TRUST ME WHEN NIGHT FALLS 19

Nineteen

The creatures were back. Not a lot of them, but they were back; their cries quieter outside. Occasionally they would hear a long scrape against the hull; sometimes it could be heard within the ship and sometimes it sounded as though it was right on top of them. It was as though they tested the hull of the ship, and different points in the interior, to see if they could get in.

Somehow that frightened the survivors more than having to deal with an actual creature. If it was there in front of them they could have faced it, and fought it, as something tangible. It may kill them in the end but it would be better than being left to cower in what little light they could manage and imagine their end.

“What if they get in, Shazza?” Jack’s voice shook with fear, a fear they all felt; but it didn’t help to be afraid. Shazza closed her eyes against the wave of panic, it wouldn’t help now; she could fall apart later. When Riddick came back for them. When it was safe she would let herself fall apart but she didn’t have that luxury now.

“Okay, we don’t have any conventional weapons to fight with, but these things don’t like light. I can’t imagine they’d like fire all that much either. Let’s tear this place apart and see what we’ve got.” She didn’t honestly expect to find anything; it was more an effort to keep busy; the sounds of the creatures as they tried to get in would have eventually driven them mad.

They had counted bottles of booze, those would burn well and Jack listened closely in fascination as Shazza quietly described Molotov cocktails. Imam ripped a piece from the bottom of his robe to use as wicks, if it became necessary. They had no idea what other sort of weapon would even hurt the creatures, and so they chose to stick with light and fire. It was Jack that found the flares.

—

Fry had faltered once or twice as she pulled the cart over the soft ground, her feet sometimes unable to find purchase to move forward. Johns wouldn’t drop the shotgun to help her though, he would just yell for her to be quiet.

As Fry fell for the third time she started to seriously wonder if the choice she had made was the best course of action. They had both fought when Riddick had disappeared; Fry had wanted to go back to the ship and Johns had insisted that they keep to the plan. That they would make it, the settlement was just ahead and then it was “skiff city” as he said, but Johns looked out into the dark, and his nerves told another story.

Fry had never really noticed it before; maybe she just hadn’t wanted to, but Johns only seemed really sure of himself when he was armed. Even now, with Riddick nowhere in sight, he looked afraid, although he did put on a good show when he thought she watched him.

When he was distracted though, she saw him spin around at every click and call of the creatures that got closer as the enclosed nature of the canyon created more shadows for them to hide in. He got more vicious the more afraid he became, and she was sorely tempted just to stop, just to let him pull the damned cart for a change. Except that she was pretty sure he would just kill her if she was no longer any use to him. She wondered if Riddick would do that.

Riddick uncoiled as the cart wheeled its way past the first tangle of bones. The shadows fell in strange patterns across the canyon, and the blue light cast by the power cells and light tubes only deepened those shadows in its promise of a small fragile patch of security.

He wished for one moment that Johns could see what he could see so clearly in the dark. The creatures clung to the sides of the canyon walls and inched down, ever closer to the cart, as they tested how close they could get to the light.

Some of them had worked their way into the bones themselves, although they would pull back and hide again when the cart lumbered close enough to cast its faint blue light. Riddick waited for the creatures themselves to give him cover, their high-pitched whistles sounded sharp in the still air as they called out to the creatures below. For not the first time that night he wondered how well the creatures communicated, as they seemed to send signals to each other about the location of the cart.

He watched Fry for a moment longer; it would start with Fry. She was weaker; she was in the rear and, if it was anyone other than Johns he dealt with, the sound of her hurt would change everything on the ground. Fry had made her choice, and he had waited as long as he could to see if she would choose otherwise. To wait longer was to risk the loss of the skiff to Johns; to risk Shazza and Jack, and Imam, and he wouldn’t do it that. Not for Johns and not for a woman that was given more than enough time and opportunity to change her mind about how things went.

He slipped like a ghost, soundless across the floor of the canyon and cut Fry’s Achilles tendon as he swept from one side back into the darkness on the other. She went down to her knees with barely a cry at first, just a sharp intake of breath, her mouth open wide at the shock of it. She looked more startled than hurt for a moment, before the air filled with the sharp scent of fresh blood.

Before he was shined, when he had to fight in the dark, that scent was all he had to go on that he would live another day. He loved the smell of blood; to him it was life itself. There was a time when that was true literally. He was not alone in the taste for it, as the creatures almost seemed to pause, as he did, to scent the new metallic bite in the air, before their cries grew more frantic overhead.

He watched, detached, as Johns screamed at her to get up. Johns’ head darted from Fry to the creatures that wheeled in the dark overhead. He scanned the area frantically for any sign of Riddick. There was no way to know for sure that Riddick had done it, but he felt in his gut that he had. “Come on, Riddick, this is stupid. We don’t all have to die out here. We can get the cells to the skiff and we’re out of here, it can be like this whole fucking disaster never happened.” Johns tried to summon up bravado as he called out to Riddick over the short screams of Fry. He didn’t bother to help her, she was already dead, she just didn’t know it yet and maybe her cries would keep Riddick around a little longer.

