Jason Frost - Warlord 05 - Terminal Island (22 page)

Eric straddled the barbed wire atop the zoo wall. He draped his shirt over the wire where he stood so Tim could step over it. Eric need not have been so cautious. The gangly, slightly clumsy child he remembered was now long-legged and agile. Tim stood on the narrow ledge of the wall with perfect balance and no fear.

The transition had been just as sudden for Eric when he had been Tim’s age. Like Tim, Eric at twelve had excelled at the more cerebral pursuits: crossword puzzles, chess, drawing. On the playground or while visiting the Hopis with his father, Eric’s play with the other children had always made him feel inept. Balls did not naturally take to his hands, no matter the shape or goal. Throwing, kicking, dribbling, all were equally mysterious.

Then at thirteen, a sudden growth spurt shot him up and then his body could whip around the other children with such ease he had to laugh. Balls became allies. They flew like trained falcons wherever he sent them. It was as if the first twelve years his body had been tied, bound tight like the feet of young Chinese girls. Then suddenly the ropes had been cut and there wasn’t any physical challenge he couldn’t master.

Eric watched Tim stand with easy grace on the narrow wall and remembered the little boy who had come home from school crying because he was always the last one chosen for kickball. Eric had hugged him, told him his body was resting, like in a cocoon, giving him a chance to develop his brain. That the other kids who were already athletic, might always rely on their bodies and never get the chance to train their minds. This was Timmy’s “brain time.” The rest would come later, he promised. Timmy accepted his father’s word and took to books and chemistry sets and piano and writing poetry. School tests placed him in the genius percentile. Teachers and counselors suggested special schools for the gifted. Eric and Annie had refused. They kept Timmy in public school among his friends and tutored him themselves, allowing him to flourish in any direction he wanted.

They had tried to be the best parents possible. Now as Eric looked at Tim’s tall frame, black marble eyes, he wondered if maybe Tim wasn’t right after all. Perhaps Eric had let him down, screwed up royally. Made the kind of mistakes every parent swears they won’t make. Maybe he babied him, or didn’t baby him. Gave him too much or too little love. Surely the lessons he’d spent twelve years teaching his son couldn’t be so easily replaced. Not if Eric had done his job properly.

A huge rock pelted the wall near Eric’s feet, bounced off and fell into the brush at the foot of the wall. “Halt! Who goes there?” D.B. said, stepping out from behind a tree. Her makeshift slingshot dangled from her hand. “I heard that line in some old war movie. How’s it sound?”

“Like an old war movie,” Eric said, hopping down from the wall. Tim jumped next to him, landing with such grace that Eric couldn’t help feeling a little pride in front of D.B. Silly, he knew, but the feeling was there anyway. They’d been apart so long. He wanted to take Tim in his arms and hold him tight, hug him the way he used to after those bad playground experiences. No good. The look in Tim’s eyes forbade any contact yet. Eric was pained that the only physical contact they’d had since their reunion was Eric knocking him out and carrying him away. Not unlike the way Fallows had taken him in the first place. Eric could find water in a hundred miles of desert, find food in five feet of snow. But could he find his son in the boy/man standing next to him now?

“Tim?” D.B. asked, obviously surprised by his appearance.

“Tim, this is D.B.” Eric said. “A friend.”

Tim looked at D.B., but gave no acknowledgement. Then to Eric, said, “What kind of friend?”

“A friend,” D.B. said. “As in ‘You’ve Got a Friend.’ You know, ‘You just call out my name.’ That sort.”

“James Taylor,” Tim said.

“Carol King wrote it.”

Eric listened to them, thinking how much they sounded like Tim and his sister, Jenny. The two of them bantering, arguing, complaining about each other until their voices sometimes formed a background music around the house. “Yuppie Muzak,” Annie had called it.

“Where’s Wendy?” Eric asked.

“Back at the lab doing her mad scientist routine.”

Eric started jogging toward the lab, Tim and D.B. in tow. “We haven’t much time. Hurry.”

D.B. snorted. “I heard that line in the same war movie.” As they ran, she reached out and pulled Tim closer to her. “Stay on this path, Tim. There are crawly slimy things with teeth and nails.”

“I’m not scared.”

“I am. That’s why I want you close.”

Tim stayed close to D.B. as they ran.

How easily she did that, Eric marvelled. The most convincing argument
he’d
given the boy was a right cross to the neck.

The sun had faded out behind the Halo. There were no more sunsets or sunrises. Just a leaking away of light followed by a sort of darkness that wasn’t quite black, more like a gray fuzziness. It was getting that way now.

