Kalahari (9 page)

S
creams erupted behind me. Everyone fell backward as the lion’s claws seized the top of Hank’s tailgate. The screech of claws tearing through metal seared the air.

I found myself tangled in everyone else and slipped, ending up wedged between the backseat and the tailgate. The lion’s head lifted over the back of the truck as its rear paws found purchase on the bumper. Its fine, silvery whiskers twitched as it sniffed the air above me, and then it looked down and bared its fangs—shockingly, they were yellowish-white, normal teeth. I think it was the teeth more than anything that sent a jolt of fear down my spine. Before that, I hadn’t categorized the lion as
real
, as if it might still be exposed as some kind of elaborate prank.

Suddenly someone grabbed me, pulled me up as the lion made a snap at my face. Its jaws closed on open air, but only just.

Sam had me by the shoulders and stood with one foot braced on the tailgate, the other on the wall of the truck. Straining, he helped me over the backseat, out of the lion’s reach.

Everyone else was in the front of the vehicle, screaming like maniacs. Sam and I clambered to join them. I slid into the driver’s seat and twisted the key, gunning the engine.

I floored the gas pedal but though the engine roared, the wheels only dug themselves deeper. It was useless.

“It’s coming!” Miranda screamed.

I looked over my shoulder to see the lion had made it into the truck; now it was climbing over the seats, intent on reaching us.

“Give me that shotgun!” I yelled to Joey, who was standing on it. He tossed it my way and I caught it, pumped the fore end—
chunk, chunk—
and fired, all in one swift motion.

I didn’t like using the gun, but that didn’t mean that I couldn’t.

The buckshot ripped into the lion’s shoulder, and even then, with only my shotgun standing between the raging animal and five human lives, I regretted it.

I didn’t realize I was apologizing to the lion aloud until Sam yelled at me to stop and took my hand, pulling me out the door and onto the ground. I was barely able to grab my backpack off the seat and sling it over one shoulder.

We were running now. I struggled to keep up, because it felt wrong. Anyone who knew anything about the wild could tell you that when you encountered aggressive animals, the
last
thing you should do is run. I’d been charged by lions before, and each time, I stood my ground—heart pounding, my entire body shaking, my mouth dry—and the lions had swerved at the last minute and charged away into the bush.

But someone had rewritten the rules without my knowing it. They’d sent this twisted, unnatural creature after me and given me no guidelines for how to deal with it.

And so I ran, clutching Mom’s shotgun to my chest and feeling like a soldier fleeing from battle. I threw aside all of my training and experience, all of the warnings of my dead mother and my missing father, and I ran.

Joey took the lead. He was fast. Not fast enough to outrun a lion, but that bullet had slowed it down. Sam had pulled me away before I’d been able to see the extent of the damage wreaked by my one frantic shot.

When I looked back, Hank’s engine was still running, and I could see flashes of silver between the seats. If the lion was dying, it was taking its time about it, and I felt a small, guilty twinge of relief. Could we all
walk away from this, lion included? Was that too much to ask? But my shot had been point-blank, and the silver hide of the lion had proved to be permeable. I’d half expected the animal to shatter like a busted mirror into metal shards all over the truck, but the silver had parted like, well, like
flesh
. I’d even seen a burst of scarlet blood from the wound.

So the lion was alive, at least in some way. It wasn’t made of machinery; it had blood and teeth and it could be wounded. I noted these facts as if I were recording them in an observation journal for my dad to go over later.

If we stopped and went back to Hank, would the lion’s carcass be lying in the truck? If so, I could attempt to glean some kind of understanding from it. I wondered what my dad, with all his years of zoology, would make of it, if he’d be as dumbfounded as I was.

We ran for only a mile or two before we all collapsed, gasping, onto the ground. I was delighted to hear birdsong once more and hoped that somehow all of this would turn out to be a mistake, that there was no metal lion and we’d been tricked.

“What . . .” gasped Avani, “was that
thing
?”

“Sarah shot it,” said Sam. “It’s dead, whatever it was.”

I wasn’t so sure, but I said nothing.

“Now what do we do?” asked Joey. “I’m not going back there.”

“We have to,” I replied. “All our gear is in the truck.”

