Ultimate Attack

by Michael P. Spradlin

  And so would Emmet Doyle.

  CALVIN GOT OFF THE BUS AT THE STOP CLOSEST TO PARK headquarters. He used his mom’s keycard to enter the grounds. He remembered how Emmet had first arrived a few months ago, and how they’d encountered the Pterogators. What Calvin had admired about Emmet was his ability to conquer his fear. Calvin was used to the swamp, while Emmet had hated it from the first minute. But despite his wisecracking and obvious discomfort, he always did what needed to be done.

  Now it was Calvin’s turn. He knew — or at least had a very good idea — where Emmet was. The answer had come to him standing at his mother’s bedside. At first he thought his uncle Yaha was telling him that Dr. Catalyst (it was still hard for Calvin to think of the man as his grandfather) was holding Emmet in one of the Keys, the small islands dotting the southern edge of the park. There were literally hundreds of them.

  But his uncle had said west. Calvin was pretty sure west wasn’t a direction, it was a specific place: West Lake. It made sense. It was in the center of the park, close to the Taylor Slough. It was not easily accessible, especially by airboat, but there were service roads the park’s division had built — trails, really. The lake could be reached for sure by boat and by car. It would give Dr. Catalyst two methods of escape if he was discovered. The land surrounding the lake was marshy, but would suffice to hold an animal like the creature he’d sent after them.

  On top of that, Calvin knew there was an abandoned facility on West Lake that would be a perfect hideout. It had once been a veterinary station, where wounded or injured animals were brought and treated by park personnel. Budget cuts had closed the facility years ago. Then someone tried to raise ostriches on it, but that had failed and the land had once again fallen into disrepair. Given the remote location of the lake, it would be an ideal location to stay off the grid.

  All he could do was hope he was right. The task force was looking under every rock. But the River of Grass was immense. There were so many places to hide. You could quadruple the size of the task force and they still wouldn’t have enough people to look everywhere.

  Darting through the gate, Calvin switched on a small flashlight. He headed straight for the trail that led to the docks behind the administration buildings. A few minutes later he boarded the Dragonfly 1. His mom had taken the keys away from him, but she didn’t know that he kept a second set securely duct-taped inside the access panel.

  Calvin quickly went through the checklist to get the boat ready. The fuel tanks were full. The extra container of fuel was also full. He turned the key and powered up the boat. The lights and indicators on his dashboard all showed the boat was operating at full power.

  Calvin sat in the pilot seat, thinking. He should call someone — Lieutenant Stukaczowski, or one of the park rangers he knew. He should tell them what he had discovered and where they might be able to find Dr. Catalyst and save Emmet … and maybe himself. This was what he should do.

  But Calvin’s greatest strength was also his greatest weakness. His never-ending sense of personal responsibility. Calvin had gone to Yaha to find out about Dr. Catalyst’s real identity. Now Dr. Catalyst had been exposed, and Emmet was paying the price for Calvin’s actions. He was sure Emmet wasn’t hiding in the neighborhood near the hospital, like Stuke’s dad had suggested. He felt in his gut that Dr. Catalyst had captured his friend. He couldn’t let that pass.

  But he wasn’t completely without common sense.

  Calvin reached inside the small plastic holder on the dash and removed the card inside it. With the always-present felt-tipped pen, he wrote his float plan on the back of the card, along with a note to his mom about where he was going and where he could be found. If he had the chance, he would use the radio and call in the task force. But if Emmet was in danger, well … he would have to see.

  He stepped out of the boat and onto the dock, then scampered aboard one of the NPS boats, sticking the card inside the holder on its dashboard. Someone would find it in the morning if he wasn’t back by then. He climbed back aboard Dragonfly 1 and fired up the engine. Slowly he backed away from the dock.

  Turning the boat, he pointed it straight down the center of the creek leading to the docks. It was now after four A.M. and the night darkness was receding, but still thick. The boat came equipped with a spotlight mounted on the bow. Calvin turned it on and maneuvered it with a toggle switch until it lit up the path over the water in front of him. Calvin knew the swamp well, but one could always collide with a floating log or a big bull gator, which would not be good.

