They scream as one, members of an insane choir.
In the end, what saves me is the very thing that threatens to kill me: their insatiable lust for my blood. As Phys Ed in the front leaps up for me, he is pulled down by the ones behind. They surge forward, tripping over him. It gives me a two-second head start, and that is all I need.
I sprint towards the exit doors, and five yards out – even as I feel their hands grasping my back, their nails brushing the back of my neck -I leap for the handlebars on the door. The feel of the cool metal in my hand is something I will never forget. My momentum pushes the handlebar down, the door flies open, and a blinding whiteness fills my vision. The sting in my eyes is a beautiful pain.
Their screams, once charged with desire, are now suffused with pain and agony. I hear them beat a hasty retreat.
But I’m not done with them. Not by half. I reopen the door – I see a mad skittering away from the light like rats scampering – and prop it open with the attaché case. Enough light floods into the library, even to the far wings, to make the remainder of the day sleepless and painful for the hunters inside.
“Sweet dreams, you animals!” I shout as I begin to walk away.
But then I hear a voice, hoarse and brittle with rage, echoing down the foyer like rancid spit racing up a throat. Gaunt Man. “You think you’re getting away?!” he yells from the darkness inside. “You think you’ve got us beat, you stupid heper? You think you’re so smart? Hey, you sweaty, smelly, singing heper! We’re only getting started! You better run! You hear me? Because come dusk, the Hunt starts. And we’ll be pouring out of here to hunt you down, to rip into you, to shred you to pieces. You hear me? You came here for a Hunt?! Well, a Hunt is what you’re going to get! You get me? You’re going to get a Hunt!”
Everyone is still slumbering in the main building. My footsteps echo down the dark, empty hallways. I pass by the banquet hall. It’s like a bat cave inside. Scores of people hang asleep off the main chandelier, their dark, dangling silhouettes like a putrid clump of clogged hair. Off to the side, hanging off some air ducts, is a group of reporters, their cameras still slung over their necks, almost touching the floor.
Ashley June doesn’t answer when I knock. I push her door open. Her room is empty.
She’s upstairs in the Control Centre, as she said she’d be, in front of the monitors, her head swivelling around.
“Hey,” I say as I walk in, gently, not wanting to startle her. Sunshine pours inside in slanted beams, flooding the centre with brightness. I walk to her.
“Hey back. You’re supposed to be sleeping.” She turns around. “I think I found the ideal place to hide—”
“Ashley June.”
“What’s the matter?” She sees the look on my face.
I shake my head.
“Gene, what is it?!”
“I’m sorry.”
She peers deeply into my eyes, studying me. “Tell me what’s going on, Gene.”
“Something really terrible.”
She sits up, places a hand on my arm. “What happened?”
“It’s over for me.”
“What do you mean?”
I explain to her. The hunters in the library, the sunbeam, their discovery of what I am. Alarm ripples across her face. “It’s over,” I say. “They’re on to me. Once the sun goes down, they’ll hunt me down.”
She stands up, walks a few paces away. Her arms stay rigid by her side, her head bent down, deep in thought. “We’ve got the FLUNs. We can go back to the library, take them down.”
“Ashley—”
“No, listen, we can do this. Nobody else knows about you, it’s only the hunters in the library.”
“Ash—”
“If we take them out, no one will be any the wiser, your secret’s still safe.”
“It’s a suicide mission—”
“We’ve got the FLUNs—”
“There’s one FLUN left, I used the other up. And it’s buried somewhere in the library, I don’t know where it is. They outnumber us, they’ve got speed, power, fangs, claws—”
“We’ll find it, then, put it at the highest setting, it’s fatal—”
“We won’t find it!”
“We can—”
“Ash—”
“What!” she screams, her voice suddenly catching. “What do you expect me to say, what other choice do we have?” She starts to sob uncontrollably.
I reach for her, gather her in my arms. Her body is cold; she’s shivering. “We’ve got to try, we’ve got to keep coming up with answers,” she urges.
“It’s over. We tried our best. But there’s nothing more that can be done.”
“No! I refuse to believe that!” She pulls away with a cry. Her hands whiten into tight fists. Then her breathing steadies, her body reaches perfect stillness. The stillness of a person who’s reached a decision.
“We can make a life for ourselves in the Dome,” she says softly, still facing the windows, her back to me.
“What?”
“The Dome. We’ll survive, just like the hepers have, for years.”
“No way. I can’t believe—”
“It’ll work. The Dome runs on continuous autopilot. It comes up at dusk, descends at dawn. It’ll always protect us.”
I stare at her back. I can’t take it anymore, seeing that back. I walk over, grab her arm, spin her around.
Her face betrays the steadiness of her voice and gait. Tears run down her cheeks.
“Ashley . . .”
“It’s the only option left for us.” She stares into my eyes. “And you know that, don’t you?”
Us. The word resonates in my ears.
“I won’t let you . . . it’s just me they want right now,” I tell her. “You can go on with your life.”
“I hate that life! More than you do.”
“No, you’re good at it. I’ve seen you, you could go on—”
“No! I hate it with every fibre of my being. I could never go back to it alone. The fakery, the burying of desire.” Her eyes take on a flash of raw emotion that at first I think is anger. But then her words: “You’ve done this thing to me, Gene. And now I can’t go back to that, not alone, not without you.” She sniffs. “The Dome. That’s the only way we can be together now.”
“The Dome’s a prison. Out here, at least you’ll be free.”
“Out here, I’m a prisoner in my own skin. The restrained desires, the repressed smiles, the fake scratches, the fake fangs – these are the bars of a deeper prison.”
