The Prey

by Andrew Fukuda

  “Did you check the dining hall?” I mumble. “That’s where you’re likely to find Ben.”

  “He’s not there.” She sighs. “It’s been like this the whole week. Every day they’re off discovering some new activity in yet another nook and cranny. I can’t keep track of them. Gene, I feel like I’m losing them.”

  “They’re fine.”

  “I know.” Then in a lower voice: “Are they? Are we?”

  I sit up, blinking my eyes into sharpness. “We should ask someone where they are.”

  Sissy snorts. “Good luck with that. The girls here don’t answer my questions. They don’t even look at me. Except to shoot me the evil eye when they think I’m not looking, probably because I’m breaking one of their precious bylaws again.”

  Right then, we hear Epap shouting with excitement. His lanky body bounds up the path. “Sissy! You’ve got to see this, you have simply got to see this!” His feet kick up a cloud of dust as he brakes in front of us.

  “What is it?” Sissy says. “Calm down.”

  “No calming down over this, let me tell you,” he says, panting excitedly. He ignores me, not so much as a glance, as his hand clamps down on Sissy’s wrist. “C’mon,” he says, turning and pulling her along.

  Sissy pulls her hand away. “I don’t think so.”

  Epap turns back, a hurt expression ripping through his face. He shoots a quick look at me, then gazes back at Sissy. “You really need to see this.”

  “What?”

  “Seriously, it’s amazing. I saw a class of young kids on a field trip. I tagged along. You won’t believe what I saw.”

  “Okay, I’ll come, just don’t wrench my arm out of the socket.”

  He shrugs his shoulders, starts walking. Every so often, he glances back to make sure Sissy’s still following. He takes us along the meandering path, past the schoolhouse.

  “Where are you taking us?” I ask.

  He ignores me, walking faster toward the oddly shaped building I recognize from last night. The dark building toward which the elder had carried the bundled newborn. “Epap, what is this building?” I ask, but he doesn’t answer.

  About twenty young children are queued outside the closed double doors. Two older girls—the teachers?—converse quietly with an elder. All heads turn to us as we arrive.

  “You won’t believe what’s in here,” Epap says, wetting his lips.

  The elder turns to us as we approach. “Is this a maternity ward?” I ask him.

  “Come again?”

  “Aren’t newborn babies brought here?”

  His face stiffens. “Nothing of the sort. The maternity ward is way back there,” he chuffs, pointing back in the general direction of the village square. “This is the Vastnarium.”

  “The ‘Vastnarium’? I saw a newborn being carried here last night.”

  His eyes snap to mine. “We don’t discuss births. It’s against the precepts.” He turns away.

  I frown. I’m about to ask him another question when the double doors swing open. A stream of schoolchildren, blinking in the light, pours out. Their faces are pale, frightened pictures of alarm, as if they’ve just viewed a horror movie they had no business watching.

  “Epap,” I say, “what is this place?”

  But he’s too excited, too preoccupied with sidling next to Sissy to listen to me.

  The young elder speaks to another elder inside, whispering in hushed tones, occasionally glancing at us. Finally, they nod in agreement, and we’re all corralled in, walking in single file.

  The iron-plated doors close behind us, plunging us into darkness. A metallic hum slides across the door, then there’s silence. We’re in, we’re locked in now.

  “Do not be afraid, do not be afraid,” Epap whispers somewhere in the darkness, his voice giddy with excitement. “Sissy, this is going to be amazing.”

  One of the teachers speaks. “In a moment, the next set of doors will open. It will open up to the small auditorium. Walk carefully; it’s even darker inside there. Sit down on the second row. I will hand you a GlowBurn as you enter; don’t snap it until I say so.” With a clang, the doors open. We all tread in. Something is handed to me and I grab at it. It’s soft, about a foot long, feels like a plastic tube. This must be a GlowBurn.

  We shuffle in, walk along the length of a curved bench, sit down. A dark shape looms toward me. “Come with me, you three,” the teacher says to us. “We have special VIP seats for such esteemed guests as yourselves. Usually only the eldership is permitted to sit there, but for you we’ll make an exception.” Sissy, Epap, and I get up, move to the front row. The VIP bench is wider and cushioned with a velvet pillow.

