The Hunted

by Matt De La Peña

  “Does it work?” Carmen asked.

  Shoeshine shined the light on the ground in front of them, then quickly cut it off. “Come on,” he said, and he started walking ahead.

  Shy heard the sound of the distant motorcycle again. They needed to get off the streets as soon as possible.

  “What the hell we supposed to be doing, anyways?” Carmen said. “Just wandering around aimlessly?”

  “Getting supplies,” Marcus said. “Then me, you and Shy are going home.”

  “And Shoe’s going to Arizona,” Shy added.

  “I know that,” Carmen snapped. “I’m talking about now. Right this second.”

  No one answered.

  As Carmen and Marcus followed Shoeshine, Shy reached down for a half-rotted potato that one of the women had dropped. He turned it over in his hands, studying the small craters in its thick, wrinkled skin. It had been a little more than a month since the earthquakes hit, and already people were desperate enough to loot rotting potatoes.

  7

  Old-Man Strength

  A few blocks south they found a small sporting goods shop. Shoeshine illuminated the boarded-up front door while Shy and Marcus took turns trying to kick it in. Through a crack in the foundation, underneath one of the barred windows, they could see that there were supplies inside. But the wood barring the door was thick and well secured. All Shy’s kicking managed to do was jam his foot.

  After a few minutes of furious kicking, Shy and Marcus were exhausted. They stopped and bent over, hands on knees, staring at each other, sucking in breaths.

  “There’s gotta be another way in,” Shy said.

  Marcus spit at the ground. “Yo, I need to get my ass some damn protein.”

  Shy turned to the boarded door again, trying to call up some extra strength, but he had nothing left in the tank. Marcus was right, they needed food.

  “Keep trying,” Carmen said, peering through a small crack in the door. “I see sleeping bags. And jackets.”

  “Hold up,” Marcus said, pointing down at Shy’s feet. “Are you rocking one shoe right now?” He snatched the flashlight out of Shoeshine’s hand and aimed the beam at Shy’s lone high-top.

  “Better than nothing,” Shy told him.

  Carmen laughed. “Poor Shy,” she said, kicking at his shoe. “Always a day late and a dollar short.” She patted him on the shoulder. “It’s kind of adorable.”

  Shy peeped his high-top, then looked back up at Carmen. Here they were, in a ruined city with nothing to eat or drink and nowhere to go, with dead bodies all around, and what was Shy doing? He was trying to interpret the way Carmen had said the word “adorable.” Did she mean it in a real way? Like two people who could possibly end up together one day? Or did she mean it in a brother-and-sister sort of way?

  Marcus tossed the flashlight back to Shoeshine, saying: “Why don’t you two get married already? For real, I could perform the ceremony right here on this broke-ass street. Shoe could be the best man.”

  “Grow up,” Carmen barked, landing a blind punch to Marcus’s midsection.

  “Dude, you need some new material,” Shy said. Marcus had already gone to the marriage joke a dozen times on their boat ride back to California. It was played out. So what if Shy secretly watched Carmen’s reaction every time?

  “Why don’t you make yourself useful?” Carmen told Marcus. “Start back in on that door. Shy’s doing better with one shoe.”

  “I don’t see you kickin’ shit,” Marcus fired back. “That women’s lib BS works both ways, girl.”

  As Carmen and Marcus went back and forth at each other, Shy noticed Shoeshine moving toward the boarded-up door and squaring his shoulders. The man pulled in a long breath, then blasted straight through the wood with a single kick.

  Shy stared at the shattered boards, baffled.

  “What the hell?” Marcus said. He and Carmen were staring, too.

  Shoeshine shined his flashlight through the opening, into the shop. “This is it,” he said over his shoulder.

  As soon as Shoeshine disappeared into the store, Shy and Marcus turned to each other. “Son of a bitch,” Marcus said.

  “It’s that old-man strength,” Shy told him. “My pops was the same way.”

  Carmen moved toward the jagged opening. “I’m not saying nothin’…even though that vato is like fifty-something years older than you all.”