He fingered the trigger of the shotgun as he waited for Riddick to say anything, to give some sign that he had heard. Riddick would come out and they would make a deal for survival, of that Johns had no doubt, but the wait started to rattle his nerves. This wasn’t like Riddick at all.

Johns watched, annoyed, as Fry pushed herself up, only to fall to her knees again. She would never walk anywhere again. “Come on Riddick, we can go back for the girl, even the kid. This is stupid Riddick, come on.”

The other one, Shazza, had made some sort of connection with Riddick, and Johns smirked as he thought of how ridiculous it was; Riddick had acted like a moon-struck calf over a woman.

Fry tried to get up. She knew that if she couldn’t get to her feet that she would be dead one way or another. She tried to push the cart a little further in a bid to just walk it off, but fell to her knees again. She refused to beg Johns for her life, as she already knew how futile that was.

Her head rested against the handle of the cart as she thought through everything that had happened today, at the mistakes she had made along the way. Until right now, Riddick hadn’t hurt her. Not once. He had scared her, twice, but why?

Because he already knew, somehow he already knew what she and Johns had planned. Even then, as she grew cold with the loss of blood, the hard truth washed over her. Riddick had told her the truth in the crash ship when he was chained; he hadn’t killed Zeke, but she had believed Johns instead.

In the skiff, after the conversation with Johns, Riddick could have just killed her, but he didn’t. He scared her, of course, but he also told her the truth about Johns, that he was a merc and a hype.

In the model room, at the settlement, of course he saw the room was empty. And he didn’t let her fall when they made it back to the crash ship, when Johns could care less where she was.

He had given her so many chances, and she had sneered at every one of them, and now she slowly bled to death while Johns did nothing. Because Johns didn’t care; Johns had lied from the first moment, and she began to wonder how much he had lied to her about Riddick. None of it mattered any more.

Riddick watched as Johns’ actions showed his frustrations. There was no way that Johns would go back, it just wasn’t how the man worked; he had his own survival instinct after all. Riddick wasn’t at all surprised by what came next, but he watched as Fry slumped over with barely a whimper when Johns shot her.

He could imagine Johns would work it up into a tale of mercy before he was done but Riddick knew that Johns simply considered her a burden; of no further use save as a distraction. The creatures fell onto Fry and began to rip her apart once the circle of light had passed over her, as Johns pulled the cart himself.

Johns sweated and struggled and swore against the stubborn weight of the cart, against the sand that fought him every step of the way. The shotgun was back on his hip; it was either pull the cart, or hold the shotgun, he couldn’t do both.

He had himself almost convinced that this was Riddick’s way to punish him somehow, and that once he had cleared the worst of the bones Riddick would show up, full of good cheer and ready to strike a deal. When he had almost reached this particular patch of bones, he told himself that Riddick would wait for him until he reached the settlement.

His legs and arms shook with the strain, and it didn’t help that his last shot had been hours ago; rule or no rule, more is what he needed. When he got off the ground he would fix himself up, and forget this whole fucked up trip.

The lights didn’t go out suddenly but slowly faded away to darkness, as the cart jerked suddenly and all of the power cells tumbled to the ground, the light tubes cut. Johns panicked in the sudden dark and his eyes shot skyward to the calls of the creatures. He pulled the shotgun from its holster on his thigh and his hands fumbled for the powerful light there. It was gone; he had given it to Riddick when they had started out.

Riddick had the only source of light. Suddenly the ground lit up just ahead of him, in the clearing past the bones; in its dim light he could see that the end of the canyon, the settlement, the skiff, were so close. How could Riddick stop now?

Johns shook with the exertion when he finally made it into the circle of light just in the nick of time. The creatures were all around them. Riddick had buried the light in the sandy soil, while he slowly circled the light at its far edge, he still hadn’t spoken and his face was cold and unreadable, even without the goggles.

“It doesn’t need to be like this Riddick. Everyone can get off this rock.” Still, Riddick said nothing. Johns swallowed hard past the dry lump that formed in his throat as he tried to stay on the other side of Riddick. He tried to lift the shotgun but his arms shook so badly that he nearly dropped it.

He wondered if this was his plan, to run him to the point of exhaustion, and then, what? There was no way to know for sure what Riddick would do. As he shook and tried to even out his breath, he wondered if this was how Riddick felt when he couldn’t breathe properly, when Johns had made him pull all the gear in the heat. “All right Riddick, I get it, you’re pissed off at me, but ….”

Johns watched as Riddick slowly pulled out the shiv, and let the light dance across its surface. He knew how fast Riddick was; if Riddick didn’t want to be seen, he wouldn’t be seen. Riddick wanted him to see the blade, and wanted him to be afraid; he was, but he wasn’t about to say it. He wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. Riddick’s voice dropped to a dangerous and flat sound that seemed to fill the air all around them. “Stay in the light….”