  With everything in place and ready, Calvin gave the craft full throttle. The boat literally leapt forward; the fan behind him was spinning at max power. In seconds it was zipping across the water. Like a dragonfly.

  Hold on, Emmet. Hold on as long as you can, Calvin thought to himself. I’m coming.

  SINCE THERE WERE NO WINDOWS, EMMET HAD NO idea what time it was until Dr. Catalyst opened the door. He was sitting in the corner, resting but not asleep. After pacing for a while, remembering what Dr. Catalyst had said about being tested in the morning, he thought it would be a good idea to rest. It was a struggle sitting comfortably with his hands behind his back, but he finally managed to relax a little.

  Now Dr. Catalyst stood in the doorway, outlined in the dim light of the room. Emmet had no idea what time it was. It must have been close to dawn. That was when the big test was supposed to start.

  Part of Emmet was disappointed. He really had expected Calvin to be here by now. Then again, his mother and uncle were in desperate shape at the hospital. Maybe something bad had happened. It made him worry about his dad. Emmet wondered if he was okay.

  “Are you ready to surrender?” Emmet asked.

  “Stand up,” Dr. Catalyst said.

  “If you don’t mind, I’ll sit. I just got comfortable.”

  “Stand up!” he shouted.

  “Okay, okay. Geez, Dr. Crankypants. Out of Cheerios this morning?” There was something different about his face. He looked like someone who was one final straw away from a total breakdown. Emmet pretended to struggle to stand, because his hands were bound behind him. Dr. Catalyst let out a loud sigh of exasperation and bounded across the floor, grabbing Emmet by the arm.

  It was the moment Emmet had been waiting for. Emmet let all of his weight sag toward the floor, forcing Dr. Catalyst to lift him off the ground with his good arm. As he did, Emmet kicked his bad arm as hard as he could with his foot. He figured it was still pretty sore from the Pterogator attack. Judging by the man’s yelp of pain, it was.

  Dr. Catalyst briefly released Emmet, which was all the chance he needed. He ran out the door and into the barn. Emmet slammed the door shut, hoping there was a dead-bolt lock on the other side. No such luck — the door required a key to lock.

  He glanced around and spied another door leading outside, then sprinted for it. Of course this one was locked. Emmet turned around and tried fumbling with the lock with his stupid cuffed hands, but he wasn’t fast enough. Dr. Catalyst came storming out of the room. Before Emmet could get away he was on him, grabbing him by the shirt collar.

  “You little —” Dr. Catalyst muttered through clenched teeth. He dragged Emmet across the floor of the barn. Opposite the room Emmet had been locked in was a steel cage. As they drew nearer to it, a large beast lunged out of the shadows.

  It was the Swamp Cat.

  It reached through the bars of the cage with its front paw and swiped through the air. It missed taking a chunk out of Emmet by only inches. The Swamp Cat howled again, charging the steel bars so hard Emmet thought it might knock itself out. For some reason, being near Emmet was driving it nearly insane.

  Emmet flashed back to that first night it tried to get into their house. How, just for a moment, it had seemed to study him, like it was memorizing his face.

  Dr. Catalyst shoved Emmet a few inches closer, and the Swamp Cat lunged again. This time he felt its claws rip through the fabric of his shirt. Dr. Catalyst yanked him back, his vice grip
holding him in place.

  “Do you see it, Doyle?” he said. “Isn’t it magnificent?” Something had changed in him. Emmet was afraid he’d finally truly lost it. And he had no idea what was coming next.

  “Oh, yeah,” Emmet said. “It’s all warm and fuzzy. Here, kitty, kitty, doggy, hyena, whatever you are.” The sound of his voice seemed to drive the creature into a renewed frenzy and it lunged again. Emmet was only barely out of reach. For now.

  “This is the future. From now on, thanks to me, no ecosystem anywhere will ever need worry about the harm done by an invasive species. I will be able to construct an animal that will destroy the intruders and restore order.”

  “Really, Grandpa Geaux? Because so far, when it comes to this ‘stop the invasive species thing,’ you really s —”

  Emmet never got to finish, because Dr. Catalyst shoved him toward the cage as the Swamp Cat lunged, and its claws scratched his chest.

