The Hunted
Page 1
Also by Matt de la Peña
Ball Don’t Lie
Mexican WhiteBoy
We Were Here
I Will Save You
The Living
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2015 by Matt de la Peña
Cover art © 2015 by Philip Straub
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.
Visit us on the Web! randomhouseteens.com
Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
de la Peña, Matt.
The hunted / Matt de la Peña. — First edition.
pages cm
Sequel to: The living.
Summary: After surviving the earthquake and tsunami, Shy manages to make it back to land but he is far from safe because a secret his cruise ship co-worker, Addie, shared with him is one that people have killed for, and now that Shy knows, he has become a moving target.
ISBN 978-0-385-74122-4 (hardback) — ISBN 978-0-375-98436-5 (el)
ISBN 978-0-375-98992-6 (glb)
[1. Survival—Fiction. 2. Natural disasters—Fiction. 3. Diseases—Fiction. 4. Cruise ships—Fiction. 5. Mexican Americans—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.P3725Hun 2015
[Fic]—dc23
2014036148
eBook ISBN 9780375984365
Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.
v4.0
ep
Contents
Cover
Also by Matt de la Peña
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
Map
Day 44
Chapter 1: The Judge
Chapter 2: Pack of Masked Bicycle Riders
Chapter 3: Home Versus Arizona
Chapter 4: Fair Trade
Chapter 5: The Disease
Chapter 6: Truth
Chapter 7: Old-Man Strength
Chapter 8: What Can Become of Us
Chapter 9: Sticking Up for a Blanquita
Chapter 10: Carmen’s Man
Chapter 11: Burying the Dead
Chapter 12: Reports From the Wreckage
Day 45
Chapter 13: Protection
Chapter 14: The Suzuki Gang
Chapter 15: Someplace Safe
Chapter 16: Rules Don’t Apply
Chapter 17: Behind the Curtain
Chapter 18: Reunion
Chapter 19: A Scientific Prediction
Chapter 20: No Return
Chapter 21: Breeding Ground
Chapter 22: Reports From the Wreckage
Day 46
Chapter 23: Good News, Bad News
Chapter 24: The Sony Lots
Chapter 25: Man Behind the Mask
Chapter 26: The la Days
Chapter 27: Reports From the Wreckage
Day 47
Chapter 28: How to Ride
Chapter 29: Empty Trailer
Chapter 30: Union Station
Chapter 31: Billion-Dollar Companies
Chapter 32: East Into the Desert
Chapter 33: Marcus’s Decision
Day 48
Chapter 34: Circle of Poison
Chapter 35: Still Hands
Chapter 36: The Plan
Chapter 37: The Pure of Heart
Chapter 38: Incompetent Burial
Chapter 39: Arrowhead in the Mountainside
Day 49
Chapter 40: A Distorted Voice From the Past
Chapter 41: Shoeshine’s Surprising Apology
Chapter 42: Modern-Day Buddha
Chapter 43: What the Lines Say
Chapter 44: The Rainbow Connection
Chapter 45: Space Versions
Chapter 46: The Ring
Chapter 47: Reports From the Wreckage
Day 50
Chapter 48: Today Versus Tomorrow
Chapter 49: The Rifle Bag
Chapter 50: Twinkies and Spoiled Milk
Chapter 51: Sick and Alive
Day 51
Chapter 52: California Ghost Town
Chapter 53: A Quiet Swim in the River
Chapter 54: The Other Side of the Hill
Chapter 55: Blythe Intaglios
Chapter 56: The Living
Day 52
Chapter 57: First Come, First Served
Chapter 58: Once This Is Over
Chapter 59: The Manila Envelope
Chapter 60: Two Wrongs
Chapter 61: Shy’s Path
Chapter 62: Final Days in the Desert
Chapter 63: Freedom of the Open Road
Chapter 64: Second Chances
Chapter 65: The Avondale Border
Chapter 66: Leap of Faith
Day 53
Chapter 67: The Other Side
Chapter 68: The Hunted
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Excerpt from The Living
For my old man, who showed me how to see the world
MAN: …but I’m not lost like that no more. I got a purpose. My family. [Coughing.] When everything crumbled around me that night, and I was almost burned to death in that fire…I guess you could say it’s when I was born.
DJ DAN: It changed everyone. We’re talking about the worst disaster in our country’s history. [Pause.] My listeners are more interested in why you’re here today. The warning you have. Why don’t you start by giving us your name?
MAN: Already told you, mister. I’m not going there. Last thing I need is for this to finally come to an end and they turn around and throw me in jail. Just for spreading a message. Let’s leave it at this: I’m part of the Suzuki Gang. That’s what you all call us, right?
DJ DAN: You ride around on the same type of motorcycle acting like you have some type of authority.
