Project Jackalope (12 page)

“Mrs. Simmons?” I gasped as the door slammed behind us.

Agatha cursed softly under her breath. “I need to learn to read Wingdings.”

Mrs. Simmons was sitting on one of her dining room chairs, directly across from the door. She had a handgun in her lap and was smoking a cigarette. She didn’t have that spacey-old-lady look she usually did—it was like somebody had come in with a file and sharpened her entire face. I wouldn’t even have recognized her on the street.

And she looked angry. Really angry. At Bob.

“This is not what I told you to do, Bob,” she said, tapping ash from her cigarette onto the floor. “The suitcase, Bob. The suitcase, not the brats.”

Well, that stung. Agatha actually flinched. We’d never been anything but nice to Mrs. Simmons, even if she was crazy as a loon. (To her face, anyway.)

Bob swallowed hard. “Yeah, but see, they came running out of the hotel with the DARPA agents after them, and I saw they had two bags, so I figured…“

“You figured, Bob? You figured you’d blow both your cover and mine on the chance they had the project?” She ground her cigarette out on the carpet and got up.

“What was your job, Bob? Do you remember?” She dangled the handgun from one hand and strolled over to him.

“Watching the kids,” Bob said.

“Watching
the kids. Not
snatching
the kids.”

I didn’t like that gun one bit. I wouldn’t have liked it if the old Mrs. Simmons had it, but with the new Mrs. Simmons it was even worse. Old Mrs. Simmons might have blown your head off, but at least it would’ve been an accident.

“But I was so close! My note to get them to come to the zoo? They never suspected it was from me! If it wasn’t
for Twitchett and those damn agents, they would’ve handed it over to me, no questions asked.”

I should’ve known better than to trust some blurry note. I’d been so stupid all along.

Mrs. Simmons pressed her lips together in a tight smile. “I was getting information, Bob. They were confiding in me. They trusted me. We would have had it, Bob, if you hadn’t
blown our cover.
”

“I’m sorry,” Bob said so softly I almost couldn’t hear him.

“You did, didn’t you, Jeremy. Trust me.” She came over and squeezed my face with her hand. “You almost left your little secret with me earlier today. So close…” She gave my face one last hard squeeze and then motioned to the duffel bag with the gun.

“Open it.”

I put the duffle bag on the ground. There was no Señor Slappy behind me to rescue me now. No secret weapon to save the day this time. I hadn’t even managed to hold on to the barf flashlight. I just hoped Jack would forgive me.

I unzipped the bag and stood back.

It took a minute before the jackalope poked his head out and looked around the room. Pretty typical stuff for me and Agatha, but big excitement for Mrs. Simmons and Bob. Bob gasped out loud and Mrs. Simmons gave a tiny squeal of glee, the kind a rabid squirrel might make.

Jack shook his head, pretty much shredding the edges of the duffel bag with his antlers, hopped out onto the floor, and looked around. Then he hurried into the corner of the room, turned around, and glared at us.

He had his tough face on, but I could tell he was a little freaked out, mostly because he left a trail of freaked out on his way to the corner.

“You realize what you have here, Jeremy?” Mrs. Simmons said to me, her eyes glittering.

“Uh, yeah. It’s uh…” I looked at Agatha. “An animal hybrid. A mixture of the…the DNA of a bunny and some kind of…deer?” I looked at Agatha, and she nodded with this weird proud look on her face.

“No, stupid boy. What you have here is a jackalope.” Mrs. Simmons turned her back on me in disgust.

I cleared my throat. “No, see, jackalopes are imaginary. This is a hybrid—”

Mrs. Simmons whirled around. “It is one of the rarest and deadliest creatures known to man. Do you know the damage these can do? The destruction?”

Well, in a word, yeah. I saw the minibar.

“One jackalope is almost unstoppable. A heartless, ruthless killing machine. Can you imagine what an army of these killers could do? The world would be forced to its knees, Jeremy. Forced to obey whoever controls them.”

The jackalope stood in the corner and blinked his long lashes at us.

“Armies of little guys like him?” I heard what she was saying, but it was hard to imagine. I’d just spent the day with Jack, and I know that was his rep, but he didn’t seem like a killer to me. Sure, he was a little destructive, but that wasn’t really his fault. It was the antlers, mostly. Still, the
idea of a whole army of Jacks, angry because they didn’t get their whiskey…

“Whole cities could be wiped out, Jeremy. It’s not just an amusing curiosity or a pet.” She spit the word out like it was obscene. “I understand this. The government understands this. Why do you think those agents want him so much, Jeremy? Twitchett gave them no choice when he refused to play ball. What do you think would happen if one of our enemies controlled this secret? A creature like this is too deadly for them not to have. Twitchett was just too much of a fool to recognize this golden opportunity.”

