The Headhunters Race (Headhunters #1) (21 page)

I notice Martha and Jim’s packs strewn on the ground next to them. The canteens probably need refilling. I take care of them so we’re ready to go in the morning. I don’t want any delays tomorrow if it’s something that can be accomplished tonight.

It isn’t until I hear the hoot of an owl far off in the distance that I realize I better settle in as well. I find a spot next to McCoy. I thought he was asleep, but he rolls over to face me. He traces a finger across the cut above my eye.

I want to know everything about him. Where he’s from, how he came to be in Water Junction. How he wound up in prison.

“You all right?” he whispers. McCoy reaches for my hand.

Suddenly I’m at a loss for words, being so near to him in this way. His heat warming me, my insides rally with nervous excitement. I’m trying to think of something to say when he squeezes my hand and I remember what I had wanted to ask. “How’d you end up in Dead Man’s Pen?”

“I was passing through Water Junction, on my way to Anglewood—”

“Anglewood? You never would have made it. My mother always said the cannibal tribes between us and Anglewood are the deadliest.”

“Do you want to hear my story or not?”

I swallow hard, embarrassed for interrupting. “Sorry.”

“When I saw this man being kicked around, Boom as it turns out, I had to help. It was three against one and I couldn’t stand there and let them beat him to death. He was in pretty poor shape by the time I got there.”

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“You said that already.”

“I meant I’m sorry you were thrown in prison for helping someone.”

McCoy wraps his arm around me, to the small of my back, and pulls me closer. “Don’t be sorry. I made the right decision. And it came with benefits,” he manages to get in a grin before he starts yawning.

He burrows his head in my hair. His breath against my neck ignites a fire inside me, the spark taking hold like a wildfire, spreading heat through my body. I’m not sure how to respond to his nudging, so I lay there and enjoy the moment, savoring the closeness with him and knowing that we both may end up in the leisure prison. If we do, I’m thinking it might not be so bad.

In my dream, there is a scratchiness in my throat. A burning, acrid dryness that makes me cough. I know what it is. My collar. King is finally getting his wish. I am being strangled to death. But I hear people. Maybe they have the key to unlock it.

A chorus of coughing erupts all around. Oh, no. King is strangling everyone. They can’t help me either. Someone yells to get up. I look up but I don’t see anything up that can help me. “Fire, fire.” I hear them say.

It sounds like McCoy in my dream.

Fire! I bolt upright, coughing, gasping for breath, absorbing the sound of cackling needles, leaves, and burning brush. Limbs from trees creak and splinter under the pressure. The smoke scorches my lungs, my throat, my nose. It’s not a dream.

Somehow I get to my feet. McCoy and Jim gather up Martha in their arms. I stand there paralyzed, unable to move, unable to think clearly. McCoy yells, “Run, Avene!”

I remember the packs. We can’t leave without them. I snatch them from the ground and turn to see which way we should run, but I am frozen. I don’t know which way to go. Soaring pillars of fire lick at the sky all around us. Smoke whirls through the air. I pivot to search for a clear way out. We are surrounded by an orange glow. I’m just about to give up hope when I see an opening through a thicket of trees that have not yet been touched by the blaze. “This way!” I shout.

With heads huddled together, McCoy and Jim scamper to my side with Martha. I lead them out, all of us hacking, gasping. We dodge hot embers dropping like snowflakes. The heat is intense, so intense I shed my flannel.

“Leave it on, Avene!” McCoy yells. “It’ll protect you.”

I pull it back over my shoulders just as something scurries past my feet. A squirrel. I watch where it goes, thinking his instincts might be better than mine. I race after him, waving the others to follow, keeping my eyes on the squirrel as it runs through the underbrush. I lose sight of him when I stumble. We push ourselves forward, me weaving us through smoke and trees and down slopes, which Jim says is best anyway, since fires tend to burn faster going uphill.

