[ Truyện tiếng anh] The Hunt

The Hunt
The Hunt Page 10



Unwanted attention, as if there were any other kind.

But the prick sharpens until I can take it no longer. I let a pen in my hand fal to the ground; as I slowly swivel around to pick it up, I shoot a quick glance back.

It's Ashley June, her eyes death green in the mercurial light.

She's sitting right behind me. I almost startle in my seat —“startle”

is this refl ex where we jump a little in fright— but tamp it down just in time. I close my eyelids halfway— a trick my father taught me to make sure my eyes don't widen too much— and turn around.

Did she see me startle? Did she see me startle?

Somebody is at the lectern. Fril y Dress from yesterday.

“How are we all to night? Having fun?” She takes out a note pad, scans it, then looks up, smiling. “We have a busy schedule to night.

First, we'l tour the facilities— should take most of the night.

Then, time and darkness permitting, we'l cap it off with a visit to the heper vil age just shy of two miles from the main building. If we're running late and it gets too close *****nrise, then we'l have to push it off til tomorrow.” She looks at each of us, reading our expressions.

“Somehow I don't think you're going to all ow that to happen.

Shal we move on, then?”

What fol ows for the next few hours is a mind- numbingly tedious tour of the facilities. It's nothing more than an amble along dark, endless hal ways. And emptiness. That's what strikes me the most: how still and empty everything is— the rooms, the hal ways, the very dank air we inhale, mere remnants and echoes of a busier, ful er, livelier era. Our escorts fol ow us, silently. The second fl oor is where the staff and hunters are housed, and we bypass it. The third fl oor is the science fl oor, for obvious reasons: from one end to the other, it's lined with laboratories. A smel of musky formaldehyde permeates the whole fl oor. Although the guide speaks glowingly about each laboratory— this one used to study heper hair, this one to study heper laughter, this one heper singing— it is obvious the laboratories have fal en into disuse.

“This whole thing's a crock, you know that, right?”

“Excuse me?” I turn to the el der ly man next to me. One of the hunters. We are in a lab previously used to study heper hair and fi ngernails. The man is leaning toward me, his gaunt frame tilting like a snapped pencil, his head slanted close to a sample of heper fi ngernails encased in a glass plate. His bald head is as shiny and hairless as the plate, but mottled over with age marks near his forehead. A few wisps of hair are combed across his gleaming head, 58 ANDREW FUKUDA like thin strands of night clouds across the moon. We are alone at the back of a laboratory; everyone else is clustered near the front of the lab, where the (apparently) more exciting samples of heper hair are on display.

“A crock,” he whispers.

“These fi ngernails?”

He shakes his head. “This whole tour. This whole training period.”

I take a sideways glance at him. This is the fi rst time I'm seeing him up close, and he is older than I thought. Hair wispier, wrinkles deeper, the curve of his back more pronounced.

“Why do we need training?” His voice is gravel y. “Just let us have at the hepers, already. We'l devour them in a minute. We don't need training. We have our instinct, we have our hunger. What else do we need?”

“We need to draw this out. Savor the moment. Anticipation is half the enjoyment.”

It's his turn to look at me. A brief look, but one that absorbs.

I feel the suction of his brain taking me in. And then his approval.

I've been watching him a bit since yesternight. He stuck out, and I now know why. He doesn't want to be here. Every other hunter (except me, of course) is ecstatic, has just literal y won the lottery of a lifetime. But his feet drag just so, his eyes fail to shine with the glee the others have, and everything about him seems to spel r-e-l-u- c-t- a-n- c-e. In short, he's everything I'm feeling inside. A thought comes to my mind, but I dismiss it outright: There's no chance he's a heper. A real heper (like me) would be covering up those feelings (as I'm doing), not letting them hang out like dirty underwear for all to observe.

As I study him— his stiff, arthritic gait whittled down by age — it hits me why he's so sul en. He knows he doesn't stand a chance.

Not against the younger hunters, who'l outrun and outgun him.

By the time he gets to the hepers, there won't even be bones left to gnaw on. This Heper Hunt is torture for him, to bones left to gnaw on. This Heper Hunt is torture for him, to be so close yet so far. No wonder he's bitter. He's a starving man at a banquet who knows there won't even be crumbs left on the fl oor for him.

“There's more going on here than meets the eye,” he says, stil bent over the glass plate.

I'm not sure what to say, so I wait for him to continue. But he doesn't; he shuffl es to the front of the lab and joins the others, leaving me standing all alone.

After touring the laboratories on the third fl oor, we are taken to the fourth fl oor. We go through it quickly; it's real y nothing more than a series of unused classrooms, the chairs inside propped upside down on desktops. At the far end is the au***orium. We stick our heads through the door to take a look. I smel a dusty dank-ness. Nobody wants to venture in, and we move on.

Eventual y we wind up on the top fl oor, the fi fth. The Control Center spans the ful length and width of this fl oor.

The hubbub here is markedly different from the deadness of the lower fl oors.

Clearly, this is the nerve center to the whole operation.

Numerous computers and TV monitors glow from one end to the other. Staffers are up and about, clipboards in hand, walking briskly between desks and cubicles and computer terminals. They're all men, dressed in navy blue single- breasted jackets with peaked lapels and double vents, but slim to the fi t and streamlined. Three buttons run down the front of their jackets, emitting a dim mercurial light. They're curious about us, and I catch them stealing furtive glances.

We're the heper hunters, after all . We're the ones who get to eat and drink heper fl esh and blood.

Instead of concrete wal s, large panel windows stretch from ceiling to fl oor, giving us an almost uninterrupted 360- degree view of the outside. From up here, it feels as if we're hovering above the moonlit plains spread below us.

The group moves over to the windows facing east. The Dome.

They all want to see the Dome.

It sits smal in the distance, a marble sliced in half, glimmering slightly under the stars.

“There's nothing to see,” an escort says. “Al they do is sleep at night.”

“They never come out?”

“Hardly ever at night.”

“They don't like the stars?”

“People. They don't like people watching them.”

We stare in silence.

“It's almost like they know we're watching,” one of the hunters whispers.

“Bet there's a bunch of them staring back at us. From inside one of those huts. Right now, as we speak.”

“They're just sleeping now,” says an escort.

We're all straining forward, hoping to catch some movement.

But all is still .

“I heard the Dome opens at sunrise.”

The escorts glance at one another, not sure if they're all owed to respond.

“Yes,” says an escort. “There are sunlight sensors that trigger the Dome. The Dome rises out of the ground two hours before dusk and retracts into the ground one hour after dawn.”

“So there's no way to manual y open the Dome?” asks Ashley June. “From in here? A button to press or lever to pul that would open it?” There's a protracted, intense silence.

“No. Everything is automated,” says an escort. “It's all been taken out of our hands.” He has more to say, but he's biting his tongue.

“Do you have any binoculars?”

“Yes. But there's nothing to see. The hepers are all asleep.”

Everyone is so caught up with the Dome, nobody observes Ashley June slide away.

Except me.

I fol ow her from the corners of my eyes, turning my head when she slips altogether from my vision.

She drifts toward the back of the room where three rows of security monitors line the wal . Under the monitors sits a staffer, his head swiveling slowly from side to side and up and down as he scans the monitors above him. She stands very close behind him, edging closer, slowly, until a few strands of hair graze the side of his forehead.

He moves quickly, a slide to his right. She scratches her wrist, apologizing, scratching harder, making sure the moment becomes light and accidental. On his chair, he swivels around to face her, then stands. He's baby- faced and inexperienced, and his bleary eyes take a while to take in what's before him. A young lady, and a beautiful one at that. This man, his world fi l ed with an endless onslaught of digital screens, is taken aback by this sudden intrusion of fl esh.

Ashley June scratches her wrist more, trying to set him at ease. A moment passes, and he begins to scratch his...

The Hunt
The Hunt Page 11



They were neither too thin nor too thick, just the perfect dimensions with perfect ridges that exuded both assurance and grace. Even the light freckles that sprinkle her arm, exploding in a splattering of dots as they disappear into her shirt, are more seductive than imperfect.

Slowly, I edge closer to Ashley June, positioning myself behind a smal pil ar. I peer around the pil ar; she's moved even closer to him. Above them, images from security cameras shine with a dul blur. At least a good half of them center on the Dome.

“Can't believe they're running all the time.”

“Twenty- four/seven,” he answers proudly.

“And is there always someone watching these monitors?”

“Wel , we used to station a staffer here. But, wel , it became . . .

there was a policy change.”

“A policy change?”

There is a long pause.

“Oh, c'mon, you can tel me,” Ashley June says.

“Don't tel anyone,” the staffer warns, his voice hushed.

“Okay. Our secret.”

“Some staffers became so lost in these images of the hepers that they'd . . .”

“Yes?”

“They lost their senses, they were driven mad with desire.

They'd rush out at the heper vil age.”

“But it's enclosed by the Dome.”

“No, you don't understand. They'd rush out in the daytime.”

“What?”

“Right from this very seat. One moment they're staring at the monitors, and the next they're rushing down the stairs and out the exit doors.”

“Even with the sun burning?”

“It's like they forgot. Or it just didn't matter to them anymore.”

Another pause. “So that's why there was a policy change.

First, no more recordings— il egal bootleg copies were somehow winding up on the streets. And second, now everyone leaves this fl oor before dawn.”

“It's completely unstationed during the day?”

“Not only is it unstationed, but look, the windows have no shutters. They were taken down. So now, the sun pours in during the daytime. The best security system. Nobody's coming in here after dawn. Nobody.”

There is a pause, and I think that's the end of the conversation when Ashley June speaks again. “And what's that big blue oval button over there?”

“I'm not really supposed to say.”

“Oh, c'mon, it's safe with me.”

Another pause.

“Like everything else you've told me, all the stuff you could get fi red for disclosing, it's all safe with me,” says Ashley June, this time with a hint of a threat in her voice.

