Mickey played along. He entered the cluster of bay trees and pretended to scout for tracks. He didn’t mind stringing out the act a little longer. His plan had worked perfectly-Tuna’s father had emptied the gun at an imaginary beast. Finally it was safe for Mickey to take control and put an end to Jared Gordon’s nonsense.
He returned to the clearing and said, “Nice job, brother. That poor critter’s halfway to Shark River by now.”
Tuna’s father wore a smug grin that featured his jagged front tooth. “I told you I was good!”
“Well, you weren’t lyin’,” Mickey said, but the words trailed off in dejection.
He was staring at Jared Gordon’s left hand. It held six shiny new bullets, which Jared Gordon loaded one by one into the cylinder of his revolver.
“I always keep a handful of spares,” he said, “jest in case.” He clicked the gun shut and raised the barrel. “Okay, Sparky, let’s get movin’ ’fore the rain kicks up again.”
Mickey Cray nodded heavily. “Onward,” he muttered.
For once in Derek Badger’s show-business career, being chubby turned out to be a blessing. The flab cushioned his fall from the Brazilian peppertree.
“I’m alive!” he gasped, his accent still missing in action. He lay flat on a spongy bed of wet leaves and stared up at the two pesky kids, who stared back.
“You are definitely alive,” Wahoo confirmed.
“Did I break my neck?”
“I think you’d notice,” Tuna said.
Derek was a mess. Without his TV makeup and spray-on tan, he displayed all the vivid damage from the Everglades fiasco-the nicked nose from the snapping turtle; the tooth marks on his chin, arms and thumb from the water snake; the scabbed lip and skinned knees from his wrestling match with Alice; the angry rash from the poison ivy; the punctured tongue from his bat encounter.
“Where’s Raven? Oh, never mind.” Derek sat up.
Wahoo said, “We need to go. Link’s been shot and my dad’s in trouble.”
“No, you need to go,” said Derek, “before the sun sets.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Get out of here, both of you! I’ve got the dark curse, don’t you see?” His gaze settled on Tuna’s canvas tote. “Hey, you wouldn’t happen to have a bottle of sparkling mineral water?”
“Why’d you run away from camp?” she asked.
Derek struggled to his feet. “Because I was savagely attacked by a vampire bat. You know what that means.”
“What attack?” Wahoo said. “It bit you because you tried to eat it.”
Tuna added, “It wasn’t a vampire bat, Mr. Badger, it was a mastiff. The scientific classification is Eumops glaucinus floridanus.”
“Which translates to what in the King’s English-‘hairy bloodsucking fiend’?”
“So what’s this ‘curse’?” Wahoo asked.
In an icy whisper, Derek replied, “The same one as Dax Mangold got. That curse.”
Wahoo turned quizzically to Tuna, who said, “Oh-my-God.”
“What?”
“The Night Wing Trilogy.”
Derek nodded. “Exactly! You know what happens next!”
“Okay, I give up,” Wahoo said impatiently. “What’s the Night Wing Trilogy?”
Tuna’s review was harsh: “I barely got through the first book. It was the stupidest thing I’ve ever read.”
“The movie was a classic!” Derek protested.
“Wall-to-wall vampires,” Tuna went on. “Vampire shortstops, vampire cheerleaders, even a vampire beagle. I’ll spare you the plot.”
“This isn’t funny. We need to go, like now.” Wahoo kept thinking about the lone gunshot they’d heard earlier. Had it been a signal? Or had Jared Gordon shot at Wahoo’s dad?
Derek tilted his stubbled chin toward the clouds. “What time is it?”
“Time to get real. You’re not a vampire.” Wahoo reached for Derek’s arm, but he ducked away.
“How long until dark?” he asked anxiously. “Will there be a moon?”
Tuna rolled her eyes.
“Mr. Badger, if you don’t knock it off,” she said, “I’m going on your Facebook page and rat you out big-time. I’ll tell all your fans how you got lost in the Everglades and started whining like an epic crybaby. I’ll tell about your bogus parachute jump and the bat on your tongue and the puny little water snake that almost gave you a heart attack and how you can’t even climb a tree, you’re such a pitiful phony. Is that something you want the whole world to know?”
Derek paled. “Hold on, sweetie, don’t get your knickers in a knot. I’ll help you with the boat.”
The lightning zap had not scrambled Derek’s senses so much that he couldn’t recognize a serious threat to his stardom. Regardless of whether he was destined to become one of the undead, he wanted to keep his reputation-and his TV show. How else could he afford the payments on his magnificent Sea Badger, the yacht of his dreams? As spacey as he was at the moment, Derek still understood that he could never, ever go back to being Lee Bluepenny, unknown Irish folk dancer.
“Just start walking,” said Wahoo. They’d wasted too much time already. His dad’s life was in danger, and this nutcase was yammering about weird curses and vampires.
A close examination of Link’s airboat proved disappointing. From bow to stern it brimmed with rainwater. Wahoo located a rusty drain plug in the transom, but the release lever broke off in his fingers. The hole in the Helmet Cam made it useless as a bucket, so they were forced to bail with their hands.
Derek proved worthless as a helper. He dribbled more than he scooped, complaining all the while. Ruefully Tuna thought of all the hours she’d spent glued to episodes of Expedition Survival! even the Sunday repeats. She felt like a fool for ever thinking Derek’s adventures-and his ruggedness-were real. He was no tough guy; he was just a Hollywood fake.
And obviously a whack job, if he really believed in vampires. Tuna no longer had any desire for an autograph.
Meanwhile, Wahoo bailed furiously. If they could lighten the weight in the hull, they might be able to slide it off the bank and into the shallows. An airboat like Link’s could float in only three or four inches of water. The next challenge would be getting the engine started.
“Mates, I need a break,” Derek said wearily.
Tuna snorted. “Oh please. You think Dax Mangold would take a break?”
Wahoo noticed that Derek didn’t look too lively. His forehead was pink and beaded with sweat, as if from a fever. Although he’d received first aid at the base camp, it was possible that he’d still gotten an infection from the bat bite. That had happened a few times to Mickey Cray after being chomped by various critters.
“Take a rest,” Wahoo said to Derek, who nodded gratefully and sprawled next to the boat.
“Here,” he said, and handed one of his “survival” soda straws to Wahoo. It was imprinted with a tiny likeness of Derek’s signature. “Use it as a siphon,” he suggested.
Wahoo wasn’t sarcastic by nature, but this straw was, literally, the last straw. “Gosh, I’ll cherish it always,” he said thinly, and flicked it away.
With her hands, Tuna ladled another cup-sized portion of water over the side of the boat. “This is gonna take forever, Lance. You get that, right?”
Wahoo refused to become discouraged. The airboat was their only means of finding his father and Jared Gordon before something bad happened.
If it hadn’t happened already.
And if Link’s medical condition didn’t take a turn for the worse-in which case, they’d need the boat to haul him straight to the mainland. Mickey Cray would be on his own.
Don’t think that way, Wahoo told himself. Stay positive.
It wasn’t easy. He was the one who’d talked his dad into taking the Expedition Survival! job, and he was the one who had talked him out of quitting when quitting would have been the smart thing to do.
Tuna lowered her voice so Derek wouldn’t hear. “I’m really sorry for all this. You don’t know how sorry.”
