It worked. At least this time. Unsure of what they were facing, the things broke off and dived toward the bottom again. The water was getting shallower as they drew nearer to the shore. Emmet realized he was getting tired. He took a breath and ducked back beneath the water, glancing all around, but found no sign of the eels.
“I think they’re gone,” he said, gasping as he and Calvin broke the surface.
“I don’t know,” Calvin said. “We better …” He stopped. Their feet had touched bottom and their parents were there.
Together, with Raeburn keeping pressure on the wound, they splashed their way to the beach. Each of them helped carry Stuke across the hot sand, until they could lay him gently in the back of Dr. Doyle’s truck. Emmet ran and gathered up Apollo, and everyone piled into the truck bed. Dr. Geaux started the engine and whipped open her phone, dialing while Dr. Doyle and the others worked on Stuke.
Dr. Doyle peeled off his T-shirt and handed it to Raeburn while he cradled Stuke’s head in his lap.
“Raeburn, keep pressure on it with the cloth. Calvin, I need you to kneel at his feet. We’re going to gently lift his leg and set it on your shoulder. We need to keep his foot elevated,” Dr. Doyle said.
“It hurts! It hurts!” Stuke cried out. Riley gripped his hand in hers. Emmet took the other one.
“Hang on, buddy,” Emmet said. “We’re going to be at the hospital soon.” Emmet kept talking calmly to Stuke as the truck zoomed over the road.
Dr. Doyle checked his eyes. “He’s going into shock.”
Emmet shook his hand. “Hey, Stuke! Come on, man. School starts in two weeks. You don’t want to miss that! Tater tots in the cafeteria! Homework! Hang in there, dude. We’re almost there.”
Stuke continued to moan, tears streaming down his face. Apollo wormed his way into the crowd around the wounded boy and gently licked the tears away, as if comforting him in the only way he knew how.
A few minutes later, the truck screeched to a halt at the ER entrance of a nearby hospital. A trauma team burst through the door, and several orderlies lifted Stuke onto a gurney. The six of them watched in exhausted silence as they wheeled him inside.
The hot dogs were left forgotten and burning on the grill.
EVERYONE PACED NERVOUSLY IN THE WAITING ROOM adjacent to the ER. While doctors worked on Stuke, a nurse helped Raeburn get cleaned up and gave Dr. Doyle some scrubs to change into. All of them were still in swimsuits and vests. The kids were barefoot, having kicked off their swim fins on the beach. Dr. Doyle’s and Dr. Geaux’s clothes were soaked. They hadn’t paused to gather up anything other than Apollo.
Now that Emmet had a chance to think about it, he was really proud of his dad. Dr. Doyle was an outdoorsman. Even though Emmet always made fun of him, calling him the Bird Nerd, his father was experienced at a lot of things. In Montana he’d been part of search-and-rescue teams that went into the mountains to find lost hikers and campers. First aid and triage were second nature to him, and he’d kept them all calm while they got Stuke to the hospital.
While they waited, the group huddled in the waiting room to discuss what had just occurred.
“What happened out there?” Dr. Geaux asked. Emmet and Riley were still a little too shaken up to talk, so Raeburn spoke up.
“Some kind of giant eels swam up on the reef from the deeper water offshore. One of them attacked Stuke. But I don’t think it was an eel exactly. It looked like one, but it was bigger than any I’ve ever seen. It had a mouth shaped more like a barracuda’s, and it could swim really fast,” she said.
“Did it have any other unusual markings or colorations that you can remember?” Dr. Geaux asked.
“It had bluish-gray scales, and it was spotted along the gills, like some morays I’ve seen,” Calvin said. “And …” He stopped, thinking, trying to recall details.
“What, Calvin?” Dr. Geaux prodded him.
“Like Raeburn said, they came out of the deep water offshore. And they headed straight toward the reef like laser beams. The weird thing is they ate the lionfish. Like they hadn’t fed in weeks. We were swimming over the reef and there must have been a hundred lionfish there, maybe more. And those things, I think there were at least six of them, cleared that reef in minutes. I know a few other fish will eat lionfish if they’re hungry enough, but they’re not anything’s first choice. But these things were like lionfish vacuum cleaners. It made me think of …” Calvin stopped.
