by Carl Hiaasen
“Wait, let’s see how it was supposed to end.” Wahoo took out the flashlight and sat on the sleeping bag beside her. They turned to the last page:
CLOSE-UP OF DEREK’S SWISS ARMY KNIFE, chipping away at the core of a log.
Only the log isn’t just a log anymore. It’s a dugout canoe, like the traditional craft once used by Seminoles to skim across the grassy shallows.
CUT TO MEDIUM SHOT of the finished canoe.
DEREK (exhausted): Isn’t she a beauty? I worked all night, and she’s finally ready to float! I can’t wait to get out of here, too.
Crikey, I thought I was a goner after that monstrous gator ambushed me. One thing’s for sure: I don’t have the strength to fight off another one. It’s time to go.
He straps on the HELMET CAM and grabs a tree limb for a paddle. Then he steps carefully into the canoe and pushes off.
CUT TO ANGLE FROM HELMET CAM, Derek’s point of view, as he slowly makes his way across a lily-covered pond toward a sea of saw grass.
DEREK (breathing heavily as he paddles): Everything looks the same in this part of the Everglades, no matter which bloody direction you go. By noon the sun will be so scorching hot that it could cause fatal heatstroke. My only hope is that somebody finds me way out here before it’s too late…
ANGLE LOOKING UPWARD FROM HELMET CAM, buzzards circling. Derek keeps on paddling, the saw grass nicking his sunburned arms, until…
DEREK: Maybe I’m hallucinating, but I swear I hear an airplane!
CUT TO A SHOT FROM HELICOPTER CAMERA, looking down from high over the scene.
Derek’s standing in the canoe and waving frantically. A small single-engine plane passes above.
DEREK (shouting desperately): Hey, mates, down here! Come back!
After several tense moments, the plane banks slowly and begins to turn around. Derek cheers and raises both fists in the air. The pilot dips a wing to signal that he sees the solitary traveler.
CUT TO HELMET CAM SHOT of the aircraft, now circling closer.
DEREK: Yes! Yes! Yes! What a fantastic sight!
CUT BACK TO HELICOPTER CAMERA, pulling away, higher and farther.
DEREK (now visible as just a dot on the immense Everglades prairie): For a moment, as I battled for my life against that ferocious gator, I wasn’t sure this expedition would turn out so happily. Now it looks like I’m actually getting out of this place alive!
See you next week!
ROLL CREDITS.
Tuna tossed the script to the ground. “Nobody can chip out a whole canoe with a dinky pocketknife! Gimme a break.”
“Welcome to the reality of reality TV.” Wahoo switched off the flashlight, which was attracting a cloud of insects.
In the final layer of twilight, before the swamp darkness settled in, he heard Tuna say, “What if he croaks out there?”
“You mean Derek?”
“What if he’s already dead?”
The same awful possibility had occurred to Wahoo. He reached for Tuna’s hand and said, “The airboat probably ran out of gas is all.”
Wahoo couldn’t figure out why Derek had bolted from the base camp after the bat bite. Maybe he was just trying to stir up a little drama for the director and the crew. The man clearly enjoyed being the center of attention.
“Look, I know he’s a total goober,” Tuna said, “but I used to love, love, love his show. Every Thursday night, nine o’clock. Just about the time my dad would pass out.”
Wahoo could picture the scene all too clearly, though he still couldn’t put a human face on Tuna’s father.
She went on: “The Walmart has a real good TV department-that’s where I go to watch Expedition and Shrimp Wars if Daddy’s snoring too loud.”
“Derek’s not dead, Lucille. They’ll find him.”
“I sure hope so.”
Wahoo hoped so, too. Of one thing he felt certain: whatever the so-called survivalist was doing at large in the Everglades, he wasn’t carving a homemade canoe.
The snails tasted nasty, and Derek chewed up three of them in spite of his bloated tongue. They were small, and their thin, spiral shells crunched easily. He also captured a green tree frog, which he managed to gulp whole. It wriggled going down his throat and continued wriggling all the way to his stomach. He sucked on some leaves to get the slime out of his mouth.
