A pool of darkness begins to enfold around me.
Don’t look back. Don’t look to the side. Just keep your eyes on the edge. Run for the edge, run run run.
And then it is there, the cliff edge racing toward me, the mouth of nothingness gaping wide beyond it. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with the hang glider but it is too late for second-guessing now. Ground rumbling, the air pierced with a thousand cries of lust, I fling myself over the edge, into the yawning chasm of bottomless black.
And just as I do, I hear a shout, a single word verbalized from behind. Gene!
* * *
I am plummeting, my feet scrabbling empty air as the cliff face screeches past. There’s no wind. The hang glider flaps like a wounded bird, wings rattling with hysteria. A sick, panicky feeling settles into the pit of my stomach.
A terrific wind gusts out of nowhere. The glider latches on to it with an almost audible click. The night air—once so vacuous—suddenly gains the solidity of a palatial carpet under me, lifting me into the night sky.
Throat in mouth, clasping the bar with a white-knuckled grip, I glance down. Duskers are spilling off the cliff edge, dropping into the black abyss. The glider wobbles. I snap my eyes to the handle, focus on the heady task at hand. I lean my body this way and that, test out the flight mechanics in careful gradations. I’m a quick study at most things, and soon enough get a feel for flying the glider. Everything done slowly and smoothly, no rough jerks or sudden maneuvers. It’s not too difficult, once the initial fear is overcome.
In fact, it’s exhilarating. The sensation of soaring through the airy expanse, the surprisingly gentle, refreshing breeze on my face. Far below, emerging out of the mountain in a titanic waterfall, the Nede River flows out of the mountain. It shines beneath like a magnesium strip, a directional arrow pointing east. To the Promised Land. To my father. If this easterly wind keeps up, I will make good time.
I take one last look back at the mountain. The moon is now pouring its milky light on the mountainside, and I can see a blanket of silver and black dots streaming up like a cloak. Wave upon wave of duskers pouring out of the mountain’s innards. They will be upon the Mission before too long.
I have tried not to think of them, but my thoughts involuntarily swing to Sissy and the boys. They will have made it back to the Mission by now. For a second, an emptiness vaster than the night sky echoes in me.
I stare dead ahead. East. Somewhere out there, beyond the scope of my eyes, is my father.
I wonder how many girls Sissy has convinced to leave by train.
My father will be tanned, I think, no longer having to stay out of the sun. And perhaps fuller around the waist, with all the food and drink he will have consumed.
I wonder if Sissy and the boys are on the train now. If the village girls are piling in with them as the train engine revs up.
My father will have a beard, or a moustache, or perhaps a scruffy shadow. He will have hair on his arms, on his legs. The bags under his eyes will be reduced, or altogether gone, removed by months and years of deep, restful sleep. He will look different, my father, but, free from the masks he has worn his whole life, he will be his true, unveiled self.
I wonder if Sissy and the boys are fine. I wonder if they know they must leave immediately. I wonder if they know the sheer volume of duskers storming toward them.
I will, for the first time in my life, see my father really smile. I will see that purest of emotions he had learned to stifle. I will see his lips curl back, his teeth shine bright with a now-practiced naturalness, a brightness touch his eyes. His arms will remain at his side, no longer feeling the need to faux scratch his wrists. And that is what he will do when he sees me. He will smile. He will smile in the sunshine and not feel compelled to move into the shadows.
I wonder if Ben is not too tired from hiking all day. If David knows he’ll need gloves and a scarf because the wind whipping through the open cages of the train will be harsh and biting. I wonder if Sissy’s arm is better, if the brand has staved off infection. I wonder if they are thinking of me as I am them. I wonder if Sissy is needing to be with me. As I her.
Stars blink into existence above and around me, seemingly within arm’s length. As if I might reach up and dislodge them, and watch them drift down like snowflakes to the earth.
I stare east. See my father in the warm glow of sunshine, glowing and blurred like a fantasy. See him diminishing, fading, as all dreams, in the harsh light of morning, inevitably do.
