Kalahari

by Jessica Khoury

  I stared, but couldn’t comprehend anything about it.

  “Sarah!”

  I jerked my eye away from the camera and looked down at Sam. He gave me an exasperated look.

  “It’s a lion,” I said. “I think.”

  “You think? We heard it roar.”

  I nodded. I had heard it too. I looked through the camera again, but the lion was gone. Frantically, I zoomed out and searched the bushes—there it was. It was moving faster now, its nose lifted. Had it caught our scent?

  “Sam,” I said slowly. “Kase. Get in the truck. Now.”

  “What—”

  “Get in the truck.”

  They climbed up, using the wheels and roof supports to haul themselves into the back of the Cruiser. Everyone crowded behind me, straining to see. Still shaking, I focused on the lion and snapped three photos.

  “Holy cow,” said Joey. “Is that . . . is that it?”

  So they could see it now.

  “What is it?” Avani asked, looking doubly shaken that here was something she didn’t know the genus and species of.

  “It’s a silver lion,” said Miranda.

  “No, duh,” said Joey.

  “It’s impossible,” I said.

  “Is it covered in paint?” asked Sam.

  It was the most reasonable explanation I’d heard yet—except that no paint I’d ever seen looked that much like metal. No paint could cover a full-grown lion without flaking or wearing off.

  I turned the camera to display mode and zoomed in on the picture I’d snapped. Kase’s camera was extremely expensive, taking higher quality photos than even my dad’s professional gear.

  Everyone leaned around me to look.

  “That’s not paint,” said Kase, taking the camera and squinting at the display.

  I knew he was right. The silver was too perfect, showing no bare spots, not so much as a single tawny hair. The individual hairs of the lion, caught in crisp clarity by the camera, seemed to each be made of silver strands.

  All silver, like the moon. Theo’s dying words. I had taken them for delirium, never imagining. . . Keep watch, Tu!um-sa. Watch for silver eyes. The lion is hunting. I had been right: The lion—this lion—had been following the vehicles, and Theo must have seen it sometime after he’d been shot, thinking it was a vision, a spirit come to escort his dying soul into the sky.

  “It’s like . . . it’s like . . .” Joey started, but he stopped and shrugged. “I don’t even know. What the hell is it?”

  “The silver lion,” I said softly. “This is what the poachers are after. I thought—the rumors Henrico told Dad about—they mentioned a white lion, an albino, we thought, but this . . . This isn’t natural.”

  “I think that’s obvious,” said Avani. “So what is it? Some kind of robot?”

  We all stared at the creature as it made its way toward us. The hairs on my arms stood vertically, and I felt cold despite the mideighties temperature.

  “It moves too naturally,” I said. “Like a real lion. No robot could be so lifelike.”

  “Is it some kind of projection?” asked Sam.

  I looked around, making a wide sweep with my hand. “From where? Outer space?”

  Everyone looked up, as if the idea weren’t so far-fetched after all.

  “This is too weird,” said Miranda, shaking her head. “I don’t like it. Let’s get out of here.”

  “No!” said Sam. “We have to get a closer look. This is incredible!” He looked around at our stricken faces, his eyes alight. “Don’t you want to know what it is? This could be like, some sort of breakthrough! Some kind of huge discovery!”

  “It’s coming straight toward us,” said Avani.

  I nodded. “Stay in the truck and it won’t bother us.”

  “How do you know? Maybe a real lion wouldn’t, but this is obviously not a real lion! Let’s go!”

  “I want to see it closer,” Sam insisted.

  “Then be my guest. Jump on out and go make friends with the freaky silver robot lion.” Avani glared at him.

  “Settle down, everyone. Nobody’s going out there. Just stay quiet,” I said.

  The lion was a stone’s throw away now. It stopped, lifted its head, and stared straight at us. The sunlight played in gleaming patterns over it, the way it would play off a knife; I could see spots of light dancing over the grass where it reflected off the metallic hide of the animal. It looked like something animated for film, like a 3-D model that hadn’t been painted yet. It prowled closer and stopped again, sniffing, watching, twitching its tail.

