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The Hunted

Page 33

by A. J. Scudiere


  Kayla, walking forward with the new receivers, quickly picked up the signal and demonstrated for everyone what noise they made and how they relayed not only near/far information—like the old receiver—but also direction. She tested all three and got a positive signal. Kayla’s new tech had gone off almost at the edge of their yard, indicating she had devised a way to detect the tracker with a much, much better range than the twins had before.

  Thus, they hadn’t even needed to go all the way into the woods for the test, so at least it had been a short trip. It beat the hell out of the way Cage and Joule had wandered, trying to figure out which direction the signal was strongest in. Maybe the neighbors would be a help, Cage thought. He was trying to stay optimistic.

  After they’d emerged from the woods, they’d split into their three designated groups and were now out driving through their mapped-out territories. Ivy had made the maps, handed them out, and then asked for suggestions and allowed the group to make changes. Again, Cage wondered what the hell he’d gotten himself into. But he took the next turn, covering their assigned grid.

  Their receiver made no noise and, block after block, Joule sat quietly until at last she said, “This whole group thing is weird.”

  Cage could only agree. “I have to admit, Susan is not the one I thought we would be holding back.”

  “That's for sure.” His sister offered the word as though it were a grudge as she looked out the window.

  After a tense discussion, the group had informed Susan that she was not allowed to bring her shotgun into the car and simply begin firing if she and Steve located the pack first. In fact, Steve had insisted she leave the gun behind, or she wouldn’t be riding with him.

  Each team drove the neighborhood, up and down each main street, then turning and running the cross streets. Cage and Joule had gotten out of the car at the end of the cul de sacs and walked around with the receiver, hoping to get just close enough to catch the edge of a signal they might have otherwise missed. They did this despite the fact that the group had agreed they would not leave their cars.

  All Cage could say was that they hadn't left the car much. They’d done it together, which was as safe as they could be. And they’d done it with weapons in hand, just in case. He wasn't sure how he would explain breaking protocol if this was what yielded the signal, but it hadn’t happened. Joule was looking out the window when they did hear a noise. Only it wasn't the receiver, it was their phones.

  “Kayla and Ivy have something,” Joule announced and motioned for Cage to make a U-turn.

  Ten minutes later, they pulled up and had Steve and Susan park behind them. Though Ivy waited at the side of her car, Kayla was walking forward, the receiver in her outstretched hand, eyes on the small display.

  “Stop her!” Joule commanded, and Cage heard his voice right over his sister’s.

  “She's too close to the woods,” Cage said, “and sometimes they walk around during the day.”

  “This pack… they’re big. The ones we measured were pushing eighty pounds and they're pure muscle. These guys are bigger. I wouldn’t risk getting close.”

  It appeared Kayla wasn't listening to them at all, and Ivy had to step forward and physically pull her back.

  The group convened and made a plan, and then they headed into the woods. Again, Cage thought how strange it felt. He knew Joule had his back, but he didn't really know any of the rest of these people—only that they felt the way that he did about the night hunters.

  They made it to the location that Kayla's receivers clearly marked without incidents.

  Turning to his sister, Cage asked softly, “Are we the pack now? Are there enough of us that they see us but they won't come out?”

  “Interesting. We’re finally a threat. Is that it? They see numbers?” she asked, following his thought process. But he noticed then that Kayla was listening, though the other three weren't.

  Still, it was Kayla, who said, “They’re here. In fact, there's one receiver over this way.” She pointed toward the ground on her left, having paid attention to Joule the day before when she explained about the night hunters burrowing. “And there's another over here.” She pointed ninety degrees off from the first position.

  “Then we need to put the trough where you're standing,” Cage announced, wondering if the group would follow his instructions. He was just a kid to them. But he and Joule were also the ones who’d done this successfully before.

  The group had decided that, once they knew where the hunters were, they’d feed them more rat poison.

  “I don't understand why we can't just kill them now,” Susan said, her irritation coming through. “We dig up some of the dirt, turn over the leaves, and shoot them where they are.”

  Cage tried to be gentle, but he was getting exasperated. “Because we don't know how many there are. Because we don't know if they all ate the poison. We don't even know if the ones who did eat the poison are weakened by it yet.”

  He struggled to make his voice reasonable. “The ones we found weren’t all in one burrow, so some others could pop up behind us while we’re dealing with the first group. We might walk into a full-on battle, and we're not prepared.”

  Well, he and Joule were, but they were prepared to not fight a whole pack by themselves.

  Susan barely agreed to the answer, and in her eyes, Cage shockingly saw shades of Nate Mazur. He saw the desire for revenge over a lost loved one. It almost bothered him that he understood Susan.

  Cage saw his father’s legacy in this group. Nate had left something solid behind, whether he’d intended to or not. He announced his father’s rules. “We stay together as a group. No one splits up. No one goes alone.”

  The next piece of the agenda was the trough. They had to set it up in this new location and add the meat and the rat poison. He and Joule had put it into the trunk of the car, ready for this. Only now, Cage realized with relief, there was a team of six to haul the pieces around.

