The Hunt

by Andrew Fukuda

  “Jacob!” I scream at him. “Throw me the FLUN!” He turns to me, fear in his eyes. From the other side of the boulders, panic-ridden beams flash uselessly in quick succession – it’s Epap, senselessly wasting all the rounds in his second and last FLUN. In the flashes, I see tears streaking down Jacob’s face, his mouth twisted in panic. “Now, Jacob, throw me the FLUN!”

  He flings it to me; it’s a perfect throw. It has to be. I disengage the safety, firing off a beam even as my arm is still swinging upward. It shoots out, hitting Gaunt Man square on the nose. But the FLUN is still set at its lowest setting. Gaunt Man is merely knocked off his feet, landing on his back, stunned. He’s already getting up, coming again at Jacob.

  I reset the FLUN to its highest setting, look up. Gaunt Man is almost on top of Jacob now. I fire off another round. The beam misses left of Gaunt Man by about a yard. He spins, snarls at me. I aim right between his eyes and shoot my last round. The beam flies just over his head, a few inches too high. But he’s blinded momentarily. For a few seconds, anyway.

  “Get off the boulders!” I yell, tossing away the expended FLUN. “Everyone, get off now. Regroup down here.”

  And I see the hepers tumbling down, their faces taut with fear. Epap lands near me; I grab him by the collar, lifting him up. “Where’re your FLUNs?” I ask.

  He shakes his head grimly.

  Sissy is right behind, leaping down from the top of the boulder, pulling Jacob roughly down with her. They land in a pile; Epap and I are already hauling them to their feet.

  No one has a FLUN.

  We start retreating immediately, away from the boulder. Epap grabs the spear I dropped from the ground, then we start sprinting from the boulders.

  The hunters are leaping off the boulders now. Gaunt Man lands on the still-prostrate Frilly Dress, letting her motionless flaccid body cushion his fall. All three hunters are FLUN-wounded, but their pain only feeds into their blood thirst.

  “Now, David. We need you now!” Sissy yells into the air.

  The hunters stoop down, then start racing towards us with ear-piercing shrieks.

  “Where is he!” Epap screams, running to the right, searching. “David!”

  “We need FLUNs,” I shout.

  “Screw the FLUNs,” Sissy yells, and reaches down to the dagger strap tied around her waist. In a heartbeat, she’s slid out a dagger; in one motion she pushes me aside, whips her hand away from the strap, and flings her arm out, across her chest from left to right. Just as her arm reaches full stretch, the dagger flies out from under her hand, palm facing down. The dagger shoots out, a blur of light. She doesn’t pause to see if she’s hit the mark; instantly she’s reaching down for another dagger, unstrapping and flinging, then unstrapping and flinging yet again. Three daggers in the air, slicing through the night towards the three hunters charging at us.

  We need a FLUN, I think. Daggers will do nothing—

  The first dagger hits Crimson Lips in the leg. To my surprise, she screams in pain, tumbling to the ground, clutching her thigh, the hilt of the dagger jutting out.

  The second dagger catches Abs in the shoulder. She spins in the air as if by a violent whiplash, then crashes ungainly to the ground, squealing. The dagger has pierced right through her body, the blade slicing out of her back under her shoulder blade.

  How is she doing this? How can the daggers be wreaking such devastating force?

  And then I realise what Sissy has done. She has aimed at the very points on each hunter where the FLUNs have already inflicted significant damage. In the X mark of FLUN-punctured soggy flesh and disintegrating muscle and milky yellow discharge. In Abs’ collarbone, in Crimson Lips’ thigh. The only spots where a dagger could inflict real damage.

  But the third dagger. It’s headed straight for Gaunt Man’s nose. And he’s already seen what’s happened to the other two hunters. He ducks down in the last millisecond; the dagger sails over his head. And without breaking stride, he still comes at us. Specifically, he’s charging at Sissy, trying to reach her before she can throw another dagger.

  And he’s going to make it, by a long margin. Sissy is fluid and quick as she reaches down to her hip for a dagger, but not fast enough, not by half. She’s unstrapping the dagger, has her fingers on the blade, when Gaunt Man leaps at us. Sissy looks up; her face falls. She knows she’s too late.