  Its eyes were silver like the rest of it. They looked like the blank, staring eyes of a statue, but I sensed this lion was far from blind. It stared too keenly, its gaze resting directly on us.

  “Please,” Miranda begged, “let’s just go. What if it attacks us?”

  I almost repeated that it wouldn’t, but suddenly I wasn’t sure. I had no idea what it would do because I had no idea what it was.

  “They’re not poachers,” Sam said, his voice low. “This is something else entirely. This is way bigger.”

  I nodded, having come to the same conclusion myself. This was no ordinary prey, so I doubted its hunters were ordinary poachers. Whatever this . . . thing was, the men who were hunting it would obviously stop at nothing to find it and . . . what? Capture it? Kill it? All of my certainty deserted me. I felt as if I knew nothing, as if all my years in the wilderness and in research had done me zero good. It certainly hadn’t prepared me for this. Whatever it was.

  The lion drew closer to the Cruiser, and when it was about ten yards away, it went into a crouch. My skin turned to gooseflesh. Was it about to spring? Would it really attack?

  Lions perceive people in cars as a unified entity. They don’t see us as prey and will go out of their way to avoid us—particularly ones in the wild where people are uncommon. But would this lion see us the same way? If I made the wrong call, it could cost us our lives.

  “Stay still,” I said, my eyes fixed on the creature. Despite the danger and impossibility of it all, I was overwhelmed with fascination. I wanted to get closer, like Sam. If I’d had my dad’s tranquilizer gun I could have knocked it out long enough to get samples of its hair and skin and saliva. Unfortunately, the gun had been at the campsite, to either end up burned or stolen. I had the shotgun, but I wouldn’t use it—not unless I had to choose between a human’s life and the lion’s. But who knew if it would even react to tranquilizers? Or bullets, for that matter? It looked as if it had been made of melted bullets.

  Still crouched, its eyes on mine, the lion crept forward, step by slow step. We all held our breaths. Only the wind in the grass made any noise at all—I realized with a chill that the birds, a constant source of song in the Kalahari, had fallen silent. They knew something was awry here, that some unnatural thing had interrupted their ancient cycle.

  I could feel the others tensing around me. Without moving a muscle, my gaze shifted to Sam. Sweat beaded his forehead, and the silver lion reflected in the dark discs of his eyes. He looked more entranced than afraid, and I thought of something my mom had said to me once, when I’d encountered a wild tiger in the jungles of India. I was six years old, and to me, all animals had been friends. When I strayed too close and the tiger went into an aggressive crouch, my mom had snatched me up in her arms and whispered into my ear, “The most beautiful things are often the most dangerous.” She carried me away, walking backward in order to keep the tiger in her sight.

  That tiger, in all its magisterial wildness, hadn’t been nearly as beautiful as this extraordinary silver creature in front of me. And so, with my mother’s voice hovering like a ghost by my ear, I knew it could very well be the most dangerous thing I had ever encountered.

  “Steady,” I whispered, as the lion drew within five yards of the truck and Miranda let out a so
ft cry.

  The lion stopped so close to the back of the truck that I could have leaned down and stroked its silvery hide. This close, I could see each silver hair on its mane. The blank, burnished eyes stared at me unblinkingly.

  “Steady,” I said again, sensing the others beginning to shrink away.

  The lion settled down, seeming to rest, but I could see the muscles bunching, rippling like mercury. The grass and sky reflected off the creature; if you weren’t looking right at it, it would disappear as if made of living mirrors.

  I held my breath. I couldn’t exhale, couldn’t look away, couldn’t blink, because I knew, I knew it would happen but I didn’t know what to do about it, couldn’t stop it, couldn’t think—

  The silver lion sprang in an explosion of refracted light.

  NINE

  Screams erupted behind me. Everyone fell backward as the lion’s claws seized the top of Hank’s tailgate. The screech of claws tearing through metal seared the air.