“So you’re going to give him to them?” Agatha said, sounding really small. “DARPA? The Suit guys?”

Mrs. Simmons laughed. “DARPA? DARPA turned its back on me years ago. They’ve had their chance. No, I’ll give him to whoever pays the biggest price, Agatha. I work for myself. I’ll teach them to underestimate Gloria Simmons.”

Jack stomped a tufty little paw and twitched his fluffy cottony tail.

Mrs. Simmons watched him and frowned.

I tried to laugh. “Wow, Agatha, we’re pretty lucky he didn’t kill us. Who knew something so cute could be a killer?”

Jack blinked his Disney cartoon eyes and twitched his long silky whiskers.

Mrs. Simmons’ frown got deeper. “You did something to him, didn’t you?” She turned to face me. She didn’t look happy. (Not that she ever looked happy, but even less happy than usual.) “You gave him whiskey, didn’t you?”

“What? Why would we do that?” I stammered. We were so busted.

“You idiots, you’ve tamed him! Destroyed his killer instinct forever! No wonder he’s acting so docile. Give a jackalope whiskey and he’s putty in your hands; everybody knows that. Morons.” Mrs. Simmons spit at us in disgust, her hand tightening on the gun. “A Beanie Baby’s more dangerous now.”

I tried to ignore her. Because, excuse me, everybody doesn’t know that. It’s not like that Beanie Baby stuff’s
common knowledge. It doesn’t say a thing about it on Wikipedia.

Mrs. Simmons waved the gun at Jack. “Bob, go get the jackalope. They’ve ruined him with alcohol.”

“Does that mean no money?” Bob sounded nervous. Yeah, I know, what else is new?

“Of course not—not as long as we’re the only ones who know. He’s still a jackalope, even if he is a wimp. Now go get him. We’re leaving. Just as soon as we dispose of these two.”

I felt cold all over. I didn’t like her tone. And I didn’t like the significant look Mrs. Simmons was shooting Bob. Especially since I thought that “dispose of us” probably meant exactly what it sounded like.

Bob wiped his hands on his jeans and hurried over to Jack, who was licking a paw with his delicate pink tongue. He looked up at Bob and drew back a little in fear.

Bob lunged at him. And then all hell broke loose.

You know that crazed killer thing? And that slashy antler stuff? Man, they weren’t kidding. I’ll never
doubt Wikipedia again. I had to close my eyes, that’s how bad it was. We’re talking blood and screaming and gunshots and chunks of things flying around. (I found out later it was pieces of chair cushion, but at the time I thought it was pieces of Bob.) It seemed to go on forever. I reached out and grabbed onto Agatha and we just clung together, hoping that we’d still be in one piece when we opened our eyes.

A huge crashing noise drowned out the screams, and I opened my eyes just in time to see Mr. Jones and the other Suits burst into the apartment. And Jack run out.

If I never see another gun in my life it’ll be too soon. Because all of the Suits had them, and they were pointing them all at Mrs. Simmons and Bob. To be honest, though, I didn’t see the point. It was pretty obvious those two weren’t going anywhere. It’s hard to make a good clean getaway when you’re lying in a pool of blood.

I have to hand it to Jack—he’d done a really good job of making it a gorefest without doing any permanent damage, as far as I could tell. What I mean is that Bob
and Mrs. Simmons both seemed to still have all of their parts. But they were scratched and slashed within an inch of their lives.

“Step back, son,” Mr. Jones said to me as he hauled Mrs. Simmons up and handcuffed her.

I looked back at the door, where Suit guys were milling in and out and talking into their cuffs. None of them seemed to realize that the jackalope they were all after had just left the scene. Or that all their milling in and out had wiped away the tiny bloody pawprints leading into the hallway. And I sure as heck wasn’t going to tell them.

I stopped clinging to Agatha; not that she even noticed. She looked traumatized and horrified, but she gave a quick head jerk toward the door when she caught my eye. I nodded. Then we just watched as the Suit guys hauled Bob and Mrs. Simmons toward the door.

One of the Suits had a big flashlight strapped to his belt. I nudged Agatha and pointed. “Puke ray.”

