[ Truyện tiếng anh] The Hunt

The Hunt
The Hunt Page 40



Ashley June reads the situation with chil ing accuracy. “We might not have til dusk anymore.” We watch in disbelief as Phys Ed pul s open the front doors and fl ings himself inside. He's in now. He's in.

I shake my head in denial. “You should go. It's just me they know about. You can't be found with me. That would implicate you, you'd be guilty by association.”

“I'm staying with you, Gene.”

“No. I'l make a break for the outside. I can make it if I'm quick enough. You come out when you can, if not today, then tomorrow.

We'l meet up at the Dome. As long as they don't suspect you, you'l be fi ne. It's just me they're after.”

A horrifi c howl rips up the hal way, a screech that rattles the building. A skittering of noises along the wal s. Distant thumps.

Another howl, softer but with more anguish.

She suddenly freezes up: I see a realization strike her dead cold.

She stiffens up. With dread.

“What is it?”

Ashley June turns away from me. When she speaks, her voice is unsteady. She can't bring herself to look at me.

“Gene,” she says, “go to the back. Take a look at the surveil ance monitors, see if you can see what's going on.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I'l stay here,” she says. A strange pitch to her voice, an oblique light in her eyes.

I head back toward the monitors, curious myself to see what is happening around the Institute. At fi rst, the monitors indicate little movement. Everyone is still sleeping. It's al gray and still . But a monitor in the corner catches my eye.

There's movement. In the foyer, where Phys Ed is writhing on the fl oor, his legs pedaling air.

His mouth is stretched open, as if in a silent yawn. But I know it's not a yawn, nor is it silent. It's a spine- rattling scream. On the monitor of the banquet hal , snoozing people, still dangling off the chandelier, begin to stir. The chandelier is shaking now. On other monitors, people hanging off air ducts in the corridors are rous-ing, eyes beginning to pop open.

“I gotta go now!” I yel to Ashley June as I spin away from the monitors, making ready to run out.

But she's gone.

I don't know what to make of her sudden disappearance.

She listened to me, I think, but somehow that doesn't ring true. Something else is going on.

I swing the door open, step away from the Control Center.

The corridor is empty. “Ashley June!” I yel at the top of my lungs, no longer caring if others hear me. The only answer is the sound of my echo reverberating back to me.

Not a second to waste. I sprint down the corridor, turn down another. After the brightness of the Control Center, the corridor is the black of midnight. If I can get to Phys Ed in the foyer before anyone else, I can take him out. Literal y and fi guratively. That would silence him and buy me time, at least until dusk.

And suddenly I know that's where Ashley June is headed.

To the foyer, to take Phys Ed out. She knows I'd never have let her go.

Frustration heated by a mad tenderness, I race down the second corridor, then push through an exit door leading to the stairwel .

At the top, peering down the dark wel , I hear the cries and screams and shouts. The pounding of boots, the slap- dash ricochet of bare feet scrabbling along wal s and stairs.

Doors bang open and shut.

The sounds fl oat up at me haphazardly, echoes bouncing up the wal s and stairs from afar.

It's too late now.

They know. They all know now.

Then, like a cannon shot, doors explode open a few fl ights down.

Manic skittering of feet on the chrome stairs, the click of long fi ngernails on the metal railings. Heading up. Toward me. A col ective hissing, like a swarm of wasps, fl ies up toward me. Then a primal squeal screeches up the wel , and just like that, they've sniffed me out. They're coming for me.

I turn on my heels and run. Back the way I came, back toward the Control Center. They're coming in fast and furious, their screams bouncing off the wal s around. Just two corridors to run down, just two.

I'm down the fi rst corridor and just turning the corner when I hear the doors to the stairway bang open. Faster, faster— The knob of the door to the Control Center is in my hand. I turn it. It slips in my grip, my palms and fi ngers too slick for traction. I take it in both hands and squeeze it like a vise.

The door swings open and I fl ing my body through the gap, kicking the door shut as I fl y through.

The door slams shut; a second later, a gigantic boom!

sledgehammers the door from the other side. It's a race to the doorknob now. I leap up, push the lock button. A second later, from the other side, the knob turns, twisting in my hand, then stops against the lock. A terrifi c howl breaks out that rattles the door. Then another boom! They're body slamming the door.

I reel all the way to the back of the Control Center. The door isn't going to hold for much longer. Maybe a dozen blows at the most. They'l burst through, a fl ood of alabaster white skin and glistening fangs and bulging eyes hot with mad desire. The sunlight won't be enough to hold them back.

They'd gladly suffer skin boils and temporary blindness for even a droplet of heper blood.

The video monitors at the back that only moments ago displayed little movement are now a dizzying array of motion. On every monitor, people are leaping through the hal ways in nightgowns and fl annel pajamas, eyes aglow.

They all know. That I am up at the Control Center.

Boom! The bang at the door is louder: more bodies, more force.

Nails scratch on the other side, howls and cries. And panting, the chortling of the insane.

I grab a steel- framed offi ce chair and heave it at the windows. It bounces uselessly off like a ping- pong bal . I spin around, looking for another exit. There is none.

Every monitor is now blurry with the energy of a col ective beast awakened. all except one: on the third row of monitors, to the right.

Something on it captures my attention, not for the action on it, but for the inaction. A solitary fi gure just standing, slightly bent over, writing something.

It's Ashley June. Relief, and an odd sense of pride, fi l s me: she got away. Judging from the pans and pots hanging behind her, she must be in the kitchen. Then I see her suddenly lift her head as if hearing something. I hear it, too.

A bloodcurdling squeal that vibrates the very wal s of the building. Ashley June pauses, puts pen back on paper, starts writing. She suddenly stops, looks up, her mouth dropping.

She's realizing something. A light turning on in her head.

She bends over the paper again, her hand a blur as she writes furiously across the page.

Loud screams and moans sound up and down the building.

She stops, her face grimacing with indecision. Shaking her head, she throws the pen aside angrily and hastily folds the piece of paper. She runs to a slot in the wal , pul s it open, places the paper inside. The oven? Then she punches at a large button. A light shoots out from the button, il uminating her face. Tears are streaking down her face. Her head tilts upward and a horror crosses her face.

She's hearing it. The howl of desire streaming upward, toward me.

BOOM! This bang is the loudest, denting the door. The top hinge is snapped askew like a broken bone breaking skin.

It won't withstand more than a few more hits.

This is how I will die, I decide. Facing away from the door as it explodes inward, my eyes fi xed on the image of Ashley June on the monitor. Let that be my last vision. Let my death be quick, let my last thought and vision be of Ashley June.

On the monitor, she suddenly does something strange. She snatches a knife from a hanging knife rack, a long swirling blade.

Places the blade in the palm of her left hand and, before I understand what she's doing, squeezes.

Her mouth widens in pain, stretches into a scream.

Then I understand. And I scream: “Ashley June!”

On the screen, she drops the knife and sprints away.

BOOM! The door bends inwardly but holds. Just barely.

One more hit is all it will take.

Then, suddenly, a fever- pitched wail breaks out on the other side, and I hear a scrabbling of nails on the fl oor and wal s and ceiling. Away from the door. Then silence.

They're all gone.

I look at the monitor and see Ashley June fl ying down the stairwel , her hair fl owing behind her. She's leaping from one landing to the next; barely after she's landed, she's already leaping for the next landing. She's headed down, al the way to the Introduction.

On the other monitors, I see hordes of people, in a synchronized stampede, racing down the stairs.

For the blood and fl esh of a female virgin heper.

They move as one, wordlessly but ferociously, their blurred speed astonishing on the monitors. The pul of gravity gives them even more speed as they fl y down the stairwel .

Fal ing like black rain.

Ashley June races down, panic etched on her face. Each time her feet land, she grabs the rail with her left hand, pivots her body around quickly, and leaps down to the next landing.

The black rain continues to fal , continues to close in on her.

She reaches the bottom fl oor. Her face is fl ushed, sweat pouring off her and, creating a damp ring of darkness around her neck.

...

The Hunt
The Hunt Page 41



The three of them slide right across it; they circle around, their muscles bunched, fi ngers jamming around the edges, trying to pry open the cover.

With horror, I see the cover start to rise. She hasn't been able to apply the locks yet. The steel door rises high enough for them to wrap their fi ngers around the bottom— —when a gal eon of bodies pummels into them, knocking them off. Naked bodies everywhere, elbows jockeying for position, arms striking randomly in the air. The cover fal s back down. And this time, even with a dozen hands grabbing for the edges, the cover stays down. She's applied the locks.

Run! a voice in my head shouts. It's my own voice, barking at me.

Run! But my feet are cemented to the ground, my eyes glued to the monitors. I need to be sure she's fi ne.

She's fi ne, my voice tel s me again. She's locked in, there's no way they can break in. Everyone knows this.

Or will , and very soon. will know there's no way to get to the virgin female heper.

And they will remember, very soon, something else: the virgin male heper still in the Control Center. And that the male, unlike the female, is very accessible.

Run, Gene! And this time the voice is not my own, but Ashley June's. Run! Now's your chance to get out!

This is why she cut her palm. This is why she lured them al the way down to the Introduction. To give me the slimmest of windows through which to escape to the outside.

Run, Gene!

I run.

For the moment, the corridors are eerily quiet. Even the stairwel harbors only a faint murmuring, a backwater of hisses. I need to go down four fl ights, toward them, to get to the ground fl oor and then out.

I place my foot down on the fi rst step . . . and it's as if I've inadvertently triggered a button. Instantly, a roar shrieks up the stairwel , a bel ow of anger, frustration, realization, lust.

And then a grab bag of sounds: nails, teeth, hissing, clawing, bounding up the wal s and stairs. Toward me.

So soon, and they're coming.

I leap down to the next landing— toward them— and the impact sends a reverberation shooting up my legs and along my spine. Ashley June made it look easy. I grab for the railing with my left hand and— imitating her— swing my body around, leaping for the next landing, my body stil rattling.

