David watched the door waver and fade away. The moist heat drew sweat from his face and neck. The plants seemed to quiver, but whether from wind or some kind of ground tremor, David didn’t know. The cushy grasses and moss prevented him from feeling much else under his feet. A bird cawed in the distance. It was a sound like an alarm that set David’s nerves on edge. He was already thinking about how he would get back. If the door had vanished, where would he find the portal to home? He did want to experience this world, but he would have felt a lot better knowing where the exit was. He trusted that somehow—either with Xander’s help or as Dad had said, through some signal from the items he held—the portal would reveal itself.
He stepped to the fern where the door had shimmered and ceased to be. He was moving the leaves around when a centipede—as long as his arm and as thick as a hotdog— scuttled up the frond toward his hand. Its front half rose up, as if to look David in the eyes. Its many legs wiggled and waved. Huge pincers, coming off its head, clamped and opened, clamped and opened. Unsure if the thing could leap or how fast it could move if it decided David looked like a tasty treat, he reversed another few steps. His heel crunched on something. A brown and yellow beetle, as big as an egg, oozed yellow guts from its shattered shell. Three others, bigger, moved quickly toward David, perhaps intent on avenging their friend. He gingerly danced away on tiptoes.
Should have put on the boots, he thought. He backed into something that moved easily under David’s touch: a long, fat snake, hanging from a branch. David yelled, then laughed at himself: it was only a vine. He sighed, then spotted a real snake, slithering down the vine in his direction. Having already yelled, he bit his tongue and backed away.
His heart was a ferret, caged within his chest, panicky to get out. It seemed to jump and twirl and bang against his breastbone and his ribs. Its frantic beats made little room for the expansion of his lungs, and he found breathing to be difficult.
Well away from the snake and centipede and beetles, he stopped. He scanned the area, saw no immediate threats. He closed his eyes and forced himself to take a long, deep breath. He lifted Xander’s camera off his stomach, where it had been bouncing at the end of its strap. He made sure the Record light was on, then held it to his face. He zoomed in on the vine and snake, panned to the plant where the centipede had been. He didn’t see it now, in the camera’s little LCD screen.
Nearby, something roared. It was a big animal, a wild cat. David lowered the camera. It roared again, and he wondered if it had caught his scent and was crooning its excitement about finding an exotic meal.
As if in answer, a second animal roared, in the opposite direction, but seeming just as near. The next roar came from a third beast—between the first two, but farther off. That ferret in his chest had found his throat and was pushing up into it.
David shook his head. Considering Xander’s experience, it was just like that house to drop him into big-cat territory. From the roars, he figured he was in their favorite feeding zone and it was dinnertime. For all he knew, the portal issued a frequency only tigers could hear—the big-cat equivalent of a dinner bell. He had thought tiger, but he didn’t know their roars from any of the other big cats. At one time or another, he had heard them all at the San Diego Zoo, but he wasn’t nerd enough about animals to distinguish the difference. He thought he had read somewhere—or maybe it was from the singing animals in The Jungle Book—that the only big cats in jungle settings were leopards, panthers, and tigers. The roars were throaty and loud. Had to be tigers.
Whatever they were, he didn’t want to hang around to find out. He unsheathed the machete. Its weight felt good in his hand. He admired its gleaming edge.
One of the beasts roared again. Almost immediately, it received an answering call. Both seemed closer, and David realized how awfully true his statement to Xander had been: the machete was a tool, not a weapon.
He held still, willing it or the hat or the utility belt to show him the way to the portal. He felt nothing, no tug, no weightiness in one direction or another. Maybe he had to move, get closer to the portal before the items started drawing him toward it.
He swung the machete down into a leaf the size and thickness of a bath towel. It fell away before him and he smiled. He sliced again and again, stepping forward each time.
Blazing a path, he thought. Isn’t that what they say? So he blazed.
He had no clue where he would end up, but he believed he was putting ground between him and the tigers. He swung the machete diagonally, lopping away a leaf and a branch. They fell to the ground, revealing the snarling face of a tiger. Its head was huge, twice the size of David’s. The cat was pulled back onto its haunches. One paw up, ready to strike.
Its claws were curved blades: a single one could cause butcher-knife damage; five would take off his face and open him up.
He jumped back, but amazingly did not scream. He could not even breathe. He raised the machete over his head and turned it so the big cat could see it. It hissed, baring teeth the size of railroad spikes. Its eyes watched David intently.
He had heard something about what not to do with great predators. If he remembered right, turning and running would be the end of him. Rather, he backed slowly away. The animal did not move. Reversing along the path he had blazed, he moved around a bend and lost sight of the beast. Almost directly behind him, lost among the heavy leaves, another tiger roared.
Certainly not the same one. It could not have—
Finishing his thought for him, the tiger in front roared.
The third tiger joined in, off to his left. David’s entire body shook in fear.
Dang it, Xander, he thought, you could be wrong sometimes, you know. With no other place to go, he turned right and pushed through the tangle of vines and branches and plants with their stupid bath-towel leaves. He avoided using the machete, thinking its rhythmic chopping would bring the tigers more quickly, the way a thrashing fish drew sharks. For just a moment, he thought of the centipede and snake and wondered if he’d run into more of them. Just as quickly, he dismissed the thought. Those things were just pests in a world of true killers. He wished the creepy-crawlers were all he had to worry about.
Unable to cross a particularly dense spot, he chopped at it with the machete. A tiger roared. It sounded close. Leaves rustled nearby. Something was moving alongside him, twenty feet away. He pushed forward and it moved again, pacing him.
