Jason Frost - Warlord 05 - Terminal Island by Jason Frost - Warlord 05

“Stop.”
    The ape stood still.
    She gripped the gun again and approached cautiously. She waved D.B. over, waiting until they stood next to each other with their hands up before walking closer. When she saw the blood on the ape’s lips, she pointed the gun at Eric’s face. “You bastard, you’ve hurt him.”
    “He’s a real brute sometimes,” D.B. said.
    “You think it’s funny?” the woman said, flipping a curtain of long black hair over her shoulder. “I should shoot you both right now.”
    “We only wanted out of here,” Eric said.
    “Then why did you come in in the first place?”
    “Food,” D.B. said.
    The woman’s dark eyes glared at D.B. “This is not a supermarket. These are living creatures, most very rare.” Her British accent tattered a little with her anger, her Chinese origins showing through.
    “Look,” Eric said. “We were hungry. We made a mistake. You let us go and we’ll be on our way, no harm done.”
    “The harm’s already been done.” She motioned with the gun. “Now I’ll have to find another cage for you two. How did you manage to tear that one open?”
    “We didn’t,” D.B. said. “He did.”
    “Spock?” she said. “Impossible. He would never attack you.”
    “He doesn’t take a joke well,” Eric said.
    “Joke? What joke?”
    Eric repeated the signs he’d made that had enraged the ape.
    “Woman,” she said, reading the first. Then the second, “Dead. Killed.” She jabbed the gun against Eric’s chest. “You told him I was dead!”
    “Wow,” D.B. said. “No wonder he was so pissed.”
    “We couldn’t break out,” Eric said, “so I needed him to break in.”
    The woman spat out a long stream of Chinese, to which Eric answered in Chinese.
    “Shit,” D.B. said. “I shoulda known.”
    The woman gazed at Eric thoughtfully. “You learn your Chinese in Vietnam?”
    “Thereabouts.”
    “You have a Vietnamese inflection.”
    “I’ll work on it. You learn your English in Oxford?”
    “Cambridge.”
    D.B. sighed disgustedly. “Ain’t this sweet. A class reunion for eggheads.”
    The woman ignored D.B. “So, you speak Chinese. And you know Ameslan.”
    “Ameslan?” D.B. asked.
    “American Sign Language,” Eric said. Then to the woman, “I know enough Chinese to keep the peanut shrimp from being too spicy. The Ameslan is something I picked up to communicate with my deaf students.”
    “How altruistic,” she said, a disbelieving edge to her voice.
    “The school paid me extra for it if that’ll make you feel better.” It was a lie of course. Yes, he knew Ameslan, but he’d learned it in the Night Shift from Dirk Fallows. A silent way to communicate in the jungle while stalking your prey. Big Bill Tenderwolf had taught him some Hopi sign language, but very few knew it anymore except historians. Even Big Bill used to get it mixed up, signing, “Let’s go get a drink of turtle.”
    D.B. tugged her choke collar. “Listen, let’s wrap this up, okay? Our names are—”
    “No!” the woman said. “I don’t want to know names.”
    “Well, shit, even your ape’s got a name. Spock.”
    At the name, the ape looked at D.B.
    “See? You a trekkie?”
    “What she means, D.B., is she doesn’t want us to be personal, with names and such, in case she has to kill us. Right?”
    “You came to kill my animals. I need make no excuses.” She held her five feet stiff and defiant, like the gun. “You aren’t the first to come here. Only one ever managed to kill and he in turn was killed by Spock.”
    “And the others?” Eric asked, suddenly interested.
    “Secure.”
    He took a step toward her. “Where?”
    She cocked the gun and aimed it at his face. “Stay there. I’ll shoot.”
    He kept coming.
    She pulled the trigger.

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10
     
    The hammer clicked on an empty chamber.
    “Bang,” Eric said. He plucked the gun from her hand.
    Spock, the gorilla, lumbered forward with a menacing expression.
    “This may be empty,” Eric said, brandishing