The Headhunters Race (Headhunters #1)

by Kimberly Afe

  Before we reach the top, Squint stops again, this time coughing up blood.

  “I’m about to lose my patience with you, man!” says Kurt. “Rest when you get to the damn top. We got someone after our cargo!”

  It’s funny how an allegiance only goes so far.

  Squint pushes himself up with Gavin’s help and they continue to the top with us right on their heels. I glance down the trail, looking for McCoy as we crest the hill. He must be just below, around the bend because I don’t see him, but I have no doubt he’ll catch up to us within minutes. I’m so busy with thoughts of McCoy and looking for him that I run into Gavin, who has halted abruptly once again at the top. But this time, our stopping has nothing to do with Squint. It has everything to do with cannibals.

  A line of cannibals bearing torches form an arc across the plateau. With the exception of Squint, who is groaning in pain, each of us holds fast, silent under the spell of shock. I’ve never seen a cannibal in person. I’ve only heard the stories from years ago when they used to ambush Water Junction, abducting handfuls of its citizens for their winter sustenance.

  There must be twenty, armed with spears, knives, and some with oddly shaped weapons. Men and women. Even children. People of all different races bear symbols of their tribe—two hash marks, one longer, one shorter, tattooed on the outside of each brow.

  My insides flare with panic when I hear McCoy’s footsteps coming up behind me on the trail. I want to warn him but I don’t want to give him away either. Squint collapses to the ground with a cry of agony, blood dripping from his mouth. A man with an unusual goatee that I can only describe as a rainbow of semi-circles scarred into his chin steps toward us, motioning with his spear for fellow tribe members to follow.

  The man with the goatee, who I assume is the leader of the hunting party, slides the tip of his spear under Squint’s chin, lifting his head carefully. “This one needs to be tested and drying, if he’s clean, before the sun rises again.”

  The weight of horror settles in the pit of my belly. My mind spins wildly for a way to escape. Kurt begins shifting from one foot to the other. Gavin’s face transforms to a shade of white. They are going to slice us up and dry us for eating. Just like Zita does with our rats sometimes.

  Squint coughs, steadying himself with a hand on the dusty desert floor. “You a doc? You gonna fix me up?”

  The leader withdraws his spear, kneels, and extends his face nearly even with Squint’s. “We don’t fix. We eat.”

  Squint frantically crawls toward the edge of the cliff and while he’s making a run for it, Kurt reaches for his knife, but before he can get it unsheathed he stiffens unnaturally while grasping at his neck. And as if there isn’t enough for me to handle at this moment, I feel something too, on my throat. Like a sharp needle prick. At first I think it’s my collar tightening. But as I reach up to adjust it, I find that I can’t move. My arms will not raise, my legs don’t obey my command to run down the trail.

  My head feels strange too, like I’m floating, like everything has slowed to a snail’s pace. The landscape tilts and rumbles and I’m trying to understand it all when I see McCoy, bathed in firelight, appear on the trail only feet from me. Our eyes meet. I think he says my name. He looks shocked. No … he looks angry.

  Don’t come up here, I think I say, but I don’t hear the words leave my lips.

  I watch helplessly as he runs toward me, hands outstretched, hatred distorting his handsome face. He’s screaming when he reaches me. Too many voices, too much shouting keeps me from hearing what he says. Everything is happening so slowly, like a thousand things have time to occur within a span of seconds. I wonder if this is how it feels when you’re dying.

  I must be dying.

  McCoy grasps my face in his hands and I hear him say my name again. “Avene.” It sounds far away, as if I have already reached the edge of heaven and McCoy is still grounded on earth. I think he intends to kiss me. I want him to. I want his lips on mine, just once. He leans in. I feel his warm breath, but instead of our lips touching, his head falls next to mine, our eyes locking in tortured realization.

  The cannibals lift McCoy onto a dark tan animal hide strapped to two poles and carry him off. They do the same with me and the others. A woman standing at the right of my head reaches over and closes my eyelids. “Sleep,” is all she says.