I grip the bar tighter. Then angle my legs to one side, canting my body. The stars spin around me as I turn the hang glider, the moon swinging like a ball on a string. The silvered river rotates under me. And then the mountain is in front of me, its silhouetted peak leaning to the side, like a head cocked in surprise and confusion.
I’m flying west.
Back to the Mission.
40
THE MISSION IS nestled between two ridges in the mountain, and I miss it the first go-around. It’s the bridge—its two halves raised like bookends—that proves to be an invaluable reference point. I circle around, see a few specks of light flickering in the dark breast of the mountain. I fly closer until the Mission fully emerges out of the darkness, and I see the soft, illumined cottages. From up here, the village’s smallness and quaintness catches me by surprise.
My landing, I’ve already concluded—sadly, with resignation, and not a little trepidation—is going to be ugly, probably painful, potentially fatal, and dependent on gobs of beginner’s luck. I’ve had a lot of time to think about it—the fifteen minutes or so it’s taken to fly back—and have already decided that my best option is to land in the glacial lake on the far end of the Mission. But what seemed like such a good idea is in actuality incredibly difficult to achieve. From up here, the lake is the size of a small coin—a ridiculously small landing pad surrounded by cratered granite and thick coniferous forests with trees jutting up like knives.
Landing in the lake feels like crashing into a wall of ice. No give in the bracken waters. My legs, then body, are run against a metal shredder as I skid along the surface. The glider suddenly spears into the depths, coldness and bubbles and darkness flipping my world upside down and inside out. Completely disoriented, I unbuckle and wrest myself free of the vest, and kick away the sinking glider. Watch the bubbles, follow them up, watch the bubbles. I break surface and the wide open dome of the night sky spreads above me, filled with oxygen.
I swim to the lake’s edge, drag out my dripping mangled body. Cold. Need to hurry, limbs shaking like branches in a gale, mind already splintering into disjointed, haphazard thoughts. Stumbling along on unsteady legs, my jaw jackhammering away, I shuffle toward the nearest cottage, my arms wrapped around my chest, hands tucked under armpits. Frozen hand barely able to mold fingers around the doorknob. Dark inside. Throw open the chest, tear off the wet clothes, put on dry ones.
It’s then I realize I haven’t seen a single person.
I run out to the street, my teeth chattering.
My eyes scan the village square; nothing moves, no one is around. Just as I’m thinking that Sissy was able to convince everyone to leave, I see a group of girls. Their eyes, lidded and half-asleep, widen with surprise when they see me.
“Where are my friends?” I say. My first spoken words in hours come out shrill and jittery.
The girls only stare at me warily.
“Did you hear me? My friends: Sissy, Epap, the boys. Did they make it back here? Have you seen them?”
But they stare back vacantly, unaffected by the urgency in my voice. Except for one. She looks petrified.
“They made it back?” I ask her.
She nods.
“Where are they?” I say.
“At the train station,” she says quietly. “Most of them.”
“What do you mean most of them?”
She clenches her skirt, balling the material in her hand.
“What’s going on?” I demand. Alarm rise
s in my heart.
“I can’t say any more. I can’t,” she says, her body going rigid.
“What’s going on around here?” I demand. And when no one answers, when no one even meets my eyes, I start running for the train station.
“Get to the train now!” I yell back at them over my shoulder. “If you want to live, you need to get on the train!”
* * *
The train station bursts with activity. Seemingly half the village is here, unloading the train cars. Still unloading the cars.
“Sissy!” I shout.
Faces turn, round face after round sleepy face. But no sign of Sissy or the boys.
“Epap! David!”
Everyone stops moving, turning to look at me. Surprise flits across their faces, but nobody speaks.
And then, on the far side of the train, I hear her. Sissy shouting, “Over here, Gene! Over here. Hurry—” She’s cut off by the sound of a smack.
