18

Whispering: “I thought you said you weren’t ready for this.”

“We must be. We were chosen, so we must be. Right?”

I’m leading Buzz and Wendell down a long corridor and between the two sets of bleachers, acting as their guide as we walk as slowly as possible toward the Ring. The stands are filled with Progressives, and the view from down here is very different from what it was up on the dais last night. From this vantage point, it seems like every dinosaur up there is looking down on us to mock our passage, as if on some hidden signal, they will all leap down and tear us into a million pieces.

But they’re just cheering, cheering on their friends who have so valiantly chosen to attempt Progress together. Little do they know that the twins themselves aren’t exactly enamored of the idea.

“Call it off,” I urge them. “Stand up and say you recant. Did Circe tell you that you should do this?”

But Buzz shakes his head, and I believe him. Still, something—somebody—has gotten to him since that Hummer pulled away, and though he’s clearly petrified of entering the Ring this evening, he refuses to disavow the decision he and Wendell have made. “Progress has chosen us,” he says. “We must go.”

“How do you know Progress has chosen you?” I ask, hoping to force some logic into a completely illogical situation. “Did Circe tell you that? Samuel?”

“No.” Emphatic, truthful.

“Then who did?”

No answer. We approach the Ring.

It was right after the announcement that Buzz and Wendell would be attempting this night’s inanities that we were approached by Samuel, taken away from the main dining hall, and informed that the twins had chosen Ernie and me as two of their confederates for the evening.

“The guys who lead them in?” I asked. “The ones with the cage and the—”

“And the dart guns, yes,” said Samuel. “It is a great honor to be chosen.”

Ernie shook his head. “We don’t know how to shoot,” he lies. “We can’t—”

“To refuse a request like this is to do your friends the greatest dishonor there is.” Once Samuel started talking like Bruce Lee, I couldn’t back out. I already felt somewhat responsible for getting the twins in trouble earlier on, and now that they’d gone over the edge of sanity, I couldn’t stand back and let them leap alone.

“Your job is simple,” Samuel explained. “You will walk them out, you will lock them inside. You’ll return for a cage, wheel it out. The other two compatriots your friends have chosen are longtime Progressives; they will know what levers to release.”

“That’s not the part I’m worried about. The dart guns—”

“Should not be needed.” Samuel reached into a duffel bag he had brought along and pulled out one of the rifles we saw last night. “Progress has chosen them for this task, and that means they should emerge victorious. On the off chance that something should go wrong, the operation is very simple.” He lifted the rifle to his shoulder, locking the stock against his powerful chest. Meanwhile, I was taking mental shorthand at light speed, trying to get all of this information to take root in my brain as quickly and deeply as possible. “Circe will stand, clap her hands twice, and then, simply, you shoot.”

Without even taking aim, Samuel’s finger depressed the trigger, a shot zinged out of the barrel, and a few seconds later, a light thud on the ground nearby announced the demise of a small red-red robin who would no longer be bob-bob-bobbin’ along.

“Great for you,” said Ernie, “but we’re not skilled at this.”

“And it won’t be a bird you’ll be aiming at. You’ve seen Ring opponents; they tend to be a little larger. It works like this: point the barrel at the bad thing and press the trigger. That’s all there is to it.”

From there on in it was a jumble of confusion, accusation, and apologies, Ernie and I trying to ascertain why on earth Buzz and Wendell would want to do this to themselves when they had explicitly stated to us earlier that they were nowhere near ready for the task.

“Now’s the time when we tell you whatever we think is important,” gulps Wendell. We’re at the entrance to the Ring, and the outdoor amphitheater has taken on a hushed, almost spiritual tone.

“Now’s the time when you call a halt to this nonsense,” replies Ernie.

But they’re beyond that point. “If anything happens, tell my brother I love him,” Wendell whispers to me.

A few feet away, I can hear Buzz murmuring in Ernie’s ear. “Take care of my brother,” he says. “That’s all I ever wanted to do.”

We lock them inside the Ring.

A hundred different emotions and courses of action flip through my mind as Ernie, the two other confederates—both Carnotaurs—and I make our way back toward the clearing where the second cage will be ready for us to deliver. Do we bolt? Do we refuse to release the animal inside? For the first time in a long time, I find myself mired in a swamp of indecision.

What I will do, it seems, is exactly what others before me have done. The cage is waiting there in the clearing, Samuel standing beside it, checking the security of the brown tarpaulin draped across the top. “Are they ready?”

