Dark Life: Rip Tide (13 page)

We clattered along the hanging bridge toward the pair of lampposts at the other end. Satisfied that we weren’t being pursued, we paused to watch the surfs tether their boats under the bridge and climb a dangling ladder to a ledge that ran under what were once upper-story windows in the stadium.

When the surfs scrambled through a large window without glass, Gemma and I hurried across the bridge to catch up. But before we’d reached the end, a man’s voice brought us up short. “Well, look who it is.” A husky figure moved out of the shadows on the ledge into the glow of the lamps. Lockbox in hand, Ratter radiated delight. You’d think he’d just won a lifetime supply of chewing-weed.

I paused before reaching him to consider who was more dangerous: Ratter or the seaweed thief with a fillet knife?
A toss-up,
I thought.

“Here for the show?” Ratter asked.

Last night, I’d broken an outlaw out of jail and helped Ratter into an eel pool. Yet now he grinned like
we were old friends. Not suspicious at all … provided I was brain-dead.

“What kind of show?” Gemma slipped in front of me as if she could hide me from Ratter’s view.

“You want to know,” he taunted, “gotta pay to get in.”

“Those surfs didn’t pay,” she pointed out.

“Because they’re not here to watch. They’re the main attraction.”

I knew then that this had to be where the surfs got their scars. Easing past Gemma, I strode to the end of the bridge. “At least tell us what kind of animal it is,” I said, trying to seem nonchalant. “It’s not a shark, but it’s big. Must have a three-foot jaw at least. And a bite like I’ve never seen.”

“Been paying attention, have you, pioneer?” he mocked.

“Yeah, we noticed the surfs with missing limbs. So, impress us. What is it?”

Ratter’s beady eyes glittered in the torchlight. “You know, let’s call this your lucky night. No charge. You can go see ’em for yourself.” He hefted the lockbox into his arms, climbed through the window, and hopped down with a clatter. When he straightened, he stood level with our waists now that he was inside the stadium. “What are you waiting for? Show’s about to start.”

Curiosity drew me forward, but Gemma caught up and slipped her hand into mine. “You know this is a bad idea, right?”

“Stay out here,” I whispered. “I just want to see what’s happening in there and then I’ll come right back.”

“Nice try.” She turned to Ratter, who was peering up at us. “Is this one of Mayor Fife’s events?”

“His favorite,” Ratter said as if divulging a secret. “But he don’t want people knowing it’s his operation, so he don’t come around much. Leaves it to me to run, though I ain’t no big show-off like him.”

So when I’d asked Fife for the coordinates to Hardluck Ruins, I’d unknowingly gone to the right person … or possibly the worst person, depending on what we found in the stadium. Gemma and I exchanged a look that confirmed our determination to press forward despite the risk. We climbed through the window and dropped into a dark corridor.

“As I heard it,” Ratter said from beside us, “Mayor Fife warned you to keep away.” I spun to see him snatch a harpoon gun from the rubble-strewn floor. “You should have listened to the man,” Ratter said, and aimed the gun at me.

After taking our dive belts and patting us down, Ratter forced us through an archway and into the night air, which buzzed with the noise of a thousand spectators. The stadium was flooded but more intact than any other building in Hardluck Ruins. Only the upper part of one section had collapsed. A razor-wire fence stretched across
the rubble, spanning the breach. Beyond the gap lay the ocean. Too bad we didn’t have a boat.

Until Gemma and I came up with a plan, we had no choice but to let Ratter march us down the steep stairs toward what had once been the playing field, which was now under water, along with over half of the stands. In the dim stadium lights, it looked as if Topsiders filled the rows above the waterline, except for the section Ratter had herded us into. The rows around us were packed with surfs, who seemed startled and suspicious at our presence—as if Gemma and I were going to add a new, unpleasant complication to the event. From what I could tell, the surfs sat in clusters based on their townships, like cheering sections, though I had an uneasy feeling that there wouldn’t be any reason to cheer at this event.

When we’d almost reached the razor wire that encircled the flooded playing field, Ratter pushed Gemma into a seat at the end of the row. I moved to take the one beside her, but he stopped me. “Not you,” he said with gleeful malice. “You’re on the other side with the rest of the heroes.”

“Other side?”

That’s when I looked past the razor wire and saw the men and women—at least thirty of them and all surfs—standing on the seats of the last row above the water. Judging by their clothes, no two were from the same township. Some were grizzled and battle scarred, others
young and fierce. All carried knives and had tridents or harpoons lashed to their backs.

