Jase & the Deadliest Hunt (11 page)

YOU OPEN THE ROUND ORANGE DISH
in front of you. Smoke rises from the top of it, but you can tell the smoke is cold
 
—maybe it’s actually mist. And whatever’s inside is covered with a cloth.

“Chilled Chihuahua,” the count says. “Quite the treat in these parts of the world.”

You swallow hard and hope you didn’t actually hear what you thought the count said. “Chilled
Chihuahua
? As in the dog Chihuahua?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What part of the world thinks that eating a tiny dog is a good thing?”

“Have you ever eaten a burrito in a big city late at night?”

You shake your head, then glance at Willie.

“Yeah, he does have a point,” Willie says.

“What?” Cole exclaims.

The count goes on. “It’s chilled so you may fully taste the delicacy of the brain.”

You jerk back from the dish. “Wait a minute
 
—this is dog brain?” You’ve eaten what some might consider unusual food before, but nothing like this.
Where are the PETA police when you need them?

“Yes, chilled Chihuahua,” the count repeats in a matter-of-fact way.

When you get up the nerve to actually remove the cloth and see what’s in the container, you have to search. It takes you a minute to locate the small item.

“This looks like an M&M.”

“Have you ever seen a Chihuahua?” he asks.

“Well, yeah, of course.”

“They’re not very smart, you know.”

Everyone is watching to see what you’ll do. It takes everything you have to put the spoon in your mouth. And a funny thing happens when you do.

It’s not
that
bad.

You swallow and shrug as the others wait for your reaction.

“What’s it taste like?” John Luke asks.

You’re still trying to figure out how to describe it.

“Well, you know those little hot dogs in SpaghettiOs? It’s kind of like them. The flavor, texture, everything.”

“Ew,” Willie says.

“No, they’re actually pretty good. Got any more in there?”

Go here
.

THE WEIRDEST THING HAPPENS.
You feel like you just dropped in here from another world. No, make that another life. And in that life, you were Willie. Talking about nothing like he usually does and acting crazy.

You touch your face to make sure the confusion is over. Feels familiar.

Okay. I’m Jase, not Willie.

Still, this is strange. You were in the middle of some kind of wild story, and now . . .

What am I doing here? Oh yeah, that’s right. Hunting in a cave on a mysterious island . . . for some kind of dangerous creature.

Cole, John Luke, and Willie are in here with you. You guys seem to be lost, and if you are, you know who’s to blame.

“I swear we’ve already come this way,” Willie says.

Yep, sure enough.

It’s cold, and your footsteps echo through the cavern. You have a rifle slung over your shoulder, your flashlight illuminating the way. Everybody’s walking around and making more noise than hunters should. It’s like all of you doubt you’ll find anything in here.

“I’m getting kinda hungry,” you say as the passage begins to slope downward. “Hey, Cole, you hungry?”

You glance over your shoulder but don’t see anything. Then you shine your flashlight behind you and see nothing but rock.

“Cole?”

“What’s up?” Willie asks, a few paces ahead of you. “Hey, John Luke, stop for a minute.”

“Cole was right there. Right behind me. Hey, Cole!”

But you hear and see nothing. Worry sets in. “He must’ve accidentally gone the wrong direction.” You wave your flashlight frantically.

“How’d he do that? Wouldn’t he just call after us?”

“I don’t know. I’m gonna go look for him.”

“No,” Willie says. “We have to stay together.”

“Okay, then. Come on.” You double-time back the way you came without waiting to see if Willie and John Luke catch up.

You want to walk faster but have to be careful since the ground is so uneven. You’re still calling Cole’s name and hearing no response when you arrive at a three-way intersection.

“Didn’t we come from the left?”

“I thought we came from the center,” Willie says.

“No, didn’t we come from the right?” John Luke asks.

Oh, this is great.

You call out for Cole. And you finally get a reply.

It’s a sound, not a voice.

It’s the sound of a duck call.