  I found myself tangled in everyone else and slipped, ending up wedged between the backseat and the tailgate. The lion’s head lifted over the back of the truck as its rear paws found purchase on the bumper. Its fine, silvery whiskers twitched as it sniffed the air above me, and then it looked down and bared its fangs—shockingly, they were yellowish-white, normal teeth. I think it was the teeth more than anything that sent a jolt of fear down my spine. Before that, I hadn’t categorized the lion as real, as if it might still be exposed as some kind of elaborate prank.

  Suddenly someone grabbed me, pulled me up as the lion made a snap at my face. Its jaws closed on open air, but only just.

  Sam had me by the shoulders and stood with one foot braced on the tailgate, the other on the wall of the truck. Straining, he helped me over the backseat, out of the lion’s reach.

  Everyone else was in the front of the vehicle, screaming like maniacs. Sam and I clambered to join them. I slid into the driver’s seat and twisted the key, gunning the engine.

  I floored the gas pedal but though the engine roared, the wheels only dug themselves deeper. It was useless.

  “It’s coming!” Miranda screamed.

  I looked over my shoulder to see the lion had made it into the truck; now it was climbing over the seats, intent on reaching us.

  “Give me that shotgun!” I yelled to Joey, who was standing on it. He tossed it my way and I caught it, pumped the fore end—chunk, chunk—and fired, all in one swift motion.

  I didn’t like using the gun, but that didn’t mean that I couldn’t.

  The buckshot ripped into the lion’s shoulder, and even then, with only my shotgun standing between the raging animal and five human lives, I regretted it.

  I didn’t realize I was apologizing to the lion aloud until Sam yelled at me to stop and took my hand, pulling me out the door and onto the ground. I was barely able to grab my backpack off the seat and sling it over one shoulder.

  We were running now. I struggled to keep up, because it felt wrong. Anyone who knew anything about the wild could tell you that when you encountered aggressive animals, the last thing you should do is run. I’d been charged by lions before, and each time, I stood my ground—heart pounding, my entire body shaking, my mouth dry—and the lions had swerved at the last minute and charged away into the bush.

  But someone had rewritten the rules without my knowing it. They’d sent this twisted, unnatural creature after me and given me no guidelines for how to deal with it.

  And so I ran, clutching Mom’s shotgun to my chest and feeling like a soldier fleeing from battle. I threw aside all of my training and experience, all of the warnings of my dead mother and my missing father, and I ran.

  Joey took the lead. He was fast. Not fast enough to outrun a lion, but that bullet had slowed it down. Sam had pulled me away before I’d been able to see the extent of the damage wreaked by my one frantic shot.

  When I looked back, Hank’s engine was still running, and I could see flashes of silver between the seats. If the lion was dying, it was taking its time about it, and I felt a small, guilty twinge of relief. Could we all walk away from this, lion included? Was that too much to ask? But my shot had been point-blank, and the silver hide of the lion had proved to be permeable. I’d half expected the animal to shatter like a busted mirror into metal shards all over the truck, but the silver had parted like, well, like flesh. I’d even seen a burst of scarlet blood from the wound.

  So the lion was alive, at least in some way. It wasn’t made of machinery; it had blood and teeth and it could be wounded. I noted these facts as if I were recording them in an observation journal for my dad to go over later.

  If we stopped and went back to Hank, would the lion’s carcass be lying in the truck? If so, I could attempt to glean some kind of understanding from it. I wondered what my dad, with all his years of zoology, would make of it, if he’d be as dumbfounded as I was.

  We ran for only a mile or two before we all collapsed, gasping, onto the ground. I was delighted to hear birdsong once more and hoped that somehow all of this would turn out to be a mistake, that there was no metal lion and we’d been tricked.

  “What . . .” gasped Avani, “was that thing?”

  “Sarah shot it,” said Sam. “It’s dead, whatever it was.”

  I wasn’t so sure, but I said nothing.

  “Now what do we do?” asked Joey. “I’m not going back there.”