“It's the lockdown control,” he says tersely after a moment.

“What's that?”

“It shuts the building down, locks all entrances, shutters al windows. There's no leaving the building once lockdown has been deployed. Push it to set the system, push again to cancel—”

His voice gets drowned out by the approaching tour group, which has moved away from the windows and is now mumbling its way toward the back of the fl oor, toward the monitors. I slink back into the mix. Nobody's noticed my absence. I don't think.

By the time the group reaches the monitors, the staffer is back in his seat, his head swiveling back and forth, up and down. One of the escorts is speaking in a monotone voice, talking about the function of the monitors, how every square inch of the Institute is covered by a camera. But nobody is listening, they're all staring at images of the Dome in the monitors. They're still looking for hepers.

Except me. I'm watching Ashley June.

She's slinked away again and is wandering around. Or at least pretending to. Something about her bearing— maybe the way she turns her head just so to read documents on desks or bends over as she passes by a control panel fi l ed with switches and buttons— seems purposeful and deliberate. And she's trying to go about un-noticed, but it's near impossible. She's a heper hunter, she's female, she's beautiful. She's sizzling hot oil on your brains. Before long every male staffer around her has taken notice. She realizes this, too, and before long, gives up. She rejoins us at the monitors, tilting her head up.

She stands very still , immovable, unreadable.

I stare from behind, the line of hair streaming down over the nape of her neck, dark with a dul gleam. She's up to something here in the Control Center; I can't shake that feeling. Digging for information. Looking for something.

Seeking confi rmation. I'm not sure. But what I am sure of: She's playing a game the rest of us don't even realize has begun.

Lunch is late that night; it's wel past midnight before we are taken down to a large hal on the ground fl oor and seated at a circular table. None of the escorts sit with us; instead, they retreat to their own table in the peripheral darkness.

Without their hovering presence, the hunters are set at ease: our backs relax, we become more talkative. Lunch offers the fi rst time I'm really able to meet the other hunters.

It's the food we talk about initial y. These are meats we've never tasted before, only read about. Jackrabbit, hyena, meerkat, kanga-roo rat. Fresh kil s from the Vast. Or so they say. The fl agship dish is a special treat: cheetah, typical y eaten only by high- ranking offi cials at weddings.

Cheetahs are diffi cult to catch, not because of their speed — even the slowest person can outsprint a fl eeing cheetah — but because of their rarity.

Each dish, of course, comes wet and bloody. We comment on the texture of the different meats on our tongue, the superior taste to the synthetic meats we usual y eat. Blood oozes down our chins, col ecting in the drip cups placed below. We will drink it all up at the end of the meal, a soupy col ection of cold animal blood.

What I most need is absent from the dinner table: water. It's been over a night since my last drink at home, and I can feel my body desiccating. My tongue, dry and thick, feels like a wad of cotton wool stuffed in my mouth. The past hour or so, spel s of dizzi-ness have whirled in my mind. My drip cup gradual y fi l s with mixed blood. I will drink it because it is liquidy and watery enough.

Kind of.

“I heard they stuck you in the library.” It's a man in his forties, sitting next to me, beefy with broad shoulders; he's the president of SPHTH (Society for the Protection and Humane Treatment of Horses). His generous potbel y protrudes just above table level.

My designation for him: Beefy.

“Yup,” I say. “Sucks the big one, having to walk outside. You guys are probably partying up in here all day while I'm cooped up all by my lonesome, bored as anything.”

“It's the sunrise curfew that would get me,” Beefy says, his mouth ful of fl esh. “Having to leave everyone and everything, drop of the hat, forced to leave. And all alone out there, surrounded by desert and sunlight in the day hours.”

“You got all those books,” Ashley June says next to me.

“What's there to complain about? You can study up on hunting techniques, get a leg up on us.”

I see the el der ly, gaunt man I'd met in the lab earlier scratch his wrist ever so slightly. He jams a piece of hyena liver into his mouth.

His designation: Gaunt Man.

“I heard,” says another hunter, “that the library belonged to a fringe scientist with some pretty loony theories on hepers.”

The woman, who looks fi t for her age— I place her in her mid- thirties, a dangerous age, equal parts fi t and savvy— sits across from me; she barely looks up from her plate as she speaks. Jet black hair, greased up, accentuating her angular pale chin. Her lips are luscious and ful , crimson with the dripping of fl esh blood, as if her own lips were bleeding profusely down her chin. When she speaks, her lips part across her teeth at an angle, as if only one side of her lips can be bothered to move. Like a lazy snarl. I think: Crimson Lips.

“Where did you hear that?” I ask.

Crimson Lips looks up from her bloody plate and holds my gaze, mea sur ing me. “What, the library? Because I've been asking about you,” she says, her voice cool and diffi cult to read, “and why you were put there. My escort knows everything. Quite chatty, once you get him started, actual y. Told me, too, lest we start feeling too sorry for you, of the great view you have.”

“Same view you guys get. Except I'm out in the boondocks.”

“But you're closer, though!” Beefy says, blood spraying out of his mouth and speckling down his chin. A wad of half- chewed rabbit liver fl ies out, landing near Crimson Lips' plate. Before Beefy can move, she snaps up the chunk and puts it into her mouth. He glares at her briefl y before turning his attention back to us. “You're closer to the Dome. To the hepers.”

At that, it's as if every head turns to look at me.

I quickly bite off a large chunk of meat; I chew it slowly, deliberately, buying time. I scratch my wrist rapidly. “With about a mile of daylight between me and them. And at night, an impenetrable glass dome insulating them from me. They might as wel be on a different planet.”

...

The Hunt
The Hunt Page 12



Notebooks and journals fi l ed with absolute dreck.”

Dessert arrives, ice cream. This is one of the few foods for which I don't have to fake an appetite. I scarf it down, slowing down only when a sharp pain pinches my forehead.

The other hunters continue to stuff their faces, especial y the two sitting on my left.

They're in their twenties, both students at the Col ege. He's a phys ed major, she's undeclared. Physical specimens, both of them, to say the least. He's rippling in muscles, although he doesn't fl aunt it. She's more of an exhibitionist, wearing daring cutoffs that show off her abdominal muscles. Lookers, too, with crystal ine skin, high- bridged noses, and doorknobs for cheekbones. Both Phys Ed and Abs have a natural bounce to their step that speaks of effortless strength and agility. But dumb as doorknobs. One thing's instantly clear: They're the top contenders. One of them is going to win the Hunt. The other is going to fi nish what ever hepers are left over. No wonder Gaunt Man is unhappy.

Fril y Dress springs in from nowhere, her shril voice ringing across the hal like a shattered plate. “And did we all have a stupendous lunch?” she asks. It's apparent she has: her chin is still dripping with fresh blood. “Time to move on to the next part of the tour. In fact, we've been moving so fast, we have almost nothing left on today's agenda. My, my, my, you all really should pace yourselves slower. You won't learn anything at this breakneck speed!”

I catch Gaunt Man shoot me a knowing look, as if to say: Didn't I tell you? This whole thing is a meaningless exercise in redundancy.

“So,” continues Fril y Dress, “the only thing left remaining on to night's itinerary is the visit to the Dome. This is going to be a real treat. Mind you, we'l likely not see any hepers since they sleep at night, but their odors are really pungent there. To die for, real y.”

A few necks twitch around the table.

“So, shal we? Make our way now?”

And like that, we're all standing, waiting for our escorts.

And then, away we go.

By the quick pace of our feet rushing down the stairs; by the force with which the exit doors are fl ung open; by the look of excitement on even Gaunt Man's face; by the spasmodic and minuscule vibra-tions of our heads— I know we are excited. I know we are desirous.

As if by tacit agreement, no one speaks. We are silent, our shoes fi rst padding the hard marble fl oors and then, once outside, lilting on the softer give of the brick path. Even as we walk past the library, nobody says anything. Only Gaunt Man peers inside, curiously, then at me, perhaps wondering why I, of all of them, have been housed in there.

When the brick path comes to an end and our shoes hit the hard, dusty gravel of the Vast, it is as if nobody dares even breathe, we are so wordless.

“It never gets old,” an escort fi nal y says. And at that, the pace quickens even more.

I worry that the col ective excitement will spring everyone into running. It wouldn't take much to set them off. If that happens, I'l be exposed. Because I can't run, at least not as fast as everyone else.

Not by half, in speed or stamina. I still remember in fi rst grade how all my classmates used to zoom past me, and all I could do was plod along as if I were in a vat of mercury.

Always fall, my father would say, always pretend to trip and sprain your ankle. Then you can sit out.

“Hey,” I say to no one in par tic u lar, to everyone in par tic u lar, “there's no way we can get inside the Dome, right?”

“Nope,” answers my escort.

“Probably won't even see any hepers, right?”

“Nope. They're all sleeping this time of night.”

“So we'l see exactly what we're seeing now, but closer up?”

“What?”

“Wel , just mud huts, a pond, laundry lines. That's all , right?”

“Yup.”

“Boring,” I say daringly.

But the group buys it, at least enough to dampen their excitement. The pace slows.

Fifteen minutes later, we're nearing the Dome. Its scale as we approach takes me by surprise: it towers above us and cups over much more acreage than I previously thought.

Crimson Lips starts twitching as she walks in front of me.

Abs' shoulders hike up, stiffening with excitement. Phys Ed, walking next to her, is elevating his nose into the air, sniffi ng.

“I smel them. I smel heper,” Gaunt Man shouts, his gnarled voice exploding into the night's quiet. Other heads snap up with a crack, noses pointed upward and around, sniffi ng.

About fi fty yards out, they crash through the tipping point and break into a stampede. I plod behind them, running as fast as I can.

They are blurs, a haphazard menagerie of black oscil ations and gray smudges, legs springing and pumping, arms swinging upward and out. There is no grace or order about their movements, just a random assortment of cuts, springs, leaps.

