maleXmale, cursing, blood, death and other none child approved material… you have been warned.
To make it clear the Harry Potter and Riddick character/world is not mine, they belong to J.K Rowling and whoever owns Riddick. This is a fanfic, which means I'm not the original creator only the writer of this particular story.
Chapter 21: meet the natives…
(to clarify - time skip, to before the gun-shuts)
As the drama at the crash-site happened the other survivors busied themselves with checking out the skiff, trying to see what their chances were of making it work. The guys didn't have any experience with skiffs control-panels so they left that up to Fry and focused on the body instead. After all there was a lot of sand and holes that needed a look over.
After some time Fry exits the skiff. She has done a basic check-up on it and is hopeful it will fly, after some patchwork.
"It has no juice and it looks like it's been laid up for years. But we might be able to adapt –"
Before she gets the chance to finish, John raises his hands up for silence. He and Harry are standing with their backs to her, scanning the desert land with their ears cocked to the wind. Fry jumps off the skiff and starts walking towards them and takes a breath to speak once again.
"Shut up." Is the clipped reply from Harry as he takes a couple of steps forward. After a few more seconds of silent listening Harry and Johns looks at each other. They nod in agreement, they both heard it,
"Sorry. Thought we heard something." Johns says as he turns to the others.
"Like what?" Fry asks. Imam and his boys hurries over when Harry signal for them to join up and lets John answer.
"Guns shuts… we need to run back, something has happened at the crash site."
Harry doesn't let Fry speak after John has his say, he just turns after everyone is gathered and starts to jog back towards the ship. Fry huffs and opens her mouth to complain but stops short when Johns follows him without protest, soon joined by Imam and his boys. It takes her a few second until she starts moving her legs too, finally getting the picture. They are all dehydrated and tired, yes, but it doesn't matter now. Not when the others can be in danger.
The only thing that irritates Fry, as she and the others move across the sand, is that it was Harry who was the instigator- that just rubs her the wrong way. He is supposed to be the prisoner, not the "lets rescue everyone" guy. But like Johns she keeps quite. They don't have time for squabbles. If they keep the pace Harry set they would be back in little over an hour. Hopefully that will be fast enough.
As the group hurries back over the sandhills the others at the crash-site are dealing with the aftermath of the dead stranger, unaware of the others mad dash.
Harry himself is trying to keep a steady but quick pace, trying to put as little distance as possible between him and survivors at the ship. He doesn't really care about the others; he just wants to make sure Riddick is alive. Why, he doesn't know, nor does he really care right now. He just wants to make sure that his predator is alive. He may need him later.
After about an hour of a slow jog they are just a couple of minutes away from the ship. They can see the dark silhouette of it in the distant only hidden by the sand spears. Johns was in the front now since Harry's body couldn't keep up the pace any more. To damaged, thirsty and tired Harry had fallen behind Johns but still ahead Imam and Fry, for that he was secretly quite proud of himself.
Xxxxxxx
As they got closer and closer, Zeke had by now reached the grave site by the spires. He's tired, sweaty and thirsty. The drag-sled carrying the stranger seems to weight a ton and he just wants it all to go away. When he un-straps himself from the sled he sees that the sun-tarp, that shades the grave, has fallen on one side. He dumps the straps he's been holding and grabs the tarp. When he lifts it a new shock hits him; the bodies are gone. Zeke looks around him, searching, for bodies doesn't just disappear into thin air.
He sees something he didn't notice before, there seems to be some kind of opening at the bottom of the grave.
"Now! what the bloody hell." He exclaim tired and without thinking hops down into the grave. In doing so he has to let go of the tarp which falls back down and hides him from view. This means a blind-spot is made between the ship and the grave-hole. Riddick who has been hiding amongst the spires sees his chance. He slowly moves forward staying on the high-point of the grave so it will be harder for Zeke to see him.
In the grave Zeke has dropped to all fours and are looking into the tunnel. There seems to be some kind of burrow beyond the opening. He takes out his hand light and shine into the burrow, trying to locate the bodies. The burrow seems to be bigger further ahead so Zeke tries to make more room in front of the hole so he can climb in.
… He should have been more cautious, something that takes dead bodies is hardly a friendly creature. He only sees it for a few second before the pain starts. Something monstrous with sharp teeth is ripping into him and his blood is dancing in the air. Zeke tries on instinct to retract but the creature gets a firm hold on him and is powerful. He can feel it dragging him further in and grabs in panic after the gun, whilst screaming. Hoping against hope that someone will save him.
Shazza jumps in fright when she hears more gunshots and spins around, trying to see Zeke. No sign of him and her blood freezes to ice. NO! not Zeke. Is the only thing that registers in her head. At first she doesn't move, like a deer caught in headlight. But then she hears him scream again and starts to run before she thinks; she didn't even grab her weapon.
She sprints across hard-pack soil, begging in her head for him to hold out just a few more seconds. Just a few more, she is coming. Suddenly the gunshots stop and she can´t hear anymore screaming, but she is finally there. Come on Zeke, just be here. Please… Shazza throws herself onto the ground before the grave and rips away the tarp to find…
Nothing, no one's there. The only thing visible is red, red and again red. The entire hole is covered in her man's blood. Shazza feels her heart stop, her head is screaming in pain and desperation.
Zeke.