This happened after the sun had gone down, when it was safe for vampires to roam.
Derek didn’t yet feel like a vampire, though he was jittery with anticipation. Almost twenty-four hours had passed since the bat attack, and there was no sign of a transformation from mortal human to undead night stalker.
As thirsty as he was, Derek had no desire to drink blood from somebody’s neck. A cold Diet Coke, however, would have been cause for rejoicing. Every so often he ran his fleshy fingertips along his capped teeth in expectation of fangs.
He was still sweaty and feverish, and now he noticed an annoying new symptom: dreadful, fiery itching all over his arms and legs. A knowledgeable person would have recognized the marks of poison ivy, but Derek was loopy from the infection. He wondered if the itch could be vampire-related, although he didn’t recall Dax Mangold or any of the other Night Wing characters scratching so much.
He was still hungry after eating the frog and snails, which he had located using the small light mounted on the Helmet Cam. Despite being banged up in the crash, the device seemed to be working fine. Derek pawed through the items in the beached airboat until he came across Link’s jug of water, which he guzzled heedlessly.
The night air thrummed and ticked with insects, and an occasional rustle came from deep in the brushy hammock. He stretched out on one of the airboat’s bench seats and stared up at the sky, which was again filling with clouds. The unfriendly moon remained out of sight.
His stomach gurgled, and he desperately hoped it wasn’t the frog, seeking escape. A fabulously clever idea entered his head: he would record a video of himself morphing into a vampire for Expedition Survival! The ratings for such a show would be sensational!
Derek activated the small camera connected to the Helmet Cam and propped it on the boat’s driving platform. Illuminated only by the slender spray of light, he positioned himself in front of the dime-sized eye of the lens and began to relate his frightful story:
“Mmmph?hrrro?oofff?tteee?eblah?hhkkk?tunnn?ghhh…”
He was unable to speak regular words, of course, owing to the swollen condition of his tongue. He tried several times, but all that tumbled out was gibberish. Eventually he turned off the Helmet Cam and lay back down to itch and brood.
Derek wasn’t in a good place, either physically or emotionally. Although the bat that had chomped him wasn’t carrying rabies, the germs from its saliva were toxic enough to blur his pampered sense of reality. In his overheated mind, the Night Wing vampire movies now loomed as true to life as a National Geographic nature documentary.
Another search of Link’s airboat turned up a packet of leathery pork rinds that Derek struggled to swallow. His wounded tongue remained a major obstacle. A heron cawed in the distance, but to Derek it might as well have been a zombie calling.
He huddled in the boat and shut his eyes. Once more, his thoughts turned to food-specifically, the scrumptious dessert tray delivered nightly to his hotel suite at the Empresario. He could practically smell the spicy carrot cake and taste the silky creme brulee…
The dark side will never own me, Derek vowed to himself, repeating the mystic line from Dax Mangold. Eee-ka-laro! Eee-ka-laro! Gumbo mucho eee-ka-laro!
NINETEEN
Wahoo awoke before sunrise and chased off a family of raccoons that was snooping around the tents, scrounging for food. The low sky promised more rain, so he zipped on the fancy weather jacket given to him by Raven Stark.
Mickey Cray came out of the tent. He looked bleary and haggard.
“How many fingers, Pop?” Wahoo held up two.
“Aw, I’m just fine.”
“No headache?”
>
“I slept poorly, that’s all.”
Wahoo knew why. His father was worried.
“How long do you think Derek can last out there?”
“Depends,” Mickey said. “If he flipped that airboat, he’s dead already. The prop would chop him into slaw.”
“Say he didn’t crash the boat. Say he just ran the gas tank dry.”
Wahoo’s father thought about it. “Well, the guy’s got plenty of body fat. It’ll take him a while to starve.”
“A week?” Wahoo asked.
“At least. Unless he does somethin’ stupid.”
That’s what everybody on the crew was afraid of, too. Wahoo asked his father if he thought Derek had gone crazy.
“Who could tell the difference?” Mickey said.
Tracking down a spacey TV star was not what he’d been hired to do. In fact, it was his first manhunt. That’s why he’d tossed and turned all night. Although he had no respect for Derek Badger, Mickey was distressed by the thought of the man turning up dead-or not turning up at all.
