The Prey (22 page)

There wasn't a moment in those next two days when we weren't busy. Archery, fishing, tracking prey—we did it all. Making weapons, too. Bows and arrows. Slingshots. Hope took a branch from an ash tree and whittled it
into a spear—with an ease that made me think she'd done it a hundred other times.

In the late afternoon of the third day, Frank invited us into his cabin. It was like entering another world. There was a tidy kitchen. A small dining room table with placemats. Even a couple of reclining chairs angled in front of a fireplace. There was something else as well: books. Thousands of them, jammed onto shelves and in towering piles.

“Take a breath,” June Bug whispered to me.

Frank saw me ogling them. “You a reader?” he asked. I nodded dumbly. “Help yourself then. A book's no good unless it's being read. Just takin' up space otherwise.”

In no time we were cooking up the fruits of our labors: rabbit pie, raccoon stew, fried squirrel. Added to that were mounds of potatoes, countless jars of green beans, and stewed tomatoes from Gloria's garden.

That was his wife's name: Gloria. That's who we'd buried several nights before.

When it came time to actually eat, we gobbled down what was easily the most delicious meal we'd ever had. As I was licking my fingers for the tenth or fifteenth time, a spring storm blew in, thunder rattling the walls, rain clawing at the windows. To be inside and sheltered—and now
full
—seemed the most luxurious feeling ever.

“So tell me,” Frank said, sitting in a reclining chair
and scratching Argos's ears. “Who are you, anyway?”

We looked at each other.

“Just some teenagers,” I answered, as casually as possible.

“Uh-huh. Who just happened to be riding horses that don't belong to them. Or didn't you think I'd notice the brands?”

I felt the stares of the others. My cheeks warmed.

“I'm listening,” he said.

Something about the look on his face made me feel ashamed. Here he'd taught us all these things, made us dinner, invited us into his home, and I couldn't even give him a straight answer.

“We're on the run,” I admitted. Dozer shot me a venomous look.

“I figured that. From where?”

“We're from Camp Freedom,” Hope said.

“And we're from Camp Liberty,” I added.

He nodded briskly. “Those the camps at the base of the mountain?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you escaped from there?”

“That's right,” Hope said.

He nodded briskly and my stomach tightened as I waited for his response.

“Good for you,” he said at last, giving his thigh a playful slap.

I wasn't sure I'd heard correctly.

“It's about time someone had sense enough to get away from them Brown Shirts, what with their
badges
and their
inverted triangles
.” He let loose a laugh that was more cackle than anything else.

“But the other night you cursed us for being Less Thans,” Twitch pointed out.

His gaze fell downward. “That was wrong of me. I'm sorry.”

It occurred to me I'd never heard an adult apologize before.

“For years, the government's fed us all this nonsense and after a while it starts to seep in. I don't give a whit about a person's skin color or their radiation sores or whatever else the government's against. Guess I was thinkin' more about your parents than you.” We looked at him blankly. “You know—them being terrorists and all.”

“But we never knew our parents,” I said.

He opened his mouth to say something and then let it close. “No, I guess you didn't,” he said, like he was just piecing something together for the first time. “More lies from the Republic,” he muttered.

“Have you ever run into them?” Hope asked. “The Brown Shirts?”

“Twenty years ago. Just after Omega. No desire to see 'em again.”

“You don't trust them?”

“About as far as I can throw 'em.” He went on to explain how he and his wife had been at the cabin the day the bombs fell—watching the first reports on TV, then switching to radio when the TV went out. “That's when we heard,” he said.

“About what?”

“Our new country. The United States was no more, replaced with the
Republic of the True America
.” He said this last with a touch of scorn. “The few politicians who survived started up a new government. Made everyone sign loyalty oaths. Got rid of the Constitution and replaced it with a Compact.”

“What's that?” Helen asked.

“Like an agreement—a promise.”

“A promise to do what?”

“Rebuild. Become better than ever. And the government said the only way to achieve that was through the purity of its citizens.”

