by Buffy Brown
Chapter 15
Suddenly, a Humvee steers in front of me, splattering mud all over my face. It has the word “Super-V” written on it, and it has a huge cage for hunting animals in the back.
The Super-V keeps circling in front of me, without stopping. If it stops, the wheels will be stuck in the thick mud, and it won’t be able to pick up speed again.
Leo sticks his head out of the window while circling the Humvee. “What the hell are you doing here?” he shouts.
“Miss me?” I ask, making sure his backpack is strapped tightly on my back. This is just like going to school, I tell myself. You’re unlikely to come back dead from school, right?
“We lied to the Summit and told them you were dead, to protect you,” Leo says. “Seriously.” His voice fades as he circles again. “What is wrong with you? You want to die?”
“No.” I shake my head. “I want to kill.”
“Please, God,” he screams, taking another round. “Help me to keep from shooting her for her stubbornness.” He struggles with the wheel for a moment, then gets hold of it again. The way he drives, he looks like he is riding a raging buffalo. I don’t know how he manages to control the Super-V, driving in such muddy earth. “Anyways. Now that you’re here, you have to jump in. I can’t stop. Mud is too thick,” he explains. “Come on. Shake your lazy butt. We have tigers chasing us.”
I step out of the door. The mud is so thick it covers my ankles. At some spots, it covers up to my knees. The shallow parts of the mud are lighter in color. I try to stick to them, chasing the circling Super-V, hoping Leo won’t lose control and run me over with it.
As I am running next to the Super-V, I hear a roar in the distance behind me. I think my heart is going to stop before the tiger even gets me. How fast is it? How big is it? How could this even be happening, tigers chasing me?
Leo drives the Super-V closer to my side, but stops circling and drives straight, so we get away from the tiger as fast possible. He kicks the passenger side door open for me. I run as fast as I can, reaching out. He is leaning down across the passenger’s seat, reaching out for me as well. The tips of our fingers touch briefly, but I can’t get hold of him. He can’t get hold of me.
How come the tiger didn’t get me yet? It must be a thousand times faster than me.
“I can’t drive any slower,” Leo shouts. “Or we will be stuck in the mud.”
I keep running.
“I have sedated this tiger,” Leo screams against the wind, the sound of Super-V’s engine, and the roaring of the tiger. “That’s why it is slow.”
“You sedated it?” I wonder while running. “I’ll bet you kissed that tiger too!”
“Nah,” Leo says, gripping on the wheel. “It’s not my type. Hurry up. It won’t stay sedated forever. I think it can’t see well.”
“So, your buzz-to-death syringe only sedated him?” I can’t believe we’re having this conversation while I am running away from a tiger.
“I couldn’t buzz it long enough to kill it. The mud will slow it down. It’s sliding like crazy.”
Reluctantly, I twist my neck back to look at the tiger. Leo is right. It’s slowed down by the mud, sliding left and right, and roaring like a drunken cat.
It is obvious I can’t keep up with the Super-V’s speed. The more I run, the more tired I get. There is a protruding ledge on the side of the Super-V. It looks like it is made for someone to stand on it, maybe to carry extra people or a place for snipers to jump on. I gather my strength and jump. One foot is on the ledge; the other is fighting the wind whirling against it. My hands get a good grip on the bars of the cage in the back of the Super-V. All I need is to get my other leg back, take two steps forward, and jump into the passenger’s seat. The tiger is still roaring behind me. It’s impossible to twist my neck to look back at it again. I pull my other leg in, take two fast steps on it, and jump recklessly into the passenger’s seat.
I crumble in the seat with my head upside down.
“Hi,” I say, happy to see Leo, holding out my hand, so he can shake it. “666 Monster Street, please.” Since I woke up free of the iAm’s receptor, I feel so confident and funny. I feel unplugged of my fears. What’s that all about? “I’ll tip you well. Only if you’re nice to me, handsome.”
“Close the door, you little brat.” Leo doesn’t wait for me and pulls the door in. I sit up straight.
Seeing the white tiger in the rear-view mirror, although smeared with mud, reminds me that I am lucky I am still alive.
