Out for Blood

by Michael P. Spradlin

  They each looked up as the noise of hundreds of leathery wings rushing into the night sky reached their ears. And then came the same high-pitched screeches they’d heard in the school.

  The Blood Jackets were coming.

  A GRAY PICKUP SKIDDED TO A STOP ON THE GRAVEL DRIVE in front of a deserted hotel. Dr. Catalyst hopped out of the cab and hurried inside. Once there, he gathered his equipment and gear and loaded it up. The trip to the swamp was a disaster. Try as he might, he was unable to find that fool Newton anywhere.

  It had been relatively easy to follow the trail Newton left on the road. At some point during his escape, the man appeared to have been running, for his footprints were very far apart. At some point his tracks had become scattered all over the surface of the road and then disappeared back into the swamp. Dr. Catalyst had lost the trail in the marshy bogs that lined the service road.

  He took a deep breath, trying to calm his nerves. Even if Newton had somehow miraculously survived, it was unlikely he would remember anything incriminating. And this particular base was unknown to anyone. Truthfully, he couldn’t bring himself to believe the man was alive. There were just too many dangers in the Everglades. It was hard to imagine a dolt like Newton could survive.

  Still, it was vital he remain free, in order to continue his work saving the Everglades. So far he had avoided capture by taking no chances. With Newton at large, he would need to go to ground again, and there were plenty of places for him to hide. He could afford to wait until Newton surfaced, or it was confirmed he’d perished. If he was still alive, he could be dealt with then.

  His equipment and supplies were what was important now. He never traveled with many personal effects — a few changes of clothes in a small duffel bag and some toiletries were all he carried with him. It allowed for escape at a moment’s notice.

  After he loaded everything into the truck, he returned to carefully check that he’d left nothing behind. Everything was accounted for.

  Once back on the road, Dr. Catalyst tuned the radio to check the local all-news station. The newscaster was already midway through a report about a search now taking place in the Everglades. Dr. Catalyst nearly drove his truck off the road. Were they out there looking for Dr. Newton? How could this be? Who could have possibly determined that was where he had taken his captive?

  He turned up the volume and listened carefully. He almost wrecked again when the announcer said that Dr. Geaux’s twelve-year-old son, Calvin, was believed to be missing in the Everglades.

  Calvin was missing!

  Dr. Catalyst turned off the road into the parking lot of a vacant gas station. He waited for the traffic to clear and then zoomed out onto the highway, speeding as fast as he could toward the Everglades.

  EMMET WAS MOMENTARILY FROZEN AS HE WATCHED the horde of Blood Jackets flood the night sky. There must have been a nest nearby. They soared into the darkness a fair distance away, but their cries echoed through the air. The creatures circled above their nest, as if the sky was filling with the entire colony. They dipped and darted, swirling through the air as they took off in search of prey.

  It did not take them long to discover three humans on a broken-down airboat.

  “Paddle! We’ve got to move!” Emmet said. Over and over he pushed the plastic oar through the water, grunting with the effort.

  “There’s nowhere to go, Emmet!” Raeburn said.

  “There has to be somewhere! Can we crawl in the engine compartment?”

  “It’s too small!” Raeburn shouted.

  The creatures were coming closer.

  “We can go into the water!” Riley shouted as she paddled.

  “No way! There’s Pte — No way.”

  “We can’t outrun them!” Raeburn said.

  Emmet glanced in every direction, hoping against hope that a secure, impregnable Blood Jacket–proof shelter would suddenly appear in the middle of the swamp. Or a phone booth. Even a cardboard box. Then he saw their only chance.

  “Raeburn! Over there! Those mangrove trees! Hurry!” Emmet said.

  They paddled frantically as Raeburn maneuvered the tiller. The trees rose up out of the water like giant dandelions. Their roots, bent and gnarly, wormed their way into the water like the fingers on a witch’s hand. Emmet peered over his shoulder and could see the cloud of flying creatures in hot pursuit.

  “Faster!” Emmet shouted.

