by Kimberly Afe
“Two thousand, three-hundred and seventy-seven,” I say aloud. Maybe if I speak up it’ll keep me awake. Keep me going until there’s no more daylight.
“Two thousand, three-hundred and seventy-eight.” It’s hard to keep my eyes open. I fall to the ground. I must have tripped. I’m tired. I rest my head in the dirt. Just for a moment. I just want to sleep.
“Two thou, three-dred and seventy …”
***
I hear voices as my mind establishes awareness again. My face is damp, my lips wet with moisture.
“Can’t you force her jaw open?” I hear someone say. “You want me to do it?”
I’m unable to muster enough energy to open my eyes or to talk, but somehow I manage to reach for my knife. I can’t let them kill me.
Someone has their hand under my jaw. “What do you think I’m trying to do?” The voice is vaguely familiar.
I’m shaky, trying to slide my knife out when there’s an earsplitting scream so obnoxious I whimper. “Watch out! She’s got her shank!”
A hand gently covers mine. It’s warm. I like the way it feels, like for a minute I can pretend someone cares about me. I don’t even resist when my knife is dislodged from my grasp. I’m as good as dead anyway. I can’t defend myself in this condition.
“Avene, it’s me, McCoy. You’ve got to drink something.”
McCoy? “McCoy?” It takes me a few seconds to remember him. To remember where I am.
“Yes, Avene. McCoy. Now open your mouth and drink this.”
McCoy puts the canteen to my lips. I sip small amounts at first, then grab hold of the canteen and gulp.
“Slow down,” McCoy says, pulling the water away. “You’re gonna make yourself sick.”
“More, please,” I beg.
The canteen brushes against my lips. “Okay, but go slow.”
“She ain’t gonna make it,” says the other voice. “I don’t know why you’re helping her.”
McCoy pulls the water away again. “You better watch yourself, or I’ll leave you tied to that tree.”
I perk up because now things sound interesting. McCoy has a prisoner tied up? I struggle to open my eyes against the pain in my head and focus. “Who’s tied up?” It’s dark. A small fire burns between us and a figure leaning against the tree across from us, but I can’t make out his face because it’s hidden within the folds of a hooded jacket. He flips back his head so his hood falls away.
I growl with anger when I see the kid that stole my pack. “You little raider!” I labor to get on my feet. “Where’s my pack?”
McCoy doesn’t let me move. “You need to stay there and rest and get yourself hydrated. I got the packs back and you don’t need to worry about him. He’s secured.”
“What about his friends? Where are they?”
“Dead,” the kid says.
I look at McCoy for confirmation and he nods. A look of something I can’t place, sorrow maybe, plays out across his eyes. I want to ask how they died, but I’m certain I already know the answer. Instead, I focus on me. I drink slowly. McCoy has me eat a small portion of the nut mixture and something even tastier, the bird. I’m not even mad at him right now for stealing it from me.
I sleep and we repeat this process through the night, McCoy nursing me back to health. McCoy trying to help me as usual. McCoy protecting me. I just can’t get away from him.
The air is cool and refreshing against my skin. I feel much better this morning, although still sore, I realize, when I roll over to see what McCoy and the little raider are up to. The first thing I notice is that the fire has burned itself out. The second thing I notice is that McCoy is no where around. I remember he’s the early type, like me, and I’m sure he’s back on the road to Millers Creek. I look over to see the raider still tied up, asleep, his head slumped over his left shoulder. He doesn’t look so tough now. He must have rubbed McCoy the wrong way. That’s why he’s still tethered to a tree.
I rise to my feet, stretching, yawning, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. Soaking in the fresh air, the openness of my surroundings. Instinctively I check for my knife and find it secured at my thigh. My heart practically stops when I suddenly remember the packs. I whirl to survey the camp site, fearful that McCoy has taken off with all of them. I walk around the trees, the bushes. I even look up in the branches, but the packs are gone and once again I’m left without anything.
