by Ryan Decaria
“Bye, Dad.”
Anika darted through the office and out into the hall. Sena nearly tackled her in a blindsided bear hug. Claire and Linh held the doors open and Anika pulled Sena toward the exit. The girls raced into the open air. A fire engine pulled onto the street, headed for the school.
Hawking waited for them in the van, and the girls piled in. Misty and Yoko were inside. Hawking gunned it out of the parking lot. Over her shoulder, Anika saw Pankina’s short lackey watching them from the doorway.
“Think they’ll actually leave town?” Yoko asked.
Claire patted Anika on the back like they’d been besties for years. “Linh put a countdown on her desktop. Clever, that one.”
Linh stared at her feet, blushing. “Every detail will go to your dad at nine.”
Anika whipped out her phone. “But we’ve got to get the kids away from the school.”
“Already done,” Claire said. “Linh triggered the fire alarm. It was close enough to the end of the day. The teachers will tell everyone to go home.”
“The police were never coming for Pankina?” Anika asked.
“Nope,” Claire said. “Fire engines the whole time.”
“Thank you.” Anika threw her arms around Linh. She grabbed Claire, too, and pulled her into the hug. “Both of you. I’d never have made it out of there without you.”
“The ideas were easy.” Claire squeezed her shoulder. “Linh is the girl who made it happen.”
Anika let go and sat back in her chair. Claire had a strange half-smile and a twinkle in her eye. Linh still stared at her feet, but she was grinning.
Anika nodded. “You were brilliant.”
“See, I told you.” Claire beamed.
Anika frowned. She had to know what was going on. “Do you know why?”
“Why what?” Claire frowned as well.
“Why you’re suddenly…”
Claire glowered, folding her arms across her chest, and huffed. “I’ve always been brilliant. You’ve been too self-absorbed to see it.”
“I’m sorry.” Perhaps Claire was right about that last part, but something didn’t feel right. Claire hadn’t won a spot on the Olympiad for years, and now she was the brightest one on the team. “I won’t underestimate you again. I promise.”
That brought out the grin again. Claire was pretty, for sure, but Anika didn’t feel any attraction to her. She was definitely not into girls. So, what was the deal with Hayden? Something about what Jackie’s father did to her was making her even more seductive than just turning her into an Amazonian goddess. In spite of Jackie’s attempts at minimizing Hayden’s attractiveness, people at the lab fawned over her, including Dravovitch. Sloppiness and unkemptness had little impact. Pheromones maybe. A powerful weapon indeed, in the wrong hands.
Jackie wanted to find a cure, but she didn’t know where to start.
“Where am I headed?” Hawking asked.
Anika focused on the trees. Out there, an alligator was watching them. She knew it. “I need to check in with Darwin.”
“Darwin?” Claire raised an eyebrow. “Do tell.”
“No!” Anika exchanged a glance with Hawking in the rearview mirror. “You need to go home,” she told Claire.
Hawking pulled over to the side of the road, and Anika opened the door. “Get out.”
“What?” Claire asked. “I, like, saved you.”
“I appreciate it more than you’ll ever know,” Anika said, “and I owe you big time. But you can’t be involved. Not tonight.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You said you wouldn’t underestimate me again.”
“Believe me, I’m not.” Anika reached over and took Claire’s hand, pulling her out of her seat. “Please, go home. See if you can figure out what’s going on with you.”
Claire huffed. “I can help you.”
“No.” Anika pointed to the curb. “Get out.”
“Is it because I was mean to you?”
Anika scowled. “Yes.”
Claire got out of the van and slouched her shoulders as she shuffled a few steps away, kicking a rock.
“You, too, Sena,” Anika said.
Sena pouted. “What did I do?”
Anika patted her on the arm. “Sena, you know how you bail on me on nearly every biology project right when it’s time to clean up?”
Sena’s countenance fell. “Sorry.”
“It’s time for me to clean up. You should go home.”
“I get it.” Sena tramped out and tossed her longboard to the pavement.
