by B. C. Tweedt
“Erm hurngry!” Sammy complained, breaking her train of thought.
Mrs. Hansen looked in her purse. “Well, I think I put some snacks in here. Cheaper than the tourist trap stuff. Five dollars for bottled water! Can you believe it? Oh, yeah. Here are some pop tarts.”
Sammy’s eyes lit up and the non-lazy one landed on the shiny silver wrapping. “Ermigerd. A perp tert!”
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Greyson’s eyes searched the channel of water blocking his way, full of yachts and sailboats tied to narrow docks. The wind picked up again, shaking the boats, and the sun went behind the first of the storm clouds, cloaking the once bright-white sails in shadow.
He could go around – but the shortcut would save him precious time.
Here goes nothing.
He leapt for the first boat and smacked the deck with both feet. The deck wobbled underneath him like a waterbed, but it was secure. This will work.
Deck, deck, railing, jump! Deck, duck under the mast, railing, jump! He ran a length on the dock and then bounded from one ship to another, sending them bouncing up and down in the water with the weight of his jumps.
Finally, he landed safely on the last dock, jetted up the stairs to the roundabout and sprinted through the cars to the front doors. A well-dressed busboy made a motion to stop him and a mother yelped, tugging her child away, but he made it inside, heaving for air and sweating profusely.
He put his hands on his knees, scanning the area. He barely noticed how beautiful it was – the ornate sculptors and furniture, the lush red carpet, the magnificent pillars and archways – he only noticed it was empty of the ones he loved.
“SYDNEY?”
No response.
He ran to the front desk, budging past a line of concerned guests.
“How long will we have to stay in our rooms?” An anxious guest whined. “I’m claustrophobic and my asthma…”
“Excuse me!” Greyson interrupted. “My parents! They just checked in. The Hansens. Had a girl with them…Sydney.”
The hotel clerk raised an eyebrow and apologized to the claustrophobic asthmatic as she turned to Greyson. “Let me see if I can help you, sir. You said your parents just checked in?”
Or they had already checked in days ago. How long had they been here?
“Uh…well. They just got back. I forgot the room number. Hansens. Last name.”
The clerk typed away as Greyson glanced nervously around the large room.
“No one by the name Hansen is checked in, sir. Maybe you’re at the wrong hotel?” She turned back to the man. “Sir, if you’d rather, we have plenty of room in our underground aquarium. I’d suggest heading there now to avoid the rush…”
Annoyed, Greyson bolted from the desk and ran across the lobby to another hallway. It stretched past several shops on both sides, filled with fancy clothes and jewelry. He darted to the other side, around the fountain – ignoring the crowd at the television and stopped in the middle of the hall.
He heard their voices. Sammy’s squeal. Parents – the twins’ parents – yelling. Jarryd’s pleas for justice. They were all here!
He blasted down the hall and turned into the elevator lobby, prepared to see their faces – but the last doors shut with a clunk.
He ran to the elevator and pounded on the doors with his fists.
“Sydney! Nick!”
No!
Now what?
He stepped back with a sigh and saw it.
Five…six…seven…eight…nine…
With each new number that lit up, Greyson grew more and more excited. He knew where they were.
His feet danced, and he pounded the up arrow to follow.
Eleven…twelve…
“Hey!” A suited man stood down the hall, approaching him with his hand out. “Are you a guest here?”
The security man must have seen him running through the lobby.
“Do you have a room key on you?”
Fifteen…sixteen…
Greyson took glances in each direction and found the door for the stairs. His eyes rested on the numbers as the security man drew closer.
Eighteen…still eighteen.
“Hey! Stop!”
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“Oh my gosh!”
Sydney gasped as she took in the size of the presidential suite. It was breathtaking in luxury, like a palace of gold and blue.
“It’s bigger than our house!” Nick exclaimed. “Amazing.”