“That’s not Carnivore, right?” I ask, noticing it has two eyes.
“No. That’s Manticore,” Leo says, bumping into the roof of the Super-V.
“Family?” I still feel funny, rocking in the passenger’s seat.
“You sure love to talk. I can’t drive and talk at the same time,” Leo mumbles.
“What’s with that? Boys not being able to drive and talk?”
“Because usually a tiger is chasing them, and if they stop, they will be eaten alive,” Leo shouts. “So stop talking. You shouldn’t be here anyway.”
“Yeah?” I say. “So, you can have all the fun alone?”
He gives me that look again. He thinks I am irresponsible.
“We need to talk about your sedative chocolate, crazy boy,” I fire back at him.
Leo dismissed whatever I just said, and reaches for the backseat, and comes up with a bow gun. “You know how to use this,” he says and hands me a bag full of arrows.
“How do you know I can use these?” I ask. “The ones in the Wheel of Fortune were fixed. This one is different. It needs skill.”
“Just do as I say.” Leo avoids the question.
The problem isn’t that he is avoiding it. It’s that I suddenly know exactly how to use the bow gun and the arrow.
“So, what’s the game exactly?” I ask.
“Simple,” says Leo. “We lure the tigers into the cages and lock them in before they eat us.”
“So, let’s do it.”
“Not before I find the others. Woodsy, Pepper, and Bellona are in another Super-V. I need to find them. They were really struggling. Woodsy is a horrible driver.”
Leo speeds up as the relentless Manticore still chases us. The Zeppelins are lagging behind us in the sky. Zeppelins are slower. They can’t keep up with such speeds and circles.
“Hang on tight!” shouts Leo, and speeds up toward the edge of a cliff.
“Are you crazy?” I shout. “You’re going to get us killed.” I try to hang onto my seat. The Super-V is about to drive straight over the cliff.
Leo steers the wheel at the last second and takes a sudden right. When I look back, I find out it is a steep cliff. The tiger takes the bait and falls off the cliff after struggling briefly with the mud.
“That was impulsive,” I tell Leo, listening to Timmy saying something in the iAm. Leo and I couldn’t care less about Timmy right now. This is a straight do-or-die game. We don’t need Timmy.
“Let me worry about impulsive,” says Leo. “You worry about finding our friends.”
I am amazed Leo said, “our friends.” That’s so unlike him, caring about them.
Leo drives freely for a while into the muddy desert. It occurs to me that this must be artificial mud, since there is no rain, and it’s a sunny day.
In the distance, I see a Super-V stuck in the mud. Its upside down, like it has crashed into something. There is smoke coming out from the engine.
“That’s their Super-V,” says Leo, and speeds up more towards them.
“What?” I feel dizzy again. “Where are they? I can’t see them.” Leo grits his teeth, his hands on the steering wheel.
There is one tiger, roaming slowly around the Super-V. It stops somewhere and starts biting on something.
Leo pulls me to him tight, so I won’t see. “Don’t look, Decca. Don’t look.”
“What!” I scream, trying to free myself from him.
Leo is circling around the Super-V, but as far away as po
ssible, knowing the tiger is busy with its prey.
I free myself from under his arm and look. I am looking for my friends. This can’t be.
Chapter 16
“Pepper,” I scream. “Bellona!” My heart is pounding. “Woodsy. Vern!” I could lose my voice screaming their names. “Where are they? I can’t see them,” I say to Leo, who points at what the tigers are feeding on.
“Well… This might be them. I can’t know what the tigers are gorging on with all this mud. But that’s their Super-V.”
It’s true. I can’t make out what the tigers are eating in the mud. What happened to them?
“Don’t panic,” says Leo. “They might have escaped or something. The tiger couldn’t have killed all four of them. It just doesn’t make sense.”
“Last two survivors,” says Timmy into the microphone. “They look like Romeo and Juliet.”
Leo hugs me tighter again. “Don’t think about it,” he tells me, as I am about to burst into tears. “Stay strong. Stay focused.”