“We’ll let you know if it’s safe to go to school tomorrow. And watch Claire. I’m worried about her.”
Claire careened back toward the van, so Anika slammed the door in her face. Hawking took off, leaving the head cheerleader standing there with her hands on her hips.
Anika pulled her hair into a bunch and wedged a huge clippie into it. “Where’s Billie?”
“She went to find Darwin,” Yoko said. “In case we needed him. I let her know you’re safe.”
Anika rested her head against the seat. “I’m not sure any of us are safe.”
Hawking tapped the steering wheel. “We should tell the lab about Pankina right now.”
“We gave her time to leave town,” Misty said. “If she does, she might give up her plan to blow up the lab.”
“They’ll know she’s coming,” Yoko said. “She’s got to run.”
“Do you think she’s going to throw all her plans away?” Anika said. “It’s not like her dream job is actually waiting for her.”
“She’s dangerous.” Hawking ran his hands through his hair over and over, driving the van with his elbows. “We don’t even know what she’s planning. We’re guessing.”
“If we tell my dad now, he’ll likely put me in lockdown until he catches her.” Anika’s stomach hurt worse than ever. “We have to take down the alligator first. That has to be the priority.”
“The gator’s not our only problem, Anika.” Misty handed her an envelope from Mrs. Bolton’s drawer with Anika’s name written on the front. Inside was a note insisting that she and Anika needed to talk. “Bolton is a huge problem.”
“Bolton’s the problem?” Anika snapped. “She’s the least of our worries. Pankina’s plotting to blow up the lab. The alligators could attack at any moment. Our parents are screwing with us. And Ms. Bolton’s your biggest worry?”
“No.” Misty sniffed. “Of course not.”
Anika sighed. “Misty, I’m sorry.”
“No,” Misty said. “You’re right. But there’s a secret passage running through the school with observation windows in each class room. That’s stressing me out, too.”
Great. Another thing to worry about. Esposito must have known about the passages. They would have to question him at some point. Anika reached over and grabbed Misty’s shoulder. “We’ll deal with Ms. Bolton. I promise. But we have to face one problem at a time.”
“Gator dudes are holed up at the pizza place,” Linh said. “Billie said everything is ready.”
“What about Esposito?” Anika asked.
Hawking gave her a thumbs up. “Sasha shocked him back to life. He’s unconscious though. Jackie’s friends insisted Jackie take him to the hospital, but Sasha wouldn’t let them.”
“She’s right. We need answers.” Anika felt bad about it, but it was the truth. Esposito knew things that Pankina didn’t want him blabbing about. He might know things about Dravovitch, too, but she wasn’t sure how she’d possibly get him to talk.
As Hawking pulled into the parking lot of the pizza place, Yoko put a hand on Anika’s shoulder. “Anika, we’ve been thinking.”
“Oh?” Anika surveyed her friends. No one would look her in the eyes.
Hawking finally spoke. “Anika, we’ve been thinking about this plan, and we don’t like it. Like at all. We don’t think you should go meet the alligator.”
“It’s too dangerous,” Yoko added.
“Stupid,” Linh said. “The c
orrect word is stupid.”
Misty took Anika’s hand. “We’ve done everything you asked. You have safeguards on top of backup plans, but we still don’t feel good about it. The alligator is too smart. And you’re too…”
“Valuable?” Anika asked. “Is that it?”
“I was going to say important,” Misty said, “but that’s not even what I mean. Anika, we care about you. And we don’t want to see anything happen.”
Anika hung her head. This was what her mother warned her about. Getting involved in people’s lives made everything more complicated. Anika knew what she had to do. The alligator was her fault. No one else would risk their lives in her place.
Anika glared out the window. She thought she saw an alligator’s face in the brush on the side of the road. “I’m smarter than it.”
Hawking laughed. “Sounds like something your father would say.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Yoko took her other hand. “You sound like them.”
“Them?” Anika pulled her hands away. “The scientists?”
