The following takes place between 7pm and 8pm
I grabbed the sharp metal edge of the culvert opening and jumped, pulling myself into drainpipe with some difficulty. I sprinted the length, and when a person appeared in my field of view, I was so concentrated on running and getting back to the car that raising the Pulse Master and tapping a blast of water into their chest was instinctive. Then I was past them, and I took the path up the side of the ravine at a sprint, zigzagging back and forth for better traction, practically bouncing off the trees I grabbed on and pushed off so fast.
At the forest’s edge, I sprinted for the car. Another pulled up just as I got in, and I jammed on all the locks. For a moment I sat in the driver’s seat, breathing hard, dripping with sweat. My hands shook as I ripped the mylar off the box. It tore cardboard shreds from the box. I took a calming breath and examined the item I’d grabbed. One of the sides of the box folded away to reveal a phone number. Oops. Nobody’d be calling that again.
I called the number as I turned the key in the ignition, and the loud purr of the car almost drowned out the destination. Bay Beach Wildlife Sanctuary. The GPS map showed me a dot in the middle of…nothingness. I didn’t worry, I’d find it when I got there.
According to the GPS, it should’ve taken me fifteen minutes to get from Wequiock Falls to the Wildlife Sanctuary. I had a racecar. It took nine. Van Lanen Road I took at a hundred and fifty, dropped down to ninety for Nicolet, and shifted to seventy-five for East Shore. The whine of the tires on the road, the healthy loud hum of the engine, and the rush of the wind drowned out the world. Created a new world. Just me and the car. There was nothing else. Just me and the confines of the car, speeding into the sunset.
The sun was dropping, and it was not taking the heat with it. The wind that slammed against me through the open windows was still as hot and humid as ever. With some luck, the inferno would retreat some overnight, but I doubted there’d be much of a change – there was still too much heat baked into the ground to give us a moment’s respite. Even the trees looked weary, sagging imperceptibly, as if anticipating the coming darkness and the chance to rest their tired branches from the glare of the sun.
The houses along East Shore were either mansions or upscale ranches, and you could tell just by looking at them, they all thought they were better than every other house out there because they had beachfront property. Had to be a stunning view all year long – an almost California-like vista of sand and surf during the summer, and an almost Alaska-like view of gray skies, desolate coastland, and cold, foamy breakers during the fall and winter.
I could see through the sparse trees and across the manicured lawns the Bay Beach amusement park. Full of people on a hot Saturday afternoon, swelling and ebbing rivers of them. Rivers was a good description for the crowds, they all flowed somewhere. The rides were in constant motion and music and the smell of grilling meat managed to cross the several hundred yards to me.
Then I realized I was past the entrance to the Wildlife Sanctuary, and I swung a hard, unthinkingly instinctual one-eighty. Two different horns blared, and a car flashed past on the driver’s side, close enough I could reach out and touch it. My pulse spiked, and I laughed. I knew I was alive.
A giant wood archway announced the entrance to the Sanctuary, and I slowed way down as I wound my way along the twisting blacktop. The phone’s GPS put the next target somewhere up ahead, in roughly the same direction I was traveling now. I supposed it would be too much to ask for the road to go that far.
I got my answer when the road ended in a parking lot. I pulled into a spot, retrieved my guns, and locked the car door. The phone’s GPS told me what I was looking for was somewhere to the east. The clock told me the time was seven-ten. I’d made great time. Which is something that’ll happen when you drive between ninety and a hundred and fifty miles an hour for two thirds of the trip.
The forest behind me drowned out the sounds of the carnival on the lake shore, and the air was silent except for the faint honking of geese and the whine of mosquitoes. The whine got louder, and I ducked as one tried to fly into my ear. It’d be a good idea to keep moving, I didn’t have that much blood to lose. I considered filling at one of the three blue barrels, but I’d just filled at Wequiock, and with this much open space, I planned on running rather than gunning.
While the big building off to my right looked interesting, the GPS was pointing elsewhere. Maybe I’d come here tomorrow. After I won this thing, of course. I grinned, a lopsidedly cocky Han Solo grin. How long ago had I been lamenting my lack of options and decided to step into this embarrassingly childish game?
