The Last Hunter - Collected Edition (3 page)

“Thanks a lot,” putting as much anger into my whisper as I can manage.

Justin, who is unfazed by these events, tugs open the pre-moistened bag of quick drying clay. “Just for the record, your mom is a brick house.”

I rub my socks on the rug.

“Ok, ok!” Justin says. “Just help me put this together. We have forty-five minutes to blow it up.”

I sit down next to him and look at the materials. There’s enough here to make three mediocre eruptions. All for—I look at the box—thirty bucks. There has to be a way to make sure my parents get their money’s worth out of this thing. I smile as the idea comes to me.

We finish forty
minutes later. The quick dry clay is solid and authentic looking if you ignore the embedded action figures.
Nice knowing you, Snake Eyes
. But there are a few invisible modifications. First we expanded the internal cylinder that holds the red-dyed baking soda. Instead of three small eruptions, we will now have one large one. And to make things really exciting, we sealed the top of the volcano. This eruption will be as genuine as I can make it.

We both hold syringes pilfered from a chemistry set. Each contains six ounces of vinegar. “On the count of three,” I say. “One.”

“Is this going to explode?” Justin asks.

“Two.”

“Should we wear safety goggles?” He grins before touching his sports glasses. “Oh wait.”

“Three!”

We plunge the needles into the volcano and inject the vinegar.

The bedroom door opens. “Ok, boys. Time to—”

“Mom, get back!” I shout. But a loud hiss behind me signifies it’s too late. I turn around in time to see the entire volcano, which neither I nor Justin had thought to attach to something solid, erupt—from beneath. The entire cone launches off the floor, spraying red-dyed lava as it spins in the air like one of DaVinci’s airships. The cone tilts, shoots forward, slams into the poster of Antarctica, and explodes. Red gore splashes against the poster and the wall. It reminds me of the
Greatest American Hero
episode where the voodoo loving villain splatters chicken blood on the walls.

I turn to my mother. Her white blouse is covered in red streaks. There is no humor in her eyes as she looks at Justin and says, “Your mother is on her way,” and then leaves.

“What happened to you?” I hear my father ask. He pokes his head in a moment later, eyes wide behind his glasses. “Oh...geez.”

“Sorry,” I say, eyes on the floor.

When he doesn’t reply, I look up.

He’s trying to mask a smile, but failing miserably. “You’re lucky it’s your birthday, Sol.”

“How angry do you think she is?”

“Chernobyl, at least.”

Chernobyl is bad, but nowhere near as bad as super nova. If dad is right, she’ll be over it by morning. I smile back at my father. “It flew.”

My father snickers, looking at the red stained wall. He rubs a hand through his curly black hair. “I can see that.”

The doorbell rings. “That’d be your mom,” Dad says to Justin before leading him from the room. He stops at the top of the stairs and turns back to me. “Clean yourself up and brush your teeth.”

“What about the room?” I ask.

“No amount of scrubbing is going to get that dye out of things. We’ll worry about it in the morning.” He takes one step down and pauses. “Sorry about the poster, Schwartz.”

I hear Justin say a quick, “I see your Schwartz is as big as mine,” from the foyer before opening the front door for his mother.

I look up at the poster. The circle around my birthplace is smudged, the ink running. “Yeah...”

As my mother changes and my father explains the red dye on Justin’s clothes to his mother, I enter the bathroom. Head lowered, I wash my hands and face. With water dripping from both, I reach out and take hold of a hand towel and dry myself. With the towel still over my face, I sigh. I think about my gifts. My birthday. My age. My life in general.

I sigh again.
At least tomorrow is Saturday
.

I pull the towel from my face and look in the mirror. My skin is white, like snow. My eyes are bright blue. My hair is so blond it only contains a hint of yellow. But I’ve seen all this before and it doesn’t hold my attention. That’s when I see it. Something taped to the shower door behind me. An envelope. On it, the words, “Happy Birthday”, have been written backwards so I can read them in the mirror.

The envelope is in my hand a moment later. I tear into it. My eyes catch sight of what’s inside. I stumble back, sitting on the toilet. As I take out the contents of the envelope, my eyes blur over. I can’t read the words, but I know what I hold. Plane tickets. An itinerary. A map that looks just like the ruined poster on my wall.

“Happy birthday,” the voice of my mother says. I blink my eyes. She’s crouching in front of me, dressed in jeans and a gray Phil Collins T-shirt. She’s smiling.

I wrap my arms around her in a burst of emotion and say, “Thank you.”

My father is standing in the bathroom door. I launch at him, hugging him around the neck, feet dangling above the floor.

When he puts me down, I sniff and wipe my eyes, feeling no embarrassment over the tears. “When are we going?”

“Summer in Antarctica begins in about seven weeks.”

The tears well again, as a single thought repeats in my head.

I’m going home
.

2

I can’t sleep. Like the owl that hunts at night, I’ve gone nocturnal. My imagination is in overdrive—Justin would say, “It’s gone plaid.” But it’s actually an improvement. I normally lose sleep to thoughts of awful things. Those frightening images don’t have a chance to manifest tonight. My mind is on Antarctica. What will I see? Penguins? Weddell seals?
The South Pole
? Where will we go? Can I explore? Who will I meet?

