Countdown

by Natalie Standiford

  Crouching, they crept out into the open. Amy braced herself for attack, but nothing happened. They were a few yards away from the temple when they heard a shout.

  “Amy! Dan! Stop!”

  Amy whirled around. Pony was streaking toward them across the clearing, his ponytail flapping.

  “Pony!” she called. “Get down!”

  But he kept running. “The book’s not here!” he shouted.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Dan said.

  They started back for the cover of the jungle. There was a sudden tearing noise near the temple as the tents burst open and out jumped three large, muscular men.

  “Goons!” Dan cried. “Run!” They raced across the clearing for the jungle. But the trees shook in the windless night, and out of the shadows stepped more of Pierce’s men, at least a dozen, blocking their way back to the hotel.

  They were trapped. And this time there were more thugs to fight than ever.

  The men moved quickly. They were on Amy, Dan, and Pony in seconds.

  Amy scanned the area for a way out, but they were surrounded. The soldiers backed them up against the ruined temple. There was nowhere to go but up. “This way!” She tugged on Pony and Dan to follow her as she scrambled up the unexcavated side of the pyramid, a huge mound of dirt with vines and ferns and trees growing out of it.

  She could have reached the top of the temple way ahead of the soldiers, but she couldn’t leave Dan and Pony behind. Dan was in great shape, but he couldn’t compete with Amy — the serum had made her as fast as the fastest Olympic runner. Pony was a desk jockey, not used to running for his life. He slowed them both down.

  The thugs quickly caught up with them. The sight of their bulging muscles and stone-cold eyes filled Amy with rage, and, as if in response, her muscles flooded with strength. One fighter went after the weak link, Pony, but Amy perched above him on the slippery side of the temple, which gave her an advantage. She kicked him square in the chest and the soldier tumbled off the pyramid. Amy grabbed Pony just before the men could drag him down.

  “Thanks!” Pony said.

  “Don’t thank me,” Amy said. “Get to the top while I fight them off!”

  She kicked another thug off the temple, but as soon as one crashed to the ground, another climbed up. She glanced back. Dan and Pony had reached the top of the pyramid. Two soldiers were just beginning to climb back up the dirt mound, so she had a few seconds. She raced to the top, grabbed a vine, and tested it. It was solidly wound around the tall branch of a kapok tree standing twenty feet from the pyramid.

  “Use this to slide down!” she told Dan and Pony. They wrapped their hands around the rough vine and slid from the top of the pyramid back to the jungle floor. They disappeared among the vegetation to wait for her.

  The soldiers kept coming. Amy kicked one in the chest, her right foot landing clean and hard on his sternum. He flew backward with a yelp. She shifted to her left foot and knocked a second thug to the ground. But a third was climbing up right behind him. He grabbed one of her feet and jerked her off balance. She fell onto her back, her head nearly striking an exposed tree root.

  The thug pounced on her, going for her neck. He gripped her throat so hard she couldn’t breathe. Amy tore his hands off her neck and rocked back, lifting her legs. She drove both feet into his stomach, pushing him off. He tumbled down the mound.

  She’d nearly been strangled, but she felt nothing, no pain, nothing but fierce energy. She jumped to her feet and quickly climbed down to find Dan and Pony.

  Two soldiers were waiting for her in the brush. One gripped Pony by the ponytail, yanking his head back; the other dangled Dan by the scruff of his neck like a kitten about to be drowned. Pony’s eyes were huge with terror. Dan kept kicking his captor in the shins, but the thug didn’t seem to notice. “Let them go,” Amy growled. They couldn’t hold on to Pony and Dan and fight her at the same time. They dropped the boys and dove for her.

  She jumped aside, evading them, then knocked each one out with a hard chop to the neck. She heard rustling in the bushes behind her.

  “More coming. Run.”

  She felt almost animal, supernatural, like the Mayan gods she’d seen in carvings and drawings around Tikal. She was the Jaguar God when she ran, she struck lightning-fast like a serpent, she had the wits of a Jester God. She could have outrun the soldiers. But Dan and Pony couldn’t keep up. She had no choice but to fight to protect them.