We nod, and the cage is turned over to our possession. As we wheel it through the jungle, toward the amphitheater, I notice that there are no animal noises emanating from within, and it doesn’t shake any more than the bumps and breaks in the path would give it cause to. Could the thing possibly be empty? Could this all be one huge practical joke to play on Ernie and me? It’s heavy, no doubt, but the cage itself is heavy.

I bet that’s it. A joke, nothing more than a high school prank. Buzz and Wendell and the rest of them are just screwing with our minds. It’s a fraternity hazing, the last step before official initiation, and I almost got tricked.

Well, if it’s a joke they want, they’ve come to the right place. I can play along with the best of them.

We wheel the cage into the amphitheater and the two Carnotaurs begin to hook it up to the entrance of the Ring. I look up toward the dais, catch Circe’s eye, and give her a sly wink. I know your game, this wink says. You almost got me, but I know your game. Her return gaze is inscrutable, but at least my cards are on the table, and I know that she knows that I know, and that makes me all the more willing to play along.

Inside the Ring, Buzz and Wendell are really laying it on thick, their breathing shallow, their faces flushed. It’s a great act, and I have to remember to congratulate them on their skills after we’re sucking down some basil and joking about it in a few minutes.

“We’re ready,” one of the Carnotaurs says to me.

I nod my head like a Roman emperor giving the order to execute. This is my chance to don the thespian mantle; the drama club never wanted me—this’ll show ’em. “Raise the gate,” I command.

Nothing. No animal roar, no ferocious beast rushing out of the cage to attack the hapless twins. Stillness from the crowd.

Ernie, mouthing to me: What’s going on?

A joke, I mouth back. It’s all a joke.

Ernie cocks his head—he doesn’t understand. I shuffle closer to him and whisper in his ear, “It’s a hazing ritual. They’re trying to spook us.”

“I don’t think so,” he replies. “This is a helluva long way to go. . . .”

But there’s still no action in the Ring, and the crowd is growing restless. “Here,” I say, “I’ll prove it to you.” I take a few steps closer to the cage, reaching out for the brown tarpaulin covering. “There’s no danger to Buzz and Wendell, because there’s nothing inside this thing.”

Like a magician uncovering his latest and greatest trick, I whip the blanket from the cage and turn to Ernie, showcasing the emptiness inside. “See?” I say. “Nothing.”

Nothing plus two grizzly bears, that is.

Furious at my sudden intrusion, the bears leap up from their sleeping positions and launch themselves against the bars of the cage—the crowd roaring as the adrenaline hits—and I’m falling backward, away from the massive paws and heavy claws snaking out from between the bars. Scooting away from the cage on my butt, heart pumping a week’s worth of blood in a few seconds—the crowd on its feet now as the bears wisely pass on me and reorient their sights on a more accessible target.

Buzz and Wendell are not prepared for the sudden onslaught. The bears don’t even bother dropping onto all fours—they stand straight up for the charge, whipping those long, lethal paws through the air—two seven-foot towers of shaggy brown fur that have just found out it’s dino-hunting season, and they’ve got two more to bag and tag before they reach their limit.

One of the bears squares off against Buzz; the other takes Wendell. I can do nothing but watch, frozen in place, numbed by my incorrect assumption, my moronic bullheadedness, and, yes, by guilt. I’m sure those bears would have attacked the twins sooner or later, but perhaps they wouldn’t have been so pissed off about it if I hadn’t interrupted what were probably very nice dreams of picnic baskets and honey pots.

Wendell’s fighting mostly with his jaws, trying to sink his teeth into the bear’s jugular, but every time he gets to snapping near the creature’s neck, the bear takes a swat at the Carnotaur’s head, sending Wendell scampering backward with long claw marks gashed across his face. Buzz isn’t doing much better, but at least he’s keeping his opponent at bay, using his tail to carve out a semicircle of protection.

I don’t know if there are any rules of combat in the Ring, but even if there are, the bears don’t have much use for them. For just as Buzz has advanced on his adversary, almost driving the bear all the way back into his cage, the other one forgets about Wendell and swoops in from behind, biting down hard on Buzz’s neck, the teeth sinking deeply into unprotected flesh, and a geyser of blood sprays up and out, soaking the floor.

With a roar of his own that surpasses anything I’ve heard from the bears, let alone any special-effects wizard in Hollywood, Wendell charges, jaw spread wide, teeth glistening, ready to swallow his brother’s attacker whole, if need be.

But a well-placed swat, this one from the other bear, puts a stop to Wendell’s charge, and he, too, sinks to the ground. Both dinos are down for the count and barely putting up a fight.

