Chomp

TWENTY-ONE

Derek Badger probably would have died if he hadn’t been sitting on the Helmet Cam.

The lightning bolt shot down the trunk of the bay tree and came out at the roots, striking the metal headpiece and launching Derek like a bomb.

He woke up later in a tingling daze, clueless about what had happened. For a while he failed to notice that the seat of his pants was smoldering, a wisp of smoke rising from the matted leaves where he sat. He picked up the Helmet Cam and stared curiously at the scorched, fist-sized hole. It was a mystery.

In fact, the whole morning was a blank. The lightning strike had wiped out all memory of the storm. Still, Derek felt different, changed in some important way. At first a ringing filled his eardrums like the bell of a fire truck, though gradually it faded to a dull hum. Then he noticed a fluttery tickle running in a weird current up and down his body. It made him want to flap his arms and try to fly, like a hummingbird.

Or maybe a bat.

Finally! Derek thought. It’s really happening.

Oddly, he was no longer hungry. In fact, the thought of chocolate eclairs made him queasy. To Derek it was proof that his mutation from mortal to vampire was in progress, for the vampires in the Night Wing movies showed no interest in food. They hungered only for human blood.

Standing up, he felt a painful sensation on his butt. Reaching around, he discovered a hole in the backside of his khaki shorts, and inside that hole was a tender wound-a small burn caused by the lightning bolt punching through the Helmet Cam, which of course Derek didn’t recall.

“It’s a mark!” he exclaimed. “The mark of the undead!”

Actually it was the mark of the stupid, which is what you get for sitting under a tree during a thunderstorm. The jolt from the deflected lightning had frayed Derek’s last fragile link to reality. Combined with the nagging effects of the bat infection, it had left him marooned in an imaginary underworld where evil night creepers roamed.

“I must resist,” he whispered to himself.

Dizzily he made his way out of the trees to the place where he’d grounded the airboat. With dismay he saw it was now full of rainwater, way too heavy to move. A leopard frog swam happy circles between the seats. Derek felt no urge to snack on it. He shivered from the remains of his fever and returned to the shelter of the woods.

In Revenge of the Blood Moon, the last of the Night Wing series, Dax Mangold took refuge in Slackjaw Forest, where he constructed a sleeping platform in the boughs of a towering wing nut tree in order to be safe from prowling critters.

Derek had used a similar platform during an episode of Expedition Survival! in Sumatra. The structure had been built by local villagers and not by Derek himself, contrary to what he’d told his TV audience. Derek had been snoozing in an air-conditioned hotel suite two hundred miles away while the treetop hammock was being erected, so he had no idea how it should be done.

Now, out of options, he flopped down on the soggy ground. Gingerly he probed inside his mouth-still no bat fangs, although he was pleased to discover that his tongue was nearly back to its normal size. His limbs continued to tingle electrically even as he let himself drift toward sleep. He needed to be rested by nightfall and ready to roam.

Mickey Cray wasn’t thrilled to have a gun pointing at him. It had happened before, late one night when he was getting money from an ATM outside a bank. A young man in a slime-green hoodie stuck a pistol in Mickey’s ribs and demanded cash. Mickey gave him all he had-seventy-five dollars-and the robber hopped in a car and sped off.

He didn’t know Mickey was following. He found out later when he awoke in his apartment with a strange hand around his throat. The muscles in Mickey’s fingers were extremely strong from handling pythons and boa constrictors, and the robber was having an awful time trying to breathe.

“Give me back my money,” Mickey advised.

The gasping kid pointed to a pair of jeans on the floor, in which Mickey found his seventy-five bucks.

“Now the gun,” Mickey said to the robber, who coughed up the fact that the weapon was stashed beneath the bed.

Mickey confiscated the pistol, which he later tossed in a lake. “Where you from?” he asked the kid.

“West Virginia.”

“Go back,” Mickey said. “I mean first thing tomorrow.”

“Seriously?”

“Unless you want me to come here with the cops. Also, I went through your wallet and found your mother’s name.”

“Leave her out of this!” the robber pleaded.

“Safe travels, then,” said Mickey.

Now, steering the airboat through a driving rain, Mickey doubted that Tuna’s father would be as sensible as the young robber. Jared Gordon had already fired his gun recklessly, once when he shot at the other airboat back at the dock and again at a floating gator that Mickey had recognized as Old Sleepy, Sickler’s stuffed tourist decoy.

