I Am Alive

by Cameron Jace

  “No. That’s Manticore,” Leo says, bumping into the roof of the Super-V.

  “Family?” I still feel funny, rocking in the passenger’s seat.

  “You sure love to talk. I can’t drive and talk at the same time,” Leo mumbles.

  “What’s with that? Boys not being able to drive and talk?”

  “Because usually a tiger is chasing them, and if they stop, they will be eaten alive,” Leo shouts. “So stop talking. You shouldn’t be here anyway.”

  “Yeah?” I say. “So you can have all the fun alone?”

  He gives me that look again. He thinks I am irresponsible.

  “We need to talk about your sedative chocolate, crazy boy ,” I fire back at him.

  Leo dismissed whatever I just said, and reaches for the backseat, and comes up with a bow gun. “You know how to use this,” he says, and hands me a bag full of arrows.

  “How do you know I can use these?” I ask. “The ones in the Wheel of Fortune were fixed. This one is different. It needs skill.”

  “Just do as I say.” Leo avoids the question.

  The problem isn’t that he is avoiding it. It’s that I suddenly know exactly how to use the bow gun and the arrow.

  “So what’s the game exactly?” I ask.

  “Simple,” says Leo. “We lure the tigers into the cages and lock them in, before they eat us.”

  “So let’s do it.”

  “Not before I find the others. Woodsy, Pepper and Bellona are in another Super-V. I need to find them. They were really struggling. Woodsy is a horrible driver.”

  Leo speeds up as the relentless Manticore still chases us. The Zeppelins are lagging behind us in the sky. Zeppelins are slower. They can’t keep up with such speeds and circles.

  “Hang on tight!” shouts Leo, and speeds up toward the edge of a cliff.

  “Are you crazy?” I shout. “You’re going to get us killed.” I try to hang onto my seat. The Super-V is about to drive straight over the cliff.

  Leo steers the wheel at the last second, and takes a sudden right. When I look back, I find out it is a steep cliff. The tiger takes the bait and falls off the cliff, after struggling briefly with the mud.

  “That was impulsive,” I tell Leo, listening to Timmy saying something in the iAm. Leo and I couldn’t care less about Timmy right now. This is a straight do-or-die game. We don’t need Timmy.

  “Let me worry about impulsive,” says Leo. “You worry about finding our friends.”

  I am amazed Leo said “our friends.” That’s so unlike him, caring about them.

  Leo drives freely for a while into the muddy desert. It occurs to me that this must be artificial mud, since there is no rain, and it’s a sunny day.

  In the distance, I see a Super-V stuck in the mud. It’s upside down, like it has crashed into something. There is smoke coming out from the engine.

  “That’s their Super-V,” says Leo, and speeds up more towards them.

  “What?” I feel dizzy again. “Where are they? I can’t see them.” Leo grits his teeth, his hands on the steering wheel.

  There is one tiger, roaming slowly around the Super-V. It stops somewhere, and starts biting on something.

  Leo pulls me to him tight, so I won’t see. “Don’t look, Decca. Don’t look.”

  “What!” I scream, trying to free myself from him.

  Leo is circling around the Super-V, but as far away as possible, knowing the tiger is busy with its prey.

  I free myself from under his arm and look. I am looking for my friends. This can’t be.

  35

  “Pepper,” I scream. “Bellona!” My heart is pounding. “Woodsy. Vern!” I could lose my voice screaming their names. “Where are they? I can’t see them,” I say to Leo, who points at what the tigers are feeding on.

  “Well… This might be them. I can’t know what the tigers are gorging on with all this mud. But that’s their Super-V.”

  It’s true. I can’t make out what the tigers are eating in the mud. What happened to them?

  “Don’t panic,” says Leo. “They might have escaped or something. The tiger couldn’t have killed all four of them. It just doesn’t make sense.”

  “Last two survivors,” says Timmy in the microphone. “They look like Romeo and Juliet.”

  Leo hugs me tighter again. “Don’t think about it,” he tells me, as I am about to burst into tears. “Stay strong. Stay focused.”

  “But they all died.” A teardrop trickles down my cheek. I try so hard not to cry. I still can’t believe it.