From below, the bel ow of shrieks intensifi es. It's my fear, oozing off me in waves, they smel . I fl ing my body down another landing, just one more to go, even as they race up toward me. The impact is a sucker punch to my intestines. I col apse to my legs, cradling my midsection, doubled over in pain. My vision goes yel ow, red, black.

I get up, gritting my teeth against the pain, and heave my body to the landing on the ground fl oor. I glance down the well just before I land: long- nailed hands on the railing, a fl urry of bodies fl ashing by on the stairs, eyes glowing in the dark. Black oil gushing up at me, unleashed.

I burst through the doors on my left, get my legs working under me. Turn right, right, left, then I'l be in the foyer.

Twenty seconds away.

They are fi ve, ten seconds away.

With my legs fi l ing with lactic acid, I push for the exit, ignoring the mathematical certainty of my own demise. That is the exact phrase as it enters my turbulent head: the mathematical certainty of my own demise.

I turn right, knowing I have at most only two seconds of life left.

Race down the corridor, my form all but forgotten, just a rag dol pul ed along by fear, arms fl ailing out.

Five seconds later, as I turn down the last corridor into the foyer, I'm still alive. I'm almost blinking in surprise.

They must have shot past the ground- fl oor landing, thinking I was still up in the Control Center. I'm safe, I'm going to make— An explosive bang. They've burst through the doors on the ground fl oor, are already racing down the corridors toward me, fast and furious and desirous, panic now driving them, the panic that they might lose me to the sun outside. A dark sea, an incoming tide of black acid.

My feet sink into the cool Turkish- knotted royal carpet in the foyer. I turn to my left. There. The double- paneled front doors, thinly rimmed by the daylight outside. Twenty yards to freedom. I take off for them, every last ounce of energy long gone, somehow fi nding speed.

The deranged voices behind, the scrabble of nails on marble, skittering and slipping.

Ten yards away. My arms stretch forward, reaching for the door handle.

Something grabs my ankle.

It is warm and moist and sticky. But with enough soli***y and strength to keep its hold on me, to bring me to the ground.

I crash with a thud, air pushed out like a bagpipe squashed.

It's Phys Ed, the spongy stickiness of what remains of him, anyway, holding my ankle, pul ing himself toward me. Yel ow pus runs down his pizza face. His mouth, partial y toothless now (I see his fal en teeth scattered on his chest and the carpet), opens to hiss, but what comes out instead is a blubbering, sloppy mess of sounds.

I kick at him with my foot, but his grip around my ankle tightens. “Gah!” I shout. “Gah!” I strike out with my other foot, missing his hand but fi nding his face instead. My foot sinks in through the gooey stickiness— for one stomach- churning moment, I feel his eyebal pressed against the sole of my foot— before fi nding bone. What used to be bone. The head not so much explodes as peels off his neck.

No time to dwel . I'm on my feet, hand on the handle, pushing through the front doors. The brightness is blinding, but I don't stop. Not with the cries of anger and frustration baying right behind me. I run with squinting eyes, barely seeing, my feet slapping at the sand beneath me, intent only on creating more distance, more distance between me and the doors; and I don't stop, even when I know I'm far enough, but keep pounding the ground, and I'm shouting, “Gah! Gah! Gah!” not sure if this is because of anger or victory or defeat or love or fear. But I just keep shouting it over and over until I'm no longer shouting it but sobbing it, no longer running but facedown in the sand, bent over with fatigue, my hands clenching and unclenching sand, sand in my fi st, sand in my nostrils, sand in my mouth, throat, and the only sounds are my ragged breath and raspy sobs, my tears dripping down into the sand, bathed in the wonderful, painful, blinding light of day.

I am emptied of energy, thought, emotion, as I pick myself up and walk to the Dome. My bones are still jangling from the pounding they took on the stairwel . I examine my ankles: no swel ing and, more important, no cuts or scratches on my left ankle where I was grabbed. It is quiet, not even the sound of wind blowing. I make a wide arc around the library; I'm not overly worried that any other hunter will charge out, especial y with the SunCloak gone, but I'm not taking any chances. I think I hear a hissing, wet and slushy, coming from inside. But that recedes as I draw closer to the Dome.

And in the heper vil age, all is quiet.

“Hey!” Silence. “Hey!”

I walk into a mud hut. Empty, as expected. And the second mud hut is just as empty. Dust motes fl oat in a beam of sunlight.

And everywhere I go, it's the same. Empty. Not a heper in And everywhere I go, it's the same. Empty. Not a heper in sight.

Not in the vegetable patch, not under the apple trees, not on their training ground, not in any of the mud huts.

They're gone. From what I can gather, they left in a hurry.

Their breakfast sits half- eaten in the mess hal , slices of bread nibbled at, glasses half- ful with milk. I scan the plains, looking for a moving dot or a cloud of dust. But they're nowhere to be seen.

The pond offers the reprieve I seek: water. And space and sunlight and silence. I take a long drink, then lie down next to the pond, dangling my right arm and leg into the cool water. In about four hours, the wal s of the Dome will rise up, emptied of its former occupants. A new occupant will have taken their place— no, not an occupant, a prisoner. For that is what it is going to feel to me, alone within its glass wal s. A prisoner as surely as Ashley June is a prisoner within the wal s of the pit, down in the dark recesses of the earth.

How long can she last down there? The old male heper, they'd said, had stored enough food and water to last a month. But how long, alone in the darkness and cold, before you lost all hope? How long before your mind snapped under the constant scratching and tapping and pounding of the door above?

And why had she done it?

I know the answer, it's obvious, but I don't understand it.

She did it for me. She knew, as soon as she saw the SunCloaked man burst into the main building, that I'd be dead within minutes.

She did the only thing that would save me.

I run my left hand along the gravel, letting the sharpness pierce my palm. I bite my lower lip, unable to shake a feeling that I'm missing something crucial y important. An indelible sense that I'm loaf-ing when I should be hustling. I should be doing something— but what? I slap at the pond in frustration, letting water splash onto my body, my face.

I sit up. What am I missing? I replay in my mind the last images of Ashley June in reverse order: jumping into the pit, rushing into the Introduction, fl ying down the stairs, in the kitchen writing a letter, throwing it into the oven— I jolt up.

That wasn't an oven.

...

The Hunt
The Hunt Page 42



I read the letter over and over until the words are carved indelibly into my memory, until the impossibility of what she's asking sinks in.

Bring the hepers back. Those words speak to me, in Ashley June's voice, with a haunting realness. I hear the hushed, urgent in-fl ections of her voice. But there's nothing I can do— she must know this. I can't bring them back. The hepers are gone, and I have no idea 244 ANDREW FUKUDA where they are. And I can't randomly set off into the Vast, hoping to run into them. That's tantamount to randomly plunging my hand into the desert sand in the wild hope of coming up with a long- lost coin. And when night fal s and I'm still out there, it's over for me.

They'l sniff me out, hunt me down, as surely as they will the hepers.

I open my eyes, let the sun rip into my eyebal s, hoping the bright glare will erase her words from my mind. I walk to the training ground, looking for something to vent my frustration on, a spear to snap in two or a dagger to thrust at the side of a mud hut. But I can't fi nd anything. I kick at rocks on the ground, throw stones as far into the Vast as I can. And al the while, I have the gnawing sense that I'm missing something, not reading her letter right.

Bring the hepers back.

I ignore those words, pick up more stones and rocks. I'l head over to the apple tree to see if— Bring the hepers back.

“How am I supposed to do that?” I shout into the air. “When I don't even know where they are!”

Be quick, stable.

I crumple the paper in both hands, fl ing it as far as possible.

Be quick, stable. Her voice is audible in my head.

After a few moments, I walk over and pick up the bal ed paper, put out by my own histrionics.

The paper is now more crinkled than a smashed mirror, the words and phrases hung up in it like insects caught in a spider's web. A crease runs from top to bottom, right between “be quick”

and “stable.”

My head shoots up, suddenly seeing, understanding.

Be quick, stable Be quick, stable Be stable.

Be stable stable The stable is attached to the southern wing of the Institute. I stand outside the chrome- reinforced stable doors and listen careful y. Silence. No snarling, mewling, or hissing.

My fi ngers drum against my legs, indecision halting me. I reach for the door handle, give it a pul . It doesn't budge.

Solidly locked and fastened.

Then I hear it: the sound of a horse nickering. Oddly, it's coming from the outside, on the other side. I walk around: there's a parked brougham carriage, the jet black Arabian horse still harnessed to the frame. Probably belonging to a late guest who arrived after the stable hands had already retired and simply rushed off to join the festivities. Leaving behind the perfect gift.

I know better than to startle the horse by approaching from behind. I come at it on a diagonal, treading loudly on the ground.

Its head perks up immediately as it swings its muzzle in my direction.

“Atta boy, nice and easy,” I say as soothingly as possible.

It snorts, agitated, a spew of spit shooting out. Its large nostrils fl are wet and wide, almost as if blinking in surprise.

A heper? it seems to be asking.

That's a good thing. A horse that can sniff out hepers— exactly what I'm looking for.

I hold out my hand for it to sniff. Its whis kers brush against my fi ngers, prickly because they've been trimmed short. I stroke its neck, back and forth, not too light that I'm tickling it, but fi rm enough to be comforting and sure. The horse is well groomed and, with its high- carried tail, arched neck, and powerful y muscled hindquar-ters, clearly of good stock. And likely wel trained.

Agitated at fi rst, it calms quickly. When I sense it is ready, I un-hook the rein from the hitching post and lead the horse away. Its hooves clip- clop noisily on the gravel, not that I care. Nobody's rushing out in the daylight after me.

“Good boy, you're a good boy, aren't you?” It turns to look at me with large, intel igent eyes.

The carriage is also in tiptop shape. Wel oiled, the wheels turn smoothly and noiselessly. The horse snorts disagreeably. It thought I was taking it inside the stable to rest.

“Not yet, my boy. We still have some running to do today.”

It snorts again, in protest. But when I stroke its muzzle along its star and strip, it quiets. I pul it forward, and it fol ows with only a little urging. A good horse. I've lucked out.