That sets my feet afire. I race down the platform, pushing aside containers and generators, leaping over hoses left curled on the platform floor. A group of elders is congregated down at that end, bunched up in a tight group.
I stop in front of them, breathing hard, sucking in gulps of wispy air. The elders spread out, blossoming like a Venus flytrap, encircling me. That’s when I see them. They’re all tied up inside a train car. Sissy and the boys. Almost all the boys.
“Where’s Ben?” I say.
“Krugman’s got Ben in his office,” Sissy says. Her face is bruised on one side. Her hands, chafed and raw, are tied above her head, and looped around one of the metal bars. “They wouldn’t listen to us. They grabbed us, forced us onto this train.”
Next to her, David is shaking, almost in tears. Jacob is tied on the other side of the train. I can see the knotted ropes tying them to the bars. Epap looks to be in the worst shape. Alone in the corner, his eyes are purpled and swollen shut. He’s slumped over to the side, barely conscious, arms tied behind his back. And I see someone else tied in the other corner. A girl, her eyes blazing with renewed life. Clair.
I turn to the elders. They’re grinning, leering at me. “Okay, okay,” I say. “You got us. We give up. We’ll get on the train. We’ll leave now.”
Their faces frown. They’re expecting pushback, not surrender.
“Just get Ben. Then you can send us on our way.”
“Fine,” says one of the elders. “Get on the train now.”
“Once you bring Ben here,” I say. “Then I’ll get on.”
The elder’s face breaks into a warm smile, laugh lines rippling out. “Oh, okay,” he says. “Whatever you say. But it might take, oh, maybe an hour or two to bring him here. Give or take three hours.”
The circle of men breaks out in guffaws.
I look at Sissy. She shakes her head. It’s not going to work, her eyes tell me.
I try a different tack. “Listen to me very clearly,” I say. “Let me spell it out for you. We have to leave now.”
“How do you figure that?” the elder says.
“They’re coming.”
“Who?”
“The duskers.”
The elder smiles. He points at Sissy. “That’s what she claimed. Ohhh … we’re so scared. Ohh … the duskers are floating down the river on pretty little boats.”
“You should be scared.” I stare at their smiling faces until their smirks disappear. “Because I’ve seen them. They’re on the mountain now. Sprinting toward us as we speak, blanketing the face of this mountain like an avalanche of black desire. They’ll be on us in minutes.”
For a second, two, three, they’re silent. A silence that is broken up by uproarious laughter.
“Oh, well played, sir, well played,” the elder booms out. “I have to admit you nearly had us there for a moment.” Then he stops laughing, his tone turning on a dime. “But not good enough, not nearly by half.” His face hardens. “Now get on the train.”
“First bring Ben. In the meantime, the girls should start getting on the train.”
“What do you mean?” one of the girls asks. It’s the girl with freckles. Her voice is timid and afraid, distrusting even herself. She ignores the elders glaring at her. “Tell me.”
The elders turn to glare at her. “You be quiet—”
“We all have to leave,” I shout, now directing my attention to the girls. “The train is the way you survive. The only way.” I see the girls listening intensely, leaning forward. “You think the dusker in the Vastnarium was scary? Imagine dozens of them. Imagine hundreds of them tearing through this village!” I shout, and she flinches back. “Now imagine them grabbing you, eating you. As they surely will within the next fifteen minutes.”
A short girl standing close to us, no older than seven, starts crying. The freckled girl puts a comforting arm around her shoulders, but it is pale and trembling.
“Don’t listen to him!” an elder shouts. “Don’t listen to these barefaced lies!”
“Listen to me!” I shout over him. “Start the train engine. Start lowering the bridge. We have to leave now!”
Nobody moves.
And then: the only thing that would have worked.
A full-throated scream howls across the night sky.
It is not the sound of a wolf or an animal, nor is it the bay of loneliness. It is the sound of pining and a deranged impulse. It is soulful but not human. A second later, and it is joined by another wail, then another, until an explosion of bestial howls is flinging across the darkening skies.