“What is it?” Dr. Geaux asked.
“It’s nothing,” Calvin said.
Emmet looked at Calvin, then paced back and forth waving his arms around wildly. “You know it’s not nothing. I tried to tell everyone, but nobody would believe me. I said he’d be back.”
Dr. Doyle put his hand on Emmet’s shoulder. “Emmet, we have no evidence that this is Dr. Catalyst’s doing. Unlike land animals, it’s not unknown for new species of sea creatures to be discovered. The ocean is a vast ecosystem that is home to —”
“Come on, Dad!” Emmet interrupted. “Who else would it be? I just learned less than an hour ago that the lionfish is an invasive species, exactly like the pythons and boas. The Pterogators appeared to take them out. Now, all of a sudden, this swimming dragon comes out of nowhere and starts chowing down on lionfish? And don’t you think it’s strange that it shows up right where we happen to be? What more evidence do you need? It’s him. You know it’s him. Dr. Catalyst is back!”
Dr. Geaux and Dr. Doyle exchanged uncomfortable glances. Dr. Geaux ran her hands through her short hair, like she often did when she was tired or nervous.
“Emmet, hon, I know how you feel about Dr. Catalyst. But we don’t have a single shred of evidence he’s involved here. And we need to find out more about what we’re dealing with. I’ll need to coordinate with NOAA and get a dive team out there. We need to photograph or capture one of those things so we can test —”
“Actually, Dr. Geaux,” Riley spoke up, “I think I have all the pictures you need right here.” She held up her right arm. Still dangling from her wrist was her underwater camera.
Emmet was thunderstruck. He’d been terrified, trying to find a way to get out of the water, and Riley had been playing crime-scene photographer.
“Seriously? You took pictures?” Emmet asked.
“Just at the beginning. When Calvin first spotted them. I thought they were weird looking. I didn’t realize they were dangerous. After Stuke was attacked, I forgot I even had the camera. If it hadn’t been for the wrist strap, I probably would have dropped it.”
She handed the camera to Dr. Geaux.
“Riley.” Dr. Geaux smiled. “You may have just given us a giant head start. I’m going to get these looked at. And then we’ll figure things out. But now I have to ask all of you … given what we went through at the park the last time, let’s keep any Dr. Catalyst talk to ourselves. Agreed?”
Each of them nodded in agreement.
But a few seconds later, they no longer needed to remain silent. A television running in the corner of the ER broke in with a news flash. A blond woman sitting at an anchor desk spoke with a grim expression
“Channel Five News has just received a new video from a person claiming to be Dr. Catalyst. South Floridians will remember him from earlier this year. Dr. Catalyst, as he called himself, was an environmentalist and geneticist that some are calling an ecological hero, but others a terrorist. According to authorities he was presumed dead, after releasing a fearsome new species of alligator in the Everglades and kidnapping a respected avian biologist. In this most recent statement, the person claiming to be Dr. Catalyst says he has unleashed a new hybrid species aimed at ridding the coastal reefs of the invasive lionfish, which have decimated the ecosystem. Dr. Catalyst warns that his new ‘creation’ lives only in salt water but is fast, aggressive, and should not be approached. He also says he plans to release more creatures soon, unless a set of forthcoming demands are met.
“Here at Channel Five News we must emphasize we cannot con
firm the identity of the person claiming to be Dr. Catalyst, as Dr. Catalyst was declared missing by the FBI. We are working with our sources to learn if his status has changed. However, we have video of what this Dr. Catalyst claims are his newest hybrid creations. We must warn our viewers what you are about to see is graphic in nature.”
And right there, on the TV in the ER, Stuke’s friends watched again as he was attacked by something out of a nightmare.
DR. CATALYST WAS OVERJOYED. IF ANYTHING, THE resulting firestorm from the video he released overwhelmed even his earlier “media outreach” with the Pterogators. It was almost certainly a result of the attack on the Stukaczowski boy. (He had learned the name from the media reports.) Once again Emmet and Calvin had intervened, preventing his Muraecudas from killing the lad. Were they not thwarting him at every turn, he would admire their ingenuity. Their quick thinking had saved their friend from a more serious injury or even death.
