Ultimate Attack

by Michael P. Spradlin

  Dr. Catalyst pounded on the steering wheel in frustration, causing the van to swerve slightly in the road. He had to struggle to regain control of his emotions.

  Unbelievable. How had this happened? In heaven’s name, what did it take to rid the world of that little monster, Emmet Doyle? How did he manage, as slippery as an eel, to escape every single time?

  It was nearly more than he could take. The time had come to rid himself of the Doyle brat once and for all. The sooner, the better.

  Up ahead was a street leading to a bridge across the canal. Once across, the creature was only a few blocks away. It would follow the homing beacon to the van. When the beast was secured, he would return it to the training compound. He needed to think. There had to be a way.

  Dr. Catalyst sped off into the night.

  EMMET WAS RELEASED FROM THE HOSPITAL THE NEXT day and had to go immediately back to school. After the incident with the Blood Jackets, the State Health Department had gone through Tasker Middle School and cleaned out all of the Blood Jacket remains and … gunk … so classes could resume. “We have to recover and move on,” the school official had said. Emmet said pfft. Let them recover and move on. The school officials hadn’t been chased through the school by a screeching mass of biting, stinging horror-movie monsters.

  When Emmet arrived at school that morning, it smelled clean. Like, über-clean. As if the entire building had been dipped in bleach. Calvin’s mom dropped them off like usual. If she noticed that they were quiet and not talking, she didn’t say anything. Emmet knew the way adults worked. If his dad had picked up on the fact that the two of them were squabbling, then Dr. Geaux, with her superior momdar, was perfectly aware of what was going on.

  The antiseptic smell of the building was strangely reassuring. The day the Blood Jackets had attacked Emmet and his friends during the band concert, they’d had lunch like usual. Stuke noticed a bunch of Blood Jacket goop dripping out of one of the vents in the lunchroom. Remembering it made Emmet shudder. It was gray, gooey, and gross. Hopefully whoever cleaned up the school had been thorough. Emmet had half a mind to inspect the vents himself and make sure the Blood Jackets were really all gone.

  “Emmet,” Calvin said as they made their way through the crowded halls to their lockers.

  “What?”

  “We need to talk,” he said.

  “About what?”

  “You know very well about what,” Calvin said.

  “Sorry, Calvin,” Emmet said. “I’m not going to do this. When you came back from the swamp, you said you knew who Dr. Catalyst was. Since then you’ve been as silent as the Sphinx. I don’t get it. But that guy is running around out there, doing real harm. Last night I thought I was going to die. But you haven’t said anything.” He walked faster, leaving Calvin behind. Emmet was working up a real head of steam, and he didn’t want to blow up.

  “I’m sorry about last night,” Calvin said, hustling to keep up. “I’m really glad you’re okay, Emmet. I don’t … I haven’t … I’m just not sure anymore. I thought I was, but I’m not. I have a reason, but I can’t tell you.”

  “I’m sure you do,” Emmet said. “You have a reason for everything you do.”

  By then Emmet had reached his locker and Calvin stopped, not saying anything. For a minute, Emmet thought Calvin would give up and head to his locker. It was about five minutes until the first bell. Calvin didn’t like being late. But he stayed there while Emmet stowed his backpack and got his books organized for classes.

  “Emmet. In the swamp … I thought I was sure … I mean … pretty sure. But the more I thought about it, I didn’t have any real evidence. I still don’t. And you can’t go around accusing someone of something like this… .”

  Emmet slammed his locker door shut.

  “Spare me. If you know something about someone, all you need to do is tell your mom. They put the name and face out there. If the person is innocent, they come in and prove their innocence. The task force will just question them. If they’re not the bad guy, they get to go home. I just don’t see what the problem is. If they’re guilty, then their name and face are all over the place, and maybe they get caught.”

  “I know … I … but …” Calvin stammered.

  Emmet held up his hand, just like his dad had the night before.

  “Save it,” he said as the bell rang.

  Emmet stormed off and went to class.