Mickey didn’t doubt that Jared Gordon would use the pistol again if the urge came over him. That was a problem when dealing with drunks. They weren’t rational.

Under different circumstances, Mickey would have put the airboat into a steep turn to throw the man overboard. However, Tuna’s dad had used his belt to strap himself upright to the driver’s platform, where he could keep the gun barrel pressed to Mickey’s neck. He kept his finger on the trigger, too, which meant that Mickey had to be extra careful. The situation called for patience, which was not Mickey’s strong suit.

The truth was he didn’t like guns, period. He seldom carried one and, when he did, often didn’t bother to load it. At the moment, his own pistol was under the front seat of his truck back at Sickler’s place. For once, Mickey wished he’d brought it with him.

“Where are they? Where’d they go?” hollered Jared Gordon, spitting through the raindrops.

Mickey said, “It’s a big swamp, brother.”

He felt lucky his captor had been looking the wrong direction when they’d whisked past the other airboat, Wahoo waving at them. Jared Gordon hadn’t seen a thing, so Mickey just kept driving. By now they must have traveled several miles, giving Link enough time to take the kids back to Sickler’s dock. The police would be arriving soon, if they weren’t already there.

“Okay, hotshot, slow down!” Tuna’s dad commanded hoarsely.

Mickey stopped the boat. Jared Gordon unhitched himself from the driver’s seat and threw up over the side, somehow keeping the handgun aimed at Mickey.

“Gimme a beer,” he said, wiping his mouth on the sleeve of his Bills jersey.

“Sure,” said Mickey.

Before hijacking one of the search boats and giving chase, Jared Gordon had dragged Mickey back to Sickler’s store and swiped a cold twelve-pack. That’s why Link and the kids had gotten such a good head start.

“Why’s your daughter running from you?” Mickey asked, as if he didn’t know.

“ ’Cause she forgot who’s the boss, that’s why.”

“She looked pretty scared to me.”

“Ha!” Jared Gordon took a swig of beer. “It’s called respect.”

“What’s your line of work?”

“Security. That’s how I got a carry permit for this bad boy.” He was referring to the revolver. “Right now I’m sorta between jobs. Hey, you hear somethin’?”

“Nope,” said Mickey Cray, which was untrue. He heard the sound of another big engine. Maybe it was the police coming, or maybe it was… Link?

But that didn’t make sense-chasing after a gunman who was chasing you. Not with two kids on board.

Link was no Einstein, Mickey thought, but he wasn’t a total blockhead.

“It’s just the weather you heard,” Mickey said to Tuna’s father.

“Naw, that wasn’t no thunder.”

Quickly Mickey started up the airboat in order to drown out any other sounds.

Tuna’s father lobbed the empty beer can into the water. Mickey usually had harsh words for litterbugs, but this time he said nothing. The gun was definitely a game changer.

“It came from over there,” Jared Gordon insisted. “Go thataway.”

“You’re the navigator,” said Mickey.

His plan was to go the opposite direction of the second airboat, in case it was Link and the kids. He wanted to keep Tuna’s father as far from them as possible, so he set off driving in an extravagant figure eight. Soon Jared Gordon got suspicious.

“No, I said, that way!” He twisted the gun barrel painfully into Mickey’s flesh.

They were riding nearly blind through the rain, which was hairy but at the same time helpful to Mickey’s strategy. In clear, calm conditions, the other boat would have been too easy to hear, and to follow. Tuna’s dad would have figured out right away that Mickey was giving him the runaround.

“I can’t see nuthin’!” Jared Gordon shouted.

“Join the club.”

That’s when they struck a cypress log and flew from the water, reminding Mickey of what crusty old Everglades poachers used to say about such mishaps:

Why do you think they call ’em airboats?

“How are you feeling?” Wahoo asked Link.

“I kin drive.”

Tuna spoke up. “No, you can’t. Not with a bullet hole in your back.”

Wahoo agreed. Link was weak and shaky.

“Can you teach me how?” Wahoo asked.

“Not if you’re as thick as your pappy.”

“The guy who shot you just went by us in another boat, and he’s got my dad as a hostage.”

Wahoo knew Link wasn’t fond of Mickey Cray, so he watched his reaction closely.

“The man that shot me? Where?” Link peered out across the wet savanna.

Tuna said grimly, “The one and only Jared Gordon. My pappy.”

Link nodded. He didn’t ask about Mickey.

“Git up there and drive,” he told Wahoo. “Foot pedal is for gas. Stick is for steerin’.”

