Jase & the Deadliest Hunt

by John Luke Robertson

  Almost here. Almost.

  One of them is within reach. That’s when you begin to attack.

  And that’s when things go terribly wrong.

  You’re lashing and swiping and swinging and slashing, and then . . .

  You’re falling.

  You’re swimming.

  You’re drowning.

  You’re out.

  When you awake, you’re in your bed at the lodge. You’re wearing a bathrobe and have the world’s worst headache. Willie’s sitting in a chair next to you.

  “What happened?”

  He shakes his head. You can see a big ole grin underneath his big ole beard.

  “You know what makes a rope bridge cool?” Willie asks.

  “Oh no. Here we go.”

  “That it’s rope. And you know what’s cool about rope? You can cut into it. So you know—on a rope bridge, why in the world would you attack ducks with the sharpest sword in the known universe? Wouldn’t you think—?”

  “Yeah.”

  Willie laughs. “I mean, I would think that—”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Any logical man would know—”

  “Absolutely,” you say. “So are we done?”

  “Oh yeah, we’re done,” Willie says. “‘Hi, Korie. This is Willie. Yeah, we got ourselves a big, fat boar that we’re bringing home. But no. We couldn’t find anything else. Jase almost killed himself cutting down a rope bridge.’”

  “Tell her I said hello.”

  “Oh, I will,” Willie says as he leaves the room. “I will.”

  You lie still for a minute before you smell something familiar.

  Peanut butter.

  You realize you’ll probably never eat peanut butter again for the rest of your life.

  THE END

  Start over.

  Read “Let the Good Times Roll: A Note from John Luke Robertson.”

  ROOMMATES

  THERE’S NOTHING LIKE WILD ANIMALS ATTACKING to make you a little homesick. You have no idea what time it is back home, but if it’s night there too, the kids are asleep. Missy is dreaming about finding the perfect outfit on sale. It’s quiet.

  And there are definitely no signs of spider monkeys bouncing and attacking in anyone’s bedroom.

  But this is what you encounter in Cole’s room. The monkeys are black and white and red, and they’re freaking out. Cole’s trying to fend them off, but there are too many. They’re on his shoulders and his head and his legs and his arms.

  “Don’t you wish you had a video recorder?” you whisper to John Luke.

  “A little help here!” Cole shouts before a spider monkey punches him in the mouth.

  You hold up your sword. A blast of thunder cracks outside. “Has everybody gone crazy tonight?”

  “Yeah, I think so,” John Luke says. “But at least Uncle Si isn’t here to say something crazy.”

  “True.”

  Then you attack.

  Spider monkeys are pretty active. And they’re difficult to pin down.

  So it takes the three of you a long time to get rid of the twenty or so monkeys in the room.

  When you think you’re done, you hear a sound from another room down the hall.

  “That’s gotta be Willie.”

  “I bet it’s snakes,” John Luke says.

  “No, I bet it’s some kind of bird,” Cole says. “Like a bunch of owls.”

  The image of a roomful of owls attacking Willie is kinda funny.

  You hear his howl and you laugh. It’s not funny—but it’s kinda funny.

  John Luke and Cole are ready with their samurai swords.

  “We look pretty tough,” you say. “Like we’re starring in an end-of-the-world movie.”

  Willie screams again.

  “Should we help him?” John Luke asks.

  You think about it for a minute. A long minute.

  “Yeah. I guess.”

  You get there and find Willie crouched in the corner.

  There’s only one animal in his room. How it got there is a good question. Why he’s screaming is another good question.

  “Willie,” you say.

  He screams again until he realizes you guys are there.

  The moose in the middle of the room is just standing still. It’s not attacking him. It actually looks sorta bored.

  “Willie, what are you doing?”

  “That monster moose was attacking and gonna kill me, and I wasn’t going to—”

  “The thing looks half-asleep.”

  You extend a hand to Willie. Then you lift him up and lead him past the big ole moose.

  “See?”

  “That thing was going to kill me.” Willie picks up his sword from the floor, his eyes wide.

  “Uh-uh.” You shake your head. “Just—just leave him in the room.”

  “This is madness.”

  “No. You should’ve seen the spider monkeys. This is—this is actually kinda funny.”

  You all head out of Willie’s room and make sure to close the door.

  Once you’re back in the living room, you light a bunch of candles, lock the doors, and hunker down to wait out the storm and the long night.

  No other animals show up.

  Nor do any other humans.

  Go here.

  JUNGLE LOVE

  YOU’VE BEEN WALKING through the jungle for an hour on this hot and humid morning, and so far you’ve seen hardly anything. A lizard, some birds, a monkey’s tail. But after standing still and looking and waiting for the monkey to reappear, you begin to think you were imagining it.

  Maybe it was just a vine.

  “What if we don’t find anything?” Cole says to you as he maneuvers with the massive crossbow in his hands.

  “We are here for an entire week,” you remind him. “Or at least we will be if we shoot something today. And we will. Wouldn’t you guys be a little disappointed if we came right out here and bagged something ten minutes later?”

