The Last Hunter - Descent (Book 1 of the Antarktos Saga) (4 page)

It’s Saturday.

I’m on my feet and scratching dried red lava from the clock face. It’s not coming off, so I pull the shade and look at the sun’s low position in the sky. It’s September third and the sun is still rising early. I place the time around 6:30, slide into my slippers and head downstairs.

I skip the third and fifth steps because they squeak. I know the sound won’t wake my parents, but I like to pretend I’m a ninja. Five minutes later I’m sitting on the floor, bowl of Cocoa Pebbles in hand. I sit at the long coffee table where my drawing paper and pencils wait.

I pick up the cable remote and remember when I had to get up to change the channel, rotate the top TV dial to U and the lower dial to channel fifty-six. I turn it on and there’s a commercial featuring a bunch of women with puffy hairdos being asked what they would do for a Klondike Bar. Tell a secret? One of the women reveals that her husband works out in his underwear, and I think I’ll never eat a Klondike Bar again. I tune out the next commercial and stuff my mouth with delicious artificially flavored chocolate cereal.

“I wouldn’t do anything for a Klondike Bar,” I say, spraying a few Pebbles on my art pad. “But I’d work out in
my
underwear for—”

I see something. Not on TV. In the sun room, which is separated from the living room by a large door with twelve small windows. Something inside the room moved. I swallow hard. Some of the not yet chewed, not yet mushy, cereal scratches my throat.

“Dad?” I say. He gets up early on occasion, but I hear no reply.

“Mom?” That my mother would be up this early on a Saturday is ludicrous. I usually don’t see her until ten.

The TV is showing previews of the upcoming programming lineup so I know I have about thirty seconds before
Robotech
starts. I push the coffee table away, stand up and tiptoe toward the door. I’m a ninja again. Defenseless, but quiet. Of course, the TV has long ago announced my presence.

Maybe there was a burglar
? I think. He could have been scared by the TV coming on and fled through a window. Or maybe he’s still in there, waiting for the stupid twelve—make that thirteen-year-old—to check things out.

I think about going to the kitchen for a knife, but I don’t like them. Every time I pick one up, if my mind isn’t on something else, I see myself stabbing whoever else is in the room. I’m an unwilling, mental serial killer.

That’s just
one
of my unmentionable dark thoughts.

Of course, if I get jumped by a thief, then jamming a knife into him would be completely justified.

With my thoughts full of spraying blood, I feel sick to my stomach. No knife. Not now. Not ever.

I’m at the door anyway and have yet to be jumped. I peek through the glass and scan the small, square room. There’s a couch that pulls out into a bed. It fills up most of the room when opened. And there’s a small desk that gets used once a year when dad does the taxes. Nothing else. No thief.

That’s when I see the living room windows behind me, reflected in the glass of the door. What if I had seen a reflection? My heart begins to pound as I realize I’ve made myself an easy target. I feel a tingling on my neck. Hot breath. The presence behind me feels sinister.

Evil.

I spin around with a roar that scares me. My lips are curled up. My teeth grit. My hands, both of them, are open, but tight, like I’ve got claws to slash someone with.

But there is no one to slash. The room is empty.

I’m still scared. Terrified actually. Despite having the dark thoughts for years, this is the first time I’ve seen them manifest into action. The sound that came from my mouth. The roar. It didn’t sound like me. I can’t sustain a cord that deep without my voice cracking like a panicked goose. Worse, I was ready to kill, to tear someone apart. Had there been someone behind me, I would have attacked. It could have been a thief, or my mom, or my dad. It wouldn’t have mattered.

I would have hurt them.

If I’d gone to get the knife I might have killed them.

I look at my hands, still rigid and ready to gouge.

What kind of person am I
?

A sharp clap, like two boards of wood slapping together, spins me around with a shout. The noise came from the sun room. I stand there, frozen. The rapid fire beat of my heart surges oxygen to my muscles, readying them for fight or flight. But I can see most of the sun room still. There is no one there.

The sound repeats, this time to the right, and I finally see the source. A shade is drawn over a window that was left open. The breeze outside is pushing the shade away and then snapping it back. I open the door and enter the room. My pulse slows. I pull the shade and send it flying up. Sun blazes through the east-facing window, and a cool breeze bursts into the room. A painting of a lighthouse on the wall behind me shifts and nearly falls. I close the window before righting the painting. As I shift the canvas, something scrapes along the back of it. I think maybe the nail holding it up got yanked out a little by the breeze, so I lift the painting up for a look.

What I find stuns me. A safe. Behind a painting. It’s so cliché that I’m shocked I hadn’t thought to check for it before. After a quick peek into the living room, I put the painting on the floor and turn my attention to the safe. It’s a combination lock. Probably three digits.

I decide to stick with cliché and try my father’s birthday. No good. My mother’s doesn’t work either. Mine comes next and I’m slightly disappointed that it doesn’t work. But I’m probably the one, aside from thieves, he wants to keep out of the safe, so that wouldn’t make sense. I remember that my father is no good with remembering numbers. Despite being brilliant, he has trouble with phone numbers, street addresses and counting. So he’s always writing things down. I look around the room. Where would he keep the number? It wouldn’t be labeled, combination, but it also would be in a place where he couldn’t confuse the number for something else.