I sprinted through another massive archway and down a concrete path. To the right campfire pits and stone seats dotted a small grassy field. Looked like it was some sort of outdoor theater.
The pathway faded from concrete to gravel to dirt and mulch, and I kept running. The trees grew thicker together, and around a bend in the path they opened up again. A building sat in the clearing, a dark green camo color, the majority of the outside walls backing up fenced in animal displays. Natural looking rock walls and plants and camo netting attempted to set a wildlife atmosphere, but the chain link and wooden guard rails were working against it. A few people stood by the chain link enclosures, looking at the animals, pointing out this or that factoid on the laminated information cards, or oohing and ahhing over some cute thing a cub or small critter did. I slowed, swinging the Pulse Master to my right side in an attempt to hide it from the crowd. Just another teenager, out for a stroll…
Yeah right. A beam of water zipped past from the left, making serious time for the woods, the tail end sweeping towards me, and I ducked, right hand going into my bag and coming up with the Triple Shot. I twisted in the crouched I’d dropped into and fired four times quick at the doorway to the animal observatory. A middle aged woman took two of the blasts in the upper chest, one splattering her as it impacted the doorframe, and the last one flew into the building. From back on the trail I’d come down, more water reached for her, long thin streams arcing in to splash her and the wall. I twisted again to aim back down the path, five shots going out as fast as I could get my eyes and soaker on target.
Three hit the guy behind me, and I didn’t bother to count where. I pushed off and was sprinting down the trail again. So much for taking it easy, not being noticed…
I returned the pistol to my satchel as I ran, swinging the rifle back around and getting a grip on the handle. Better to be prepared next time, rather than attempting and failing inconspicuousness.
To my left, wolves paced a grassy field, thankfully fenced in. Boulders dotted the backdrop of their habitat, and a bloody carcass was draped over one. I averted my eyes. I can take insane risks, look death in the eye and flip it the bird, but seeing its effects on other living things…no thanks.
With enough space between myself and other people, I slowed and pulled out my phone again. The dot on the GPS was blinking incessantly. I was close. Around another bend in the path, and I was pretty sure I’d found what I was looking for. The people who put the tournament together apparently had a thing for out-of-the-ordinary missions and challenges. The four story wooden tower in front of me certainly qualified. Constructed out of logs and rough hewn boards, it started out roughly thirty by thirty, tapering to about twenty by twenty at the top. From the nearby fence, I surmised that it was used to gain a better view of the wolf habitat.
Of course, there had to be people fighting here, at least two teams of three each on the second, third, and fourth levels. It wouldn’t be a mission without some form of close-quarters, high-risk challenge.
The steps ascending to the hole in the floor of the first platform were nearly steep enough to qualify as a ladder. I bounded towards them, got under the cover of the first platform, and debated pistol vs. rifle in my head while quickly climbing. Rifle won out. More water and a strap. Mosquitoes buzzed me, and I climbed quicker. Up on the first platform, and I took cover behind the steps, aiming up at the sliver of the second level I could see.
What exactly was I waiting for?
I rotated around the steps and sidestepped as water rocketed down at me. I held down the trigger of the Pulse Master as I walked, and tagged a guy out with a looping stripe that started on one side of his face, touched his shoulder, and crossed his chest. I sped up the stairs, pausing at the halfway point to wedge my feet into place and pan the gun around the opening.
Something felt wrong. I waited, heart pounding in my ears. Shooting and shouting and hammering footsteps came from the top levels. Coming this way? I couldn’t be sure.
Sweat rolled down my neck, my back, my arms. Something felt wrong. A watergun and a face behind it appeared, and I clicked the trigger three times, two shots bursting into mist on the platform above, one showering me with droplets as it splattered off the forehead above. I raced the rest of the way up the steps and nearly knocked over two people coming down. They looked lost-a-hundred-dollars dejected.
I pumped back to full power, and moved to the front of the steps. Again I sprinted up to half way, and waited. No wrong feelings. No sounds from above. I moved further up, and stuck my head and soaker through the hole in the floor. They were all on the fourth level.