McCoy only helps so much. Just enough to annoy me. I should know that by now. After a quick sweep of the area I decide to go off to my right where the land slopes slightly downward, a good sign there might be water below. I tell myself I can have approximately an hour to search. After that, I need to be on my way. Water or no water.
I hear the sound of a critter before I see it. A squirrel. I snatch my knife, but he’s too fast for me. He shimmies up a tree and bounds into a hole, poking his head out once to see if I’m still here. With a sigh, I put away my knife. It would have been a good meal.
I continue on. The slope leads down a hill and at the bottom, squatting near a small stream is McCoy, his back to me and next to him, seven goodie two shoe packs. I can’t believe he’s taking them all. He could have left at least one for me and one for the raider. He’d still have five left. “You’ve got enough there to last the entire trip,” I say.
McCoy isn’t startled by my presence. He pivots on his heel, a canteen filling up in the stream. “Unfortunately, I don’t have a way to carry it all.”
I tip my head questioningly, not sure what he’s talking about. “You carried all the packs down here, didn’t you?”
He laughs. “Oh, thought you meant the creek.” He caps the canteen and starts filling another. “Split up three ways, I figure we’ve got enough for about six days. And since we’re going to follow the creek partway, maybe we can fish once in a while. It gets wider downstream.”
We? Not sure where he’s getting the idea that we’re going together. This is a race, not a camping trip. I suppose though, it couldn’t hurt to go with them a little ways. Just until I get back to full strength.
I kneel next to the stream and take in a few handfuls of water. “So … you’re sharing the packs with us?”
His brows knit together. “Of course I am. What did you think?”
I see the moment his eyes come to the obvious conclusion. “Oh, I get it,” he says. “You thought I was running off with them.”
I shrug. What does he expect me to think? I wake up, he’s gone. The packs are gone. I don’t apologize for thinking it. He’d have thought the same. “Do you know which one was mine? I had something in it.”
He goes back to filling the canteens. “Feel free to take a look.”
I’d like my ninja knives back. I hope they’re still here in one of these packs and haven’t walked off before McCoy got them back. I rustle through six of them and come up empty handed. The seventh is lying across McCoy’s lap and I want to look through it but I don’t know how to ask. I’m trying to find the best way to approach the subject when he swings it toward me.
“Do you want to look in mine too?”
How did he know? It’s like he can read my mind. “I’m looking for my ninja knives. Did you come across any?”
“No, but you can check with Jake,” he says, dropping his pack on the ground. “He might have seen them.”
“I will.”
McCoy gathers up the canteens. “Would you mind dividing the supplies into three packs? I don’t think we need to carry around seven of them. I’ll go get Jake so we can be on our way.”
I nod. I’m fine with doing the arranging. That way I can make sure it’s all fair and everyone has an equal share of everything. Besides, if I go get the little raider I might strangle him myself, before King ever has the chance.
While McCoy is gone I get everything loaded into three packs, the three that blend best with our natural surroundings. When I start taking stock, I realize there’s not an even amount of anything for three people. I split up the matches and the co
mpasses first. We each get two blankets except for McCoy. I give him the extra one since he’s so tall. It turns out there are only seventeen bars left. With seven packs we would have started out with twenty-eight. It’s amazing to me how people don’t conserve, or maybe they got lost in the shuffle. I put six bars in mine and in McCoy’s, and only five in Jake’s. My reasoning tells me he’s a kid, he doesn’t need as much.
The dried meat is as difficult as the bars. There’s an uneven amount. This time I give Jake the extra. My logic this time? He is a growing kid, even if he is a little raider. The nuts are the easiest to divide. Everyone gets an equal share. I put two canteens of water into each. But I have a dilemma—there’s one extra. I’d like to take it, until I realize the packs are already heavy with the supplies plus two filled canteens. I don’t want to carry the extra weight and if we’re going to run along the stream, there’s no reason to, so I give it to McCoy. As big as he is, he probably won’t even notice.
He and the raider start down the hill just as I finish closing the ties. I swing one onto my back and hand them each theirs when they approach. “It’s as fair as I could make it,” I say.
“Sure …” says Jake, eyeing me with disbelief.