  “Ahh!” he shouted. The Swamp Cat went crazy, throwing its head back and howling with excitement. It licked its paw.

  “It’s got a taste of you now, boy,” Dr. Catalyst said, barely able to keep the glee from his voice. The monster lunged again, but he pulled Emmet back and the paw full of razors sliced through air just inches away from him.

  Emmet’s chest was on fire. He glanced down to find blood seeping through his shirt. There were four claw marks that had cut right through the cloth as if it weren’t there. It hurt. It hurt a lot.

  “You’re crazy,” Emmet said, breathing heavily.

  “No. I’m brilliant. You’ve been wrong about me from the very beginning. Everyone has. I’m a giant and you’re a little ant. And now the bug is about to be squashed.”

  Dr. Catalyst dragged him back to the door leading outside, the one Emmet had been trying to open.

  “Wha — what are you doing?” Emmet asked.

  “It’s time for your test.”

  “What test? You’re crazy. You know that every law enforcement agency in the state is looking for me right now, don’t you?”

  “They’ll never find you in time. Your test will be over and I’ll be long gone.”

  “One more time. What test are you talking about? And is it going to be true-or-false or essay questions? I really don’t like ess —”

  “Enough!” Dr. Catalyst interrupted, throwing open the door. Removing a knife from his pocket, he sliced quickly through the flex-cuffs. Emmet felt a shock of pleasure at having his hands freed, but his relief was short-lived. Dr. Catalyst shoved Emmet through the door, where he landed in a sprawl in the dirt.

  “This is an abandoned NPS facility,” Dr. Catalyst said. “I repaired the fence and made some improvements. The original fencing was twelve feet tall, so if you get the idea that you can climb out, you should forget it. I ran razor wire along the top. There is only one way out.”

  “And what would that be?”

  “You simply need to survive.”

  “This would go a lot of faster if you would just say what it is I’m supposed to do.”

  “Survive.”

  “Survive what?” Emmet shouted. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

  “It’s simple. This compound has about four hundred acres of surrounding land. You get a ten-minute head start, and then I release my hybrid. If you survive, I’ll let you go. If not … well … I’ll be free to continue my work without your interference.”

  “You’re insane,” Emmet said again.

  “There is a fine line between genius and insanity,” Dr. Catalyst said.

  “And you’ve crossed over it and are double-parked in the crazy zone,” Emmet said. “You’ll never get away with this. They’ll find you.” Although he was starting to have doubts.

  “Really? After all the smart comebacks and wisecracks, that’s all you’ve got? ‘You’ll never get away with this’? Frankly, I expected more.”

  “What are —”

  “No more talk,” Dr. Catalyst said. “You’ve got ten minutes. Better start running.” He slammed the door in Emmet’s face.

  Emmet was stunned. Dr. Catalyst was going to let this monstrous creature track him down inside a closed compound, with no way for him to escape. It was crazy. But it didn’t seem like Emmet had a lot of choices.

  He stood up and he ran.

  THE GROUND WAS HARD TO RUN ON. IT WAS IN THE middle of a swamp and to call it solid was not exactly accurate. It was so mushy that Emmet’s feet sometimes sank up to his ankles. Emmet thought about trying to climb a tree, but there weren’t many he saw that would offer much protection from a creature that could probably leap ten feet in the air and climb whatever it wanted. He also suspected Dr. Catalyst hadn’t left a bazooka lying around.

  The only thing he could think to do was to put as much distance between the barn and himself as he could. Emmet ran along the fence until he came to a corner, then followed it until he came to another corner. He tried to keep an estimate of how much time he had, but quickly lost track. He just knew it wasn’t much.

  As Emmet ran, he looked for any kind of weapon to use against the Swamp Cat: a club, a rock, anything that would give him a fighting chance. But he didn’t see so much as a stick.

  In fact, there were a lot of tree stumps near the fence line — Dr. Catalyst’s obvious handiwork. So much for playing fair. There was no way for Emmet to climb a tree and jump over the fence. He probably would have broken both of his ankles on the way down anyway.