  “I don’t believe him,” says Leo. “Have faith. I don’t believe him.”

  “But we saw them.”

  “We saw nothing,” says Leo. “The mud is covering bodies. It could be anyone. They might have escaped. They might be hiding in trees. They might have removed the receptor from under their ears. Anything.”

  “You are just trying to make me feel better,” I say.

  “Stay strong. Trust me, I have this feeling. They are alive. At least, one or two of them are. Don’t listen to this maniac. In any case, we still have each other. We’ll always have each other.”

  Leo pulls my head to his and kisses me suddenly, with the salty tears on my mouth. “Stay alive, Decca,” he whispers, then he stops circling and drives ahead. “I need you to catch Carnivore.” He points at the opening in the roof.

  “Is that it?” I ask.

  “Yes. Climb up and you’ll find two levers. One opens and closes the main door to the cage in the back. The other opens a small window on top of the cage.” He points at a box full of large chunks of meat. “Take some of this and throw it inside the cage from the opening on top. Then pull the other lever to let Carnivore inside, while I slow down as much as possible, so it enters the cage thinking it will get that piece of meat. Once it takes the bait, you pull the lever back and it is trapped, and we win this game.”

  I am confused, trying to absorb and understand all of these instructions at once. Or is it that I am still shocked by the fact that my friends might be dead?

  “Look,” says Leo. “I could do this, but you won’t be able to drive the Super-V like I do in all this mud. I know you can do it. You have more reason than ever to catch Carnivore.”

  He is right. I look back at the genetically mutated white tiger. The one that might have killed my friends, including Woo, I assume. I will catch it. I will do it.

  I climb up through the shaft on top of the Super-V. I imagine I’m a tiger as well, clawing at whatever I can on top of the rattling and bumping Super-V. I have to keep my balance. The wind slaps my face every now and then. The wind whips at my back and legs, as if it is the enemy. I cry out this time, catching Carnivore’s attention. Its eye turns all white, staring at me. What kind of mutated creature is it?

  It starts to hunt the Super-V. Leo keeps circling and curving, to splash mud onto Carnivore to blind it. It works, but Carnivore wipes the mud away with its paws as if it were human, and keeps chasing the Super-V. I am still clutching at the top of it. The mud causes Carnivore to slip; it picks itself up, and continues after its prey. Leo and I.

  Crawling on my hands and knees, I reach the small opening on top of the cage. I open the bucket, pick up a heavy piece of meat, and prepare to drop it into the cage. It’s so heavy, I am afraid a bump in the muddy road will knock me down into the cage with the meat. I let it fall, thudding against the bottom of the cage in the back of the Super-V.

  Carnivore roars. I think the trick is working. I keep pounding against the roof of the Super-V, so Leo will open the cage. He has a controller inside to open it. The wind is so loud, I don’t think Leo can hear me, even if I shout. I need to get my breath before I make it back to the passenger’s seat. I am glad I made it so far. With all those bumps and slides in the road, I am afraid I will fall on my way back.

  I pick up my iAm, wondering why I can’t hear Timmy. The wind and the sound of the Super-V is too loud. As the wind curls what’s left of my hair into my mouth, I see Timm
y and Faustina talking, but I can’t hear them. What’s Faustina doing up there? Has she become the Trickster’s helper?

  I look up at the Zeppelins in the sky, trying their best to follow us. The audience stands up there, taking pictures.

  Flash. Flash. Flash.

  Little kids pull their parents’ hands to come look at the white tiger.

  This isn’t a zoo! I want to scream. Or maybe the world has come down to this, becoming one huge zoo.

  “Can you hear me?” Leo shouts. Finally, and faintly, I hear him.

  “Yes. Yes. Yes!” I yell as loud as I can.

  “I can’t open the cage,” Leo screams, struggling with the wheel. “There’s some malfunction in here. Something is not right. I think Timmy did this.”

  “So what now?” I shout.

  “You’ll have to open the cage!”

  “What?” I stare back at the panting Carnivore, getting closer and closer.

  “We don’t have time, Decca,” Leo screams. “I am going to be out of gas very soon. You have to open the cage from the inside.”

