Chomp

EIGHTEEN

They searched all afternoon and couldn’t find Derek Badger. The helicopter had to quit early because of mechanical trouble with something called a trim actuator. When the boats returned at sunset to Sickler’s dock, the mood was grim.

Contrary to what TV viewers were led to believe, never in the history of Expedition Survival! had Derek actually been lost. He always stayed close to the snacks and beverages.

Raven had no confidence that the made-for-television survivalist would last very long alone in the Everglades, a fear shared by the show’s director. Derek did not have a surplus of common sense, and it was only a matter of time before he accidentally ate a toxic berry or stepped on a deadly cottonmouth.

Assuming he wasn’t already dying of rabies.

“You’re Mr. Expert,” Raven said sharply to Mickey Cray. “Any brilliant ideas?”

“Yeah. We try again tomorrow.”

The director looked up from his iPhone. “Bummer. The forecast calls for more rain.”

“So we get wet,” said Mickey.

Raven threw up her hands. “That’s your plan? Seriously? We get wet?”

“It’s big country out there, lady. Plus, we’re hunting for a knucklehead who doesn’t want to be found.”

“But that’s ridiculous! Why would Derek be hiding?”

“Beats me. Critters I can figure out just fine. People like him? I got no clue what goes on in their itty-bitty brains.”

Link, who’d hardly spoken a word all day, shocked the group by saying: “That man be wreckin’ my airboat, I break him in two.” He demonstrated by snapping a tree branch over one knee.

Raven immediately called for a private strategy session in Derek’s motor coach. Mickey told Wahoo and Tuna to set up the tents while he was gone.

They selected an open area near some picnic tables at the edge of Sickler’s property. The mosquitoes were thick and fearless, stinging any patch of bare flesh that wasn’t coated with bug repellent-eyelids, earlobes, even armpits. Tuna and Wahoo swatted themselves constantly as they worked. Their cheeks, already windburned from the airboat ride, became pink and puffy from self-inflicted slaps.

Tuna paused to examine a mashed attacker in the palm of her hand.

“Okay, what’s the verdict?” Wahoo said.

“I’m guessing Aedes aegypti.” She flicked the dead insect away. “There are forty-three different species of mosquitoes in the Everglades, but only thirteen kinds like to bite humans. Isn’t that weird?”

Wahoo smiled ruefully. “Where are the friendly ones?”

After the tents were in place, he and Tuna unrolled their sleeping bags. She wanted to build a campfire, but a big yellow sign warned against it. As darkness fell, they ate a tube of Pringles and washed it down with Gatorade. Wahoo was glad that Tuna seemed her usual perky self again.

“Who gave you the fish name?” she asked, out of the blue.

He told her about the agreement his parents had made soon after they were married. His mom would choose the name of the first baby-who turned out to be Julie, his older sister-and his father would get to name the next one.

“Too bad for you,” said Tuna.

“When Pop was little, his favorite pro wrestler was a guy called Wahoo McDaniel. He was part Choctaw Indian, strong as a bear. He also played linebacker for the Dolphins.”

“What’s your mom think? Does she seriously call you Wahoo?”

“She’s not thrilled about it, but she says a deal’s a deal.”

“You a wrestler, Lance?”

“Nope. I’m not on the football team, either.”

“But don’t you get picked on at school? Because of that goofy name?”

“I used to,” Wahoo said, “until this happened.” He wiggled the bony nub where his right thumb once had been. “Now the jocks leave me alone. Anybody who gets bitten by a gator and walks away, they think he must be super-tough. But that’s got nothin’ to do with it.”

“I’m not so sure.” Tuna opened her tote bag and saw, among her journals and nature books, the Expedition Survival! script. “I guess we can throw this thing away,” she said.

“Wait, let’s see how it was supposed to end.” Wahoo took out the flashlight and sat on the sleeping bag beside her. They turned to the last page:

CLOSE-UP OF DEREK’S SWISS ARMY KNIFE, chipping away at the core of a log.

Only the log isn’t just a log anymore. It’s a dugout canoe, like the traditional craft once used by Seminoles to skim across the grassy shallows.

CUT TO MEDIUM SHOT of the finished canoe.

DEREK (exhausted): Isn’t she a beauty? I worked all night, and she’s finally ready to float! I can’t wait to get out of here, too.

Crikey, I thought I was a goner after that monstrous gator ambushed me. One thing’s for sure: I don’t have the strength to fight off another one. It’s time to go.

He straps on the HELMET CAM and grabs a tree limb for a paddle. Then he steps carefully into the canoe and pushes off.

CUT TO ANGLE FROM HELMET CAM, Derek’s point of view, as he slowly makes his way across a lily-covered pond toward a sea of saw grass.

DEREK (breathing heavily as he paddles): Everything looks the same in this part of the Everglades, no matter which bloody direction you go. By noon the sun will be so scorching hot that it could cause fatal heatstroke. My only hope is that somebody finds me way out here before it’s too late…

ANGLE LOOKING UPWARD FROM HELMET CAM, buzzards circling. Derek keeps on paddling, the saw grass nicking his sunburned arms, until…

DEREK: Maybe I’m hallucinating, but I swear I hear an airplane!

CUT TO A SHOT FROM HELICOPTER CAMERA, looking down from high over the scene.

Derek’s standing in the canoe and waving frantically. A small single-engine plane passes above.

