Apocalyptic pirates 2, p.1
Apocalyptic Pirates 2, page 1
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Chapter 1
“Shit,” I breathed when I noticed the other boat coming toward us.
“What?” Shannon asked, but in an instant, she was right next to me staring at the approaching vessel. She shook her head and let out a deep sigh. “Yuuuup. Shit about sums it up.”
She was absolutely stunning in her basic black bikini top and sexy dress pants she’d found when we raided some mansions about a week back. The ties of her bikini bottoms poked over the top of the pants and accentuated her wide hips and hourglass waist, and her long, dark hair and lovely tanned skin only added to her mystery and beauty.
Not only was Shannon downright gorgeous, she was incredibly handy with weapons and survival tactics. Her father was a military man who’d made sure she knew how to take care of herself, and now she was passing that knowledge on to us.
Well, mostly on to me. Ally, the beautiful redheaded Captain of our yacht, didn’t really like using guns, though she’d learned all the basics. She much preferred to be in charge of steering the sailing yacht, which was fine by me because she did a damn good job of it.
But since our team had found a ridiculous amount of guns on a drug boat, we decided it was in our best interest to use them. Of course, I wasn’t the best shot initially since I’d only used guns a handful of times with clients at the range, but Shannon had shared her expertise, and I’d found myself improving every single day during practice. Which was damn good because we were all we had to keep ourselves safe on the water. The Coast Guard had proven unreliable, and at this point there was no telling when this worldwide apocalypse would be over.
Right now, all we could do was keep on course for Hawaii where my mom, dad, and daughter were currently holed up, safely away from the dragons and pirates who’d decided to take advantage of this mayhem however they could.
Of course, keeping on course was a bit difficult when we were getting attacked every five minutes.
Thank god for firepower.
“We’ve got company,” I announced so Ally could hear me from her spot across the deck.
The redhead looked as beautiful and dignified as ever. Unlike Shannon, who was a total badass, Ally was a classy woman who’d always been defined by high social standards. Even now, she wore a loose black button-down and a tight-fitted pair of red dress pants. Of course, it was easy to see that she’d relaxed some since being on the boat because the shirt was unbuttoned to the point where I could see the cleavage created by her lacy black bra and perfect, perky breasts, and instead of wearing pumps like she usually did, she’d decided to go barefoot today.
“Not another one,” Ally groaned and shook her head. “I’m trying to tan here. Can’t people just mind their own business?”
“I guess not.” I shrugged. “Go ahead and get us moving. Shannon and I will take care of the rest.”
“Aye aye, Captain,” Ally sighed and gave me a pitiful salute.
“I’m pretty sure you’re the captain,” I chuckled.
“You’re the one giving orders,” she countered with a playful smile.
“Fair enough,” I laughed.
As soon as Ally was in the cockpit, the yacht lurched forward as we picked up speed. Then Shannon and I quickly checked our weapons to make sure they were fully loaded, grabbed some spare magazines, and got prepared to defend ourselves for what felt like the hundredth time in the last week.
As the other boat got closer, I took a quick tally of the men onboard. There were nearly ten, meanwhile my team was comprised of only three. But even still, their boat was smaller than ours, and they didn’t look like the savviest of dudes.
The small fishing vessel they were on was beaten to shit, with holes in various spots in the wood, peeling paint, and a sail that looked like something out of The Nightmare Before Christmas.
It wasn’t the worst boat we’d seen, but it certainly wasn’t the best. The only intimidating thing about it was the fact that there were so damn many. But Shannon and I had become a pretty damn good team, and I knew we’d be able to take them out with a little focus and badassery.
“What do you think?” I asked Shannon as the other boat picked up the pace, and the men started to get their guns ready to shoot.
“I say we take the first shot,” she said, and she held up the semi-automatic rifle and squeezed one eye shut as she aimed.
“Right there with ya,” I said, and I held my gun up and aimed at the asshole on the far left of the boat.
He had on the most stained white shirt I’d ever seen, and his hair was so greasy I could practically smell french fries from across the ocean.
“Now,” Shannon said, and in an instant, both our weapons sounded.
The men on board the other ship hit the deck, but not before we got a couple scrapes in. They were quick to react, so we didn’t get a kill shot, but I was certain I’d seen some blood join the other stains on that white t-shirt.
Shannon and I rained down bullets on the bastards until at least a few of them were injured, and they were all out of sight.
But as soon as there was a break in fire, the wannabe pirates jumped up and fired their ragtag group of guns at us like their lives depended on it.
And let’s be real, they did.
My team had gotten lucky with the guns we’d found, but these assholes clearly hadn’t done so well for themselves. A couple of them had small pistols, a few others had rifles, and only two of them had semi-automatic rifles.
Part of me was surprised those two weren’t doing the majority of the shooting, but I also suspected they didn’t have nearly as much ammunition as we did.