“The madmen.” Linh’s face became emotionless. “Like a megalomaniac.”
Anika scooted as far back into her chair as she could. “I’m not like them.”
Yoko reached out her hand. “You don’t have to be.”
Anika took a deep breath. She still didn’t know who she wanted to be, but she wasn’t mad. Was she? Was she maniacal?
The girls stared at her as Hawking drove toward the pizza place. Everything was ready. She’d designed the trap, but everyone had a chance to make it better, and they did make it better. The Swampazazi boys and her friends added to her design. It had to be enough. Capturing the alligator wasn’t even the most dangerous thing she’d done today.
No, she wasn’t crazy. “Everything is set. We’ve got to stop the alligator before anyone else gets hurt. This is our best shot. I’m sorry, but I’m going through with it.”
Hawking shook his head. “It’s not enough.”
“How is it not enough? The Swampazazi Boys have been dealing with alligators their whole lives. They’ve been working on this all day. I trust them. And if things get flunked up, I’ll have Boulsour and Sasha to protect me. I’ve seen Boulsour take on six gators by himself. And the Swampazazi boys have a half-dozen high-powered rifles. The whole place is secured. It’s foolproof.”
Yoko pulled her hand back and spoke low, barely audible. “When does it end?”
Anika glared at her. “When everyone is safe.”
“Anika.” Hawking pulled into the pizza place. “We’ll never be safe.”
“Please,” Misty said. “Don’t go tonight. They can do it without you.”
“The alligator will never show up if I’m not there. The whole thing will be a waste.”
“We’ve got a bad feeling…” Yoko said.
“And we’ll have a flamethrower.” Anika opened the door and got out. “And I can do without the intervention. See you tomorrow.”
She slammed the door and stomped inside the restaurant.
The woods rustled in the breeze. The warm air smelled like swamp water with a sweet syrupy fragrance coming from the bushes. River water burbled in the distance. The scene was set.
Anika stood in the middle of the playground scanning the brush line for any sign of the alligator. She should’ve given it a name. It deserved a name, but now was a little too late. Sedation was first up in their line of defense, but deep down, Anika knew they had to kill it.
Kill it in spite of its scientific significance. Kill a marvel of creation—but a monster and an aberration no one could possibly control. Left alone, who knew what destruction it could cause?
Anika turned toward Sasha, standing a few feet behind her, and to Boulsour on the other side—monoliths in the grass near the swing set and the plastic slide. They made no movements. Sasha didn’t even breathe unless she had something to say, which wasn’t often enough. She wore her leather jacket and a wide brim black fedora. She held a sword in one hand and a spiked metal club in the other.
Boulsour’s hands were in fists.
This fight, this moment, was more than protecting her friends and her town.
Her town? Yes. This was her home, and she was protecting it, but as she stood staring at the tree line, a lump caught in her throat.
She wasn’t protecting the world from the alligator. This was about protecting her town from the world. If the alligator was altering the way other alligators behaved, eventually, someone outside of her crappy town would take notice. Attention would come and put her friends in danger.
She put her hand over her mouth and shivered. This was selfish business, and she was still going to go through with it. Her father wanted her to understand what it was like to make decisions that mattered. She was getting it.
She inspected the faint circle drawn in the grass—the hot zone. She hoped it wouldn’t come to that. The last resort was to blow the alligator up with a contained explosion. Perhaps that was the best way. If they captured it, she couldn’t give it back to the lab, but she couldn’t send it with the Swampazazi Boys either. They had a cage ready back by the trucks, but they hadn’t discussed what to do with the beast.
Trucks sat lined up fifty feet away in the parking lot. The Swampazazi boys peered through night vision goggles or rifle scopes from the truck beds. Billie wore black sweats and had a red bandana tied around her head. She offered Anika a couple thumbs up.
Anika waved.
It was foolproof. If the alligator tried to leave the circle, they’d blow it sky high. If it got too close, it would spring the traps. If it got past the traps, Boulsour and Sasha would pummel it. If it tried to sneak up behind them, the boys would shoot it. If it brought a few friends, they would use a combination of tactics.