  He was in a foul mood all day. At lunchtime, he sat off by himself at a table with a bunch of kids he didn’t know. Emmet was still relatively new at school, and had been hanging out with Calvin, Stuke, Riley, and Raeburn since pretty much the first day. They sat at their usual table, shooting confused looks his way, except Calvin, who wore his usual stony face. Emmet knew they weren’t getting anything out of him, either, but the others were content to give him some space.

  The kids Emmet sat with were okay. They knew that his dad was working on the Dr. Catalyst case, and that was all they wanted to talk about. That, and whatever had happened to Dr. Newton. He still hadn’t been found after allegedly being kidnapped, and everyone was assuming the worst. The school had extra counselors on hand to talk to kids who might be upset about it. A lot of students at Tasker liked Dr. Newton. He wasn’t exactly Emmet’s favorite teacher, but Emmet didn’t want anything bad to happen to him. Unless he really was Dr. Catalyst. Then Emmet might be okay with a little maiming.

  When all this mess had started, Emmet had been sure that Dr. Newton was really Dr. Catalyst. And if Dr. Catalyst could fake his own death, Dr. Newton could certainly have faked his own kidnapping and disappearance. But Calvin saw Dr. Catalyst up close at the aquarium, and his arm had been all mangled up from the not-so-unfortunate Pterogator accident that saved Emmet’s life. Not long after, Dr. Newton had shown up at school with a cast conveniently covering the same arm. It was still suspicious to Emmet. The teacher had said it was because of a car accident.

  Still, as the days went by, and the search for Dr. Newton become more and more hopeless, Emmet worried that maybe Dr. Newton hadn’t been Dr. Catalyst after all. Maybe something bad had just happened to him.

  These new kids were trying to be nice to Emmet, and he tried to be polite in return, but he wolfed down his lunch and excused himself way ahead of the bell.

  His friends left him alone for the rest of the day. Emmet kind of sleepwalked through his classes. The afternoon seemed to drag, but the last bell finally rang. Calvin’s mom always had a squad car from the Florida City PD drive them to Calvin’s house after school, then the car would drive by every so often just to make sure they were okay. They also had to check in with Mrs. Clawson, Calvin’s nearly blind and deaf next-door neighbor, and sometimes sitter. Their parents didn’t want to keep them under lock and key, but Dr. Geaux was cautious.

  “Emmet,” Calvin said as they walked down the driveway toward his house.

  “Don’t even,” Emmet said.

  Calvin sighed. Mrs. Clawson was watering some flowers in her garden when they walked past. Usually she was in her living room watching game shows with the volume on the eardrum-busting setting.

  “Hello, boys!” she said. Emmet and Calvin waved back and mumbled hello.

  Calvin’s mom allowed them to stay at the house by themselves until Emmet’s dad picked him up after work. When Emmet wasn’t busy not speaking to Calvin, they usually spent their time in Calvin’s really cool tree house doing homework, or trying to come up with a way to catch Dr. Catalyst. Mostly Emmet tried to come up with the plans. Calvin didn’t like falling behind on his homework.

  But ever since the night Calvin had disappeared into the swamp, and Emmet had set out to find him and nearly gotten himself and his friends eaten alive in the process, they mostly passed the time ignoring each other. Not that Emmet wasn’t grateful for Calvin showing up out of nowhere to rescue them. He just couldn’t quite believe his once best friend would keep a secret as important as the identity of a deranged madman to himself.

  These days Emme
t usually stayed in the living room with Apollo, and avoided Calvin completely.

  Except today.

  Because today, when they walked in the front door, there was a man sitting on the couch in the living room. He was older, with shoulder-length black hair that was tinged with gray streaks. His kind face was lined and tan. When he spotted Calvin, he smiled. And Apollo was sitting calmly and comfortably in his lap. He looked a little bit like Calvin, and Emmet took a guess that they might be related. But he wasn’t taking any chances.

  “Who are —” Emmet shouted, dropping his backpack and digging into his pocket for his cell phone.

  Calvin reached out and touched his arm. “It’s okay, Emmet. It’s okay.”

