Kalahari

by Jessica Khoury

  Hurry, Joey, hurry!

  Joey couldn’t see the mercenary from where he was, but if they both held to their current paths, they’d inevitably bump right into each other—an encounter that would only end badly for Joey. Sam also saw it, and too late I realized what he intended to do.

  “Hey!” he yelled, suddenly jumping out from cover and waving his arms like a maniac.

  I don’t know what Sam was expecting, but what he got was a spray of bullets that poked holes through the tents all around him. I tried to call out in warning—as if he wasn’t aware of the torrent of gunfire—but it only came out as a strangled moan.

  Sam fell backward through one of the tent openings, and for a moment I thought he’d been shot. I pulled back, ducking before the mercenary could see me, but not before I saw Joey open the door of the third Land Rover. With his concentration focused on Sam, the gunman didn’t notice. Instead, he advanced toward the tent Sam had toppled into.

  Still there was no sign of Abramo, which worried me.

  I forced myself to my feet and found, to my surprise, that I was recovering more quickly than I’d thought. I still ached all over and my chest screamed with red pain, but I had control of my senses and my limbs.

  There was a scuffle inside the tent. I heard shots, then a clatter, and the canvas walls shook and bowed outward as someone fell against it. The tent flap opened and Sam stumbled out, hotly pursued by the mercenary, who was calling to his fellows for help.

  Sam tripped and fell, rolling over just in time to raise his hands in a mercy plea. From the look of the guy’s face, I wasn’t at all sure he would get a favorable response.

  So I drew a deep breath and took a wobbly step into the open.

  “Don’t you dare,” I said. “Don’t you dare touch him.”

  “Sarah! No!” Sam yelled, but I knew what I was doing. At least, I hoped I did.

  The man’s rifle came up and he shot a single bullet at me. I was already throwing up my hands in involuntary if feeble self-defense. What happened next I could neither believe nor fully explain.

  The bullet melted into my palm, striking the heel of my thumb on my left hand. This I registered with my eyes more than anything else; I barely felt it until a moment later, when the pain racketed up my arm and jarred my skull, driving me back two stumbling steps. But that first split second of impact was what stunned me. The bullet struck my palm but seemed to get stuck halfway into my skin. Then the flesh around it, which had been pale and pink before, flared into a spider’s web of silver veins, emanating from the bullet hole. I turned my palm toward me and watched in shock as the Metalcium formed, pushing away my skin and ejecting the bullet. The little bit of twisted, flatted metal fell and dropped into the sand. I stared from it to my newly silvered palm, then at the mercenary. He too was watching in dumb astonishment.

  Then Sam kicked savagely upward, his shoe connecting with the man’s groin, and the man collapsed with a stifled grunt of pain. He lay writhing as Sam picked up his rifle. He trained it on the other mercenaries, who had begun to turn around to see what the commotion was.

  By now, Joey had gotten Avani, Miranda, and Kase into the Land Rover and was attempting to start it. Two mercenaries noticed and headed toward the vehicle. To distract them, Sam leaned around the corner of the tent and shot off a few rounds in their direction, making them wheel and scramble for cover. I strained to get a glimpse of my dad, telling myself that if they were still firing at him, he had to be alive. Somehow I had to get to him, before it was too late.

  “Get over here!” Sam yelled to Joey.

  “I can’t!” Joey shouted. “It’s stick shift!”

  “Oh, for crying out loud,” I muttered. “Press the clutch!”

  “What’s a clutch?”

  “Move over!” Avani suddenly commanded. Joey slid sideways and she climbed over him to take the wheel. The engine roared to life and the car started forward, stopped, and started forward again with all the elegance of a three-legged hippo trying to run. Avani seemed to be struggling with the gears.

  Her eyes suddenly lifted and fixed on something ahead, and she yelled at the others in the car. Heart sinking, I turned to see what had frightened her—and realized where Abramo had gone.

  The Corpus helicopter, bristling with mercenaries and piloted by Abramo, had lifted into the sky and was swiftly bearing down on us all.

  THIRTY

  Sarah!” Sam yelled. He took me carefully by the elbow and pulled me toward the Land Rover. “Let’s go.”

  “We can’t outrun a chopper.”