  My mind tells me to fight but my body does not comply. Somehow we’ve been paralyzed. I’m not sure if I’ll ever regain movement of my limbs. This may be the end for McCoy. For the Greenies who are stuck in a cave without proof. For Zita and Boom. And for me.

  The cannibals have control. They’ll take us to their village where they will clean, gut, and skin our bodies in preparation for their winter. The terrifying part is there isn’t anything any of us can do. I’m abandoning hope when I hear Verla’s voice nagging at me, just like when I was sent to Dead Man’s Pen. You better fight, Avene, unless you have no breath left. She’s prodding at me like she used to. Pricking and prodding and preaching with her words of wisdom. But I realize it’s not Verla prodding me now. It’s the cannibals, jarring my body nestled in this leather hide as they transport me across the desert.

  I have breath. I will fight.

  ***

  I’m awakened to the sun in my eyes and the chaos of several men yelling above and below me. A gasp catches in my throat when I realize the cocoon I’m a prisoner within is being hoisted up a cliff. I look up to see cannibals step and pull rhythmically as they climb the rock face with their fresh captives in tow. It’s then that I realize I’ve regained movement. I wiggle my fingers to be sure, flex and point my feet, squeeze my rear muscles. Everything works the way I tell it to. I still have a chance at freedom, and revenge.

  I focus on what I can see and what I see is the desert valley below. The pillars of rocks that I used to get myself across the same desert only two days ago dot a trail in the landscape to the far right. At least I know where I am and we’re barely off track. The rendezvous point with the Greenies isn’t too far.

  My cocoon shifts steeply backwards, taking me by surprise. I quickly close my eyes in case they don’t expect me to be alert yet.

  “Take them to the holding room.” The order echoes from the man who says it. We must be in a cave. This must be where they live. I’m carried along in silence except for the shuffling of many pairs of feet against cold hard earth. I wonder how many cannibals live here. Why did they pick these mountains in the desert to live, where little is found as far as food and water to sustain them? I thought Boom said they stay on the flatlands of the desert? Maybe that’s just where they hunt.

  It takes several turns before we stop and I’m lowered to the floor.

  “Unstrap them,” says the same man who gave the previous order.

  At least it wasn’t an order to kill. Not yet anyway. Someone works at my ties and I can breathe easier when they’re finally loosened. With my ties undone, I listen to the cannibals’ steps as they move away. I still hear someone near me, working the straps of the others, and then I hear more footsteps and a clank, like a door closing. Ten minutes must pass before I finally open my eyes to see where I am and who is with me. The room is dark, lit by a small torch set in a sconce on the wall by the barred door that keeps us contained.

  Two figures lie next to me. My heart beats wildly as I remove the cover from the head of the one nearest. Relief overwhelms me when I see that it’s Gavin. Though, he’s still under the influence of the paralyzing toxin. I hop over Gavin to check the second figure that I pray with all my heart will be McCoy. I lift the corner of the animal hide, but my heart plummets when I see Kurt lying where McCoy should be.

  I scramble to my feet and search the rest of the circular room, but he’s not here. Why would they take McCoy? Deep within my gut I know he’s dead. He showed too much courage and strength in his attempt to save me. They won’t keep him alive.

  Someone walks past the barred door. I hurry across the room to see who it is. To see if
they know anything about McCoy. It’s only a young girl sitting on a boulder against the stone wall of a smaller cavern. She’s fiddling with her fingers in her lap, long dark brown hair tucked behind her ears. She can’t be any more than twelve. I peer through the bars as best I can but don’t see anyone else.

  “Hey,” I say.

  She jerks her head up, mouth agape, and stares at me.

  “What’s going to happen to us?” I ask.

  She glances toward the door leading into the main hall and then back at me. “I’m not supposed to talk to you. I’m only to tell when you’ve all awakened.”

  “Please. I can’t hurt you. I just want to talk.”

  She hops off the rock, her bare feet kicking up dust. She steps tentatively toward me.