  And right then, off to the side, Epap heaves the spear.

  It hums through the night air, an awesome throw bereft of hesitation. It bludgeons right into Gaunt Man’s nose, dead-on.

  A horrible squishing sound. Gaunt Man’s head snaps back, his legs fly out from under him; flipped, he hangs frozen midair, his body parallel to the ground, then crashes down. The spear has impaled his face, ridiculous as the fabled Pinocchio nose.

  I grab Jacob and Epap and start hauling them backward. Sissy has bought us a short reprieve, nothing more. She knows it, too.

  “David!” she yells. “We need you now!”

  And then we hear it, finally, the sound of hooves striking the ground, the carriage grinding towards us.

  “What took you so long?!” Epap yells.

  “The stupid horse,” David says, his face petrified at the sight of the hunters sprawling on the ground, groaning. “It took off in the wrong direction, it was trying to get away.”

  “Let’s go, please let’s just go.” It’s Ben in the carriage, smeared tears glistening on his cheekbones.

  “It’s OK, we’re going to leave now, OK, everything’s fine,” Epap says.

  We’re all piling in. Something is wrong, though, something I can’t put my finger on.

  “Wait,” I shout. I grab Epap’s shoulder to stop him from getting in. “Get out!”

  “What is it?” His eyes aren’t angry, as I thought they might be. Instead, fear dots his eyes.

  I spin around again, trying to figure something out. My eyes catch Sissy’s eyes. They’re a reflection of my own: a sense of impending danger, that we’ve forgotten something—

  Someone.

  “The Director,” I whisper.

  I spin around again, eyes scanning the darkness. Nothing. “Nobody move,” I whisper.

  We all freeze, barely able to breathe. He’s out there, behind the wall of darkness, watching us. I know it. Waiting for us to expend all our weapons, to tire ourselves out on the other hunters. Watching and waiting for us to crowd into the carriage; once we’re packed in like sheep in a pen, he’ll fly in for an enclosed orgy of frenzied feasting, his teeth and claws slashing wildly like razor blades, turning the carriage into a bloody coffin.

  Sissy knows it, too. Without moving, she whispers, “David, give me the FLUN we left with you.”

  “It doesn’t work,” he says. “I tried to shoot it, but it wouldn’t fire—”

  “The safety,” Sissy says. “Gene told you to disengage—”

  “How?! I don’t know how—”

  The horse’s head suddenly snaps to the left, its nose flaring in panic.

  A black shape flows out of the darkness, unnervingly fast. The Director comes at us silently, bounding on all fours, twenty yards at a time, the speed pulling his cheeks back, peeling his lips away, leaving his teeth bared in what looks like a sickening, jovial smile. He flings his body upward, towards me. He is coming for me first.

  I close my eyes to die.

  Seconds later, I’m still alive; when I open my eyes, he’s standing in front of us, ten yards away. He is not looking at me. Or at Sissy. He’s looking behind us.

  I turn. David is standing on the driver’s seat, the FLUN pointing at the Director. Behind his hand, hidden from the Director, I see the safety switch. Still engaged.

  “It’s on the highest setting,” David says, his voice sturdy. “Set to kill.”

  The Director scratches his wrist. “A little boy wants to play hero. So cute.”

  “The FLUN that’s strapped on your back,” David says, ignoring his words, “throw it over here.”

  “What’s it
to you? I can’t possibly hurt you with it—”

  “Just throw it now!” David yells, fear sparking off his words. His eyes flicker towards the boulders. Dark shapes are beginning to pick themselves up off the ground.

  “Ahh, I see,” the Director says, observing. “You’re worried about the other hunters.”

  “No,” David says. “Just you. You’re the only one I’m worried about right now. And that’s why I’m about to shoot you in three seconds unless you hand over the FLUN.”

  And there must be something about David’s tone, because the Director does just that. The FLUN lands at Sissy’s feet. She picks it up.

  “Now what?” the Director asks. He studies David’s face. “Are you really going to kill me? Why, I’ve known you since you were born. I’ve seen you grow up, from when you were just a little bay-be. I was the one who sent you all those gifts on your birthday, the books, the cake, do you remember that? Are you really—”

  “Yes,” Sissy says, and fires a round into his chest.