  —

  As soon as Shy set foot inside the store he knew they’d hit the jackpot. Shoeshine had hung his flashlight from a sprinkler on the ceiling, to give the room a little light. Some of the tall shelves had collapsed in the earthquake, and equipment lay all over the place, soaking in the puddles of water that covered the floor, but there were a ton of supplies they could still use. Shy went for the rack of shoes first, found some cross-trainers in his size and a pair of socks and put them on. It was like stepping into a couple clouds. He chucked aside his single high-top and sloshed over to the rack of Windbreakers, where Carmen and Marcus were.

  Shoeshine tossed them each a small hiking backpack and told them to fill it with clothes and nutrition bars and whatever tools they could find.

  “Check this shit out,” Marcus called to them, holding up a small satellite radio. “I’m back, baby.”

  “You got batteries?” Carmen asked.

  Marcus started scanning nearby shelves. “This place has gotta have ’em somewhere.”

  “Till you got batteries,” Carmen told him, “you ain’t back for shit.”

  When Shy’s backpack was full of socks and T-shirts and an extra pair of jeans and rope and a beanie and a flashlight of his own, he leaned against the back wall and frantically unwrapped one of the protein bars he’d found. He shoved half the thing into his mouth and damn near swallowed it whole.

  Carmen and Marcus followed his lead.

  Even Shoeshine stopped going through the shelves long enough to down a bar.

  For a few long minutes the store went eerily quiet aside from the sound of their chewing.

  The silence was broken by the sound of a man clearing his throat. “I got a semiautomatic pistol aimed right at the girl,” a voice called out from behind the supply room door. “I’ll give you to the count of three to get out of here before I start shooting.”

  Shy aimed his flashlight at the door. It was slightly ajar, but he couldn’t see anything. Shoeshine and Marcus moved their beams across the ceiling and floor while Shy turned his toward the busted door where they’d entered.

  Nobody.

  The one thing he did notice was a wool blanket halfway covering a small hole near the bottom of the back wall. A hidden second entrance, it looked like. One that led to the alley in back. This was how they’d kept the place to themselves.

  “One!” the voice called out.

  Shy heard a little kid start crying.

  A family lived here.

  “Two!” the voice said.

  “Come on,” Shoeshine said, waving for them to follow him, and the four of them tore out of the sporting goods store the way they’d come in, wearing their new backpacks, aiming their new flashlights at the cluttered sidewalk in front of their quick-moving feet.

  Shy ran slightly out in front of everyone, listening for shots that never came. As he veered around the corner, heading east again, he wondered if the man in the store really had a gun or was just bluffing. There was no way everyone out here could have a weapon.

  He decided it didn’t matter.

  They had what they needed.

  8

  What Can Become of Us

  Shy stood in front of the large motor home they’d found, shining his light onto the dripping red circle painted on the door, which he could tell had been jimmied open at some point. The symbol meant something, obviously, and he decided Shoeshine was right about it being different from the fluorescent-green-painted street signs.

  The motor home had somehow been shoved up against the wall of a DMV building. Some of the windows were blown out and the trai
ler’s twisted body was leaning at an odd angle, so that the punctured rear tires on one side hovered slightly above the singed lawn.

  “Let’s just stay here,” Marcus said.

  “It’s as good as anything else we’re gonna find in the dark,” Shy said, adjusting his new backpack.

  “What if someone’s already in there?” Carmen asked.

  “Not with the door like that.” Shoeshine aimed his flashlight at it.

  “Like what?” Marcus asked.

  “It’s not totally closed,” Shy told him.

  “Oh. Right.”

  “Someone could be coming back, though,” Carmen said. “Maybe that’s what those red circles mean.”

  “If someone was living here,” Shoeshine said, “they’d have found a way to seal the door. The circle must be a symbol for Romero Disease.”

  “Which we can’t get,” Marcus said, nudging Carmen. “Remember?”

  Carmen flipped him off.

