The Last Hunter - Collected Edition (10 page)

14

Three days have passed. At least I think it’s been three days. Feels like it anyway. But there really is no time down here. And my watch is missing, so I have no way to measure time other than to count it out in my head. But that kind of concentration is impossible with my stomach growling. That’s too mild a word. It feels like a rabid hamster with razor claws is loose in my gut. I’m being eaten alive from the inside out. My already skinny frame has lost several pounds.

But that’s not the worst of it. People can go without food for a good number of days, but not water. Three days is the max. I’m still alive because I haven’t sweated, I haven’t moved much at all. I considered drinking my own urine—it
is
sterile—but couldn’t bring myself to do it. I now regret that decision. My lips are starting to crack. My tongue is swollen and I feel a relentless fatigue.

I’m never going to get out of here.

Even if I were healthy, I couldn’t escape.

I checked all the walls; they’re fifteen feet tall all around. There are a few crevices and centimeter deep ledges that I’m sure a rock climber could use to scale toward freedom. But I’m a thirteen-year-old bookworm. I have trouble climbing the staircase at the Bunker Hill Monument in Boston. At my best I would be trapped here, and I’m currently at my worst, or quickly nearing it.

For a moment, I wish Justin were here with me. He’s the consummate preteen boy. MVP of the soccer team I quit. Manages trees like a monkey. I’m sure his ancestors were successful hunter-gatherers. Sure, my ancestors might have discovered fire or invented the wheel, but in a pit of doom I’d take his lineage any day. He’d have climbed out of this pit before the egg monster emerged from the shadows.

And I am seeing shadows now. Over the past three days my eyes have adjusted to the darkness more than I thought possible. I can see the walls of the pit around me, lit by the crystals. It’s still not quite enough to read by—not that I have a book—but seeing provides at least some comfort.

Thinking of Justin makes me homesick. I’m sure my parents are still searching for me. I’m sure Dr. Clark has told them about my inability to feel cold here. They still have hope. But I’m so far away.

Of course, this cavern could be only ten feet below Clark Station Two. It’s impossible to tell, but I feel a distance from the world that I can’t explain. I’m trapped in a dream. Or on another planet. Beyond reach.

In my heart I know it’s true. At the very least I’m out of earshot. I screamed my voice raw earlier. I don’t know if my throat has healed yet. I haven’t tried speaking. There’s no one to talk to, and I’m determined not to go mad talking to myself. What would a crazy person do down here? There are no pigeons to feed.

A smell tickles my nose.

The hamster in my stomach runs circles.

I smell meat. Cooking meat.

I don’t recognize it, but I would eat it. I would devour it.

I stand, fighting the ache in my legs, and smell the air. It’s divine. I wait there and count out ten minutes, hoping my captor doesn’t want me to die.
He’ll bring me food
, I tell myself.
He needs me for something
.
He wants me to survive
.

On my own
.

The thought is mine, but I fight against it. There is no arguing, though. He wants me to survive. To escape, even. But without help. This is some kind of test. Like when I met Justin. After his mother escorted him to my backyard and asked if I would play with him, I brought him to a neighbor’s yard and had him scale a fifteen foot hunk of granite. I couldn’t do it myself, but he didn’t know that. I was in awe when he did it. And he was in awe at what I could do with LEGOs. It was a simple test: complete this task and we will be friends. Could this be something similar?

The hamster is in a rage. “Eat!” it shouts from within.

“Eat what?” I say aloud.

My voice is apparently healed.

As I spin around, looking for a meal that isn’t there, I see the limp silhouette of the egg-monster.

No
, I think, but my legs are already carrying me toward it.

Before I see the thing, I smell it. The odor of decomposition turns my stomach, gagging the hamster momentarily. But then it returns, stronger then ever.

I reach out for the beast, regardless. Its flesh is rubbery and rough. I push, mouth watering with the expectation of feeling firm, potentially edible muscle. But the body gives like a water balloon. I wonder if its insides have liquefied, decomposing fully within itself in just three days. I confirm this theory when I push on the skin, and a thick black gel oozes from the wound I created. The substance slides slowly and then slips free, falling onto the back of my hand.

I yank back from it, disgusted. The smell hits me again, but this time it’s not the body that stinks—I’ve backed ten feet away—it’s my hand that reeks. I shake it, flinging the rotten jelly to the floor, coating stone and old bone alike. But I can’t remove it all. I take off my shirt, wipe my hand clean and wind up to throw the shirt to the top of the fifteen foot wall.

As the shirt flies away from me, I think better of discarding it and pinch the fabric just in time. I hold it out away from me and then discard it on the opposite end of the pit.

