Chomp

TWENTY

Derek Badger knew from the movies that it was dangerous for vampires to expose themselves to sunshine-but what about dark cloudy days, when the sun was blotted out?

He decided to take a chance. From his shelter, a damp hollow beneath the grounded airboat, he cautiously extended a bare hand into the morning air. He was relieved when his flesh didn’t burst into flaming blisters, which sometimes happened to careless vampires in the Night Wing Trilogy.

As Derek squeezed from his hiding spot, a cool rain began to beat down. He felt a slight chill crawl down his spine, as if the fever were breaking. He remembered a scene from a program he’d done in a Costa Rican jungle-a nifty trick that one of the writers had thought up. He took off the Helmet Cam and turned it upside down so it functioned as a bucket. The rain wasn’t as sweet as the bottled Italian spring water in the refrigerator of his motor coach, but Derek drank eagerly. It made him feel like a genuine survivalist.

Afterward, using the airboat’s propeller blade as a mirror, he checked out his dental situation: still no fangs.

His bat-punctured tongue had shrunk to a size that almost fit inside his cheeks. In addition, the dreadful itching rash that had tormented him all night seemed to be ebbing. A normal person would have been pleased by these developments, but Derek was disappointed. He’d sort of been looking forward to becoming a vampire, defeating the evil curse and then triumphantly morphing back into human form-just like Dax Mangold did.

Sadly, there would be no special vampire edition of Expedition Survival! The Helmet Cam’s video recorder wasn’t working because of water damage to the wiring.

Drenched to the bone, Derek struggled to shove the airboat off the bank and get it floating. It wouldn’t budge. Three inches of water puddled in the bottom didn’t help.

As too often happened, his empty stomach took control of his brain. He was overpowered by a delicious vision of buttermilk pancakes flanked by strips of lean Canadian bacon, smoked Scottish salmon and luscious jade wedges of kiwifruit. Hot tears of desire welled up in his eyes.

Derek wasn’t accustomed to the solitary life. The previous night, spent hunkered under Link’s airboat, was the first time he’d ever slept truly alone in the wilderness, a fact that would have shocked millions of TV fans. Derek missed having the crew and the director to boss around. He missed Raven Stark hovering constantly, tending to his every whim.

Most of all he missed the nightly helicopter flights back to the swanky hotel, where he could get a massage and soak in the soothing Jacuzzi.

As he watched the airboat continue to fill with rain, Derek grew more apprehensive. If the hull wallowed and the engine became submerged, he’d be stranded in the middle of the bloody Everglades with no way to get out. Resorting again to the Helmet Cam, he hurriedly began scooping water from the boat and dumping it over the side.

In a downpour this was hard work, and Derek only lasted about fifteen minutes. Grumpy and exhausted, he took cover in a stand of trees-absolutely the dumbest place to hide when the clouds were full of thunder. From a wild coffee bush he plucked a handful of scarlet berries, which tasted exceptionally gross. He spat them out in a gummy clump, something he did only when cameras weren’t rolling.

Disgusted, he sat down under a bay tree. The leaves were dripping and the ground was squishy, so he propped the Helmet Cam under his butt.

As the wind freshened and swirled, Derek tried in vain to think about anything other than food. When a lovely butterfly with wings like white parchment landed on a vine, he snatched the unsuspecting traveler and popped it into his mouth. The taste was only slightly less awful than that of the coffee berries. As soon as Derek swallowed, he knew he’d made a mistake.

He would have thrown up instantly if the lightning bolt hadn’t struck first.

“Did you find him yet?” Gerry Germaine asked.

“There’s been a setback,” Raven Stark said. The satellite phone felt like a barbell in her hand. “Two of our search boats were…”

“What?”

“Hijacked,” she said.

“By who? Pirates?” Gerry Germaine said sarcastically. “Are you in Florida, darling, or Somalia?”

“I didn’t mean ‘hijacked.’ I meant waylaid.” Raven was in no mood to quibble. This was already the worst day of her entire adult life. “Apparently it’s a family dispute.”

“Give me the short version, please.” The executive producer of Expedition Survival! was sipping a grapefruit-and-tangerine smoothie on the pool deck of his house, which overlooked the Pacific Ocean. He was wearing sunglasses, a short linen robe and ridiculous slippers lined with weasel fur. His laptop sat open on the table.