Shannon and I ducked behind the metal panels we had set up around the deck railing and reloaded while we held out for a break in fire.
It wasn’t long before the other guys ran out of firepower, and in an instant, Shannon and I were on our feet, unleashing hell.
My bullet ricocheted off the other boat with a loud clinking sound that hurt my ears, but I just gritted my teeth and kept firing. At that point, it was all about who could land a kill shot first.
The other vessel had more men for sure, but because their boat was smaller than ours, the men were getting in each other’s way and stumbling over one another as they tried to duck our shots or pop up to take their own.
“How are you two doing out there?” Ally called from her spot in the cockpit.
“Doing the best we can!” I hollered back as I slammed another magazine into the semi-auto rifle in my hand.
“If you shoot to the right, and I shoot to the left, I think we can funnel them into the center,” Shannon hollered so I could hear through my already ringing ears.
“I’m on it,” I told Shannon with a hard nod, and I scooted a bit further over on the deck so I could line up my shot.
“On my signal,” she said. “Just keep firing until we get them to the middle. They won’t know what hit ‘em.”
Gunfire sounded, and bullets clinked against the side of our boat and the scrap metal we’d found on shore and tied to the railing of the deck so it wasn’t open like it had been. When we’d set up the metal, Shannon insisted we keep a few areas open so we could shoot through them, so I crawled over to the nearest one and set up camp.
The men on board the other vessel fired away at us, but they weren’t the best shots, and they were banging into one another already as they tried to adjust their shots. I watched them get visibly upset with one another, and even throw their shoulders into each other to try to force their comrades into giving them more space.
Of course, that only made them angrier, which made their aim worse, which was good news for us, because if these assholes outmanned us and were organized, this would be a much different fight.
“Now!” Shannon shouted as soon as there was a slight break in the gunfire from the other boat.
Immediately, I pulled the trigger of my semi-automatic rifle, and the man at the end ducked out of the way. But I kept going, and I drifted my aim to the right, which sent the men scrambling to get away, since their boat wasn’t quite as protected as ours was.
They had scrap metal and wood placed around their railing, too, but this clearly wasn’t their first rodeo. There were more holes than I could count in their barrier, which made it much easier to find a good place to aim.
Someone on the other vessel screamed loudly as Shannon and I continued to shoot and funnel them to the center.
Once they were there, I realized exactly why Shannon had chosen to funnel them to that spot. The large piece of plywood in the center was hanging onto the railing by a fucking thread, and as soon as all the men were cowering behind it, Shannon shot the lone ziptie that held it in place.
The board fell, and panic ensued. The men screamed and tried to jump out of the way, but it was too late.
Shannon and I fired wildly into the group of men all scrambling over one another. Blood covered all of them as pieces of their friends went flying through the air and major arteries were severed.
The majority of them were easy targets, and since th
They pushed each other down to keep each other in place, like crabs in a bucket, and after a minute, all but two who’d managed to escape to the sides of the boat, were dead.
Everything went quiet as the two men hid behind the barrier. I suspected they were trying to get their guns ready to go again, but I could see them through the holes in their barrier. One laid on the deck with his hands over his head as if he were protecting himself from something falling out of the sky. The other had his back against the wall, and through the holes, I could just make out the back of his neck.
“I got two on the right,” I whispered loud enough so Shannon could hear me.
“You’ve got this,” she whispered back.
I nodded and narrowed my eyes on my targets. They were catching their breath, probably hoping we hadn’t noticed their escape. But while their disorganization had led them to fail today, my team’s organization was what led us to victory.
I took a deep breath and lined up my shot.
Then I pulled the trigger, and the man with the exposed neck jolted and fell to the side, which caused his friend to scream and scramble backward.
Before he could get too far, I blasted off two rounds to scare him even more. When my plan worked, and he leapt to his feet and ran toward the cockpit of his boat, I caught him in the back of the head.
Blood splattered across the already bloody and dirty deck, and his body went limp as it skidded to a halt.
“Seven, eight, nine,” Shannon whispered, and then she got to her feet and flashed me a wide grin. “Yup, that’s all of them. Good job with those last two.”
“Thanks,” I said, and I took the hand she offered to help me up. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“I know.” She smirked and flashed me a playful wink.
“Are we raiding this one, too?” Ally asked from her spot in the cockpit.
“Of course we are,” Shannon laughed and walked over to the stairs that led into the cockpit. “Why wouldn’t we?”
“Doesn’t this make us just as bad as the other pirates?” Ally wondered with a raised red eyebrow.
“No way,” Shannon chuckled. “They’re the ones who started it. We’re just claiming our prize for kicking their ass.”
“Yeah, I suppose you’re right,” Ally sighed and shook her head. “Better that whatever they have gets into our hands rather than someone else’s.”
“You’re such a goody-goody.” Shannon grinned at the redhead.