“Was that
 
—?”

“Sure was,” Willie says.

“You think it’s Cole?”

“You think someone besides us is in these caves with a duck call?”

You head in the direction of the call. But a few moments later, another one sounds. This is a different duck call.

And it’s
behind
you.

“What’s going on?” Willie asks.

“Cole!”

Now you hear yet another duck call
 
—a third kind. This one is directly in front of you.

“Okay, someone’s messing with us,” you mutter under your breath, hoping only Willie and John Luke can hear you, not any terrifying cave monsters.

You take the rifle off your shoulder and cradle it in your hands. Just in case.

“Hey, Cole?” you call out. “You around here?”

One more duck call. They seem to be coming from every
direction. “If you guys weren’t hearing that, I might be a bit freaked out.”

“I hear them, but they keep changing,” Willie says. “And I don’t know where they’re coming from.”

“We need to keep heading this direction,” you say. “Shine your flashlight ahead, John Luke. It’s getting dark.”

No response from your nephew.

“Hey, John Luke, flash the
 
—”

You turn around and see only Willie standing there, his back facing you.

“What’s wrong?” Then you see what Willie’s staring at.

Nothing.

“Where’d he go?”

“I don’t know! He was literally
right
behind me. John Luke! John Luke, I swear, this isn’t funny. Don’t try to be funny now. Serious.”

But there’s no laughter coming out of the dark.

“What is this?” you say.

“Where’d he go?” Willie asks.

“You head that way
 
—”

“No. Jase. We stay together.”

“So where do you want to go?”

“John Luke! John Luke?”

You both wait for a few seconds. Then you hear the multiple duck calls going off, in unison this time.

“Someone’s totally messin’ with us.”

“If it’s the boys, they’re so gonna get it,” Willie says.

“Come on, this way. Straight ahead.”

You point the flashlight with your left hand, which also holds the barrel of the rifle. Your right hand controls the grip and trigger.

The stone spears dripping down from the ceiling suddenly look ominous to you. The light bounces off of them and gets sucked into the darkness.

“Why duck calls?” you ask.

You don’t hear anything from Willie, so you turn.

“Oh no,” you say. “No, no way.”

You aim the flashlight back where you were headed. Nothing but an empty, shadowy passageway.

“Willie! Come on. I know you’re just messin’ with me.”

There are many places someone could easily hide. But disappear?

First Cole; then John Luke; now Willie.

You sigh and shine the light everywhere you possibly can.

“Hey, guys?”

You can hear water dripping. Then you hear something else. Something behind you in the darkness.

A shuffling sound.

They are so messin’ with me.

You wait until it gets really close.

Then you spin around with both the light and the rifle aimed into the darkness.

It takes you about five seconds to understand what’s in front of you. Then it registers. This is the biggest bear head you’ve
ever
seen.

Those five seconds happen to be the last moments of your life.

Or so you think.

A shot goes off. And another. Then several more.

The bear doesn’t fall but rather darts away from you, down the passageway.

For a minute you want to chase after it. Then you look up and see John Luke and Willie standing there with . . .
Wait a minute!

That’s me.

You notice they’re all wearing different clothes than they had on earlier today. Including you. Jase Robertson. The figure you’re staring at.

“Look, you are
not
gonna believe this, so just come on out of the cave,” Jase tells you.

I’m talking to myself. Literally, and not just in my head.

As you follow them out of the cave, you see Cole, Willie, and John Luke waiting.

“You guys are alive.”

“
They
saved us,” Willie says.

“We saved ourselves,” Other Willie says.

You shake your head. You are totally lost.

“What’s going on?” you ask.

“Look
 
—we took a time machine to get here,” Other Willie explains.

“You took a
what
to get here?”
Maybe it wasn’t my imagination after all. . . .

“They took a time machine,” Regular Willie repeats. “They say it looks like an outhouse too.”

You shake your head. “No way.”