He’s got a lot of nerve. I snatch Jake’s pack away before he has a chance to take it. “You’re lucky, little raider, that I’m willing to give it to you at all.” I’m mostly calm when I say it, but Jake’s eyes go wide when I grab him by the collar and pull him close to scare him a little. He arches back like he’s afraid I’ll smack him. “Where are my knives?”
McCoy puts a hand on my shoulder. “He deserves a good beating all right. I got the knives back though.”
I release Jake and turn my attention to McCoy. He hands the knives to me. They look a lot like mine, but they aren’t. They’re his. I remember them from the day at the prison. I narrow my eyes at him. “These aren’t mine.”
“Well, take them anyway,” he says, walking along the stream beside Jake. “At least you’ll have something.”
If I take them, that leaves McCoy with nothing. It wouldn’t be right to leave him defenseless. Worse though is Verla’s voice in my head again, reminding me about the cost of owing people. I run to catch up with him and hand them back. “I have one and I’ll make do.” I say, patting my thigh and scowling at the little raider. Jake’s eyes widen and he scoots over to the other side of McCoy. Good. Maybe he won’t mess with me or my stuff anymore.
We walk along the stream. According to Boom this will veer us away from the typical route and away from the cannibals. McCoy and Jake stay ahead of me and every so often the little raider glances back. I guess to make sure I’m not sneaking up to slit his throat. After a while of hiking along the stream, weaving through trees and climbing over boulders, the stream flows into an open grassy meadow. I follow behind; grateful McCoy has now picked up the pace, although he’s not running.
“Are we going to run at all today?” I ask. “We’d get farther and make better time.”
“Naw,” says McCoy. “We’ll get just as far by walking fast. Running uses up a lot of energy. Energy we don’t have to waste.”
I’m not sure I agree. Then again, I’m not up to full speed after yesterday so maybe walking is a good idea for a little while.
Jake swats at an insect and I realize for a little kid, he’s keeping up pretty well. I’m wondering what their stories are, Jake’s and McCoy’s, when I think I hear a noise at the edge of the forest. I glance back, scan the trees, and see nothing. “Did you guys hear that?”
They both turn and look at me like I’m crazy, both shaking their heads.
“I think someone’s been tracking me since the race started. Maybe we should get back into the trees for cover,” I say.
“I was the one tracking you,” says McCoy.
“Why?” I ask, stunned that he’d been following me from the beginning. I told him I didn’t need his help!
“I made someone a promise that I’d keep my eye on you.”
Zita. She was sneaky about the whole thing, getting me into the race, making sure I was hooked up with McCoy. I guess she doesn’t trust my ability to do it all on my own. I don’t blame her. I’d do the same if I were the one still in prison counting on her to win the race. Counting on her to survive so she’d come back and bust me out.
After a couple of hours of walking through the meadow, I’m ready to jog. To really get moving. Instead, McCoy decides it’s time to stop for a rest. He and Jake pick out a spot near the stream and we all sit, gulp down some water, and eat.
I’m finishing off my first canteen when I notice Jake messing with his collar. McCoy is doing the same. I set my canteen down on the grass, jump to my feet, and walk around behind them. Their collars are rubbing their skin raw. Jake’s is worse than McCoy’s; it’s oozing. “You guys need to pad your collars.”
Jake tips his head at me like he doesn’t understand. “Look,” I say, turning and lifting my hair from the back of my neck.”
“Oh,” says Jake.
He still looks clueless so I pull out my knife. He stiffens, but relaxes when I cut another strip from the bottom of my flannel shirt. “Lean your head forward a little.”
Jake’s eyes go wide and he looks at McCoy, who nods approvingly.
Carefully, I wrap the cloth around the back of his collar a couple of times. I wish we had bandages to protect the wound, but at least the cloth will help protect his skin from rubbing against the metal. “How’s that?”
“Better.”
I move to McCoy. Using another section of cloth, I wrap it. My fingers brush across his skin and suddenly I’m distracted for a moment, staring at the back of his head, curious once again what his story is. Wondering where he came from, where he grew up, why I’d never seen him until a few months ago. Why he’s in prison?