  As he pulled an unwieldy part of the trough from his trunk, he noticed it now had a funky smell. Would these hunters recognize the smell of the other hunters? Maybe the smell of the meat would cover it and they would eat it anyway. They’d eaten from it the night before, so he hoped it would go well. They'd just have to wait and see.

  Once everything was in place, Susan stood back. “We still haven’t seen one.”

  Suppressing a sigh, Cage pointed out, “We might have seen one and not known it. They camouflage very well.”

  “Tomorrow night,” Joule said firmly, reminding them they had all agreed not to come back on their own, though Cage still didn't trust Susan.

  Silently, they headed back to the road, climbed into their cars, and headed home. No one said anything as they all turned into different driveways, almost as though what they had done would remain a dirty secret.

  Once inside, Cage looked out the window and realized they’d just made it: The day was growing late. After grabbing a quick bite to eat, he and Joule closed all the curtains against the new, bigger pack of larger canines that might be wandering their yard at night. They turned out the lights, barricaded themselves into the bedroom, and grew quiet.

  He must have stared at the ceiling for an hour or more before he heard the noises of the hunters outside. No longer able to keep his eyes open, and feeling he was as safe as he could get, Cage fell into a very uneasy sleep.

  78

  Cage felt his phone buzz in his hand. It had needed to go off several times before he felt it enough to wake up. But he felt it now.

  As his eyes peeled open into the dark of night, he looked around, trying to focus on anything. There was a street lamp in the cul de sac and it let just a little light in around the curtains of the second floor window that he and Joule had not barricaded. So he noticed that she, too, was starting to squirm awake.

  Her phone had been left lying on her chest on top of the covers, and the vibrations seemed to be a little slower to rouse her. Whereas they had always left the phones complet
ely off at night, Kayla and Steve had insisted the group had to be able to communicate.

  They’d stood in the street together, each setting their phone to the “vibrate only” mode. In fact, Kayla had handled each phone, competently dismantling the speakers, making sure they couldn't go off unintentionally. One by one, the group set had their screens to very, very dim light.

  Surely, the hunters couldn't hear or see his phone as it went off now, Cage thought. Still, the very fact that his phone was alerting him to something made him nervous.

  Blinking his eyes and his brain awake, Cage turned the phone up and looked at it. The message was brief and concerning.

  Susan is missing.

  “Fuck,” he whispered into the night as he noticed Joule, her face now lit by her own dim screen, also reading the message. She echoed his sentiment, though her words were more creative.

  He began slowly throwing off the covers, grateful now that the other thing Steve and Kayla had insisted on was sharing information early. The little band had not intended to go out at night, but at least they were ready.

  He and his sister had shared their jars of carbon black powder. Both Steve and Kayla had ordered sets of their own and promised to replace the borrowed jars as soon as their shipments arrived.

  Joule had showed them the black charcoal tooth whitener. Though it didn’t ink them out of the night the way the carbon black powder did, it did cover their teeth and keep them from looking like Cheshire Cats in the dark. Kayla and Ivy had headed off to buy supplies, including several tubes of the stuff, volunteering to get some for Steve and Susan.

  Cage explained that he and Joule had initially been rubbing their black t-shirts into the carbon powder. But after she had stabbed Cage inadvertently, they had decided the disappearing act worked too well. The group had agreed and voted to simply go in black clothing and apply the carbon on their faces and anywhere else their skin might show.

  When Kayla and Ivy returned, they brought other purchases as well, including multiple boxes of black, latex-free gloves that they had found at the beauty shop. Brilliant, Cage thought. Having never dyed his hair, it hadn’t occurred to him that black latex might exist.

  Now, in the dark of the room, he pulled on the gloves as his sister came out of the bathroom, dressed in black head to toe. Her blonde curls were tucked up under a hairnet and she worked the thin black cap over that. She had already darkened her face, the skin at her wrists, and her neck.

  There was no point in flashing any skin. They couldn’t afford anything that might show light—that might show the night hunters where to bite. He was just texting “Ready” to the group when he got the same notice back from Steve.

  “Two minutes,” came from Kayla and Ivy.

  With a nod to his sister and no words spoken, they slowly undid the braces across the bedroom door. The boards scraped and creaked and would have been loud had he not been working so hard to keep the sounds to a minimum.

  The noise felt jarring in the night. But though he heard sounds that made him cringe, he did not hear any response of hunters. He could only hope they weren't sitting, waiting, in the hallway. But he'd not heard the windows break, or the doors get pushed in by a pack of persistent creatures. Slowly, he crept down the stairs and turned the knob of the front door, stepping forward into the dark.

  As he clutched his short sword and dagger, he barely saw Joule’s outline emerge from the house behind him. She carefully closed the door behind her but didn’t lock it. She had her bow already over her shoulder, quiver sitting on her back, stilettos in hand.

  She was not going for distance. She was ready for close fighting. If they encountered anything in the yard, that was how it would go down. So they were ready.

  Though he held his own weapons, he now also wore the crossbow, much like a backpack. It had taken a while to figure out how to rig it up so he could both wear it and get to it quickly. He’d wound up with his own quiver of short arrows on his hip, close at hand.