  In a blur, the Director darts back. The beam grazes off his chest, superficial damage. But enough to slow him down. He flits away into the dark, retreating.

  Sissy nods at us; everyone quickly piles into the carriage. I jump onto the driver’s seat, grab the reins. Sissy sits next to me, her body twisted around, scanning the dark, her finger on the trigger of the FLUN.

  “You think you’ve won?” The Director’s voice, booming out from the darkness. “You think you’ve got the better of us? You? You stinkin’ hepers.”

  I look at Sissy; she shakes her head: Can’t see him.

  “You’ve just delayed the inevitable. Listen: can you hear it?”

  Nothing but the wind.

  And then I hear it. A faint rustling, like dry autumn leaves trampled on. But mixed in, sharp, nattering sounds, metal filings rubbed in glass shards. Sissy turns in the direction of the noise, towards the distant Institute. Her face drops, aghast with horror.

  A hazy wall of deeper darkness rises up like a tsunami wave crashing towards us.

  “The good citizens are coming,” the Director jeers. “All the guests, all the staffers, all the media. Hundreds of them. Somebody disengaged the lockdown. Once they realised that, there was no holding them back, the good citizens, no containing them. I could only hope to beat them, the hunters and I, by using the hunting accessories to get a head start. Alas . . .” His voice droops off.

  More sounds from afar now, distant cries and squeals of desire.

  “My goodness, can you imagine the frenzy when they realise all the hepers are still alive?”

  I grab the reins, pound them on the horse. We lurch forward. Towards the only option left to us. The boat. If it even exists.

  I’m sorry, Ashley June, I’m sorry . . .

  “They’re coming!” he screams, his voice trailing us as we begin to fly across the plains. “They’re coming, they’re coming, they’re coming, they’re . . .”

  We skim along the harsh terrain, the horse flying faster than ever before. But where its form was once graceful, it is now jerky, desperate, panicked. As the minutes pass, the strain becomes more obvious.

  The pursuing wall of dust has faded slightly. But it is the deepening darkness, and not increasing distance, that gives the illusion of disappearance. The volume of snarls and screams has only grown. Sissy sits next to me now, looking at the map. With sunlight long gone, the map is fading on the page, colours receding into the blankness of white. Her fingers trail a rough path across the map, her head swivelling around for landmarks.

  “We’ve got to go faster!” she yells into my ear.

  Blood still seeps from the cut on my hand. I do my best to stem the flow, pressing a cloth against it, a tricky manoeuvre while trying to steer a horse.

  I feel fingers on my hand, prying the cloth away.

  She folds it over, presses it in hard. “You’ve got to stop bleeding,” she says.

  “It’s OK, it doesn’t really hurt that much.”

  She presses in deeper. “I’m not worried about the pain. I’m worried about how your blood is giving our position away.”

  I reach out and pull off the cloth. “Don’t worry about stanching the blood. They can see us perfectly fine in this darkness.”

  She looks back for a few second, and when she turns around, worry is etched on her face. I don’t need to ask. The sound of the charging masses behind us grows by the minute.

  “The map’s gone white,” she says, disheartened.

  “It’s OK,” I say, eyes focused ahead. “We don’t need it. Just need to keep going straight, and we’ll hit the river. Follow the river north, and soon enough we’ll come upon the boat. Simple as that.”

  “Simple as that,” she repeats. She shakes her head. “That’s what you said about your plan against the hunters. It was a catastrophe back there. I thought you said there were only going to be three of them, not five.”

  “All of you assured me you could handle the FLUNs. Instead you had Epap in utter panic and shooting off all his rounds in the first five seconds. And then there’s Jacob, who couldn’t get off even a single shot. How many more times could I have said: ‘Don’t forget to disengage the safety’?”

  She turns her head away, biting her tongue, I realise.

  After a few minutes, I say, “Thanks for not abandoning me. For staying to fight with me.”

  “We don’t do that.”

  “What?”

  “We don’t desert our own. It’s not our way.”