“But they all died.” A teardrop trickles down my cheek. I try so hard not to cry. I still can’t believe it.
“I don’t believe him,” says Leo. “Have faith. I don’t believe him.”
“But we saw them.”
“We saw nothing,” says Leo. “The mud is covering bodies. It could be anyone. They might have escaped. They might be hiding in trees. They might have removed the receptor from under their ears. Anything.”
“You are just trying to make me feel better,” I say.
“Stay strong. Trust me, I have this feeling. They are alive. At least one or two of them are. Don’t listen to this maniac. In any case, we still have each other. We’ll always have each other.”
Leo pulls my head to his and kisses me suddenly, with the salty tears in my mouth. “Stay alive, Decca,” he whispers, then he stops circling and drives ahead. “I need you to catch Carnivore.” He points at the opening in the roof.
“Is that it?” I ask.
“Yes. Climb up, and you’ll find two levers. One opens and closes the main door to the cage in the back. The other opens a small window on top of the cage.” He points at a box full of large chunks of meat. “Take some of this and throw it inside the cage from the opening on top. Then pull the other lever to let Carnivore inside while I slow down as much as possible, so it enters the cage thinking it will get that piece of meat. Once it takes the bait, you pull the lever back and it is trapped, and we win this game.”
I am confused, trying to absorb and understand all of these instructions at once. Or is it that I am still shocked by the fact that my friends might be dead?
“Look,” says Leo. “I could do this, but you won’t be able to drive the Super-V like I do in all this mud. I know you can do it. You have more reason than ever to catch Carnivore.”
He is right. I look back at the genetically mutated white tiger. The one that might have killed my friends, including Woo, I assume. I will catch it. I will do it.
I climb up through the shaft on top of the Super-V. I imagine I’m a tiger as well, clawing at whatever I can on top of the rattling and bumping Super-V. I have to keep my balance. The wind slaps my face every now and then. The wind whips at my back and legs, as if it is the enemy. I cry out this time, catching Carnivore’s attention. Its eye turns all white, staring at me. What kind of mutated creature is it?
It starts to hunt the Super-V. Leo keeps circling and curving, to splash mud onto Carnivore to blind it. It works, but Carnivore wipes the mud away with its paws as if it were human, and keeps chasing the Super-V. I am still clutching at the top of it. The mud causes Carnivore to slip; it picks itself up and continues after its prey. Leo and I.
Crawling on my hands and knees, I reach the small opening on top of the cage. I open the bucket, pick up a heavy piece of meat, and prepare to drop it into the cage. It’s so heavy, I am afraid a bump in the muddy road will knock me down into the cage with the meat. I let it fall, thudding against the bottom of the cage in the back of the Super-V.
Carnivore roars. I think the trick is working. I keep pounding against the roof of the Super-V, so Leo will open the cage. He has a controller inside to open it. The wind is so loud, I don’t think Leo can hear me, even if I shout. I need to get my breath before I make it back to the passenger’s seat. I am glad I made it so far. With all those bumps and slides in the road, I am afraid I will fall on my way back.
I pick up my iAm, wondering why I can’t hear Timmy. The wind and the sound of the Super-V is too loud. As the wind curls what’s left of my hair into my mouth, I see Timmy and Faustina talking, but I can’t hear them. What’s Faustina doing up there? Has she become the Trickster’s helper?
I look up at the Zeppelins in the sky, trying their best to follow us. The audience stands up there, taking pictures.
Flash. Flash. Flash.
Little kids pull their parents’ hands to come look at the white tiger.
This isn’t a zoo! I want to scream. Or maybe the world has come down to this, becoming one huge zoo.
“Can you hear me?” Leo shouts. Finally, and faintly, I hear him.
“Yes. Yes. Yes!” I yell as loud as I can.
“I can’t open the cage,” Leo screams, struggling with the wheel. “There’s some malfunction in here. Something is not right. I think Timmy did this.”
“So, what now?” I shout.
“You’ll have to open the cage!”
“What?” I stare back at the panting Carnivore, getting closer and closer.