  “Hello, nephew,” the old man said. His voice was deep. He sounded like someone who would narrate a nature documentary.

  “Uncle Yaha?” Calvin asked. “What are you doing here?”

  “You know what,” the old man said. He looked down at Apollo and stroked his head. Apollo rolled over in the old man’s lap, yawning and stretching out.

  “Uncle?”

  “It’s time to put a stop to this, Calvin. Call your mother.”

  And Calvin did.

  DR. CATALYST PULLED ALONG THE RUTTED LANE THAT LED to the gated compound where he kept this newest hybrid creature. It was only accessible by a long-abandoned park service road that led deep into the middle of the swamp. It was an ideal location. The expansive property was isolated, bordering a lake along its northern edge. There he had a dock with an airboat at the ready; the lake fed a river leading directly to the Taylor Slough and gave him quick access to many of his other hideouts.

  An automatic gate opened. Dr. Catalyst pulled through, making sure it closed behind him. Once inside the barn he backed the van up to the containment pen where the hybrid was usually caged. The barred steel enclosure had an opening for a door cut into the barn wall. It allowed the creature to roam the acreage as it pleased. A twelve-foot-high fence enclosed the property. The fence also extended six feet into the ground, and the top of it was covered in razor wire. Dr. Catalyst did not worry about his predator escaping.

  The hybrid bounded out of the van, through the pen, and out into the open fields beyond the barn. Dr. Catalyst watched it prowl along the land from the barn window, growling and barking as it went. It was a magnificent beast. Some trick or other unforeseen circumstance must have kept it from completing its mission. Dr. Catalyst knew from experience how slippery Emmet Doyle could be.

  Now that his first effort was foiled, Dr. Catalyst needed to come up with some other way of loosing the creature on Emmet. As he thought, he realized his mistake. All of his former creatures had been designed for particular purposes. To restore balance to the Everglades and the environment. Except for the Blood Jackets, which had been unleashed to teach his enemies a lesson.

  Once he mastered the complexities of recombining the DNA and splicing genes for each species, creating clones had been fairly simple. It just took time and resources. And the creatures he created did work as he intended, until the little horror that was Emmet Doyle had shown up.

  Now that he had created a creature for the sole purpose of stopping Emmet, he recognized the flaw in his plan. His other creatures had been bred in large numbers. It required the resources of the entire task force to maintain order, contain the animals, and manage the crisis. With just one creature, the authorities would focus on keeping Emmet safe. Dr. Catalyst paused to consider this for a moment.

  He’d already kidnapped Dr. Doyle. He had even snatched Emmet’s monstrous dog. Once they figured out this hybrid was a solitary creation with a single target, security around Emmet would be tightened. The task force would expect Dr. Catalyst to follow his pattern and snatch Emmet, using him as leverage to meet some demand or another. Ha! If they only knew. All he wanted was to get rid of the annoying little twerp.

  Therefore, he needed to break the pattern.

  If he wanted his creature to succeed, he would need to do more extensive planning. No protection or surveillance detail was perfect. Despite their best efforts, unless he was put in lockdown or held in a castle somewhere, Emmet would at some point be alone and exposed. He could be separated from his protectors.

  Dr. Catalyst studied the creature as it stalked through the trees and grass of his property. It dawned on him that, like they had been from the very beginning, the hybrids he’d created were his greatest resources. If he could use the creature to instill fear in the population of Florida City, then the task force would be compelled to withdraw their protection of Emmet and focus on stopping the threat.

  With the authorities occupied elsewhere, he would strike. He would find a way to separate Emmet from his safety net. Then he would arrange a meeting between the troublesome child and his newest pet.

  That was the best way. The smart way. Dr. Catalyst smiled.

  The barn was where he now slept and worked. All of his equipment had been moved inside. The interior no longer looked or functioned like a barn, except for the one pen for his creature. One of the rooms was set up with his computers, lab equipment, and a workstation. The wall was completely covered by a large flat-screen, high-definition computer monitor.

  Sitting down at the desk, he ran his fingers over the keyboard, pulling a map of Florida City up on the screen. It was time to get to work.