I climb into the carriage, place the Scientist's journal next to me, and grab the reins in the driver's seat. The horse should get some nourishment before we take off, but its food is probably in the locked stable. I can't take that risk.

Or time.

“Ha!” I yel out, fl icking the reins.

The horse doesn't move.

“Ha! Ha! ” I yel louder. It stands stationary, unimpressed.

I'm not sure what to do. I've always ridden on horse back, never in a carriage. “Please,” I say softly, “let's go.”

And with a neigh, the horse trots out. Head held up high, confi dent and proud.

I could love this horse.

I stop by the Dome, letting the horse drink from the pond as I re-trieve clothes— the hepers'— from the mud huts. When I get back, the horse is still drinking, its muzzle half- submerged in the water. It lifts his head, snorting in appreciation. Sensing it's in a cooperative mood, I lift up the clothes to its muzzle. It seems to understand; its nostrils press into the shirts and shorts, one at a time, sniffi ng deep and hard until sure of the scent. A pause; it snorts one more time, a mist of water and mucus spraying out. Then, like a wise sage, it gazes with its large, sad eyes at the horizon. Blinks once, twice.

Then trots forward without further beckoning, not even waiting for me to hop back into the carriage. I grab hold of the rail, hoist myself up and onto the driver's bench.

Bring the hepers back.

Ashley June's handwritten words fl ash before me again.

I'm trying, I want to tel her , fast as I can. There are so many things I wish I could tel her. That I'm alive. That her sacrifi ce wasn't in vain. That I got her letter. And that I'm now doing my best to save her. I want to send her my thoughts, across the stretch of land between us, through the cement and metal and trapdoors, right into her mind.

Be quick.

I don't know, I want to tel her. I don't know if there's time. I don't know if I'l ever fi nd the hepers or convince them to come back with me. Don't know if they'l see right through my act, know that I'm just gaming them. That I mean to use them as bait, to bring them back here, into the hornets' nest, where they'l be so tantalizingly near that nobody— not the hunters, the guests, the staffers, the stable hands, sentries, escorts, kitchen help, the tailors, the reporters, the camera crew— will be able to resist. Certainly not once the blood of heper begins to fl ow and seep into the ground, the odor lifting and spreading into the air. And in that moment when not just dozens but hundreds of the disal owed and unauthorized join the feasting, that is when . . .

Even then, Ashley June, I don't know if I'l have time to slip in and rescue you.

Be quick.

“Tah!” I shout, snapping the reins harshly, more than the horse deserves. “Tah!” And the horse picks up speed— the ground becoming a blur beneath us— as ribbons of muscle ripple out of its haunches. The sudden pickup in speed is exhilarating, takes me out of myself; it whoosh es my breath away, making it hard to fi l my lungs. And as the Institute fal s away behind us, diminishing into a dot, as we begin to delve deeper into the unexplored Vast, something about the moment catches me. Perhaps it is the feel of wind in my hair, the sun splashing down on my face, the eastern mountains drifting ever so slowly closer, the bril iant black sheen of the horse, its mane fl owing so freely behind. But it's more than just the beauty.

It's the contradiction that does me in: how in this moment of un-speakable horror, I can be graced with this unexpected beauty. Of this place, of a horse. I tear up uncontrol ably. I don't know how to handle this contradiction.

“Ha!” I yel out at the top of my voice. The dust kicked up by the horse makes my voice craggy and hoarse. “Hah!”

Bring the hepers back.

I'm coming, Ashley June. Coming.

The Heper Hunt THE SAPPHIRE SKY spans high above as we ride deeper into the Vast. Isolated clouds blotch the sky like the untouched white spaces of a canvas otherwise painted deep blue.

As the terrain gives way to a hard, shal ow crust, the horse picks up speed, plowing ahead with a relentless fury. So fast that when we hit larger bumps, I get bounced off my seat; for a few exhilarating seconds, I'm fl ying.

I scan the land as best I can. Other than the rare sighting of a Joshua tree, there is little that interrupts the barren monotony of coarse grass and coarser terrain. No wildlife at all , not a single hyena or wild dog. Only vultures circling in the sky, disconcertingly over me.

And after half an hour of hard riding, not a heper in sight.

“Whoa, boy, whoa,” I shout, pul ing hard on the reins. It slows to a trot, then stops. A sheen of sweat glistens on its black body, streaming down its barrel chest and haunches.

...

The Hunt
The Hunt Page 43



It stares at me with those intel igent eyes again, blinks, then stares off vacantly into the distance.

I climb back into the carriage and stand on the driver's seat, scanning the endless expanse. Rising in front, looming larger than I've ever seen them, the eastern mountains, snow- capped at the peak; to my left and right, nothing but the barren plains, the horizon bereft of any movement. I look down at the horse. Is it possible it's been taking me for a ride all this time? Perhaps it has no idea where it's been maniacal y running, and I've mistaken the glint of insanity for the shine of sagacity.

As if overhearing my thoughts, it suddenly ****s its head, turning its left ear toward me. Then it points its muzzle into the air, sniffi ng. The wind is gusting about us now, kicking up sand. I see the horse's whis kers fl uttering in the crosswinds. It nickers, and just like that, we're off again. I barely have time to jump off the seat and grab the reins before we're fl ying across the plains, in a more southerly direction this time. In a much more southerly direction, as in a ninety- degree turn.

Now I'm really questioning if this horse knows what it's doing.

It's not running with conviction anymore, and every so often it'l slow down to a trot, muzzle in the air. Then, changing direction, it will charge off again. Maybe it's the wind that has really picked up, blowing every which way: one second blowing easterly, then shifting north, before heading south.

That might explain why the horse is having a tough time fol owing the scent.

The fi rst time I see the black dot in the sky, I mistake it for a distant fl ock of vultures. Then it grows in size and darkness, and I realize that it's a dark cloud growing like an inkblot. A tide of clouds fol ows it, black as the horse.

Be quick.

Wind lashes at me; the pages of the journal whip to and fro, almost dog- eared by the sheer force and fi ckle direction of the wind.

“Hah!” I yel , snapping the reins. The horse understands; it pounds its legs harder, as if my growing panic has somehow been absorbed into its body. Drifts of sand blow across the plains with astonishing speed, yel ow brown apparitions spiraling swiftly across the land.

Be quick.

More intensely than ever, I search the plains, hoping to fi nd movement in the diminishing light. But there is nothing. It doesn't seem to matter how far we ride into the Vast, the blank slate of land is never- changing.

“Keep going, boy!” I shout. But it grows more frustrated, de- railing, its breathing labored, its gal op less fl uid. It slows to a stop.

I jump off the bench, grab the clothes. This time, it's even less re-ceptive, pushing the clothes out of my hands with its muzzle. It stomps its hind hooves into the compacted earth, frustrated. The skies darken. Before too long, the clouds wil cover the sun and the land will be plunged into darkness. It'l be even more diffi cult to spot the hepers.

“We've got to keep tryin—”

The horse lifts its head. A sudden movement; it's caught something. Its nostrils, strings of saliva hanging across them, are like dark eyes suddenly seeing. The horse lurches forward. Just in time, I grab a rail and swing back into the carriage, the heper clothes dropping to the ground.

Not that the horse needs them anymore. It gal ops hard and straight, not a doubt left in its direction. Resolve and straight, not a doubt left in its direction. Resolve and urgency thump in the pounding of its hooves, as if to make up for lost time, as if knowing thickening bands threaten to darken the skies.

Ten minutes later, I see them. A tiny line of dots, like ants.

“Over there, horsey! Over there!” But its needs no encouragement or direction.

By the time we reach the hepers, they've clumped together defensively. I slow the horse, then get off some distance away. I don't want to come on them too hard or fast.

They look worn and fatigued, and their faces are lined with angst.

When they speak, it is to one another, not to me.

“I told you we should have checked the stable. A carriage would have helped, oh, I don't know, maybe about six hours ago,” Epap says snidely.

“I did,” Sissy says. “While you were busy gathering up al your precious drawings. The stable was locked. Like it always is.”

“Wel , he found a horse and carriage.”

They are all staring at me now, Epap and Sissy with suspicion.

Each of them is carry ing a heavy knapsack, sheathed knives and spears tied to the side, water bottles slung over their shoulders. And attaché cases, fi ve in all . Dust and sand cake their hair and faces and clothes.

“You must come with me,” I say. My voice is high- pitched with the deceit that lies in my heart.

They stare wordlessly at me.

“Now,” I urge. “There's little time to waste.”

Epap steps forward. “Where?” he says, his voice barbed.

“Back. Back to the Dome.”

Epap's mouth drops, then curls into a sneer. “This letter,” he says, reaching into his back pocket, “we got it through the Umbilical this morning. It says that the Dome's malfunctioned. The light sensor's damaged. The Dome won't close at dusk.”

“So they told you about a shelter. Gave you a map and told you to make haste. That it's about six hours away.” I pause.

“What if I tel you that's all a lie? The Dome's not broken.

There is no sanctuary.” It's easy to speak with conviction— everything I've said so far is true. And they sense it, too.

Panic fl oods their eyes, tightens their shoulders. I see little Ben look with worry into the distance. No shelter in sight, although by now they should be on top of it. They all know it.

Sissy, who's been quiet up until now, speaks. “Why are they doing this?”

“Get in the carriage. I can tel you as we ride back. But we have to hurry.”

“I'm not getting into that carriage— which might very wel become a coffi n— until you tel us what's going on,” Epap snarls at me.

So I tel them. all about the Heper Hunt. Why they've been given weapons. The reason there's been so much activity over the past few days at the Institute.

“Bol ocks,” Epap says. “Would you listen to the nonsense this guy's spewing?”

Sissy, staring intently at me, says, “Go on.”

“We have to go back to the Dome. It's not broken.” And now begins the lie. “You'l be safe there. We get there before sundown, the wal s will come up. Imagine the surprise on their faces when they rush out for the Heper Hunt and you're all right there roast-ing marshmal ows, safely cocooned inside the Dome.”

