a massive black rock mountain loomed darkly over everything. It thrust upward through the greenery like a clenched fist into the softening sky. It seemed almost fluid, changing its shape with the movement of the morning mists.
A murmur of distant voices made me look across the compound. A pair of men dressed in khaki uniforms emerged from the side of a distant building. “Hello?” I called out, but my voice was too weak to carry.
As they stepped into the dim light, I saw that both of them were carrying rifles. Big ones, with ammo.
I ducked away from the window. This was no hospital. I was in lockdown. Were these people coming for me? Already they’d kidnapped me, drilled holes in the back of my head, and stuck me in some sort of bizarre prep school with a bunch of brainwashed zombies. Why? And what were they going to do for an encore?
I made my way silently back across the room. The window on the other side had a much different view. It looked away from the campus. The only thing separating the building from the surrounding jungle was a scraggly clearing, about twenty yards of rocky soil. Beyond it was a thicket of trees. In the dawn light, the jungle looked dense and almost black. But I could see a path leading into it, and that made my blood pump a little faster. Every path had a destination. Wherever this was—Hawaii, California, Mexico, South America—there had to be a road somewhere to a town or city. Stuff had been built here, which meant bricks and materials had been trucked in. If I could find a road and hitch a ride, I’d be able to locate a pay phone or use somebody’s cell. Call Dad. Contact the news media. Report this place.
I sat on the bed and carefully put on my jeans and shoes. Then I went to the window and perched on the sill. Swiveling my legs around, I jumped out.
INTO THE JUNGLE
IT WAS ONLY a short drop to the ground, but in my condition, I felt like I’d landed on iron spikes.
Sucking in air, I held back the urge to scream. I pressed my hands to my head to keep my brain from bursting. I had to be careful. I’d just had surgery and was a long way from recovery. Even just looking left and right hurt.
There wasn’t much back here: a scraggly yard of trampled soil and grass, some truck tire marks, a Dumpster. I was alone, and no one was coming after me.
Go. Now.
Each step felt like a blow. My ears rang. The distance from the window to the jungle felt like a mile. I was in full view of the windows on this side of the building. If anyone saw me and told Conan, I would be toast. Try as I might, I just couldn’t go very fast.
But as I stepped into the narrow path, I heard no alarm, no voices. Only the cawing of birds, the rustling of branches and leaves. An animal skittered through the grass, inches beyond my toes, barely making a sound.
Focus.
I hobbled as fast as I could. The adrenaline was pumping now, making me less aware of the pain in my head. The path wound around narrow gnarled trees. Thorns pricked my clothing and vines whipped against my face. The air was tinted orange in the rising sun, and droplets of dew sat like glistening insects on the leaves.
I don’t know how long I trudged like that—a half hour? an hour?—before all traces of coolness had burned off. My clothes were soaking wet with sweat and dew. Flies swarmed around my neck and ankles. I was slowing.
When my foot clipped something hard and sharp, I went down.
I let out a wail. Couldn’t help it. I took a deep breath to avoid blacking out. I had to will my clenched jaw open, to keep from shattering my own teeth. My eyes were seeing double, so I forced them to focus on where I’d tripped. It was a flat, disk-shaped rock, hidden by vines until my foot had torn away the greenery. A snaky line had been carved into the top.
I pulled away more vines. The rock was about the size of a manhole cover, covered with a blackish-green mold. But the carving was clear—a crude rendition of a slavering beast, a frightening eaglelike head with fangs.
It looked a lot like my Ugliosaurus.
This was freaking me out. I felt like someone was taunting me. I had to keep it together. There were carvings of mythical beasts all over the world—dragons and such. The kind of stuff that ends up in the museums of natural history. I didn’t care about that.
Look forward. Eyes on the prize.
The path was becoming narrow and choked. To my right, the black-topped mountain loomed over the trees. It seemed to be staying exactly the same size, which probably meant it was farther away than I thought. How far—maybe a mile, two? I felt like I was going nowhere.
I vowed to keep the mountain in sight, always to my right. That way my path would be straight. But straight to what? What if the next village was a half continent away? I had no idea how to survive in the wilderness—except from reading Hatchet and My Side of the Mountain, and I barely remembered those.
As I plodded on, the day grew darker. The thickening canopy blotted out sunlight like a vast ceiling. My ankle ached from the fall and my hands were bloodied by thorns. Overhead, caws and screeches rang out like playground taunts: Check it out! New prey! It can barely walk! The woods seemed to be closing in, dense and alive, rustling with the wind. Or maybe not the wind. Maybe hawks or a nearby pack of pumas or an angry cannibalistic tribe—or all, jockeying for position. First come, first served. A shadow passed and a buzzard landed on a branch above me, cocking its head expectantly.
“Not dead!” I called up. “See the moving mouth? Not! Dead!”
It didn’t budge a millimeter. It was waiting. Birds were smart. They knew where to find dinner. They could tell when someone was about to be killed.
My resolve was crumbling. I’d gone from get-me-out-of-here to what-was-I-thinking. Suddenly the idea of a zombie prep school didn’t seem so bad.
Time to bail.
But as I turned, I felt my heart drop like a coconut. I saw no trace of a path. The compound had long been swallowed up by the trees. The mountain was invisible behind the greenery.
The sun and the mountain. Those were the things that gave me direction. But I couldn’t see either one now.
“Help!”
My cry sounded puny in the wild-animal chorus. I stood, hoping that would help me get some more volume. “Help me!”
The buzzard fluffed out its feathers.
That was when I caught the hint of a breeze. It tickled across my nose and pricked me with a summer memory—the deck of a ferry, a Nantucket shack with Mom and Dad, air so damp it glued envelopes closed.
I may have been from Indiana, but I knew the smell of the sea. Sea meant shore. A shore was a path along water. I could follow it to a port. Swim if I had to. Signal to a passing ship.
As I moved in the breeze’s direction, I came across a pile of charred branches and vines. Excellent. With dry tinder, bright sun, and a piece of