  She tore through the jungle, dragging the boys behind her, looking for someplace safe for them to hide until she could fight off the army . . . if she could fight them all off. . . .

  She shook this doubt away. She’d do it. She had to do it. She scanned the jungle while she ran. Fifty feet ahead, a ruined stone wall, about four feet high, glimmered in the moonlight. If they could get behind it, they could use it for cover and maybe lose the thugs long enough to get back to the hotel.

  She pushed Dan and Pony over the wall.

  “Amy, no.” Dan immediately crawled back over the wall and stood beside her. “I’ll fight with you.”

  “You can’t.” She shoved him back to the other side. “Take cover.”

  He pulled himself up to the top of the wall again. “I’m in charge, remember?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Just not right now.”

  “Amy,” Pony pleaded. “Run for it. Save yourself.”

  “Pony’s right,” Dan said. “You can escape. Run for it. We’ll take our chances.”

  They were willing to sacrifice themselves — for her. And it infuriated Amy. She saw how the fight looked through their eyes — like a losing battle. Twelve men against one girl. They didn’t understand. She’d taken the serum. She could win this.

  “When you see a chance, take Pony and run back to the hotel,” she said to Dan with a note of finality in her voice. Dan might be the leader now. Her judgment might be faulty at times. But every cell in her body screamed, Protect him! And she couldn’t ignore it.

  She raced along the wall, fifty feet, a hundred, fast as lightning, leading the soldiers away from the boys. Then she turned to face her attackers head on.

  She used a judo throw to flip the first over her head. She neatly dodged the next, and a third. She grabbed a fallen tree branch to use as a weapon, fending the soldiers off as fast as she could. But they kept coming. Four of them, six, ten, twelve . . .

  She was surrounded. She leaped up to the top of the wall, hoping the extra height would give her an advantage. She swung the branch at a fighter, toppling him like a bowling pin. You can do this.

  And then it happened.

  She felt a sudden weakness in her legs. She paused, gripping the branch-sword, but her hands shook like a tree in a storm. No, she thought desperately. Not now. The power drained from her limbs. Her eyes rolled back in her head. She felt herself sliding down the wall, the rough stone scraping her arms, dots swimming before her eyes. This episode was worse than before. Worse than anything she’d felt in her life.

  “Amy! Amy!”

  She could hear Dan calling her, but she couldn’t see him. She couldn’t see anything but dots and swirling colors. She knew what was happening. This time she knew: another hallucination. This isn’t real, she thought. I can’t let it take over. Then she heard screeches, terrible heart-ripping cries. Howler monkeys, she thought. I’m surrounded by howler monkeys. Get them away from me! They jumped up and down, then attacked her, grabbing at her hair and face with their hairy paws.

  No! she screamed. Stop it! Stop it! It’s an illusion, she thought. Make it go away! She summoned all her strength to clear her mind, to fight the darkness. She heard footsteps pounding toward her. Were they real? They came closer . . . closer . . . then attacked! Hands grabbed her arms. She flicked them away. The colors in her vision faded to black and gray. She felt as if she were staring through a soupy fog, at shadows, while the screami
ng filled her ears. Something tried to pick her up and carry her off — monkey? Man? She couldn’t tell. She kicked blindly, her foot and knee hitting something hard until the something let her go.

  Through the chaos and the noise, she heard Dan calling to her: “Amy! Help! Help!”

  Dan. She had to help Dan. She kicked and punched at anything that touched her, scratching and clawing until, at last, the attacks stopped.

  Everything went quiet. Her vision cleared, the fog melting away. The somethings were gone. Had they been howler monkeys, or men? She didn’t know. She was standing by a ruined wall in the moonlight, alone.

  “Dan!” she shouted. “Pony! Where are you?”

  She heard shouting a little distance away. She ran back to the loggers’ clearing. The noises grew louder. The huff huff huff of a chopper’s blades whirred overhead. A black helicopter hovered over the clearing, preparing to land.