Suddenly something moves just on the opposite edge of the grave. Shazza's eyes slowly raises. Her eyes meet the goggled-covered ones of Riddick. The man is crouched, with no traces of blood on him, with a bone-shive in his left hand. He just looks at her and the only thing Shazza does in return is scream. She screams in bloody murder, for she will kill this man. Kill him for taking her man away from her.
The moment she screams Riddick is off, he knows when someone has been pushed beyond their limits and the lady back there would try her best to take him down. He didn't have the energy nor the interest to waste time on her. Besides its highly likely that Johns heard the shots and he didn´t want to give the man the opportunity of catching him. Even if he is a couple of miles off. Not good taking chances.
He lopes through the spires, running in high speed from the crime scene. For just a few seconds he glances behind to look for the settler before he turns at a blind corner – and something smacks with great force into his head. He goes down hard and before he can get up someone rips of his goggles exposes his eyes to the sun. Blinded and disoriented it's easy for Johns to keep the upper-hand as he beats him with his boots and baton.
Should have known the fucker was close by, sloppy Riddick, sloppy. Is the only thing that registers as he tries to avoid the baton and the sharp sunlight.
"Same crap, different planet, huh?" Johns says in a sneer, before he kicks him in the ribs. Riddick can feel them breaking under the force. Harry finally catching up to the cop only to see him pelting the living daylights of the man lying helpless on the ground. Out of breath and tired he tried to get to Johns. The man was going at it like crazy, beating Riddick like he is a chained dog. When he reaches the he jumps on the man, trying to push him away from Riddick who had curled himself into a ball.
"STOP IT, STOP… for Merlin sake, the man is down. Fucking cut it out."
Johns doesn't listen, just levels the baton and hits Harry hard on the head. The wizard goes down like a brick and stays down, but he still keeps on telling the man to stop. Fry and the Chrislams have reached them and they join Harry in trying to calm Johns down. Little did they know that it is not Johns that needs calming. As the group focused on Johns, Shazza had finally reached Riddick and before everyone's eyes she starts hitting, kicking and clawing at the man whilst screaming;
"What'd you do with 'im? You bloody sick animal you, where's my Zeke? WHAT DID YOU DO TO HIM."
Fry does what Harry did before, she throws herself at Shazza to push her away from Riddick who does little to nothing to stop the abuse. Fry is soon dragging her away from the wounded man whilst Shazza keeps on screaming. She wants nothing else then for Riddick to die.
"Just kill him, somebody just kill him. KILL THAT MONSTER." She screams as she rips herself away from Fry to get one final hit at the murderer. Riddick is out cold, the last hit form Shazza was too much and he lost conscious. Harry crawls on all four over to him to check his vitals with Johns standing behind him with his gun in hand. The man is covered in bruises, is bleeding from the claw marks and has two bad bumps on his head. Harry cannot help but to sympathize, he knows the feeling and, outchie, those bumps is going to leave a big headache.
Harry stays by Riddick's side with Johns trigger-happy-self standing behind him. It takes the group some time to calm each other down and to get the full story. When Shazza describes the blood to Fry and Johns, Harry has a hard time buying it since Riddick doesn't have a drop blood on him- well beside his own.
When all is said and done they start planning what to do with the prisoner, Shazza is all for killing the man now, whilst Jack with Johns want to drag him back to the ship. Fry can't decide and the Chrislams is praying for the lost sheep. Paris just wants it all to stop and is whining so nobody really pays him any attention.
Harry doesn´t really care at all, he is too busy with trying to make the world stop spinning and monitoring Riddick. He wonders what it is about this man that makes him stick out his neck again and again. He just met the guy, and from the look of things the man was a monster. So what was it that made him, on pure instinct, protect him just now?
The only thing he could think was a possible explanation was that they both were outsiders. Riddick didn't fit in; he was too much of an animal for that. His way of thinking and acting reminded Harry to much of a werewolf and he remembers clearly how people back home treated the ones infected. Harry himself was for obvious reason an outsider, this entire situation was new and foreign. Perhaps he had just decided without thinking that he had higher chance of surviving if he stuck with Riddick?
But that made no sense, since the man was out cold and beaten silly. It just didn't plan out! Bugger… He just had to keep going as he has been; taking one step at the time and let instinct decide the course. So far they have kept him alive and breathing even if he didn't understand them.
"… So it's decided, Riddick lives. Okay, then it just for us to decide what to do about koo-koo-pop over there." Johns word did at first not register with Harry but when everyone turned and started studying him he got the chills.
"Well… since Fry said I could lose the chains if I behaved, I vote for deliberation." Harry said whilst giving pleading look at the captain. He really wanted out of the cuff, his wrist were starting to blister because of them. It was not a good idea to jog in warm climate with cuffs on you.
Caroline just chucked her head and averted her eyes. The man had been behaving, but she still didn't trust him nor like him that much at the moment. He had been making her feel stupid and taking action without consent, and that didn't make her keen on having him loose. Luckily Johns took the decision from her.
"Not in your life little crazy, you seem to have a bad habit of helping the bad guys. The cuff stays on and a matter of fact; I think it's vital to put some more on you later when were back at the camp. Wouldn´t want you to disappear know do we."
Johns smug grin almost made it worth the pain of hitting the man in Harry's opinion, but since he was to tired and have already been hit a couple of times he wisely decided not to. Besides, he could leave that to Riddick, the guy seems to have a history with the cop. He just hoped that Riddick would let him watch. Damn where was the popcorn when you needed it?
Xxxx
And with that I leave you hanging… Hope it will be enough for a couple of weeks, have the BIG test coming up that decides my future.