My thoughts race in me, spiralling in a mad tailspin. But her eyes slow everything down, anchor me. And I move towards her, helpless to do otherwise, cupping her face. My hands on her cheeks, my fingers on her jawline, her cheekbones, wiping at her small mole, wet with tears.
“OK,” I say, smiling despite the situation, “OK, let’s do this.”
She smiles back, squeezing her eyes shut; more tears flow out. She pulls my body against hers, holds me fiercely.
A loud, piercing scream suddenly screeches from outside. We look at each other. Then another, filled with pain and agony. Silence. Then another hellacious scream. We rush over to the window.
Somebody is making a break for it from the library. Phys Ed. He’s holding above his head a SunCloak. But the SunCloak was never meant to be used in broad daylight, and the sun’s impact is immediate and devastating. Phys Ed stumbles, then gets up on his feet, his legs pushing forward with a spongy propulsion. As he draws closer, I see his skin – shining with an almost radioactive paleness – start oozing under the strong sun, pus already leaking out of his eyeballs. He screams again, and again, even as his vocal cords start to disintegrate. But if the SunCloak is not perfect, it’s good enough: he’s going to make it to the main building. Where he can tell others about me, that I’m a heper in disguise, that I’m a heper in this building.
Ashley June reads the situation with chilling accuracy. “We might not have till dusk anymore.” We watch in disbel
ief as Phys Ed pulls open the front doors and flings 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’ll 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’ll meet up at the Dome. As long as they don’t suspect you, you’ll be fine. It’s just me they’re after.”
A horrific howl rips up the hallway, a screech that rattles the building. A skittering of noises along the walls. 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 surveillance monitors, see if you can see what’s going on.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’ll stay here,” she says. A strange pitch to her voice, an oblique light in her eyes.
I head back towards the monitors, curious myself to see what is happening around the Institute. At first, the monitors indicate little movement. Everyone is still sleeping. It’s all grey and still. But a monitor in the corner catches my eye. There’s movement. In the foyer, where Phys Ed is writhing on the floor, his legs pedalling 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 hall, 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 rousing, eyes beginning to pop open.
“I gotta go now!” I yell 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 Centre. The corridor is empty. “Ashley June!” I yell 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 Centre, 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. Literally and figuratively. 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 stairwell. At the top, peering down the dark well, I hear the cries and screams and shouts. The pounding of boots, the slap-dash ricochet of bare feet scrabbling along walls and stairs. Doors bang open and shut. The sounds float up at me haphazardly, echoes bouncing up the walls 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 flights down. Manic skittering of feet on the chrome stairs, the click of long fingernails on the metal railings. Heading up. Towards me. A collective hissing, like a swarm of wasps, flies up towards me. Then a primal squeal screeches up the well, 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 towards the Control Centre. They’re coming in fast and furious, their screams bouncing off the walls around. Just two corridors to run down, just two.
I’m down the first 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 Centre is in my hand. I turn it. It slips in my grip, my palms and fingers too slick for traction. I take it in both hands and squeeze it like a vice. The door swings open and I fling my body through the gap, kicking the door shut as I fly 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 terrific 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 Centre. The door isn’t going to hold for much longer. Maybe a dozen blows at the most. They’ll burst through, a flood 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 hallways in nightgowns and flannel pyjamas, eyes aglow. They all know. That I am up at the Control Centre.
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 office chair and heave it at the windows. It bounces uselessly off like a ping-pong ball. I spin around, looking for another exit. There is none.
Every monitor is now blurry with the energy of a collective 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 figure just standing, slightly bent over, writing something.
It’s Ashley June. Relief, and an odd sense of pride, fills 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 blood-curdling squeal that vibrates the very walls of the building. Ashley June pauses, puts pen back on paper, starts writing. She suddenly stops, looks up, her mouth dropping.
She’s realising 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 wall, pulls it open, places the paper inside. The oven? Then she punches at a large button. A light shoots out from the button, illuminating 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, towards 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 fixed 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 floor and walls and ceiling. Away from the door. Then silence. They’re all gone.
I look at the monitor and see Ash
ley June flying down the stairwell, her hair flowing 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, all the way to the Introduction.
On the other monitors, I see hordes of people, in a synchronised stampede, racing down the stairs.
For the blood and flesh of a female virgin heper.
They move as one, wordlessly but ferociously, their blurred speed astonishing on the monitors. The pull of gravity gives them even more speed as they fly down the stairwell. Falling 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 fall, continues to close in on her.
She reaches the bottom floor. Her face is flushed, sweat pouring off her and creating a damp ring of darkness around her neck. Strands of wet hair lie pressed against her face. Her breathing is ragged; she flies towards the doors leading into the Introduction.
They land behind her, a viscous black waterfall crashing down, spraying onto the walls and floor. They go right at her.
She squeezes through the tiny opening between the doors, miraculously opened. A half second later, a dozen of them jump that very spot. Their sheer mass jams them, prevents a single one from slipping through the doors. She has time, maybe a few more seconds of life.
I switch over to a different monitor. Now I see what she has planned all along. She’s heading for the chamber where the old male heper lived. She sprints past one of the poles, past dark stains in the ground, and towards the manhole-shaped door of the chamber, tilted up and open. Three people – two men and a woman – have slipped through; stark naked, their clothes stripped during the chase, they’re bounding right for her. Their mouths are hideously wide in a scream that, though silent to me through the monitor, must be ear-shattering for Ashley June. Yards out, Ashley June does a running slide right into the opening, her arm grasping the bar as she falls through, pulling it down. It falls with a thud, kicking up dust. The three of them slide right across it; they circle around, their muscles bunched, fingers jamming around the edges, trying to pry open the cover.
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