“Here’s what I know,” said Raven. “The animal wrangler we’re using has a son. The son has a girlfriend. The girlfriend’s father has a drinking problem. This morning he showed up looking for his daughter. He also had a loaded gun-”

“This is the short version?”

“Nobody was killed-”

“You’re ruining my sunrise,” said Gerry Germaine.

“-at least, we don’t think anybody was killed.”

“Meaning you don’t know for sure.”

“He fired the gun once,” Raven said, “at the airboat carrying his daughter. Though, as I said, we don’t believe anyone was hit. Then he-”

“Stop right there. While all this domestic drama unfolds, is somebody out searching for the unreliable and grossly overpaid Mr. Badger? The star of my show? Yes or no?”

“Not at the moment.” Raven was sitting alone in Derek’s motor coach. Rain lashed at the windows. “We basically have monsoon conditions right now,” she said. Her free hand stirred a mug of hot tea. “Also, the other airboat drivers are extremely upset about the shooting and so forth-”

“As they should be.” The seriousness of the situation was clear to Gerry Germaine. “Is that thunder I hear on your end, Raven?”

“Yup.”

With a full production crew on standby, weather delays were always expensive. So were lawsuits-and the set of a TV program was no place for a trigger-happy drunk. Gerry Germaine knew what had to be done. There was no choice.

“Is the redneck with the gun still on the loose?” he asked Raven.

“Yes, however-”

“Then you’d better call the cops.”

“They’re on the way. Unfortunately, they can’t do much until the storms pass. It’s too hairy out there.”

Gerry Germaine sighed to himself. “Did you happen to tell the police about Derek running off?”

“I did.” Raven wondered if she would be fired. In a way, it would be a relief. “Frankly, I felt things were getting out of hand down here.”

“The understatement of the millennium.”

“The police said anybody who calls himself a survivalist ought to be able to survive a rainstorm. They said they’re in the business of hunting down criminals, not TV actors. They won’t even start looking for Derek until after they’ve caught the nut with the gun!”

“Hmmm,” said Gerry Germaine. It wasn’t the worst news he’d ever gotten.

In fact, he’d already made a phone call to a buff New Zealander who starred in a low-budget outdoor program on the Evergreen Network. Once the young fellow heard how much money was involved, he said he’d be honored to take over as host and star of Expedition Survival! in the tragic event that Derek Badger was unable to go on.

From his Google search, Gerry Germaine had learned that a person infected with rabies might not show symptoms for weeks, months or even years. That presented an inconvenient roadblock to replacing Derek on the show, which was Gerry Germaine’s secret plan. Therefore, the executive producer wasn’t totally upset to learn that the police were more concerned with finding the disturbed gunman than tracking down a wayward celebrity.

In Gerry Germaine’s view, the longer that Derek remained lost in the Everglades, the more likely that he’d be in no shape to continue doing the TV show after he was found. If he was found. Either way, Derek’s absence would give Gerry Germaine an opening to fly in the New Zealander for a tryout.

Raven said, “There’s another complication, Gerry. It involves the wrangler-he’s been abducted.”

“Not now. It’s time for my swim.”

Raven’s loyalty to Derek had its limits. At this point she was getting worried about saving her own job. “Look, I know this is costing a fortune,” she said. “But even if Derek can’t finish the show, it isn’t a total loss.”

“How so?”

“The scene with him riding the giant alligator is golden, trust me. Plus, he gets nipped on the nose by a turtle, bloodied by a water snake-and then there’s the bat attack, which will be an instant classic on YouTube. All I’m saying, Gerry, is that we’ve got enough video to stitch together a pretty exciting Florida adventure.”

“Except for the end,” Gerry Germaine said. “We don’t really have an ending, do we?”

“No,” Raven replied glumly. “I guess we don’t.”

When Wahoo was six years old, he experienced a brush with death. At least that’s how he remembered it.

His father was hunting for snakes near a railroad, Wahoo tagging along. His sister, Julie, was there, too, carrying the frayed old pillowcases that served as capture bags. Mickey ran off in pursuit of a speedy coachwhip snake, and Julie chased after him.