Today he had emailed his South Florida Ecosystem Recovery Manifesto to every news outlet and environmental organization in the entire state of Florida. The response had been almost exactly as he expected. First, the local law enforcement agencies had formed a task force. They assumed he was using the Everglades as his base again.
But he crossed them up this time. Among his demands, he insisted hundreds of miles of coastline be shut down to public use, as well as the entire Everglades National Park. This would strain their resources. Additional rangers and other law-enforcement personnel would be gearing up to find him. Dr. Catalyst was presumed dead based on the blood evidence from his airboat recovered in their previous encounter, so at this point they were operating on the assumption that Dr. Catalyst had an accomplice in his hybridization efforts or that this new creature was the result of a copycat.
It made Dr. Catalyst laugh. As if any copycat could possibly hope to accomplish what he had done scientifically. A handful of others in the world might have the intellect or the resources, but they lacked the will.
It had taken so little effort to fool the idiots trying to catch him. Keeping a few pints of his own blood available was part of his standard contingency operation. Before he abandoned the boat, he spread it around the wreck to throw off the authorities. Apparently it had worked. Let them think there was another Dr. Catalyst at work. It gave him an advantage. This time he was hidden somewhere they would never look.
After losing his compound in the Everglades, he’d upgraded all of his data feeds. He now stored his information on computer servers at an offshore company that maintained the equipment and asked no questions as long as they received payment. It allowed him to use his tablet computer to keep track of all of his facilities and experiments. All of his labs were wired with motion-sensor cameras. If anyone showed up, he’d get a notification sent to his tablet and phone and see it right away.
With his fingers flying over his tablet, he checked on the tank holding a new batch of Muraecuda hatchlings. They were progressing rapidly and would be ready to release soon. All was going according to plan.
He punched another icon on the tablet and the screen split into several smaller screens showing the media broadcasts surrounding the environmental “crisis” he had created. Some stations where showing the video. Others were having roundtable discussions with so-called experts discussing what should be done to address the “Dr. Catalyst Problem.”
Dr. Catalyst wasn’t sure what triggered the thought. Perhaps it came from his plans to release his next batch of hybrids. Or it could have been from listening to the politicians, environmentalists, and other windbags trying to figure out what he was doing or if he was even real.
He was real all right. And things were about to become even more interesting for those who opposed him. Dr. Catalyst was going to make things very real.
He was going to start a movement.
BEFORE THEY COULD DIGEST WHAT THEY HAD JUST SEEN, before Emmet could say “I told you so,” a doctor finally emerged from the exam room. The group gathered in a half circle around him. The name on the pocket of his white coat read FLORES, and his sleeves had blood on them. Emmet tried not to think about it being Stuke’s blood.
“We’ve managed to stop the bleeding,” Dr. Flores said. “It’s a vicious bite. We’re going to have him airlifted to South Miami Hospital for surgery. He’s stable and we’ve given him enough pain medication to knock him out. What is it that attacked him?”
Dr. Geaux stepped forward. “Dr. Flores, I’m Dr. Rosalita Geaux of the NPS and superintendent of Everglades National Park. We’re not quite sure what it was. It might have been a barracuda.”
Dr. Flores shook his head. “I get a lot of injured swimmers in here. That’s not like any barracuda bite I’ve ever seen. Whatever attacked the boy had a mouth full of teeth, but the bite pattern is not like —”
“I’ll make sure the authorities are alerted, and we’ll find out what happened,” Dr. Geaux interrupted. “Right now we’d like to focus on Stuke.”
Dr. Flores’s eyebrows furrowed a moment. Emmet watched the exchange like it was a tennis match. He was almost ready to blurt out the truth but remembered his promise to keep the details secret for now.
“Hmm. Well, he’s asleep now. We’ve also given him a huge dose of antibiotics to combat infection. The Life Lift chopper is inbound. If one or two of you would like to see him, you can wait with him until it gets here. That’ll be fine. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to check on him again.” Dr. Flores disappeared through the double doors back into the ward.
