The Last Hunter: Collected Edition (Antarktos Saga #1-5)

“Forty-five minutes,” she says with a grimace. She closes the door behind her as she leaves.

“Thanks a lot,” putting as much anger into my whisper as I can manage.

Justin, who is unfazed by these events, tugs open the pre-moistened bag of quick drying clay. “Just for the record, your mom is a brick house.”

I rub my socks on the rug.

“Ok, ok!” Justin says. “Just help me put this together. We have forty-five minutes to blow it up.”

I sit down next to him and look at the materials. There’s enough here to make three mediocre eruptions. All for—I look at the box—thirty bucks. There has to be a way to make sure my parents get their money’s worth out of this thing. I smile as the idea comes to me.




We finish forty minutes later. The quick dry clay is solid and authentic looking if you ignore the embedded action figures. Nice knowing you, Snake Eyes. But there are a few invisible modifications. First we expanded the internal cylinder that holds the red-dyed baking soda. Instead of three small eruptions, we will now have one large one. And to make things really exciting, we sealed the top of the volcano. This eruption will be as genuine as I can make it.

We both hold syringes pilfered from a chemistry set. Each contains six ounces of vinegar. “On the count of three,” I say. “One.”

“Is this going to explode?” Justin asks.

“Two.”

“Should we wear safety goggles?” He grins before touching his sports glasses. “Oh wait.”

“Three!”

We plunge the needles into the volcano and inject the vinegar.

The bedroom door opens. “Ok, boys. Time to—”

“Mom, get back!” I shout. But a loud hiss behind me signifies it’s too late. I turn around in time to see the entire volcano, which neither I nor Justin had thought to attach to something solid, erupt—from beneath. The entire cone launches off the floor, spraying red-dyed lava as it spins in the air like one of DaVinci’s airships. The cone tilts, shoots forward, slams into the poster of Antarctica, and explodes. Red gore splashes against the poster and the wall. It reminds me of the Greatest American Hero episode where the voodoo loving villain splatters chicken blood on the walls.

I turn to my mother. Her white blouse is covered in red streaks. There is no humor in her eyes as she looks at Justin and says, “Your mother is on her way,” and then leaves.

“What happened to you?” I hear my father ask. He pokes his head in a moment later, eyes wide behind his glasses. “Oh...geez.”

“Sorry,” I say, eyes on the floor.

When he doesn’t reply, I look up.

He’s trying to mask a smile, but failing miserably. “You’re lucky it’s your birthday, Sol.”

“How angry do you think she is?”

“Chernobyl, at least.”

Chernobyl is bad, but nowhere near as bad as super nova. If dad is right, she’ll be over it by morning. I smile back at my father. “It flew.”

My father snickers, looking at the red stained wall. He rubs a hand through his curly black hair. “I can see that.”

The doorbell rings. “That’d be your mom,” Dad says to Justin before leading him from the room. He stops at the top of the stairs and turns back to me. “Clean yourself up and brush your teeth.”

“What about the room?” I ask.

“No amount of scrubbing is going to get that dye out of things. We’ll worry about it in the morning.” He takes one step down and pauses. “Sorry about the poster, Schwartz.”

I hear Justin say a quick, “I see your Schwartz is as big as mine,” from the foyer before opening the front door for his mother.

I look up at the poster. The circle around my birthplace is smudged, the ink running. “Yeah...”

As my mother changes and my father explains the red dye on Justin’s clothes to his mother, I enter the bathroom. Head lowered, I wash my hands and face. With water dripping from both, I reach out and take hold of a hand towel and dry myself. With the towel still over my face, I sigh. I think about my gifts. My birthday. My age. My life in general.

I sigh again. At least tomorrow is Saturday.

I pull the towel from my face and look in the mirror. My skin is white, like snow. My eyes are bright blue. My hair is so blond it only contains a hint of yellow. But I’ve seen all this before and it doesn’t hold my attention. That’s when I see it. Something taped to the shower door behind me. An envelope. On it, the words, “Happy Birthday”, have been written backwards so I can read them in the mirror.

The envelope is in my hand a moment later. I tear into it. My eyes catch sight of what’s inside. I stumble back, sitting on the toilet. As I take out the contents of the envelope, my eyes blur over. I can’t read the words, but I know what I hold. Plane tickets. An itinerary. A map that looks just like the ruined poster on my wall.

“Happy birthday,” the voice of my mother says. I blink my eyes. She’s crouching in front of me, dressed in jeans and a gray Phil Collins T-shirt. She’s smiling.