By the time I catch up with them, they're pressed up against the glass, too fi xated by the Dome to notice my late arrival.

Inside the Dome are about ten mud huts. They're dotted evenly around the compound, about half of them clustered near a pond. And the pond is remarkable: fi rst, for its very existence smack bang in the middle of the desert; but also for the perfectly symmetrical circle it makes. Man- made, without a doubt.

Next to the technological wizardry of the pond and Dome, the mud huts look like prehistoric relics. The wal s are cratered and rough, punctured by smal , unframed windows. Each hut sits on two encircling rows of rectangular stones, coarsely fi tted together.

“Can't see a thing inside,” Beefy says.

“Probably all just sleeping, anyway,” an escort says.

“But take a whiff, I can smel them. Stronger than usual,”

says my escort, standing next to me.

“Just a bit,” another escort says, at the other end of the group.

“More than just a bit,” my escort says. “It's pretty strong to night.

They must have been running around a lot, sweating earlier.” But a frown crosses his face. He turns in my direction, takes another sniff.

“Very strong to night. Odd, that.”

I force myself to remain calm. It's me who's giving off the smel , I know that, but I can't move or do anything too drastic. So I try to distract. With a question: “How deep is that pond?”

“Not sure,” he says. “Deep enough to drown in, I suppose.

But no heper has ever drowned. They're like fi sh, those things.”

“No way that pond's natural,” I say.

“Genius in the midst of us,” Gaunt Man says, then spits in the dusty, hard ground.

“Is this glass Dome porous?” Abs suddenly asks. She's been so quiet, it takes me a second to realize the pretty voice belongs to her.

“Because I can smel heper. So much better than the artifi cial smel s they sel .”

“It does seem to have gotten stronger over the past few minutes,”

Phys Ed says.

“Must be porous. I can really smel them!” Abs says excitedly.

“Didn't think so, but the air really is thick with their odor . . .,”

my escort says distractedly. “Daylight was hours ago.

Almost eight hours ago. Shouldn't be this much odor lingering.” His nostrils are working faster now, fl aring with alarming wetness. Those nostrils start turning toward me, like eyes widening with realization.

I shift away from the group. “I'm going to walk around the Dome, see if I can see anything on the other side.”

Thankful y, no one fol ows me. On the other side, hidden by the mud huts, I spit into my hands, then vigorously rub my armpits. Pretty disgusting, but so is the alternative, which is armpits. Pretty disgusting, but so is the alternative, which is being ripped apart into a hundred pieces.

When I return to the group, they're ready to head back.

“Smel 's gone,” Gaunt Man says with a hangdog expression, “and nothing to see. Hepers are all asleep.”

We start to head back, despondency dragging our feet. No one says a word. I take the back of the line, downwind.

“Starry night,” someone says to me.

It's Ashley June, peering back at me.

“A bit too bright for my liking,” I say.

She scratches her wrist ambiguously with a glance upward.

“Those hepers are just like zoo animals,” she says, “sleeping all the time.”

“The escorts say they're natural y shy.”

“Stupid animals,” she spits. “It's their loss.”

“How so?”

She surprises me by slowing down until we're side by side.

“Think about it,” she says, her voice congenial. “The more the prey knows about the hunter, the more of a strategic advantage it gains.

If those things were awake, they'd know how many of us there are, how many men, how many women, our ages—”

“You're assuming they know about the Hunt.”

“They must. They've been given weapons.”

“Doesn't mean anything. Besides, a ‘strategic advantage' isn't going to help them one bit. No matter...

The Hunt
The Hunt Page 13



The sound of the desert wind fi l s the silence between us.

“I think we should team up,” she says. “I think we can real y help each other.”

“I work best alone.”

She pauses. “Did you read a lot about the Hunt ten years ago?”

“Yeah, just like everyone else,” I lie. I avoided every book, every article, every sentence, every word.

“Wel , I've been studying up on this Hunt thing. A lot more than anyone else. Like, religiously. It's been an obsession of mine for years. I've read books, subscribed to journals, scoured the library for tidbits of information on the topic.

Even listened to radio interviews with former winners, though they tended to be plenty brawny but pretty dumb.

Anyway, just to say, what ever you might learn over the next fi ve days, I already know. Knew it years ago.”

“That's nice to know,” I say, not sure where this is going. But she's not lying. She a member of all kinds of heper societies and clubs at school.

“Listen. This is the open secret. Most people here already know it, but you seem clueless, so let me fi l you in. It's al about all iances. The winner always comes out of the strongest all iance. Always. It's true for the last Hunt, and it's true for every Hunt before that. If you team up wel , you'l do well . Simple as that.”

“Why don't you partner up with one of the other hunters?

Everyone knows that raw strength and physical prowess always wins the Hunt. And the other hunters are better contenders than me in that department. Take the two col ege students, for example: they're athletical y and physical y imposing. Even the cagey old guy is a stronger hunter than me; where he might be lacking in the strength department, he more than makes up for it with his guile and street smarts. And what about the woman— she looks like she knows how to handle herself. She's got it both: she's mental y wily and physical y dexterous. You'd do wel with her.”

“It's a trust issue. You're the only one here I can trust.”

“Wel , trust me on this one. With me, you'l lose.”

“Why, you're not going to even try?”

“Of course I am! I want those hepers just as much as anyone else. But I'm a realist.”

“Look,” she says, putting a hand on my chest and stopping me.

“You can go at it alone and have no chance, or you can team up with me, and together we might have a chance.

But you go into this without any kind of plan, and you're going to end up empty- handed.”

She's right, but not in the way she thinks. Because I, more than anyone else, know that if I go into this without a plan, I lose. And not just the Hunt. But my life. Without a strategy, the Hunt will expose me for what I am.

I do have a plan, and it's quite simple: Survive. That's it.

Over the next few nights, lie low, don't attract attention.

Then, the night before the Hunt, feign an injury. A broken leg. Actual y, I'l have to do more than feign— I'l have to actually break my leg. I'l make a big fuss about the bad luck of getting taken out of the Hunt.

Punch and kick and claw at the administration as the hunters head off into the distance while I lie in bed, cast wrapped around my leg. And then go on with life. So yes, she's right: I do need a plan.

And I already have one. But it doesn't involve teaming up with her.

“Look, I understand. But I . . . work better alone.”

I think I see something fl ash in her eyes, some kind of breakage.

“Why do you keep doing this to me?”

“What?”

“Pushing me away. all these years.”

“What are you talking about? We don't even really know each other.”

“And why is that?” she says, and paces forward to catch up with the group, her hair bil owing behind her in the breeze.

Against my better judgment, I quicken my steps until I catch up with her. “Wait, listen.”

She turns to look at me but keeps walking.

“We should talk. You're right.”

“Okay,” she replies after a moment. “But not here. Too many prying eyes, curious ears. Let's stop by the library.”

Our escorts are none too happy with this. “Any deviance Our escorts are none too happy with this. “Any deviance from protocol is not permitted,” they recite, almost in unison. We ignore them; as the group passes the library, we break from it, walking through the front doors. Our escorts, miffed, fol ow us in. They know there is little they can do to stop us.

We walk through the foyer, stopping in front of the circulation desk. The escorts stand with us. We stare at one another.

“Wel ,” I say to Ashley June after a prolonged period, “this is a little awkward.”

She tilts her head toward me with eyes that seem to sparkle a little more. “Give me a tour,” she says, then glares back at the escorts. “Alone.” She walks away, past the tables and chairs, farther into the main section, observing the décor and furniture. “So this is the Shangri- la resort we've al been hearing about,” she says, standing on a worn- down fl oral rug in the center of the large room.

“How did that happen?” I ask. “A few hours ago, everyone was cal ing this place a hell ish solitary confi nement, and now it's a resort? No, real y, I'd so much rather be in the main building,” I lie, walking over to her. The escorts, thankful y, don't fol ow.

“Trust me, you'd rather not. The constant bickering, the complaining, the pettiness, the watchfulness, the stalking— and that's only among the staffers. It's pretty oppressive.

Wouldn't mind it myself, getting away from it all . And from all the questions.”

“Questions?”

“About you. People are wondering why you've been set apart here, why you're getting the special A-list treatment.

And since they know we go to the same school, they assume I know you wel ; they've all been peppering— more like bombarding— me with questions about you. What you're like, your past, whether you're smart, ad nauseam.”

“What do you tel them?”

Her eyes meet mine, at fi rst seriously, then with a softness that surprises. She walks to the fl oor- to- ceiling windows, the point farthest from the escorts, and gives me a beckoning look. I fol ow, coming to stand with her at the windows. And now, far removed from the escorts, it's just the two of us, bathed in the silver glaze of moonlight pouring in. Our chests less constricted, the air lighter.

“I tel them what I know,” she says, looking out the window and then back at me. Her eyes, awash in the moonlight, radiate out, her irises delineated and clear. “Which isn't a lot. I tel them that you're a bit of an enigma, a loner, that you keep to yourself. That you're crazy smart even though you try to hide it. That even though all the girls whisper about you, you've never so much as dated a single one.

They ask if we've ever been together, and I tel them no.”

My eyes fl ick to hers. She holds my stare with a kind of quiet desperation, as if afraid I might break away too quickly. The air between us changes drastical y. I can't explain it, other than it feels like both a hot quickening and a calming softness.

“I wish I had more to tel them,” she whispers. “I wish I knew you better.” She sags her body against the window as if suddenly fatigued by an invisible weight.

It is this leaning— it looks like a surrender — that cracks something in me, like ice splintering on the fi rst day of spring. Pale in the moonlight, her skin is a glowing alabaster; I have a sudden strong urge to run my hands down her arms, to feel its cool clay smooth-ness.