  Shy pushed himself to his toes to look inside the spidered motor-home window, but the curtains blocked his view. In the window’s fragmented reflection he saw two people skulking on the other side of the street. He spun around and shined his light directly at them.

  Kids around his age, wearing masks made out of cut-up plastic grocery bags, it looked like. Shower caps on their heads. They ducked down a side road, out of sight.

  “You saw those dudes, right?” Shy asked.

  “Hell yeah,” Marcus said.

  “Shoe?” Shy said.

  Shoeshine nodded, still staring at the street the kids had turned down.

  “This place is giving me bad vibes,” Carmen said.

  Marcus forced a laugh. “As opposed to all the good vibes you got since we landed back in Cali?”

  Shy spent a few seconds watching for the kids before turning his light back to the battered DMV building. The roof was caved in and the closest wall had been reduced to charcoal. There was no one staying in there. No one who was still alive, at least.

  “You’re not even gonna knock?” Carmen said.

  Shy turned and saw Shoeshine reaching for the motor home doorknob and slowly pulling open the door. He stuck his head inside and called out: “Anyone there?” When no one answered, he disappeared inside.

  Shy glanced across the street. Still no sign of the kids. He looked at Carmen and Marcus and shrugged nervously, then followed Shoeshine into the motor home.

  The place smelled awful, like when a rat dies in the wall of your apartment. Shy had to cover his mouth with his shirt as he swept his light around the rest of the cabin. Not a soul inside. Pet hair all over the gray carpet. A few dish shards on the linoleum floor in front of the sink. Two framed photos shattered on the floor and old pizza boxes stacked in a corner.

  This was the first time Shy had ever been inside a motor home, and he was surprised by how much room there was. A long couch stretched across the wide cab on one side, next to a cot. A table and bolted-down stools on the other. There was a flat-screen TV mounted on the wall, and lacy curtains covered every window. The sink was full of moldy pasta and crusty dishes—the source of the sour, musky smell, he figured.

  Marcus stepped into the motor home next, followed by Carmen, who mumbled through the hand covering her nose and mouth: “Wow, I love what they’ve done with the place. Makes you feel right at home.”

  “It’s all good if we can air it out some,” Marcus said. He buried his face in his shoulder as he opened the closet near the door. Shy saw a few jackets inside, in a range of sizes. Whoever lived here had kids.

  “For real, though,” Carmen said, still covering her mouth. “This smell’s making me gag.”

  Shy watched Shoeshine move deeper into the motor home, toward the bathroom, where he ducked his head and torso through the door. The man stayed like that for several seconds before pulling himself back out and stuffing something into his back pocket. He closed the door quietly behind him and rejoined the group, saying: “Let’s keep moving.”

  “Wait, really?” Marcus said. “Why?”

  “Carmen’s right about the smell,” Shoeshine answered.

  Shy shined his light on Shoeshine’s chest so he could see the look in his eyes. “Be straight with us,” he told the man. “What’s in there?”

  Shoeshine only shook his head.

  “Come on,” Carmen said.

  Shoeshine glanced back at the bathroom. “There’s a man,” he admitted. “Been dead a week or so, maybe more.”

  “See?” Carmen said to Shy and Marcus.

  Marcus cringed, covering his mouth. “Of course that’s what the smell is. Some dead dude. Why wouldn’t it be?”

  “We’re leaving,” Carmen said, moving toward the exit. When no one followed, she stopped near the door and held out her hands. “Please don’t tell me you dumbasses still wanna stay in here.”

  “How’d he die?” Marcus asked. “Was it the disease? Or did someone break in?”

  “Who cares how he died?” Carmen called out from the door.

  When Shoeshine didn’t answer his question, Marcus started toward the bathroom.

  Shy wanted to see what was in there, too, and began following Marcus.

  “Young fella,” Shoeshine called to him.

  Shy stopped and turned around.

  The man didn’t say anything else, but there was an intense look in his eyes, a look Shy didn’t know how to interpret.