  The teacher’s voice comes from behind. “Welcome to your bimonthly visit to the Vastnarium. As always, the purpose of this visit is to remind ourselves of the cruel world that we are called to watch over, to reignite in us a sense of purpose and mission. To make real that which might regress to the merely abstract and theoretical.”

  Next to me, Epap is bouncing up and down with excitement.

  “Now,” the teacher says, “take your GlowBurns. Snap them, then throw them twenty meters in front of you.” Instantly, from the row behind, a clatter of snaps cracks the dark. A nimbus of green light breaks out. Not a second later, rotating blades of green light fly over our heads, smacking against a glass wall in front of us. The sticks smash on impact, splattering a glowing green fluid. The fluid drips down, illuminating the glass wall. And what lies within the walls, within the sealed glass chamber.

  The chamber encompasses an area roughly the size of a classroom. A petite young girl stands inside, her body willowy and sylphlike, long raven hair falling over one half of her face. Her eyes are feline-shaped, awesome in intensity, her lips small. She lifts her head slowly, as if with great reluctance. She stares with only mild interest at the row of students but when she sees the three of us sitting in the VIP seats, her head cocks viciously sideways. She stares intently at us.

  “What’s going on?” Sissy asks, her voice urgent. “Why is that girl inside?”

  Epap can barely contain himself. He slides closer to Sissy, his mouth widening in a toothy grin. “What makes you think it’s a girl? What makes you think it’s even human?” He inhales, once, twice, wetly, quickly. “It’s one of them. A ‘dusker.’ That’s what they call them here. Fitting name, don’t you think, since they only come out at dusk. Wish we’d thought of it. All those years being gawked at by them at night, it would have been nice to have a name to yell back at them.”

  Sissy flinches back, her face collapsing in shock. Her hands grab the front edge of the bench. I see the bones of her hands jutting out with tension as she stares at the imprisoned girl. The dusker girl. I whisper the word, “Dusker.”

  What is it doing here? How did it get here?

  Epap snaps his GlowBurn. The green light illuminates his suddenly serious face. He leaps to his feet, throws the stick with all his might. It splatters dead center. He raises his hands aloft in celebration, then notices the GlowBurn still sitting in my suddenly slack hands. He snatches it, snaps and throws it with a shout. The stick smacks into the glass directly in front of the girl. She does not blink. She’s still staring at us. At me.

  Behind us, everyone is quiet. Not a sound from the group of young children.

  Epap finally sits down. “Just wait for what’s coming next,” he says, breathing hard.

  Boots clip-clop down the center aisle. A teacher walks down, her arms wrapped around a tightly capped plastic jar that’s filled to the brim with a dark liquid sloshing inside. The dusker girl suddenly goes erect, its back bent, eyes fixed on that jar. “We must never forget, never stop fearing,” the teacher whispers, “the insatiable hunger and thirst duskers have for our flesh and blood. Watch and learn, little children.”

  The teacher stands in front of a tiny glass slot, the dimensions of which are so small, they’d barely accommodate even a small fist. She pauses. The dusker, as if by some previous agre
ement, moves to the opposite side of the chamber, eyes fixed on the jar. The teacher waits until the dusker crouches on all fours, then places the jar into the tiny slot and shuts the door. The teacher bolts the door and the corresponding slot door swings open on the inside of the chamber. Instantly, the dusker girl springs forward, sprinting across the short length of the chamber. It doesn’t slow down but simply flies into the wall with a force that would have concussed a dozen heads. The dusker grabs for the open slot even as it drops to the ground, its arms and legs grappling as if each limb were a separate entity in direct competition with the other.

  A young girl screams from the row behind me. Then another tearful cry, the sound of sobbing now spreading down the line of schoolchildren.

  The dusker rips open the lid with her teeth, then pours the liquid down its throat. Within seconds, it’s downed the liquid, its tongue flicking out to lick the blood dribbling down the sides of its mouth. The dusker girl looks at me again. A surprising sadness fills its eyes, an expression of shame courses off its face. It turns around and retreats to the far corner. Into the only part of the chamber still hidden over in shadows.