“We don’t have time, Decca,” Leo screams. “I am going to be out of gas very soon. You have to open the cage from the inside.”
“What do you mean open it from inside?”
“It’s how it opens manually,” explains Leo, sounding disappointed with himself. “From the inside. There is a lever that you have to pull from the inside.”
I turn back and look between the bars of the cage. I see the lever inside of the cage. How am I going to do this?
Staring at my iAm, I see Timmy dancing polka with Faustina. When the camera closes in, it says the words, “from inside.” Timmy winks at me. He looks so happy with my misery. The screen shows the subtitles of the phrase in other languages.
I look at the audience standing behind the bulletproof glass in the Zeppelins, not knowing what I am looking for. Maybe I am looking for humanity in their eyes, some evidence that shows they are not robots. That they still have some of that something that makes us human, whatever that is. Although most of them are laughing, voting, and betting, I do see little faces here and there. Those who feel confused about this. Those who have that inner voice troubling them from the inside. The problem is that they do nothing. They don’t want to oppose the Summit. I think this is the greatest mistake of all, wanting so bad to be part of the crowd, whatever the price is.
“How are you going to close the cage on the Carnivore when I trap it inside?” I ask Leo, trying not to think about what could happen to me when I am in the cage with it.
“You just open the cage, get back on top through the shaft, and leave the rest to me,” says Leo. “You can do it, Decca. You can do it. This is the last day and the last game. If you pull it off, you’ll be the first one to outlive the games. You’ll be a Ten!”
I drop myself like a sack of potatoes into the cage, and the audience goes crazy. Every bad thought, every shred of fear, every negative comment, I just kill it with an imaginary gun and puff the smoke off the end of the barrel. As I stand inside of the cage, Carnivore roars at me from outside. It must be enticed by the amount of meat behind the bars, including me. I step forward and grab the lever while staring at Carnivore one more time, up close and personal. The flashes of the cameras coming from the Zeppelins above me are blinding, even in daylight. Every flash cuts through the air as if I am a celebrity being chased by the paparazzi. Is this how the Nines feel? Chased everywhere? No privacy? Every time they bleed, does the audience feel better?
The flashes of the ca
meras might make a celebrity out of me in this bleeding daylight, where man has nothing to be entertained with but the misery of another.
The flashes don’t bother Carnivore. It is hungry. It’s natural and animalistic. It wants to feed. Come to think of it, it is no different from those in the Zeppelins. The only difference I can think of is that it has no rank, which makes us both Monsters.
“Are you the one who killed Woo?” I whisper through the bars. I wonder what will happen if I cut through Carnivore. Will I find a set of wires and metal bones?
I take a deep, deep, deep breath and pull the lever. The cage opens.
“Open Sesame,” I mumble.
Chapter 17
Carnivore comes running, wilder, fiercer, and hungrier than ever.
I trot back and try to jump up, reaching for the small opening I came down from. It’s absurd how it suddenly seems too high. I can’t get a grip on the bars at the top to pull myself up through the opening. I pound on the inner bars of the cage as hard as I can to let Leo know that the cage is now open.
Leo is trying to slow down as much as possible, to allow Carnivore to leap into the cage.
“Jump up!” Leo screams from inside. “Why can’t I see you on top of the cage?”
I guess his rear-view mirror covers only the roof. How am I going to explain that I have miscalculated things? The cage’s roof is too high. Like many other things, it’s easier to get in than to get out.
I run from the middle of the cage to one side, and start climbing up the bars with my bare feet and hands.
Flash. Flash. Flash.
The audience in the Zeppelins must be labeling me today’s favorite dish.
Climb, Decca, climb!
Carnivore is panting at the threshold of the cage. Seeing it this close pumps panic through my body. I let go of the bars and fall down onto my back again.
Carnivore is looking straight at me. So close. It’s pawing at the edge of the cage. Why am I paralyzed? I don’t know. The piece of meat lies right next to me. All I can think of is to pull it up and throw it out of the cage at the beast, so it forgets about me. Its paws reach for the cage. Before it has the chance to leap in, Leo takes a hard turn, and Carnivore slips out again.