding a transparent plastic container that I recognized as the cup portion of a NutriBullet food blender. It was full of a very dark-pink liquid that was frothing with bubbles and bobbing with dark, juicy chunks of something that looked like dragon guts.
The women let out a collective squeal of disgust.
“Oh, my god, no,” Ally moaned.
“Dragon smoothie!” Dia squeaked.
“They’re drinking it, they’re drinking it!” Shannon shrieked.
The person raised the plastic container to the camera so we all got a great view of the world’s most disgusting smoothie. Then they put the camera down, and for a few minutes the only sounds were the person’s lips smacking as they drank.
“Oh, my god, I’m going to be sick,” Letty whimpered.
“Why was it so thick?” Dia groaned.
“I think they added cream or yogurt to it,” I said. “That’s why it was so pink and frothy.”
They all groaned.
“That’s got to be the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen,” Ally declared.
“And it doesn’t even say whether it worked!” Shannon realized in frustration. “When was the video posted?”
“Yesterday,” I noted. “Maybe this is the first step, and they’re going to upload an update in a few days.”
“Oh, great,” Ally sighed. “So we just suffered through all that for nothing.”
“What’s that video there?” Dia pointed to a video that was linked on the side of the webpage. “That’s got dragon blood in the title, too.”
I clicked on the video she’d suggested. It was from one of the news channels that we regularly watched, and the familiar face of the bored news anchor appeared and began to speak in her usual emotionless drone.
“Rumors that the dragons’ blood may have medical applications have been rife these last few days,” she announced. “Reports have been coming in of individuals attempting to slaughter dragons in order to harvest their blood and internal organs to make homemade remedies that people online are calling ‘the dragon cure’. Viewers are advised to keep their distance at all times from the dragons that are currently plaguing our shores. These creatures are violent, bloodthirsty, and extremely dangerous. Nevertheless, there is a growing number of people who are convinced that the dragon threat can be used for positive ends, and an equally large number of people are determined to stop them. Stan, over to you.”
The clip cut to a man sitting in the back of what looked like an armored truck. There was a crate next to him, and some soldiers sitting in the seats by his side.
“Thanks, Jan,” he said. “I’m here on the ground in central Pittsburgh where the police have been called in to deal with a riot around the harvesting of dragon blood for medical purposes. Although many people are convinced that the dragons hold the secret to health in their blood and body parts, there are yet more people who want nothing to do with the dragon cure, and who have launched brutal attacks on those people who are known to have used it.”
“Oh, shit,” Shannon exclaimed.
“Authorities are urging people not to approach the dragons for any reason,” Stan continued. “These are highly dangerous apex predators, and civilians are cautioned to stay out of their way whenever possible. Killing dragons is an extremely risky procedure that has to be left to the armed forces.”
“I like how he’s blaming the people killing the dragons more than he’s blaming the people attacking other people,” Letty said with sarcasm dripping from her voice.
“Yeah, like, what the hell are the priorities here?” Dia queried.
The clip cut back to the bored news anchor.
“Thanks, Stan,” she said. “Again, viewers are urged to stay away from the dragons. Killing these creatures is not for civilians. If we are to remain safe, we have to put our trust in the relevant authorities.”
The clip ended.
“‘Relevant authorities’,” Letty snorted. “Sure, Jan, I’ll do that.”
“Did anyone else notice how they’re basically telling people to stop killing dragons, and instead let the army and police sort it out?” Shannon said with raised eyebrows.
“Meaning: stop stealing our valuable resources and don’t get in the way of the Coast Guard’s operations,” Ally finished.
“Just the Coast Guard?” Dia shook her head. “I don’t think they’re going to stop with the Coast Guard. This thing is getting bigger and bigger. Remember those women and the ships that they saw? I’m, like, ninety-nine percent positive now that those were Navy ships.”
“You can’t know that for sure,” Ally protested.
“No,” Dia conceded. “But that’s what I think. And the way that the news anchor was going on about letting the armed forces do their thing, the more I think that we’re going to be seeing more than Coast Guard uniforms in these parts.”
“I hate to say it, but I think you’ve hit the nail on the head.” I scrubbed my hand through my hair. “I’ll bet that soon these waters will be crawling with Naval ships.”
“But we can’t be sure,” Ally insisted, and there was a panicky note in her voice.
“Check the forum,” Letty urged. “Maybe there’s something about it there?”
I clicked back to the forum and scrolled quickly through the most recent posts.
I didn’t see anything about the recent attacks, but that didn’t surprise me. The people who were interested in selling the dragon cure to the highest bidder were hardly going to post about the possibility of their buyers getting attacked for using their product.