The painting. The artist’s signature was accompanied by a date. I kneel, looking at the bottom right corner. The signature is in a dull red, but the date—7-21-38—is a slightly brighter shade. They were put on at two different times! More than that, there is no way this painting was done in 1938. It’s far too Bob Ross.

I spin the dial, entering the numbers and then turn the handle. The lock clunks and I let go. The safe swings open on its own. Inside are several notebooks, folders, a small stack of money and a small felt pouch. I flip through the notebooks. They’re field notes for his photo books. A few pages have love notes from my mom on them and I suspect this is the real reason he’s kept them. There are three folders, each labeled for a member of the family. They contain birth certificates, social security cards and other legal documents. I notice I have no United States birth certificate, though there are other documents proving my citizenship.
There goes my chances of being president
, I think.

So far, it appears my parents really do have no secrets hidden in the house. I flip through the wad of hundred dollar bills, counting over one thousand dollars. All that’s left is the felt pouch, which looks like it probably holds jewelry. I take it out and reach inside. The first object I find feels like a photo. I pull it out.

My parents are in the picture. Dad is standing behind mom, who looks exhausted. But she’s smiling. Aimee is with her, by her side. And Dr. Clark is on the other side, next to my father. He’s not really smiling at all. In fact, he doesn’t look well. I turn the photo over and find a note.

To remember the extraordinary birth of your most unusual son. 9/2/1974 - Merrill

The word unusual churns a sick feeling in my stomach. But my curiosity over what heavy object still remains in the pouch distracts me. I turn the pouch over and let the contents slide onto the desk. It’s a rock.

A simple stone. Granite, by the looks of it.

Then it occurs to me that this must be a piece of Antarctica. Possibly collected the day I was born.

I pick it up and feel a surge of emotion. Thoughts and feelings race through my mind faster than I can comprehend. I feel strong one moment, lost the next. Afraid and angry. Resentful and full of wrath. But never happy. Never content. I am alone.

The experience is intense, and staggers me, but it lasts only a few seconds. As the feelings fade, a loud clap sounds out behind me.

I spin around with a shout and hurl the stone.

As soon as it leaves my hand, I return to my senses and realize what’s about to happen. A window, which was also part way open like the one I had closed, shatters with a cacophony that only broken glass can make. The stone is stopped by the screen and lands atop a pile of glass. I cringe as the shards fall away, covering the window sill and floor.

Footsteps hit the floor above. The sound has roused my parents.

I quickly refill the safe, putting everything back in place. I put the photo back in the pouch and then reach for the stone. I pause before picking it up, wondering if I’m going to be overcome by emotion again. With all this broken glass and one of my parents on the way, that would be a very bad thing. But I see no choice, outside of getting caught, and pick up the stone.

Nothing happens.

I slide the stone in the pouch, cinch it shut and place it at the back of the safe before closing the safe door, spinning the lock and hanging the painting back in place. I hear my parent’s door close. A second later the third step squeaks.

I dash into the living room and pick up the remote.

The fifth step squeaks and is followed by my father’s voice. “Solomon? What was that noise?”

Back in the sunroom I place the remote inside the broken window and step back. My father’s voice comes from the living room. “Solomon, what happened?”

He can see the glass and broken window.

He enters the sun room, glancing around. The painting holds his attention for just a brief moment, but then he’s looking at the remote in the window. His annoyance is growing. “What—happened?”

“I threw the remote.”

“I can see that.”

“I thought there was a burglar.”

The look in his eyes says several things to me. He thinks I’m nuts. He thinks I’m not ready to go to Antarctica. He thinks I’m lying. Of course, I am lying, but only partially.

“The shade slapped behind me. Look.” I open the first window I’d closed and draw the shade. A moment later, the shade is pushed in by the wind and then sucked back out. The slap is loud and I see my father blink in surprise. “See?”

My father looks from the drawn shade to the broken window. He still doesn’t look happy, but he’s calming down. “Next time you think someone’s in the house, you come get me.”

I nod.

“And you can pay for the window out of your allowance.”

I’ve already spent the money from my allowance on books, so I’ll be paying for the window with my birthday money. I think about the wad of hundred dollar bills in the safe, but decide it’s in my best interest to keep that knowledge to myself.

“C’mon,” he says. “Let’s clean you up.”

He turns and walks into the living room.

Clean me up
? I look down and find blood on my hand. The cut isn’t bad, but I didn’t even feel it happen. My thoughts return to the stone and the way it made me feel—what it made me do. And for a moment, I’m not sure I want to go back to Antarctica after all. But then the craving to revisit my home returns and I know nothing will keep me away.

3

The weeks pass in a blur of anticipation. Life is a routine of eating, sleeping and studying, though I doubt I retain anything aside from the object of my fascination. I reread all my books on Antarctica, paying special attention to those written by Dr. Clark. I review a history of the continent and mark the beginnings and ends of all major expeditions in colored lines on my new, larger, map.