  It was time for vengeance.

  THINGS HAPPENED FAST. CALVIN CALLED HIS MOM, AND she and Emmet’s dad arrived about thirty minutes later, both trying to look like they were calm. Like they hadn’t just rushed to the house as fast as they could. As soon as she walked in the door, Emmet sensed that Dr. Geaux and Calvin’s great-uncle were … not exactly unfriendly, but maybe they didn’t send each other birthday cards, either.

  He remembered her telling him that it had been difficult for her and Calvin’s dad when they were first married. Dr. Geaux was not a Seminole, and Lucas Geaux’s family had difficulty with that fact. Emmet found it hard to think that anyone wouldn’t welcome Dr. Geaux into their family, but he also knew families were complicated sometimes.

  “Hello, Yaha,” she said. Her voice was wary.

  “Hello, Rosalita,” the old man said. “You look well.” Apollo jumped off his lap, and Yaha stood.

  “It’s been a long time,” she said. “This is Dr. Benton Doyle, and this is his son, Emmet.”

  “I have had the pleasure of speaking to Emmet while we waited for you,” Yaha said. “Dr. Doyle, it’s nice to meet you.” He nodded at Dr. Doyle but stood there with his hands behind his back, kind of stiff and unmoving. It was all very odd.

  Dr. Geaux waited for a few moments, as if she was waiting for Yaha to speak, but he seemed content to stand in the middle of the living room and stare at everyone. Nobody said anything, until Apollo suddenly seemed to realize that Emmet’s dad was there and went over and yipped in greeting. Dr. Doyle knelt and scratched him behind the ears. Somehow it broke the ice.

  “Why are you here, Yaha?” Dr. Geaux asked.

  “I am here to help,” he said.

  “Help? Help who? With what?” Emmet and his dad were watching them talk, their heads going back and forth like they were observing a tennis match. Calvin was standing by the far end of the couch, squirming. Emmet had never seen him squirm before. It was like Calvin couldn’t find something to comfortably stare at. His eyes traveled all over the room, but he wasn’t looking at anyone.

  “With the one who calls himself Dr. Catalyst,” he said.

  Dr. Geaux and Dr. Doyle were taken aback.

  “You have information about Dr. Catalyst?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said. “I do. In fact, I know who he is.”

  Dr. Geaux didn’t react like Emmet expected. He thought she might take Calvin’s uncle somewhere to have him interrogated. But she just crossed her arms, and her face took on an expression that was hard to describe. Like she didn’t trust him. Or like she resented him for standing in her house right now. Emmet couldn’t be sure.
/>   “So tell me, Yaha. Who is Dr. Catalyst?”

  “You might want to sit down,” he said.

  “I’ll stand, thank you,” she said.

  “Very well. This will be hard for you to understand,” he said.

  “Try me,” she said.

  “What I am about to tell you, I have told no one except Calvin, when he came to visit me on the reservation,” he said.

  Dr. Geaux tried not to show anything, but the disappointment on her face could not be hidden. Emmet saw Calvin sag from the corner of his eye. Dr. Geaux stood up straighter, putting her hands on her hips. Her eyes bored into Calvin, but he looked down at the floor.

  “Look at me,” she said.

  He did.

  “You did this? You went to the rez to see Yaha?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Calvin mumbled.

  “Why?”

  “Because I had to know,” he said.

  “Know what?” Dr. Geaux was almost trembling. Emmet couldn’t tell if she was mad or nervous or what. His dad reached out and put his hand on her shoulder.

  “I had to find out if Dr. Catalyst was … is … my grandfather,” Calvin said.

  Dr. Geaux sat down.

  IT WAS DARK NOW.

  The Geaux house was on a small cul-de-sac. The backyard was fenced in, but a few yards beyond the fence ran a small creek. Usually at this time of the evening, the sounds of night creatures filled the air. Tree frogs peeped, alligators bellowed, and birds called to each other as they settled in their nests.

  But tonight it was silent.

  Tonight there was a new, strange predator in their midst.