But I did see a post with over five hundred comments that was titled SO ABOUT THAT COASTGUARD VIDEO…
“‘I guess most of us have seen the video posted by TheGoodPirates about the Coast Guard operation in Panama,’” I read aloud. “‘If you haven’t seen it and don’t know what I’m talking about, click here to educate yourself.’”
“Rude,” Dia commented.
“There are so many comments,” Ally gasped. “Look at them all.”
“‘I can’t see how anyone is surprised by the video,’” I read. “‘ACAB, bitch.’ ‘Never liked the USCG.’ ‘Amazing how quickly the US government can organize an operation when it’s in their best interests.’ ‘Ngl I hope they all die tbh I can’t w these wannabes.’”
“Does that last guy mean the Coast Guard or is he talking about us?” Dia raised her eyebrows.
“I’m too old for all these internet acronyms,” I complained. “I only know what half those letters mean.”
“Poor old man,” Dia teased. “We’ll come visit you in the nursing home, Drew, but you have to promise not to throw your false teeth at us.”
“I’ll throw them at you, and only you, Dia,” I retorted, which made all the women giggle.
“Drew, look there,” Letty said, and she pointed to a comment on the screen.
“‘This is why the Navy is mobilizing right now,’” I read. “It makes sense with the Coast Guard facing scrutiny in the court of public opinion right now.’”
“Shit,” Ally hissed.
“Yes, I was right,” Dia crowed and punched the air.
“That’s not a good thing, Dia!” Ally’s voice rose in anxiety. “It’s bad enough being on the Coast Guard’s shit list, but we don’t want the army to get involved! Or the navy! They’re going to bring insane levels of firepower with them, and their reach is longer, and they have more resources, and even more power than the Coast Guard!”
“Okay, okay,” I interrupted her tirade. “We don’t know this for sure.”
“Yeah,” Shannon said. “We don’t know who this person is, they could be anyone.”
“Yeah, true,” Ally admitted.
“Let’s see what other posts they’ve made.” I clicked on the username and it took me to their profile page.
“Dragonagedirtbag,” Shannon read their username aloud. “That’s a promising start.”
Dragonagedirtbag had commented on a lot of posts on the forum, so there was a lot of activity to look through to try and figure out if they had any kind of credentials to be an authority on the armed forces.
They were one of the many users who had shared their favorite recipes on the forum, and their preferred way of eating dragon meat was to just eat the liver raw after sprinkling it with “the purest” sea salt.
“You can chew it if you want,” their recipe post read. “But personally, I think that defeats the whole point.”
“That just sounds like a choking hazard.” Dia wrinkled her nose.
“This doesn’t sound like the word of a person with inside information,” Ally said hopefully.
“What would that sound like?” Letty’s tone was dubious. “If they are someone with access to military information, they ain’t gonna be posting it online for all the world to see, are they?”
“Then why make the post at all?” Shannon countered. “If they’re really in a position to spill military secrets, why do it on a weird-ass forum like this rather than going to the news?”
“But they go to the news, then the information is immediately out there,” Letty responded. “It would be a huge news story, and the likelihood of them getting caught goes up. But if they just leak the news on a weird forum where the information can just dissipate throughout the internet, it’s a much more gradual thing. Maybe it’s safer for them that way.”
“So basically what we’re saying,” Dia said. “Is that the fact of them making a post about the Navy is either proof that they’re lying or proof that they’re telling the truth.”
“Yep, you got it,” I sighed.
We were all silent for a moment while we pondered what to do.
Finally, Ally stood up and shook out her arms.
“I’m going to do some yoga on deck,” she said. “We’re making good progress, and we should keep to our itinerary schedule so long as this wind holds up. In the meantime, I need something to distract me from all of this.”
“I’ll join you,” Shannon said. “I could do with stretching out my hamstrings.”
“I’m going to get started on lunch,” Letty said. “I bet you’ll work up an appetite.”
“Dia, Drew?” Ally asked. “Will you join us?”
“I’ve never done yoga before.” Dia hesitated.
“I’ve done it once,” I said. “I found it kind of dull, to be honest.”
“Oh, man, yoga’s such fun!” Shannon exclaimed. “I used to go to this hot and sweaty yoga class, and it was the best thing. I always felt amazing afterward.”
“I’m not very flexible,” Dia said.
“You don’t have to be!” Ally assured her. “Yoga’s just about moving in a way that feels good. The point is to feel it, not look a certain way.”
“Oh, okay.” Dia looked a little more cheerful. “I’ll give it a try, then, I guess, if Drew will try it, too.”
“Go on, then,” I said with a laugh.
Letty went down into the kitchen, and Ally began the task of coaching Dia and me through a round of what she called sun salutations. It was actually harder than I expected, and it used muscles I didn’t always have the chance to stretch.
“Move with the breath,” Ally instructed. “Inhale, and fold. Exhale, and release.”