  Cage had learned from watching Joule early on. She’d packed her quiver long ago with Kleenex and foam so the arrows didn't rattle and make noise. He’d done the same, and his weapons sat ready should he need to use the crossbow.

  He turned to his sister, seeing the whites of her eyes. They’d decided against the black contact lenses. She’d grown concerned they could trap the powder under the lenses and cause damage. Or—maybe worse—they might lose the ability to see clearly in the middle of a fight.

  Though they still mostly blended into the night, at least they shouldn’t be running into each other anymore. With the group, that had become even more of a concern, so they were trying for the best mix of caution and protection.

  They’d been learning as they went. Test, adjust, test again. Another lesson from my parents, Cage thought.

  The pair headed slowly down the street, constantly looking over their shoulders, constantly listening for the noise of soft, padded feet coming up behind them. But they didn't hear anything.

  At last, they landed in the designated meeting area, where Steve already waited. He held something up to his mouth. After a look around and a deep breath, he took his hand away.

  “Is that an inhaler?” Cage asked. “Do you have asthma?” He was blinking. How on earth did Steve think he could fight if he was going to get stricken with an asthma attack? If he was already having one…

  “I’m allergic to dogs,” Steve told them both as he pocketed the inhaler. “It’s standard albuterol, and I’m taking it now as a precaution.”

  “You can’t fight if you can’t fight!” Joule sputtered out. Though Cage heard that she was trying to hold back her exasperation, she wasn’t achieving it.

  The three of them turned their heads as the door on their left opened, letting Ivy and Kayla emerge slowly into the night.

  “Steve’s asthmatic,” Joule announced by way of greeting. “I don’t think he can come out with us.”

  Steven frowned. “I’m fine. Tell you what—just leave me behind if I have an attack.”

  Cage felt his face pull into his mother’s famous, Oh really? expression. He probably looked just like her right now.

  Kayla looked at Steve, then at the group. “If he says he can come, he can.” Then she looked back at Steve. “We may not be able to save you, though.”

  “I understand. I have to do this, and I’m taking precautions.”

  “You’re allergic to dogs.” Joule tossed the words to the street between them.

  Steve just raised an eyebrow. “Night hunters aren’t dogs.”

  Well fuck, Cage thought. He had that.

  With a sigh that said she was dropping it, Joule asked, “Susan?”

  Kayla held up her phone. The dim setting made it virtually impossible to read, but one by one, they saw the line on the map as she said, “I put a tracker on her car.”

  Cage found his first response was to jerk back and ask, “Did you track all of us?”

  “No,” Kayla said, it as though it made perfect sense. “Only Susan. She's the only one I didn't trust. And look—” She held the phone up again. “I was right to not trust her.”

  Sure enough, the tracked car appeared to be parked several streets over—exactly where they had parked to head into the woods to find the hunters.

  Cage looked first to Joule, then to the group. He sighed, angry at the old woman for creating a mess and an unplanned outing—because he knew those were the most dangerous of all. Still, she was in no shape to be left out with the new pack, alone.

  “We have to go get her.”

  79

  Joule had needed to remove her bow and quiver to find a way to carry the additional weapons that Kayla and Ivy provided them. She’d then piled everything back on in a way that she hoped would allow her to get to each item quickly. Like almost everything tonight, the new setup was untested. That made her nervous.

  They’d brought two cars, opting for Steve’s and Ivy’s as the largest and strongest. Again, Joule thought they still woul
dn’t stand up to a hunter attack. Hadn’t the police tried staying in their vehicles—their fortified cars—and hadn’t the hunters still come through the windows and pulled them out? She had little faith in an ordinary SUV.

  She was riding in the passenger seat, sitting forward so as not to lean into the quiver on her back. The bow hung in the same direction as the quiver. But underneath it now was a bag with four flip-top water bottles. Kayla had handed out more black gloves, telling everyone, “Double up, guys. This is dangerous.”

  She felt heavy now, Joule thought, with water bottles hanging off of her right hip, bow over her shoulder, stilettos in sheaths strapped on her left.

  She was slow getting out of the car, mostly because she was checking her surroundings. She didn’t hear or see anything, and that only added to her sense of unease. Pulling the bow off her shoulder, she grabbed for an arrow, hoping to be able to aim at something and maybe slow it down.

  Looking around, she saw that Kayla and Ivy had both crawled from the car in front of them, and Steve was emerging just as slowly from the driver’s seat. The three of them were ready for hand-to-hand combat. So was Cage, who had set himself up with the crossbow.

  It seemed Joule and her brother were to be the first line of attack. It was their job to get out front and slow anything coming from a distance. Once the hunters got closer, they were to step back and let the hand-to-hand fighters take the front. Ivy had argued that the rear was the safest place, and it was where the children belonged.

  Joule scoffed. She was used to handling both distance and the up-close fighting. She had been a child last year, but not this year.

  Silently, the group looked to each other and motioned to move forward. Joule turned to head into the woods along the path, but it was Ivy who put a hand on her arm to stop her. Next, she quickly reached out and tapped Cage.

 

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