  “And that was only pig blood,” the teacher whispers over the children’s sobs. “On the rare occasion, when it’s fed human blood, it is that much more frenzied, that much more manic.”

  Human blood? I think, chilled at the thought.

  The teacher walks over to where the dusker is hunkered. She snaps another GlowBurn, holds it toward the dusker. “See how the light of the GlowBurn bothers it,” she says as the dusker scampers away, arms shielding its eyes. “Duskers are averse to almost every light we know. They cower before even the light of a full moon.”

  “How did you get this dusker?” Sissy asks, her voice tense.

  “No questions,” the teacher says. “We don’t permit questions in the Vastnarium.”

  “Why not?”

  A pause. “That’s just the way it is.” This time, it’s not the teacher who speaks. The voice is masculine. The elder. Standing by the doors, recessed in the shadows.

  “I just want to know—”

  “Carry on,” the elder directs the teacher, his voice loud and dismissive.

  Epap leans over to Sissy. “This is the best part,” he whispers excitedly.

  The other teacher walks down the aisle, lugging a heavy burlap sack that is dripping with blood. She walks along one side of the glass chamber and by a door that I notice for the first time. For a reason: it’s barely visible, no more than a rectangular outline etched into the glass, a thin metal handle on the outside. An electronic key lock stands in front of it, on the outside.

  I jolt in my seat. “No way! Tell me you’re not going to open that door.”

  The teacher stops lugging the sack for a second. “Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous.” She starts pulling the sack again, past the door.

  “Does that door even work, then?” I ask.

  “Huh?” the teacher says, huffing with exertion.

  “That door. With the keypad.”

  “It’s secure, don’t worry. Always locked. Only the top-level elders know the combination.”

  “What’s it used for? Isn’t it way too risky to—”

  “No questions!” The elder’s voice booms loudly like a slammed door.

  The teacher lugs the sack to the far corner. The dusker, observing, cocks its head and rushes over to a tiny square pool of water on the ground pressed right up against the glass. I hadn’t noticed this small pool before. Its watery surface is flat as a mirror, an exact square with sides no wider than three feet. The dusker stops right in front of it, kicked dirt falling into and rippling the surface of the pool.

  “Duskers love human flesh,” the teachers says, “but they will also ravage any kind of animal flesh. Today, we have pig flesh.”

  And that’s when I notice yet another square pool of water. This one is on the outside of the glass chamber, right by the feet of the teacher, identically dimensioned as the inside pool. It lies on the other side of the glass as if the two pools are perfect mirror images of one another. The teacher lifts the sack directly over this outside square pool, drops it with a splash. To my surprise, the sack is swallowed up, altogether disappearing, before bobbing back up like a cork.

  “This is actually a U-shaped well,” the teacher explains to Sissy and me, “with one vertical shaft descending on the inside of the glass chamber, and the other vertical shaft descending here on the outside. These two very narrow shafts drop ten meters down where they join underground, forming a U. The openings, as you can see, are here at my feet, and”—she takes a glance inside—“at the dusker’s feet. This U-shaped well is completely filled with water. Because duskers can’t swim—they could drown in a puddle, stupid things—it’s perfectly safe. In fact, so averse are duskers to water, many speculate that this U-shaped well is the most secure portion of the chamber. In my book, it’s absolutely genius, so simple yet brilliant. It enables us to feed the dusker larger items—like these chunks of pig flesh—that don’t fit through the tiny slot.”

  The teacher grabs a long pole from under a row of seats, and plunges it into the well. She uses the pole to push the sack down the well. When the pole is almost fully submerged, she leans it at an angle toward the glass, jiggles it. Satisfied, she pulls the pole back up. “I’ve pushed the sack over to the other shaft. It’s floating up the vertical shaft on the inside now. All we need to do is wait. Shouldn’t be long now.”