  “Epap was—”

  “Empty talk. I know him well enough to know that. We don’t abandon our own.”

  Her words sink into me deeply. It’s my turn to be quiet. I’m thinking of Ashley June, alone in her cell. And then I’m hearing the Director’s accusing voice: You, running away like a squirrel and leaving her all by her lonesome.

  I flick the reins to tease out more speed. The horse pounds on, snorting, sweat glistening all over its body now.

  A wail breaks clear across the sky. Too loud, too close, too fast.

  And then I feel it. Drops of rain, splattering on my cheeks. I look up at the sky in horror. Dark clouds, blacker than the night sky, swollen and bulbous. The rain will soften the ground; to the horse, it will feel like glue.

  Sissy feels the drops, too. She turns to me, her eyes gripping mine. They are asking: Did you feel those drops? Did you feel those drops? There is answer enough in my silence; she bites her lower lip.

  Then she stands up, right on the bench, the horse still galloping away, the carriage jostling and rattling. Her clothes are pulled back by the wind, fluttering madly behind her. Rain starts falling down in earnest, the drops splatting on her bare arms, neck, face, and legs like miniature stars.

  “There!” she shouts, and her long arm, muscled and creviced like a bronze statute, points directly in front of us. “I see it, Gene! I see it. The river! The freaking river!”

  “What about the boat? Do you see the boat?”

  “No,” she shouts, getting back down, “but it’s only a matter of time.”

  Behind us, the thundering of the ground grows louder, the snarls, the hisses. So much closer. I steal a quick look. Can’t see anything, just darkness now. Only a matter of time. Sissy is right. Either way, it’s only a matter of time now.

  The river is a marvel. Even over the rattling of the carriage and the clamour of the chasing mob, we hear it from afar, a gentle gurgle that is deep and sonorous. When we come upon it minutes later, its size initially catches us by surprise, the banks spread far apart with a masculine broadness, at least two hundred yards across. Yet even under a sky weighed down with heavy clouds, the river seems light and feminine, filled with a sprinkling of sparkles that I at first mistake for fireflies. Its waters flow down like slowly undulating plates of smooth armour.

  The horse has slowed considerably. Its breathing grows laboured even as its stride shortens. A few times, it veers dangerously close to the riverbank before correcting itself
. I have pushed it too far. It slows to a trot, then to a stop. I snap the reins, but I know it’s useless. The horse needs to rest.

  “Why are we stopping?” Epap shouts from the carriage. When no one answers, he jumps out. “What’s going on? We can’t afford to stop.”

  “We can’t afford not to,” I say. “This horse is about to drop dead. Just for a minute, let it catch its breath.”

  “We don’t have a minute. In a minute they’ll be upon us!” He’s pointing now into the darkness from which squeals of excitement shoot out.

  I ignore him, because he’s right, and jump down. The horse’s leg muscles, when I place my hand on them, are convulsing. “Good horse, good horse, pushed you too hard, did I?”

  Epap spins around, his arm gesturing at me in disbelief. “Would you believe this guy? Trying to be a horse whisperer at a time like this? Sissy, where are you going?”

  Sissy is running for the river. She bends down at the bank, comes running back with a bowl, the water inside sloshing about. The horse dips his muzzle in, messily slurps in the water. In less than five seconds, it’s done. It whinnies for more.

  Sissy strokes the horse’s head. “Wish I could give you more, but there’s no time. You keep going, though, find us that boat, and I promise you, you’ll have all the water you’d want. But find us that boat. Quickly. Quickly!” And those last words come out as a shout as she slaps the horse on its haunches. It blinks, whinnies, then bullets forward. We all leap back onto the carriage. The horse is off again.

  The sounds from behind roar closer. Raindrops fall down, fat and heavy.

  We plough on. First figuratively, then literally. The ground becomes sodden and soaked, soft sponges sucking in the wheels of the carriage, the hooves of the horse. Even the bracing wind works against us, fierce as a gale, pushing us back, flushing our scent backward to the enclosing horde, inciting them further. Rain cuts into our eyes.

  Then the darkness, saturating the air, dissolving the horse into the night. Only the sound of its laboured breathing and the forward push of the carriage are evidence that it is even there.