For a few minutes, we gaze outside. Nothing moves. A rind of moonlight fal s on the distant Dome, bejeweling it in a glint of sparkles.

“Why is it that this is the fi rst time we've really talked?” She reaches up, tucks some loose hair strands behind her ear.

“I've always wanted something like this with you, you must have known that. I think a hundred of these moments have passed us by.”

I stare outside, unable to meet her eyes. But my heart is beating faster and hotter than it has in a long time.

“I waited for you that rainy night,” she says, her voice barely audible. “For almost an hour at the front gate. I got completely drenched. What, did you sneak out the back entrance after school?

It was a few years ago, I know, but . . . have you forgotten?”

I fi x my eyes on the eastern mountains, not daring to meet her eyes. What I want to tel her is that I have never forgotten; that not a week goes by that I don't imagine I made a different decision.

That I'd walked out of the classroom as the bel rang and met her at the front gates and walked her home, rain slicking down the sides of my pants, our shoes sloshing through puddles, hands together holding the umbrel a above our heads, useless against the down-pour, but the wetness not minded in the least.

But instead of speaking to her, I hear my father's voice.

Never forget who you are. And for the fi rst time, I realize what he meant by that. It was just another way of...

The Hunt
The Hunt Page 14



“We need to get back to the group. It's dinnertime.”

At dinner, most of us are pretty spent. We're too tired to engage in anything more than middling conversation, a far cry from the gab-fest we had at lunch. I worry about my body odor and discreetly sniff my underarms from time to time. I eat quickly, mindful of my proximity to others. Gaunt Man seated next to me is given to occasional twitches. He doesn't say anything, but a couple of times, his nostrils enlarge in my direction.

Ashley June sits on my other side. I am conscious of her every move: the closeness of her elbow to mine, every time she picks up and puts down her utensils, the sway of her hair as she ties it into a ponytail to keep it from fal ing into the drip cups. Mostly, I notice her silence. A strong urge pul s in me to look at her. And to move away from her, keeping my odor from her.

By midmeal, I'm more than worried about my body odor.

And the more ner vous I get, the more odor I emit. A quick and quiet exit is what's needed. I stand up; all eyes at the table immediately turn to me. Stepping away from the table, I look for my escort sitting at his own table somewhere in the surrounding darkness. He emerges from behind me a few moments later.

“Everything okay?”

“Yes, fi ne. I should be heading back to my lodging. I'm worried about the sunrise.”

He looks at his watch. “It's not due for another hour.”

“Even so, I'm a worrier. I don't want to chance getting caught outside by a premature sunrise.” Everyone at the table is staring at us now.

“I assure you, our dawn– dusk calculations are never wrong,” he says.

I cast my eyes downward, realizing I actual y don't have to feign tiredness. I'm truly worn to the bone. “If there's nothing else for to night, I think I'm going to retire early. Pretty pooped.”

I sense him staring at me, trying to understand. “But the food— there're so many more succulent dishes to come.”

I realize what's going on. “You know you don't have to escort me back. Stay and eat. To your fi l . Real y. I know my way back from here. Two fl ights down, left down the hal way, right, another left, then out the double doors with the Institute emblem.”

“You don't want to stay for dessert?”

“No, I'm fi ne, real y.”

“But the choicest, bloodiest meats are yet to come!”

“Just knackered, is all . Real y, don't you worry about me.”

“You sure you're fi ne getting back without assistance?”

“I got this.” And before he can object, I leave. And as I walk away, I shoot a quick look at the table.

They're all supposed to be eating, ignoring my conversation with the escort, stuffi ng their faces. But instead they're looking at me with befuddlement. No; more than befuddlement. This is bewilder-ment, the kind that nests in people's minds, keeps them wondering.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” I mutter to myself as I walk down two fl ights. Idiot, idiot, idiot, I inwardly reprove myself as I head down the hal ways. “Moron, moron, moron,” I say out loud as I push open the double doors to the outside. And then it is my father's voice in my head: Don't do anything out of the ordinary, don't do anything that sticks you out from the crowd. Avoid anything that'll draw attention.

Even when I reach the doors to the library a few minutes later, I am still chastising myself. Imbecile, stupid, moron, doofus.

Back in the library, I roam the aisles, the back rooms, hidden corners, scour every inch. But it's useless. There's no drinkable liquid of any kind in the library, not so much as a drop. And in the restroom, like in all bathrooms, there's nothing but hard sanitizing dispensers. Knowing better, I dab a few drops of the sanitizer on my tongue. The sanitizer drops scour my tongue with an acidic burn that leaves a foul after taste. I'm really worried now. Away from my supplies stashed at home, from all my instruments of subter-fuge— my shavers, bottles of water, odor suppressors, teeth whiteners, nail fi lers— things are deteriorating quickly. The lack of water is causing my head to spin. I can't concentrate. On things. all my thoughts are jagged. Short thrusts. A pounding headache.

I lift up my arm, take a sniff of my armpit. There. Even I can smel it now. And if I can smel it, they can. No wonder Gaunt Man and Beefy were so distracted at dinner.

I don't know if anyone suspects me yet. Gaunt Man and Beefy might have smel ed something at dinner, but I don't think they've connected the dots to me yet. But by tomorrow, I'l be reeking.

I head over to the leather couch and plop down. My head: stil pounding, spinning. Outside, a hint of dawn presses against the windows. The shutters will close soon.

I throw my elbow over my eyes, not wanting to think but knowing I need to face reality. Plan A seemed perfect not so long ago: Fly under the radar during training period, break a leg right before the Hunt. But now, things have changed. With my body sending out eatme smel s and my tongue as dry and coarse as sandpaper, I won't make it to the Hunt four nights away. I'l either die of thirst or be savagely devoured. Probably the latter.

Lying on the couch, a numbed alarm pressing down on me, I begin to drift. Actual y, it's more like a plummet into a deep canyon of sleep.

Thirst awakens me. I cough: a thousand splinters pierce my parched throat.

Slowly, I peel my draped arm away from my face. The library is dark: the shutters have closed. But something is odd. I can still see, with a dim clarity, the interior of the library. As if a candle is burning.

Impossible. I spin around, drowsiness quickly shaken off. I see the light source.

It's right there. A single, thin beam of sunlight shooting from a hole in the shutter behind me. The beam shoots past my ear, reaching to the far wal of the library. It is a piercing line of light, laser-like, seeming to carry a physical heft. I hadn't noticed it yesterday.

But then again, I was on the other side of the library, fast asleep during the day hours.

I walk over to the shutter. Tentatively, I reach toward the hole. I half expect the light to sear my skin. But there's just a pinprick warmth where the beam hits my skin. The hole in the shutter is a perfect circle, smooth along the edges. Very strange. This is no accident, no result of the building's aging pro cess. This hole was intentional y made— drilled—through a two-inch steel- reinforced shutter. But for what purpose? And by whom?

The kooky Scientist. That part is not diffi cult to fi gure out; no one else has ever lived here. But why would he do it? A beam of sunlight like this would not only keep a person from sleeping, but cause permanent ret i nal and intestinal damage. None of this makes sense.

Or perhaps the Scientist had nothing to do with this.

Perhaps the hole was dril ed by the staffers later, after he'd disappeared.

But why? And if they knew they were going to house me in the library, surely they would have patched it up before I moved in. Again, none of this makes any sense.

And then a thought blizzards into my mind, chil ing me.

I shake my head, as if to banish the thought. But it's latched on to my brain, irrevocably now. And the more I think about it, the more likely it seems.

Somebody dril ed this hole. To night.

To test me. To fl ush me out.

To fi nd out if I'm a heper.

It makes sense. To night, with my unwashed body giving off an odor, suspicion is aroused. But more proof is needed before I can be accused. Sending a surreptitious sunbeam into the library during the day is perfect. Subtle yet dispositive. A sunbeam so smal that it wouldn't awaken a heper, but enough to jolt any normal person awake, making him fl ee to the far side of the library and demand a new room at fi rst dark. The perfect litmus test.

I pace down the aisles, trying to keep fear at bay. My fi ngertips brush against the dusty spines of leather covers.

There's a fl aw in my thinking, I realize. The only people who could possibly be on to me are those who've been in proximity. That would be the hunters and the escorts. But they've been with me all night long; we've never left one another's sight. Nobody has had the opportunity to slip away and dril a hole through two inches of reinforced steel.

I head back to the hole and study it even closer. The edges are weathered and dul ed, not shiny or sharp as they would be after a fresh cut. I bend down to the fl oor, looking for any fresh shavings.

Nothing. This hole has been here a while.

That leaves me in a bit of a pickle. If I feign anger tomorrow and complain about the hole, staffers will come over to take a look before sealing it up. But that hole will invite questions about my fi rst day of sleep— why hadn't I complained after that fi rst day? On the other hand, if I say nothing and this is indeed a ploy to trap me, then I'd be fl ushed out.

Then something clicks inside my head. Perhaps the beam is just a side effect of something more important. Maybe it's the hole— and not the beam— that is really the key to this whole mystery.

I peer intently at the hole now, taking in every tiny scratch near it, its height from the fl oor, its smal diameter.

But of course. It's the perfect size.

To peer through.

But when I look...

The Hunt
The Hunt Page 15



Their fi shlike ability to maneuver in water testifi es to the relative lack of evolutionary progress from that elementary stage. Think, too, of their beastlike ability to endure the sun's rays. This ability to withstand sunlight is a ge ne tic relic from the pre- **** era, when land- roaming animals lacked the intel igence to seek shelter in ****s. They built up a resis tance to the sun, although said re sis tance inhibited the evolutionary development of the brain. A shame, that.”

His words fl oat to me like seaweed in murky water. I am sitting near the back of the lecture hal , as distanced from people as possible. I had a quick change of clothes (while my escort banged away at my door), but I'm worried about my odor. Nobody seems to have smel ed anything— everyone is stationary, no one twitching. I got through breakfast, early eve ning lectures, and a tour of the grounds, lunch, without anyone noticing. A large window to the left of the podium is thankful y open, a breeze blowing steadily in, dissipating any odor inside. So I hope.