  The dusker is on all fours as it stares intently into the watery opening, its chin almost touching the water. Its body hums with anticipation; strands of saliva drool into the water. The light begins to fade and the teacher snaps a few more GlowBurns. The dusker flinches against the light but does not otherwise move. It has thrown its long raven hair over its head in a way that obscures its face. As if to hide in shame. Then its hips rise into the air as its head dips even closer to the water. In a blink, it plunges an arm into the water, all the way to its armpit, its face twisted to the side an inch above the water surface.

  Then the bag is grabbed out of the water, and the dusker girl is ripping through the hessian sack material. Sprays of drool and droplets of water fling in the air and splatter against the glass. The dusker snarls and plunges her face into the cold wet meat.

  And suddenly Sissy is on her feet and walking out. The elder by the exit doors tries to stop her but she brushes his arm aside. I hear doors slamming open, see a surge of light tide in and out. By the time I catch up with her, she’s lifting her head to the sky, taking in deep gulps of breath, eyes squinting against the brilliant light.

  But then Epap is pushing past me, rushing to her side.

  “Sissy, what’s the matter?” he asks.

  She turns from him. “Leave me alone!”

  “What’s the matter?” He’s genuinely confused. His eyes dart between Sissy and the Vastnarium. And then at me. “What did you do to her? Did you touch her? In the dark?”

  “What are you talking about?” I say.

  “No, seriously. Did you touch her?”

  “Stop it, Epap!” Her voice is loud but resigned. “Nobody touched me.”

  “Sissy?” he says.

  She doesn’t answer, starts to walk away, her legs uncharacteristically wobbly. Epap jogs up to her, places his hands uncertainly on her shoulders. She squirms out of his frail hold, swipes his thin arms away.

  That sets him off. “What is it, Sissy?”

  She spins toward him. “How could you do that to me? Why did you take me in there?”

  “What?”

  “How could you possibly think that’d be something I’d want to see?”

  “No, no, you don’t understand. It was perfectly safe. That glass is like the Dome glass. It’s impenetrable. And the door is securely locked. As for the well, you heard the teacher, it’s full of water; duskers can’t get through that. I’d never put you in harm’s way, Sissy, you know that—”

  Rage burns off her face. “That
’s not what I’m talking about!”

  “Sissy! I don’t understand, Sissy.” He runs a hand through his hair. “I thought you’d like it. Why wouldn’t you? After all they’ve put us through, it’s like take that you chumps, see how you like being in a glass prison! See how you like being gawked at like animals!” And now he’s almost shouting. “Why wouldn’t you like that?”

  With a shake of her head, she walks over to me, and pulls me along by the elbow. “Will you come with me?” she says softly. “We need to get to the bottom of all this.”

  Epap is bewildered. He doesn’t know what to do with his dangling arms, or his flopping head, or the bits of himself crashing to the ground. His eyes fall on Sissy’s hand on me, and when his eyes flick up to meet mine they are sharp with a pained clarity.

  “What is it about him?” he says, jabbing a thumb in my direction. He strides after us when she doesn’t answer. “What is it about him that has you turned on? He only has to whistle a tune and you’re instantly panting for him.” Epap grabs her elbow, spins her around, tearing her hand away from my arm. Sissy crooks her arm back, is about to launch a fist at his face. Break his nose, black him out.

  But she holds back. Her clenched fists tremble at her side.

  Epap is undaunted. “Look at who the Mission girls are clamoring after. Look at who they’re shooting eyes at. Look at who they’re blushing over. It’s me, Sissy! Me! Not him! Haven’t you seen them, Sissy? Haven’t you seen the way they follow me, talk about me, look at me? Because maybe you should. Then you’ll stop taking me for granted. Then you’ll start to really see me.”

  Sissy glares at him, her jawline hard.

  “What must I do, Sissy? All those years—our whole lives—together, do they count for nothing? This new guy comes sauntering in and instantly you’re swooning over him. What does he have that I don’t? I twist and turn and bend over backwards for you, and you burn me in return. You burn me, Sissy.” He takes a step closer, crowding her space. But she doesn’t move, holds her ground. “Don’t you realize what I can give you? They all want me, but it’s you I want—you I’m willing to give everything.”