Chapter 39
Two yellow eyes peered out at them from between the trees. Adam swallowed hard, not sure what he should do. If anyone was about to shoot the giant creature in front of them, he figured Mist should take the shot. Not only was she standing in front of the rest of them, but as far as he could tell, she was the best shot.
However, she wasn’t shooting. Instead, the tiny woman was standing there, her eyes bulging, as they all stared at a massive orange, black and white striped beast that had to weigh at least eight hundred pounds.
The majestic creature stared right back at them, as if he was equally stunned to see four humans prowling through his woods. His pink nose wiggled as his nostrils flared, his pointy ears shifting as he listened either to them or, with their bad luck, more members of his pack. Adam wanted to turn his head to look around them, to see if there were more of whatever sort of cat this was somewhere to be found nearby, but he couldn’t pull his eyes away.
“What do we do?” Walt whispered, his voice cracking as he asked the question.
Mist took another deep breath through her nose and slowly reached for her backpack, not taking her eyes off of the big cat in front of her. She unzipped a side pouch and pulled something out as they all held their collective breaths.
Whatever Mist had in her hand, it smelled like something that might attract the kitty, and those giant nostrils were flaring even faster now. The ten or twelve feet between the tip of Mist’s boot and the two-inch long polished blades on the end of those paws seemed to shrink slightly, even though Adam was fairly certain no one moved.
Mist pulled something out of the side pocket of her pants and slid it inside of the small, round device she’d gotten from her backpack. She closed whatever she’d opened and then held the tantalizingly odoriferous sphere for the cat to see. The eyes didn’t seem to move, but the nose was still going a thousand miles a minute. When Mist tossed the sphere away from them into the trees, the cat didn’t bound after it. Instead, it continued to look at the four of them, as if it wasn’t sure whether or not to follow the meaty aroma or see how much meat it could scrape from their bones.
“Come on, you bastard,” Mist said under her breath. “Take the bait.”
Slowly, the cat’s head started to turn in the direction Mist had thrown the sphere, but then it turned back to look at them. Pulling its lips up in a snarl and revealing even more of the shiny teeth that could easily tear them into tiny bits, the cat let out a roar that shook him to his core. It seemed evident now that they needed to shoot this beast before it ended all of them.
Swinging her gun around so that the nozzle was pointed at the beast, Mist readied her trigger finger. Adam had to assume she’d already taken the safety off so that if the cat took a step toward them, or coiled its muscles to lunge, Mist would shoot it enough times to render it useless--or it would take her out first while the rest of them scrambled to get their guns at the ready.
Once again, the giant furry head turned, sniffing in the direction the sphere had gone, and then, another roar came out of its mouth. It bent at the knees, then took off into the air, flying into the trees to their left. Whatever the hell Mist had tossed away from them, the tiger wanted it more than the four humans.
Wiping sweat from her brow, Mist muttered a prayer of thankfulness. “All right. We can’t assume there aren’t more, though tigers don’t usually travel in packs here. That was the only tracking sphere I had, so if we see another one, we shoot it.” She was already walking backward as she spoke, shrugging her backpack into place and then turning to run into the trees again, the others following behind her.
“What the hell is a tracking sphere?” Rain asked, her eyes wandering through the trees, looking for more tigers. Adam’s were doing the same, though he had to admit he was still fascinated to discover that the beast was a tiger. He hadn’t been sure when he’d first faced the animal, having never seen so much as a picture of one before, but it looked much like he’d imagined it would, having read about it in books.
“A tracking sphere is a small device Lightning created to throw them off of our tracks. It was designed to attract big cats, once it’s been activated, which it hadn’t been until after we came face to face with that bastard. I put the tracker from my tablet inside of it.”
“Your tablet?” Rain echoed, taking a few quicker steps to catch up to Mist, as if she wanted to yank her around and look her in the eyes as she asked, “What are you talking about? You told me not to bring my tablet.”
“That’s because you didn’t know how to remove your tracker. I did. My tablet is in the room, but I took the tracker out before we left.”
“So… now the Mothers will know where you are?” Walt asked.
“No. The sphere is dormant right now. It’s wrapped in a highly scented little snack for the kitty. Once he eats it, he’ll fall asleep for about an hour, which will let us be sure to get away from him. Then, he’ll wake up and have the urge to find some water. When he does, that water will activate the device, and it will begin to send out a signal as to my whereabouts--except for obviously I won’t be near the beast by then, and when they find the cat, they might get a little more than they bargained for.”
Adam took all of that in, not sure whether it helped them to have the Mothers have a beacon so close to where they were currently situated, or if it would’ve been better not to throw them off at all. There was nothing they could do about it now since Mist had already taken that on by herself. She seemed to be right about everything else they’d done so far, so he had to trust she would be with this as well.
“Now, all we have to do is avoid those damn drones, and we should be in business,” Walt mumbled to no one in particular, and the group picked up their pace again. Thinking about the odds of them making it all the way to the Nation of Quebec without any of them getting killed was not the happiest way to spend his time. Instead, Adam decided to think about how amazing it would be to reach freedom, to have his own home, maybe a job, and a beautiful wife--maybe one with gorgeous red hair who always looked stunning, even when she was running through the forest, fleeing from tigers, Mothers, and whatever was to come next.
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