Epap spins around at the others, looks at Sissy. “We can't believe him. If he's lying and we go back, then we're dead.

The sun goes down, the Dome doesn't come up, we're toast.”

“And if I'm tel ing the truth, and you don't go back, then you're dead out here.”

“We can't trust him!”

“How do you think your parents died?” I explode. “It wasn't on a fruit expe***ion. It was the Heper Hunt, they were sent out to be hunted! Just like you're being sent out right now!

Can't you see?

Isn't it obvious? The very same thing is happening again. A letter sending you out into the Vast, out of the safety of the Dome. How can you be so gul ible?”

Sissy's face is torn with confl ict.

“Sissy, don't listen to him!” Epap cries. “He could have told us about this supposed Heper Hunt yesterday, but he didn't, did he?

Why should we believe anything he's told us? I bet he's not even the Scientist's replacement!”

At the mention of the Scientist, an idea springs into my head.

“Wait here.” I run back to the carriage and fetch the journal.

“This journal was written by the Scientist. It's all about the Heper Hunt.

Now you tel me if I'm lying.” I hand the journal to Sissy, who turns it over in her hands, shoots me a suspicious look, then opens to the fi rst page. The others huddle around her.

They are quiet as they read, their bodies tensing as the minutes go by. Sissy's expression turns from horror to disbelief to anger.

“Now do you believe me?” I ask softly.

None of them speaks. Final y, David steps forward. “I don't know who to believe: you or this letter. But according to the map on the letter, the shelter is within reach; and now that we have a carriage, we'l be able to cover a lot more distance quickly. If we can't fi nd it, then we'l head back to the Dome.”

“That map's a crock. There is no shelter.”

It darkens, suddenly. I spin around, look at the sun. A thin cloud, like intestinal entrails, drags across it.

Be quick.

“C'mon, let's go!” I say, my voice rising.

“No!” Epap says.

“Look at my map, then! In the journal. There's no sanctuary in there. It's got every fl ora and fauna and stone and rock, but doesn't it strike you as odd that he'd miss something as obvious as a shelter? You go if you want, I'm done arguing with you, that shelter is nothing more than a mirage.” It's a total...

The Hunt
The Hunt Page 44



I reach out for his arm, but he brushes my arm aside.

“Stop it.” Spoken quietly but with command. “We all stay together. Every one of us.” Sissy is looking past us, west, back to where the Institute lies.

“We can't trust him,” Epap says.

“We can and we will . He's right. There's no time. Those clouds mean business.”

Epap spits into the ground. “Why are you so quick to believe him?”

She looks at him for a long time, as if giving him a chance to come up with the obvious answer on his own. “Because,”

she says, walking to the carriage, “he didn't have to come out here, did he?”

Ben sits next to me on the driver's seat. The other four squeeze into the carriage as we race back to the Institute.

They are quiet in the back, gazing out the windows. Sissy is nose- deep in the journal, studying it intensely.

“What's the horse's name?” Ben asks.

“I don't know.”

“Maybe you and I can think of a name together.”

“I don't think so. Let's just be quiet, okay?” I say tersely. I'm not in the mood to talk. Something about leading a boy to his death kil s conversation.

He's quiet for only a little while. “So glad you came. As soon as I saw the dust cloud, I knew it had to be you.

Everyone else was freaking out, they thought it was one of them. I knew it couldn't be, not with the sun out.” He gazes awestruck at the horse. “So awesome that you came by horse. We've been trying forever to steal a horse from the stable.”

Despite myself, I'm curious. “Why's that?”

“Sissy wants out. She hates the Dome. Cal s it a prison.”

“Why didn't you all just escape years ago? Dome wal s come down, you get away, as far as you can.”

Ben shakes his head with too much sadness for a boy his age.

“Wouldn't be able to get far enough. Even in the summer, when the sun's out fourteen hours, we'd only be able to travel forty miles, tops.

Once night comes, they'd only take three hours to cover that distance. Besides, there's nowhere to go. It's all just open land, endless.”

The wind has picked up again, stirring the clouds into a more ominous hue. More plumes of sand sail across the plains, ghosts scurrying as if afraid of their own shadows.

At times the wind catches the carriage at an angle, whistling through it with an eerie jubilation.

An unbroken swath of clouds moves across the face of the sun.

Sunshine peeks through the gauzy haze, then disappears altogether.

The Vast plummets into the gray darkness of a day gone dead.

Ben places his hand on my thigh, afraid.

I look down at his hand, chubby and guileless. We hit a bump and he scoots even closer to me.

“It's okay,” I tel him.

“What?”

“It's okay,” I shout, “everything's going to be okay.”

He looks up at me, his lips drawn tight across his face, his eyes tearing up. Two streaks cut across his face, across the caked dirt.

He nods once, twice, his eyes never leaving mine.

Something breaks inside me. I tear my eyes away.

Be quick.

It's one thing to plan for something like this, another to execute it.

Never forget.

I pul up on the reins, stopping the horse. Ben looks quizzical y at me. “Hey,” I say, staring straight ahead, “you need to go into the carriage.”

“There's no room.”

“Yes. There is. I need to be alone for this last bit, okay?”

“Why have we stopped?” Epap says, leaning out of the window.

“He's joining you all ,” I say matter- of- factly. “There's no room up here.” I jump down, indicating to Ben to fol ow suit.

“There's no room in here,” Epap replies. “Seems like you've done plenty fi ne so far.”

“Why don't you shut your trap?” I yel .

They pour out of the carriage at that, tension fi l ing the air between us. I look at David and Jacob standing by Epap.

“Do you always need their help in your fi ghts?” I ask.

“Shut up!” Epap yel s.

“Easy, Epap,” Sissy says, climbing out the carriage, “he's just trying to provoke you.”

“And do you always need her around tel ing you what to do?” I ask him.

He's gathering his body to throw himself at me— I see his legs bend, his mouth downturn— when a horn sounds across the plains.

Coming west, from the direction of the Institute.

For a moment, we're so completely stunned that we simply stare at one another. Then, slowly, we turn our heads.

We see nothing across the plains. Just a gray band of darkness, sitting on the horizon.

Then another blast of the horn, a forlorn, meandering sound.

“What's happening?” Epap asks. “What's that sound?”

all eyes turn to me.

“The Hunt,” I say. “It's begun. They're coming.”

“It's just our ears playing tricks on us, wind hitting those boulders,” Epap says, pointing to our left at fi ve large boulders piled messily on one another.

Nobody responds.

“There,” Ben says, standing on the driver's seat, his fi nger pointing out like a weather vane. Directly ahead of us, in the direction of the Institute. His voice is neutral, almost casual.

“I don't see anything, Ben,” Sissy says.

“Over there!” he says, his voice getting more excited now, afraid.

And then we all see it. In the far distance, a cloud of dust, puff-ing upward.

I feel my internal organs fal ing through a trapdoor suddenly opened.

The hunters are coming. How fast.

I try not to think of Ashley June. still in a dark, cold cel , holding out hope— Somebody grabs me by the scruff of my neck. “You've got some explaining to do.” Epap's voice. “What's going on?”

“Let go of me!” I shout, swinging my arm back. I connect with his cheekbone. His head goes fl ying back, then snaps forward, rage raving in his eyes. He smacks back, a stony fi st surprising me with its bite. Before I can respond, he's pummeled me in my stomach, winding me. I double over, fal to my knees. But he's not done with me yet. He kicks me in the side of my ribs. A fl ash of white washes across my vision.

“You're just a wimp! You're just an emaciated, emol ient fake!

You couldn't blow the pods off a daffodil if your life depended on it.”

Bring the hepers back.

“Tel us what's going on!” he yel s.

I spit blood out on the ground. It splatters the dirt, splintered, like a pigeon's footprint. I close my eyes: everything's still a washed-out white.

“They're coming,” I say.

“Who's coming?!”

“The hunters!”

There is a long silence. I can't lift my head to meet their eyes.

Then we hear it again. This time not just a solitary howl, but a chorus of them.

My blood. They've picked up the scent already.

“Now you've done it, you idiot,” I say. “Now you've made it easier for them to fi nd us.”

“No. To fi nd you, not us.” Epap turns to the others. “I say we leave this guy here. We take off in the carriage. That will —”

“No,” Sissy says.

“No,” Sissy says.

“But Sissy, we—”

“No, Epap! You're right: we can't trust him. There's more going on than he's letting on. But that's exactly why we can't leave him.

We need what he knows.” She walks over, dirt kicking onto me.

“He's a survivor,” she says. “We know that much. If he can survive, then sticking around him will only increase our own chances of survival.” Her eyes blaze into mine. “So start speaking. What do we do?”

I stand up, my crestfal en heart suddenly galvanizing. “We go toe- to- toe with them and fi ght.” I dust off sand from my clothes.

“We surprise them by not fl eeing. Because that would be the very last thing they'd expect from you. They think you're weak, cow-ardly, disor ga nized. But to stand toe- to- toe with them, go blow for blow. That would catch them by surprise.”

Epap starts to interrupt: “We don't stand a chance—”

“Yes, we do! Look, I've seen the way you handle the fl ying daggers and spears. You could infl ict real damage. They never expected you to become so adept— those weapons were only supposed to serve a cosmetic purpose. And look at us.

We've got numbers on them. There's only three hunters left.

And there's six of us. And we've got fi ve freakin' FLUNs between us. We can do this. We can take them down. And then there'l be nothing between us and safety, the Dome.”

“You're nuts, you know that?” Epap shouts. “You have no idea what they're capable of. One of them has the power and speed of ten of us. So we're actual y outnumbered, you idiot, thirty to six. Outnumbered, outpowered, outsped.

Fighting them is pure suicide.”

Epap is right; I know that. There's...

The Hunt
The Hunt Page 45



They grow quiet at that. They know I'm right. On the carriage, Ben starts to cry. Even the horse, gazing at the cloud, starts to whinny.