It suddenly occurs to me that Merrill Clark himself might be there. My father has kept in loose contact with him since I was born. They worked together at Clark Station for three summers in a row. I’ve heard my mother tease Dad about Dr. Clark being my real father. She says the same thing about the mailman sometimes, too. So I know she’s teasing. But it implies they’re close. Or were. Of course, it also implies they’re close to the mailman, which makes no sense, because our mailman is a mailwoman.

I also know that Dr. Clark is married. His wife’s name is Aimee. She’s black, which I’ve heard my parents talk about, too. Apparently it’s taboo for people of different skin colors to marry. And they have a daughter, Mirabelle. She’s a year younger than me.

Remembering the daughter makes me nervous. My parents stopped going to Antarctica after I was born. Said it wasn’t a safe place to raise a baby. Maybe Dr. Clark did the same. I know he’s continued publishing about Antarctica, but it could all be based on old research. I make a mental note to ask in the morning. I roll over and squint. It’s
already
morning. The rising sun cuts through the crack in my shade and strikes my eyes.

The nice thing about being home-schooled—at least the way my parents do it—is that I pick the subjects. I pick where, when and how I want to learn. Not only do my parents trust that I’ll get a better education this way, they feel most kids would too. Dad calls school a “good citizen factory.”

I think my parents were hippies.

But I agree with them.

The point is, I can sleep until noon if I want. And I’ll get more learning done in an hour than most kids will during a full day of school. I roll over and close my eyes. They reopen a moment later.

It’s Saturday.

I’m on my feet and scratching dried red lava from the clock face. It’s not coming off, so I pull the shade and look at the sun’s low position in the sky. It’s September third and the sun is still rising early. I place the time around 6:30, slide into my slippers and head downstairs.

I skip the third and fifth steps because they squeak. I know the sound won’t wake my parents, but I like to pretend I’m a ninja. Five minutes later I’m sitting on the floor, bowl of Cocoa Pebbles in hand. I sit at the long coffee table where my drawing paper and pencils wait.

I pick up the cable remote and remember when I had to get up to change the channel, rotate the top TV dial to U and the lower dial to channel fifty-six. I turn it on and there’s a commercial featuring a bunch of women with puffy hairdos being asked what they would do for a Klondike Bar. Tell a secret? One of the women reveals that her husband works out in his underwear, and I think I’ll never eat a Klondike Bar again. I tune out the next commercial and stuff my mouth with delicious artificially flavored chocolate cereal.

“I wouldn’t do anything for a Klondike Bar,” I say, spraying a few Pebbles on my art pad. “But I’d work out in
my
underwear for—”

I see something. Not on TV. In the sun room, which is separated from the living room by a large door with twelve small windows. Something inside the room moved. I swallow hard. Some of the not yet chewed, not yet mushy, cereal scratches my throat.

“Dad?” I say. He gets up early on occasion, but I hear no reply.

“Mom?” That my mother would be up this early on a Saturday is ludicrous. I usually don’t see her until ten.

The TV is showing previews of the upcoming programming lineup so I know I have about thirty seconds before
Robotech
starts. I push the coffee table away, stand up and tiptoe toward the door. I’m a ninja again. Defenseless, but quiet. Of course, the TV has long ago announced my presence.

Maybe there was a burglar
? I think. He could have been scared by the TV coming on and fled through a window. Or maybe he’s still in there, waiting for the stupid twelve—make that thirteen-year-old—to check things out.

I think about going to the kitchen for a knife, but I don’t like them. Every time I pick one up, if my mind isn’t on something else, I see myself stabbing whoever else is in the room. I’m an unwilling, mental serial killer.

That’s just
one
of my unmentionable dark thoughts.

Of course, if I get jumped by a thief, then jamming a knife into him would be completely justified.

With my thoughts full of spraying blood, I feel sick to my stomach. No knife. Not now. Not ever.

I’m at the door anyway and have yet to be jumped. I peek through the glass and scan the small, square room. There’s a couch that pulls out into a bed. It fills up most of the room when opened. And there’s a small desk that gets used once a year when dad does the taxes. Nothing else. No thief.

That’s when I see the living room windows behind me, reflected in the glass of the door. What if I had seen a reflection? My heart begins to pound as I realize I’ve made myself an easy target. I feel a tingling on my neck. Hot breath. The presence behind me feels sinister.

Evil.

I spin around with a roar that scares me. My lips are curled up. My teeth grit. My hands, both of them, are open, but tight, like I’ve got claws to slash someone with.

But there is no one to slash. The room is empty.

I’m still scared. Terrified actually. Despite having the dark thoughts for years, this is the first time I’ve seen them manifest into action. The sound that came from my mouth. The roar. It didn’t sound like me. I can’t sustain a cord that deep without my voice cracking like a panicked goose. Worse, I was ready to kill, to tear someone apart. Had there been someone behind me, I would have attacked. It could have been a thief, or my mom, or my dad. It wouldn’t have mattered.