Riddick watched Johns’ fear for a few moments longer, before he skirted the far edge of the ring of light and slipped in like low-lying fog to run a slit along the length of Johns’ right arm. It didn’t cut deeply, but it did bleed, and it made holding the shotgun even harder.

Johns tried to lift his arm again and managed to get a shot off but it went wild. Riddick slipped easily under his arm and made another slit, along his back this time, purposefully avoiding the sweet spot. Johns knew it was on purpose because Riddick’s hand touched him there, to let him know he could kill him quickly at any time; he would toy with him until he begged. It wasn’t how Johns wanted to go out.

Johns flung his weight back against Riddick, surprised at how easily Riddick went down. If he weren’t so tired, if he weren’t so strung out, face it, if he weren’t so afraid, he would have questioned that, but he didn’t. Not until it was too late. He crouched over Riddick with the only weapon he had left, the telescoping baton that had been strapped to his other thigh. Riddick held him pinned above him easily, effortlessly.

“You should have never taken the chains off, Johns.” Riddick smiled at him, a cruel vicious smile; his teeth glinted in the strange half-light, and Johns was reminded of a book he had read as a child. About sharks.

That Riddick’s eyes shone silver in the light didn’t change the effect for him, not once he had already thought it. He was held in the soulless grip of an ancient predator, a hunter with no fear, no remorse; that would never stop. He struggled harder but it didn’t matter; Riddick eased his hand up slowly to bring the knife up where he could see it, and Johns knew it was over.

“You were one brave fuck before. You were Billy Bad Ass. It was the chains that gave you that.” A terrible truth before dying. Riddick flipped him over and pulled him to his feet easily, before he cut him again. A mistake? Riddick didn’t make mistakes; he definitely didn’t make them twice. There’s no way he would miss, and so Johns knew that he hadn’t gone for the sweet spot at all. He just wanted him to bleed.

Riddick backed away to the far edge of the light and watched Johns again; he crouched down on his haunches so that Johns could watch his face. Riddick grinned at him, as he bled into the sand; he watched as Johns tried to get up, but they both knew that, like Fry, Johns was never going to get up.

Johns knelt in the sand and watched Riddick; the smile terrified him more than anything else he had dealt with today, because he didn’t know why Riddick smiled at him. “None of this was necessary Johns. I wanted you to know that, before you died.”

“What the fuck are you talking about, Riddick.” Johns spat the words out, as he felt himself grow colder at the loss of blood. “If we don’t get to the skiff we die. Your girl dies, the kid dies, the old man dies. Everyone, including you.” A flicker of ice crossed Riddick’s face when he said ‘your girl’. Shazza had meant more to Riddick than he let on, if he could be made to show emotion now.

It was too late to worry about all the ways he was wrong about Riddick, all he had was one last chance to get the final word in. If he made Riddick angry enough, maybe he would kill him quick.

Johns had gone paler, as Riddick spelled out all the ways in which he had got it wrong; he had even drawn Johns a diagram in the sand. His grin spread wider, as the realization dawned on Johns’ face.

Riddick reached out and picked up the shotgun, and clipped the powerful light to it again. Riddick wasn’t about to kill him. He had cut him up and would use him for bait, and leave him within sight of the settlement.

Riddick’s last words were something even a diagram and patient explanation couldn’t entirely clear up for him, it was so simple, as his world fogged over in a haze of agony and he was eaten alive.

—

It had been quiet so long. They had kept busy, and searched through the boxes of supplies, and all the nooks and crannies of the room they were now trapped in. The creatures had been gone for a long time now, and the silence stretched out the time. Jack counted breaths until she lost count, and then she would start again. She had already counted all the crackers. Imam sat perfectly still and silent against the bulkhead, lost in thought.

Shazza tried hard not to think about Riddick, but she wasn’t doing a very good job of it. In the end she closed her eyes, and thought of Riddick; the weight of him as he had protected her, his hand in hers, and his voice as he had whispered to her. ‘Trust me.’ She still heard his voice.

The shotgun blast made them all shout out loud, but even that couldn’t shut out the deep male scream of pain that came from somewhere outside. Jack heard the shotgun and muttered “Johns”.

Shazza heard the voice and knew it was Riddick. She was up and on her feet with two flares in her left hand and a bottle of booze and one of Imam’s wicks, a Molotov cocktail, in her right.

Imam was on her before she got to the door. “Let me go! We have to help him…” She struggled vainly against Imam, who was a lot stronger than he looked.

His voice was steady and calm, and quiet, as he held her fast. “Yes, my child. Easy Shazza. I will go….No, you must stay here. Someone must stay here to protect Jack.” Imam would not let her go, but gripped her elbow while he took the flares. He dropped the Molotov cocktail into one of the many pockets in his robe, and held the flares, one in each hand, while Shazza opened the door.

She didn’t want to let him go, she was torn by the conflict in her heart to help Riddick, and to protect Jack. One more shout from Riddick had her let Imam go, the flares swept in arcs around him as he ran through the ship. To Riddick.

next…