Furious by Jeffrey Higgins (top 10 novels to read TXT) 📕

An older man lay on his back, sideways across the bed, with his hands and legs dangling over the edges. His face had contorted into a mask of horror, and his dead, unblinking eyes stared at me. Brad hunched over him like an animal. The man’s stomach splayed open and two broken ribs stuck out at odd angles. Blood soaked the bed and dripped off the saturated sheets onto the deck. Crimson liquid rolled across the floor, sloshing against the bulkheads and splashing the walls. The room stank of feces, blood, and death.

Brad dug his hands inside the man’s abdomen and yanked a long string of intestines from the cavity—gray and slippery, like uncooked sausages. He jammed them into his mouth and bit into them. Blood squirted over his chest. He jerked his head, ripping a chunk off, and chewed it. He gnawed and slurped as the entrails slid out of his mouth.

“Nooo,” a groan escaped my lips.

Brad jerked his head up and glared at me with yellow eyes—wild, inhuman. The intestines squeezed through his fingers. He growled and bared his teeth in a demonic smile.

CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

I yanked my head out of the stateroom and slammed the door shut. My mind went black. I fled, driven by instinct. My legs moved by themselves and carried me through the salon. I reached the companionway and grabbed the rails.

Something thumped behind me.

I looked over my shoulder. Brad stood in the salon, drenched in the sailor’s blood. Six feet of intestines dangled from his hands and trailed on the deck behind him. His eyes bore into mine and he bared his teeth. A flap of torn villus hung from the corner of his mouth. He moved toward me, dragging his broken leg behind him.

I turned and bounded up the steps, pain radiating from my lacerated foot. I shuffled through the cockpit to the starboard side and paused.

Where could I go?

The sailor—my savior—was dead. His sailboat drifted thirty yards behind us. I grabbed the lifelines between stanchions. I needed to get on his boat, but did I even remember how to swim?

The stairs creaked under Brad’s weight.

I had to jump. I bent my knees and coiled my body, ready to leap over the side. My hands shook, almost out of control. My legs had gone numb, as if they belonged to someone else.

The dorsal fin passed five yards in front of me. If I jumped now, the great white would eat me alive.

Brad took another step and growled.

I sprinted for the mast.

I climbed onto the cabin top, took a step, and slipped on my bloody bandage. I crashed hard onto the deck and skinned my knee. Brad’s head appeared in the cockpit. He whirled around and his eyes found me. I regained my footing and stepped into the harness. I did not stop to tighten it. I raised the top ascender and sat into the chair.

Brad rounded the corner and moved along the gunwale, toward me. He dragged his leg behind him like a piece of luggage. His broken leg slowed him, but his body radiated intensity. If he got his hands on me, it was over.

I raised the lower ascender and mounted the stirrups. I stood and lifted the top ascender in one motion. I sat in the seat and glanced at Brad. He was halfway to me and I dangled only four feet off the deck. I would not make it—not even close. He would grab me, pull me from the harness, and kill me. I needed an alternative plan.

I slipped out of the bosun’s chair and dropped to the deck.

Brad slung the intestines to deck, growled, and flashed his teeth. I smelled the decay on him. He clambered onto the cabin top.

What now? I took a step backwards, tripped over an object, and landed hard on my side. The flare gun case lay beside my foot. I grabbed it and ran toward the bow, my nerve endings screaming with pain.

Brad twisted his body and swung his arms as he dragged his broken leg. He stepped with a thump, stopped, and pulled his leg behind him, scraping it across the deck. He continued toward me. Thump . . .  scrape . . . thump.

I reached the bow and turned.

He pursued me across the deck. Thump . . . scrape . . . thump.

My fingers fumbled over the latches. I snapped the case open and removed the flare gun. One flare left.

Thump . . . scrape . . . thump. Fifteen feet away.

I tried to rip the plastic package around the flare, but my sweaty hands slipped off it.

Thump . . . scrape . . . thump. Ten feet.

I stuck it in my mouth and ripped it open. I removed the flare.

Thump . . . scrape . . . thump. Brad was right in front of me.

I dodged to the side away from his reach. I grabbed a stanchion and climbed onto the bowsprit. I balanced on the four-foot-long and one-foot-wide piece of metal, which pointed off the bow like a gangplank.

Thump . . . scrape . . . thump. Brad made it to the edge.

I wobbled on the slippery surface and looked through a slit at the anchor hanging below. The shark’s fin sliced past, twenty yards to port.

The yacht rocked in the surge and Brad hesitated before stepping onto the bowsprit.

I snapped open the breach and turned the flare in my hand to insert it into the barrel. The bow bounced over a swell, and I lost my balance. I flailed my arms, trying not to fall, and dropped the flare. It clanked against the bowsprit. I moved my weight forward over my knees and regained my footing.

The yacht pitched over another wave, and the flare rolled to the edge. I leaned forward and reached for it. The flare bounced off the bowsprit and slipped over the lip. I lunged and caught it in the air.

I sat on the bowsprit, with my