  He stopped just long enough to spare me a madcap grin. “Is that a dare, Sarah Carmichael?”

  Avani brought the Land Rover to a rough stop beside us. Everyone inside yelled at us to hurry, and hurry we did. Kase opened the door and offered me a hand, and Miranda and I simultaneously snapped at him to take it back. He did so, looking a bit pale and rubbing his hand on his shirt as if I had touched it. Sam lifted me up with surprising ease. Once he had a foot on the bar below the door, he told Avani to go.

  Sam jumped in, shut the door, and dropped into the seat beside me. Kase gave us a healthy amount of space to ourselves, scrunching up to Miranda against the other door.

  “I don’t think I can drive this after all!” Avani called. “Sarah, can you take over?”

  Gritting my teeth, I maneuvered into the driver’s seat while Avani slid into the passenger seat, which meant she ended up in Joey’s lap, leaving a dopey grin on Joey’s face. Everyone was careful to avoid my touch. Once I had my hands on the wheel, I drew a deep breath and told myself I could do this. Never mind that I was infected with a lethal metallic parasite. Never mind that I’d been shot twice today. Somehow I managed to shovel all this aside and floor the gas.

  “Gotta pick up Dad,” I said. No one objected.

  Sam pointed to a low-spreading Terminalia. “Behind that tree!”

  “Guys,” said Miranda, “I found this—”

  “Everyone duck!” I yelled, cutting her off, my eyes fixed on the rearview mirror.

  They all did, sliding onto the floor as the remaining six mercenaries on foot and Abramo and his buddies in the chopper opened fire on us. The glass in the back window shattered, and then the front windshield went. Avani shrieked as glass shards rained down on her.

  I drove doggedly on, ignoring all obstacles in our path. As a result, the car bounced wildly as we crashed over termite mounds and shrubbery. At the same time, I turned the wheel sharply in all directions, trying to bob and weave to avoid as many bullets as possible. I sank down in my seat in an effort to shield myself from the gunfire, so I could barely see where I was going.

  I drove in a circle around the outside of the camp, headed toward my dad. Keeping their gunfire on both Dad and us, the mercenaries moved to intercept me. I simply drove faster. Those who dared get in front of the Land Rover were forced to throw themselves aside or be run over. Their shots went wide for the most part, since we were moving too quickly to give them a chance to aim, but a few lucky bullets shattered the windows. Glass rained onto my lap and shoulders.

  When I reached the trees sheltering Dad, I slowed just enough for Kase to throw open the door. “Dad! Get in!”

  He was crouched between two gnarled roots, the trees around him gouged with bullets. As he hobbled to the car, I realized he was clutching his side—his hand covered in blood.

  “He’s hurt!” I yelled. “Help him!”

  Kase and Sam took Dad’s rifle and pulled him into the car He looked terrible. His clothes were dirty and torn, his hair untied and matted, and he had a week’s growth of beard hanging shaggily from his jaw.

  “Go, Sarah!” he yelled. “Now!”

  “You’ve been shot!” I returned.

  “We’ll all get shot if you don’t drive!” He winced and shut his eyes, pressing his head against the back of my seat.
/>   Heart pounding with fear and worry for him, I hit the gas. “Where have you been?”

  “Where have I been? Trying to find you! I’ve been tracking you kids for—” He cut off with a hiss of pain, his hand gripping the side of my seat and leaving bloody streaks on the leather.

  The gunfire ceased. A glance in the rearview mirror revealed that the mercenaries were loading into the other two vehicles to give chase, but what worried me more was the helicopter.

  We were driving straight toward it, and I spun the wheel, turning us to the right. We moved in a cloud of dust that made it hard to see much of anything, so it was more dumb luck than my driving abilities that prevented us from crashing into a tree.

  Everyone behind me was chorusing, “Faster! Faster!” which I ignored with clenched teeth. I was going as fast as possible, but we were in the middle of the bush and I didn’t want to risk crashing or stalling. Every bump we hit made my dad gasp with pain.

  “Chopper on our tail!” Kase reported.

  Joey began whooping and laughing like a maniac, yelling, “Yippee-ki-yay, suckers!” to which Avani responded with a sharp pinch to his arm.