The elders’ faces drain pale, their eyes widening with the realization of a lifelong nightmare. Then they do something strange. They do not order the girls onto the train. They do not themselves get on the train. They simply turn around and silently shuffle away like performers booed off the stage, their faces shell-shocked. The elders trundle back toward the village, through the black grassy meadows. Toward the howls.
“What are they doing?” Clair asks. “Where are they going?”
None of this makes sense. The village girls, initially following the elders off the platform, stop and gaze quizzically at one another. Their faces are pictures of conflict: a struggle between their base instinct for survival and their conditioned submission to the elders.
Another scream. Not a dusker howl, but a human cry. The scream’s distance from us—the farms on the far side of the Mission—does little to diffuse the raw terror in it. Full of horror, squeals that pierce the fabric of night. In my mind, I see the farm girls fleeing into the butchery, grabbing hold of cleavers and choppers to ward off the duskers. They do not realize the futility of defense, do not realize that the sight and scent of blood in the butchery—even if only that of an animal’s—will only serve to incense the duskers even further.
“If you want to live, get on the train right now!” I shout. The freckled girl steps forward. Voice shaking badly, she tells the girls to get on the train. They need no further prodding; they move as one into the train cars with surprising quiet, only an isolated sob or muted cry escaping their mouths.
A girl picks something off the floor of the train car. It’s the girl with pigtails, and in her hand now is Sissy’s dagger belt. She kneels down next to Sissy, unsheathes a dagger. A second later, she’s cut through Sissy’s ropes. Sissy stands, rubbing her wrists. She gives the girl an appreciative look, then unsheathes another dagger from the belt. Together, they start cutting away at the other ropes restraining the boys and Clair.
“How do we get this train moving?” I ask the freckled girl.
“There’s a control panel at the end of the platform,” she says. “It controls everything. A sequence of buttons that sets the train on autopilot. From there, it takes fifteen minutes to rev up, then all doors to the train lock, brakes are released, the train sets off, the bridge is lowered. The process cannot be reversed. Not until it reaches the destination, the Civilization.”
“Do you know how to work the panel?” I ask her.
She nods, her eyes ste
ady on mine. Unexpected strength there. “I’ve watched the elders work it many times,” she says. “It’s all very simple, everything color-coded and labeled pictorially.”
From the village come more howls, louder now, interspersed with screams of pain. Bloodletting has begun. I may not be able to smell it, but I can feel it in the air. The night’s blackness is doused with death.
“Go now,” I say to her. “Start the engines.” She scampers off toward the panel, fast as her lotus feet can take her.
I see David whispering to Jacob, urgently. They spin around, readying to take off.
“Where do you think you’re going?” I ask, grabbing them by their jackets.
“To get Ben,” David says, punching my arm away.
“No way. You both stay here.”
“We’re not leaving him behind, Gene.”
“I know,” I say, clenching my jaw. “That’s why I’m going for him.”
“You and me both,” Sissy says.
“I work better alone,” I say.
“Not this time. It’s Ben we’re talking about.” She turns to David and Jacob. “You two stay here with Epap, make sure he’s okay. Those two girls”—she points to the girl with pigtails and the one with freckles—“are capable. Get behind them.”
And then Sissy is leaping off the platform, cinching her dagger belt around her waist. Moments later, I’m right there with her, sprinting down the meadow. More screams sound from the village. Terror has been unleashed in the streets, in the cottages, full-blown. And we’re running headlong into it.
“Why did Krugman take Ben?” I say.
She shakes her head, eyes filled with fear. “I don’t know.” Her feet pound the ground faster, harder.
Halfway there, I throw a quick look back at the station. A loud mechanical click explodes in the air, followed by a burst of light gray smoke snorting out the engine car. The train’s revving up. Fifteen minutes. That’s all the time we have. Assuming we even make it back alive.
The Prey Page 25