The tiny little old man stepped on its snout—and pinned it there.
What did Remo’s curious reaction mean? Was the young Master up to something even more devious than Chiun had credited him with? Was there some scheme that Chiun had not even guessed?
Unlikely. Still…
The group of stragglers emerged onto the bridge that separated the bodies of water and for a moment they kept on their wary way. There was no sign of trouble.
Then their faces slowly registered the understanding that there should have been a sign of something. The leaders had not been that far in the lead. The runners should be visible a mile or so ahead on the land bridge.
Then the first straggler came across a pool of blood-soaked earth. The great brute held captive under Chiun’s left sandal went through a fit of thrashing at that moment. There was panic and much ludicrous scrambling on the part of the marathon runners. The swarm of crocodiles emerged behind them. Another swarm emerged in front. The runners were trapped.
Again, quite unlike the crocodile behavior Chiun knew. Crocodiles and Remo both behaving oddly. What makes a crocodile act like a lunatic? What lessons are there in a crocodile’s lunacy?
Far back, another runner emerged from the bush and sprinted across the land bridge in a blood-soaked T-shirt. He was barefoot and his wrists were swollen obscenely, likely a result of the hundreds of ant stings he received after being knocked unconscious by rabid kangaroos. He was Runner Number 10, or so his T-shirt said.
Runner Number 10 was moving pretty well for a dead man. He slipped up on the crocodiles like a shadow and began stepping on their skulls with his bare heels. Crocodile skulls burst open. Eight crocs were dead before they knew it.
Runner Number 10 ran around the other panicking runners, his bare feet flying over rocks and water. Yes, water. For a second he was running on the surface of the swamp…
Then Runner Number 10 stepped around the snapping jaws of the front formation of crocodiles and used his furious fingers on their heads. He poked at them. It would have been comic if not for the sudden red holes appearing in the skulls of the crocs. In seconds, the roar of the monsters was silenced. The crocs were lifeless.
“This is a stupid race and you are all morons,” Runner Number 10 announced loudly and clearly for all the hidden ESN cameras to record. “I’d rather die than be a part of it. Goodbye.”
Runner Number 10 ran back the way he had come. His body was found in the bushes an hour later, although death had changed his appearance markedly. The wrist swelling was diminished. His hair was bleached by trauma. His last act had been, for some reason, to reverse his shirt so it was on backward.
By the time Remo rejoined Chiun in the bushes, the confused marathon runners had started running again—less out of dedication to finish the race and more from fear of staying where they were.
“I hope you don’t want accolades for your performance,” Chiun declared.
“I don’t even want a thank-you,” Remo snapped and kept moving. Just three miles separated the handful of survivors from the finish line.
“What is your hurry?” Chiun asked.
“There’s more in store for these schmucks. I want to see what happens next.” Remo took up a position on the watery shore as the land bridge turned into a jumble of rocks alongside a deep pond. Crossing it was a fallen tree trunk, at least a hundred feet long and dotted with orange flags.
“What makes you believe the challenges are not over?” Chiun demanded.
“Let’s just watch.”
The runners stepped onto the log, slowing to a quick trot. There was no room for passing, and they went single file.
The last runner went slower than the others. He made a show of trying to keep his balance. That was for the sake of the camera. Remo and Chiun saw the lie in his behavior. The runner was scanning the wide tree trunk beneath his feet. He slowed momentarily to step on something, and a nearly invisible mist jetted out of the log a few paces in front of him. The runner entered the mist and pretended to lose his balance, turning a complete circle as he windmilled his arms.
The mist smelled deadly, but the runner was unaffected. After coating himself thoroughly he continued jogging. The mist petered out.
“Bug spray,” Remo said, just as the first of the runners stepped off the log and into a swarm of insects that came out of the trees like a wall of tiny pain machines.
“This is a total and complete surprise! I have never seen Australian cicada killer wasps act like this, not ever!” A hundred feet away, the snake wrangler was talking into a camera that he had perched on a rock. He didn’t need a cameraman or a sound engineer or his blithering idiot wife. He could produce his own field reports. “These gorgeous big buzzers make a nasty sting they do. Not too poisonous, but one sting by itself is rilly painful, and these guys are going to be in super agony. I’d be quite surprised if any of ’em gets to the finish line now
The runners smacked at the wasps, maddening the swarms.
“Those poor chaps are just getting those grand girls all riled up. If they were smart, they’d stay perfectly still, not make a move and just let the wasps come. You might get stung a few times, yeah, but mostly it’s nothing but the sweet, soft tickle of their perfect little feet on your skin. Gaw, that bloke’s in fer it!”
The last-place runner got his second wind and ran like the wind, leaping off the end of the log. The swarms of stinging bugs seemed to flow off him like water, and he just kept on going. Other runners broke from the swarm and loped after him, still slapping at themselves.
“Funny how the bugs didn’t seem to bother that guy too much,” Remo said from his vantage point.
“Yes, humorous, which is why I laugh so heartily,” Chiun said.
The race was as good as over. The competitors who struggled back up again were staggering from the pain, the dehydration, the exhaustion. One man lost consciousness on his feet. Those who managed to push on were slowed to a stiff-legged gait.
The man who had been in last place pretended to be afflicted, but all that was really bothering him was a few minor wasp stings and his clenched bowels. He even let himself collapse once, but then picked himself up and fought for the lead, crossing the finish line with a lead of just a few paces. A hundred people were in the bleachers at the finish line, and they cheered madly at the dramatic finish, only to be drowned out by the roar of a recorded audience from the loudspeakers.
“Do you hear that? The crowd here is going wild!” The announcer wore an ESN blazer, reporting from a newly constructed announcing booth near the finish line. “What a finish! This has turned out to be the most extreme and deadly event in the history of extreme sports! The official count is not yet in, but we have at least ten fatalities! What a spectacle! We’re still trying to make sense of the unbelievable savagery of all the attacks that took place today, but one thing is clear. This was no ordinary marathon. This was competition taken to the extreme!”
Remo and Chiun emerged from the bush, stepping up the steep embankment and onto the junction’s waterfront without being noticed.
“Crikey, I can’t stand listening to another TV announcer,” Remo said.
“He will now interview the winner,” Chiun said. “We will observe their interchange.”
Remo didn’t bother arguing. He knew it was a waste of time.
“He stayed at the back of the pack to conserve energy,” Remo said accusingly as he and Chiun watched from the crowd.
“And to avoid the worst of the challenges,” Chiun added. “Except for the crocodiles.”
“Yeah. He was packed in with the rest of them. Hadn’t been for Remo the Good Samaritan he’d be tucked away in a croc locker this minute with all the others.” Remo frowned. “What was his plan for getting out of that pickle, I wonder?”