“What's that mean?” June Bug asked.

“Nothing good.” Then he added, “
Beware the Less Thans
is what it means.”

A chill ran up my spine.

“Why do they consider us Less Thans?” Flush asked.

He rubbed his whiskered chin before he spoke. “Because you're different—different body shapes, different belief systems, different skin color, you name
it—and people don't like different. They like what they recognize. And we all know there're two ways to feel good about yourself in this world. Either make yourself better . . . or put others down.” He paused. “I did it, too.”

I felt bad for him. Truth was, if it weren't for him we probably would've starved to death or frozen to death or who knows what.

He went on to say how, in the days following Omega, he and his wife tried to reach their kids and grandkids in Oklahoma.

“But there weren't nothin' to find. The cities were just smoldering craters, and the towns that did remain were run by gun-toting Crazies who had as much sense as a lynch mob. And then there were the Brown Shirts, instructed to shoot first and ask questions later. Just seemed safer to come back up here.” Then, in a whisper: “Even if it meant not seeing our children again.”

I didn't know about the Sisters, but we Less Thans had never known our families. He had a family but lost it to Omega. I wondered which was worse.

His rheumy eyes settled on Hope. “It's
your
camp I don't understand. Why were you all there?”

Hope hesitated before answering. “Because we were twins,” she said. The other Sisters dropped their eyes.

“Yes, and?”

“You don't want to know.”

Something about her tone gave me goose bumps, and it was like I suspected all along: they had experienced things the rest of us couldn't imagine.

“Was the whole country hit by bombs?” June Bug asked.

“All except Iowa,” Frank said, nodding.

“Why not Iowa?”

“Nothing there worth bombing.”

When he smiled, it occurred to us we were meant to smile too, even though we didn't really get the joke. Then he tousled Red's hair until it was standing straight up and that made us laugh out loud—a sound we'd nearly forgotten how to make. Argos got in on the act and barked and howled and that made us laugh harder still.

We were still laughing when Four Fingers came bursting through the door. He'd been assigned to the watch, and he bent over at the waist, trying to catch his breath.

“What is it, son?” Frank asked. “Seen a ghost?”

We were all set to laugh again when Four Fingers blurted out, “Brown Shirts! Coming this way.”

The laughter died in our throats.

“H
OW MANY
?” F
RANK ASKS
.

“Six. On dirt bikes.”

Hope tenses. She knows what the Brown Shirts—and Dr. Gallingham—are capable of.

Frank rises from his chair. “A few of you, take the horses and go hide in the boulder field. Now git!”

June Bug, Four Fingers, and Scylla dash out of the cabin. Argos trails after them. The rest begin putting away dishes so the soldiers won't suspect anything.

“Where should we hide?” Flush asks. He looks on the verge of throwing up.

“Under the barn. There's a space beneath the floorboards.”

“And they won't find us?”

“Not unless they know to look there.”

Everyone races to the barn. The drone of dirt bikes grows louder.

When the Sisters and Less Thans step inside the barn, Hope's heart sinks. Strewn about are clothes, packs, saddles—everything they own. And twenty-eight mattresses made of straw.

Frank isn't fazed. “Grab your stuff and bring it here.” He drops to his knees and sweeps away a layer of straw. Then he begins prying up floorboards, revealing a small pit of dark earth beneath the floor.

They stuff everything down there—canteens, saddles, bows and arrows, slingshots—then they spread the hay around.

“Now climb in and I'll cover you up,” Frank commands.

Nearly all of the twenty-five manage to fold their bodies into the small cavity, but there isn't room for Cat, Book, and Hope. They look at Frank, alarmed, but he just lays the wood planks back in place and hammers in some nails.

“Don't worry,” he says to those beneath the floor. “We'll come git ya.” Then he turns to the remaining three. “Come on.”

