The New Wild (10 page)

I ride the
unicorn for an hour before I start to feel comfortable, like I can breathe
again, like my heart isn’t going to pop out of my chest and burst into a
million pieces. She’s walking pretty slowly, probably trying not to freak me
out, which is good for Xander. If she went any faster, I think we’d leave him
in a swarm of our dust, choking on air. He’s not happy, but us girls are carrying
all the bags and the tent, so all he has to do is put one foot in front of the
other. We walk on this way for a few days, me riding on the unicorn, Xander
walking calmly beside us. Every night, the unicorn chases fireflies for a
while, then curls up next to me. We always assume she’ll be gone by morning,
but come daybreak, she’s still there, purring at me. We decide to call her the
Kitten from Hell, Esquire; Kitten for short. I don’t know how we’d move without
her carrying me and all our gear. I only wish I had a camera to capture it. If
I ever get home, my mom’s never going to believe it. Bernard would be so
jealous he’d disown me.

It’s funny looking at Xander now.
He’s so different from the asshole I met at Camp Astor. I mean, he definitely
has his moments. But this morning, in the golden wheat fields, walking so
determinedly he could be marching off to war, there’s something so beautiful
about him. He catches me staring.

“What?” he says gruffly.

“Oh nothing,” I say, brushing my
hair back. “How is it down there?”

“Incredibly relaxing, thank you,”
he says. Always Mr. Sarcasm.

“How is it up there?” he says.

I look down at him.

“Never mind, I don’t want to
know,” he says, shaking his head.

We keep walking westward, as fast
as Xander can move. I wish to God he could ride. If he could, I’d be kicking
her up to a full gallop, and we’d home in weeks instead of months.

These rolling plains look like
they’ll go on forever. It must be about high noon now. The sun is beating down
on us in full force. Without it, we’d probably freeze. The jee-bows we pass
turn brighter and brighter shades of orange as we approach. What could orange
mean? My heart starts to thump a little louder.

“Jackie, what is that?” Xander
says, his voice deeper than normal.

“What?” I say, swiping down at my
chest. He’s talking like a weird bug is crawling on me.

“No, out there. What the hell
is
that?”

His long, muscled arm points ahead
and to the right. In the distance, black rectangles shoot up jaggedly out of
the plains. They’re the tallest structures we’ve seen in months, basically the
size of skyscrapers.

“Jesus, Xander, I don’t know,” I
stammer.

“Well, whatever they are, we’re
heading right for them.”

“Do you want to turn back?”

“No. That’s the only way to go.
I’m not taking the long way on foot,” he says.

“Okay,” I gulp.

I see something out in the grass,
about halfway between us and the black towers. Whatever it is, it’s moving
really fast. The golden wheat obscures it, but it’s on a mission.

“Xander, do you see that?” I ask.

“What now?” he hacks.

“There’s something out there,
headed toward us.”

“What is it?” he says, urgency
rising in his voice.

“I can’t tell. Don’t worry, it’s
not that big.”

He lets out a big grunt. “Well,
rabid
dogs
aren’t that big. Plague-carrying
mice
aren’t that
big. Knives and guns and grenades
aren’t that big
.”

“Yeesh! Chill out!. Whatever it
is, we’ll deal with it. It’s moving so fast we don’t really have a choice.”
Every second that passes, we get closer to colliding with it.

“Give me that axe,” Xander demands.
“You can have the knife. I’m not staying down here as a hors d’oeuvre without
something to defend myself with.”

I pull the handle of the axe out
of my pack and toss it down to him. He catches it in the air with one hand,
like it’s nothing but a softball. The thing is coming toward us faster and
faster, but all I can see is the grass parting around it.

“Jackie, what is it? Can you see
it any better?
Shit.
Shit shit shit. I hate being so low to the ground!
Any minute now, it’s going to spring on me and you’re just going to gallop
away, la-dee-da.”

“
Shh
!” I say, straining my
eyes to get a better look at the thing. But it’s no use. I can only catch
flashes between the blades of grass. Kitten’s ears twist back, and I can feel
her crouching a bit.