It truly was. There was a massive living room with two couches decorated in coral blue, sparkling drapes hanging on the sides of the largest balcony they’d ever seen, a golden dining room table with matching chairs, and a beautiful chandelier – all decorated with shells and blue colors that made them feel as if they were the kings and queens of a mermaid kingdom.
The parents found their way to the bedrooms to stake their claims, but the children plopped on the couches – all except Sammy, who was scouring the refrigerator for food.
“These are nice,” Nick said, bouncing on the cushion next to Sydney.
Sydney bounced to her feet and walked to the sliding glass door. The sun had entirely disappeared and rain had begun to fall, spattering along the glass. Still the scenery was beautiful. The lush green trees – almost like a jungle below them – covered the entire water park with the exception of a few slides poking above. More resort towers rose around the jungle, but their room was near the top of them all, looking down. She could even see the pristine white-sand beach past the waterpark. A few workers were lugging a waverunner from the water toward a storage shed, and they weren’t the only ones evacuating the park. It was a bummer to have such weather on vacation, but at least they had an amazing room. Sam and Calvin had gone all out with the reservations.
But for now she wasn’t thinking about Sam. Greyson was out there somewhere – back on the main island – not at Paradise, in a fancy resort gazing at the ocean. Guilt came down with the rain and she clutched the drawstrings on her bag.
Her breath caught in her throat as she contemplated it. Looking over her shoulder, she saw the parents in their rooms, taking the mints from their pillows and commenting on how tasty they were. Sammy was stalking a plate full of extra mints, and the twins were curling into the soft couch pillows – readying for an afternoon nap.
She could leave now. It was her opportunity.
Don’t chicken out now, Syd.
She slipped around the edge of the room, pretending to look at the artwork.
“Hey! You’re eating all our mints!” Jarryd cried, suddenly noticing Sammy as he dumped the plate of mints into his mouth.
Sammy laughed as he chomped. “Ahahaha! Yumm – OW!”
He dropped the plate with a crash, its pieces clattering on the hardwood floor. His hand grabbed at his mouth like he was pulling at his teeth.
The kids were frozen. “You okay?” Sydney said at last.
“Ow-ah-ow!”
And then they saw it as he pulled it from his mouth. A drop of blood dripped from the end of the shiny gold fishing hook. Sammy held it in his trembling fingers and then threw it in the sink, working his mouth and tongue, full of chocolate and blood.
“You ate the decoration?” Jarryd asked callously.
Sydney rushed to him, ushering him to the kitchen sink, “Mom! Dad! Sammy’s hurt!”
She grabbed a paper towel and pushed it at Sammy’s mouth. “Press it against it. No, no. Spit first. Don’t swallow!”
Gulp.
Sammy shared a startled look with Sydney as he suddenly grew weary. Her eyes latched on him as his good eye joined his lazy one in the back of his head. Before she knew what had happened, he had hit the floor, out cold.
“Mom!”
Kneeling at Sammy’s side in a panic, she glanced at her parents’ room. Her mother’s arm stretched across the floor, just visible in the doorway.
The twins ran to Sydney, a look of fear wiping across their faces as chocolate drooled from the corner of Sa
mmy’s mouth.
“Sammy! Sammy!”
“What’s wrong with him?”
“I don’t know!”
Nick dashed to his parents’ room and stalled in the doorway. “Mom!” He disappeared, running to his parents’ aid.
Trying not to panic, Sydney gulped at the lump in her throat, pushing Sammy’s head to the side so that he didn’t choke. “Jarryd, stay with them. Make sure they keep breathing! I’ll go get help!” She sprinted across the living room but stopped short at the door. Someone was knocking.
“Security,” came the husky voice from the other side of the door. “I heard screaming. Need help, niña?”
Letting out a sigh of relief, she went to let him in.
Chapter 52
Greyson sweat through his shirt and his heart drummed against his ribs. He desperately wanted to stop, but the security man was still close on his heels. Just when he thought his hamstrings would snap, he finally reached floor 18. With a glance backward at the huffing security guard, he swung open the stairwell door.