  “What do you mean open it from inside?”

  “It’s how it opens manually,” explains Leo, sounding disappointed with himself. “From the inside. There is a lever that you have to pull from the inside.”

  I turn back and look between the bars of the cage. I see the lever inside of the cage. How am I going to do this?

  Staring at my iAm, I see Timmy dancing polka with Faustina. When the camera closes in, it says the words, “from inside.” Timmy winks at me. He looks so happy with my misery. The screen shows the subtitles of the phrase in other languages.

  I look at the audience standing behind the bulletproof glass in the Zeppelins, not knowing what I am looking for. Maybe I am looking for humanity in their eyes, some evidence that shows they are not robots. That they still have some of that something that makes us human, whatever that is. Although most of them are laughing, voting, and betting, I do see little faces here and there. Those who feel confused about this. Those who have that inner voice troubling them from the inside. The problem is that they do nothing. They don’t want to oppose the Summit. I think this is the greatest mistake of all, wanting so bad to be part of the crowd, whatever the price is.

  “How are you going to close the cage on the Carnivore when I trap it inside?” I ask Leo, trying not to think about what could happen to me when I am in the cage with it.

  “You just open the cage, get back on top through the shaft, and leave the rest to me,” says Leo. “You can do it, Decca. You can do it. This is the last day and the last game. If you pull it off, you’ll be the first one to outlive the games. You’ll be a Ten!”

  I drop myself like a sack of potatoes into the cage, and the audience goes crazy. Every bad thought, every shred of fear, every negative comment, I just kill it with an imaginary gun and puff the smoke off the end of the barrel. As I stand inside of the cage, Carnivore roars at me from outside. It must be enticed by the amount of meat behind the bars, including me. I step forward and grab the lever, while staring at Carnivore one more time, up close and personal. The flashes of the cameras coming from the Zeppelins above me are blinding, even in daylight. Every flash cuts through the air, as if I am a celebrity being chased by the paparazzi. Is this how the Nines feel? Chased everywhere? No privacy? Every time they bleed does the audience feel better?

  The flashes of the cameras might make a celebrity out of me in this bleeding daylight, where man has nothing to be entertained with but the misery of another.

  The flashes don’t bother Carnivore. It is hungry. It’s natural and animalistic. It wants to feed. Come to think of it, it is no different from those in the Zeppelins. The only difference I can think of is that it has no rank, which makes us both Monsters.

  “Are you the one who killed Woo?” I whisper through the bars. I wonder what will happen if I cut through Carnivore. Will I find a set of wires and metal bones?

  I take a deep, deep, deep breath and pull the lever. The cage opens.

  “Open Sesame,” I mumble.

  36

  Carnivore comes running, wilder, fiercer, and hungrier than ever.

  I trot back and try to jump up, reaching for the small opening I came down from. It’s absurd how it suddenly seems too high. I can’t get a grip on the bars at the top to pull myself up through the opening. I pound on the inner bars of the cage as hard as I can, to let Leo know that the cage is now open.

  Leo is trying to slow down as much as possible, to allow Carnivore to leap into the cage.

  “Jump up!” Leo screams from inside. “Why can’t I see you on top of the cage?”

  I guess his rear-view mirror covers only the roof. How am I going to explain that I have miscalculated things? The cage’s roof is too high. Like many other things, it’s easier to get in than to get out.

  I run from the middle of the cage to one side, and start climbing up the bars with my bare feet and hands.

  Flash. Flash. Flash.

  The audience in the Zeppelins must be labeling me today’s favorite dish.

  Climb, Decca, climb!

  Carnivore is panting at the threshold of the cage. Seeing it this close pumps panic through my body. I let go of the bars, and fall down onto my back again.

  Carnivore is looking straight at me. So close. It’s pawing at the edge of the cage. Why am I paralyzed? I don’t know. The piece of meat lies right next to me. All I can think of is to pull it up and throw it out of the cage at the beast, so it forgets about me. Its paws reach for the cage. Before it has the chance to leap in, Leo takes a hard turn and Carnivore slips out again.