MAN: Look, I know you don’t spend all your time sitting in this little box. You’ve been out in the world. You’ve seen it. Folks are bleeding out of their eyes. Little kids, even. They’re scratching off their own skin. Bodies are piled in the streets, rotting.
DJ DAN: Of course I’ve seen it. I started this radio program as a direct response to the things I’ve seen.
MAN: I remember hearing this one story a few weeks back, not long after the earthquakes. These two young parents were carrying their sick daughter through the streets of West Hollywood. She was in bad shape, I guess. A man guarding the entrance of an elementary school felt sorry for them and opened the gate, gave them food and water. Said he could only let them stay, though, if they kept to a shed off the soccer field, clear across the school from everyone else. But it didn’t matter. A week later every single person staying in that school was either dead or dying. Over six hundred, I was told. That’s how quickly this disease spreads. All of them wiped off the face of the earth because some dummy had a soft spot in his heart.
DJ DAN: But what does this have to do with—
MAN: I’m not done yet. [Coughing.] See, mister, that was back when things were mostly new. When none of us really understood shit, and everyone still had hope. But it’s different now. Just yesterday I witnessed a similar situation. [Coughing.] A mom was wheeling her sick kid in a grocery cart, and she stopped in front of
a community center in Silver Lake. She turned to look at all the faces watching her through the windows and she crumpled to her knees, sobbing and pleading for help.
DJ DAN: Let me guess, no one came out this time.
MAN: Shit, they came out, all right. Two men in dry suits. Dragged the mom and kid out of view by their shirts and hair and shot ’em in the street. Two bullets each, in the back of the head. Like it wasn’t nothing. Another guy came out and torched the bodies. Left their charred remains as a warning to anyone else who wandered by.
DJ DAN: Jesus.
MAN: [Scoffing.] Call his name all you want, mister, but he ain’t answered not one of us yet. [Loud fit of coughing.] This cough, by the way. It’s not ’cause I got that disease. It’s all the smoke I inhaled. I burned my lungs, I think.
DJ DAN: That’s reassuring.
MAN: Point is, things are different now. We can agree on that much, I hope. And while most folks are still sitting around waiting on some savior from the other side to come riding in on a white pony…me and the guys, we’ve decided to get out there and do shit for ourselves, try and help our fellow man.
DJ DAN: Look, it’s true, none of us know how much we can trust the government at this point—
MAN: Can’t trust ’em at all.
DJ DAN:—but you’re going about this all wrong. Take this interview, for example. There’s absolutely no reason to be waving a gun in my face.
[Sound of a gun being cocked.]
MAN: Why, mister? Does it make you uncomfortable?
DJ DAN: What do you think?
MAN: In my experience, people are at their best when they’re uncomfortable. See this burn across the side of my face? [Pause.] Shit’s ugly. I know it is. But it’s also a symbol of my rebirth. I never felt so humbled in my life as when I woke up on fire that night.
DJ DAN: Do you honestly think I need a gun in my face to feel fear? [Sound of hand slapping desk.] Fear is finding your wife crushed underneath your living room ceiling. Fear is witnessing your six-year-old daughter getting run over by a truck. Right outside the Sony lots. We’re all scared, asshole. Every minute of every day.
MAN: Careful, mister. [Pause.] Here’s what you don’t get. I’m not just aiming this gun at you. I’m aiming it at everyone out there listening, too. Like I told you from the beginning, I’ve been sent here to issue a warning.
[Rustling sound of the mike being grabbed.]
Listen up. All of you. Doesn’t matter if you’re sick or healthy, man or woman, grown person or child…you need to stay where you are. No more traveling from zone to zone. For any reason. Or there will be consequences. Understand? [Coughing.] And I’m also looking for a kid—
DJ DAN: What consequences?
MAN: Hang on. [Rustling.] The kid’s name is Shy Espinoza. Seventeen, with short brown hair and brown skin. Sort of tall and thin. Anyone can give me information on this boy’s whereabouts, there’ll be a reward. Just get in touch with DJ Dan here, and I’ll keep checking back.
DJ DAN: What are the consequences for moving from zone to zone? And who will issue these consequences?
MAN: Us, man. We’re out patrolling the streets, like you said. There’s hundreds of us now, up and down the coast. And from this point on, if we catch your ass wandering around…we reserve the right to shoot you dead. No questions asked.
DJ DAN: Don’t you hear what you’re saying? You’re talking about killing innocent human beings.
MAN: No, mister, I’m talking about saving them. If we don’t do something to contain this disease, starting from right this second, it’s gonna infect every last one of us. And then what? Huh, Mr. DJ Dan? Who would listen to your radio show then?
Detail left
Detail right
Day 44
1
The Judge
The four of them stood near the bow in silence as their battered sailboat inched through the Pacific Ocean, toward the ruined California shoreline.
