Topic on User talk:Les
The shapes emerged with barely a splash, several of them leaping up from the river’s surface and landing on deck along the starboard side. At first Conrad thought they were long, thin water snakes, a dozen feet long with fine webbed fins and elongated heads ending with small, suckered mouths. Then he saw that they all trailed back into the river. They met together at a dark mass just below the water’s surface. “Squid!” he shouted. “It’s a giant squid!” That wasn’t quite right. The tentacles were strange, not covered with suckers but heavily ridged with muscle. The ragged stump that had first grabbed.
Slivko was back, spewing blood across the deck. “Go!” Weaver said, and Marlow leaned down on the throttle. The creature had learned. This time its limbs were not caught in the spinning screw, but the good hold it had with a few of its tentacles dragged it along with the accelerating boat. Conrad drew his gun and started firing down into the water, then Slivko screamed again. “Gimme a break!” he shouted, almost manic as he was dragged once again towards the deck’s edge.
Weaver started hacking at the tentacle with the machete, careful not to strike Slivko in the leg. The blade seemed to skim from the slick skin, striking the deck and throwing sparks. Brooks held his arm and tried to prevent him being taken, and Conrad looked around for Nieves. The Landsat guy was huddled against the wheelhouse, staring wide-eyed. He’d be no help. “Where’s San?” Conrad asked. “Where the hell is San?” For a second he thought she was gone, and he felt so sad that she’d died without any of them even noticing. Then she reappeared swinging Marlow’s katana sword. It sliced through the tentacle six inches from Slivko’s foot, rebounding from the deck with a sweet metallic note and sending the other tentacles into an agonised dance.
Conrad was struck across the face, and he ducked and rolled backwards before the tentacle found purchase around his neck. “Faster!” he shouted at Marlow. “I’m giving her all she’s got!” Marlow said, and Conrad imagined him screaming it in a Scottish accent. He laughed, almost hysterical, then scrambled to his feet. Several tentacles were grabbing hold of various parts of the boat, and as they pulled tighter they dragged the body of the beast up out of the water. It broke the surface in a frothing wave, the water churned brown with mud and red with the creature’s leaking blood. Conrad grabbed at the railing and looked down, just as the squid—or whatever the hell it was—reared up even further. He looked it in the eye. Its barbed beak opened as if to laugh at him, or curse. He shot it in the eye, and the massive fluid sac burst and spewed into the river like a bloody slick. San sliced at another tentacle and the thing let go, splashing into the water and quickly falling behind them. “Shit! Shit!” Slivko kicked the parted tentacle from around his leg and watched it fall over the side, leaving a dark red trail behind. “He sure had the hots for you,” Weaver said to Slivko. She stood and nodded her thanks to San, who was still standing with the sword held in both hands. She looked surprised at what she had done.
