Jabali Island by Eddie Generous

Author:Eddie Generous [Generous, Eddie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-11-06T22:00:00+00:00

24

Q and Mary ran, ascending to the second section of the roof—an area unperturbed by the destruction done by the boar, followed by the pigs and sows. Q, of course, grabbed his duffle bag. Mary had Susan’s rifle.

Jumbo Joe had gotten to the edge and had to struggle his way back as snapping mouths jerked ever closer to taking bits of him. He rushed up the angle, looking over his shoulder the entire way. He scooped up his rifle, then the handgun and the bag of ammunition. He had two boxes of rifle rounds still in his pocket, and enough rounds to fill the handgun two additional times—Mary had loaded it upon reaching the roof.

“Damnit, damnit, damnit!” Jumbo Joe wrenched at his hair, watching the boar peel away. “Damnit!”

“Get up here!” Mary shouted, firing rounds at the beasts stepping onto the lowered corner of the roof. The angle did little to deter them. “Come on!”

Jumbo Joe let off sixteen rapid rounds with the handgun, shooting almost blindly as he pushed further up the roof. Beneath him, the building creaked and groaned. The corner nearest the one that had already crumbled tipped as well, sending out a great puff of dust and a raucous clatter of destruction. Jumbo Joe slipped when the roof beneath him shifted. He began to slide on the tarred steel, firing once before hearing only clicks from the handgun. He brought up the rifle just as his feet came into contact with a sow’s snapping mouth. His boots matched her jaw’s movements as he fired, pulled the bolt, fired, pulled the bolt, fired. The third shot blew a baseball-sized hole in the middle of the sow’s forehead. Grey gunk puddled out in chunky waves as the beast tipped sideways.

Jumbo Joe dug in and kicked, rising just ahead of a pig hot behind him. Jingling with ammunition and coming down from the best bits of the cocaine high, he leapt for the edge of the next portion of the rooftop. Mary and Q grabbed for him as the other section of roof, now busy with massive beasts—thankfully, all had trouble with the swaying beneath their hooves—began to topple.

At the very edge, Jumbo Joe’s boots clung where the blocky heels gave space for the rest of the tread, like a car teetering over a mountainside. He nearly tipped backward, but Q and Mary yanked him forward and he fell, sprawling onto the next portion of roof.

He jerked around, trying to work the clip free from the handgun. Distantly, the boar raced along the beach, barely visible above the trees. Susan appeared to be clinging to the beast’s tusk.

“Hey, you know what we should do?” Q said, pointing about a mile away, beyond much sand and some forest to the long stretch of asphalt that was the runway. “We should take the plane right back to Santiago. Leave these pigs behind.”

Mary faced him, her mouth and eyes like gaping wounds.

“Yeah, and who’d fly the plane?” Jumbo Joe said, pacing.

“Me.”

Jumbo Joe stopped and looked at Q.

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