“Their facial expressions— so slippery with unrestrained and unfettered emotions— harken back to the pre- linguist, pre- language era, when expressions served as a kind of sign language. Next slide.”

A photo of the legs of a male heper, covered in hair.

Everyone leans forward. Drool starts to line slowly downward from their fangs, like spiders descending to desktops.

“A vestigial ge ne tic artifact from an era predating the discovery of fi re. Without the capability to build fi re, hair was their only mechanism to ward off the winter cold. Elite scholars have postulated that this evidence of body hair predates even the stone era, when primitives would have been able to fashion rudimentary weapons to hunt and then use fur for clothes. I have written a book on this topic, the fi rst in my fi eld to postulate this now wel - supported theory.

Next slide.”

A photo of a heper eating a fruit, red skinned with yel ow substance inside. I see heads fl inch back in revulsion.

“Ah, yes. Quite inexplicable, this trait, to say nothing of it ghast-liness. It bespeaks their lack of predatory skil s, their inability to really kil anything larger than vermin. So they must hunt those things that do not fl ee: the things of the earth, vegetables and fruits.

This trait in time became in extremis to the extent that their bodies eventual y required fruit and vegetables. Deprive them of vegetables and fruit, and their bodies begin to break down. Reddish spots appear on their bodies, sores attack their lips, then gums, leading eventual y to the loss of teeth. They become immobilized, fal into a depressed, vegetative state. Next slide.”

A photo of the group of hepers under the Dome. They are sitting around a campfi re, their mouths open, heads ****ed to the side, eyes closed.

“Nothing has mystifi ed and beguiled scholars as much as the hepers' ability to warble their voices with words, and with such remarkable consistency. Studies undertaken at the Institute have found that hepers are able to duplicate these ululations— what they cal ‘singing'— with astonishing accuracy. In fact, a song can be replicated minutes, days, months, even years after it is fi rst sung with near identical sonic frequencies. There are a plethora of theories out there; none are satisfactory save one, which I presented at the Annual Conference on Heper Studies last year. In short, hepers developed this ‘singing' ability under the mistaken belief that it helped the growth of vegetables and fruits. That is why we see them ‘sing' most commonly when tending to the farmland or plucking fruit off trees. Some scholars posit that hepers may also believe ‘singing' helps *****stain the burning of a fi re and to cleanse the body better. This is evinced in their tendency to warble their voices when assembled around a fi re or when bathing at the pond.”

I sit in my seat, hiding my inner amusement. Everything the Director says about hepers has the ring of truth and a learned authority about it, but I suspect it's nothing more than speculative nonsense. I suppose it's easy to so widely miss the mark when it comes to hepers, to quickly slide from honest scientifi c inquiry to unsubstantiated theories.

After all , if the roles were reversed and it was people who became extinct, people theories would likely be rife with exaggerations and distortions: instead of sleeping in sleep- holds, they'd sleep in coffi ns; creatures of the night, they'd be so invisible to the eye that even in front of mirrors, they'd lack a refl ection; pale and emaciated, they were weak and benign beings who could coexist peaceful y alongside hepers, somehow restraining themselves from ripping hepers to ribbons and sucking down their blood; they'd al invariably be incredibly good- looking with perfect hair.

There'd probably be some outright confabulations as wel : their ability to swim with dizzying speed under water; and ludicrous and laughable notions about people- heper romances.

Two rows in front of me, Phys Ed's head suddenly twitches violently backward. A short line of saliva fl ies off his fangs and swings upward, splatting across his face diagonal y.

He shakes his head.

“Pardon me,” he murmurs.

The Director stares at him, then proceeds. “Another aberration is their rather grotesque tendency to leak minuscule beads of salty water when they get hot or are under stress. Under these extreme con***ions, they also emit large amounts of odor, especial y from the underarm region, which itself, especial y in male adults, contains a nest of body hair. It is common for them—”

Phys Ed's head snaps back again. “Sorry, sorry,” he says, “didn't mean to interrupt. But can no one else smel it?

Heper odor?” He turns around, and for one awful moment, his eyes settle on mine.

“Don't you?”

“A little. Just a little,” I offer.

The Director's eyes turn to me. A chil spreads down my body.

Controlled breathing; keep eyelids halfway down; don't dart my eyes back and forth.

“It's really thick, it's getting into my nose, into my head, it's hard to concentrate.” Phys Ed points to an open window.

“Mind if we close the window? I can barely concentrate—”

Abs, sitting two seats away from him, suddenly jerks her head back, snaps it forward again. “Just now. I smel ed it, too. Heper.

Pretty strong odor. It must be wafting in from outside through the open windows. What is it, heper mating season?”

The Director heads over to the open window. His face is placid, unreadable, but he's clearly thinking deeply. “I smel something as wel . The breeze is bringing it in?” His voice rises indecisively at the end. “Here, let me close the window, see if that helps. The hepers must be real y sweating it during the day. Wonder what they're up to.”

The lecture continues, but barely anyone is listening anymore.

Everyone is curious, sniffi ng the air. Far from cutting off the heper odor, closing the window has only intensifi ed the odor. It's me; the smel is emanating from me. How long before the others realize this? Their fi dgeting and agitated head shakes grow more frequent and violent by the minute.

I'm not helping matters— or myself— much: I've got to keep up the act, and my own head shakes and neck snaps are an exertion that in turn releases more odor.

Ashley June suddenly speaks up. “Maybe they've been sneaking in here during the day. Into this building. That's why their odor is everywhere.”

We look to the podium to see what the Director will say.

He's gone. Uncannily. And in his place is Fril y Dress, who, as usual, has materialized out of nowhere. “Impossible,”

she says, her voice shril er than usual. “There's no way a heper would come in here, into the hornets' nest. It's certain death.”

“But the odor,” Ashley June says, her mouth watering. “It's so strong.”

Suddenly her head snaps back, viciously. Slowly she turns around, her head lowering. She gazes at all of us, at me.

“What if one of the hepers snuck in here last night? What if one of the hepers is still hiding in this building?”

And just like that, we are fl ying out the doors, the escorts right next to us, at fi rst trying to coax us back into the lecture hal , but then, as we spin around corners and leap down fl oors (“The odor's getting stronger!” shouts Crimson Lips next to me), the escorts join in the frenzy, feed into it. Gnashing teeth, saliva trailing us, hands shaking in the air, nails grating against the wal s.

It's hard to separate myself from the group. That's my plan: to peel away, steal back to the library, and hope no one thinks much of my absence. But every time I turn a corner to get away, they're right there with me. It's my odor. And with all this running around, it's only getting worse. I was hoping they'd all sprint past me, giving me the opportunity to fl y down the stairs and out the door before they can double back. But they stay right with me. It's terrifying, to be so close to their teeth and claws. They will not be unaware for much longer.

What causes the group to leave me is more by accident than design. I black out— probably for no more than a second or two. One moment I'm running, the next I'm fl at on the...

The Hunt
The Hunt Page 16



I'm not even racing down fl ights of stairs anymore; I'm leaping down them, one fl ight at a time. The pain ricochets up my legs, shoots up my back.

They're catching up. No matter how fast I try to push myself, no matter how treacherously I bound down the stairs, the sound of the group behind me looms ever closer. Hard, scrabbling sounds, quick whispers of clothes being whisked this way and that. Only a matter of time now.

Unless . . .

“It's this way!” I shout. “The scent is this way, it's real y strong now, I think I'm on to it!”

“How did he get so far ahead of us?” someone shouts, a fl oor above.

I slam through a set of doors, run halfway across the hal way, then plunge through another set of doors and start leaping up stairs, three at a time.

“Wait for us!” someone shouts right below me.

“No way! I'm virtual y on top of it now.”

“How's the slow kid beating us?” Gaining so fast, just a matter of seconds.

Through another set of doors, a mad sprint down the long hal way. I take a quick look backward: the horde is coming on me like a rabid wave, Gaunt Man leaping from fl oor to wal to ceiling, Phys Ed darting along the crease where wal meets ceiling, the others all apace, their faces stoic, their fangs bared. Three seconds.

I throw myself through the set of doors in front of me. They swing open with a weird touch of familiarity. I see why: I'm back in the lecture hal . I've made ful circle. The hal is completely empty.

Everyone has joined the chase.

Where do I want to die? I wonder. At the back? Standing dramatically on a desk? Near the lectern?

And that's when I see the window.

Jump up, heave it open.

Not a mil isecond later, the group fl ows in like a black wave.

They're so synchronized: on the wal s, the fl oor, the ceiling, there's no jostling for position, no elbowing. Just a coordinated rapid sweep into the lecture hal , eyes spinning, nostrils fl aring.

“It jumped! It jumped outside!” I yel , perched in front of the open window, pointing out. Even before I fi nish yel ing, four of them are up there on the perch, jostling for position, peering through the window with me, their heads disconcertingly close to mine. A strong breeze thankful y picks up, gusts through the window.

“I can smel it everywhere! It's like it's right here, hiding, where?”

“It's gone—”

“We can chase it down, can't have gotten far—”

“Maybe,” I say. “If we go quick, we should be able to get to it.”

They are bunching their legs, readying to leap out of the window, when a whisper freezes them in place.

“You've been had.” A wet, quiet, sinister whisper, seething with threat.

It is the Director.

He's not looking at us, merely glancing at his nails, marveling at their pastel gleam in the moonlight. His voice is quiet, seemingly indifferent to whether anyone is listening.

“Some of you here think you're so smart,” he purrs. “You think you're such a quick study, that you know better than the experts here. A couple days at my establishment and suddenly you think you're smarter than the specialists who've devoted their lives to this fi ne Institute. Did you really think that the Institute I run would be so careless as to all ow a heper to be on the loose, to roam un-checked through the grounds?” He studies his nails.