“Where’s the brakes?” asked Tuna.

“Ain’t no brakes,” Link said.

Until then, the fastest thing that Wahoo had ever driven was the creaky old golf cart that his father used for hauling supplies to the animal pens. An airboat was five times faster, louder and harder to handle. The rudder stick worked awkwardly compared to a steering wheel, and Wahoo struggled to master the feel. After several stalls and jerky starts, he finally got the boat planed off evenly.

“Which way dey go?” Link shouted.

Tuna pointed out the matted trail made by the other airboat. Wahoo headed in that direction, but he was careful to take it easy on the gas pedal. He had no idea what they’d do if they caught up to Jared Gordon. He hadn’t thought that far ahead.

From the driver’s platform, he could see better than Link and Tuna, and soon he forgot about being nervous. The sensation of gliding across wild water was thrilling, better than any theme-park ride. He didn’t mind the sting of raindrops on his face or even the ear-pounding roar of the big engine. Whenever he needed to move the steering stick, the airboat turned as fluidly as a hawk in flight. Wahoo felt totally in control and totally focused.

They tracked the other boat’s watery path until the saw grass gave way to a wide, lily-covered pond. With one arm Link made a stirring motion, so Wahoo began to steer in ever-widening circles, searching for signs of Jared Gordon.

Lightning crackled overhead, and Link turned toward the flash. “Bad” was all he said.

Wahoo read his lips and nodded. It was dangerous to stay exposed on the marsh prairie during a violent storm: in a split second they could all be fried.

The next lightning bolt produced a thunderclap that sounded like a bomb. Tuna let out a frightened cry, and Wahoo stomped on the accelerator.

“We’re getting off the water!” he yelled.

They barely made it. The engine blew a piston and died just as they were closing in on an island. Under a pelting deluge, the airboat coasted sluggishly to the bank.

Within minutes the three of them were huddled under an oilskin tarp that Link found in a dry box bolted beneath the seats. By pure luck, they’d landed at the flat scrubby end of the tree island, a safe distance from the forty-foot cypresses that might attract lightning strikes.

Dejectedly, Wahoo said, “I can’t believe I cooked the motor.”

“Wasn’t you,” Link muttered. “That Bradley Jumper, he don’t take good care of his ’quipment.”

“Did you bring a phone?”

They were a long way from a cell tower, but Wahoo thought it was worth a try. Link dug into a pocket and retrieved a flip-top cellular that turned out to be waterlogged-and useless.

Tuna eyed it gloomily. “I hope you got insurance, dude.”

Link was shivering. He had no shirt, and the rain had soaked through his trousers. Wahoo took off the slick Expedition Survival! jacket that Raven Stark had given him.

“Here, put this on,” he said.

The jacket was way too tight and the sleeves were short, but Link was grateful. He reached back and fingered the gauze that Wahoo had taped over the bullet wound.

Then he turned slowly to Tuna. “Why’d your pappy try’n kill me?”

“It wasn’t you, Link. He was just shootin’ wild, like a whacked-out fool.”

Then, in a rueful voice, she added: “He promised me on a stack of Bibles that he pawned that stupid gun. Obviously he lied.”

Wahoo couldn’t shake the image of Jared Gordon holding the revolver to his father’s neck as their airboat sped by. The guy was definitely out of control.

And, thanks to the falling iguana, Mickey Cray wasn’t his usual indestructible self. One of those crushing headaches could dull his reflexes-and his judgment. Worse, a spell of double vision might cause him to crash the boat.

Wahoo tried not to dwell on the dire possibilities. He knew the storm had reduced to almost zero the odds of catching up with his father before something serious happened.

Link said, “I cain’t breathe so good.”

Every time he inhaled, they heard a rasping in his chest. Wahoo wondered if a fragment of the bullet slug had punctured a lung. If so, there was only one thing to do: as soon as the weather cleared, they had to rush Link back to Sickler’s place for medical help.

Leaving Mickey Cray alone to deal with Tuna’s crazed father, somewhere out in the boggy wilderness.

“Lookie here,” said Tuna, plucking a cocoa-striped snail from a bush. “This would be the lovely Liguus fasciatus.”

In spite of everything, Wahoo had to smile. “You’re too much, Lucille.”

The wind yanked at the corners of the oilskin while the rain drummed down. Another boom of thunder made them all flinch at once.

“I’m gone pray,” Link wheezed.

Tuna patted his arm. “Excellent plan,” she said.