There was that and, if I was honest with myself, there was also the fact that I wanted another look at that lion if it was indeed dead.

“I’m going back,” I announced. “You all stay here and wait for me.”

“I want to come,” said Sam. His eyes still held that glow of awe, and I knew he also wanted a chance to take a closer look at the creature.

“Fine,” I said. “The rest of you stay here.”

They didn’t argue. Miranda and Kase didn’t even look at me. They were folded into each other’s arms, leaning against a dormant termite mound, their foreheads pressed together and eyes shut.

Sam and I backtracked in silence, until we came into view of the Cruiser and stopped.

“Do you see it?” he asked.

I shook my head and wished for the pair of binoculars I’d carried with me for nearly my entire life. They hadn’t survived the fire at the camp.

“Let’s get closer,” I said, stepping forward, but at that moment, Sam grabbed my arm and pulled me back.

“It’s coming!” he said.

And there it was, yes, creeping out from under the Cruiser. I dropped to a crouch, as did Sam, hiding in the tall grass.

Sam pointed wordlessly off to the left, and I turned to see a stately male ostrich stalking into the riverbed. Its glossy black feathers ruffled in the breeze; it hadn’t caught sight of the lion by the Cruiser. The lion’s head turned only slightly and its ears cocked toward the giant bird.

Hidden as it was by the Cruiser, the lion had escaped the bird’s notice. It crouched in the shadow of the truck and tensed, just as it had earlier. Then, in the blink of an eye, it sprang, light flashing off its haunches, and the ostrich didn’t even have time to attempt to flee. It went down with a screech, sending up a cloud of feathers. The lion ripped its throat with its jaws, raked the body of the bird with its claws, and then—amazingly—walked away.

“It’s not eating,” I whispered. “Why would it do that, if it isn’t hungry?”

Sam shrugged. “You’re the expert, not me.”

The lion stopped beside the Cruiser, sniffing the air, perhaps trying to pick up our scent. I studied its shoulder, trying to understand how it was still alive.

“I
did
shoot it, right?” I asked Sam. “I’m not crazy?”

“I saw it with my own eyes.”

“But the lion . . .”

“I know.” He looked as puzzled as I felt. The lion seemed entirely unwounded. The skin of its shoulder was smooth and seamless and gleaming, reflecting the savanna. It began violently tossing its mane, as if trying to shake off an invisible collar, and then it swatted its own face with massive silver paws. I tilted my head, watching and trying to understand, trying to read its behavior the way my parents had taught me. When the lion began crow hopping sideways, twisting its body and sending up long, agonized yowls, I sucked in sharply.

“It’s like it’s been driven mad,” I said. “Look at it—it’s out of its mind.”

“Do you think it might have been normal once?” asked Sam. “That someone did
this
, whatever this is, to it?”

I shrugged. The lion rolled on its back, creating a cloud of dust and sand, and then flopped over, nose twitching in the air. Its head turned in our direction and chuffed.

“We should go back,” I said. “It’s tracking us.”

“How can you tell?”

“It’s searching for our scent and . . .” How could I explain a hunch? I knew only that it
would
follow us if it could, just as it had followed my dad and Theo and the poachers or whoever they were.

“Do you think you could shoot it again?” He nodded at the shotgun I still carried.

I shook my head. “If I missed, he’d be on us in a blink. Let’s get away quietly.”

Sam and I began to move backward slowly, taking care to make as little sound as possible. The lion continued to pad around the riverbed, uninterested in the dead ostrich. My body hummed with urgency, but I resisted the instinct to flee—it would only draw the lion’s attention and anyway, it could outrun me in a heartbeat.

When we were out of sight of the lion, we straightened and hurried faster, passing a young male kudu who fled at our approach, his spiraling horns flashing in the sun.

When we reached the others, they all jumped up and flocked around us.

“Is it dead?” asked Avani.

“Did it follow you here?” asked Joey.

“It’s coming.”

“Are you sure?”

“Let’s go.”

I began walking, not looking back to see if they were following. I felt as if my brain were a balloon floating above me, tugged along by my body but disconnected from the present. Nothing made sense anymore: Theo dead, Dad missing and possibly also dead, and now a lion of pure silver tracking us through the bush. It had the nonsensical quality of a dream.