Sissy takes two steps toward me. “What about the map?”

she asks. I'm surprised by the softness in her voice, how quiet she is despite the situation.

“What about it?”

“It shows a boat to the north of us. Tied to a dock. If we can get there in time, there might be a chance.”

“Are you nuts? You can't trust that map. The Scientist was crazy.”

“Not to us. He seemed reasonable.”

I stare north, in the direction of where the boat would be. “If the boat is real, why didn't he ever tel you about it?”

A frown creases her brow. “I don't know. But what I do know is that everything else in the map is accurate. The ridges, the mountains, everything is where it's depicted on the map. Even the boulders over there,” she says, pointing at them. “And so why not the boat?”

I shake my head. “Look, even if it exists— and it doesn't— you'l never get to it in time.”

“I'd rather die trying.”

We can't fl ee, we must stay and fi ght, I remind myself. The only chance of saving Ashley June is to fi ght back against the hunters. I raise my voice: “And I'm tel ing you the only option for survival is to fi ght them head- on.”

Epap lurches forward. “C'mon, Sissy. Let's go. Leave him here, already.”

The hepers aren't stupid. They know a doomed fi ght when they see one, they know their chances are better if they fl ee. I need to come up with a plan. One that will convince them to stay and fi ght. I stare at the hepers. Fear has shriveled their faces; they look tiny and vulnerable out here in the Vast, without the protection of the Dome around them. And then a thought occurs to me. The hunters don't even know I'm with the hepers. They must think I'm alone, separated from the hepers, a solo fugitive, and there's no reason for them to believe otherwise. And the smel of my blood, even across the miles of the Vast, now overpowers any trail of the hepers' odor.

I look at the hepers, their weapons, the FLUNs. And at the boulders toppled atop one another, high and encaving. I blink. And there it is. A plan.

Sissy steps forward, stands right in front of me with a look of curiosity. “What is it? You look like you thought of something.”

I look at them in turn, locking in on each pair of eyes for a few seconds. “Tuck tail, run away if you're too scared. But if you want to join me and fi ght back, I have a plan,” I fi nal y say.

The night merges with black. Not a speck of light in the skies, the stars hidden by gargantuan dark clouds shifting above, bloated continents of brooding darkness. The eastern mountains are gone, their once silhouetted borders breached by blackness.

I am alone. Sitting on the ground, leaning back on a boulder. In my hand is a spear that Sissy gave me right before she disappeared into the darkness. I place the tip of the spear against the palm of my hand and pause. It is al emptiness before me, the Vast stretched in an endless gray that is not quite black yet. Only the boulder I lean back on keeps me company. Its surface is cold and brittle against my back, but in this endless sea of aqueous darkness, its soli***y is strangely consoling.

I press the spear tip into my fl esh and slice downward.

It leaves a smal slash, and only a dribble of blood trickles out.

But for the hunters chasing me down, that is more than enough; it is a light house fl ashing in a sea of darkness.

And only a few seconds later, the cry of hunger slices across the Vast. Already so close, so much louder, the intonations of desire heightened. They will be here soon, in less than a minute.

I fi st my hand and squeeze. More blood sluices out.

Enough now to overwhelm their olfactory senses; not a chance they will be distracted by any faint heper odor. I feel the pulse of blood against the cut, a push- push of seepage, oddly unsynchronized with the rapid, frightful beating of my heart.

The hepers left me with this spear and nothing else.

A skittering sound, sand tossed harshly across the ground, whispery hisses lisp into my ears.

The hunters have arrived.

I stand up, my knees buckling.

A hazy fl ush of movement, darting from left to right. Then another in the opposite direction, just outside my cone of vision.

Three shapes emerge from the darkness, faintly at fi rst, then attain-ing defi nition.

Abs.

Crimson Lips.

Gaunt Man.

And then, solidifying out of the milky gray, two more shapes emerge, phantomlike at fi rst, then all too horrifyingly real.

Fril y Dress.

The Director.

I expected only three of them, not fi ve.

all fi ve of them are gruesomely naked, SunBlock Lotion whipped over their bodies like buttercream frosting. Where the lotion has worn off, open sores gouge their skin like volcanic craters, glistening red raw even in the dark. The effects of a whole day in the library with sunlight pouring in.

It is their eyes that are the most chil ing, the naked anger bristling behind their eyebal s, raw hatred mixed with a pulsating lust for my blood.

“Aren't you a sight for sore eyes,” I say.

They edge forward, snarling at me. Slowly, a few yards at a time, creeping toward me.

Something is wrong: this is not how I envisioned the scene would play out. They are much too control ed; an unbridled feeding frenzy was what I imagined, bodies soaring at me, fangs bared, a race to get me, to tear through me. That I would be ripped into a dozen different pieces within seconds. But this seems too methodical.

“Did you not get your beauty sleep today?” I say. “Because you all look terrible.”

They start to spread out in a wide arc.

My eyes are on all of them, but especial y the Director, directly in front of me. He is the calmest of the lot, his breathing steady, his feet stepping with fastidiousness on the desert gravel. His long left arm is dangling down, his nails delicately tapping his kneecap, his right arm kept strangely behind his back.

“We've decided to play a game,” he says.

“Do tel .”

Gaunt Man is on my far left, hunkering lower even as he continues to move down an imaginary arc.

“I'm trying to decide what to cal this game. The Sharing Game and the Savoring Game are probably the top contenders.”

Fril y Dress is rol ing on my right, slowly, like a guttered bowling bal , her eyes fi l ed with wet anticipation. Her mounds of fat lol downward off her body, like pregnant water droplets about to drip off. Her teeth are bared, a faint hiss sluicing out. She continues to rol right until she hits up against the boulder.

As does Gaunt Man on my left. Each of the hunters holds position; they look at the Director as if for further instructions. Then they edge closer, the circle shortening, tightening.

“See, we need to make an example of you,” the Director continues. “You've made a mockery of the Hunt, of the Institution, of the Ruler. And of me. My reputation has been irreparably damaged. What kind of heper expert wouldn't be able to detect a heper right under his nose?” And for the fi rst time, his voice betrays emotion. A hitch. “It is not enough to simply devour you. That would be too quick— for us and for you. So, we have decided— my suggestion, of course— to share you, to savor you. Slowly. Luxuriantly.

One piece at a time.”

And still they inch forward, eyes swiveling back and forth, examining me, behind me.

Crimson Lips suddenly darts forward at me.

“Stop!” the Director yel s, and Crimson Lips fal s into a frozen crouch, her body erect, like a startled cat. And for the fi rst time I see a FLUN in the Director's right hand, pointed at Crimson Lips.

It must be Ashley June's FLUN, the one left behind in the library.

Crimson Lips retreats back into formation.

“It's hard to play this game, sometimes our excitement can get the better of us.” He swivels his head about at each of the hunters.

“Proceed,” he says.

They creep closer, the circle enclosing, everyone staying in formation. Eyes constantly on the move, scrutinizing me.

“We will take you piece by piece, each of your limbs at a time,” the Director says.

“The two male hunters will rip off each of your arms, and the two ladies will rip off your legs, one by one. We'l space it out, maybe fi ve minutes between limbs? We'l be sure to keep you alive through it all . It will play out so wel for the book, see? Draw out this ending, really keep the readers on edge. A heart- thumping climax like no other.” He stares at me, his eyes glistening wetly over as if drooling. “Last to go will be me. I get your head.”

“And then what?”

The Director leans back like a wolf howling at the night sky, scratching his wrist with rabid delirium. “Did you really say, ‘And then what?' What does it matter to you? You're dead!”

He pauses, studying me. “Oh, are you concerned about your heper buddies?

Don't you worry about them. We'l get to them eventual y.

Even in this large desert, we'l fi nd them.”

They don't know where the other hepers are, I think.

“And then we go back to your...

The Hunt
The Hunt Page 46



Abs cries out in frustration and impatience, “Enough talking, let us have at him already!” Her tongue darts across her scabbed lower lip, hard and insistent like a cal us fi ler.

“Let me in on him!”

She crouches low, readying herself.

The Director lifts his head, scans the scenery, an establishing shot for the viewers back home. “Very wel , then, remember to take only the left leg and nothing else.

Everyone else stay in line,” he says, tapping the FLUN.

“You'l have your turn. And now, for the plea sure of the Most Excel ent Ruler and for the delighting of his good citizens, I now—”

And even before he's fi nished speaking, Abs is bounding toward me, on all fours like a rabid hyena, her hair streaming behind her in impossibly straight lines. And though she is moving with lightning quickness, everything seems to slow down. I see everything: her lips pul ed back, her face nothing more than a yawning black hole of sharp teeth, her eyes burnished with a red glow.

And I see the other hunters, a split second later, leaping forward as wel , their bodies unable to resist, their rear legs uncoiling like a cheetah's, propel ing their streamlined bodies through the air, their nails and claws fi nding traction in the desert gravel as they land and then push off again, sailing toward me with a grace that belies their violent intentions.

I see the Director, his face bland but eyes fi l ed with seething anger, lifting the FLUN at Crimson Lips and Abs, his hand shaking with rage and surprise.

And Abs launches herself at me for the fi nal time, arms stretched out, soaring through the air, saliva and snot fl ailing behind her, her opened mouth turning sideways as it homes in on my Adam's apple.

A harsh beam of light, then a brief white blindness. A scream pierces the night. The stench of burning fl esh fi l s my nose. A second later, I see Abs curled on the ground, screaming, a hole burning where her col arbone is. Used to be.

The Director, staring dumbly at his FLUN, does not understand.

Another beam of light shoots out, from behind and above me.

From someone standing on the boulder. This one hits Crimson Lips in her upper thigh just as she is taking off for m e . “Cha!” she yel s, reaching down uselessly with her hand. Smoke shoots out from her thigh.

“Gene! Get down!” screams Sissy.

And I fal to my knees just as Fril y Dress soars toward me, her momentum carry ing her over me, her nails ripping the back of my shirt. She lands on my other side with an effi cient somersault, starts coming at me again instantly.