  “Please just tell me if you know what happened to the other guy that was with us?”

  She looks at the ground while she fingers the hem of her leather halter top. “You know what happened to him.”

  I gasp. My stomach lurches with the stark realization that I will never see him again.

  “They said he was almost dead anyway,” she says. “Someone knifed him.”

  A breath of air catches in my throat. It wasn’t McCoy. She’s talking about Squint. “There was another one. His name is McCoy.”

  “Oh,” she says, a slight smile playing on her lips. “That one. He was already awake. They took him to Misa. She’s looking for a strong mate.”

  My mouth drops. “A mate?”

  The girl’s eyes narrow at me, like I should understand their culture. “She wants babies,” she says.

  “I thought you only take us to eat us.” At least McCoy is safe and may not end up being cannibal food. But I’m not so sure that being some cannibal’s mating partner isn’t worse.

  She shakes her head. “They need to replenish the bloodlines. I wasn’t born a cannibal. I’m from Water Junction.”

  “You are? We can take you back to your family. If you help us escape,” I say.

  “Oh, no,” she says shaking her head. “I was an orphan. This is my family now. No one there cares for me, except …”

  “Except who?” I ask, and suddenly Jake comes to mind and it dawns on me who she might be. “What’s your name?”

  “Joselle.”

  “Joselle … do you have a brother?”

  She rushes to the metal bars, her nose protruding between them. “Yes, Jake. Did you know him? Did he run the race?”

  Before I can answer, we hear the sound of footsteps echoing nearby. “Go,” she says. “Pretend to be asleep.”

  Joselle scurries to her boulder while I race back to the stretcher and wrap myself within the skin. Jake’s sister is here! Knowing she’s alive and he’s gone makes my heart ache for the news I need to tell her.

  “Did they wake yet?” It’s the same man who gave orders before.

  I hold my breath, hoping she doesn’t give me away.

  “No, Master Larson,” she says and I know that it’s her curiosity about Jake that keeps me safe.

  I hear the chink of metal against metal as Larson leans into the cell to take a look. “Get me when they do.”

  When he’s gone, I scramble back to the door. Joselle watches the hallway for a few seconds before returning.

  “How did you know my brother’s name was Jake?”

  I’m not sure what to tell her. Or how to tell her. She tips her head expectantly. I decide it’s best to tell her the truth. “I knew him. We ran the race together, with McCoy. McCoy protected him. He protected both of us.”

  “Where is Jake now? Why isn’t he here?”

  It feels like I swallow down the boulder she’s been sitting on. “Do you see these collars we wear?”

  “Yes, we didn’t have those when I ran the race, but everyone coming in has one.”

  She makes it sound like they’ve captured other prisoners, but I’m not sure if she means others or she means us. “That’s because they’re new. And they’re timed to strangle us by noon on the ninth day of the race if we’re not back with proof that we made it to Millers Creek, or with Gavin’s head.”

  Joselle is twisting her hair, at first slowly and now rapidly, like she knows what I’m about to tell her. “What does this have to do with my brother?”

  “These collars tighten every three days, approximately. King ordered them, and your brother’s collar … it … I mean he … he was strangled prematurely yesterday in Millers Creek. I’m sorry, Joselle.”

  Her mouth falls. She shakes her head in disbelief. “No. No,” she wails, covering her face, her head falling back. It only takes a few seconds for her to quiet down, when she remembers where she is. “We were supposed to be together,” she says through her tears. “I shouldn’t have told him to run the race.”

  She squats and leans against the wall, covering her face again, whimpering. “It’s my fault. I killed him. I killed my brother.”

  My eyes swell with tears. I struggle to reach for her through the bars. I finally get hold and pull her close, embracing her the best way I can. “It’s not your fault, Joselle. King is to blame. He did this to us. To you, by putting you and Jake in prison for being orphans. McCoy and I were on our way back to take care of King for good. So he can’t hurt anyone else. His son killed my mother and King isn’t my real father, he’s the one that sent me to prison.”