DEREK (shouting desperately): Hey, mates, down here! Come back!

After several tense moments, the plane banks slowly and begins to turn around. Derek cheers and raises both fists in the air. The pilot dips a wing to signal that he sees the solitary traveler.

CUT TO HELMET CAM SHOT of the aircraft, now circling closer.

DEREK: Yes! Yes! Yes! What a fantastic sight!

CUT BACK TO HELICOPTER CAMERA, pulling away, higher and farther.

DEREK (now visible as just a dot on the immense Everglades prairie): For a moment, as I battled for my life against that ferocious gator, I wasn’t sure this expedition would turn out so happily. Now it looks like I’m actually getting out of this place alive!

See you next week!

ROLL CREDITS.

Tuna tossed the script to the ground. “Nobody can chip out a whole canoe with a dinky pocketknife! Gimme a break.”

“Welcome to the reality of reality TV.” Wahoo switched off the flashlight, which was attracting a cloud of insects.

In the final layer of twilight, before the swamp darkness settled in, he heard Tuna say, “What if he croaks out there?”

“You mean Derek?”

“What if he’s already dead?”

The same awful possibility had occurred to Wahoo. He reached for Tuna’s hand and said, “The airboat probably ran out of gas is all.”

Wahoo couldn’t figure out why Derek had bolted from the base camp after the bat bite. Maybe he was just trying to stir up a little drama for the director and the crew. The man clearly enjoyed being the center of attention.

“Look, I know he’s a total goober,” Tuna said, “but I used to love, love, love his show. Every Thursday night, nine o’clock. Just about the time my dad would pass out.”

Wahoo could picture the scene all too clearly, though he still couldn’t put a human face on Tuna’s father.

She went on: “The Walmart has a real good TV department-that’s where I go to watch Expedition and Shrimp Wars if Daddy’s snoring too loud.”

“Derek’s not dead, Lucille. They’ll find him.”

“I sure hope so.”

Wahoo hoped so, too. Of one thing he felt certain: whatever the so-called survivalist was doing at large in the Everglades, he wasn’t carving a homemade canoe.

The snails tasted nasty, and Derek chewed up three of them in spite of his bloated tongue. They were small, and their thin, spiral shells crunched easily. He also captured a green tree frog, which he managed to gulp whole. It wriggled going down his throat and continued wriggling all the way to his stomach. He sucked on some leaves to get the slime out of his mouth.

This happened after the sun had gone down, when it was safe for vampires to roam.

Derek didn’t yet feel like a vampire, though he was jittery with anticipation. Almost twenty-four hours had passed since the bat attack, and there was no sign of a transformation from mortal human to undead night stalker.

As thirsty as he was, Derek had no desire to drink blood from somebody’s neck. A cold Diet Coke, however, would have been cause for rejoicing. Every so often he ran his fleshy fingertips along his capped teeth in expectation of fangs.

He was still sweaty and feverish, and now he noticed an annoying new symptom: dreadful, fiery itching all over his arms and legs. A knowledgeable person would have recognized the marks of poison ivy, but Derek was loopy from the infection. He wondered if the itch could be vampire-related, although he didn’t recall Dax Mangold or any of the other Night Wing characters scratching so much.

He was still hungry after eating the frog and snails, which he had located using the small light mounted on the Helmet Cam. Despite being banged up in the crash, the device seemed to be working fine. Derek pawed through the items in the beached airboat until he came across Link’s jug of water, which he guzzled heedlessly.

The night air thrummed and ticked with insects, and an occasional rustle came from deep in the brushy hammock. He stretched out on one of the airboat’s bench seats and stared up at the sky, which was again filling with clouds. The unfriendly moon remained out of sight.

His stomach gurgled, and he desperately hoped it wasn’t the frog, seeking escape. A fabulously clever idea entered his head: he would record a video of himself morphing into a vampire for Expedition Survival! The ratings for such a show would be sensational!

Derek activated the small camera connected to the Helmet Cam and propped it on the boat’s driving platform. Illuminated only by the slender spray of light, he positioned himself in front of the dime-sized eye of the lens and began to relate his frightful story:

“Mmmph?hrrro?oofff?tteee?eblah?hhkkk?tunnn?ghhh…”

He was unable to speak regular words, of course, owing to the swollen condition of his tongue. He tried several times, but all that tumbled out was gibberish. Eventually he turned off the Helmet Cam and lay back down to itch and brood.

Derek wasn’t in a good place, either physically or emotionally. Although the bat that had chomped him wasn’t carrying rabies, the germs from its saliva were toxic enough to blur his pampered sense of reality. In his overheated mind, the Night Wing vampire movies now loomed as true to life as a National Geographic nature documentary.

Another search of Link’s airboat turned up a packet of leathery pork rinds that Derek struggled to swallow. His wounded tongue remained a major obstacle. A heron cawed in the distance, but to Derek it might as well have been a zombie calling.

He huddled in the boat and shut his eyes. Once more, his thoughts turned to food-specifically, the scrumptious dessert tray delivered nightly to his hotel suite at the Empresario. He could practically smell the spicy carrot cake and taste the silky creme brulee…

The dark side will never own me, Derek vowed to himself, repeating the mystic line from Dax Mangold. Eee-ka-laro! Eee-ka-laro! Gumbo mucho eee-ka-laro!