A pause, then he continues, his voice even softer now. “And did you really think a heper would be so stupid as to be caught outside the protection of the Dome after dusk?” He puts his right hand down. “They might be animals, but they're not stupid. Like some of you here.”

It is deathly quiet. “There is arrogance and ignorance in spades here. Funny how often they go hand in hand. You need to remember who you are. You were selected by luck — not by merit, not by demonstrated ability, not by anything earned. Dumb luck. And now you saunter into my Institute and think you run the whole damn place.

“There is no heper. Yes, there is a discernible smel of heper that has blown in from the outside. It is more pungent than usual, yes. But there is no heper, not inside, not the way you think. You've all been victims of mass hysteria.”

Beefy, despite the Director's words, suddenly shivers. With desire. He can't hold back, he can't deny the heper smel in his nose.

Saliva from Phys Ed, hanging from the ceiling, drips down onto a chair. They can still smel me. They can't help themselves.

“Ah,” continues the Director, observing these reactions, “the power of mass hysteria. Once you've been told there's a face of a heper imprinted on a tree bark, you can't unsee that image so easily, can you? No matter what we say, you'l still see a heper. The conviction proves to be . . .

sticky. Not so easy to unring a bel once it's been rung.

Look at you all . You've almost got me convinced.”

Something lands on my hair, sticky and slightly acidic. I glance up; Abs is up there, hanging upside down. She's gazing at the Director, trying to control herself. More saliva drifts down, silvery and shiny like a spider's thread.

“It's understandable, your susceptibility to mass hysteria.

You're all heper virgins: you've never seen, smel ed, or even heard a heper before, not a live one, anyway. So at the fi rst hint of suggestion, you're all gone, lemmings charging off a cliff. And there's no breaking out of it now.

We've seen this happen time and again here at the Institute, with the new hires. They come here, wet behind the ears.

Some come to see a heper behind every shadow and lose their ability to function. Eventual y, they lose the ability to perform even the simplest of tasks.”

His head revolves, looking at each of us in turn. “We are not without our options, however.” At this, he glides away into the peripheral darkness. Fril y Dress emerges moments later, her face beaming.

“It's a program I came up with. The new hires were getting too distracted, so we had to come up with a way to, wel , desensitize them. The option of sniffi ng acidic powder to numb the smel nerves in the nostrils was considered, but not seriously. My plan was more humane.” She nods toward the back of the lecture hal .

A beam of mercuric light cuts through the lecture hal . An image lights up on a screen above her. We see a large room, like an indoor arena of sorts. Dotted around the perimeter are wooden posts sticking out of the ground like tree stumps. Thick, hardy leather straps are tethered to each post. Even on video, a palpably ominous air hangs over everything. A sense of sour dread seeps off the projected image. Nothing good happens in there, I think.

My insides contract and chil , become lined with a fi lm of frost.

The place looks strangely familiar. I search my memory banks, trying to— And then I recal . The lottery pick. The old, emaciated heper picking out the numbers. It was fi lmed right from this arena.

Fril y Dress, sensing the rapt attention, pauses dramatical y. She tugs on her earlobe. “This converted work space is now affection-ately called the Introduction. The name says it all . It is where you will be introduced to your fi rst live heper. In the fl esh, in the blood, right before you.”

Crimson Lips lets rip a huge snarl. Beefy starts grunting.

Drool streams down now from the ceiling in rivulets.

“Calm down. Nobody is going to be eating a heper. Not today, anyway. Not one fang, not one fi nger, will so much as touch heper fl esh. The leather straps that bind you to the posts will ensure that.”

She picks up a long ruler and uses it to indicate a circular trapdoor on the ground that looks very much like a manhole.

“The heper will emerge from this door on the ground. It wil come out, after you've all been secured to your posts, and for about fi ve minutes, you will get to see and hear and smel the heper. The only senses you will not be using— for now— are touch and taste, obviously. But that heper will be suffi ciently up close and personal. And you will be able to smel it— real heper, rather than your hysterical imaginings.

It will set you straight. The Introduction has been incredibly successful with our new hires. After this exposure, they're no longer heper virgins. Their ability to focus and not be distracted by faint heper odors is much improved. We think the program will be just the ticket for you all .”

“So there is heper in this building!” Gaunt Man says, his voice loud and gruff. “That's why heper smel is so strong!”

“There's one heper. And you haven't been smel ing it. It stays in its quarters. And that door you see in the photo is steel- reinforced and locks from the inside. It is completely safe in there. Has been for the past three years. And the sil y thing has enough food stored up in there to last a month.”

“But how do you get it to come out at the Introduction? How do we know it's going to come out when we're there?”

She scratches her wrist. “Let's just say that we offer choice morsels it can't refuse. Fruits, vegetables, sweet chocolate.

Besides, it knows it's in no danger. It's done this a dozen times, knows that everyone is securely tethered to...

The Hunt
The Hunt Page 17



By the time we arrive at the bottom fl oor, I'm spent. My knees feel as if a jackhammer has done a number on them, and my heads spins crazily from the spiraled descent. No one else is fatigued; if anything, the energy level has risen as anticipation draws to a climax. There's a lot of chatter, a lot of teeth grinding.

“Are there enough posts for all of us?” Ashley June asks.

Everyone is jostling for position in front of the closed double doors.

“Don't you worry, any of you,” Fril y Dress answers. “There are ten posts inside. Only seven of you. The posts are equidistant from the center, none has an advantage over another. A food item is placed near each post so all of you wil get a chance to see the heper up close and personal.”

Despite her words, they're still pushing. I separate myself inconspicuously to the side.

“What are we waiting for?”

“Just a bit longer. Paperwork needs to be pro cessed upstairs.

They'l let us know when we're good to go.”

“How?”

Fril y Dress shakes her head. “You'l see.”

“Is it really as great as she put it?” Phys Ed asks his escort.

“Better than advertised. So much better.”

“I can smel it!” Beefy says. “Stronger than ever!”

“Nonsense,” chides Fril y Dress. “The heper's still in its chambers.” But she seems uncertain, her nostrils moistening and fl aring.

“It's the same smel ! We've been smel ing this heper all this time.”

I take two steps back, slowly moving away from them.

“Getting stronger by the second.” More drool and shivers.

I play along. But those doors better open soon, because this is a smal enclave we wait in, and in such tight, unventilated quarters, my odor is amplifi ed.

Gaunt Man's head fl icks violently toward me. He's not just hissing; he's slobbering in his saliva. Foolishly, I meet his eyes. He is staring at me with a dawning realization, his eyes blinking, blinking, blinking with a new— At that very moment, the double doors swing open, an expulsion of steam and smoke enveloping us.

Shouts of excitement as we sweep into the room. The expanse, with its high arching ceiling (rounded and bal ooned like an indoor sports stadium) and wide spread of the dusty ground beneath, catches me by surprise. The heper's door is on the ground, in the very center of the arena, shaped and sized like a manhole. Ten wooden posts are spaced evenly around it. We disperse quickly, each of us running like kids choosing horses on a carousel. As Fril y Dress said, there's more than enough for all of us, but that doesn't stop general bedlam from ensuing. It's the morsels. Hunters are fi ghting over posts positioned before morsels deemed most attractive to the heper. Abs and Ashley June are having a feline fi ght over a post in front of a bunch of bananas.

“I was here fi rst,” snarls Ashley June.

“Wel , I'm already strapped in,” Abs hisses back. She snaps shut a latch in the strap around her ankles. “There.

Locked in.

Can't get out now even if I wanted to. And I don't.”

Across from me, Crimson Lips and Phys Ed are bickering over a post in front of some ears of corn. My attention shifts over to Gaunt Man, whose eyes are glowing at me like a bat's. I can't read his expression, but I sense confusion.

He's still trying to fi gure me out, questioning if he really did smel heper odor coming off me.

I ignore him, busy myself with the straps. There are four metal ic cuffs that lock around our wrists and ankles. Each cuff is tethered to the post by thick leather straps. Even strapped in, we have quite a lot of room to range: about a body length from the post. As long as the heper doesn't stray past the perimeter delineated by the morsels, it'l be safely out of our reach.

An escort walks in, stoic faced, and hands each of us a pair of shades. “Lights will be turned up in a moment,” he murmurs, “so the heper can see.” He checks each of our straps, spending the most time on Gaunt Man, whose straps are way too loose. Gaunt Man objects, raising his arm; as he does so, his shirt becomes untucked and he quickly reaches down to tuck it back in.

But not before I see it. A dul glint coming from his belt, curved and long like a dagger's blade.

An uneasy feeling touches the back of my neck. When the escort checks on my straps, it's on the tip of my tongue to say something.

But the escort walks off before I can speak. He stops at the very center of the arena and says, “Welcome to the Introduction, ladies and gentlemen.” Before walking out, he stamps his boot heavily on the circular door three times, a deep boom sounding. The lights inside the arena turn brighter. We throw on our shades.

And wait.

A mechanical whirring sounds from the circular door in the ground, fol owed by a series of robotic beeps. The door opens, just a crack. And then, just as swiftly, it drops shut, coughing up a puff of dust. Heads **** to the side. Then the door opens not a second later, a little wider this time.

Enough to see the outline of a head.

The twin dots of eyes peering out.

all the hunters explode toward the heper. Almost in unison, bodies snap against the restraints, fl ip in the air, and fal to the ground.

The door, again, fal s shut.

In a blink, everyone is upright and lurching against the restraints.

I pul against my mine, frothing at the mouth as I swing my head wildly to and fro. My shades fl y off.