  I throw the meat out of the cage. It flies in the air like a heavy pie. Carnivore doesn’t bother looking at it, or running back to catch it. It wants me. Only me.

  Running to the side again, I climb the bars on all fours like a monkey one more time. When I reach the top of the barred cage, the opening is too far in the middle, so I have to climb the cage’s ceiling, again, like a monkey, but upside down. Gymnastics wasn’t my favorite class in school, but neither was math, which I ended up studying and passing. Math is horrible. I can’t imagine there is anything else to teach beyond 2 + 2 = 4. That’s all math is about. The rest is some complex gibberish that the average girl never uses. Ask Carnivore. It’ll tell you how much math sucks.

  Carnivore jumps into the cage while I am hanging upside down like an amateur spider. It lashes out at me with its paws from down there, trying to reach me. I am amazed that the cage’s ceiling is so high, even for it.

  Show me how you can climb the bars like a monkey now, you heavy miserable white creature!

  Although its paws can’t reach for me, it slashes through my hair, scraping a big chunk of it away. I pull myself flat to the bars of the ceiling while reaching for the opening.

  What’s with everyone in this world tearing at my hair? I am not just dying. It’s even worse. I am balding in here.

  “Thanks.” I grin at Carnivore. “How’d you like it if I rip out your white fur?”

  The audience in the Zeppelin right above me claps and laughs. Such an awkward position for me to watch the Zeppelins from.

  “We love you!” a couple of kids say behind the glass, as if I were the clown in the circus, pulling my latest tiger trick.

  “Go get a life!” I scream at them. “Go fall in love. Break your heart. Meet somebody. Go live, instead of watching live video games of people being killed!” The kids are taken aback.

  Finally, I reach the opening and pull myself up. Carnivore slashes one last time. Once I am up, I discover that he slashed at my right arm. It hurts like hell, but I don’t want to look at the wound. I’ll consider it Carnivore’s signature on my body.

  I pound on the roof for Leo to take notice.

  “Thank God!” he yells. “You jump out of the Super-V now. I’ll take it from here.”

  How is he going to take it from here? He can’t pull the cage shut from where he is driving. What keeps Carnivore i
n the cage is me. As long as I am standing on top of the cage, it thinks it can get me. If I jump out, it will jump out too and hunt me. I can’t leave. I have to stay here, until we find a way to kill it.

  When I raise my head, gazing in front of me, I see one of the steep cliffs up front. One of those cliffs Leo used to kill the other tiger, making it chase us and steering the wheel back at the very last minute. It won’t work now because Carnivore is inside the cage.

  Leo is speeding up toward the cliff.

  “Jump, Decca,” Leo shouts. “Jump!”

  Now I know what Leo is thinking. He is on some kind of crazy suicide mission, driving with the Carnivore in the cage over the cliff, ready to die with it to save me.

  No!

  “Don’t do it, Leo,” I scream, trying to crawl back to him.

  “I am just dropping it off the cliff,” explains Leo. “I can steer the wheel and turn around in the last second after it’s thrown out of the cage and off the cliff. Trust me.”

  “No!”

  “I just can’t do it when you’re still up there. Jump off the Super-V, Decca.”

  We’re getting closer and closer to the edge. The stupid Carnivore is still trying to reach for me from inside, not knowing what is about to happen to it.

  “We can do this,” Leo insists. “Don’t mess this up by staying with me. If I die it won’t matter, because you will survive the games. Don’t you give up at the last second.”

  So close to the edge.

  Even the Zeppelins are slowing down. I can’t imagine what is scaring them, when they’re flying in the air. Dumb audience.

  Watching the edge of the cliff approaching, I crawl back into the passenger’s seat. Sometimes my stubbornness is my only friend.

  When Leo sees me back in the seat next to him, his eyes widen with anger. But it’s too late. I can see the hollow void leading all the way down over the cliff.

  “Leo!”

  He steers the wheel with all his might to the right, and hits the brakes so the Super-V slows down a little. I hear the sound of Carnivore banging heavily against the bars of the inside of the cage in the back. It’s a mix of roaring and moaning. I think it fell out of the cage, and off the cliff.