Gemma scrambled to her feet. “Ty’s not going out there.”

“Don’t worry about him.” Ratter shoved me toward a platform that straddled the fence. “He beat Gabion in the ring. What can a saltie do to him?”

“A what?” I asked.

He jabbed the harpoon’s tip into my ribs. “Get climbing.”

I couldn’t exactly outrun a fired harpoon, so making a break for it was out. I glanced at the surfs studiously ignoring us. No doubt they’d had other dealings with Ratter and knew better than to interfere.

“Finished thinking it over?” Ratter asked. “Figured out that the only place you’re going is over that fence?”

“At least tell me what I have to do,” I insisted as he pushed me along the bottom aisle toward the slanting ladder that led up to the platform. If I got him talking, maybe I’d buy time to figure out how to get away.

“Not much. Just bag yourself a saltie. Be the savior of your township.”

“I don’t have a township,” I said, refusing to put a foot on the ladder.

“You got Nomad,” he snapped.

“Is that why you’re doing this?” I demanded. “Because Nomad was my salvage?”

His grin returned. “That, and I don’t like Dark Life.”

I saw Gemma edging past the seated surfs one row up to keep pace with us.

“But being as I’m the generous type, I’m giving you a chance that any surf would jump at,” he went on. “Only if you kill the saltie, you don’t have to share that sweet white meat with the stinking surfs back on your township. It’s all yours. Over a ton.” His laugh was ugly. “Bet you never tasted croc. That’s some good eating. ’Specially the tail.”

“ ‘Croc’ as in crocodile?” Gemma gasped from where she stood.

“Saltwater crocodiles,” he confirmed. “Big as a shark and just as hungry. Main difference, you’re no safer out of the water.”

I frowned. “There are no saltwater crocodiles in the Atlantic.”

“Maybe they swam here from down under.” His smirk widened into a sickening green smile. “Or maybe someone imported them.”

Why would anyone do something so stupid? The odds of keeping the creatures confined in this lagoon forever were worse than bad.

“Get up there,” he ordered.

“At least give me a weapon.”

Instead he aimed his harpoon gun at my chest. Seeing no other option, I climbed the ladder to the square platform above the razor wire. From that perch, I surveyed
the flooded stadium. Boulders and rubble had been piled high to create mini-islands here and there.

“Keep going!” Ratter shouted. “I got a show to start.”

I stayed put, lying low on the platform. He’d have to climb the ladder to get an angle on me, and I planned to have a hold on his gun before he could pull the trigger.

Below me, Ratter snorted with laughter. “Think I’m coming up there? Look around you, stupid.”

Lifting my head the barest fraction, I saw only the rows of disinterested surfs.

“Look higher,” Ratter shouted.

I lifted my gaze to the shadowy archways above the stands and then saw the ancient box seats at the top of the stadium. A whole line of them, glass long gone. In every third one stood a dark figure hefting a harpoon launcher twice the size of Ratter’s—now all directed at me.

Reluctantly, I climbed down the ladder on the other side. Each surf moved over a chair to accommodate me.

“Even think about climbing back,” Ratter yelled to me, “and one of the croc handlers will spear you through the gut.” With that he hustled up the aisle to a booth near the top. Suddenly, the lights brightened all over the stadium, hushing the spectators. I squinted, trying to get my eyes to adjust to the light, when I heard the distinct whiz of metal on a zip line. Glancing back at Ratter’s booth, I saw a hook baited with a decapitated tuna flying along a cable that stretched across the stadium. When the hook
reached the center, a rubber ring stopped it in place. The headless tuna twisted in the breeze, dripping blood into the water below—clearly calling forth the “salties.”

All around the stadium the spectators remained silent. Waiting.

I seriously considered climbing back over the razor wire, figuring the “croc handlers” would be focused on the water. But a glance at Ratter’s booth nixed that idea. His beady eyes were locked on me and he had a clear shot at the platform. I didn’t know how good his aim was, but I decided not to chance it just yet.

Someone on the far side gave a yell, and the Topsiders leaned forward in their seats to look down into the water. I was too far away to see what they were pointing at and gasping over. Probably dark shadows, like the one I’d seen in the lagoon earlier, streaking into the flooded area through underwater passageways. I shivered and wondered how Ratter could have forced so many surfs onto this side of the wire.