  Two thugs, their faces scratched and bloody, grabbed her. Her strength surged again, and she knocked them to the ground where they remained, motionless.

  The chopper blades whipped up a wind as it landed in the clearing, sending dirt and leaves flying. Amy shielded her face and backed away. Under the chopper, on the other side of it, she saw feet running toward the chopper door. She dashed across the clearing, ducking under the whirring rotors. Dan! Two soldiers were dragging him into the chopper. Another held Pony back as they shut Dan inside. Then he let Pony go and hurried into the chopper himself. Pierce’s men were leaving, and they were taking Dan with them.

  “Dan! No!” Amy screamed, and ran for the chopper. But Pony was closer. He dove for the landing skid, clutching it as the copter lifted off the ground.

  “Pony! Let go!” Amy tried to leap into the air and grab the skid herself, but it was too high. The machine took off, Pony’s legs dangling just out of her reach. She jumped as high as she could, but it wasn’t enough.

  The helicopter soared up over the trees, Pony clinging to the bottom. He was hanging on by his fingertips, his face pinched with the strain, his tongue poking out of his mouth in concentration. She could just make out Dan’s frantic face pressed to the window, and behind him, a thug watching Pony and laughing. Amy held her breath. It was too late for Pony to let go now — the chopper was too high.

  “Hang on!” she shouted. “Hang on!”

  Pony’s legs brushed the top of a tree. He tried to step on a branch, as if he might land there, but it wasn’t solid enough. Amy thought she could see the muscles in his arms quivering, using all his strength.

  Amy wanted to close her eyes, but she couldn’t. She kept hoping a hand would reach out of the chopper door and pull Pony to safety, that some miracle would happen. . . . She found herself reaching for him, jumping up over and over as if she could spring into the air and save him.

  But she was rooted to the ground, and he dangled in the sky, helpless.

  One of his hands slipped off the skid. He hung on for his life by one sweaty hand.

  The chopper lifted higher, far above the trees now. Pony strained his free hand toward the skid, trying to grab hold, but he couldn’t reach it. His shoulder snapped out of position, dislocating.

  And then the other hand slipped off. Down he fell.

  Amy screamed as she watched his tiny figure drop from the sky and disappear among the trees. The chopper floated away.

  The jungle went quiet.

  Amy stood alone in the clearing. The chopper was gone. Dan was gone. Pony was surely dead.

  She ran into the jungle, hoping for a miracle. Praying to find Pony alive.

  She sped through the dense trees, jumping over obstacles and ripping at vines that blocked her way.

  She must have run about a mile when she found him. Pony’s body had landed on the branch of a tree, twenty feet overhead, his back arched at an unnatural angle, broken. His head hung back, his ponytail dangling, his mouth gaping, moonlight glowing in his open, glassy eyes.

  Amy’s legs buckled under her. She collapsed on the damp ground. The strength drained out of her now, leaving her nearly paralyzed.

  Pony is dead. He’s dead.

  He died trying to save me.

  And Dan is gone.

  She was a failure. She had failed in every way.

  Tears leaked out of her eyes. She couldn’t stop them. She lay in the damp dirt and sobbed. She’d had all that power. The power of Gideon’s serum. Unfathomable strength of body, mind, and will. And what good did it do her? The side effects were getting worse. She was declining every day. And yet, somehow, she had to find the superhuman power to get up. To rescue Dan. To keep going after the antidote. Because without it, they were all doomed.

  She rested a little while longer until she felt some strength return to her legs. Then, as dawn broke, she hoisted herself to her feet and made her trudging, defeated, heartbroken way through the teeming jungle, back to the hotel.

  She would break the news to the others. They would be horrified, and mourn. But they would summon their last scraps of will and continue the fight. There was nothing else to do.

  Sneak Peek

  Time is running out for Amy Cahill. If she doesn’t find the remaining ingredients, the serum will kill her. And if she doesn’t rescue Dan, the Pierces will kill him. Will the Cahills find a way to beat the impossible odds?

  Find out in the explosive conclusion to The 39 Clues: Unstoppable: Flashpoint by Gordon Korman. Turn the page for a sneak peek!