Tuna emerged from her tent and declared she was ready for coffee and a microwaved burrito. On the walk to Sickler’s shop they stopped at the dock, where the TV crew and the airboat drivers were getting a pre-search pep talk from Raven. Link was there, too, looking glum. Clearly the fate of his airboat was more important to him than the fate of Derek Badger. To Wahoo’s surprise, Mickey was sympathetic.
“That boat’s his whole life,” he said in a low voice. “He probably built the darn thing himself.”
“He tried to run you over, Pop.”
Mickey smiled. “If that’s what he meant to do, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be standin’ here right now.”
Raven was perched on an equipment box, talking at the top of her voice. “Today’s the day, okay? We’re going to find Mr. Badger and bring him back safe and sound! Are we clear?”
There was a polite murmur of agreement, but Wahoo got the sense that nobody in the search party was bubbling with optimism. The weather looked ugly, and a distant quake of thunder caused one of the Miccosukee drivers to whistle unhappily. Anybody who knew the Everglades understood it was a bad place to be in an electrical storm. Tree islands were magnets for lightning bolts, and a metal airboat wasn’t much safer.
“Everybody’s got fresh batteries in their walkie-talkies?” Raven went on. “First-aid kits? Come on, people, look at your checklist.”
Wahoo’s father nudged him and said, “Let’s go grab a snack. Where’s your girlfriend?”
“She’s not my girlfriend.”
“Course she isn’t.”
Wahoo hadn’t noticed Tuna slip away from the group. He peered around until he spotted her about fifty yards away, standing by a chain-link security fence that separated the parking lot from the rest of Sickler’s property. Wahoo called out, but she acted as if she didn’t hear him. Once more he called her name, louder, yet she still didn’t turn around.
His father said, “Meet me at the shop. You want orange juice?”
“Sure.”
“Pulp or no pulp?”
“Doesn’t matter, Pop.”
Wahoo was halfway to Tuna when she wheeled from the fence and started running toward him, running so hard that he knew it wasn’t for fun. As she tore past, clutching her tote bag to her chest, her face was a gray mask of fear.
The souvenir shack was so busy selling junk food and stale protein bars to the search teams that at first Sickler didn’t notice him standing in line.
“It’s me again,” the stranger said.
Sickler leveled a granite stare. “What’s up?”
“Well, my daughter Tuna is what’s up.”
“I spoke to the help. Showed ’em her picture.”
“Yeah?”
“They don’t remember any kid like her askin’ to use the phone.”
Sickler hadn’t run across the girl this morning, but he knew she was on the property somewhere. The last thing he needed was for her old man to see her and then the two of them get into it, scrapping like cats and dogs. Somebody might call the cops.
The man asked, “Can we talk private?”
“Now’s not a good time, sport.”
“Just take a minute. Then I’ll be on my way.”
“Sorry.”
The stranger didn’t move from his position in front of the cash register. “I believe you’re lyin’ to me, Slim. I believe my little girl’s round here somewhere.”
Sickler took out the claw hammer. “And I believe you’ve been drinkin’.”
“What makes you say that?”
“ ’Cause you stink of beer. Now git.”
The drunk-smelling man shook his head. “Not till you show me where she’s hidin’.”
“I’ll show you where,” said a voice from behind.
Annoyed, Sickler looked past the drunk and saw the animal wrangler from Derek Badger’s television show.
“In fact, I’ll take you there right now,” the wrangler said to the girl’s father. “We’ll go in my truck.”
“Where’s she at?” the stranger demanded, squinting bloodshot eyes. “Who’re you?”
The wrangler held out his right hand. “Name’s Mickey Cray. What’s yours?”
“Gordon. Jared Gordon,” the man said. His handshake was limp and insincere.
Sickler piped up. “Don’t listen to him, Gordon. He don’t know where your daughter’s at, neither.”
Mickey Cray tilted an eyebrow, hoping Sickler would get the message: Butt out.
“It’s all right,” Mickey assured Tuna’s father. “She’s expecting you.”