I blink at the sudden brightness of the arena, now awash in vivid, keen colors. I see the hunters with a clarity that seems to enliven them. They are animals, bestial and overtaken with heper lust. Phys Ed and Crimson Lips have given to scratching their necks, leaving long white etches where their nails rake into skin. Their mouths gape wide, then snap shut like a steel trap, the harsh, rocky sound of teeth gnashing against teeth fi l ing the fetid air.

The trapdoor opens again; a ful y extended arm holds up the door. A head emerges from underneath, peering around like a peri-scope. Apparently assured, it steps out, leaving the door opened, all the better for a quick escape.

For a moment, all is quiet. The sloshing of saliva ceases; the crack of necks and knuckles and spines stop. We study the heper with an almost innocent curiosity, as if we don't mean to pil age its intestines and suck its blood and gorge it at the drop of a hat.

It is the same heper as the one on TV, frail and wispy. It blinks, surveys the piles of morsels distributed around it.

Then Ashley June lets loose a horrifi c scream of desire into the air. Within seconds, we're all yowling and mewling.

The heper is unmoved by the cacophony as it walks to the fi rst pile of food. Two loaves of bread, placed in front of Crimson Lips' post. The heper picks up a loaf, rams it into its mouth, and tears off a mouthful. It moves effi ciently, businesslike, as it grabs the other loaf and tosses it into the open door without so much as a glance at the hissing Crimson Lips. It's done this before. It shuffl es over to the next pile, bottles of water.

It twists open a cap, hoists the bottle upside down, and guzzles down water. Doesn't linger. Cradling the remaining bottles in the crook of its arm, it carries them over to the open door and drops them in. Then it is up and moving to another pile, the candy. all the while, even with snarls and screams about it, the heper never looks up. It is cool y minding its own business.

The heper moves past a stack of notebooks in front of Gaunt Man and toward the candy. My eyes catch a glimmer of stale light from Gaunt Man's waist. The dagger; Gaunt Man is taking it out now. White veins in his bony hand bulge out like sickly squirming worms as he grips the dagger and starts fi ling away at the leather strap. He knows he has to move fast: the heper isn't exactly laying out a picnic mat to dine in our midst. It's simply going to throw all the food and drinks and notebooks into its chamber and then dis-THE HUNT 101 appear. It'l be gone in less than a minute. A rage fi l s the arena, an explosion of frustration at the feeling of being cheated. Ashley June gives another bloodcurdling scream.

She strains against the straps, a desperation attending her desire.

Gaunt Man attacks the straps with extra fervor. He pul s taut the strap tethered to his left wrist while his right arm pistons back and forth, sawing away.

And just like that, the strap fal s in two. He stares stupidly at it dangling in half. Then it hits him; I see his body go erect.

Fantasy is now a dusking reality. And he's hunched over again, fi ling away at the straps tied to his legs, his right arm a blizzard of speed.

The heper has no idea. It is standing over the pile of candy.

It's unwrapping a candy, sucking on it, oblivious to what's going on behind him.

Gaunt Man has sliced through the two leg straps. He switches hands, starts sawing away at the fi nal strap on his right wrist.

The heper pauses, lifting its head into the air like a dog catching a scent.

Then it bends down and picks up another piece of candy.

The last strap is giving Gaunt Man some trouble. Perhaps in his excitement he's not focusing, or perhaps it's on account of having to use his left arm. But he's slower, and it's frustrating him. He lets out a scream of frustration that knifes into my ear drums.

...

The Hunt
The Hunt Page 18



The sight of heper blood so close, the smel of it rushing into the air, sends the other hunters into hyperdelirium. The screams rip into my ear drums, threatening to shatter them.

Don't cover your ears! Don't cover your ears! I do the only thing I can: I raise my head, look to the raf ters, and scream.

At the pain, at the horror I know is taking place. My scream joins the others around me. For a few moments, it is my scream that fi l s my ears, covers over all the jackal-and hyena- like howls around me. That is all I want. For just a few moments to be free of their screams.

Then, for the fi rst time, the heper makes a sound. A scream, so different from the screams of desire and hunger around it. This is a cry of horror and a burrowed resignation. It haunts me. It is the amplifi cation of what has lived in my own bones for years.

I hear the sound of bone crunched and then snapped.

Gaunt Man has broken one of the heper's legs. He's toying with it, like a cat with an injured mouse, biding his time. And he's doing it to nettle the other hunters as wel , teasing us with the prize that is so out of reach for us but so inevitable for him. The heper crawls now on its two arms and one leg, its left leg dragging in the dirt, its eyes delirious with unimaginable pain.

“Throw me the knife!” Abs shouts. She is looking at Crimson Lips, who has recovered the knife that Gaunt Man tossed away.

Crimson Lips is a blur; nobody's noticed until now that she's been sawing away at the straps.

“Throw me the knife!”

“The knife— listen to me, throw me the knife!” someone else yel s.

Gaunt Man's head snaps up, takes in what is happening.

He can't take his time anymore. Within seconds, Crimson Lips is going to cut through her restraints, will be charging toward the heper.

With a cry of anger, he leaps on the heper and sinks his fangs into the back of its neck.

Abs cuts through her fourth strap; even as it is fal ing away, she is already spinning around, leaping in one cheetahlike pounce to the heper. Her aim is off; she ends up upending Gaunt Man, and the two of them bounce away from the suddenly freed heper.

The heper scuttles on hands and foot, blood trailing behind it, frantical y trying to fi nd the door opening. Its eyes are pools of fevered dread and pain. It is disoriented, blinded by the blood pouring into its eyes. In its confusion, it is coming right at me.

Abs and Gaunt Man are on their feet, pouncing toward the heper. They land on it at exactly the same time, knocking it off its feet. Right into me.

Its head knocks into my shoulder a split second before its body slams into mine. Weirdly, it embraces me, its arms encircling my waist. Instinctual y, my arms swing around its body. I am holding it up, Abs and Gaunt Man right behind it, their nails sinking into its skin, their fangs bared and a second away from slashing downward and into it.

It looks up, and for one dreadful moment, our eyes meet. I wil never know if its eyes suddenly widened because of the fl ood of pain surging through its body or because of recognition. Of another heper.

Eventual y, when it is all over, the hunters are released. A staffer, speaking gravely, instructs us to return to our rooms for the remainder of the night. By then, there is hardly anything left of the heper, just its shredded clothes. Its blood has been licked off where it splattered; even the dirt, coagulated with the heper's spil ed blood, has been dug up, stuffed into mouths, chewed, and sucked on.

My escort is waiting outside the Introduction. “Go put on a change of clothes,” he tel s me, his nostrils twitching. “I smel heper all over you.”

The openness of the Vast is what I relish. After I climb the endless fl ight of stairs, lagging far behind everyone else, I fi nal y reach the ground fl oor. The others move on up to their quarters. I walk out into the open, the night sky fi l ed with stars. An easterly breeze blows, bil owing my clothes, wafting through my hair. I stagger toward the library, grateful to be able to get away, to be alone. Grains of sand blow against my face, but I barely notice.

Halfway back, I col apse to the ground.

I am so sapped of strength, I can't get up. I lay my head back down on the bricked walkway. It's the lack of water.

My desiccated brain lies shriveled in my skul , a sour plum.

Grayness takes over.

Minutes later— or is it hours?— I come to. I feel better, strength returned to my limbs. The sky is less dark, the stars fewer in num-ber and dimmer. I glance back at the Institute. Nobody has noticed me.

Even though I know it's futile, I do another walk- through the library, hoping to fi nd something to drink. A half hour later, I col apse on the lounge chair, body feeling like a crisp autumn twig, not a molecule of moisture within. My heart hammers away in alarm as if it knows what I'm trying to deny. That my situation is desperate. I won't last another night. They'l come for me after dusk when I don't show up and fi nd me fl opped on the fl oor. It'l be over moments later.

A metal ic click rings through the library, then a soft churning sound. The shutters. Pul ing down darkness, like my eyelids slowly closing. In the blackness, the air grows chil y. My body odor rises to my nose, a sickening stench of heper. I lift my arms, smel my pits.

Ripe. Tomorrow, after the sun sets and the moon rises, I'm a dead man.

A dead heper.

A dead heper.

Images of the heper's death fi l my sleep: feverish reinterpretations, the screams louder, the colors sharper. In my nightmare, the heper leaps into my arms, its blood running over my cheekbones, down my cheeks. In my thirst, my pasty- dried tongue reaches out refl ex-ively, dabbing at the blood. I suck on the blood, letting it soak into my tongue like mountain spring water into a dry sponge, then draw it down my parched throat, feeling its energy ripple through my sapped body. As my body begins to tingle warmer, the heper screams louder— until I realize the scream is coming not from the heper, but from the other hunters, all of them stil tied to their posts, pointing at me, screaming, as I kneel bent over the dead heper in my arms, its skin pasty and blotchy blue.

I shudder awake, the backs of my dry eyelids scraping against my eyebal s.

It is still the middle of the day. The beam of sunlight has returned, streaming across the library again, an il uminated tightrope from one end to the other. It is even brighter and thicker than I remember it.

I'm too tired to do anything but watch it. My thoughts scatter in haphazard, incoherent penumbras. It's all I can do, just mind-lessly watch the beam of light. So I do that, for minutes (hours?).

The beam shifts ever so with the passing time, traveling in a diagonal fashion along the far wal of the library.

Then something interesting happens. As the beam moves along the wal , it suddenly hits something that causes it to bounce off at an angle; the beam is refl ected diagonal y to the adjacent wal . At fi rst, I think it's just my mind playing tricks on me. I blink. It's still there, only more obvious now.

The original beam shooting across to the far wal and now the shorter, refl ected beam, bounced to the right wal .

It's enough to rouse me out of the lounge chair. I make my way to the far wal , my painful knees churning in sockets like cactus scraping on concrete. Where the beam hits the far wal is a smal circular mirror, no bigger than the palm of my hand, nailed to the wal . It is angled slightly, refl ecting the beam off to the side wal .