  “Shut up, idiot! She’s trying to concentrate.”

  “Are they firing at us?” I asked.

  “Not yet,” said Kase. “No, wait, they’re opening their doors. Aaaaand . . . yeah. Those are guns. Really big ones.”

  “Guys,” Miranda said again. “I really did find something—”

  But at that moment we hit a massive termite mound head-on. We were all thrown violently forward. My head clacked against the steering wheel and I saw stars. I hurriedly reversed, then maneuvered around it.

  “They’re shooting!” Kase warned.

  I cursed and began weaving again, my eyes working frantically as I tried to find the best route, aiming for the more open areas. But a strange thing was happening: Every time I blinked, my vision stayed dark for a brief moment, taking time to clear, as if there were a delay between my eyes and my brain. The corners of my thoughts were getting fuzzy. For a moment, I entirely forgot where we were and what I was doing. My heart fluttered in panic, and I didn’t realize I was starting to hyperventilate until Avani asked me what was wrong.

  I could almost see the Metalcium creeping over my skin, devouring my hands, my arms. My body was itching from head to toe. It felt like hundreds of tiny spiders scuttling beneath my clothes, biting me repeatedly.

  The chopper didn’t open fire right away. Instead, it passed over us and then dropped lower and lower until it was hovering directly in our path. When I tried to turn aside, it simply swooped to block me again.

  “Can I reverse?” I asked Kase.

  “No! The other cars are behind us.”

  I cursed again. We were trapped between the chopper and the mercenaries. Seeing this, the chopper set down, its rotors still whipping. I slowed, knowing we had just seconds to devise a plan. I turned in my seat.

  “Dad?”

  He lifted his head, his eyes bloodshot and his face creased with pain. “If they catch us, they will kill us,” he said calmly. “We have nothing to lose.”

  I nodded. His words lifted some of the panic, replacing them with a strange calming recklessness. Nothing to lose.

  Drawing a deep breath, I faced the chopper, steeling my will.

  “Okay,” I said. “Okay.”

  “Okay what?” asked Avani, with no small amount of alarm.

  “Let’s do this.”

  “Do what?”

  I yanked the stick into third gear, alternating stomping the clutch and the gas, and the Land Rover responded like a racehorse let out of the gate. It roared forward, devouring the distance between us and the chopper.

  “You’re playing chicken with it?” Kase yelped from the back.

  “Nothing to lose!” I replied, then realized I was laughing like a lunatic. “Might want to put on your seat belts.”

  “We’re going to die!”

  Maybe. But maybe was at least better than definitely.

  Faster and faster we moved. The vehicle rattled like a space shuttle leaving orbit. It bounced and creaked and threw us every which way as it vaulted over holes and bumps. At one point, I think we were entirely airborne.

  The faces of Abramo and his men came into view, looking shocked and talking frantically.

  They would have to pull up. But they just sat there, the rotors whipping up a whirlwind of dust. I gritted my teeth and held the course in a kamikaze mania.

  There is a bird in the Kalahari called the korhaan, which attracts females by flying straight up into the air, then tucking its wings to its sides and tipping beak down to dive-bomb the earth. It has to spread its wings at the last possible second or else smash into the ground—and they don’t always succeed. I felt exactly like that korhaan.

  The question here, though, was whether the chopper would fly, or if I’d kill us all.

  At the last moment, the helicopter lifted just far enough for us to pass under it. The car erupted in cheers, which I thought was rather premature considering we were nowhere near safe yet. But I allowed myself one tight smile of triumph.

  “Guys,” said Miranda. “Will you just look at the thing I found under the seat?”

  “What is it?” Avani asked in exasperation.

  I glanced in the mirror and saw the object in Miranda’s hand. “Dad! It’s a radio!”

  He turned around and took the device. “This is brilliant, mates!” I could tell his tight grin was masking the agony of his wound, and I watched his reflection with mounting apprehension.

  “Mir, you’re brilliant,” said Kase. He kissed her unreservedly, and they tumbled down, disappearing behind the backseat.

  “Can you pick up anything?” I asked Dad.

  He fiddled with the channels, raising a lot of static. “Nothing yet, but I’ll find it.”