I would have hurt them.

If I’d gone to get the knife I might have killed them.

I look at my hands, still rigid and ready to gouge.

What kind of person am I
?

A sharp clap, like two boards of wood slapping together, spins me around with a shout. The noise came from the sun room. I stand there, frozen. The rapid fire beat of my heart surges oxygen to my muscles, readying them for fight or flight. But I can see most of the sun room still. There is no one there.

The sound repeats, this time to the right, and I finally see the source. A shade is drawn over a window that was left open. The breeze outside is pushing the shade away and then snapping it back. I open the door and enter the room. My pulse slows. I pull the shade and send it flying up. Sun blazes through the east-facing window, and a cool breeze bursts into the room. A painting of a lighthouse on the wall behind me shifts and nearly falls. I close the window before righting the painting. As I shift the canvas, something scrapes along the back of it. I think maybe the nail holding it up got yanked out a little by the breeze, so I lift the painting up for a look.

What I find stuns me. A safe. Behind a painting. It’s so cliché that I’m shocked I hadn’t thought to check for it before. After a quick peek into the living room, I put the painting on the floor and turn my attention to the safe. It’s a combination lock. Probably three digits.

I decide to stick with cliché and try my father’s birthday. No good. My mother’s doesn’t work either. Mine comes next and I’m slightly disappointed that it doesn’t work. But I’m probably the one, aside from thieves, he wants to keep out of the safe, so that wouldn’t make sense. I remember that my father is no good with remembering numbers. Despite being brilliant, he has trouble with phone numbers, street addresses and counting. So he’s always writing things down. I look around the room. Where would he keep the number? It wouldn’t be labeled, combination, but it also would be in a place where he couldn’t confuse the number for something else.

The painting. The artist’s signature was accompanied by a date. I kneel, looking at the bottom right corner. The signature is in a dull red, but the date—7-21-38—is a slightly brighter shade. They were put on at two different times! More than that, there is no way this painting was done in 1938. It’s far too Bob Ross.

I spin the dial, entering the numbers and then turn the handle. The lock clunks and I let go. The safe swings open on its own. Inside are several notebooks, folders, a small stack of money and a small felt pouch. I flip through the notebooks. They’re field notes for his photo books. A few pages have love notes from my mom on them and I suspect this is the real reason he’s kept them. There are three folders, each labeled for a member of the family. They contain birth certificates, social security cards and other legal documents. I notice I have no United States birth certificate, though there are other documents proving my citizenship.
There goes my chances of being president
, I think.

So far, it appears my parents really do have no secrets hidden in the house. I flip through the wad of hundred dollar bills, counting over one thousand dollars. All that’s left is the felt pouch, which looks like it probably holds jewelry. I take it out and reach inside. The first object I find feels like a photo. I pull it out.

My parents are in the picture. Dad is standing behind mom, who looks exhausted. But she’s smiling. Aimee is with her, by her side. And Dr. Clark is on the other side, next to my father. He’s not really smiling at all. In fact, he doesn’t look well. I turn the photo over and find a note.

To remember the extraordinary birth of your most unusual son. 9/2/1974 - Merrill

The word unusual churns a sick feeling in my stomach. But my curiosity over what heavy object still remains in the pouch distracts me. I turn the pouch over and let the contents slide onto the desk. It’s a rock.

A simple stone. Granite, by the looks of it.

Then it occurs to me that this must be a piece of Antarctica. Possibly collected the day I was born.

I pick it up and feel a surge of emotion. Thoughts and feelings race through my mind faster than I can comprehend. I feel strong one moment, lost the next. Afraid and angry. Resentful and full of wrath. But never happy. Never content. I am alone.

The experience is intense, and staggers me, but it lasts only a few seconds. As the feelings fade, a loud clap sounds out behind me.

I spin around with a shout and hurl the stone.

As soon as it leaves my hand, I return to my senses and realize what’s about to happen. A window, which was also part way open like the one I had closed, shatters with a cacophony that only broken glass can make. The stone is stopped by the screen and lands atop a pile of glass. I cringe as the shards fall away, covering the window sill and floor.

Footsteps hit the floor above. The sound has roused my parents.

I quickly refill the safe, putting everything back in place. I put the photo back in the pouch and then reach for the stone. I pause before picking it up, wondering if I’m going to be overcome by emotion again. With all this broken glass and one of my parents on the way, that would be a very bad thing. But I see no choice, outside of getting caught, and pick up the stone.

Nothing happens.

I slide the stone in the pouch, cinch it shut and place it at the back of the safe before closing the safe door, spinning the lock and hanging the painting back in place. I hear my parents’ door close. A second later the third step squeaks.

I dash into the living room and pick up the remote.

The fifth step squeaks and is followed by my father’s voice. “Solomon? What was that noise?”

Back in the sunroom I place the remote inside the broken window and step back. My father’s voice comes from the living room. “Solomon, what happened?”