“It’s getting close,” I whisper to
Xander.

He ducks behind Kitten, who’s kind
enough not to kick him in the face. It’s so close now
I can hear
the grass swishing. Xander's whirling the axe in circles over his head.
Suddenly, the wheat opens like a curtain, and a baby lion hurdles toward us.
I've never seen a cub before, not even in the Portland Zoo. This one looks like
it just ran out of the womb. It's got that roly-poly, newborn thing going on.

“Oh, wow,” Xander says, “Guess I can put this axe
down. That thing is about as big as a house cat.”

Kitten is not her usual self. The minute she spots the
cub, her lips curl back, revealing her vicious fangs. She swings her body hard,
and I’m catapulted off, dropping to the ground with a
thud
. All of our
gear goes flying, too. “Hey!” I scream. I'm a little worried she broke my
pelvis, but she's not listening to me. She darts forward and lunges at the
cute, wide-eyed lion cub. I want to cover my eyes, but I can't help but stare
as Kitten picks it off the ground with her jaws, blood spurting into the air.
She turns back and looks at us with a satisfied moan, and when I look up, I
notice the cub has a wriggling snake for a tail and a weird, tiny, goat head
behind its own. Like a lion went to an orgy on Noah's Ark, and that's what popped
out nine months later.

“Holy crap, it's a baby chimera,” Xander says, his
eyes huge.

“A what?” I scream, as the unicorn gallops off into
the distance with the creature in her fangs. Soon enough, I can't see her. My
heart drops into my belly, and I feel like I could burst into tears. How are we
going to get home without her?

“A
chimera
,” Xander repeats. “Didn't you ever
study Greek mythology? It’s part lion, part goat, and part snake, and when it
gets old enough, it'll be able to breathe fire. It’s so crazy that they’re
actually real now!”

“In that case, thank God it was a baby,” I say, still
reeling from the whole gory mess. “Xander, Kitten is gone
.
How the bleep
are we gonna get home?”

“I will be just fine.
I
have been walking this
whole time, thank-you-very-much,” he says, with a proud stare.

“Well, I haven't. My leg muscles have gone soft. And
she's been carrying all of your shit, anyway.”

“Oh, yeah, I forgot about that. How are you, by the
way? Sorry, that chimera thing was a little distracting. Are you hurt?”

Part of me wants to pretend I cracked something to see
what he'd do, but I don't want to waste any more time. Those weird spires are
still looming in the distance, and I want to get past them before night falls.
I look up at the sky and thumb my compass with my hand. “No, I'm not hurt. I'm
fine.”

“Good,” he says, grabbing my hands to pull me up.

The closer we walk to the black towers, the farther
into a burnt-out suburbia we get. We pass rows of tract homes, all exactly the
same
—
one long, low level with flower-filled vines crawling
along every crack. One of them has a silver trailer out front, now crackled and
warped from the fire.

“A trailer!” Xander practically squeals, racing toward
it and yanking the door open.

“Xander, stop!” I shout, though I don't know why.

“Why? There might be something good in here!”

Before I can reply, a deep, loud, gravelly moan sounds
from within the trailer. Xander takes a step back and slams the door shut.

“
Run
!” he yelps, hustling me along in front of
him. I don't know what made that awful sound, but I really don't want to, so we
run harder and faster than I ever thought possible.

The thing is, the sound is getting louder. And it's
not a moan anymore. I hate to say it, but it's a full-bellied roar
followed
by a hissing sound. I turn back in time to see the door swing wide open. Out
jumps another chimera, except this one is fully grown—seven feet tall, at
least. Its mane is huge and fluffy, its talons fierce. Out of its neck, a
goat's head is bucking its horns. And at its tail, nine slithering snakes are
giving new meaning to the phrase “hissy fit.”

Xander looks back in disbelief, then turns to me,
shaking his head as he runs. “Jackie, I don't know what to do. I don't know
what to do,” he repeats, tears in his eyes. “I think
…
” he says, as
he races alongside me, “I think we're gonna die.”