Another shot from above, this one wildly off target, hitting empty desert ground.

From the periphery of my vision, I see a dark shape— Gaunt Man— leaping up the boulders. “Jacob!” I shout.

“Watch your side, he's fl anking us on your side!”

Fril y Dress is leaping toward me, her snarling mouth like a smile.

Someone screams behind me— David? Ben?— naked fear ringing out.

Another beam shoots out, this one from the far side of the boulder, a complete misfi re into the sky. I hear Epap —“Sissy! Help me over here”— his voice whittled with fear.

Then a series of fl ashes creates a strobe- light effect: Fril y Dress's lunge at me is staccato- like and jagged. And then she is suddenly fl ying above me, descending with her terrible size and weight. Her eyes are fi xed on mine, intense and focused as a lover's.

A circle of light fl ashes from above; her head is instantly haloed by a nimbus of light. Halfway down, her body goes limp.

Her body crushes over mine, sagging. I pry her off, the smel of charred fl esh rancid and nauseating. Smoke bil ows out from the back of her head. I glance up. Sissy stares down at me, then turns to Epap at the sound of his voice: “I'm out, Sissy, I'm out the fi rst FLUN!”

I spin around, scan the scene before me. Only Fril y Dress remains prostrate on the ground; Abs and Crimson Lips are leaping to their feet now, their bodies scorched with burns but adrenaline and anger and hunger propel ing them off the ground. They're running to the boulder, launching themselves up.

Jacob, atop one of the boulders, is bent over his FLUN, uselessly pul ing and pul ing on the trigger. The safety switch, he's forgotten to disengage the safety. He hasn't fi red off a single round; that's one reason the plan is failing so miserably. Yards away, Gaunt Man has crested the top of the boulder, is beginning to leap for Jacob.

Nothing is going as planned. Because of the hepers' inability to use the FLUNs, all advantage is gone: a crisp ambush from the hidden recesses of the boulders— gone; the element of surprise— gone; an overpowering, coordinated attack— gone. My plan is now torn to shreds.

As we all likely will be soon, unless something is done.

And quickly.

“Jacob!” I scream at him. “Throw me the FLUN!” He turns to me, fear in his eyes. From the other side of the boulders, panic-ridden beams fl ash uselessly in quick succession— it's Epap, sense-lessly wasting all the rounds in his second and last FLUN. In the fl ashes, I see tears streaking down Jacob's face, his mouth twisted in panic. “Now, Jacob, throw me the FLUN!”

He fl ings it to me; it's a perfect throw. It has to be. I disengage the safety, fi ring off a beam even as my arm is stil swinging upward. It shoots out, hitting Gaunt Man square on the nose. But the FLUN is still set at its lowest setting. Gaunt Man is merely knocked off his feet, landing on his back, stunned. He's already getting up, coming again at Jacob.

I reset the FLUN to its highest setting, look up. Gaunt Man is almost on top of Jacob now. I fi re off another round. The beam misses left of Gaunt Man by about a yard. He spins, snarls at me. I aim right between his eyes and shoot my last round. The beam fl ies just over his head, a few inches too high. But he's blinded momentarily. For a few seconds, anyway.

“Get off the boulders!” I yel , tossing away the expended FLUN.

“Everyone, get off now. Regroup down here.”

And I see the hepers tumbling down, their faces taut with fear.

Epap lands near me; I grab him by the col ar, lifting him up.

“Where're your FLUNs?” I ask.

He shakes his head grimly.

Sissy is right behind, leaping down from the top of the boulder, pul ing Jacob roughly down with her. They land in a pile; Epap and I are already hauling them to their feet.

No one has a FLUN.

We start retreating immediately, away from the boulder.

Epap grabs the spear I dropped from the ground, then we start sprinting from the boulders.

The hunters are leaping off the boulders now. Gaunt Man lands on the still - prostrate Fril y Dress, letting her motionless fl accid body cushion his fal . all three hunters are FLUN- wounded, but their pain only feeds into their blood thirst.

“Now, David. We need you now!” Sissy yel s into the air.

The hunters stoop down, then start racing toward us with ear-piercing shrieks.

“Where is he!” Epap screams, running to the right, searching.

“David!”

“We need FLUNs,” I shout.

“Screw the FLUNs,” Sissy yel s, and reaches down to the dagger strap tied around her waist. In a heartbeat, she's slid out a dagger; in one motion she pushes me aside, whips her hand away from the strap, and fl ings her arm out, across her chest from left to right. Just as her arm reaches ful stretch, the dagger fl ies out from under her hand, palm facing down. The dagger shoots out, a blur of light. She doesn't pause to see if she's hit the mark; instantly she's reaching down for another dagger, unstrapping and fl inging, then unstrapping and fl inging yet again. Three daggers in the air, slicing through the night toward the three hunters charging at us.

We need a FLUN, I think. Daggers will do nothing— The fi rst dagger hits Crimson Lips in the leg. To my surprise, she screams in pain, tumbling to the ground, clutching her thigh, the hilt of the dagger jutting out.

The second dagger catches Abs in the shoulder. She spins in the air as if by a violent whiplash, then crashes ungainly to the ground, squealing. The dagger has pierced right through her body, the blade slicing out her back under her shoulder blade.

How is she doing this? How can the daggers be wreaking such devastating force?

And then I realize what Sissy has done. She has aimed at the very points on each hunter where the FLUNs have already infl icted signifi cant damage. In the X mark of FLUN- punctured soggy fl esh and disintegrating muscle and milky yel ow discharge. In Abs' col arbone, in Crimson Lips' thigh. The only spots where a dagger could infl ict signifi cant damage.

But the third dagger. It's headed straight for Gaunt Man's nose.

And he's already seen what's happened to the other two hunters. He ducks down in the last mil isecond; the dagger sails over his head.

And without breaking stride, he still comes at us. Specifi cal y, he's charging at Sissy, trying to reach her before she can throw another dagger.

And he's going to make it, by a long margin. Sissy is fl uid and quick as she reaches down to her hip for a dagger, but not fast enough, not by half. She's unstrapping the dagger, has her fi ngers on the blade, when Gaunt Man leaps at us.

Sissy looks up; her face fal s.

She...

The Hunt
The Hunt Page 47



“Let's go, please let's just go.” It's Ben in the carriage, smeared tears glistening on his cheekbones.

“It's okay, we're going to leave now, okay, everything's fi ne,”

Epap says.

We're all piling in. Something is wrong, though, something I can't put my fi nger on.

“Wait,” I shout. I grab Epap's shoulder to stop him from getting in. “Get out!”

“What is it?” His eyes aren't angry, as I thought they might be. Instead, fear dots his eyes.

I spin around, trying to fi gure something out. My eyes catch Sissy's eyes. They're a refl ection of my own: a sense of impending danger, that we've forgotten something— Someone.

“The Director,” I whisper.

I spin around, eyes scanning the darkness. Nothing.

“Nobody move,” I whisper.

We all freeze, barely able to breathe. He's out there, behind the wal of darkness, watching us. I know it. Waiting for us to expend all our weapons, to tire ourselves out on the other hunters. Watching and waiting for us to crowd into the carriage; once we're packed in like sheep in a pen, he'l fl y in for an enclosed orgy of frenzied feasting, his teeth and claws slashing wildly like razor blades, turning the carriage into a bloody coffi n.

Sissy knows it, too. Without moving, she whispers, “David, give me the FLUN we left with you.”

“It doesn't work,” he says. “I tried to shoot it, but it wouldn't fi re—”

“The safety,” Sissy says. “Gene told you to disengage—”

“How?! I don't know how—”

The horse's head suddenly snaps to the left, its nose fl aring in panic.

A black shape fl ows out of the darkness, unnervingly fast.

The Director comes at us silently, bounding on all fours, twenty yards at a time, the speed pul ing his cheeks back, peeling his lips away, leaving his teeth bared in what looks like a sickening, jovial smile.

He fl ings his body upward, toward me. He is coming for me fi rst.

I close my eyes to die.

Seconds later, I'm still alive; when I open my eyes, he's standing in front of us, ten yards away. He is not looking at me. Or at Sissy.

He's looking behind us.

I turn. David is standing on the driver's seat, the FLUN pointing at the Director. Behind his hand, hidden from the Director, I see the safety switch. still engaged.

“It's on the highest setting,” David says, his voice sturdy.

“Set to kil .”

The Director scratches his wrist. “A little boy wants to play hero. So cute.”

“The FLUN that's strapped on your back,” David says, ignoring his words, “throw it over here.”

“What's it to you? I can't possibly hurt you with it—”

“Just throw it now!” David yel s, fear sparking off his words.

His eyes fl icker toward the boulders. Dark shapes are beginning to pick themselves up off the ground.

“Ahh, I see,” the Director says, observing. “You're worried about the other hunters.”

“No,” David says. “Just you. You're the only one I'm worried about right now. And that's why I'm about to shoot you in three seconds unless you hand over the FLUN.”

And there must be something about David's tone, because the Director does just that. The FLUN lands at Sissy's feet.

She picks it up.

“Now what?” the Director asks. He studies David's face.

“Are you really going to kil me? Why, I've known you since you were born.

I've seen you grow up, from when you were just a little bay- be. I was the one who sent you all those gifts on your birthday, the books, the cake, do you remember that? Are you real y—”

“Yes,” Sissy says, and fi res a round into his chest.

In a blur, the Director darts back. The beam grazes off his chest, superfi cial damage. But enough to slow him down.

He fl its away into the dark, retreating.

Sissy nods at us; everyone quickly piles into the carriage. I jump onto the driver's seat, grab the reins. Sissy sits next to me, her body twisted around, scanning the dark, her fi nger on the trigger of the FLUN.

“You think you've won?” The Director's voice, booming out from the darkness. “You think you've gotten the better of us? You?

You stinkin' hepers.”

I look at Sissy; she shakes her head: Can't see him.

“You've just delayed the inevitable. Listen: Can you hear it?”

Nothing but the wind.