Anika smiled at their thoroughness.
Sasha took a short breath. “He’s not coming.”
“He’ll be here.” Anika fidgeted with her flashlight.
There. A green nose poked out of the brush in front of them. A direct approach opposite the trucks was the logical choice. Anika held her breath.
The alligator crawled forward until Anika could see its whole wide snout. Its eyes glowed red, reflecting the light from her flashlight. She could make out the scar in the moonlight. This was her guy alright.
“Showtime.”
The alligator took another few steps and stopped.
Billie screamed.
Anika whipped around. The Swampazazi boys jumped out of the truck beds. Some barked orders, others aimed guns. One cursed. One prayed. They all backed up, heading toward Anika’s position.
She peered into the darkness between the trucks. Alligators spilled out of the truck beds, between the trucks, and around the parking lot. Hundreds of them, corralling the humans into the center of the park.
Anika spun back, shining her light on the huge gator. It froze, a dozen feet closer. Just out of range of the explosives. All her traps. All their preparation. Worthless.
Billie ran up beside her. “They snuck up behind us and climbed on top of each other to get into the truck beds. I’m so sorry.”
Already, Billie’s eyes were puffy and her nose red, but she didn’t cry. Anika grabbed her hand.
The alligators surrounded them. Too many to count. Three, maybe four hundred.
“Boulsour,” Sasha said. “Get Anika out of here.”
Anika took a step away from him. “No.”
The youngest boy sat on the ground near Boulsour, his face in his hands, whispering to himself. Maybe he was praying. Agatha held onto her rifle pointed at the ground in front of her. The old man grinned, his eyes soaking in the majesty of power and death around him. The other guy wept, begging God for mercy.
Darwin shrugged his shoulders.
He didn’t try to speak.
What could he say?
Boulsour took a step toward her.
“No!” Anika dashed back.
She shined the flashlight
on the alligator. He’d crawled into the blast zone.
“I’m sorry.” Billie blubbered. “I shouldn’t have come. I should have listened.”
Sasha readied her weapons. “We finish this.”
Darwin nodded, aiming his rifle at the main gator. The others raised their weapons. They were all going to die. Billie was going to die.
“Boulsour,” Sasha yelled. “Get her out.”
Boulsour reached for her again.
Anika slapped his arm away. “No!”
Billie wiped snot from her nose with her sleeve. “It’s okay, babe. You need to go.”
Anika shook her head and scrambled away from Boulsour. Sasha moved around, trying to cut her off. Anika glanced at the gator. It was watching them. Was it grinning? Was it enjoying this?
“Anika,” Sasha said. “You need to go.”
The alligators inched closer around them, swarming like insects over top of each other.
Agatha patted the old man on the head. “Nice knowing you all.”
The old man laughed. “I knew the buggers would get me eventually.”
Boulsour lunged at Anika.
She spun away from him as he caught her jacket. She slipped out of it as he yanked. She dove toward the gator, sprawling on the grass right in front of it, right at the center of the blast zone. The alligator opened its jaws wide enough Anika’s whole head could easily fit inside.
“Wait,” she pleaded. “Please, wait! I know you can understand me. Just listen for a minute. Please.”
Its mouth snapped shut, and it stared at her. Its eyes wide. Its teeth shone in the moonlight.
Everyone seemed frozen in time. Boulsour’s arm was stretched out. Sasha held her sword high in the air. Billie had collapsed in the grass, a hand held over her mouth.
Anika turned back to the beast and gazed into its slit-catlike emerald eyes. She couldn’t study both at once, so she chose the one a little closer. Her flashlight had landed in the grass, giving her enough light to see as a second, clear eyelid opened from back to front. It swung its giant head to the right, so it could get a better look at her.
“You think I’m acting to destroy you, but I’m not. I’m trying to protect innocent people. People who did nothing to you. Kids who have nothing to do with the laboratory.”