“I am not,” Ally scoffed. “Am I a goody-goody, Drew?”
“Wellllll.” I rubbed the back of my neck nervously.
“Oh, you hush,” she huffed and rolled her eyes.
Then she spun around and pressed some buttons on the control panel before steering our yacht toward the other vessel.
“So, Ally, why do you hate looting so much?” Shannon pushed. “It seems like you’re always against it, no matter how many times we’ve done it before.”
“It’s not so much the looting,” Ally sighed. “It’s the fact that we’re just trying to get somewhere and these assholes keep interrupting us. Can’t everyone just go about their business? I mean, seriously.”
Ally wasn’t wrong. From what we could see on the map, we were just about to the middle of North Carolina, and in the past week since dragon-filled, radioactive meteorites had rained down on Earth, we’d already had a couple of encounters similar to this one.
And we’d been seeing more and more boats on the water the further south we got.
Just in the past twenty-four hours we’d seen at least a dozen boats. Most had minded their own business like we did, but there were always those outliers who were out to make trouble. And even if those boats were few and far between, it was still concerning to see so many vessels on the water. It was an alarming increase compared to what we’d seen the first few days after everything had gone to shit. At this rate, we were going to have to stop every couple hundred miles just to deal with some asshole trying to take our stuff.
Still, it made sense.
“You realize that not everybody was able to sneak onto land and steal a bunch of food like we were,” I chuckled. “A lot of people are probably really low on supplies.”
“I guess that’s true.” She pursed her lips. “But they’ve got to have fishing poles, right?”
“I think it’s less about necessity and more about power with a lot of these guys,” Shannon offered. “In my experience, the ones doing the attacking in order to get supplies usually aren’t the ones who actually need them. They’re the assholes who think they deserve what everyone else has. They take whatever they can from anybody they can. And they always think they’re badasses, but most of the time they’re just sorry-ass losers who pick on people weaker than them.”
“Not today.” I smiled.
“No, not today,” Shannon agreed. “But I guarantee they targeted us because they outnumbered us. They just didn’t realize that skill matters a lot more than numbers in this case.”
“Probably because they didn’t have any of their own,” Ally muttered and shook her head. “They were all over the place. It was hard to watch, honestly.”
“Their lack of communication definitely didn’t do them any good today,” I said.
“Which is exactly why we’re about to take everything they have,” Shannon laughed.
“Nearly there,” Ally said.
Once Ally pulled us close enough to the other boat, Shannon and I climbed overboard and looked through the rubble to see what all we could find. We handed the guns, ammunition, and extra magazines over to Ally first, and then we went below deck to look for food and any other supplies we could possibly need.
As we made our way down the stairs, I noticed a large scratch on the side of the cockpit, and my immediate thought was that a dragon had to have done it.
As awful as dealing with other boats had been, it was nothing compared to those scaly sonsabitches. They were huge, vicious, and deliberately intent on eating people. The very first day they arrived, I’d watched one swallow a man whole, still screaming. It was fucking terrifying.
But that was just another reason why we were out on the water. It was the safest place to be since the dragons couldn’t fly very far. Once they got in the water, their bodies started to sink, too, and they just weren’t able to keep themselves afloat.
Of course, that hadn’t stopped them from trying to come after us, and it certainly did nothing for the dragons who were stranded at sea themselves.
Like always, the scientists who’d predicted the meteor storm had been completely incorrect about the window in which the meteorites were going to fall. And for about two days after the storm was supposed to be over, we saw the occasional meteorite fall out of the sky and into the ocean.
More meteorites meant more dragons, and more dragons meant more rioting and craziness. It didn’t matter how much the government and world leaders wanted us to think they had it all handled, the YouTube videos uploaded every day proved otherwise. Not only had we found out recently that the fuckers were radioactive, but they’d caused mass panic, especially in the North Atlantic Ocean.
Boats had congregated there to stay away from the dragons, but the sheer amount of them together with low supplies was bad news. Military vessels from all around the globe had been sent to try to combat the piracy and theft that was going on and keep the peace. But the videos we watched clearly showed that approach wasn’t working one bit. People had gone fucking nuts, and with good reason.
There were literal dragons roaming our planet.
And they wanted to eat us.
If that didn’t condone a bit of piracy and rage, I wasn’t sure what would.
Especially because the militaries around the world seemed to be more focused on what we were doing than what the fucking dragons were doing. It was ass backwards and irritating as hell.
And my team and I were on a stolen sailing yacht, which meant we didn’t want to run into any sort of authority figure whatsoever, so we decided to stay closer to the shore and further from the military ships. But that came with its drawbacks, too.
A lot of locals were on the water, and being closer to the shore meant we were more likely to come into contact with a dragon who was ready and willing to try to fly over to us, too. At that point, we’d simply have to hope our boat was fast enough to get us the hell out of there.