  They crossed the last few feet to the trees, and the airboat bumped gently against the mass of tangled, twisted branches.

  “We’ve got to climb inside the roots!” Emmet said, leaping out of the boat and scrambling toward the clump of trees. A few Blood Jackets were swarming around now. The main body of the colony was almost upon them. Swinging his paddle, he connected with a few of them, knocking them into the water.

  “Hurry!” he said.

  Riley and Raeburn wasted no time jumping out of the boat and wiggling their way into the mass of roots, groaning with the effort. Emmet followed after them. They burrowed into the roots as far as the space would permit them. It had been a moment of desperation, but Emmet was relieved to find that the twisted roots provided at least some protection from the Blood Jackets.

  He held on to his oar, using it to poke away the more determined bloodsuckers — those whose hunger drove them mad enough to reach the three of them.

  “How long do we have to stay here?” Riley asked.

  “I don’t know,” Emmet said. “Hopefully they’ll take off soon to hunt for something easier to catch.” He wielded the oar like a spear, working into the spaces between the roots and shoving the creatures away.

  The colony covered the trees and their roots, trying every way they could to breach the wooden cage that held a ready meal. One of them stung Raeburn on the hand before she batted it away.

  “Ow!” she cried.

  It came at her again and Emmet jabbed it away with the oar. More and more Blood Jackets piled onto and around the trees. Before long, the three friends couldn’t see anything but flying fangs trying to get at them. The noise of their screeching and flapping was deafening.

  Then, without warning, the colony flew away all at once.

  The bats were there and then they were gone, rising into the darkening sky as one. The three of them watched, staring in openmouthed wonder as the creatures disappeared, their cries fading into the night.

  “I wonder what made them leave,” Raeburn said.

  A noise issued from out of the water. It was one Emmet had heard before, a few times in person, and many in his nightmares. It focused their attention on the shore, a few short yards away from the trees. There was just enough light remaining to see the outlines of two elongated reptilian heads rising from the surface of the water. Two pairs of reddish eyes, glowing with menace, stared directly at them.

  “Pterogators …” Emmet choked.

  THE PTEROGATORS ROARED AT THE SAME TIME, trumpeting loudly into the night. Their heads snapped back and their large red eyes locked on to the mangrove trees. As they swam forward, their heads darted beneath the surface, lost from view.

  “Oh no, oh no, oh no,” Riley said.

  “Where did they go?” Raeburn asked.

  “Probably went in the oppo — Gahhh!” Emmet shouted as the two Pterogator heads popped up out of the water directly in front of them. “Here! They came right here!” Emmet shrieked.

  Both of the creatures left the water, pulling themselves onto the mass of roots. One tried reaching through the twisted tangles with a forearm, and Emmet jabbed it away with the oar.

  “Get out of here!” he shouted.

  The Pterogator drew back, roaring again, confused by Emmet’s action. The three of them screamed then, as its open jaw snapped forward, biting off several chunks of the mangrove roots. The teeth and jaws of the creature were only inches away. The Pterogator backed up and lunged forward again, jaws snapping. Emmet shouted and jammed the oar forcefully into the Pterogator’s mouth. The beast crunched down, snapping off a big chunk of
the oar, and shook its head from side to side.

  “I hope you choke on it!” Emmet screamed.

  He looked at the remaining stub of oar in his hand.

  “Probably shouldn’t have done that,” he said.

  “We need to get out of here,” Raeburn said.

  “Are you crazy?” Emmet said.

  “What do we do? Wait until it chomps its way in here?” Raeburn answered back.

  Emmet was about to speak when the Pterogators roared again and stood up on their rear legs, their jaws snapping. At first, Emmet couldn’t understand what was happening, but then he heard the chittering noises and flapping wings of the Blood Jackets.

  They were attacking the Pterogators.

  Wave after wave of Blood Jackets swarmed over and around the two lizards. With mighty roars, the reptilian hybrids snapped their jaws, catching the small flying beasts in their teeth. Their skin was too thick for the Blood Jackets to pierce or sting, but the smaller creatures would not relent so easily.