A man on my right, shirtless and sunburnt, placed a knife crossways between his teeth and bit down. An inflated seal bladder dangled from the handle, though I couldn’t guess why. Then I noticed all the surfs’ weapons were adorned with the sheer brown balloons. Two more surfs chomped down on their blades, freeing up their hands, which sure wouldn’t have been my choice if Ratter had let me keep my knife.

On my left was a woman who kept her hair back with yellow mud, which had been smeared along her hairline. When she untied her trident, I caught sight of her necklace—a strip of leather studded with five-inch teeth like the one I’d pried out of the plank.

“Stay out of the water,” she told me, with her trident now in hand.

“I plan on it.”

“If one is coming for you, climb the razor wire.”

So, getting shredded by razor wire was preferable to facing down a saltie? Good to know.

Suddenly, a mud-colored creature rocketed out of the water, teeth glistening in its open mouth. The sound of the crocodile’s jaws closing on the tuna reverberated through the stadium like the slamming of a vault door. I nearly swallowed a tonsil. No shark could shut its mouth with such explosive force.

The crocodile ripped the tuna from the hook and crashed back into the brackish water, sinking under the surface with its prize. Adrenaline blasted through my body, leaving me shaky. When Ratter had said that a saltwater crocodile came as big as a shark, I’d pictured a tiger shark. But the beast I’d just glimpsed had to have been twenty feet long and weigh well over a ton. As in, the size of a great white … but with legs. I twisted on the seat, searching for another way over the razor wire. No way was I going toe-to-toe with a predator that massive.

A gong rang out, and splashes erupted along the edge of the flooded area as the three surfs who’d been holding their knives between their teeth dove into the water. I froze, unable to comprehend what I was seeing. The other surfs dashed along the row of submerged seats, tridents raised, scanning the water. Ratter must have pulled these lunatics out of mental institutions. They were suicidal—every last one of them.

Across the stadium, spectators lurched to their feet, hollering encouragement. Seeing the Topsiders screaming for blood didn’t surprise me. But then I noticed that the surfs on my side of the stadium had risen as well and were also cheering.

That’s when I understood.

These people hadn’t been forced to cross the razor wire. They
wanted
to be on this side. One crocodile provided over a ton of white meat, according to Ratter. Enough to feed a whole township. No wonder the surfs displayed their scars with pride. They’d risked life and limb to feed their townships and survived. Which made me wonder how many people hadn’t.

A pair of knobby eyes broke the water’s surface and I saw that the crocodile had catlike pupils—a fact that kick-started my heart. Not only was the beast close, but vertical pupils meant it had excellent night vision. As if a two-thousand-pound reptile needed another advantage.

“On the other side of the settler, Plover,” a voice behind me called to the woman.

She nodded in response. “Coming through,” she said to me.

I leaned back against the razor wire and felt it slash my diveskin. It was the only way to give her enough room to pass safely, which she did in a blink. But as soon as she raised her trident, the creature submerged.

“Thank you,” said the voice behind me. I glanced back to see a girl not much older than Zoe, with yellow mud plastered along her hairline like the woman. “Most hunters won’t let another go by,” she explained. “Or sometimes they pretend that they will and then push the other person in.”

“Ty isn’t a hunter,” Gemma said, stepping over the last row to join the girl by the razor wire. “He was forced to climb in there.”

“We saw. But no surf is going to cross one of Mayor Fife’s goons.” The girl stopped talking to watch as Plover scanned the water with her trident held high, but the croc
showed no sign of resurfacing. The girl exhaled with relief and said, “I’m Eider. And that’s my sister, Plover. We’re from Shearwater.”

Pressed as close to the razor wire as I dared get, I waited for Gemma to ask her about Drift. I would’ve, but figured shouting it over my shoulder wasn’t going to get results. And I wasn’t about to take my eyes off the water.

“Does this go on every night?” Gemma asked Eider.

Another worthwhile question.

“Oh, no,” Eider replied. “Only at sundown on the fifteenth. When our rations are gone and the next delivery isn’t for another two weeks.”

Gemma gasped. “No one forced them in there?”

“’Course not,” Eider said, surprised. “The meat tides us over and the leather is worth a lot. But we can only hunt them inside the stadium once a month, one hunter per township. As soon as one croc is killed, the match is over.”

“That’s crazy,” I heard Gemma sputter.