The chimera is gaining on us. It's five or ten times
faster than we'll ever be, and it's not long before it's within spitting
distance. It pounces on Xander, hard, and my eyes brim with tears. Rage is
pouring through my veins, turning my heartbeat into an unstoppable techno
soundtrack. I'm not dying here without a fight, and I'm not going to let him
take Xander, either.

The chimera paws Xander’s torso while the snakes on
his tail slither over his feet. It bats Xander off the ground, letting him fall
with a
thud
. It’s playing with him the way a cat plays with a mouse. Moving
as stealthily as I can, I take the axe in my hands and lift it high above me,
plunging it as hard as I can into the chimera's side. Blood rushes from the
wound, and he bellows in agony, then turns my way. He locks eyes with me and
fire issues from his mouth in wispy curls that tickle my forehead and singe my
eyelashes. His giant paw swipes my side, leaving four deep cuts at my waist. I
double over instantly. It burns and blood oozes from between my ribs. I feel
faint.

Xander lies on the ground, as still as a corpse. The chimera
stands on its hind legs, spitting sparks that fly up into the sky. I wail,
screaming Xander’s name, willing him to wake up, to get up. Then I see her. Kitten
charges toward us. Amazingly, terrifyingly, her horn is glowing bright red and
spinning around in its socket. She looks over at me and then leaps straight at
the chimera, a puny cat compared to Kitten. The chimera blows full-bodied
flames straight into Kitten's face, but she is unfazed. She pierces the chimera
with her horn, right through the skull. Blood bursts forth from the wound like
a geyser. The freakish goat-head is still bucking. Kitten slides her horn out
of the chimera and waits patiently for it to slow to a stop. The snake-tail writhes
violently and Kitten promptly tramples it.

I feel like my eyes are lying, but the pain in my side
is very real. Blood has seeped all over my shirt. I crawl over to Xander, lying
in a puddle of blood spreading into a pool. The golden wheat surrounding his
body is sopping it up like a paper towel. I shudder and clutch my own wounds.
This is bad.

I look across the way, where Kitten has hauled the
corpse to eat. I realize then she didn't kill the chimera to save us. She was
hungry. Xander's eyes are closed, but his chest heaves weakly and he expels the
occasional whimper, so I know he’s alive. I look up into the sky, into the sun
that's beating down on us like a heat lamp. Thoughts of my mom cross my mind. I
worry I’ll never see her again. I can hear her nagging me, the same words she
used when she was tired of always being the one to wash my dishes.
I can't
do this anymore! I need you to help me! I need you to take control, take care
of yourself!
Now that I'm lying here in a pool of my own blood, her words
have new meaning.
Take control, take care of yourself
.

Kitten downs the chimera like it’s a well-cooked steak,
hurling clumps of fur and mane over her shoulder. I look at the chunks flying
through the air and landing all around us. I grab as many as I can and wrap
them together into a few long bandages, grunting as I go. I wrap the whole
thing around my gashes, tightly, until the burning sensation feels muffled. At
least the bleeding will slow. Then, I turn to Xander.

He’s lying a few feet away, face
down. I gasp when I get closer to him, when I see his back is covered with stab
wounds, like someone took a whip to his spine. He winces when I come near. He’s
sobbing into the grass, his breath shallow.

“Xander, it’s me. I’m gonna…”

“Stop!” he interjects. “Don’t touch
me. I’m dying.” His voice is thick. He’s having difficulty breathing.

“Stop it, man,” I say firmly,
choking back tears. “You’re not dying, you’re maimed. There’s a difference. Now
sit still while I address your wounds.”

I move slowly so as not to
irritate my own messed up body. It stings every time I twist my torso, but I
have to keep going. I pull the sweater I wear as an extra layer at night off my
waist and cut it into several long strips of wool. When I wrap them around
Xander’s back, pressing to control the bleeding, he starts to bellow in pain.