  “What are we going to do?” Riley shouted.

  “What can we do?” Emmet said. “I just hope they tire each other out.”

  The Blood Jackets shrieked and the Pterogators bellowed, and for a moment Emmet felt like he was watching some kind of horror movie. But it was no movie. It was real.

  All they had to defend themselves was Riley’s oar. Even the airboat had been dislodged from the shore and had floated off.

  It was almost too dark to see, but Emmet sensed Raeburn moving.

  “Come on,” she said.

  “What? ‘Come on’ where?” Emmet asked.

  “We need to work our way to the other side of this copse of trees while they have each other occupied,” she said.

  The trees made a small clump in the water that was maybe fifty or sixty feet in diameter. She wiggled her way through and around the roots, until she emerged from the tangled mass at the side farthest from the fighting monsters.

  “Raeburn, that’s crazy, you’re — Look out!” Emmet shouted.

  A group of the Blood Jackets had sensed her presence, no doubt reading the heat from her body. As they swarmed around her, Raeburn jumped from the trees into the waist-high water and went under. The hybrids squealed and fluttered over the spot where she disappeared, but quickly flew away to rejoin the attack on the Pterogators.

  Raeburn’s head popped up out of the water.

  “Come on!” she said. “We can get to the boat this way!”

  Over the growls of the fighting animals, Emmet heard a new sound, something like a motor. No. It was exactly like a motor. All of a sudden, an airboat pulled into view and a spotlight shined over the water where Raeburn stood. The Blood Jackets attacked the light.

  Someone stood at the tiller in a black coverall, wearing a helmet.

  “Get on! Hurry!” said a muffled voice.

  There was no other option. If they stayed, they would perish.

  Raeburn had already scrambled aboard. Riley and Emmet maneuvered their way out of the twisted roots to the far side of the trees. They splashed through the water and swung their hands wildly around, keeping the flying hybrids from reaching them. The Pterogators were still occupied by their own attackers.

  Splashing through the water, Emmet and Riley reached the side of the boat and scrambled over, sprawling on the deck.

  The pilot opened the throttle and the boat practically leapt in the water. The moon was coming up and lighted their way as they zipped across the swamp. At their speed, they easily outpaced the Blood Jackets, who gave up the chase.

  Emmet managed to gather himself and helped Riley to her feet. After they had outrun the horde, the boat slowed and the engine quieted to an idle.

  It occurred to Emmet that they had jumped onto a strange airboat in the middle of the Everglades. For all he knew, it could be Dr. Catalyst standing at the tiller. But he didn’t think so.

  “I’m glad I found you,” the pilot said. He removed the helmet. It was Calvin.

  “Oh, hey, Calvin,” Emmet said, nonchalantly wiping a glob of swamp gunk from his face. “We were just looking for you.”

  Calvin nodded. “I have something to tell you,” he answered.

  “I hope it’s ‘Sorry I abandoned you guys and disappeared into the swamp’?”

  “Better get everyone buckled in first,” Calvin said.

  Riley and Raeburn took the seats and buckled in. Emmet stood next to Calvin’s pilot chair and held on to the metal frame.

  “So, what is it?” Emmet said.

  “I know who Dr. Catalyst is,” Calvin whispered to Emmet.

  Emmet’s eyes went wide, but before anyone could ask another question, Calvin opened the throttle and THE DRAGONFLY I leapt across the water.

  Headed for home.

  NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR MICHAEL P. SPRADLIN was born in a small Michigan town. Growing up he loved reading books, baseball, and the Rolling Stones. Not the rock band. There was a hill near his house and he liked to roll stones down it because it was fun rolling stones down a hill. He is the author of the international bestselling Youngest Templar trilogy, the Wrangler Award winner Off Like the Wind! The First Ride of the Pony Express, and several other novels and picture books. He holds a black belt in television remote control, and is fluent in British, Canadian, Australian, and several other English-based languages. Sharks swim in the other direction when he steps into the ocean and he is not afraid of clowns. Wait. Yes he is. Afraid of clowns. Come on. Clowns are scary! He now lives in a slightly bigger Michigan town and can be visited on the web (the Internet, not the spider kind) at www.michaelspradlin.com.