  She leans back, staring at me with red, tear-stained cheeks. “You’re an orphan too?”

  I nod. I am an orphan, in a way. My mother is dead. King isn’t my father. My real father died in the first wave of the Kill Plague. “Yes, I’m an orphan too.”

  Joselle palms her tears away. “I’ll help you get away. So you can avenge our families’ deaths.”

  “I need Gavin and McCoy. My plan won’t work without them.”

  Joselle nods. “Leave it to me. I can’t help you until after dark though, when everyone is asleep.”

  I can’t wait that long. I’ll be dead. “What if they kill us before then?”

  “They won’t. They will inspect you tomorrow, to see if you will serve better as meat or as a mate. Today they want to make sure you wake up. If you don’t, then they will go ahead and prepare your body for drying.”

  Thank goodness both McCoy and I woke up. I want to ask more questions but someone behind me stirs to life.

  “Go,” urges Joselle, nodding me away from the door.

  I return to my cocoon. Joselle returns to her rock.

  Gavin sits up, rubbing his head, moaning. “Where am I?” he groans.

  I don’t answer. I’m afraid to talk to him. Afraid that speaking to him will set me into a rage and I’ll kill him before we get to Water Junction. I want him to be alive when his father sees him one last time.

  Gavin waves his finger at me. “You … skinny blonde girl. I said … where are we?”

  I bite my tongue for a moment, to rein in my anger and give myself a moment to think of a suitable response. “You’ve heard of the cannibals, right?”

  Gavin jumps to his feet. “Oh my God, yes. I remember now.” He stalks toward the barred door. “Let me out! You can’t do this! You … little girl. Let us out.”

  Joselle doesn’t say a word. Gavin’s fragile personality is not how I remember him. He used to protect me from King by distracting him when I didn’t do well in our knife-throwing lessons. He’d take the blame for every little mistake I made, whether related to training or not. Maybe fleeing to Criminal City has changed him into a coward. You’d think it would’ve hardened him, made him stronger. That’s what I thought I saw in the knife shop.

  “What the hell is all the screaming for?” yells Kurt. It takes him a minute to remember what happened, and when he does he’s pounding his fist into the earth wall.

  I catch a glimpse of Joselle when she scurries into the hall to fetch her master. She returns with him minutes later. He steps up to the door to have a look, but he doesn’t say anything to us. “Get them food and water. Make sure they are well-fed today.”


  “Yes, Master Larson.”

  They leave us. We all remain silent and I’m sure Gavin and Kurt are coming to terms with what will be their fate. I am not about to tell them of my plan to escape. In fact, I’m not sure I want to include Kurt at all. Although my conscience tells me that leaving him to be eaten by our own kind is wrong. If I can think of a way to keep him under control, then I might consider taking him with us. Joselle can’t stay either. Not after she breaks us free.

  I can’t imagine it would be too hard to talk her into leaving. She’ll want to see King get what he deserves. She can tell the townspeople how he threw her and Jake into prison for simply having no parents to care for them. The citizens of Water Junction would be appalled. My mother would never have let any child be thrown into prison for being an orphan. I’ll remind them of my mother. She founded the orphanage. She provided food and shelter to the needy. She helped them all in one way or another. Maybe they won’t listen to me, but they’ll listen to Joselle.

  A few minutes later she returns with two other cannibals, all carrying platters of food and pitchers of water. Joselle slides the plates through the slot at the bottom of the door. One of her partners pours water into six wooden cups, sending those under the door after the food.

  Joselle waves her helpers away. “If you need more water, bring your cup to the door and I’ll pour more.”

  Kurt rushes at her, reaching for her neck through the bars. Joselle stumbles back, water sloshing from her pitcher. “What we want is out!”

  “She can’t help you,” I say. “She’s a slave to their orders. She has a master. Didn’t you see that?”

  “I heard,” yells Kurt, reaching for a plate. “But for all we know she could really be the queen of this cannibal hive, watching us. Seeing how we react to all this cannibal crap. Why else would they leave a kid?”