Fire & Flood (6 page)

I don’t so much sleep as drift in and out of consciousness. And when the sun finally creeps through the canopy of leaves overhead, I chalk it up as a job well done. I managed to live through a night in the jungle. How many people can say that?

My Pandora is in my arms when I wake. I rub my hands over him and stretch my legs.

“Ready to get moving, Madox?” I say.

I don’t feel ridiculous in the least speaking to my egg. I’ve gotten it in my head that if I’m nice to him, then maybe he’ll come out quicker. Or she. Or it. I wouldn’t judge. I place Madox into my bag, thinking I really like his name. Madox. I’m not sure where I got it from. Some movie or TV show, no doubt. Either
way, I like the idea of him having an actual name. I mean,
KD-8
is cool and all, but
Madox
sounds less like an alien species.

Running my tongue over my teeth, I cringe. What I wouldn’t give for a toothbrush and a shower … and a turn-of-the-century toilet. Turns out I never properly appreciated the awesomeness that is toilet paper. Next time my mom asks me to pick up a jumbo pack at the store, I will hold my head high.

“I think if we only stop once to rest,” I continue, “we might make it to the jungle’s perimeter by nightfall.” I have no idea if this is accurate, but I’m trying to make Madox feel better. As if he understands. “Want me to sing to you again?” I pause and imagine him/her/it skipping around and nodding. “All right, already. Calm yourself.”

As I walk, I begin to repeat all the songs from last night. My clothes are still drenched from yesterday’s shower, but I’m certain they’ll dry as I move. It’s amazing how optimistic I feel this morning.
This race lasts only three months,
I reason. If I can make it one night, I can make it two. Et cetera, et cetera.

When my stomach growls, I’m not surprised. The last thing I ate was a PB&J yesterday morning. The more I think about it, the hungrier I get, until at some point, my brain is pounding against my temples.

As I’m walking from plant to plant — wondering which will kill me fastest if I consume it — I hear a muffled, snapping sound. For the last eighteen hours, I’ve heard more coinciding sounds than I could have thought possible. They never stop.

But this one is close.

I wrap my arm around Madox, mentally telling him that everything is going to be okay. It’s amazing how fast I’ve become attached to my Pandora. One night alone, and I’m more afraid of losing him than I am of starving. But I guess whoever created this race knew this is exactly what would happen.

When the sound comes again, closer, I pull Madox onto my chest and protect him with both arms.

The noise is behind me now. I whip around to face it, shaking so hard, my teeth chatter. A sharp caw rips right above my head and I glance up. When I look back down — an enormous beast is staring right at me, hunger storming in its yellow eyes.

It lowers its head, touching a pink nose to the ground. A low growl builds in its throat. The animal stalks closer, eyes locked on my face. I try to stand perfectly still, but I’m hyperventilating and it makes holding myself together extremely difficult.

As the animal moves in, its shoulder blades rise and fall like waves in an ocean. I allow myself to believe for one fraction of a second that it’s only curious. It’ll see that I’m not a threat, that I’ll give it no chase, and will tire of me and leave.

But then the beast lifts its enormous head and releases a bloodcurdling roar only the king of a jungle can.

The lion rushes toward me in an instant, and all I can think about is how I once heard that lions don’t actually live in jungles. Today, I will die at the hands of a misconception.

My legs shake as the animal closes in, his muscles rippling as he moves. There’s too little time to dream of fleeing. No chance to react, to run for my life. I close my eyes and wait for the impact. But at the last minute, I can’t help but peek. It’s the wrong move. My eyes fall on the lion’s open mouth, on the dark shadows cast by his ivory teeth.

I choke on a scream as the lion leaps.

“M-4,” I hear a deep voice bark.

The lion touches down an inch away from me and stops cold. Then he glances over his shoulder.

From out of the brush, the serial-killer guy strides toward me. He slaps his thigh once. “Now.” The lion pads toward him and stops near the guy’s leg, turning to keep both bright yellow eyes trained on me. When the guy steps closer, I notice he has a scar cut through his right eyebrow and that the bottom of his left earlobe is mangled.

He’s wearing the same brown scrubs I am, but he also has two straps across his chest that attach to bags at his hips. When I see what’s in the bags, my stomach rumbles. They are both overflowing with some kind of fruit, and I even catch the scent of raw meat. I have no idea where he found food or how he knew what was safe to eat, but I consider taking on him and the lion for just a taste.

“What are you doing here?” The guy’s voice is as sharp as it is rough, and he steps toward me when he speaks. An intimidation factor, no doubt. His shirt pulls tight against his chest, and I
realize just how easily this guy could kill me. Muscles bulge beneath the fabric, and thick veins run along his tanned, sculpted arms. I yank my eyes away from his shoulders to meet his gaze.