  “We have to,” I replied. “All our gear is in the truck.”

  There was that and, if I was honest with myself, there was also the fact that I wanted another look at that lion if it was indeed dead.

  “I’m going back,” I announced. “You all stay here and wait for me.”

  “I want to come,” said Sam. His eyes still held that glow of awe, and I knew he also wanted a chance to take a closer look at the creature.

  “Fine,” I said. “The rest of you stay here.”

  They didn’t argue. Miranda and Kase didn’t even look at me. They were folded into each other’s arms, leaning against a dormant termite mound, their foreheads pressed together and eyes shut.

  Sam and I backtracked in silence, until we came into view of the Cruiser and stopped.

  “Do you see it?” he asked.

  I shook my head and wished for the pair of binoculars I’d carried with me for nearly my entire life. They hadn’t survived the fire at the camp.

  “Let’s get closer,” I said, stepping forward, but at that moment, Sam grabbed my arm and pulled me back.

  “It’s coming!” he said.

  And there it was, yes, creeping out from under the Cruiser. I dropped to a crouch, as did Sam, hiding in the tall grass.

  Sam pointed wordlessly off to the left, and I turned to see a stately male ostrich stalking into the riverbed. Its glossy black feathers ruffled in the breeze; it hadn’t caught sight of the lion by the Cruiser. The lion’s head turned only slightly and its ears cocked toward the giant bird.

  Hidden as it was by the Cruiser, the lion had escaped the bird’s notice. It crouched in the shadow of the truck and tensed, just as it had earlier. Then, in the blink of an eye, it sprang, light flashing off its haunches, and the ostrich didn’t even have time to attempt to flee. It went down with a screech, sending up a cloud of feathers. The lion ripped its throat with its jaws, raked the body of the bird with its claws, and then—amazingly—walked away.

  “It’s not eating,” I whispered. “Why would it do that, if it isn’t hungry?”

  Sam shrugged. “You’re the expert, not me.”

  The lion stopped beside the Cruiser, sniffing the air, perhaps trying to pick up our scent. I studied its shoulder, trying to understand how it was still alive.

  “I did shoot it, right?” I asked Sam. “I’m not crazy?”

  “I saw it with my own eyes.”

  “But the lion . . .”

&n
bsp; “I know.” He looked as puzzled as I felt. The lion seemed entirely unwounded. The skin of its shoulder was smooth and seamless and gleaming, reflecting the savanna. It began violently tossing its mane, as if trying to shake off an invisible collar, and then it swatted its own face with massive silver paws. I tilted my head, watching and trying to understand, trying to read its behavior the way my parents had taught me. When the lion began crow hopping sideways, twisting its body and sending up long, agonized yowls, I sucked in sharply.

  “It’s like it’s been driven mad,” I said. “Look at it—it’s out of its mind.”

  “Do you think it might have been normal once?” asked Sam. “That someone did this, whatever this is, to it?”

  I shrugged. The lion rolled on its back, creating a cloud of dust and sand, and then flopped over, nose twitching in the air. Its head turned in our direction and chuffed.

  “We should go back,” I said. “It’s tracking us.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “It’s searching for our scent and . . .” How could I explain a hunch? I knew only that it would follow us if it could, just as it had followed my dad and Theo and the poachers or whoever they were.

  “Do you think you could shoot it again?” He nodded at the shotgun I still carried.

  I shook my head. “If I missed, he’d be on us in a blink. Let’s get away quietly.”

  Sam and I began to move backward slowly, taking care to make as little sound as possible. The lion continued to pad around the riverbed, uninterested in the dead ostrich. My body hummed with urgency, but I resisted the instinct to flee—it would only draw the lion’s attention and anyway, it could outrun me in a heartbeat.

  When we were out of sight of the lion, we straightened and hurried faster, passing a young male kudu who fled at our approach, his spiraling horns flashing in the sun.

  When we reached the others, they all jumped up and flocked around us.

  “Is it dead?” asked Avani.