  “Not really,” Willie says. “I could hang out by the pool.”

  You adjust the crossbow in your grip. It’s remarkable how lightweight such a large weapon can be.

  Like the others in your group, you’re dressed in camouflage and carrying a pocketknife and a sidearm in a holster. You’ve already drained half the water in your canteen, for which you blame eating too much last night and not getting enough sleep. Having Willie in the room next door didn’t help. The guy sure does snore!

  Willie’s been leading you guys through the dense trees and foliage, and it seems like you’re already back where you started.

  “Did you just guide us in a big circle?” you ask him from the end of the line.

  “No.” Willie’s voice is defensive, like he’s some little brother who got caught sneaking a cookie from the jar in the kitchen. He looks around and shakes his head. “Well, maybe. I swear, this looks like the exact spot where they dropped us off in the Jeeps,” he says. “But there’s no way we could’ve gotten back here. No way.”

  “If there’s a Willie, there’s often a way.” You decide to take point for a while, whether he likes it or not. You guide the group down a path that cuts through the jungle, the very same route you already took earlier this morning. You do find it strange that you ended up at the exact place you began. How you could have gone in an entire circle in just an hour boggles your mind, but then again, lots of things Willie does make your brain hurt.

  The less I think about Willie, the less head-scratching I gotta do.

  There’s a slight incline to this tropical path. You head up the moderate hill, careful with your crossbow and also listening to every sound you can. As you near the top, you get the feeling that you’re close to something. Exactly what, you don’t know.

  Then you hear it.

  It sounds like . . . like some kind of tortured wild beast.

  “You hear that?” John Luke asks.

  “What’d you say?” Willie says. “Sorry—I can’t hear you because of the wild ani
mal that just screamed.”

  You tell them to be quiet. The sound continues for a moment.

  “That’s a wild boar or something,” Cole says.

  “Think that sounds more like Willie snoring,” you reply.

  There’s a commotion in the woods in front of you. You can feel the ground shaking a bit. But why? There’s no way one boar or even a group of them could make the ground tremble like this. At least not an ordinary boar.

  The noise is getting louder and closer.

  You raise your crossbow, one finger resting on the trigger while your other hand holds it as steady as possible. Then something dark, round, and waddling faster than you’ve ever seen rushes forward out of the bushes.

  The arrow rips out of your crossbow but comes nowhere close to whatever’s rushing at you.

  The creature plows into you and keeps going just as you hear—no, make that feel—someone else’s arrow whizzing by your ear.

  What the—?

  Another couple arrows fly off into the woods while the squealing, raging sound gets even louder.

  It’s gotta be a herd of wild pigs or boars. A dozen of them. More.

  You hear one of the boys yell. You think about trying to reload the crossbow but realize there’s no way. There’s no time.

  You regain your feet and reach for your pocketknife as Willie works on reloading his crossbow and John Luke unholsters his handgun.

  Then you stare all around but don’t see any of the dozens of boars that must have been right next to you.

  “What in the world were those?” you ask.

  “Those?” Willie says. “What are you talking about, ‘those’?”

  “The pack of wild boars that just came out of the woods.”

  “Pack?” Cole says.

  “There was only one,” John Luke adds.

  “Biggest hog I’ve ever seen in my life. Looked like a cow.”

  You stare at Willie in disbelief. “No.”

  “That was one hog.”

  “That was not just one hog.”

  “Nothing like we got back in West Monroe, but that was a single hog.”

  “There’s no way.”

  Willie only nods.

  “You see how fast that thing ran?”

  “I saw how fast it knocked you over,” your brother jokes.

  “I took one for the team.”

  “‘Pack of wild boars,’” Willie mimics.

  You roll your eyes.

  For the next hour, you guys try to find the wild hog that ran you over, but you can’t.

  You keep trying for the rest of the day, but wherever he went to hide, he decided to stay put, and nothing else comes out of the forest either.

  You wind up empty-handed.

  When you arrive back at the island lodge, you can see your bags out on the deck, already packed.

  Wait a minute—we paid for a whole week! I don’t care about the fine print.

  But the Count of Monte Cristo is nowhere to be found.

  Winchester comes out to see if you need anything. Like milk or cookies before you head home.

  “What kind of hunting trip is this?”

  “The agreement clearly stated that you would need to make a kill in each location. Six different kills.”

  “So we try again tomorrow,” Willie says.

  He’s fully in agreement that this is ludicrous.

  “As the count told you, if you fail at any given part of the hunt, the quest is over, Mr. Robertson. ‘You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both, and there you have the facts of life.’”

  You just stare at Willie.

  Did he seriously just quote the theme song from that show?

  “I’m really sorry,” Winchester says. “The helicopter will be here in five minutes. Ciao.”

  Now Winchester’s telling you good-bye in Italian.

  What’s up with this place?

  “I can say one thing,” Willie says after Winchester disappears into the lodge. “I am definitely having me some bacon the first chance I get.”

  THE END

  Start over.

  Read “Let the Good Times Roll: A Note from John Luke Robertson.”

  DON’T DO IT!