“What do you mean?” I clip. “I’m in the race, same as you.” The lion at his side stirs, licks his chops. “What is that thing?” I should be more afraid, but I’m still too weak from exhaustion and hunger to run, and it seems this guy has a handle on the animal. The answer hits me when I realize he’s not carrying his massive egg. His Pandora hatched. My brain stutters trying to comprehend this, that a
lion
was inside an
egg
. I glance at the animal and wonder at the possibility. He’s bigger than I ever imagined a lion would be in real life. For one small moment, I feel envy.

The guy’s got a good Pandora.

Shame fills my chest, and I absently stroke Madox’s egg inside my bag.

His eyes travel down the length of my body, and I recall that my wet scrubs still cling to my skin. His gaze finally lands on the feather in my hair, and his eyes narrow. Looking up, he jabs a finger at me. “Stay away from me.”

I plan to do just that, but when the guy turns to leave, I spot something in one of his bags. It’s electric blue cloth, and I know instantly what it is.

He’s found a flag.

“Wait.” I remember the deal I made with myself, that if I found another Contender, I’d suggest we search for base camp together. This isn’t exactly the kind of person I’d hoped to partner with, but it’s better than traveling alone.

“Wait,” I repeat, stumbling after him. “Maybe we can, you know, help each other.” The guy walks quicker, but I keep talking to his broad back. “I mean, when we get close, it’s every person for themselves, but in the meantime, why not have company?” I pause, trying to think of what skills I possess. “I can be funny.
I mean, I used to make my best friend, Hannah, laugh so hard, she’d pee. I can entertain you while we walk.”

The guy flicks his hand and the lion at his side turns on me. He throws his head back and roars so loudly, I can feel it in my bones. I see every thick tooth in his mouth, and a bolt of fear twists my stomach.

I raise my hands slowly. “Okay.”

The guy moves away and the lion trots to catch up with his owner.

I’d like to yell how sorry he’ll be, how when my Pandora hatches, he’ll beat up his Pandora. I look into my bag and smell the sour odor. It’s getting stronger, and I wonder if Madox is already gone. If he never hatches, I’ll be alone. And as much as I hate to admit it, I fear isolation worse than the jungle itself.

The guy has food, but more important, he has a flag. Maybe he already knows the way to base camp. He certainly looks like the kind of guy who treks through jungles for fun. I remember once, in my Business Basics class at Ridgeline High, my teacher got on this rant about research and development. I don’t remember the details of his spiel — I was more concerned with the text Hannah had sent me about a jewelry sale at Forever 21 — but it was something about how McDonald’s puts all this time and resources into finding the absolute perfect location for a new store. They believe if they buy the right real estate, the burgers will sell themselves. The kicker was that other burger joints just watch to see where McDonald’s puts a store, then they plop a store nearby and save themselves a boatload of cash on all that blasted research.

At the time, this story seemed pretty shady; I mean, those other stores seemed like copycats, and that’s just lame.

But now I’m standing here in a jungle in the middle of God knows where, watching a convict and his lion tramp through creepy-looking plants and all I’m thinking is:
Homeboy’s got a flag.
He’s got the right
real estate
. So maybe all I need to do is follow his ass.

And so I do.

For two days, I follow this guy … and I learn that I have no business competing in this race. Not when Green Beret is here, sniffing out berries that I assume are safe to eat, or listening for strange sounds I don’t recognize, or finding safe places to sleep I never would have seen.

To give myself credit, I don’t think the guy knows I’m following him. I’ve stayed far enough behind that the jungle masks the sound of my footsteps. I eat what he eats (which is Disgusting with a capital
D
), I drink from the streams he stops at, and I sleep when he sleeps. Each morning, I wake up to the sound of him moving about. Though he’s quiet most of the day, in the morning, he’s louder than any alarm clock I’ve ever owned.

For the most part, following him is working out all right. The problem is the guy hasn’t found any more flags, and I’m starting to wonder if maybe finding the first one was a fluke.

Night falls quickly in the jungle, which isn’t good. I hate the night, the time when I feel utterly alone, even though Green Beret is only a few yards away. Plus, it gets cooler at night, and for some reason, my skin is doing something funky that worsens in the evening. It feels and looks thinner where the brown scrubs touch my body, and a pink rash covers my chest and back. It freaks me out to no end, but I can’t tell what the issue is. I think maybe I’m allergic to walking this much.