As I make my way to that side wal , it happens again. That second refl ected beam is in turn refl ected: now there are three sunbeams bouncing around the room. The third beam is weak and momentary. It grows brighter for about ten seconds, then fades. As it does, I hurry to the spot it is shining at, a faint dot of il umination on the spine of a book. I walk over and hook out the book. Feel its leathery feel in my hand, smooth and worn. I carry it to the fi rst beam of sunlight, the second beam itself now fading away. I hold the book to the light, fl ip it around to the front cover.

The Heper Hunt, it reads.

Many moons ago, the heper population— which in eras past, according to unsubstantiated theories, once, unfathomably, dominated the land— fel to dangerously low numbers. By Palatial Order 56, hepers were rounded up and farmed on the newly built Heper Institute of Refi ned Research and Discovery. To ap-pease a disgruntled populace, citizens in good standing were randomly chosen to participate in the annual Heper Hunt. It was a resounding success.

The fi rst sign of corruption was seen in the decreasing number of hepers at the annual Hunt. Typical y ranging between twenty and twenty- fi ve hepers, that number soon dwindled down to about fi fteen. Eventual y, only ten hepers were released, then only seven; fi nal y, on a night few have forgotten, the Palace released a statement: There were no more hepers in captivity at the Heper Institute.

And yet. Hushed rumors of secret hunting expe***ions per- sisted: clandestine meetings at the Heper Institute for high- ranking Palace offi cials; convoys of carriages arriving there in the last hours of dusk; odd wails heard coming from across the Vast.

Rumors circulated and grew that corruption reached “al the way to the top.”

But then, after a few years, even those rumors ceased.

On the eleventh day of the sixth month of the fourth year of the 18th Ruler, it was announced that hepers...

The Hunt
The Hunt Page 19



And then there's the beam of light, dimmer now with the approaching dusk. Why had he gone *****ch lengths to create that beam— and the two others— to point to the journal? The journal was meant to be found, that's obvious, but by whom and why are not so obvious.

I'm shutting the journal closed when I notice a blank white page smack bang in the middle of the journal. What an odd omission.

The hundreds of pages before and after this page are fi l ed from top to bottom; yet this page, back and front, has been left blank. Not a dot of ink. Its whiteness is almost a shout.

The last sentence on the preceding page isn't even complete— it's cut off midway and then continues on the page after this blank sheet, picking up exactly where it left off. I tap the spine of the book, pondering, confused.

Like the refl ected beams of light that pointed me to this book, the very blankness of this page seems to be purposeful y directing my attention here. But as much as I examine it, I can't make heads or tails of it.

I fl op down, tired. The room is suffocating; I grasp around my neck, feel the scrim of sweat and dirt under my jawline. I don't even need to lift my arm to smel the odor exuding off me like a dog in heat.

It will be my escort who'l make the discovery. When he comes *****mmon me after dusk, he'l smel my odor fl owing out through the cracks along the door frame. He'l sprint around, look inside through the windows, the shutters having already been retracted.

He'l see me still sitting in this chair, sul en and tired, my chest rising and fal ing, breathing hard, eyes wide because I will , though resigned, still be very afraid. He will see the emotion pouring off me in waves. And then he'l understand.

He will not cal for the others. He will want me for himself.

He will leap through the glass windows— so frail in the face of his desire, like thin ice before a blowtorch— and even before the shattered shards have reached the ground, he wil be upon me. And then he will have me, devouring me with fangs and nails in just a few— And then, just like that, I realize something.

The blinding whiteness of the outside feels like acid dropped on my eyebal s. I let the light leak in a little at a time, until I can see without blinking, then without squinting.

It is hours before dusk, when the sun has just begun its descent.

The sun isn't going quietly: bleeding red into the sky, it The sun isn't going quietly: bleeding red into the sky, it infuses the plains with an orange- and- purple hue. Without the Dome to cover the heper vil age, the mud huts look exposed and inconsequential in the plains, like rat droppings. Soon the light sensors will detect the arrival of night and the glass wal s will arc out of the ground, form a perfect dome, and protect the hepers from the world outside. I must hurry.

There's a glimmer in front of the mud huts, like a hundred diamonds twinkling in the twilight. The pond. It's been staring me right in the face the whole time, while thirst ravaged and odor oozed off my body. How could I have been so blind? all the water I could possibly want, for drinking and washing, within easy access. The only danger would be the hepers, of course, who might not take kindly to my intrusion. They'l be confused, of course, on the arrival of a stranger somehow able to withstand sun rays. But I know how to handle them. Bare my fangs, snap my neck side to side, click my bones; I'm a master at impersonation. They'l likely scatter to the four winds.

Suddenly upbeat, I plow on toward the heper vil age.

Gradual y, the mud huts begin to take shape, growing in size and detail. Then I see the hepers, a group of stick fi gures moving slowly around the pond, stopping, moving, stopping. The sight of them both excites and unnerves me.

There are fi ve of them. They haven't noticed me yet, nor would they have: nobody has ever approached them during the day.

When I am about a hundred yards away, they see me. One of them, crouching by the pond, shoots straight up, his arm jacking forward like a switchblade sprung out, pointing at me. The others turn quickly, heads pivoting toward me.

Their reaction is instant: they turn and fl ee, bolting inside mud huts. I see windows shuttered closed, doors slammed shut. Within a few scant moments, they've all vacated the pond, leaving upturned pots and pails around the pond in their wake. Just what I was hoping for.

Nothing stirs. Not an opened shutter or a cracked door. I break into a trot, my dried- out bones dangling in my body, snapping with every jarring step. My gaze, fi xed on the pond, thirstily draws water out with the bucket of my eyes. I am getting closer, fifty yards out.

A door to one of the mud huts opens.

A female, that female heper, steps out. A look of rage on its face, but fear, too. It grips a spear in its right hand. Hanging off its hip is a simple fl at slab of dark hide leather, almost like a wide belt.

A deadly row of daggers lies strapped in taut against the leather, their blades strangely curved at the hilt.

I raise my hands with wide- open palms. I'm not sure how much it comprehends, so I use simple words. “No hurt! No hurt!” I shout, but what ekes out instead are hoarse, indecipherable sounds. I try to push the words out again, but I can't gather enough saliva in my mouth to lubricate my throat.

The setting sun, directly behind me, douses the heper vil age with color, like bright easel paint dripping onto drab leather shoes.

My shadow extends long and preternatural y thin before me, a long, gnarled fi nger reaching out to that girl heper. I'm nothing but a silhouette to it. No; I'm more. I'm the enemy, the predator, the hunter: that's why the other hepers fl ed.

But I'm also something else: a mystery. A confounding contradiction, because although I am in the sunlight, I am not disintegrating. And that is why the female heper has not fl ed but stands in front of me, puzzled, curious.

But not for long. With a primal scream, it strides toward me, its body at a slant, one arm extended backward. It fl ings its arm forward in a violent blur.

It takes a moment before I realize what's going on. And by then it's too late. I hear a whistling sound as the spear cuts through air, can even see the wooden length vibrating slightly from side to side as the spear slices toward me.

Right at me. In the end, I'm just lucky.

I don't move to avoid the spear— there's no time— and it whizzes through the space between my head and left shoulder. I hear and feel the whoosh by my left ear.

And then the heper is reaching down to its dagger strap; in less than a second, it's unstrapped a dagger and is instantaneously fl inging it with a rapid sidearm motion. The dagger shoots out of its hand, fl ashing in the sunlight. But way off. Way off. Like a mile off— the dagger sails harmlessly away.

Figures, I think. These hepers are nothing more than— But then the gleaming dagger begins to curve back toward me, its trajectory that of a boomerang, blinking wickedly fast in the light. As if winking with mischief. And before I know it, it's coming right at me. I dive to my right, hit the ground. The dagger swoosh es past my head, giving off the harmonic overtone of a singing bowl. I land ungraceful y, get the air knocked out of me. The ground is hard, despite the layer of sand and grit.

This heper girl— it knows what it's doing. This is not just for show. It really means to maim me, if not kil me.

I leap up, hands raised high, palms opened emphatical y. It is already reaching down toward the strap, where three more daggers lie taut against the leather. Like hunting hounds pul ing restlessly on a leash. In the blink of an eye, the heper has unstrapped a dagger and is already drawing back its arm. To unleash the next throw.

It will not miss this time.

“Stop! Please!” I yel , and for the fi rst time, the words come out clearly. It pauses midthrow.

I waste little time. I start walking toward the heper again, pulling off my shirt as I do. It needs to see my skin, the sun on the skin, see that I present no danger. I toss the shirt to the side. I'm close enough to see its eyes fol ow the shirt, then shoot back at me.

It is squinting; I stop in my tracks. I've never seen anyone squint.

It is so . . . expressive. The eclipsed half closing of the eyelids, the wrinkles coming off the corners of the eyes like a delta, the brows contracted together, even the mouth frozen in a snarl of confusion.

It is a strange expression, it is a lovely expression. It pul s its arm back again, the dagger glinting in the sun.

“Wait!” I shout with a craggy croak. It halts, its fi ngers whiten-ing as they grip the blade tighter. I undo the buttons of my pants, take them off. My socks, my shoes, everything off. Just my briefs left on.

I stand like that before it, then slowly move forward.

“Water,” I say, gesturing at the pond. “Water.” I make a cup motion with my hand.

It moves its eyes up and down my body, unsure and suspicious, emotions sweeping off its face, naked and primal.

Eyes fi xed on each other, I walk past, giving it a wide arc, and head to the pond. It's more like a swimming pool, the way it is rimmed with a metal ic border, perfectly circular.

Before I know it, I'm on my knees, my cupped hands pushing through the plane of water. The water, when it fl ows down my throat, is heaven's wet cool on hell 's coaled fi re. My hands...