“Sarah.”

The voice floated around me, and though I heard it, it didn’t register.

“Sarah!”

I stopped and turned, still feeling strangely detached. Sam was pointing behind us, his face solemn.

“It’s coming,” he said. “It’s far behind us, but if you watch, you’ll see the sun reflect off it.”

I cursed and looked around for a tree or something to climb. There was a copse of
Terminalia
ahead on the top of a small rise.

“Come on,” I said, breaking into a jog.

“It sees us!” shouted Avani. “It’s running now!”

My heart pounding, I burst into a sprint, the others drawing even with me. I looked back, brushing aside my hair, and saw the lion skimming toward us, reflections of light and sky streaking over its metallic form.

“Faster!” I yelled, knowing it was useless if we didn’t reach the trees before the lion reached us. I’d seen it take down the ostrich in a second. Would it go for all of us, or would it settle for just one? I glanced around and saw that Avani was the slowest. I reached out a hand and she took it, and I pulled her along.

“Thanks,” she gasped.

Suddenly Joey, who was in the lead, cried out and skidded to a halt, his arms pinwheeling. “Stop!” he yelled. He spun around and threw out an arm to shove Miranda to the ground, and Kase toppled over her, both of them shouting in anger at Joey.

I stumbled and stopped, dropping Avani’s hand. Sam fell to his knees beside me, bent over and panting.

“What is it?” he gasped out.

I didn’t reply; I was too stunned by what I saw.

It was a crack in the ground, a long, narrow chasm that split the earth like buckled cement. It didn’t seem very deep—maybe four feet at most, and it was filled with sand.

“Is it supposed to be like that?” asked Miranda.

“No.” What was going on out here? First the lion—now this random split in the earth’s crust?

“Then what—”

“Just
run
!” said Sam. “It’s almost here!”

I whirled to see the lion bounding toward us, and at any other time I could have stared in wonder at the beauty of the metal creature, but now was definitely
not
that time. I jumped across the crack and landed in a crouch on the other side—only to feel the ground beneath me shudder.
What the—?

“Wait!” I yelled, throwing up a hand, but it was too late. Everyone jumped across the crack and landed beside me—and the ground shuddered again.

“You guys feel that?” asked Joey.

Then the sand slid around my ankles, poured into the chasm. I stood up slowly, my arms spread for balance. It felt like an earthquake.

I turned to see the lion crouched on the other side of the chasm, all silver and light, and then it leaped straight for me. I yelled and fumbled with the shotgun, knowing it was already too late—and then the earth vanished beneath me, collapsing as if we’d been standing on top of an aardvark’s tunnel, only much,
much
bigger.

We fell into the widening chasm, sand pouring around us like white rain. The lion sailed overhead and landed on the ground on the far side; I caught just a brief glimpse of it as I dropped like Alice down the rabbit hole.

Screams echoed around me, but I was silent, the air frozen in my lungs from sheer disbelief. The sky shrank to a strip of blue and then, totally unexpectedly, I slammed into deep water.

Stunned and disoriented, I sank into dark depths, seeing stars and bubbles rise around me. Then I began to kick out, pushing for the surface. The sounds of the others’ screams had cut off, interrupted by loud splashes. I hoped desperately that they could all swim. Despite my furiously kicking legs, I found myself sinking, pulled down by the weight of my pack. I wriggled it off my shoulders and let it go; it disappeared into the dark murky water along with my mom’s shotgun, which I’d lost when I hit the water. Freed of the backpack, I was able to swim.

When I broke the surface, I gasped and looked up. We’d fallen probably fifty feet into a huge underground reservoir of freshwater. The sides of the narrow chasm pitched upward at a slant; the opening above was much smaller than the space below. This had been a hidden cavern for centuries, perhaps millennia, and I was certain that it would have taken more than just the weight of six teenagers to crack its roof.

The lion’s face hovered over the edge, and I wondered for a moment if it would jump down. But then it lifted and turned, and I saw one flick of the silver tail as it walked away.

One by one, the heads of the rest of the group popped out of the water. I counted, my heart stopping when I reached only four.