  “How do you feel? Are you okay? You—”

  “Don’t worry about me! Just keep us moving, kiddo.”

  That was easier said than done. The chopper kept trying to get around us, and every time they did I changed course before they could cut us off again. The other vehicles were having just as hard a time navigating the bush, so they worried me a bit less. What concerned me most was myself. My sight kept blurring and my head was pounding. Was it dehydration, fatigue, or Metalcium? Likely all three. I didn’t know how much longer I could keep this up.

  Through all of this chaos, I was trying to head more or less in the right direction. It was a bit like aiming a rock at a target while blindfolded, but I had to try. If I was going to be cured, then we had to reach Dr. Monaghan’s laboratory. I figured we had about one in a hundred chances of actually finding it again. I looked over my shoulder at Dad. He knew the area better than I did; he might be able to point us the right way.

  “Dad, there’s this lab. We have to . . .”

  But my eyes suddenly went out of focus, his face blurring. I blinked, trying to clear my vision, but still it was like trying to look through a glass of water. Everything was distorted and seemed to be slipping away, dragging downward and sideways so that I couldn’t be sure what I was looking at.

  Someone said my name, their voice coming to me as if from a vast distance. I tried to answer. If I did, I couldn’t tell.

  Have to tell them.

  Have to tell them what?

  The cure.

  “The lab,” I whispered. “We have to go back to the lab. I know the cure.”

  “What is it?” someone asked.

  I couldn’t find my tongue to answer.

  “What’s wrong with her?” I heard Dad ask.

  “She’s infected!” said Sam.

  Dad swore, his voice fuzzy and distant. Everything was slipping—my vision, my hearing, my thoughts. I was standing on the side of a sand dune, the ground continually giving awa
y beneath my feet. The metal, I thought vaguely. It’s the metal that’s doing this. Eating me from the outside in.

  My stomach lurched sideways, as if I were falling, and I heard a dim chorus of shouting. Then I felt hands dragging me by my arms. Someone repeating my name, soft as a butterfly landing, lifting and fluttering, landing again. Dismay flooded me, so deep and greedy that it was like drowning in sand. I knew something was wrong but I couldn’t reason what it was.

  Silver butterflies. They swam in my mind. Silver butterflies, silver lions, a whole silver menagerie. The silver face of a man, half-flesh, half-metal, his cheeks melting from his bones like hot wax, his hollow silver eyes gaping at me. Silver people reaching out of the darkness, moaning and keening. I cried out and clawed savagely at them, heard a soft exclamation. Someone grabbed my wrists and held them tight.

  For a moment I surfaced, my eyes settling blearily on Sam’s face. His lips moved. I didn’t hear what he said. I am going crazy, I thought. Then I slipped back under.

  Dr. Monaghan’s face leered at me, dripping with dead skin, his eyes blank and silver. It starts with the skin and hair, he laughed, and then it goes for the brain.

  In and out of insanity I drifted. That hellish ride seemed to last for an eternity. I saw my own hands, both of them entirely silver, but I didn’t know if it was real or not. I saw Dr. Monaghan’s melting, metallic face. It haunted me whenever I closed my eyes. I saw the three silver scientists falling under gunfire. Voices mingled and warped, the words eluding me. At times I could hear nothing at all, and at others I heard too much: chattering voices, the rumbling engine, static and a heavy thumping drumbeat. Through all of it I was aware of his arms holding me, keeping my hands from scratching at his face or mine. Because the urge was there, whenever the Metalcium gripped my mind. I had to fight, had to claw my way free. I was seized with a feral desire to escape, to run, to hurt, to maim, to break free of this madness.

  I didn’t even realize we’d stopped until Dad and Sam lifted me out of the car. Dad carried me in his arms as if I were a baby and we rushed over the ground. He stumbled once, nearly dropping me, his arms trembling, and I wondered how he could even stand with his wound. I bounced and my teeth chattered. There was something important, something I had to say. . . . Don’t touch. Don’t scratch. The words wouldn’t form. My voice was a sticky glob in my throat, choking me. He held me cradled against his chest, and I stared in dismay at where one of his hands wrapped over my bare arm. No, please, not you too . . . Don’t touch, don’t scratch. . . .