And then I hear it. A faint rustling, like dry autumn leaves trampled on. But mixed in, sharp, nattering sounds, metal fi lings rubbed in glass shards. Sissy turns in the direction of the noise, toward the distant Institute. Her face drops, aghast with horror.

A hazy wal of deeper darkness rises up like a tsunami wave crashing toward us.

“The good citizens are coming,” the Director jeers. “Al the guests, all the staffers, all the media. Hundreds of them.

Somebody disengaged the lockdown. Once they realized that, there was no holding them back, the good citizens, no containing them. I could only hope to beat them, the hunters and I, by using the hunting accessories to get a head start.

Alas . . .” His voice droops off.

More sounds from afar now, distant cries and squeals of desire.

“My goodness, can you imagine the frenzy when they realize all the hepers are still alive?”

I grab the reins, pound them on the horse. We lurch forward.

Toward the only option left to us. The boat. If it even exists.

I'm sorry, Ashley June, I'm sorry. . . .

“They're coming!” he screams, his voice trailing us as we begin to fl y across the plains. “They're coming, they're coming, they're coming, they're . . .”

We skim along the harsh terrain, the horse fl ying faster than ever before. But where its form was once graceful, it is now jerky, desperate, panicked. As the minutes pass, the strain becomes more obvious.

The pursuing wal of dust has faded slightly. But it is the deepen-ing darkness, and not increasing distance, that gives the il usion of disappearance. The volume of snarls and screams has only grown.

Sissy sits next to me now, looking at the map. With sunlight long gone, the map is fading on the page, colors receding into the blankness of white. Her fi ngers trail a rough path across the map, her head swiveling around for landmarks.

“We've got to go faster!” she yel s into my ear.

Blood still seeps from the cut on my hand. I do my best to stem the fl ow, pressing a cloth against it, a tricky maneuver while trying to steer a horse.

I feel fi ngers on my hand, prying the cloth away.

She folds it over, presses it in hard. “You've got to stop bleeding,” she says.

“It's okay, it doesn't really hurt that much.”

She presses in deeper. “I'm not worried about the pain. I'm worried about how your blood is giving our position away.”

I reach out and pul off the cloth. “Don't worry about stanch- ing the blood. They can see us perfectly fi ne in this darkness.”

She looks back for a few second, and when she turns around, worry is etched on her face. I don't need to ask.

The sound of the charging masses behind us grows by the minute.

“The map's gone white,” she says, disheartened.

“It's okay,” I say, eyes focused ahead. “We don't need it.

Just need to keep going straight, and we'l hit the river.

Fol ow the river north, and soon enough we'l come upon the boat. Simple as that.”

“Simple as that,” she repeats. She shakes her head.

“That's what you said about your plan against the hunters. It was a catastrophe back there. I thought you said there were only going to be three of them, not fi ve.”

“Al of you assured me you could handle the FLUNs. Instead you had Epap in utter panic and shooting off all his rounds in the fi rst fi ve seconds. And then there's Jacob, who couldn't get off even a single shot. How many more times could I have said: ‘Don't forget to disengage the safety'?”

She turns her head away, biting her tongue, I realize.

After a few minutes, I say, “Thanks for not abandoning me.

For staying to fi ght with me.”

“We don't do that.”

“What?”

“We don't desert our own. It's not our way.”

“Epap was—”

“Empty talk. I know him wel enough to know that. We don't abandon our own.”

Her words sink into me deeply. It's my turn to be quiet. I'm thinking of Ashley June, alone in her cel . And then I'm hearing the Director's accusing voice: You, running away like a squirrel and leaving her all by her lonesome.

I fl ick the reins to tease out more speed. The horse pounds on, snorting, sweat glistening all over its body now.

A wail breaks clear across the sky. Too loud, too close, too fast.

And then I feel it. Drops of rain, splattering on my cheeks. I look up at the sky in horror. Dark clouds, blacker than the night sky, swol en and bulbous. The rain will soften the ground; to the horse, it will...

The Hunt
The Hunt Page 48



Behind us, the thundering of the ground grows louder, the snarls, the hisses. So much closer. I steal a quick look.

Can't see anything, just darkness now. Only a matter of time. Sissy is right. Either way, it's only a matter of time now.

The river is a marvel. Even over the rattling of the carriage and the clamor of the chasing mob, we hear it from afar, a gentle gurgle that is deep and sonorous. When we come upon it minutes later, its size initial y catches us by surprise, the banks spread far apart with a masculine broadness, at least two hundred yards across. Yet even under a sky weighed down with heavy clouds, the river seems light and feminine, fi l ed with a sprinkling of sparkles that I at fi rst mistake for fi refl ies. Its waters fl ow down like slowly undulating plates of smooth armor.

The horse has slowed considerably. Its breathing grows labored even as its stride shortens. A few times, it veers dangerously close to the riverbank before correcting itself. I have pushed it too far. It slows to a trot, then to a stop. I snap the reins, but I know it's useless. The horse needs to rest.

“Why are we stopping?” Epap shouts from the carriage.

When no one answers, he jumps out. “What's going on?

We can't afford to stop.”

“We can't afford not to,” I say. “This horse is about to drop dead. Just for a minute, let it catch its breath.”

“We don't have a minute. In a minute they'l be upon us!”

He's pointing now into the darkness from which squeals of excitement shoot out.

I ignore him, because he's right, and jump down. The horse's leg muscles, when I place my hand on them, are convulsing.

“Good horse, good horse, pushed you too hard, did I?”

Epap spins around, his arm gesturing at me in disbelief.

“Would you believe this guy? Trying to be a horse whisperer at a time like this? Sissy, where are you going?”

Sissy is running for the river. She bends down at the bank, comes running back with a bowl, the water inside sloshing about. The horses dips his muzzle in, messily slurps in the water. In less than fi ve seconds, it's done. It whinnies for more.

Sissy strokes the horse's head. “Wish I could give you more, but there's no time. You keep going, though, fi nd us that boat, and I promise you, you'l have all the water you'd want. But fi nd us that boat. Quickly. Quickly!” And those last words come out as a roar as she slaps the horse on its haunches. It blinks, whinnies, then bul ets forward. We al leap back onto the carriage. The horse is off again.

The sounds from behind roar closer. Raindrops fal down, fat and heavy.

We plow on. First fi guratively, then literal y. The ground becomes sodden and soaked, soft sponges sucking in the wheels of the carriage, the hooves of the horse. Even the bracing wind works against us, fi erce as a gale, pushing us back, fl ushing our scent backward to the enclosing horde, inciting them further. Rain cuts into our eyes.

Then the darkness, saturating the air, dissolving the horse into the night. Only the sound of its labored breathing and the forward push of the carriage are evidence that it is even there.

Sissy has withdrawn into silence. With quick sideways glances, I catch only her lips, tightly drawn, her eyes squinting against the rain. Strands of her hair are matted down against her forehead, cutting diagonal y across her face. A howl sounds across the plains, disconcertingly close. She looks at me and I nod.

She straps the FLUN around my back, grips the other FLUN in her hand tightly.

A snarl hisses, joined by a phalanx of other snarls and jaw snaps. Not behind but now adjacent to us.

Sissy disengages the safety switch.

Thunder rumbles, a deep reverberation in the skies. I snap my head up, suddenly hopeful.

A howl breaks out, fi l ed with dis plea sure.

And then lightning strikes across the skies, a harsh, overpowering fl ash. The land is instantly il uminated in an embossed black and white, the eastern mountains ridden with black crevices, the river refl ective like melted silver. I shoot my head for a look backward, and in that mil isecond before the land plunges into darkness again, I see them: an endless number streaming toward us, momentarily fl attened like cards against the ground, cowering from the lightning.

But so many. So close. A stone's throw away. Their eyes shining in the glare, fangs glistening.

A violent clap of thunder explodes, shaking the land. It rumbles away, and in its stead, the cries of agony and anger. They've all been blinded. By the lightning. That'l buy us maybe one more minute.

“Did you see it?” Sissy yel s at me, her hand suddenly gripping my arm. “Did you see it!”

“I know, I know, but don't worry—”

“The boat!” she shrieks, and she's jumping up and down. “I saw it, I saw it, it's really there!” She spins around, yel ing to the others, “I saw the boat, it's right in front—”

The carriage suddenly hits a mud patch; the wheels sink into the sludge and get caught. Sissy goes fl ying in the air, disappearing into the night. I'm fl ung off the seat as wel ; my feet catch the railing in front, cutting short my trajectory. I land on the horse, his back slick with sweat and rain.

The whole world is spinning as I pick myself up. Where is up, where is down, left, right, north, south, everything has become intermingled and indifferent. The sound of a young boy crying to my right: Ben. I run over to him, pick him up out of the mud. Like me, he's all covered in it.

“Ben! It's okay! Does anything hurt? Did you break anything?”

The sound of growls, the snapping of teeth, drawing close.

Ben's not saying anything, but he's looking at me and shaking his head. I pick him up. “We have to move. Sissy!

Where are you?”

A short fl icker of lightning, briefl y il uminating the landscape.

Too short to see anything but the hepers, all picking themselves up off the ground. Except Sissy, farthest away, stil lying in the mud. I run to her as a peal of thunder ripples across the skies.

“You've got to get up, Sissy! We've got to move.” She's groggy, but I stand her on her feet. “Sissy!” I yel , and her eyes snap to. Panic and fear clears out the cloudiness in them.

“Where is everyone? Are they okay?” she asks.

“They're fi ne, we've got to get going. Point us to where the boat is!”

“No! Our supplies, the FLUN, we need them!”

“There's no time, they're on us already!”

“We won't survive without—”

Peals of hyenalike laughter rip toward us, so close that I can hear the individual intonations, the salivary wetness slung between syl ables.

“Sissy! Listen to me,” I shout, pointing at the other hepers, “they won't listen to me. Only to you. Make them run for the boat.

Make them—”

A fl ash of lightning lights the sky and wet land. I see it, the boat, blessedly close by, a hundred yards away. But then I see the teeming masses.