The view from up here was amazing. No wolves to be seen, but the fenced enclosure was full of deer. This area was below the level of the street, but even so, though the treetops I could get fragmented glimpses of the park across the street, and the houses I’d passed on my way here.
Inland, the view of the park was beautiful, in an unremarkably green canopy way. Very peaceful, like all forests are.
Staying clear of the hole in the floor of the next platform and its angles, I moved to the edge of the third floor and leaned out. The fourth story platform was walled in to waist-height. No shooting up and over the side. Going up that ladder with two trapped shooters above would be suicide. I growled, punching one of the support beams in anger, and turned three hundred and sixty degrees, looking for an idea, inspiration, anything. What was it Max Tanner – one of Dad’s Internet idols – always said? “When faced with fatal hallways always go dynamic. Never do the expected.” Something like that. Dad watched the guy’s YouTube educational channel religiously.
Never do the expected…
Another cocky grin. Yeah, that’d work. And when it came to risking my life, I trusted my hands and my strength more than I trusted someone else’s car…
At the corner of the platform, I put a hand on the support pole and stepped up on the railing. Vertigo beckoned. I ignored it. Turning my back on the drop, I swung a leg over to the other side of the pole and reached up with both hands, getting a firm grip. I dug in with the sides of both feet and PUSHED. Luckily the wood was rough, and I was able to get a firm grip with both hands and shoes. Inch by muscle-burning inch I dragged myself up the timber.
When the next level was within reach, I reached out and got a good grip on the protruding edge. That felt much better, much more solid. I half-hung there for a moment, getting my breath back, preparing mentally for what came next. Close by I heard someone ask “Do you think she’s still down there?”
That warranted another grin. Nobody thinks someone’s going to do something THIS patently stupid.
Reaching down with my right hand, I slowly pulled out the Triple Shot, then reached back up, getting the gun up above my head so it’d be one of the first things over the edge. I heaved myself up with a massive pull, getting the pistol over the retaining wall. I kicked up and pulled myself up further, shooting as I did. I fired short little blasts all over the fourth level, drawing myself up to the point where I could actually aim over the railing.
By the time I was out of water, they were out of the game.
“Nicely played,” one of them commented as they descended the stairs. I pulled myself over the railing and looked around the top of the tower for something resembling a clue. There. Inked onto the inside ledge of the railing was one word. “Tilt-A-Whirl.”
Dammit. They were sending me to the park. Not only was it another – I checked my watch – thirty-five minutes of run-and-gun, but the crowd would make the both the “run” and “gun” parts of that equation extremely difficult.
I walked over to the hole in the floor and looked down at it for a moment. From several levels below came the sounds of feet on wood. Descending would be equally dangerous as ascending. I pumped the Triple Shot back to full pressure, stuffed it in my bag, and walked to the back of the tower, the side closest to the fence. I swung over and gripped the railing, then got my feet around the support timber, and started gradually lowering myself down.
The climbing lessons did NOT hurt here. I made sure every grip and foothold was secure before slowly but surely lowering myself down. With methodical precision I worked my way down, taking a second or two to breath when I reached the more secure footholds at each landing.
At the second level, the people who’d been coming up noticed me coming down. Hugging the backside of the wide log, I couldn’t see them, and then couldn’t very well shoot me. They sure saw my hands though. There was burst of surprised profanity and plastic creaked. “Don’t shoot! You want to knock her off?”
I smiled, faced pressed to the wood. Even better.
Feet on wood sounded, and I quickly worked my way down to the first level, where I swung over on the platform. They were waiting for me on the ground. Quietly I padded over to the hole in the floor, aimed the Pulse Master through, and drilled a middle-aged man in the chest with a bolt of water. He sputtered at the splash and looked up, pushing his teenage son out of the way as he did. I dodged back from the hole as water flew up.
Dynamic. Never do the expected.
I swung over the railing, turned to face it in a crouch, and gripped the Pulse Master with one hand. Then I let myself drop.