I watch the guy find a place to rest. Last night, he slept in the trees, which I find wildly disturbing. But tonight, he pulls up plants by the fistful and lays bark and twigs onto the ground he cleared. Then he covers that with dead leaves. Finally, after he’s been working and inspecting the site for several minutes, he sits
down. The lion pads toward him and leans back on his haunches. The guy rubs the lion under his chin, and a warm, rich purr erupts from the animal’s throat. A small ache twists through my chest. I’d do almost anything for that kind of companionship right now.

It fascinates me, watching this guy and his Pandora. I still haven’t gotten over the fact that we’re in this race and that we have these animals to help us through. Thinking about the other Contenders, I wonder if their Pandoras have hatched, too.

Am I the only one left with an egg?

I try not to think about it as I watch the guy move around, finding a comfortable position to sleep. He’s extremely tall — well over six feet — and it seems every inch of his frame is covered in muscle. I knew guys like him in school. The ones who spent every waking hour pumping iron so they could stare at their sweaty masses in the mirror. I do wonder about his disfigured ear, though, and the scar over his eye. And I wonder about other things, too: the way he circles his makeshift beds like the lion beside him, or the way he rubs his left elbow when he’s thinking. And, good Lord, how many times does one person need to crack his knuckles in a day? Only the knuckles over four fingers, though, never the thumb.

Crack your damn thumb,
I think every time he does it.
You’re forgetting your thumb!

Watching him has been my entertainment for over thirty-six hours, a distraction from a cruel realization — my Pandora may never hatch. At times, I imagine him seeing me in the distance and welcoming my company, but I know that won’t happen — not with this one.

The dark, shadowed jungle of the day has morphed into the black hue of night, so I don’t see any harm in inching closer. Last night, I slept as far away as I could while still keeping him in my
line of sight. Tonight, I can’t bear to be more than a few feet away. He may hear me, but with this cloak of darkness, he’ll never see me.

Folding my arms around my knees, I close my eyes. Inside my head, I’m back home in Boston, sitting in front of the TV with a bowl of kettle corn. My dad is talking football with Cody, and my mom is harping on us to come to the table … and for me to lay off the popcorn before dinner. I picture us sitting down to my dad’s meat loaf, the kind with the red gravy. Cody will make a remark about Brad Carter sucking face with a new girl, and I’ll sock him in the arm. Mom will get mad. Dad will laugh.

Before I can stop myself, I start to hum to Madox. It’s the tune to my mom’s bedside song — our sicky song. I hum for several seconds until I hear a cracking sound. When I open my eyes, I spot Green Beret staring in my direction.

Crap!

Oh well. It’s not like he can see me. It’s too dark. But then he stands up and steps closer. I hold my breath, willing him to look away. He lifts his chin and leans toward where I’m sitting. Shaking his head, he runs his hands through his dark hair. Then he lets out a long sigh that says in no uncertain terms that he’s wildly irritated.

I’m not sure whether it’s his bed made of sticks that has him pissed, or if he’s spotted me. I lock my muscles in place and pretend I’m a lifeless stump. Nothing to see here, folks. He looks in my direction for a long time, then turns to his Pandora.

“M-4,” he says. His voice startles me. He hasn’t said a single word in the two days I’ve followed him. It’s amazing really, because I’ve got a novel’s worth of backlogged dialogue waiting in my head. My ears strain to figure out what’s going on, but I think I hear him tap the ground twice. It’s so dark, I lean forward to try to see what’s happening.

Then light springs forward from the lion’s mouth.

What the —? I gasp when I realize. The lion breathed fire. My skin buzzes from what I just witnessed. Maybe I’m hallucinating? But even from here, I can feel the warmth of the flames. Before I can comprehend how this guy’s Pandora — M-4 — created fire, the guy packs up his two bags, hooks them across his chest, and motions for M-4 to follow him. He’s leaving his campsite, I realize. He’s almost out of sight when I see him turn and look in my direction. His face is stone, his eyes hard as iron. He steals a glance toward the fire, then turns to go.

For several minutes, I wait, watching the fire. I’m afraid the fire will consume everything, but it doesn’t spread. The surrounding wood is too damp to catch, I guess. Everything here is always damp, including me. My clothes never dried from the rain two days ago. I slowly realize why the rash is spreading across my skin.

I haven’t been completely dry in days.

The air is too muggy here, and there’s hardly any sunlight below the canopy overhead. Once it rains, the moisture stays. I’m afraid if I don’t dry my clothes now, I may never get another chance. I wait a bit longer, then creep toward the fire. When I don’t see the guy or his Pandora, I sit down on the twig pallet and pull off my boots. My feet are wrinkled and swollen and covered in red patches. The rash has spread. I tug off my shirt and pants, and dry everything by the dancing flame. Then I curl into a ball, my Pandora pulled closed to my stomach, and I sleep.