“It’s okay,” Other Jase says. “You’re always confused. Because I am too. But we saved your lives. That’s what counts.”

“The bear got away,” you tell them.

“Sure, but that means this trip is over. Don’t you want to go home?” Other Willie asks.

“With you?”

“No,” he answers. “You can’t go home with us. Then things will get messed up.”

“The world doesn’t need
two
Willies,” Other Jase says with a dramatic shiver.

You sit down on the dirt and shake your head. “I must be dreaming or something. I bet this is a dream within a dream . . . within a dream.”

“Yeah, well, try going back to the Civil War,” Other Jase mutters.

Soon enough, the doubles leave you guys alone. You wonder whether your mind will ever recover from the past few hours.

“I gotta admit,” Willie begins.

“What?”

“I’m a lot more handsome in person than I thought.”

You roll your eyes.

Sometimes Willie can make you truly speechless.

THE END

Start over.

Read “Let the Good Times Roll: A Note from John Luke Robertson.”

ONCE YOU FIND OUT
what
you’re shooting, it’s game on.

More like game over.

And you’re laughing and waiting and loving it. This is right up your alley.

You’re down by the river and nobody’s fired a shot yet. But you’ve all seen the target.

A golden duck. Not superbright gold but medium gold. A bit bigger than a mallard, with an extra-long beak for some reason.

Maybe someone painted it. Maybe Count Chocula bred this variety and fed it only his morning cereal. Who knows. It doesn’t matter one bit.

You’re gonna shoot a duck. And so far, you’ve only seen this one.

But by the time it starts to fly off and you fire away with your shotgun
 
—picked out this morning by John Luke
 
—something unfortunate happens.

The gun works a little too well.

There’s this wonderful word called
vaporization
. And that’s exactly what happens.

As you pull the trigger, forgetting this is a high-powered automatic shotgun, the duck literally vanishes into thin air.
Is that even possible?

It can’t have disappeared. Can it?

“Ewwwww,” Willie says.

You search for any part of the duck that’s left, but there’s nothing.

There’s absolutely nothing.

Willie comes over. “Uh, Jase?”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe next time don’t make it into golden fertilizer.”

“Funny.”

“Too bad John Luke had to pick the shotgun,” Willie says. “Great job there.”

“It’s a shotgun,” John Luke says. “That’s what you use for hunting ducks.”

“I wouldn’t call what Jase did hunting.”

“I shot and killed that duck even if we can’t bring back a piece of it,” you say.

“Not sure if that counts.”

“Oh, it counts,” you say.

But later, after an entire day of searching for another duck, someone else disagrees.

Speaking of counts . . .

“No. You have to produce the trophy here,” Count VanderVelde says once you’re back at the lodge.

“Everybody can confirm that I shot it,” you say.

“Yeah, he shot it all right,” Willie says. “Blasted it like a string of firecrackers.”

The count shakes his head. “I’m sorry, but in the fine print of the contract, it states
 
—”

“Not the fine print again,” you protest.

He spews some meaningless, random blah-blah-blah about the need to preserve the remains of the blah-blah-blah for evidence or proof or whatever.

“Was there only one gold duck out there?”

“No, Jase. There are more. Lots more, in fact.”

“So where’d they all go?”

“Maybe they saw your shooting spree and all decided to hide in the cave,” the count says. “Or maybe they’re here, in one of the rooms.”

You laugh, but the count doesn’t laugh back.

Oh, well, that gold duck was annoying you anyway.

When you retrieve your bag before hopping on the helicopter to fly back to Fiji, you see something in your bed. Something you thought you’d never set eyes on again.

It’s a duck. A duck the color of a king’s crown.

It’s alive, and it’s watching you as if you killed its sister. When you move, its eyes move with you.

“You better watch out, or you’re next,” you warn it right before leaving quickly. Not that you’re scared of it or anything. Of course not.

THE END

Start over.

Read “Let the Good Times Roll: A Note from John Luke Robertson.”