I snap myself out of the preoccupation with his past and finish the dressing. “All done.”
His head remains down a few seconds longer, as if he enjoyed the attention and didn’t want it to end. “Appreciate it,” he finally says, rising to his feet.
I notice how awkward he says it, like he’s uncomfortable. I nod and take my canteen to the stream to refill it. Jake and McCoy follow suit. I can’t help wondering why McCoy felt out of sorts. I glance at him, splashing cold water on his face while he lets the water flow into his canteen. Maybe he doesn’t like owing me.
When the silence is too long and stiff and uncomfortable, I decide it needs breaking. “How old are you, Jake?” I ask.
“Nine.”
“Nine! How does a nine-year-old end up in prison?”
“When you’re an orphan and they close the orphanage.”
What? King has lost his mind. How can you send a child to prison for being an orphan? My mother started the orphanage. She’d never approve of King closing it down. She’d never have let him. The thought of King getting away with sending kids to prison for no reason makes my face burn with anger. “They closed the orphanage?”
“Yep, whatever kids wasn’t adopted, they sent to prison. Mostly that was me and my sister, Joselle, since nobody wanted two kids.”
“Where’s your sister?” asks McCoy. He throws his pack over his shoulder and starts walking.
“She ran the race last year. She told me to run it this year if she didn’t come back. She said it meant good news.”
I smile, but I know the chances that his sister is still alive are slim. This race isn’t easy. Any number of things could have happened to her along the way. “Did she really think you could win? I mean, being so young and out here in the wilderness by yourselves?” I ask.
Jake shakes his head. “No, we ain’t in it to win. She said only do what I needed to do to get to the leisure prison. She said it’d be better there than starving to death in the pit of hell.”
Joselle is right about that. It is a pit of hell. King doesn’t care if we kill each other. He’d like that. There’d be fewer people to feed. Fewer prisoners to worry about. Fewer
prisoners to spill his dirty secrets.
McCoy pats Jake on the shoulder. “You’re a brave kid, you know that? A little raider, as Avene calls you,” he says, looking back at me. “But brave.”
I don’t know why, but this makes me smile. Maybe it’s the way McCoy looked at me when he said it, grinning and raising his brows.
Jake smiles too and looks up at McCoy with admiration. “Are you gonna win it?” Jake asks.
“Yes I am,” says McCoy, nodding his head. “Yes I am.”
My smile disappears instantly. This changes everything. I will not follow McCoy and let him control what I do so he can win the Headhunters Race. I’ve been planning this for three years. He’s only been in prison a few months.
Don’t let anyone hold you back. This is what comes to me now—Verla’s voice, always grounding me, always reminding me, keeping me on track. I wouldn’t be alive if it wasn’t for Verla. Even after her death, Verla’s wisdom keeps me safe.
“Look, I need to move faster.” I say, using the best excuse I can think of to break out on my own. “I’ve got to run, walking isn’t fast enough and we’ve got these ticking time bombs clamped around our necks.”
McCoy halts, whirling on me. “You’re way better off with us. We’ve got a nice little alliance going on. And don’t worry, I promise we’ll make it back in time.”
“Yeah, don’t leave,” says Jake.
Of course we have a nice little alliance. McCoy’s going to use me and Jake for whatever he can get out of us to win. Jake may not care, but I do. “Sorry to mess up the alliance, but I have to move on.”
I think I see desperation in McCoy’s eyes. “You’re crazy, Avene. You’re not going to last out there by yourself. You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into. Do you know how to avoid cannibal territory? Other prisoners that want to take your life? How about bears? Do you know what to do if you see a bear?”
McCoy sounds like the tall guy back in prison that grins like the devil, the one who thinks I can’t handle myself. It annoys me. And no, I hadn’t thought too much about the cannibals, except to avoid them. Prisoners can be taken out by a knife to the neck or heart. Easy. Bears I’m not worried about either. Not in the least. “I think I can outrun a bear,” I say.