  “Jesus Christ!” Marcus shouted from the bathroom door.

  Shy spun back around just as Marcus pushed past him and hurried toward the front door.

  “What is it?” Carmen shouted, following Marcus out of the motor home. “Actually, I don’t even wanna know.”

  Shoeshine was holding out a small handgun for Shy to see. It was what he must have removed from the bathroom. “Not easy to face what can become of us,” the man told Shy. “Remember that.” He returned the gun to his back pocket and left the motor home, too.

  At first Shy just stood there, stuck, covering his nose and mouth with his shirt. He wanted to follow right behind Shoeshine, get outside where he’d at least be able to breathe. But something wouldn’t let him.

  He had to know.

  Had to see for himself. The worst of it.

  Even if he could never take it back.

  Shy held his breath as he nudged open the bathroom door with his shoe and stuck his head inside. First thing that hit him was the awful smell of human decay. It was so thick and pungent he could almost taste it through his sealed lips.

  His eyes watered as he gagged.

  An entire family and their dog crowded together in the tiny bathroom. All dead. Two little girls in matching pajamas, no more than three or four, lying on top of each other in the tiny tub. Twins, maybe. The mom slumped over the toilet, the back half of her head missing. The dad curled up by the door with a grotesque-looking hole in his forehead.

  All of them, including the dog, had been shot. That much was obvious. Shy saw the bullet shells and the blood covering the walls and sink and tub, and he saw the flies buzzing around the girls, especially the one on top, whose eyes were wide-open and bright red from the disease.

  Shy’s heart was racing, but he couldn’t stop looking.

  Because this was it. This was the thing he’d been searching for since they made it back to California.

  A man had shot his family and his dog to stop their suffering from Romero Disease. And then he’d shot himself.

  Shy stood there mesmerized, staring at the bodies and the flies and fingering the diamond ring inside his pocket. He wondered what he’d do if faced with the same set of circumstances. His mom sick. His sister and nephew. No one around who could possibly help.

  He’d like to think he’d be strong enough to do the same thing. To pull the trigger. End their pain.

  But he knew he wasn’t.

  9

  Sticking Up for a Blanquita

  “You still think about her sometimes?” Carmen asked.

  “Who?” Shy
said.

  “Don’t be stupid, Sancho. You know who I’m talking about.”

  He did. Addie. The girl he’d been stranded at sea with for several days in a broken lifeboat. “Sometimes, I guess. Why?”

  Carmen shrugged. “Just wondering.”

  They were standing across from each other in the small yard behind the DMV, digging into the earth with the shovels they’d found in the cellar. They both wore their new beanies and Windbreakers. Marcus and Shoeshine were several feet away, digging a second grave. The plan was to bury the bodies they’d just found, then spend the night in the motor home. Shoeshine believed the red circles warned where infected corpses lay. So the motor home was safe for them—everyone else would keep their distance.

  Even Carmen, who’d been so anti–motor home earlier, agreed it was best to stay off the streets until morning.

  Shy continued digging, occasionally glancing at Carmen. The more he thought about her question, though, the more it pissed him off.

  Because he did think about Addie.

  More than he wanted to admit.

  He thought about how they’d started off hating each other on the cruise ship. They were from completely different worlds, living completely different lives. Addie, the rich blond chick from LA who thought she was better than everyone. Shy, the poor barrio kid who’d grown up in the shadow of the Mexican border. But when they were stranded together, something happened. Their desperation forced them to pull off their masks and show each other their fragile hearts. And how many people do you actually do that with over the course of a lifetime?

  They started talking, started huddling together for warmth. And by their last night on the broken lifeboat, things had changed to the point that Addie actually meant something to him…at least until he found out what her dad had done.

  Shy stopped digging and looked up at Carmen, though all he could see in the dark was her slow-moving form. The flashlight he’d placed on the ground only lit up the hole they were digging. And their feet.

  Carmen stopped shoveling, too. “Look at you, Sancho. You’re thinking about ol’ girl right this second.”