Wahoo wandered away, following the railroad bed. He became preoccupied with counting the wooden ties that were set in gravel beneath the rails-his dad had told him there were three thousand planks for every mile of track. Wahoo didn’t believe it.

He walked slowly to make sure he counted each tie, and he recited each number out loud. At 104, the rails began to hum. Wahoo turned.

Speeding toward him was a freight train pulled by a dirty blue locomotive.

In Hollywood movies, trains always blow a long whistle when something appears ahead on the tracks. That didn’t happen. Wahoo wasn’t very tall, so the engineer might not have seen him.

Time crawled. Wahoo should have been terrified, but he wasn’t. He should have waved his arms, but he didn’t; he just stood there feeling the rumble in the soles of his feet. The train wasn’t slowing down, yet Wahoo’s legs seemed in no hurry to move. Later his father would tell him the locomotive was going fifty-eight miles an hour. That Wahoo believed.

The tracks actually began to vibrate as the locomotive drew close. Its headlight was like a blazing white eyeball. With only seconds to spare, a life-or-death switch went off in Wahoo’s mind. He snapped out of his odd trance and jumped from the rails.

What he remembered most clearly was the incredible whoosh of noise-coal cars, tankers, flatbeds, boxcars flying past in a blur-as he crouched only a few feet away. Covering his ears didn’t help much. For days afterward he awoke to the fearsome sound of that train in his head.

The sensation rushed back to him now, the difference being that he could barely see his hand in front of his face. Tuna was huddled beside him and Link was sprawled at his feet. Through gusty winds and sopping rain, another airboat was definitely roaring in their direction.

Wahoo thought: Whoever’s driving that thing must be crazy.

Their own airboat had drifted into a tall patch of saw grass, making it even more difficult for them to be seen. Wahoo feared they would accidentally be run over.

His options were limited. One was to stand on top of the propeller’s safety cage and hope the other boaters would spot him in time-although that was risky, with so much lightning in the sky. The elevated metal cage was a magnet for electricity.

Still, Wahoo knew he had to flag down help. Link needed a doctor, and the approaching vessel might be the only one to pass so close for hours, or even days.

“Lie flat,” he told Tuna, “in case they crash into us.”

She got down next to Link. “What about you?” she called up to Wahoo.

“Just stay low,” he said, and scrambled ape-style up on the safety cage.

There, gritting into the wind, he made himself as tall as possible. For balance he wedged the waterlogged toes of his sneakers into the wire mesh. He hoped that the Expedition Survival! jacket would make him stand out, a glossy blue beacon above the grassy brown horizon.

Although Wahoo still couldn’t see the other airboat, he knew it had to be very near-the high buzz of the engine cut through the weather like a million angry wasps. As the noise grew louder, uncomfortably loud, he felt the same racing sense of anticipation as he did all those years ago on the train tracks. Only this time he wouldn’t freeze.

A violet flash in the clouds was followed by a thunderclap that made him wobble.

“Get down, dummy!” Tuna shouted.

“No!” Wahoo fixed his concentration on the engine sound. He squinted fiercely into the rain and prepared to shout with all his might.

A sparkle-green airboat burst from the mist, a streaking silhouette that crossed perhaps forty yards behind the stern. The good news was that it wasn’t going to hit him. The bad news was that the two men on board were looking the other way.

Wahoo began to wave and holler-then, suddenly, he stopped.

Tuna watched him leap down so fast that he left his shoes stuck in the safety cage. He lay with his cheek pressed to the deck and he didn’t stir until the other boat was gone, a faint drone in the distance.

“What’s wrong?” Tuna asked.

“We’ve gotta wake him up.” Wahoo was shaking one of Link’s shoulders. “I don’t know how to drive this stupid thing. Help me wake him up.”

“Take it easy, Lance. The dude’s been shot, remember?”

“You don’t understand.” Wahoo’s voice was taut. “Your dad was in that other airboat!”

Tuna looked puzzled. “Are you sure?”

“It was definitely him,” Wahoo said.

“But Daddy doesn’t know how to drive one of those things.”

“No, my dad was the driver. Your dad was the one with the gun.”

The color left Tuna’s cheeks. “Did he see us?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Oh God. He must be out hunting for me.”

“Well, now we’re going hunting for him.” Wahoo pinched one of Link’s grimy fingertips. “Come on, man, wake up!”