When I’m done, I’m struck by the fact that I’m back to square one.

The hamster is picking up speed.

The odor of cooking meat grows stronger.

Weakness washes over me.

But then something new joins the chorus of discomfort. A sound.

In all my time here, the only thing I’ve heard is myself. My breathing. My voice. My movements. Other than that, this place is more silent than anything I’ve ever experienced. So the wet slurp I hear now strikes my ears like a gunshot.

I spin, looking for the source, and find nothing. There is nothing around me, in the pit or atop the wall. The floor is stone.

Up
, my subconscious whispers.
Look up.

I have yet to see the ceiling of the cave. It is the one place that remains concealed by absolute darkness. But now something descends from above. It reminds me of an oversized drop of honey, pushed slowly from the bottle and stretching out. A giant teardrop.

But this does not look sweet. Slime drips from its sides. I can’t see its true color, but my imagination colors it mucus green. And it’s wriggling. From the inside. As it dangles just above the floor, I step closer.

Something moves within. I see the shape first, bulbous and stubby. Through the translucent skin I see distorted details—mottled flesh, a wide, sickly grinning mouth and closed eyes.

The two large eyes snap open. Black circles stare back at me. Only a foot of open space and a lettuce-thin sack separate the newly birthed egg-monster and me. It sees this just as easily as I do, and like me, it is hungry.

Its stubby arms claw at the sack, tearing it with small, but sharp claws. It’s like a giant sized clone of the hamster in my stomach.

That’s not entirely true. The hamster is on my side. And it, too, is clawing to get out.

As I turn and run, I know this fight will be different. The outcome may change. I may lose my life. But this time...this time we won’t just be trying to kill each other, we’ll be trying to eat each other.

I pick up my tooth-filled jawbone and spin around, facing the creature as it emerges from its womb.

15

My first mistake is assuming that this creature will act and react like the first. It doesn’t. While the first egg-monster charged like a bull, this one is intent on dizzying me. It runs in frantic circles, spiraling slowly toward me with each lap. A thick glob of drool stretches from its open, dagger-filled mouth. I’m positive it will switch directions at any moment, and by the time it does, I’ll probably be on the floor watching the room spin.

My second mistake is over-estimating my own abilities. The thing has been sprinting madly for only thirty seconds, but the jaw-saw (that’s what I’m calling my weapon) already feels heavy in my hand. My heart pounds from exertion and fear. I stumble around on weak legs, tracking its run.

I can’t keep it up. I’ve got maybe a minute of energy left. Probably less before I succumb to dizziness.

So I stop and catch my breath.

This seems to confuse the creature. Its next two circles maintain a ten foot radius.

I watch it run as my dizziness ebbs. Its stubby legs are ridiculous. To say the egg-monster is running isn’t accurate. Bobble’s the word. The ten-inch legs, which end in small two-digit feet, have no knees. Each step brings the leg out and around. Like I said, ridiculous.

Then it’s moving closer again. Only now I know exactly where it’s going to strike. I think I’ve got it outsmarted, and perhaps I did at one point, but I’ve already repeated mistake number two.

It lunges from behind, as expected, and I spin to greet it, raising the jaw-saw and swinging. But the weapon is heavy and my movement is at half speed. Rather than striking the beast with a row of razor sharp teeth, I biff it dully with my forearms.

My only consolation is that the movement saved my life. Rather than ending up inside the gaping shark-like jaws, it sideswipes me and sends me sprawling. The rough skin of the creature rubs against my arms as it passes, sheering off a few layers of my skin. But I hardly notice the burn. There is no time to consider it. The creature is arcing into another spiraling sprint.

I regain my feet, holding my weapon in both hands. It’s going to wear me down. Just standing now is a challenge.

Then it occurs to me that even though this creature has a different plan of attack than the first, it may be equally dull.
It will try the same thing again
. I’m sure of it. It will run circles, close in and then pounce from behind. Probably from the same optimal distance. Not that any of that will help me. I still won’t be able to spin and strike.

So I’ll just have to stop it before it gets that far.

I judge the distance between us.

Five rotations left.

I grip the jaw-saw like a baseball bat. I haven’t played since T-ball, but I remember the basics. Eye on the ball. Step into the swing. Follow through.

When it begins its fifth and final revolution, it passes within range. I shout, step forward and swing with all my remaining strength, which isn’t much, but I’m swinging into its run. Its own momentum should inflict most of the damage, I just need to get the jaw-saw there.

The blow is solid and sends a tingle up my arms. The jaw-saw is yanked from my hand. I turn to watch it go, hoping to see its teeth buried inside the beast. But they’re not. The egg-monster’s jaws have clamped down on my weapon.