  The Jeep hit an exposed root, jouncing eighteen inches straight up and nearly launching the four occupants into the jungle underbrush.

  Instead of slowing down, Amy Cahill stomped on the gas, coaxing even more speed out of the rickety four-wheeler.

  “Everybody okay?” called Jake Rosenbloom from the passenger seat, hanging on to the roll bar.

  “Barely,” groaned Ian Kabra. “I nearly lost my computer, not to mention my lunch.”

  “Ponyrific,” Jake replied soberly, using Pony’s nickname for his custom laptop. “It’s all we have left of — him.”

  The brilliant Pony had built the machine himself, using components from some of the best computers anywhere. It was a magnificent machine, but it could never replace the magnificent friend who’d been taken from them.

  Another bump sent passengers bouncing around the Jeep.

  “I thought the rental agent said this was a good road,” Ian complained in his clipped British accent.

  “In actuality,” put in Atticus Rosenbloom, Jake’s younger brother, “she never said it was good. She just said it was better than the roads in Honduras.”

  “You asked me to research the Tonle Sap water snake,” Ian persisted. “With all this tossing about, I can’t find the T key. Not even Pony could work under these conditions. Do slow down, Amy!”

  Amy let up a little on the accelerator. Thanks to her serum-boosted acuity of vision, she had actually watched Pony’s grip on the chopper’s skid fail, sending him plunging to his death. Loyal Pony — who wasn’t even a Cahill — had offered his digital cowboy skills to their quest. And the cost had been his life.

  Amy’s grip tightened on the steering wheel. That was the helicopter that had flown off with Dan. For all she knew, at this very moment, her younger brother was being tortured.

  For all she knew, he was as dead as Pony.

  To keep from screaming, she pressed harder on the accelerator, and the Jeep leaped forward, rattling and rocking along the dirt road.

  “As much as I hate to agree with Ian,” Jake ventured, “this is crazy driving. We’re not going to be able to help anybody if we hit a tree.”

  “We’re not going to hit a tree,” returned Amy through clenched teeth. “I’m in total control of this car.”

  “Good to know,” Ian said smoothly, “because I left my spleen about twelve kilometers back.”

  “But, Amy,” Jake persisted, “We n
eed to talk about why you’re in total control of this car — why you can drive like a NASCAR champion on a road meant for ox carts.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about,” Amy snapped. “I took the serum. Stop worrying. I’m fine!”

  She was fine. Better than fine, and not just because the serum was making her faster and stronger with every passing hour. Her thinking was clear. She could plan strategic moves and countermoves almost to infinity. Her eyesight was amazing, her hearing acute, her reaction time virtually instantaneous. She had no superpowers — she couldn’t lift locomotives or fly through the air. Yet her natural capabilities were enhanced to the nth degree.

  No sooner had this thought crossed her soaring mind than the pinkie of her left hand began to twitch slightly against the wheel. Under normal circumstances, she would not even have noticed it. But in her heightened state of acuity, she understood that this tiny spasm represented the beginning of the end. It was Amy’s future — the loss of control; the organ failure; the terrible, painful conclusion. The serum was glorious — until it wasn’t. And that, apparently, happened very quickly. The stuff could burn out a human being inside of a week. Amy would suffer the same fate if they couldn’t come up with the antidote.

  How crazy was that? She’d never felt better in her life — and she was dying.

  Suddenly, an enormous logging truck roared out of the trees, looming above, almost upon them, its broad cab hogging most of the road. Before any of them could shout, “Amy, look out!” she was on it. Her reaction was lightning fast — the instant her eyes identified the danger, her hands were moving the steering wheel. She found the path that hadn’t been there milliseconds earlier, squeezing through an impossible gap with mere inches to spare. Then they were back on the road, full speed ahead, as if nothing had happened.

  For a few breathless seconds, no one spoke. Before, there hadn’t been enough time to scream; now it was no longer necessary.

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, Amy,” Ian managed at last. “But at the moment, I’m really glad you swallowed that serum.”