What he saw froze the air inside his lungs. He took it in slowly, like a horrible piece of art. A large, ugly man with a fisherman’s hat and vest took a stance outside a room, leaning into his weapon – a five-barreled Gatling gun loaded with arrow-sized harpoons. The Fisherman’s finger was on the trigger, but he was waiting for something – waiting for a room door to open.
But the Fisherman had seen the stairwell door open out of the corner of his eye. Greyson reacted before the shot, dodging left as the harpoon seared past his shoulder and burrowed into the stairwell’s cement wall. The second harpoon hit the security guard in the neck as he reached for Greyson. His body crumpled at Greyson’s feet.
The horror struck Greyson like a hammer to the skull. For a moment he couldn’t think or feel. In a daze, he watched the man’s body twitch – the blood staining the floor in a wider and wider pool.
But he could hear the Fisherman’s steps approaching and he knew he had to run – and his legs seemed to know it before he did.
It was a blur from then on. Back down the steps – bounding, tripping, stumbling – sliding down the rails and listening for the Fisherman trailing behind. He’s after me.
“Heeeee-re fishy, fishy,” came his voice from above.
Greyson burst through the door to the first floor. The lobby. A sharp pain in his side – gasping for air. Guests giving him looks. “Help!” he cried out, but the Fisherman pushed anyone who stood in his way aside and waved his gun.
The Fisherman was slower than Greyson, but with fresh legs. He would outlast him. Let the boy tire out.
Greyson staggered through the rich hallway, circled around a fountain with a golden dolphin squirting spurts of water from its mouth. Past the movie theater and into the casino.
He stopped for a second inside, surrounded by bright lights and happy sounds, like a million video games rewarding him at once, begging to be played. The guests were too busy to notice the boy with a sweat-drenched shirt and fanny pack searching for a way out.
“Help!” he cried again. A few heads turned just in time to see a harpoon crash into a slot machine, setting off its jackpot light with flashes and loud music. Thinking fast, Greyson jerked the bundle of money from his pack and threw it in the air. The cloud of bills sent the place mad. The crowd swarmed just as Greyson slipped past, making his way to a side door.
As he reached the door, he looked back to see the Fisherman jostling with the crowd. He was slowed, but not for long. He jabbed the tip of the harpoon left and right, stuck it in a security guard’s chest, and pulled the trigger.
Fear shot through Greyson’s veins as he turned and ran into the storm. Wind whipped at the water park’s palm trees and loose leaves slapped at his skin before being blown away. The sidewalk led him on a winding path through the artificial jungle; he passed by an empty pool with beach chairs piled in stacks in the corner.
He glanced back. The Fisherman was leveling his gun.
Darting to the side, he ducked onto another path; a waterfall flowed over a rocky outcropping into a large pool where stingrays swarmed underneath the water; he crossed over a loping wooden bridge to a food area where the bar was shuttered, no longer selling fried food and drinks. The rain pelted the picnic tables and the wind rippled the food hut’s straw roof. The place had been evacuated. He was alone out here.
Think, Greyson. You can’t run forever!
The rain pouring over his face seemed to finally wake him from panic mode.
Turn and fight! You have an arrow of your own!
But he couldn’t. He was outmatched.
Sapere Aude. Dare to be wise.
He needed a game-changer – he’d just have to find one.
His feet stung inside his shoes as they pounded the cement up a winding slope, higher and higher until he stopped at a T-intersection. A wooden sign. ‘Beach’ on the right, ‘Mayan Temple’ to the left.
If he chose the beach, there would be nowhere to run except the ocean. And that’s where a psycho with a harpoon gun would want him to go.
He jogged toward the temple and gawked at its size and beauty. Like a pyramid with steps, it looked to be made entirely of brown bricks. He couldn’t remember much about the Mayans from history classes, but perhaps the temple would give him sanctuary like it had given the Mayans for centuries – before they went extinct at the hands of the Spanish.
