The Phantom Read Online Free Page B

floor without slipping off the seat. Then he pulled the shift stick toward him. The engine sputtered. The gears were grinding, and he wasn’t sure if he was going to be able to make them work.
    He followed the directions the men had given him as closely as he could. He let the clutch out slowly and stepped on the gas pedal. But the engine coughed, the truck shuddered, and then it stalled. He hadn’t pushed down hard enough.
    They told him that might happen. So he started over again. This time he stepped harder on the gas pedal as he let out the clutch. The truck jerked ahead, bounced onto the bridge, and Zak’s breath died in his throat.
    The truck rolled forward. He knew that if he drove off the planks, the bridge might sway, the ropes might break, and the truck could easily tumble over the side. He concentrated on steering, but the truck was picking up speed as it descended to the center of the bridge. He turned the wheel from side to side and somehow stayed on the planks.
    Then, as the truck started ascending toward the other side, it went slower, slower. He rocked his body forward and back in the seat, as if the motion would force the truck to go faster. Almost there. Not much further. But the truck was barely moving now.
    The four men on the other side urged him on, motioning wildly with their hands. “I knew that bridge was safe!” yelled the one called Styles. “He’s going to make it. Step on it, kid!”
    Then, from Quill: “C’mon, kid!” He grinned like a monkey, gestured, grinned some more. “Nice and easy now. Almost there.”
    Quill was the meanest one of the bunch. Zak wanted to run the truck right into him. But he had to think of his father.
    Then Zak’s foot slipped off the gas pedal. When he tried to reach it, the wheel spun to the left, then the right. He steadied it, but the engine sputtered, then died.
    “Turn it over, kid. Turn it over!” Quill yelled, no longer grinning.
    Zak didn’t understand. What was he saying, turn the truck over? That’s what he was trying not to do.
    “Start it again,” Morgan shouted in his terrible attempt to speak Bangalla, the common language used by all the tribes to communicate. “Start it again.”
    Zak understood him the second time. He turned the key. The truck jerked forward, but didn’t start.
    “The clutch,” one of the men yelled. “Step on the clutch!”
    He pressed down with his left foot and cranked the engine again. It roared to life and he stepped down as hard as he could on the gas pedal. The truck lurched ahead onto solid ground, and the men leaped aside.
    “The brake, the brake!” Quill yelled.
    Zak was confused, then remembered the other pedal. He slid forward and slammed both feet onto the brake. The truck jerked to a stop. Still in gear, it sputtered, backfired, and stalled. He collapsed against the steering wheel.
    The driver’s door swung open, and Quill roughly pulled him out. “Look,” he said, stabbing his finger in the direction of the pedals. “Brake pedal, clutch pedal. Brake pedal, clutch pedal. Got it?”
    Zak felt like spitting in his face. I’m the one who drove across it, he thought. I earned my father’s freedom. But he was too afraid of Quill to say anything. He didn’t like the skull tattooed on his cheek or the spider web tattooed on his forearm. That, more than anything, sent bright, sharp stabs of fear through Zak.
    “Ah, I’m wasting my time,” Quill said with a look of disgust. He jumped in the driver’s seat, put the truck in gear, and accelerated away from the bridge as the other men chased after it.
    Zak just stood there and stared after the truck, relieved that he’d made it, but confused by the vision that unfolded in his mind’s eye. He saw the ropes breaking, saw the truck plummeting into the ravine. Then he understood what it meant: the truck wasn’t going to make it across the bridge on the return trip.

FIVE
    T he lush tangled forest was closing in on them with every mile they traveled.