Carl Hiaasen - Chomp

Wahoo stopped hopping. “What’s the matter with you?” he snapped back.

“Run away!” Tuna yelled.

“No, boy,” said Jared Gordon, “you get your butt over here right now.”

“Make me,” Wahoo said.

“Make you?” Tuna’s father cackled. “See this gun, boy?”

“See this phone, Mr. Gordon?” Wahoo held up Link’s waterlogged cellular, which from a distance appeared undamaged. “I’m calling the cops and telling ’em exactly where you are!”

“No, you ain’t! And how’d you know my name?”

“It’s got a GPS, too!”

Jared Gordon purpled with rage. He shook the pistol at Wahoo, who retreated into the hardwoods, where he resumed bouncing like a cartoon kangaroo.

“Hold still, you!” Jared Gordon hissed.

“Daddy, leave him be,” Tuna pleaded. “He’s sort of sick in the head.”

“Yeah, well, he’s fixin’ to be dead in the head.”

Wahoo’s father hastily stepped in front of the gun. “Don’t waste a bullet on that crazy kid.”

“You’re right,” said Jared Gordon, and shot Mickey Cray point-blank.

Wahoo came bolting in horror out of the trees. “Pop! No!”

“Did he say ‘Pop’?” Jared Gordon grinned. “Now we’re gettin’ somewheres.”

Derek Badger had gone off into the woods to relieve himself, and wasted no time getting lost. He was peering up at the half-moon, wondering if it meant he would turn into a half-vampire, when another gunshot split the air.

Hoping it was a signal from a search team, Derek aimed himself in the general direction of the sound. Thrashing clumsily through the underbrush, he began making up a script for the occasion of his rescue, which could be later reenacted to juice up the ending of the show:

“My harrowing Everglades adventure is finally drawing to an end, and not a moment too soon. I’m completely out of food, out of water and dangerously weak after being attacked by a rare but deadly vampire bat.

“Its savage bite left me dazed and delirious, racked with fever. Why, at times I even imagined myself morphing into a real-life vampire! Hopefully, the gunshot I just heard means that search crews are approaching, and my ordeal is almost over…”

But it wasn’t over.

A bulky shadow appeared in Derek’s path, and he lurched to a halt. Cloaked by darkness, the creature was difficult to identify-a bear? a panther? — but it produced a series of volcanic snorts that were unmistakably hostile.

For protection, Derek whipped out his famed Swiss army knife, a cheap replica of which was sent to lucky viewers of Expedition Survival! who correctly answered a weekly trivia question. (Example: What does fried cobra meat taste like? Answer: Chicken.)

Derek tested the knife’s blade, which was barely long enough to slice a kumquat.

“Scram!” he said to the mystery intruder.

Another surly snort was the only reply. The thing made no move to flee.

Derek was rethinking his decision to stage the Everglades episode without Mickey Cray’s captive animals-to “put the ‘real’ back in ‘reality’ ” by using only wild critters. The beast now blocking his escape probably never had laid eyes on a human, and it showed no fear.

Interestingly, Dax Mangold had faced a similar predicament in Revenge of the Blood Moon. A mutant possum the size of a Saint Bernard had cornered Dax deep in Slackjaw Forest, but the stouthearted young fighter had used his vampire superpowers to subdue the monstrous marsupial by wrestling it to the ground and gnawing through its jugular vein.

Derek wasn’t sure that such a bold tactic would work for him, a doubt that was well founded.

Had he bothered to do any research about South Florida before his arrival, he would have known that the woods and marshlands had become plagued by wild pigs. These free-roaming marauders were descended from ordinary porkers that had escaped from farms, although the Everglades version was bigger, hairier and more foul-tempered. The boars were especially dangerous, growing long, curved tusks that were sharp enough to kill.

A funky heat radiated from the massive form confronting Derek Badger. In a way, the night shadow was a blessing, because Derek wasn’t able to see the look in the creature’s coal-black eyes. If he had, he might have fainted.

“Scram!” he said again, and the boar did exactly the opposite.

Derek tried to flee but, after years of French cheese and rich pastries, he wasn’t exactly a speedster. The pig’s tusks scooped the celebrity survivalist from behind and tossed him halfway up the trunk of a sabal palm, to which he clung like a terrified frog.

After circling a few times, the wild hog huffed loudly and trotted away. To better secure his elevated position, Derek attempted to spike his Swiss army knife into the bark of the palm. The blade promptly snapped off, and he hit the ground like a sack of beans.

That’s it, he thought dismally, brushing himself off. No more tree climbing for me.

Mickey Cray looked up at his son and said, “Don’t tell your mom.”

“How bad does it hurt, Pop?”

“How bad does it look?”

“Pretty bad,” Wahoo admitted.

Jared Gordon had put a bullet through Mickey’s left foot.

“The same one Beulah tried to eat,” he noted sullenly.

Tuna cried, “Daddy, what’s wrong with you? Have you totally lost your mind?”

“The man wasn’t takin’ me serious. Now he will,” said Jared Gordon.

Wahoo removed his father’s bloody shoe and said, “Oh boy.”

The bones in Mickey’s foot were shattered, and his big toe had been shot clean off.

He winced at the sight. “Now we match,” he said to Wahoo.

“Not quite, Pop.”

“You’re right. I’d rather lose a toe than a thumb.”

“Be still.” Wahoo pulled off his T-shirt and tore it into strips, which he wrapped tightly around his father’s foot.

“Hope you’re smarter than your old man,” Jared Gordon grunted. “What’re you doin’ way out here, boy? Tell the truth.”

“Working for a TV show.” Wahoo didn’t have to glance up to know that Tuna’s dad was still brandishing the gun.

“What TV show is that?” Jared Gordon asked.

Tuna told him.

“The one with that Australian survivor dude?” Jared Gordon snickered. “No way! He’s big-time.”

“The Crays are professional animal wranglers, Daddy.”

“You mean, like, they can teach a polar bear how to ride a bike? Stuff like that?”

Wahoo sighed and said, “Never mind.”

Jared Gordon poked him. “Your daddy’s good to go. Now let’s git outta here.”

“In case you didn’t notice,” Mickey said, “I can’t walk.”

“Yeah, but you can still drive a boat.”

“It’s not hard. I’ll teach you how.”

“No, Sparky,” said Tuna’s father. “You’re gonna be my sho-fer!”

Wahoo knotted his Expedition Survival! jacket around the stump of a buttonwood branch and poked it in the embers of the fire to make a torch, which he handed to Tuna. Then he and Jared Gordon boosted Mickey upright, one on each side, acting as human crutches. Tuna led the way as they set off on the short trek to the water’s edge.

With six hands scooping (Jared Gordon’s being occupied by the revolver and now the torch), bailing the airboat took about an hour. After a forceful group shove, the craft was safely afloat.

Wahoo hopped up in the driver’s seat and said, “I can do this.”

His father frowned. “Since when?”

“I learned how this afternoon.”

“Ha! No way,” Jared Gordon said. “Git down from there, boy, and let your old man drive. Move it!”

Mickey rose to his knees. “Do what he says, son.”

He was in major pain as Wahoo and Tuna helped him get positioned at the controls.