Shaking off the thought, he disappeared inside a cavern cut out of its center. The darkness wrapped around him and sent a shiver down his spine. When his eyes adjusted, the velvety blue hue that waved throughout the room came into focus. The color was coming from both sides where the walls had been replaced by glass. Behind the glass was a view beneath a large pool, full of fish, stone statues, and…
A shark!
Goosebumps rose on his arms, and he kept his distance from the glass as more and more sharks slithered through the water, their rubbery bodies winding back and forth like engorged snakes. Their saw-like teeth showed at their gums, jagged and disgusting. Their gills flapped open and closed; their fins cut above like little warning flags.
He couldn’t take his eyes off of them. They were nasty – but hypnotizing. And as he followed one through the water, he saw it pass underneath a long, clear, plastic tube, big enough for a human to pass through. Big enough to be…a water slide.
Who would put sharks in a water park?
But he had stalled too long. He could hear the Fisherman’s footsteps outside. He had to think. Fast.
Finding only one option, he burst up the stairs that wound higher and higher. On a normal day most kids would have been excited to climb the staircase without a line, but this wasn’t a normal day. And Greyson didn’t want the thrill of a slide.
He passed the blue inner tubes that had been stored behind a cage and churned up more and more stairs. Finally, when he reached the top, he managed to read the name of the slide.
Serpent’s Slide.
No way!
“Heeeeee-re fishy, fishy, fishy.”
Greyson gulped in air, wincing at the pain in his side and listening to the man’s voice echo up from the staircase below.
“You run harder…hook goes deeeee-per.”
The wind howled through the top of the temple and Greyson could see how dark the sky had grown over the waving palm trees. He was scared, but confident in his plan.
He leaned over the staircase railing and bellowed down. “Go away!” He added an extra-high screech to his voice and a sly smile. “Please!”
But then he stared at the black hole where the Serpent Slide began, a pair of serpent’s fangs hanging above like a snake’s gaping mouth. His smile vanished. The Serpent would suck him in and digest him through its winding belly, corkscrewing down and down until it pooped him into the shark-infested waters below.
He knew what he had to do.
I dare you.
Taking a deep breath, he planted his feet and plunged face-first into the snake’s mo
uth.
The water splashed his face and rushed into his nostrils as he careened down the slide in utter darkness. It jostled him to the side – threw him to the other slide – banged his elbows on the other side – and finally plunged him straight into deeper water. Was that it?
He rose up from the water with his knees on the bottom of a slippery surface, disoriented. Though the slide’s water hit his back from behind, the current slowed here. But it wasn’t the end. Using the shuddering blue light, he found that he was in the transparent underwater section of the slide he had seen earlier. This was supposed to be the time in the ride where tube-riders ‘ooo’ed and ‘ahh’ed about the sharks.
Surrounded on all sides by glass and water, it was as if the sharks and the human had switched places in the aquarium. Now he was the one trapped – and they were the ones moving about, watching him.
One sent a shadow drifting over his head, but he was too busy unclipping his holster and unzipping his pack to notice.
His wet hands fumbled with the slingshot. He changed the strap. He loaded it with his last arrow. He placed it against the glass, drew it back as far as he could, closed his eyes, and let it go.
SHMACK!
He opened his eyes. The bolt-arrow had pierced the glass, but it had stuck halfway through.
A sudden vibration shook the slide. Another body had entered.
He was almost out of time.
Holstering his slingshot, he grabbed the arrow and pulled at it. He jerked it to the right and left and twisted it – but it barely budged. Tiny cracks had formed around the edges of the hole, but it wasn’t enough for his plan.
Splashing in the water, he dunked himself under and kicked at the arrow. The cracks split wider and wider. Water began dribbling around the shaft. And then it began spurting inside. Suddenly the cracks made a crunching sound.
Time to go.
He half-swam, half-crawled through the last section, eyeing a lurking shark below him but giving backward glances over his shoulder for the greater danger.