They are already upon us. Even in the short fl ash, I see their pale, glistening fi gures bounding toward us with frightening speed, like skipping stones.

In the fl ash of lightning, they all fl atten against the land, like the quil s of a porcupine in retreat, howling with anger.

“Now, Sissy!” I shout.

But she's already running, already gathering up the others, urging them on. I take after them, racing, the muddy ground squelch-ing beneath me. The mud sucks eagerly at my shoes like kisses of death, turning my speed into slow motion.

Darkness again. Then peal after peal of thunder rumbling the sky. Slivery shouts of desire rain down on us again.

They're coming.

I hear the wet sludge of mud being stepped on behind me.

Whispers, whispers, whispers, breathing at my neck.

“Dear God!” I shout. Words I have not uttered in years, words I used to say every night to my mother, her eyes soft with kindness, my clasped hands enfolded by hers. Words forgotten, embedded so deep in me, only the shovel of abject fear dislodges them. “Dear God!”

It is not a single strike of lightning that lights the sky, but a network of intersecting fl ashes that rips across the dome of the world.

So bright that even I am blinded momentarily, the whole world bleached an impossible white. But I don't stop running, even as my eyes close. Because I can still see the boat, its negative image singed in my shut eyes, black and white.

“Don't stop, keep going!” I shout, even as the howls of anguish and pain break out all around us. When I open my eyes, I'm at the dock. “Over here!” I shout before I realize they're all ahead of me, running down the dock, their feet echoing hol owly on the wooden boards. I race down after them. They're jumping into the boat, Sissy already throwing off the anchor rope, Epap manning a long pole curiously hooked at the top, to push away from the shore.

Because I'm bringing up the rear, I'm the only one who can see what's wrong. What is so terribly wrong.

I spin around, trying to see up the dock. It's too dark.

“Get in!” Epap shouts at me. “What are you waiting for?”

I bend my knees to jump in, pause.

“Get in!”

And I'm...

The Hunt
The Hunt Page 49



From around me, I hear the sloshing of mud, mewling sounds of desire.

I throw Ben atop the horse.

Piercing, ear- shattering screams fal all around me. Behind me, behind me, they're leaping for me.

I bend my leg, readying to mount the horse.

The horse shoots off into the dark, leaving me behind. I see Ben clinging around its neck for dear life, then they quickly disappear into the darkness.

I grab the FLUN strapped around my neck, disengage the safety.

Primal screams fi l the air.

I start sprinting, hands at the ready on the FLUN, head turned back, on the watch. Don't get disoriented, don't lose your bear-ings. I shade closer to the riverbank on my right.

Be quick.

I steal a look backward. Dark shapes bob like fl oats in a pool, a wave of them fl owing toward me. Another shape comes screaming at me, its stark naked body glistening like wet marble, its bared fangs almost a halo of light. I fi re the FLUN. The fi rst beam misses but the second strikes its stomach, and it doubles over in the air, landing right at my feet, its eyes clenched in pain, its scream unbearable. I feel its spindly fi ngers grip my ankle, its warm breath on my shin.

“Ja!” I shout as I force my legs to turn and run.

A hiss to my left. I turn— And duck. A shape sails over me, landing on its feet. Spins.

Is at me, hands on my neck, mouth open. I see the fangs, then the dark wel at the back of its mouth. If I miss, my fl esh, my blood, my bones, will disappear down that black well.

The beam hits right into the open mouth, right down the throat.

It doesn't scream; it can't.

I fl ing the FLUN away, completely expended now. And I'm running again, the dock coming into sight.

A wave of them seep into view on my left. In front of me.

They've cut me off. Half of them streak down the dock for the boat, the other half come after me. I'm trapped on al sides: behind, my left, in front. They're everywhere.

Except the river.

I make a harsh right, dashing for the riverbank now. The ones who were behind me, they're on my right now and closing in on me with furious intent.

I'm thirty yards away.

They pour into view from the right, like the waters of a broken dam a hundred yards away.

Twenty more yards. My knees buckle.

Then it's over. Just like that, they've cut me off. I see a string of them pour in front of me, lining the bank, crouched down, readying to pounce on me.

But I don't stop. Even as my eyes tear over, even as my legs threaten to col apse under me, even as my lungs fi nal y burst in a spray of acid within, I don't stop. I will not die standing. I will not die kneeling. I will die fi ghting and running. I will meet them head-on. And a sudden surge of anger fl ushes into me, hotter and brighter than the lightning that streaked the night sky, a bolt of energy that charges my body.

Never forget. The voice of Ashley June so clear in my ears.

Never forget who you are. And it is the voice of my father, deep and solemn.

With a shout, I hurl myself toward them.

They charge at me.

And then I leap in the air, higher than I ever have, sailing over them, fl ying toward the river. The waters rush up to meet me.

“The forbidden stroke!” I scream.

And then I am in the river, its waters surprisingly warm. The quietness underwater is a momentary but wonderful reprieve from the howls and screams. Just the sound of bubbles and a background churning. Then the sound of splashes, one after the other. They're jumping in after me.

I extend my arm in front of me, gloriously stretched out, and stroke down. I feel the propulsion of my body, the fl ow of water past my head. Then I start kicking, extending my other arm and stroking down. The way I've always wanted to swim, the way it has always felt to swim. I lift my head for a moment: they're in the river now, but harmless. In here, they're the plodding dog to my swift dolphin.

The boat has pushed off the dock and is safely downstream, in the center of the river. The dock is overfl owing with people hissing and snarling with anger. I see Epap and Jacob working the poles, pushing away at good speed.

I try cal ing out to them, but I can't be heard above the din of rage or the pelting of rain on the river. I shout louder, but the wind now carries my voice away from the boat, from the hepers. I swim a few more strokes, but though I'm fast, the boat, catching the downstream better than I, is faster. It pul s away just as I feel a sudden drop in energy. My body feels impossibly heavy, arms and legs bloated with heavy fl uid.

My lungs seem unable to draw in air.

“Hey!” I shout. “Wait!”

It's my clothes, I realize. Soaked through, they've become dead weights. But I can't take them off; no way I can tread water and undress at the same time. So I slog on, concentrating on putting one arm after the other, stroking as hard as I can.

But as much as I try, the boat is getting farther and farther away.

They are leaving me behind. The hepers.

I fl ip onto my back and fl oat, too tired now; raindrops fal on my face. I fi nal y understand what it is to be discarded.

I've felt it all my life, but now I know it.

Ashley June once described to me how she would stand in the schoolyard and be tempted to prick her fi nger. To let the end come, to give in. It would be so easy now. To close my eyes, let my body drift, let them come after me. To fi nal y succumb. With so many of them, the end would come quickly.

But to let it end now would be to discard the only person who refused to discard me. Ashley June.

I fl ip over, force one stroke after the next. My strokes are vapid, my arms feel like clumps of mud sloshing through water. I begin to sink.

Then I hear the sound of splashing near me.

Hands grab my back, turning me over. An arm snakes around my chest; a face rises up from underneath, presses up next to mine.

“I've got you now, just fl oat, I've got you now.”

In my fatigued state, I think it's Ashley June, her voice whispery, water spitting out onto the back of my neck and ear, the breathing husky and warm. I want to ask how she broke out of the pit, how she got here so quickly— But then I am being hauled up like a net of fi sh into the boat.

They pul me to the center, faces gazing down at me with concern. It's David. Jacob. A body fl ops next to mine, wet and black like a seal.

Sissy.

“Turn him to his side,” she says, sputtering water.

I feel the press of wood against the side of my face, weathered and smooth, the soft clap of water smacking the underside of the boat. I hoist myself into a sitting position.

The boat is little more than a glorifi ed raft, but a wide and sturdy one at that. In the center is the cabin, little more than a wooden dugout. At the back of the boat, Epap and Jacob are still pushing down on the poles, guiding the boat downstream, away from the bank. And there is Ben: sitting under an enclosure, hug-ging his knees. He looks at me; a smal smile breaks out from his tear- streaked face. He thumbs to the back of the cabin, and when I hear a whinny sound from behind it, fol owed by the hol ow clump of hooves on wood, I understand.

all night long, they fol ow us along the bank of the river, hundreds of them snarling with the hatred of the cheated and unjustly deprived. It is an endless night, fi l ed with rain and darkness and the incessant sound of their primal screams. Eventual y, the rain subsides and the clouds move on. The moon and stars come out, shining their sickly light on the hundreds of people crowding the bank, their eyes wide with desire even now. The moonlight infuriates them, but they stay with us yet, refusing to leave. The night sky lightens as it always does eventual y, and a hint of gray intrudes on the blackness.

Gradual y they leave, just a few at fi rst, then, with a col ective howl that lasts over a minute, fi l ed with the rage of unconsummated desire, they turn as one and sprint back. Back to the Institute, back to the cloistered darkness within its wal s.

We decide to go on shifts throughout the day: two working the poles, one on lookout. When not on a shift, we sleep in the cabin— or are supposed to, anyway— a simple shacklike structure built of wood, opened on the front end.

They let me have the fi rst shift off, but I'm too wired to sleep. I spend my time dousing my shirt in the river and letting the horse chomp down on the shirt for water. Like the others, I keep scanning the Vast for signs of movement, even though I know the hot and bright sun is protection enough. An hour later, my legs eventual y tire and I lie down in the cabin. Sleep fl itters in and out like a butterfl y with a missing wing: lightly, erratical y.

But when I awaken, it is late afternoon. They've let me sleep through two shifts. Next to me, Ben and Epap are snoring away, Ben murmuring incoherently. Sissy is standing at the front on watch duty, and I join her.

“They'l be back to night,” she says.

I nod. “And tomorrow night. And the night after that, maybe.”

She runs her arm across her nose. “We better hope this river goes on. If it comes to an end today, tomorrow . . .”

She doesn't need to fi nish her sentence.

We are quiet for a while.

“Wil they ever stop coming after us?”

“No.” I stare out at the eastern mountains. “So long as they know we're out here, they will keep coming. They'l...