Eric pointed to the bruise on D.B.’s forearm. “Racquetball?”

“Elephant. Named Dizzy. Whacked me with his trunk while Wendy was checking his teeth. Had a cavity the size of a golf ball.”

In the lab they found Wendy writing. When she looked up Eric could see the relief on her face, though she immediately forced it off.

“I told you he’d be back,” D.B. said.

“Like a bad penny,” Wendy joked. She stood up and Eric wanted to hug her but he felt uncomfortable with Tim watching.

“Tim, this is Dr. Chen.”

“Wendy,” she said, offering her hand.

Tim shook. “Another friend?” he said archly. “Like in the song?”

“Pardon?” Wendy said.

“Never mind,” Eric said. “We have only a few hours, so let me give you your options now.”

“Options?” Wendy asked. “What are you talking about?”

“Time. We don’t have much of it. Fallows and his men will be here soon. That gives us only two options: stay and fight or run and hide.”

Wendy bristled. “I’m not leaving. This is my work, my life. If I leave, every animal in this zoo will be butchered and eaten within days. Or they’ll kill each other.”

“If you stay,” Eric said, “Fallows will butcher you.”

“This is a big zoo, Eric. There are many dangerous animals loose. Many places to hide.”

“Not from the colonel,” Tim said, with a slight smile.

Eric felt the challenge in Tim’s voice. Stay and fight Fallows, prove who is stronger. Eric was tempted to accept, not just because of Tim, but because such hatred as he felt needed to be exorcized. Nevertheless, this was not a symbolic battle between good and evil for a matinee crowd. It was their lives. “My advice is to leave. Let them have the zoo. You’ll be alive.”

“I’ve seen death before. I’m not afraid.”

“Jeez,” D.B. said. “You’re not afraid, the kid’s not afraid, Doc Rock’s not afraid. Am I the only one around here who’s scared of these creeps? I say we grab Spock and take off.”

“Spock?” Tim said.

“Yeah, Spock. Cutest gorilla you’ll ever chat with. You’ll see.”

Eric shook his head. “We can’t take Spock. Just the four of us.”

“Oh shit. A moral dilemma. I was hoping to make it through without one.”

“What’s the problem?” Tim said to his father. “If they want to stay, let them. You don’t have to.”

Wendy looked at Tim, then at Eric. “He’s right, Eric. You found what you came for. There’s no reason to stay.”

Eric knew she wasn’t playing the martyr. He could see the compassion in her eyes. She saw that Tim was not as Eric had described him, saw the agony Eric felt for his son’s condition.

“D.B.?” he asked.

“Christ, you don’t give a girl much time for moral dilemmas. I’m not too good at this.”

“Why don’t you just clobber them and haul them away like you did me?” Tim said.

D.B. spun toward him. “Why don’t you quit sassing your dad or I’ll clobber you myself.” She looked at Eric. “If we stay, what are our chances?”

“There are things we can do. Precautions. Traps. Warning systems. It’s not hopeless.”

“You really know how to whip up troop morale,” D.B. laughed. “Anyway, let’s give it a shot. I always wondered what Davy Crockett felt like at the Alamo.”

“Dead,” Tim said.

“We’re going to have to free the animals,” Eric said.

“No.” Wendy shook her head adamantly. “They’ll end up killing each other. Or these friends of yours will shoot them.”

“No choice. We’ll need the diversion to move around. How much more barbed wire do you have?”

Wendy didn’t answer. She glared at Eric.

“Look, Dr. Chen. Twenty trained and armed men are about to come pouring into your little paradise here. All we’ve got are one crossbow, one slingshot, Tim’s Walther, and the two SMGs you brought back. Unless you want to get blown out of Eden a second time, we’re going to need to balance things out. Now where’s the goddamn barbed wire?”

“Hidden. In the snake exhibit.”

“Nice touch. Got a map of this place?”

“I do,” D.B. said. She pulled a folded paper from her pocket, brushed off the lint. The paper was dirty from the rocks she carried in her pocket for her slingshot. “I found a bunch of these over at the ticket booths.”

Eric unfolded the leaflet. It described the guided bus tour and the Skyfari Aerial Tram, the Children’s Zoo, where to rent wheelchairs and buy film. In the middle was a crude map where all the exhibits were. “Pencil?”

Wendy unclipped a pen from her pocket and handed it to him.

“Here and here,” he said, drawing lines on the map. “That’s where we’ll build the fences. Nothing fancy. Just enough wire to keep the animals where we want them.”

“They’ll be able to break them down in a few hours,” Wendy said.