  YOU WATCH EVERYBODY take food from their containers and begin poking at it hesitantly. But when you open your own dinner, it only resembles some chicken nuggets. Somehow you expected a more exotic meal.

  “Are these some strange kind of nuggets?” you ask the count. “Like lizard-intestine nuggets? Or goat-brain nuggets?” Or could they be something worse?

  “No. They’re just fast-food chicken nuggets.”

  “What? Are they, like, old or something?” Maybe he’s trying to get rid of his leftovers. But that wouldn’t worry you. Plus, the count doesn’t really seem like the leftovers type.

  He shakes his head. So you try one. And yep, it tastes just like the chicken nuggets you’re used to. Not too bad. Actually, pretty tasty. Maybe the count’s trying to make you guys feel right at home with this meal.

  The count gasps. His eyes widen as a hint of horror crosses his face.

  “What? What’s wrong with these?”

  “Do you know what those do to you?”

  “Nope,” you say. “Can’t say that I do.”

  “Fragments of them stay in your stomach. Forever.”

  You laugh. “Come on.”

  “No. It’s true. The parts that aren’t food.”

  “Parts that aren’t food? Then what are they?”

  He explains, and you almost throw up. It’s so awful that it can’t be written down.

  It can’t be true.

  “That’s impossible.”

  “It’s the truth,” the count says.

  “And millions of kids are eating this stuff every day.”

  “It also has a known additive.”

  He tells you what that is. You shake your head and whip the chicken nuggets across the room. They hit the wall and floor with sickening thuds.

  The other guys jerk their heads toward you, alarmed. You turn to the count again.

  “It can’t be.”

  “It’s true,” the count repeats.

  “People need to be informed! This can’t be legal. It’s not even—it’s just plain wrong.”

  “Yes. Chicken nuggets. Ordinary, simple chicken nuggets. There’s more to them than meets the eye . . . or the taste buds.”

  You feel ill.

  So very ill.

  Go here.

  FOR YOUR EYES ONLY

  “SHHHHHH.”

  You’re hidden in the brush and overgrowth on the top of a bank overlooking the river. It’s not much of a river, to be honest. It’s probably only two feet deep and maybe twenty yards across. But you’re aiming the rifle at the center of the river, where you can see the same creature you’ve been watching all afternoon.

  A gold duck.

  You look into the Stettinga hunting rifle with its massive scope. You can see the duck perfectly. And even as you examine it, you realize you’ve never seen anything like it before. It resembles a mallard or a wild duck, but you observe some unique features in addition to its surprising color.

  First off, the beak looks longer. A lot longer than a typical duck beak. And there’s something shiny, almost prickly, on its bright feathers. Like it’s got scales on its wings.

  Then there are the eyes. This duck’s got Mona Lisa eyes. The kind that seem to be looking at you regardless of where you’re standing.

  I gotta sound crazy.

  But that’s okay. You’re not crazy. And in about five seconds, those Mona Lisa eyes aren’t gonna be staring at nothing.

  You fire, but right before you do, it flies off.

  Just like last time.

  “Come on!”

  “Shush,” Willie says. He’s lying on the edge of the hill, taking shots as well.

  “Go ahead—shoot the duck in the sky,” you tell him. You stand to get some circulation in your body.

  “It’
s as if it knows when I’m about to shoot,” he says.

  You decide to take a break, heading into the jungle to use the bathroom. You leave the rifle propped up against a tree. Minutes later, as you’re walking back to the edge of the river, you see the duck standing right next to your rifle.

  Those eyes. They’re looking at me. They’re looking through me.

  Even though you’re walking straight toward it, the duck doesn’t budge. It doesn’t move. It just keeps staring directly at you.

  You take out your handgun.

  I killed a hog with a dagger. Maybe I can pop this duck with a pistol.

  Six shots later, you feel like a complete loser.

  “Hey, what are you doing shooting at a tree?” Willie asks.

  “The duck. It was right there. You didn’t see it fly away?”

  “It’s on the edge of the river. I’ve been watching it this whole time.”

  “Well, then there’s more than one duck.”

  Either that or you’re starting to lose your mind.

  You settle down again and prepare yourself. This really should be easy, right? Sure, you’re not in a duck blind and you don’t have a shotgun. But this is target practice. The duck’s on vacation. It’s taking life far too easily. You should be able to pop it at least once. Shouldn’t you?

  But you steady yourself. You lock in the rifle, and as you aim and fire . . .

  Nothing.

  A big splash. That’s all you get.

  The duck flies up and circles above your head.

  It’s totally taunting me.

  Then it heads back to the river.

  You try again.

  Nope.

  “You using that scope?” Willie calls out from his spot.

  You see his shot blast a small fountain of water.

  “I’m getting closer than you are!”

  The boys are having similar luck, and you hear their shouts of frustration each time they miss the target.

  You’re reloading once more when something waddles out of the bushes. The dark, unmoving eyes meet yours.

  It’s another duck. The same kind, with its weird golden feathers and extralong beak.

  You try to swipe at it with the butt of your rifle, but it’s no good.