Carl Hiaasen - Chomp

Derek paled. “Hold on, sweetie, don’t get your knickers in a knot. I’ll help you with the boat.”

The lightning zap had not scrambled Derek’s senses so much that he couldn’t recognize a serious threat to his stardom. Regardless of whether he was destined to become one of the undead, he wanted to keep his reputation-and his TV show. How else could he afford the payments on his magnificent Sea Badger, the yacht of his dreams? As spacey as he was at the moment, Derek still understood that he could never, ever go back to being Lee Bluepenny, unknown Irish folk dancer.

“Just start walking,” said Wahoo. They’d wasted too much time already. His dad’s life was in danger, and this nutcase was yammering about weird curses and vampires.

A close examination of Link’s airboat proved disappointing. From bow to stern it brimmed with rainwater. Wahoo located a rusty drain plug in the transom, but the release lever broke off in his fingers. The hole in the Helmet Cam made it useless as a bucket, so they were forced to bail with their hands.

Derek proved worthless as a helper. He dribbled more than he scooped, complaining all the while. Ruefully Tuna thought of all the hours she’d spent glued to episodes of Expedition Survival! even the Sunday repeats. She felt like a fool for ever thinking Derek’s adventures-and his ruggedness-were real. He was no tough guy; he was just a Hollywood fake.

And obviously a whack job, if he really believed in vampires. Tuna no longer had any desire for an autograph.

Meanwhile, Wahoo bailed furiously. If they could lighten the weight in the hull, they might be able to slide it off the bank and into the shallows. An airboat like Link’s could float in only three or four inches of water. The next challenge would be getting the engine started.

“Mates, I need a break,” Derek said wearily.

Tuna snorted. “Oh please. You think Dax Mangold would take a break?”

Wahoo noticed that Derek didn’t look too lively. His forehead was pink and beaded with sweat, as if from a fever. Although he’d received first aid at the base camp, it was possible that he’d still gotten an infection from the bat bite. That had happened a few times to Mickey Cray after being chomped by various critters.

“Take a rest,” Wahoo said to Derek, who nodded gratefully and sprawled next to the boat.

“Here,” he said, and handed one of his “survival” soda straws to Wahoo. It was imprinted with a tiny likeness of Derek’s signature. “Use it as a siphon,” he suggested.

Wahoo wasn’t sarcastic by nature, but this straw was, literally, the last straw. “Gosh, I’ll cherish it always,” he said thinly, and flicked it away.

With her hands, Tuna ladled another cup-sized portion of water over the side of the boat. “This is gonna take forever, Lance. You get that, right?”

Wahoo refused to become discouraged. The airboat was their only means of finding his father and Jared Gordon before something bad happened.

If it hadn’t happened already.

And if Link’s medical condition didn’t take a turn for the worse-in which case, they’d need the boat to haul him straight to the mainland. Mickey Cray would be on his own.

Don’t think that way, Wahoo told himself. Stay positive.

It wasn’t easy. He was the one who’d talked his dad into taking the Expedition Survival! job, and he was the one who had talked him out of quitting when quitting would have been the smart thing to do.

Tuna lowered her voice so Derek wouldn’t hear. “I’m really sorry for all this. You don’t know how sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” Wahoo said.

“I’m the one who dragged you guys into this mess. I should never have run away. I should’ve stayed and hidden at the Walmart.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The garden department is immense. It would take Daddy a week to find me in there.”

“Okay, that’s just crazy,” Wahoo said.

Between the two of them, water was flying out of the boat in all directions.

Tuna clenched her jaw, fighting back tears. “I never thought he’d shoot a person. Not in a million years.”

“Maybe it was an accident, like you said.”

“No, he’s totally gone off the deep end. What if he kills someone, Lance?”

Wahoo didn’t look up. “My father can take care of himself.”

“Well, my father…” Tuna laughed bitterly. “My father can’t take care of breakfast-”

Three more shots rang out, one after the other. Wahoo and Tuna stopped bailing and turned to listen. Derek, who was dozing, didn’t stir.

“How far?” Tuna whispered.

“Closer than before.”

Most likely, the gunfire was coming from Jared Gordon. Maybe a bobcat or a python had crossed his path-or maybe Mickey Cray was trying to escape. The thought made Wahoo’s stomach pitch.

A gust of wind brought a faint, swirling fragment of human conversation. They were male voices, two of them, which likely meant Mickey was still alive-at least that’s what Wahoo elected to believe.

Had to believe.

“Sounds like they’re heading this way,” he said to Tuna.

Derek woke up and asked what was going on.

“We need to hide,” Wahoo told him. “Let’s move.”

“Hide from what? Vampires?”

“Worse,” said Tuna. “Lead the way, Lance.”

Once the weather began to improve, Sergeant Ramirez sent the searchers into action. Four airboats, each with a police officer aboard, departed at high speed from Sickler’s dock. A sheriff’s helicopter carrying infrared equipment was flying in from South Miami, and the Coast Guard was sending a chopper from Opa-locka.

Meanwhile, Raven Stark had locked herself in Derek Badger’s motor coach in order to hide from a throng of news reporters who’d learned that the famed survivalist was missing in the Everglades. The reporters were trying to make a connection between Derek’s disappearance and the “crazed gunman” who’d terrorized the crowd at Sickler’s store, but a spokesperson for the police department said the two incidents were totally unrelated.

The media frenzy got even more stirred up by the director of Expedition Survival! He blabbed to a tabloid columnist about Derek’s bloody encounter with the mastiff bat, sparking speculation that Derek had been stricken with rabies and was dying alone in the murky wetlands. Thousands of frantic fans posted messages on Derek’s Facebook page and Tweeted anxiously among themselves.

Raven was miffed at the director, but, back at his office in California, Gerry Germaine remained unfazed. The executive producer believed that the publicity surrounding Derek’s predicament-no matter what happened-would increase the TV audience for Expedition Survival! That would lead to higher advertising rates, which would lead to bigger profits for the Untamed Channel.

In the semi-tragic event that Derek indeed perished from rabies (or some other tropical disease), Gerry Germaine was preparing to broadcast a two-hour tribute, with highlight reels. The ratings would be epic from coast to coast.

“Let’s release a statement to the media,” said Raven, “saying we’re confident that Derek, being such a skilled outdoorsman, is alive and well.”

“Not so fast,” Gerry Germaine cautioned. “It isn’t such a terrible thing to have the whole world worrying about him. Remember those trapped miners down in Chile? When they got out, they were total rock stars.”

The comparison was flimsy. The Chilean coal miners had been true survivalists, the real deal. Derek Badger wouldn’t have lasted twenty-four hours in that cold black hole without losing his marbles, as both Raven and her boss knew.

“It’ll be getting dark here soon,” she said. “That will slow down the search.”