Circe’s hands are still. I await the double clap, staring up at Circe, my arms spread wide—When? When?—but she deliberately looks away. Samuel is nowhere to be found.

A piercing scream from within the Ring. I can’t look.

“Screw it,” I say, and reach for a gun.

Ernie’s already way ahead of me. I do just like the guy said—point the barrel at the bad thing in front of me and pull the trigger—

Nothing. No click, no whiff, no zing. The bears continue to maul Buzz and Wendell, the twins’ battle cries slowly dying to a whimper.

Frantically, I lift the gun again, sight down the barrel—the bear’s back directly in front of me, easy shot, point-blank, eighty-year-old woman with cataracts could make this—and squeeze the trigger with all my might.

Zero.

Unable to work this infernal human contraption, I look over to my partner for help, but Ernie’s having just as much trouble as I am. I watch as he takes aim and fires, only to have a staggering amount of nothingness take place.

Now the crowd has begun to scream. It is not, I surmise, in joy.

“It’s jammed—” shouts Ernie. “The gun, it’s jammed—”

One of the Carnotaur confederates rushes over with his own weapon, raising it expertly to the proper level. He lets a dart fly, and it whizzes across the ring, missing the bear by a good three feet. For a moment I think he’s missed on purpose, that he swung the barrel around at the last second, but he stares at the gun in awe, like a tennis player checking his racquet for holes after missing an easy shot, and I know he had that thing aimed perfectly.

Inside the Ring, Buzz and Wendell are dying. They’ve managed to scoot backward, their bodies pressed up against the bars of the massive cage, the brothers holding on to and cradling each other, their blood truly flowing as one. Our chances left to save them are dwindling, but we’ve not yet exhausted all options.

“Open the gate,” I shout to the one Carnotaur who has yet to lift a claw. “Do it, now!”

My tone is insistent enough to frighten the dinosaur beyond his training or common sense, and he leaps to the Ring entrance, fumbling with the keys. I’m right behind him, still trying to force my gun to fire, a task as futile as trying to buy a decent fast-food fish fillet. There’s ammo in there, but it won’t load, and I don’t know how to force it in. But if I can get inside that Ring, I’ll pull a Davy Crockett and shove these darts into those bears’ chests with my hands, if need be.

“It’s stuck—” cries the Carnotaur, and I shove him out of the way. Ernie rushes to my side and we set to pulling on the bars, the Carnotaurs joining in a moment later.

We strain. We pull. We exert every bit of energy left in bodies that have been malnourished and deprived of sleep for two days, the tumultuous blare of the crowd egging us on, goading us to new feats of strength. The bars will twist. The bars will bend. The bars will snap.

But the combined force of four dinosaurs don’t mean a hill of beans to an indifferent mass of steel. The door stays firmly in place, absolutely nothing we can do about it. With a final tug, I lose my grip and fall heavily to the dirt, the wind knocked out of me and not coming back for some time. I can’t watch, but I can listen, and there’s not much mistaking the gruesome sounds that invade my trembling ears. Within seconds, the bears finish off our friends and, after deciding that the overgrown reptiles are inedible, proceed to cross to the far side of the Ring and drift back to sleep.

The crowd continues in its aimless fury, small skirmishes breaking out below the forest canopy, miniature Ring battles of their very own. High above, up on the dais, I can see Circe, head down, shoulders wracked with sobs. Her skin is dry, pale, dull, but her scent—tinged, somehow, with ragweed and pollen, the stuff of sadness—is stronger than ever, pervading the amphitheater, as if trying to draw me away from the anger of the crowd and into her grief. For a moment, I am lost, captive in her melancholia, and I know deep down that Circe knew nothing of this, that whatever has occurred tonight was either a freak accident or rigged without her knowledge. But that moment of clarity and sorrow soon passes, and the tumultuous frenzy of hundreds of my fellow dinosaurs zaps me back into action.

“Vincent! Vincent!” Ernie’s calling to me, pulling me through the crowd, away from the guards, away from the dais, away from the amphitheater and into the darkness, and I follow him with a mindless intensity. There is nothing to say to him. There is nothing to say to anyone. This is the only thing I am thinking, and I am thinking it over and over again:

Buzz and Wendell died in each other’s arms, and in that, I hope, the pain of their passing was somewhat diminished. But I swear to Raal, the ancestors, or whoever the hell is listening that when I find the creatures responsible for orchestrating this debacle, they will not be so fortunate.