Channel Blue by Jay Martel

Author:Jay Martel [Martel, Jay]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Head of Zeus Ltd.
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHANNEL 22

WHAT EARTH STANDS FOR

Amanda was visibly shaking. She clung to Perry in a way that, despite the direness of the situation, he thought he could get used to.

‘What are we going to do?’ she said in a high voice that was nearly unrecognisable.

Perry had no idea, but for the first time since he walked into the control room of Galaxy Entertainment, he felt unafraid. Maybe it was Amanda’s fear that had pushed him in the opposite direction. Maybe surviving so much head trauma in the last couple days had made him stupider. Whatever the reason, he found himself unusually calm as he listened to Del Waddle’s approaching guard dogs.

‘We can’t outrun them,’ he said. ‘Look for a tree to climb.’

They looked around, but none of the trees had branches they could reach. Perry could now see dark forms approaching under the trees. ‘German Shepherds,’ he said. He’d researched attack dogs when he was hired to rewrite a B-movie entitled Kickin’ It Doggy Style, which concerned an inner-city hip-hop artist who used a pack of dogs to get revenge on a drug gang.

‘What are we going to do?’ Amanda repeated hysterically, tugging at his jacket.

Four large German Shepherds broke into the clearing, growling ferociously and bounding towards them, the moonlight glinting off their jagged teeth. Amanda whimpered.

‘Stand behind me,’ Perry said. She scrambled around him, cowering. He planted his feet and held his right hand straight out, palm outstretched.

‘Sitz!’ he commanded in a gruff German accent. ‘Bleib!’ The dogs froze in their tracks as if someone had yanked them on invisible leashes. After a moment of brief uncertainty, they sat. They studied Perry, panted and cocked their heads.

Amanda stood up from behind him. ‘What just happened?’

Perry slowly lowered his hand. ‘They sometimes train them in German. I just told them to sit and stay.’

Amanda smoothed her dress with one hand. ‘Well,’ she said, suddenly very matter-of-fact. ‘We’d better keep going.’

Perry wasn’t sure, but he thought this might be the closest Amanda Mundo had ever come to being embarrassed.

‘After you,’ he said. They continued running through the woods, leaving the dogs in a perfect stay behind them.

Minutes later, they came to the wrought-iron fence that encircled Del Waddle’s estate. Perry had forgotten how tall it was, and he certainly hadn’t remembered the sharp iron spearheads that lined the top. Even if he’d been perfectly healthy, he would have had trouble scaling it. In his present condition, with a torso that felt like a giant bruise and an arm that hung from his shoulder like an overcooked noodle, climbing it would be impossible.

He was about to tell Amanda this when he saw her leap halfway up, shimmy effortlessly to the top and, with a perfectly timed forward handspring, vault over the spearheads, landing perfectly on the other side. In the words of so many annoying gymnastics announcers, she’d stuck it.

‘I can’t climb,’ Perry said. Amanda frowned at him through the bars. ‘I’m too beat up.’

She looked both ways along the fence. ‘There

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