Jared Gordon grinned. “How ’bout that?”
Sickler was glad the shop had cleared out. Now it was just the three of them. He was no saint himself, but he didn’t like jerks who beat on their children.
“How’d she get that shiner?” he asked Jared Gordon.
“So you did see her after all!”
“What happened to her eye?”
“I tole you, she’s got the Floyd’s disease. That’s one of the signs-black-and-blue marks on your face.”
“You’re so full of it,” Sickler said.
Mickey cut in: “Come on, Jared. Let’s you and me get in the truck. We got a long drive.”
“Nooooooo thanks.”
“You want to see your daughter, don’t you?”
“I most surely do,” said Tuna’s father, “but I believe you’re lyin’ to me, mister, same as Slim. I believe she’s still here, and I believe the both of you know ’zackly where she’s at.”
That’s when Jared Gordon reached under his grungy Buffalo Bills jersey and whipped out the revolver. “And I do believe you’re gonna lead me to her right this second,” he said, “else somebody’s gonna have a big-time hole in their head.”
It was true that Link’s homemade airboat was the center of his life. It was also true that his life wasn’t very complicated. He lived by himself in a trailer near the tiny town of Copeland on Route 29. His interests were limited to fishing, hunting and tuning his boat’s engine, an old 454 with compression issues.
Link’s mind operated in a simple way, uncluttered by curiosity and ambition. He was mostly comfortable in the Everglades and enjoyed being alone, especially after experiencing such a rough childhood. He wasn’t scared of bears, panthers or alligators, although snakes of all sizes made him skittish. Despite his thuggish appearance he was not a vicious person, but he wasn’t afraid to use his fists. When he did, he usually won.
Few books or magazines could be found in Link’s trailer, for he’d always struggled with reading. He watched plenty of television, although not the nature channels, so he had no appreciation for Derek Badger’s fame. Link had accepted the Expedition Survival! job only because it paid two hundred bucks a day and he got to drive his airboat. So far he hadn’t been impressed by what he’d seen, and he had no plans to start watching the program on Thursday nights. He would stick to cage fights on pay-per-view.
&nb
sp; The manhunt for Badger wasn’t Link’s first. Usually the lost parties were amateur airboaters or backpacking tourists who were located within a day or two-sunburned, hungry and freckled with crimson bug bites. Link expected the searchers to find Badger in the same condition, miserable but unharmed. He couldn’t recall the last time anybody had got eaten by a gator or died from a cottonmouth bite.
Of more concern was the fate of his precious airboat, which he’d put together by hand from a kit. He was the only one who’d ever driven the craft, until now. With a guy like Derek at the helm, anything could happen. Fearing that his creation might end up as a crumpled heap of aluminum, Link was a highly motivated searcher.
As the teams gathered at Sickler’s dock to receive their final instructions from Raven Stark, Link fidgeted and paced. He couldn’t wait to get out on the water. Raven had assigned him to ride with a young Miccosukee driver named Bradley Jumper, who was sitting beneath a nearby banyan tree and feasting on a glazed donut.
“Time to go,” Link said.
“Dude, lemme finish my breakfast.”
It seemed to Link that Bradley Jumper didn’t appreciate what was at stake.
“Now!” Link said.
“Chill.”
This wasn’t the response Link had hoped for. Just as he was about to grab Bradley’s long black ponytail and assist him to the dock, the girl named Tuna ran up.
“Help me,” she gasped.
“Okay,” said Link.
She hopped onto Bradley Jumper’s airboat-a twenty-foot swamp-tour special with an eight-bladed turboprop. Link followed her aboard and quickly started the engine.
“Hey!” Bradley protested, spitting donut crumbs.
But Link was already untying the ropes from the pilings. Tuna was joined in the bow by the wrangler’s son, who seemed to appear out of nowhere. Link didn’t ask any questions because he could see that the girl was frightened to the bone. He remembered the feeling.
“Hurry!” she shouted over the rising whine of the engine.
On the edge of the dock stood Raven Stark, hands on her hips. “Where do you three think you’re going?” she said. “The other teams aren’t ready yet! Where’s your radio?”