The thing stops and gives the object in its mouth a few playful tosses, like a dog with a dead mouse, positioning my weapon across its own jaws. It turns to me, its black spherical eyes somehow conveying humor. Then it bites down. The jaw-saw shatters into three fragments. The two on the sides of its mouth spin away onto the bone littered floor. A giant black tongue pushes the third piece from its mouth, then works at the tiny fragments encased in its drool.

One bite
, I think.
That’s all it will take. One bite and I’m lunch.

I back away, but don’t watch my step. A bone trips me and sends me to the floor. As I scramble away on my hands and feet, the thing rises taller. Seeing me on my back triggers something in the creature. It knows I’m defenseless.

Flinging its short, straight legs into motion, the thing charges. Now it’s acting like its sibling. But it’s faster. More ferocious. It occurs to me, as the thing bears down on me, that the first egg-monster I faced had already been in the pit for who knows how long. It was already weakened. I think this one could fight all day without stopping.

Not that it will have to. The fight will be over in ten seconds—the time it will take it to reach me.

I reach out with my hands, searching for something with which to defend myself. My right hand grasps a long bone. I pull it out. It’s a human femur. I nearly drop it in disgust, but manage to hold onto it and thrust it out, hoping to channel Luke Skywalker’s Rancor-stopping technique.

In a flash I see the bone I’m holding enter the creature’s open maw. Then the jaws close. My eyes close, too, so I don’t see what happens next. But I hear it. And then feel it. A crunch and slurp of splitting flesh strikes my ears a moment before an intense pain jolts up my arm.

I scream as I’m struck and lifted. A moment later the back of my body and head strikes the solid wall of the pit. Spots of light dance in my vision for a moment and then fade. I wait for a second strike, for teeth to surround and sever my head.

But the attack has stopped. The pressure holding me against the wall is steady. The egg-monster has stopped moving. And then I see why.

The broken bone I jabbed into the creature’s mouth ended with a jagged, sharp tip. The creature’s own powerful jaws had shoved the bone up through its head and out its forehead. I can only assume it pierced whatever passed for a brain in the process.

But before it died, the beast’s jaws did their work, closing just enough to grip my arm in a death-vise. It could be worse. The bite could have easily severed the limb. The four quarter-inch-deep puncture wounds are insignificant by comparison. Of course, there is still the issue of freeing my arm from the jaws without filleting my skin.

The creature is heavy and hard to push, but it’s still on its feet, and once propped up, begins to fall backward, which is extremely painful for me since my arm is still clutched in its jaws. I move with it, hopping up onto its body, straddling it just below the lower jaw. The movement deepens the wounds and sends a fresh wash of pain through my body. I grunt, which sounds more like a primitive growl, and steady myself above the creature.

Its black eyes have fogged over. The black tongue dangles from the side of its partially opened mouth. My blood seeps over the gleaming white teeth and drips into the thing’s throat. For a moment I fear it will awaken and finish the job, but then I look again at the large bone sticking out of its head.

“You’re dead,” I tell it.

But it doesn’t reply.

“I’m going crazy,” I say. “But you? You’re dead.”

I plant my right foot against its upper jaw and push down. For a moment it doesn’t budge, but then slowly, the jaws separate. I was hoping the mouth would simply snap open and get the painful part over with, but no such luck. I can feel the teeth sliding slowly out of my flesh. A warm pulse of blood pours out. A snag and pull of serrated tooth on sinew follows, along with a stab of pain. The thirty seconds it takes to free my arm feels like thirty minutes.

But then I’m free and standing over the monster like Hercules himself. Wounded, but alive.

I stand still for a moment, my chest heaving with each breath.
I’m changing
, I think, and realize I have thought this before. It began when I arrived at Antarctica and I couldn’t feel the cold. My agility increased. Then my confidence. And now some hidden killer instinct has emerged. I’m not sure what this is, but it’s helping me adapt, physically and emotionally, to this harsh new life. So I’m thankful for it.

I look at my wounds. There are four of them. Assessments run through my mind: stitches, antibiotics, apply pressure. But I ignore them. Something else has my attention. The hamster in my gut had hidden while I was fighting for my life, but now that the deed is done and I’m still breathing, it’s back with a vengeance.

For a moment I consider finding the shirt I discarded and tying some clean strips around the wound, but now something else distracts me from the injury: a fragment of jaw-saw still holding three teeth. I move back to the carcass and kneel by one of the muscle-filled stubby legs.

My first cut is tentative.

The second goes deep.

By the third I’m lost in my hunger and sawing away.

Moments later, I’m eating.

I’m surviving.

For now. I have no idea what comes next.