Shy pulled his shirt off his head and stared in awe—they were close enough now that he could make out the devastation caused by the earthquakes. Buildings flattened. Abandoned cars half submerged in parking lots and drifting in the tide. Palm trees snapped in half, and sand caked through the streets. Everything charred black.
Makeshift tents had been erected on the rooftops of the few burned-out structures that still stood, but Shy didn’t see any people. Or any movement. Or any signs of electricity.
The place was a ghost town.
Still, his heart was racing. He thought he might never see land again. But here it was.
According to the staticky report they’d heard on Marcus’s radio when they first left the island, the earthquakes that leveled the West Coast were more massive than any ever recorded. Entire cities had been wiped out. Hundreds of thousands had lost their lives. But worst of all, the earthquakes had caused the deadly Romero Disease to spread like wildfire, infecting nearly a quarter of the population in California and Washington and Oregon. In parts of Mexico.
Shy swallowed, his throat dry and scratchy, and fingered the diamond ring in his pocket, thinking about his mom and sis. His nephew, Miguel. Throughout the month he’d spent on the sailboat, Shy held out hope that his family might still be alive. But now, seeing a portion of the destruction firsthand, the idea of hope seemed stupid. Like living in a little-kid fantasy world.
He turned to Carmen, who was trembling and covering her mouth with her hand. “Hey,” he said, touching her arm. “It’s okay…we made it.”
She nodded but didn’t look at him.
He stared at the side of her face, recalling how fine she’d looked back when he met her on the cruise ship. The sun had just starting setting, like now, and his eyes cut right to her beautiful brown legs. The buttons on her white blouse straining to keep it from popping open. But what got him most of all was her face. It was way closer to perfect than some Photoshop shit you’d see in a magazine. He was so shook that first day, he could barely speak. The poor girl had to ask his roommate, Rodney, if he was a deaf-mute.
Now Carmen was weathered-looking and too thin.
Her entire body covered in a thick, salty film.
It was the same for all three of them, the result of spending thirty-six days at sea in a small sailboat—each day marked on the inside of the hull in black dye. They’d baked in the relentless summer sun, then rotated sleepless nights at the helm holding Shoeshine’s compass so they wouldn’t veer off course in the black of night. They’d survived on loaves of stale bread and the few fish they managed to catch. Shoeshine had allowed each of them only a few sips of water in the morning and a few more at night, and all Shy could think about now was bum-rushing somebody’s front lawn and sucking down tap water straight from the hose.
He turned back to the beach. “Please tell me this shit’s not a mirage.”
“No mirage,” Shoeshine answered.
“I keep rubbing my eyes,” Marcus said. “Make sure my ass isn’t dreaming.”
Shy watched Marcus’s long-lost smile come creeping back onto his face as he tried powering up his portable radio for the two thousandth time since it had stopped working.
Still nothing.
Not even static.
Back on the cruise ship, Marcus was a hip-hop dancer. Gave dance demonstrations twice a day and freestyled late night in the club. On the sailboat, though, Shy learned that Marcus ran deeper than the Compton cliché he played in front of rich passengers. He was halfway through an engineering degree at Cal State LA. Wrote video-game code in his free time. A few of the big tech firms were already dangling jobs for after he graduated.
But did those companies still exist?
Did Marcus’s college?
“Breathe it into your lungs,” Shoeshine told them. “You all just made it back from the dead.” Laughing, he kissed his homemade compass and slipped it into the duffel bag by his feet.
A helicopter was visible in the distance, flying low over the beach. An emergency crew, Shy hoped, his h
eart suddenly pounding. Maybe they could just hand over the vaccine they’d carried off the island, and the letter, and that would be it.
He was so relieved as their sailboat approached the shoreline that a lump climbed into his throat. He’d imagined this moment for thirty-six straight days. He’d dreamed it every night. Now here they were.
But he was nervous, too. The entire stretch of beach was gutted. They had no idea who was dead or alive, or what they were walking into.
“Where you think we are, anyway?” Marcus asked.
Shy coughed into a closed fist. “Gotta be LA, right?”
“Venice Beach,” Carmen said.
The three of them turned to her. First words she’d spoken in three days, even to Shy. She pointed at the shore, to the right of their boat. “See those graffiti walls?” She glanced at Shy. “That’s where Brett asked me to marry him.”
Shy cut his gaze away from Carmen’s and focused on the untouched walls. The mere mention of Carmen’s fiancé brought reality crashing back down on his head. Throughout their time on the sailboat, Carmen had been his salvation. He’d battled hunger for her. Dehydration. The crazy-person thoughts that kept creeping into his brain: You should jump right now, culo. Feed your ass to the sharks and be done with it. Why couldn’t you have just died on the ship like everyone else?