  IT WAS STILL SO HARD FOR HIM TO ACCEPT.

  Up until this moment, almost everything had gone wrong. Unexpected forces were aligned against him. Variables not considered in his equations and simulations somehow appeared with regularity. There was no doubt about it: Dr. Catalyst’s plan to restore the Florida ecosystem was coming apart at the seams.

  Everything that could go wrong did. One by one, his Pterogators were being gathered up in the Everglades. While their introduction dramatically reduced the snake population, they had not eradicated the pythons and boa constrictors as he had hoped. His Muraecudas put a severe dent in the number of lionfish on the coastal reefs. But apparently they’d migrated to other waters, or had perhaps fallen victim to sharks or bigger predators. None had been sighted in weeks, and the lionfish were returning.

  And the media was reporting that his Blood Jackets, which he considered his crowning achievement, were dying off. Scores of them had been found dead all over Florida City and the surrounding countryside. He hadn’t even been able to recover the body of the inept Dr. Newton from the swamp. Surely the man was dead, but it was a loose end, and Dr. Catalyst did not like loose ends.

  It felt as if he were teetering on the brink of total failure. Early on in his campaign, he had issued a manifesto. Sent to hundreds of media outlets and posted online, it called for like-minded individuals to join his efforts. It was his hope to start a movement, to rally others to his side. It had utterly failed. No one had offered to join him. A few fringe environmental groups had “endorsed” his efforts, but Dr. Catalyst had envisioned throngs of people — hundreds, if not thousands — flocking to his cause. They never materialized. The media called him a crackpot and a danger to society. How preposterous.

  He was a visionary.

  Still, despite his genius, his efforts had not had the desired effects. And there was one reason. In his mind, his creatures would be healing the fragile Florida ecosystem right now if not for the harassment and interference of a particular individual.

  Emmet Doyle.

  When the Doyle brat showed up — that was when his plans had gone awry. Someone not even old enough to shave was dashing his hopes and dreams for a naturally restored Florida Everglades. Interfering. Agitating. Forcing him to divert his precious time and resources from his mission. And now he was left with no other choice but to remove this obstacle. No matter the c
ost.

  Prior to releasing his creatures, Dr. Catalyst had purchased over two-dozen vehicles. It had been comically simple for someone of his brilliance to hack into the Florida Department of Motor Vehicles registration database and create false registrations and titles of ownership for each vehicle.

  One of them, a dark brown panel van was parked at the curb a few hundred yards down the street from the Doyle home. The windows on the rear door were tinted, allowing no one to see inside. A few ventilation slots were cut into the vehicle to allow air to circulate. The name of a famous national delivery service company had been painted on the side. The van’s license plate and registration would easily pass muster if he were to meet a police officer. Provided they did not ask him to open the rear doors. No one must view his cargo.

  That would be a problem.

  As if to illustrate his point, the van jerked on its suspension and a strange, growling, laughing roar came from the van’s cargo bay. His newest creation was keen to steal into the night. A low growl sounded through the rear wall of the van, and the vehicle bounced again as the creature threw itself against its cage. It was eager to be set free. To hunt.

  But patience was required.

  At his campaign’s start, Dr. Catalyst had placed video and audio recording devices at National Park Service headquarters. It allowed him to keep tabs on the comings and goings of Dr. Geaux and Dr. Doyle, and on their efforts to thwart him. Somehow they had discovered he was monitoring them and staged a futile attempt to capture him by feeding him false information. He had easily seen through their feeble deception. However, they had removed his surveillance equipment. Now he no longer had inside information on the movements of his enemies.

  Dr. Catalyst paused mid-thought. He could hear muffled growls and groans from the animal in back. The van shook again as the creature launched itself repeatedly at the side of its cage. He had not fed it yet today, deciding that hunger would hone its hunting instincts.