Emmet’s dad and Riley went to check on Stuke, while Dr. Geaux made a call.
Before long, Emmet could hear the sound of the chopper approaching.
The drive to Miami seemed to take forever, even after Dr. Geaux called the Florida State Police for an escort to help them cut through traffic.
Stuke was in surgery when they arrived, but his parents were in the waiting room.
Stuke was an almost perfect combination of his mom and his dad. He had his mother’s height and her round, friendly face. His dad had the same red hair and freckles, and was pacing intensely back and forth. Stuke’s dad was a Florida City police lieutenant. He had already seen the footage on the television, and he was beyond angry, stalking back and forth in the waiting room, his body coiled. His jaw was so tight it looked like it had been carved out of granite. But he softened when he saw Emmet, Calvin, and the girls.
“You kids,” Officer Stukaczowski said. “You saved my boy. My wife and I … we … the way you all took care of him … made sure he got to safety … we …” Tears formed in his eyes and he had to look away. His wife rubbed his shoulders and smiled at them, but she had teary eyes as well. Raeburn stepped up and gave him a hug.
“Officer Stukaczowski,” she said, “it’s okay. If it had been one of us, Stuke would have done the same thing.”
He looked at Dr. Geaux. “When you want to start looking for this creep, I’m ready. My resources, contacts, sources, my off-duty hours — whatever you need, you’ve got it.”
“Tom,” Dr. Geaux said, “you know we’re going to catch this guy. But don’t worry about it now. Right now, let’s be here for Stuke. We can think about Dr. Catalyst later.”
Stuke was in the operating room for six hours, but the surgery was deemed a success. Even so, his recovery and physical therapy were going to take several months, and he would have to spend a few days in the hospital. The doctors wanted to dose him with antibiotics to make sure he didn’t end up with an infection. The long, ragged bite on his leg had over one hundred stitches in it. It would probably leave a winding, jagged scar along the calf and knee of his right leg. Two of the tendons in his leg had been severed, but the surgeries had reattached them. Thankfully the creature hadn’t broken any bones or permanently damaged any nerves. It was going to hurt for a while, and Stuke would be confined to a wheelchair while the stitches healed. But the main thing was he was going to be okay.
Emmet decided he liked Stuke’s dad. He welcomed any new members to the
“I Hate Dr. Catalyst” club. And it was probably a good thing to have a policeman on the membership roster.
But Emmet was still the president.
BY THE TIME SCHOOL STARTED, DR. CATALYST’S MANIFESTO was all over the news. It became such a big deal in the media that Stuke’s dad came to the first day of school to talk about safety. He urged all the students to stay away from the beaches and to avoid the Everglades for the time being. Pterogators were still on the loose in the Glades and were driving the regular alligators out of the swamp and into more populated areas. The normal gators were getting hungry and desperate, and that made them more aggressive. He wanted everyone to be aware.
Dr. Catalyst called his new hybrids Muraecudas. They looked like someone had duct-taped the head of a barracuda to a moray eel’s body and then added an extra serving of teeth. Nobody knew how many of these giant killing machines were out there, lurking in the ocean. The local authorities were not going to officially close the beaches. They were not going to give Dr. Catalyst the satisfaction. But Stuke’s dad told everyone it was probably best to exercise caution.
Dr. Catalyst’s manifesto, if it was Dr. Catalyst, had a list of demands a mile long. Emmet hadn’t even read the manifesto because he’d heard it all before: Close everything. Someday I’ll be thought of as a genius. Kick everyone out of the Everglades. I’m not crazy, I’m a visionary, and blah, blah, blah. There was a lot of other stuff in there about environmental policy and legislative initiatives that generally made Emmet’s eyes glaze over.
Since Emmet had no intention of ever going back into the water under any circumstances, his mind drifted while the first-day assembly dragged on. As he fidgeted in his seat, his eyes wandered across the gymnasium and settled on Dr. Newton. He was standing with the rest of the faculty, along the gym wall. Still in his ratty tweed sport coat and his Birkenstocks. Emmet’s eyes narrowed as he studied him. “Hey, Calvin,” he whispered.
Feeding Frenzy Page 3