“A few hours is all we’ll need.”

“I don’t get it,” D.B. said.

“Two Knights’ Defense,” Tim said.

“Yeah, sure. That explains it.”

Tim looked at Eric as he explained to D.B. His expression revealed nothing. “It’s a chess opening analyzed by Greco in 1630, then explored further by the Berlin master Von Bilguer in his
Handbuch
.”

D.B. slapped her hip. “Works for me. Let’s do it.”

Tim looked at her. Eric noted it was the same frustrated look he used to give his sister when she teased him during his pompous moments. “To simplify,” he said sarcastically, “he intends to create an opening for the colonel and his men to enter, but by releasing the deadlier animals and fencing them just so, he’s forcing men and beasts alike to move in the same direction in the same cage. It’s like a giant maze with lots of dead ends. Right?”

Eric nodded. “While they’re busy looking for animals, we’ll be able to pick them off. Even up the odds.”

“What do you want us to do?” Wendy said.

“You’ve got a generator, haven’t you?”

“Christ, how do you know?”

“Some of the medicine you’d have needed to inoculate these animals requires refrigeration. I saw the refrigerator was removed from the lab.” He pointed at the scratches on the floor. “That’s where it used to be.”

“We moved that the first week. Figured it was best if no one knew we had a generator or fuel.”

“Where?”

“The Reptile House. I figured if anybody sneaked in here for food, reptiles would be the last place they’d go.”

“Good thinking. I’ll use the generator to rig some kind of early warning device, maybe hook into the P.A. system. I’ll need your help for that.”

“What about us?” D.B. asked.

“You two will string the wire where I’ve drawn the lines on the map. Neatness doesn’t count. Just get it up in a hurry.”

“You want
me
to help?” Tim asked.

“Some reason you can’t?” Eric said.

Tim stared at him for a minute.

D.B. grabbed Tim’s arm. “Good, now that that’s settled, let’s get to work. Anybody know any good songs for stringing barbed wire?”

“What’s that noise?” D.B. asked.

“Ssshhh.” Tim put down the barbed wire and walked forward with his wire cutters.

Spock saw the wire cutters and bounced happily toward Tim, reaching for them.

“Keep him quiet,” Tim said. His eyes searched the darkness.

“He likes tools,” she whispered. “Likes to lick them like popsicles.”

“Ssshhh.” Tim stalked a few feet from where they’d been stringing wire. Something was out there.

D.B. held onto one of Spock’s arms to keep him still, but he chuckled and dragged her along. “Goddamn it, Spock, knock it off.”

Suddenly, out of the brush a wolfish looking animal sprang over the wire. It landed on the concrete pathway. One of its back legs was bleeding where it had been raked on the barbed wire.

Tim pointed his gun at the animal.

“No, don’t shoot,” D.B. said. “It’s a Chinese dhole.”

“A what?”

“Kind of a dog. A wild dog from China. Wendy explained about him. He’s okay, just scared like the rest of us.” She grinned at Tim. “Well, maybe not all of us.”

Tim gave her a stern look, which softened into a smile. “Maybe a little scared. You don’t see many Chinese dogs around. He’s pretty.”

“Yeah, his coat is almost golden.”

Spock ran toward the Chinese dhole and the animal turned and sped off, Spock loping lazily after it for a few feet, then bored, returning to D.B..

“Hand me the wire cutters,” D.B. said, unfurling a roll of wire.

Tim tossed the cutters to her.

“Tell me about your sister,” D.B. said, snipping through the metal.

“You’re not her.”

“Were you this bratty with her?”

Tim shrugged. “I don’t remember. I mean, I remember us arguing about stuff a lot. But I also remember her sticking up for me to Mom and Dad. Taking me to the movies. Making popcorn for the TV movies on Saturday nights when Mom and Dad went out. She always burned the popcorn. I couldn’t understand how she could always burn the popcorn.” He stared at the strands of barbed wire in his hands. “How hard is it to make popcorn anyway?”

“I don’t know. I always used those prepackaged pans that puff up like a nuclear power plant.”

Tim went back to work, not speaking.

“Give him a chance, Tim,” D.B. said solemnly. “You don’t know how much you’ve meant to him these past months. You’re all he’s thought about.” Tim smirked at her. “Not the only thing.” D.B. threw the wire cutters on the ground. “Watch your mouth, kid. I wish what you’re thinking were true. Believe me, I tried to make it true. But your dad’s got funny notions. Maybe I don’t always agree with them, but I respect them. One funny notion he’s got that I’m not so sure about is that you’re worth all this trouble.”