In the center of the stadium, the water thrashed and churned. A moment later a woman scrambled onto an island of rocks. A crocodile dashed after her as she climbed to the top. Luckily it stopped about halfway up. When the woman lifted her trident, I saw that her arm had been badly mauled. The second she hurled her weapon, the crocodile whipped around and crashed back into the water. The trident grazed the submerging crocodile’s back
but must not have pierced its skin because the animal swam off. I felt a stab of pity for the woman who’d now lost her trident on the bottom of the stadium. But then an inflated seal bladder popped up. When she easily fished out her floating trident, I understood why the surfs attached the bladders to all of their weapons. They couldn’t afford to lose them.

A new bout of thrashing erupted on the other side of the stadium. A man whirled out of the water, knife raised, only to crash under again as the enormous crocodile he was wrestling rolled over. The churning water took on a red tinge—blood. But whether it was the man’s or the crocodile’s I couldn’t tell. The spectators jumped to their feet, shouting and cheering. I felt sick watching it. Knowing that it was just as likely to be the man who floated to the surface, lifeless.

The surfs who’d been standing along the perimeter now dove into the water as if fearing the opportunity to kill a crocodile was about to end. The woman, who I’d thought was trapped on top of the rock pile, caught hold of a grip bar sent to her via the zip line. Grasping it, she kicked off from the rocks. With her arm so bloody and sliced up, I was sure she’d lose her hold, but she drew up her knees and held on, flying over the crocodile pool. She could have easily sailed past the razor wire and into the stands, but she wiggled the grip bar to make it slow.
When she was over the row of seats inside the fence, she let go and resumed hunting.

On the other side of the stadium the thrashing and rolling continued. With each passing moment, I thought it was less likely to be the surf who emerged the winner. But I was wrong. The man surfaced with a whoop, holding his knife in the air. Beside him the crocodile floated upside down, revealing the long gash down its pale underside.

When the gong sounded again, the surfs scrambled out of the water. Many were cut and bleeding. Grip bars whizzed along parallel zip lines. Each ran directly over several boulder piles. The surfs who were trapped on top of the mini-islands seized the grip bars and flew to safety while crocodiles circled below.

Something bright splashed into the stadium near me. I jerked, thinking a crocodile had swum close. Then more glowing objects streaked down from the stands. Like falling stars, they hit the water and sank.

“What are they throwing?” Gemma asked Eider.

She scowled. “Money. The tourists put it in glow-in-the-dark pouches to make it easier to find underwater. Supposedly it’s a consolation prize. But really they just want to see more—no, Plover, don’t!”

I turned to see Plover dive into the water.

“No!” Eider clutched the razor wire, cutting her hands. “It’s not worth it!” she cried.

That’s when I saw a line of rippling water heading that way. A crocodile had seen Plover go under, and now it was homing in on her like a shark following a chum trail.

Without another thought, I hit the lagoon’s surface in a long dive. Once under the water, I released the fins in the tips of my boots and power stroked toward Plover. Using sonar, I sensed her scooping up the pouch. What she didn’t see in the brackish water—couldn’t see—was the enormous crocodile swimming right for her.

I didn’t know which sense was a crocodile’s sharpest. Sight, hearing, smell? So I thrashed like a wounded animal and once again mimicked a dolphin’s distress cry. And it worked. The crocodile angled away from Plover and headed for me. I saw its long, pointed snout perfectly in my mind’s eye. And its powerful body cutting through the water, propelled by a whipping tail as long and wide as me.

Did I dare try using a sonar blast to stun the beast? I seriously doubted that it would work. Not the way it had on the eels. As massive as the croc was, it would probably do no more than blink.

I swam as fast as I could toward the edge of the arena. But when I sent clicks over my shoulder, I saw that the crocodile was gaining on me. I’d never make it out of the water in time—not that being on land would help much. Sucking Liquigen from the tube in my neck ring, I
filled my lungs as I dropped. Now I didn’t have to worry about breathing, but as I touched down between two rows of seats, I realized I’d crossed into the flooded stands. It would be harder to maneuver here.

Just as I sent out more clicks to see how close the crocodile was, I saw a pouch hit the water. The croc snapped it up like a fish taking a hook. The moment was over before I’d had a chance to use the distraction. And the croc was back on track, plowing toward me. But now I had an idea.