The man raised an eyebrow at me, and with one smooth motion, flipped the flashlight out of its holder
and held it out to me. “Want to do the honors, kid?” he said, nodding at Bob.

It was a tempting offer, but I didn’t trust myself with one of those things. I still felt too guilty about Twiggy. I shook my head. He just chuckled, reholstered the flashlight, and led Bob out of the building.

Mr. Jones disappeared into the kitchen and came out with a dish towel. He was wiping the blood off his hands as he came over toward us. Really gross, if you ask me.

“What, no thank you?” He wasn’t smiling.

“Thank you,” I said. I meant it, too. Whether I’d still mean it in five minutes, I wasn’t sure.

“Those two won’t be causing any more trouble. We’ve been tracking them for quite a while.” He shot

Agatha a half grin. “Her user name was just her last name in Wingdings 3. Doesn’t take much to break a code like that.”

Agatha gave a crazed giggle. We were both still pretty wound up.

“So now we come to the big question. Where is it?”
Mr. Smith tossed the dish towel onto Mrs. Simmons’ chair and folded his arms. He looked like he expected us to magically pull a jackalope out of his ear or something.

I shook my head. “I don’t know.” It was nice to be able to tell the truth for a change (or at least part of it).

Mr. Jones looked disappointed in us. You know, that “I’m not angry” kind of disappointed. “Are you really starting that again? We just saved your hide, Jeremy.”

I shook my head. “No, really. I don’t know where it is.”

“We really don’t,” Agatha said.

Mr. Jones stared at us and then went over to the door and started arguing with Mr. Suit #2.

“He went out into the hall, did you see?” Agatha whispered, never taking her eyes off of Mr. Jones.

“I know.” I kept expecting screams or something to come from the entryway, but there wasn’t anything. No sounds of carnage. No jackalope attack.

Mr. Suit #2 started talking into his cuff and Mr. Jones came back over to us. He was smiling this time. He’d apparently decided on a new tactic.

“This has been a trying day for all of us. But I think you two owe me one.” He paused. “You realize, of course, that Simmons would never have left you alive. Now, where is it?”

We didn’t say anything. Agatha just stared at the floor. I glanced over at the door, where Mr. Suit #2 was still talking to his cuff. And I saw a tiny flash of cottony tail disappear down the hall. I quickly jerked my head up to look at the ceiling. I didn’t want to do anything to give Jack away.

Mr. Jones leaned forward. “Just so we’re straight. We’re talking about the jackalope. We know what it is. We know you had it. We know what it did here in the apartment. It’s a dangerous killer, Jeremy. Unpredictable. A wild animal.”

I kept staring at the ceiling as he talked, and then it was like the cobwebby light fixture had sent me a message. I knew what to do.

I looked Mr. Jones full in the face. “Mrs. Simmons was lying. He wasn’t here. The jackalope I mean. We don’t have him. But we can get him. We know where he is.”

Agatha looked at me in horror.

Mr. Jones smiled encouragingly. “That’s good, Jeremy.”

“Mrs. Simmons and Bob started fighting over who was going to take us to get him. With that.” I pointed at Bob’s hunting knife, which had come loose when his jacket was being slashed to ribbons. It was lying in a puddle of blood, so it definitely looked like it could’ve been what caused all the slashes. “But the jackalope, we only had him before we got here. They took him away from us and stashed him someplace. He wasn’t ever here, not as far as I know.”

Mr. Jones nodded. “Fine. That’s fine. But you’ll take me to get him now. Won’t you?”

I took a deep breath and avoided Agatha’s eyes. “Right.”

“What? Jeremy!” Agatha whacked me on the arm.

“No, Agatha, it’s the only thing to do. Except…” I looked at Mr. Jones, trying to make my face look as innocent as possible. “We don’t actually know where
he is right this second. We can get him, but not until tomorrow. But I promise—we’ll hand him over then. At school, in the gym. Four o’clock.”

Mr. Jones’ eyes narrowed. “This isn’t a negotiation. You’re taking me to the jackalope
now.
”

“No, really, I wish we could, but we can’t right now. We only know where he’ll be tomorrow at four, I swear. You just need to give us a chance to get him. We can’t until then.” I held my breath. I didn’t know what to do if he didn’t go for it. Especially since I really didn’t have any idea where the jackalope was now.

“You realize you’re forcing me to arrest you.” Mr. Jones sighed and shook his head. Then he reached in his pocket.