He realized he had been hearing the thunderous sound of a waterfall. For a time, he had mistaken it for his own blood rushing past his ears. Hope welled in him. A waterfall meant water, and cats didn’t like water. He pushed toward it, chopping and cutting when he had to. He hoped none of the cats realized what he was doing and cut him off.
Something moved, heavy and fast, behind him. He spun, machete raised, expecting to see only the gaping maw of a tiger as it leaped at him. Instead, furry striped hindquarters and a tail flashed past. The thing had run right past him. He didn’t know if tigers tormented their prey or if they were simply cautious hunters.
He felt tormented and he felt hunted.
Then the jungle stopped—just like that. It gave way to the granite edge of a cliff. Way down below, a river sparkled. The waterfall he’d heard was a half-mile away. The other side of the chasm was a long way off.
And the tigers were very close.
Like a gift from heaven, only a stone’s throw away, was a bridge spanning the chasm. It was made of rope and wooden planks. If he beat the tigers across it, he could cut the ropes on the other side, separating them from their meal.
A tiger roared . . . David thought it sounded like a laugh. He hurried along the rock ledge to the bridge.
Movement behind him. A snapped twig, leaves flung aside with the sound of a wind-rippled sail, the pounding of heavy paws. He stepped onto the first planks, testing them. The wood felt solid, but the bridge was wobbly. He took another tentative step, ready to run if the tigers appeared, but they were nowhere in sight.
What did appear were men on the other side of the bridge. They were dark skinned and scantily dressed. Some kind of aboriginal tribe, David guessed. He did not know where in the world he was or what these people might be called. The three he had first noticed became triple that as they poured from the dense brush. Certainly they were hunters and would want the tigers. In fact, they carried spears and bows and arrows. He hurried toward them. Two of the archers took aim.
David looked back. No animals. Perhaps these hunters had spooked them. One archer released his arrow. David had to duck to avoid being skewered through the head.
“Hey!” he yelled. The camera swung against his chest.
The other archer fired. The arrow sailed a few inches from David’s right arm. A spear came next, in a shallow arc designed to impale him. He dropped straight down onto the planks. The camcorder— he’d forgotten all about it—struck him hard in the chin. The machete flipped out of his hand and pinwheeled into the abyss. The spear clattered on the wood behind him. The bridge began to shake. David closed his eyes and gripped the edges. More shaking. The hunters had mounted the bridge and were running toward him in single file.
He lifted a shaking hand to one of the ropes that acted as a handrail for crossers. He pulled himself up and tore quickly away from the approaching hunters.
Ahead, a section of tall fronds whipped back and forth violently, then stopped. A tiger roared.
An arrow whizzed across his shoulder, slicing his T-shirt. It continued on to thunk into a tree, where it quivered as though furious about missing its mark.
David stepped off the bridge. He darted left along the rock ledge. A spear struck the ground three feet ahead of him and snapped in two. Each piece spun off in a different direction. Abruptly, he turned and plunged into the jungle. One of the big cats snarled nearby. It thrashed through the underbrush as big and heavy as a car. David veered away from it. Ahead of him a tiger roared.
He stopped. The thrashing continued for another few seconds, then stilled.
Breathing. Panting. Under it was a rolling rrrrrr, almost a purr. Not friendly or loving. This was more of a satisfied sound. The creature knew it was going to get what it wanted.
More rustling in front of David. The inhalation and exhalation of a second beast reached his ears. Farther off, the pattering of bare feet on the wood-planked bridge, growing louder. A fat raindrop struck David’s head.
Rain, he thought. Just what I need right now.
Another drop splattered on his shoulder. He felt it: sticky. He looked up. The third tiger was crouched on a branch high above him. At least for now, it seemed content to watch. He thought that was a particularly feline trait: to watch or play with its food until it grew bored and then the banquet started. He believed his only choice was to break through the jungle and leap off the cliff. He really didn’t think he would survive the fall, even if he hit the water far below. But he would rather have that one chance in a million than no chance at all with these tigers and hunters.
But it was too late.
He could barely see over the top of the greenery in front of him. A dark gap, like a thick crack in the surface of a frozen lake, was moving directly for him—a beast was approaching fast, flattening the grass and plants as it came. Behind him, a branch cracked loudly. The breathing became a growl. It grew louder with each pounding step of the beast. From two sides, he thought. Three, if the one above gets involved.
I’m going to be torn apart.
He screamed.
Eyes wide, jaw set, Xander pushed out of the bushes in front of David. He grabbed David by the head and yanked him back. The bushes engulfed them.
“Xander! What are you—”
“Shut up and come on.” Xander began crawling on his hands and knees. Every few feet he’d stop to pull David closer. The camcorder dragged on the ground, snagging on things, making David yank it with his neck.
Behind them, the tigers were going crazy, growling, roaring, and by the sounds of it, swiping at the jungle with their claws.
“What are we doing?” David whispered, his voice harsh, almost guttural. “Where are we going? There are three tigers—”
“I know,” Xander said. He pulled David alongside him, threw his arm over his back, and gave him a squeeze. “Do you feel it? That tug Dad talked about?”
“No, I—” Then he did: a gentle tug on the utility belt as though Xander had his finger looped into it, but he didn’t.
The helmet too seemed a bit heavier on the upper right side, the same direction the belt was yearning to go. “That way!”
he said.
“Right. It has to be close. I just stepped out of the antechamber.”
They crawled through the underbrush. The tigers roared and hissed and pawed. They knew where their meal was.
They were taking their time, enjoying the hunt.
David’s helmet grew heavier, pulling his head suddenly to the side. The belt almost yanked his hips past his body.
Xander said, “Here! Hold on!”
The brothers rolled as one and fell into a hole.