He leads them out the rear of the barn to the back door of the cabin. Just as the screen door shuts behind them, Hope hears the first of the dirt bikes pulling up.
Frank drags a footstool to the middle of the kitchen, ventures onto the bottom step, and pushes up a ceiling tile. Stale, musty air comes tumbling down.

“Git up there and don't move,” he says in a sharp whisper.

Hope goes first, then Book and Cat. They scramble into the attic, brushing away cobwebs and mouse turds. The panel slips back in place, throwing them in black.

There's a rapping on the door, followed a moment later by muffled voices. Frank's, of course. And a man who identifies himself as Colonel Westbrook.

There's a tiny hole in the attic floor, and with just slight maneuvering Hope can look down and see Frank and Westbrook sitting opposite each other like a couple of old friends having afternoon tea. Surrounding them are three Brown Shirts.

“No idea at all?” Westbrook asks, his voice dripping kindness.

“If I knew, I'd tell ya,” Frank says. “I got nothin' to hide. What'd they do that was so terrible, anyway?”

“They ran away.”

“You mean escaped.”

“I mean
ran away
. We have no fences. We're a resettlement camp, trying to help boys adjust to the complexities of a life without parents. That's all.”

“Then why'd they run away?”

Westbrook laughs good-naturedly. “You know kids. A rough day at school. Not getting along with friends. Who can say? The important thing is they need our help. You know as well as I they'll never survive in these mountains.”

“And what if I were to say I don't believe it's no orphanage?”

The colonel's voice tightens. “Then you'd be wrong.”

There's a long moment of silence. When Westbrook speaks again, the pleasantness is back in his voice. “I'm a military man. I do what the Eagle's Nest tells me. Do you think I want to head up an orphanage in the middle of nowhere? Don't you think I'd rather be on the front lines, fighting the terrorists that brought on Omega?”

“Just followin' orders, huh?”

“That's right.”

“Doin' what Chancellor Maddox bids you do?”

“Something like that. And if it's for the good of the country as it tries to pick itself up from the ashes, I'm not the least bit apologetic about that.” His voice grows thick with emotion. “I love these boys—I do—and I can understand their running away. But we're not talking about running out to the neighborhood grocery store. We're talking life and death here.” His eyes get all teary and he asks, “You're certain you've seen no sign of them?”

Frank shakes his head. “Wish I could help you out.”

“No strange sounds? No missing food? Nothing like that?”

“I think I'd know if I heard something.”

“Yes, of course.” Westbrook doesn't bother to hide his displeasure.

Hope realizes the colonel has been asking about the Less Thans, not the Sisters. He must not know they're traveling together. She wonders if that's a good thing or not.

Book is lying next to her, his arm pressed tightly against hers, his skin radiating warmth. Even in this moment of peril, with the enemy several feet below her, she feels a shudder of pleasure. Of possibility.

The screen door bangs and brings her back to the present. Another Brown Shirt has just come in.

“Nothing in the barn,” the soldier says. At the sound of his voice, Book inhales sharply.

Hope looks at him, and Book mouths, “Sergeant Dekker.” The name means nothing to her—but it obviously does to Book.

“It's just a big, empty barn,” Dekker goes on to say. “However”—he pauses dramatically—“there are fresh horse droppings in the corral.”

“Of course there are,” Frank chimes in. “Horses poop. It's what they do.”

“And where are these horses now?” Colonel Westbrook asks.

Frank shrugs. “Who can keep track? They come, they go. They're horses.”

It seems like Westbrook wants to say something, but holds his tongue.

“One other thing, too,” Dekker adds. He points out the window to the grave. “Should we dig it up?”

Frank shoots up from his chair like a rocket. “You lay one hand on that dirt and I'll see to it you get buried as well!”

Dekker goes for his sidearm, but Westbrook motions for him to leave it holstered.

“Now now,” the colonel says, placing a hand atop Frank's shoulder. “No one's going to dig up a grave, if that's what it is.”

“Of course that's what it is, you jackass. What else do you think it'd be?”