I unhooked my helmet from the back of my neck ring and found the manual switch for the crown lights. Holding the helmet in front of me with shaking hands, I waited for the croc to close in. As an apex predator, it would fear nothing. But any creature with a nervous system could be startled.

When the croc burst forward, jaws wide, I switched on the helmet lights—cranked to blinding—while blasting out sonar, amped way past “up.”

And it worked!

Hit with the explosion of light and sound, the crocodile froze. Tail midwhip, jaws agape. I’d probably bought myself two seconds at most. Enough to jam my fist inside my helmet and thrust it into the beast’s open mouth. I was counting on the flexiglass to protect my arm from those five-inch teeth, and it did. I drove the helmet as far
down the croc’s throat as I dared and snatched back my hand, leaving the flexiglass orb behind. I kicked away just as the beast thrashed back to life. Hoping the flexiglass could withstand the pressure exerted by those jaws for more than a millisecond, I stroked for the surface.

Gemma’s scream rang in my ears the moment I emerged. I swam for the edge and felt many hands haul me out of the water.

“You’re insane, you know that?” a woman’s voice scolded.

Surprisingly, not Gemma’s.

I looked up to see Plover. “But thank you,” she finished.

The other surfs, who’d helped pull me out, now retreated down the row of seats, clearing a path to the ladder for me. The stadium lights had grown dim again as the stands on the opposite side began to empty. I picked my way across the row of wet seats toward the platform, only to jerk to a halt when the pool erupted to my left.

The crocodile burst out of the water and belly flopped with a smack so loud it echoed through the stadium. And then the beast threw itself against the water again. Flinging itself back and forth, the croc pounded the pool’s surface with growing violence—in the throes of death or attempting to dislodge the helmet? I didn’t know. But it was agonizing to watch. I’d shoved the helmet down the croc’s throat out of self-preservation, yet seeing the animal’s torment sickened me to the core.

Coming up beside me, Plover said, “Go,” while putting a hand on my back, urging me forward.

“Lend me your knife,” I said, turning to her. At least I could end the creature’s suffering.

“You can’t!” Her tone held a vehemence that startled me. “The match is over. Kill it now and you’ll be arrested for theft.”

I jerked my hand toward the pool. “It’s suffocating because of what
I
did. I have to—”

My words were cut off by screams from every direction. And I saw why. The crocodile had stopped flailing and was now cutting through the water toward us—jaws shut—clearly having spit out my helmet or swallowed it. Crazy as it seemed, I could swear the croc was coming solely for me, bent on revenge.

I wasted no time in scrambling for the ladder, leaving room for Plover to climb alongside me. Just as we heaved onto the platform and rolled away from the edge, the crocodile ripped into the ladder from below.

With the sound of crunching aluminum in my ears, I dropped to the other side of the razor wire, where Gemma was waiting. Throwing her arms around me, she squeezed so tight, I couldn’t breathe—not that I was complaining—and then she shoved me. “Must you always swim with monsters?”

The stadium seemed to have grown darker still as Eider stepped forward and offered me the glowing money
pouch. “You earned it,” she said solemnly. Plover and the other surfs from Shearwater joined her, radiating their approval.

“Thanks, but I’d feel better if you kept it.”

When Eider continued to hold out the pouch, I added, “I didn’t know how bad the surfs have it. None of the settlers know.” I wished I could promise to do away with the ordinance that prevented them from fishing in Benthic Territory, but that was nothing I had a say in.

“Ain’t you noble?” mocked a voice from one row up. It was Ratter, of course, with his harpoon gun aimed at my head once again.

“He didn’t break the rules,” Plover snapped.

“Stay out of it,” Ratter warned her. “‘Less you want another cut in Shearwater’s rations.” He waved me toward the stairs. When I didn’t budge, he flipped off the harpoon’s safety clasp.

Plover whipped out her knife. “We’re not going to let you kill him.”

By the time she’d finished the sentence, the other Shearwater surfs had taken out their weapons—rough-hewn blades and tridents—to face off with Ratter. The surfs were to my right and Ratter on my left. Gemma rounded it out by slipping behind me. With one tug of my diveskin, she persuaded me to retreat.

Before we’d shuffled back more than a few yards, Ratter shouted, “Where do you think you’re—” His words
cut off sharply as something over my head caught his attention.

In unison, the surfs lowered their weapons—even Plover—as they too stared at the stars with alarm.

Before I could turn to look up, a voice boomed from the heavens: “What the heck is going on down there?”