  Emmet tried scooping out some of the mushy ground at the bottom of the fence, to see if he could tunnel under it, but it seemed to be sunk into the ground a long way. There wouldn’t be enough time for him to dig out.

  Emmet trotted along the fence, getting more and more desperate as he went. Then, a few yards down from the corner, he saw a cypress branch lying on the ground. It was about five feet long and three inches in diameter, with a slight curve at one end. When he picked it up it felt sturdy. Well, that was something.

  Then he remembered the nail.

  Emmet pulled it out of his back pocket and stared at it. It was only about four inches long, but it was sharp. He had a stick and a nail. And any second now a wild, hungry beast was going to burst through the brush and eat him. He didn’t like his chances. How was he going to make a weapon?

  Emmet looked down at his shoes. They were covered in mud and goop, but he realized they had what he needed. As quickly as he could, he removed the shoelace from his right sneaker. He placed the nail alongside the cypress stick, so about three inches of it was sticking out past the end. Emmet then wrapped the shoestring around the stick, so the nail jutted out like the head of a spear. He tied it on as tightly as he could.

  If he weren’t so desperate, he probably would have laughed at how ridiculous it was. The Swamp Cat would probably bite the stick in half with one chomp. Then one more chomp and Emmet Doyle would go the way of the stick.

  He looked out over the grounds. He had to pick a place to make a stand. Emmet backed up against the chain-link fence, right next to one of the support poles. Keeping the fence at his back would give him a better chance of staying on his feet longer. If he could poke the Swamp Cat a few times with his mighty nail spear, maybe it would get discouraged and go eat Dr. Catalyst instead. That would really make his day.

  The sun was rising, and the swamp was starting to warm up. Emmet felt hot, sweaty, and tired. Without a bath, he was sure he was giving off all kinds of scents for the animal chasing him. Might as well put up a sign that said MEAL HERE. He wiped his brow with his forearm. It had to have been ten minutes. Where was this thing?

  Emmet didn’t have to wait long for an answer. From somewhere in front of him, still hidden in the underbrush, came the terrible cry he had grown to fear and loathe.

  The Swamp Cat was here.

  FROM ACROSS THE LAKE, CALVIN STUDIED THE COMPOUND through his binoculars. The boat was hidden behind a hummock of ferns and saw grass. He could see the barn and the fenced-in grounds. The service road leading up to the ga
te was too muddy to tell if anyone had used it recently. His hopes dimmed. Maybe he was wrong. Perhaps Uncle Yaha had meant something else. He had failed Emmet.

  Putting down the binoculars, he studied the map of the Everglades that he carried in the boat. Calvin tried to think of anyplace else that Emmet could be. He was certain he’d understood Yaha correctly, but he had circled the entire lake looking for any sign of Emmet or Dr. Catalyst. There was nothing here.

  The Dragonfly 1 had a quiet electronic motor for trolling. Calvin started it up. On the off chance that Dr. Catalyst was somewhere in the area, he didn’t want to alert him. After another turn around West Lake he would head back home. He’d probably get in trouble again, but he would take the punishment. Emmet was counting on him, and Calvin had let his friend down.

  Just as he was about to hit the throttle, he heard shouting. Calvin grabbed the binoculars and brought them to bear on the barn. He saw Emmet being shoved out of the door. Dr. Catalyst stood in the doorway. They were yelling back and forth at each other, but Calvin couldn’t make out the words. After a few seconds, the door slammed shut. Emmet lay there on the ground a moment as if stunned and then took off running.

  He was here. Emmet was here. Uncle Yaha had been right all along.

  But why had Emmet been left alone outside? And how could Calvin get his attention without alerting Dr. Catalyst? He still didn’t have a clear idea what was going on, but he pushed forward on the throttle and maneuvered the boat the remaining distance from the center of the lake toward the compound. The sun was coming up, but hopefully he would still be hidden well enough by the darkness to keep Dr. Catalyst from discovering him.

  A few minutes later the boat nudged up against the shore and Calvin scrambled out. He tied the bowline to a mangrove root and, with his backpack in hand, headed toward the fence. Standing next to it, he realized it was impossibly tall. There was no way to climb it.