I liked that part of it, how Ally encouraged us to synchronize our movements with the natural cycle of breathing, and when she threw in a few balances and a shoulder stand at the end, I was a yoga convert.
“Okay,” I panted as I carefully lowered my legs to the ground and felt the delicious release of tension in my shoulders. “You’re right, that was fun.”
“Yay!” Shannon cheered.
“It actually wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be,” Dia acknowledged. “I’d do that again.”
“Maybe we could have a daily practice,” Ally suggested. “I know I always feel better when I do it regularly, and it’s a really useful habit to get into. It’s good for anxiety, coordination, spatial awareness, digestion, sleep, focus…”
“I used to know people who were really into yoga,” Dia said. “I never really got it, but maybe they were onto something.”
We went down below and freshened up a little before Letty called us into the kitchen. She’d used some of the fresh greens they’d gathered the day before and made a salad with polenta fries and homemade hummus.
“Polenta!” Dia exclaimed in excitement. “Oh, my god, my mom used to make these kinds of fries when I was little. I think she was desperate for me to eat something that wasn’t chips.”
“I’m trying to find meals we can eat that are a bit lighter,” Letty explained. “Y’all know I love a good crockpot recipe, but sometimes it’s just too hot out here to whip up one of those every day.”
“Yeah, of course,” I assured her. “You’re the one who’s cooking for all of us, so really you get final say in what ends up on the table.”
“Don’t get me wrong,” Letty said quickly. “I love cookin’, and preparing meals for everyone is a real nice and steadying routine I’ve got into. But Lord, sometimes I just can’t stand over a hot stove for a moment longer.”
“This looks amazing, Letty,” Shannon reassured her.
“Everything you make is so tasty,” Dia added.
And, of course, this meal was no different.
I’d never had polenta fries before, but they were fluffy, creamy, and just the right amount of salt and paprika seasoning. They made a tasty contrast to the fresh and slightly bitter-tasting greens in the salad, and altogether it was a fine and filling meal.
We were just swallowing our final mouthfuls when we heard the shots.
Chapter 10
Without even needing to discuss it, we dropped our cutlery, grabbed our guns, and dashed up on deck.
Ally had plotted our course to make sure that we kept an optimal distance that was close, but not too close, to the shore. But with the brisk wind in our favor, it carried the sounds from the land over the water to reach the yacht, and as we ran out onto the deck, I instantly saw what was happening.
The yacht was sailing close enough to the shore that we had a faraway view of it, and even from this distance, I could see the dragons that were terrorizing the people on the narrow beach. There must have been ten of them, all of them fucking huge things, and the humans were desperately trying to fend them off.
I took out my phone and used the camera to zoom in on the beach as much as I could. The video was grainy as hell, but it gave me a better view of the situation. I couldn’t tell exactly how many humans were there on the beach, but they were trying to launch a couple of small motor boats that were moored high up on the beach.
Another gunshot cracked out.
And then we heard a scream.
“We have to help them!” Dia cried.
“I’ll take us off autopilot and steer us in,” Ally said, and she started to run toward the cockpit.
“Wait!” I shouted.
“Drew, what the hell?” Dia demanded.
“There are people dying on that beach!” Shannon almost shouted.
“Drew, we have to help them,” Letty cried.
“Just stop and think about this for a second,” I entreated. “We don’t know what kind of shit we might be getting ourselves into, and we’re supposed to be laying low and keeping ourselves out of the public eye. If we go charging headfirst into this, we could end up in a huge shitstorm.”
“I don’t care!” Dia proclaimed.
“You’ve got to slow down for one second and think!” I shouted. “How is it going to help them if we end up getting picked off by the dragons ourselves? Or if we get mixed up in some trouble that puts the spotlight right on us? We don’t know who those people on the beach are, and I have to keep you guys safe!”
“Drew!” Letty grabbed my hand. “I know what you mean, but we have to help these people. That’s what we’re here for, this is what we need to do!”
I looked down into her pleading face. I was torn, and there was a whirlwind of conflicting emotions roaring around inside my head.
“Drew,” Shannon said, and she gave me a firm nod. “It’s okay. We’ll be okay.”
I knew exactly what she was referring to.
Boundaries. Letting go.
I took a deep breath.
“Let’s do it,” I said. “But we’re not going to land, we’re just going to open fire on the dragons from the water.”
“Yes,” Dia exclaimed in triumph.
Ally ran into the cockpit and swung the yacht around. Within moments, we were off course and heading straight for the shore.
“Everyone, grab your weapons!” I shouted. “Let’s get a formation set up here so we can do this as quickly and effectively as possible.”
“I’m on it,” Shannon shouted.
She had Letty lie down on the deck with her gun poking through the railing and made Dia stand by the cockpit where she would have a clear shot over Letty’s head.