It’s mid-morning before we’re far enough from the fire’s burn path that we can take a breather. We rest in a rocky outcrop. McCoy and Jim set Martha down and lean her against a smooth-faced boulder. Her head hangs low. Her chest barely rises with each breath. I have this gut-sick feeling she won’t make it to Water Junction. I think Jim knows this too. His expression is no longer one of desperation to get her to the hands of a doctor. Now it’s the same kind of hopelessness I saw in Zita’s eyes when Verla was on her deathbed, when she was resigned to the fact that Verla would die and no longer hid her emotions.

I monitor Jim for a moment, observing the way he attempts to make Martha comfortable, removing his outer shirt, folding it carefully, and then tucking it behind her head. He brushes strands of her hair from her face and then helps her drink some water. Even though Jim knows she might not make it, I know he’s holding on to hope that she does. Like I did with Verla.

I lean against the side of a rock and take a long swig of water, aware of how the birds chirp angrily in the trees above us, as if we’re invading their territory. I guess we are, but their static presence in the canopy does wonders to relieve my anxiety about the fire being anywhere near us.

I’m gulping down water when suddenly my belly grumbles. That’s when I remember we haven’t eaten for a while. I glance through the trees, looking for any movement, wishing I’d taken that squirrel down rather than trying to follow him.

Martha coughs while holding on to her stomach. Seeing her so weak sends pangs of guilt through me. If there is something I can do, I should be doing it, so I traipse into the forest to hunt.

“Where you going?” asks McCoy.

“We need to eat,” I say, but I don’t stop.

McCoy catches up to me. “Well we’re a little close to cannibal territory for you to be going off by yourself.”

I sigh. “Cannibal territory is everywhere. Isn’t it?”

He doesn’t say anything. He knows I’m right. I take the lead, finding a good spot where I can stake out a few trees and the hillside, places small animals might make their home. I sit behind a bush on one side of what looks like a natural game trail. McCoy finds a good shrub across from me.

I sit there, watching, making as little noise as possible. Hoping something comes along. When boredom sets in, I sneak looks at McCoy. I get flustered when I catch him doing the same to me. I blush and turn away as quick as I can. Once I think I hear him chuckle.

I figure an hour passes before McCoy comes out of hiding and says time’s up. We’re already off track and we’ll need to make up the miles we’ve lost. I’m disappointed by the lack of animal activity. My stomach is devastated.

“If we can make good time, we can set traps tonight,” he says.

I turn to him with my mouth hanging. “You know how to set traps?”

“Sort of.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “What do you mean ‘sort of’? Either you do or you don’t.”

“Well, I know how to set man-traps,” he says, looking at me cautiously. “It can’t be that hard to downsize for rodents.”

“What is a man-trap?” The first thing that comes to mind is Gavin, and how can I use one to capture him?

“Exactly what it sounds like—traps to catch humans. Specifically—cannibals. We used them in the Corrective Corp to capture and convert them back to pre-kill plague values.”

“I’ve never heard of the Corrective Corp.”

“It was a trial program in Durango designed by an idealist named Becker. He thought he could rehabilitate the cannibals rather than kill them. After a year of this, we discovered they built better traps than we did. They started catching and eating Corp members and when they began eating the host acclimation families, including Becker’s wife and daughter, he finally gave up.”

“How long were you—”

McCoy halts me with a hand clasped around my arm. He points to something on the ground to my left. A snake, black with white bands, slithering through the woodland grass.

The sight of it sends my stomach into a frenzy.

McCoy pounces on it and with a nearly four-foot kill, we enjoy quite a meal around a small campfire. With our bellies somewhat satisfied, including Martha’s, who manages to get a few bits down, McCoy checks the compass and we’re on our way again.

Once we get clear of the rugged landscape, the going is easier. We travel in the same fashion we did yesterday. We break and rest, break and rest. Sometimes we walk, at my urging, since I see the strain running is putting on McCoy and Jim, even Martha, who is being jolted about as they carry her. She barely comes to now when we stop. Jim gets bits of food into her and water when he can.

As we push closer to Water Junction, to King and to freedom, I think about how I’ll feel when I finish the race. What I’ll say to King. How he’ll react. The expression he’ll have on his face. I hope Gavin’s still alive when I get there. I have words for him as well.

I’m imagining what I’ll say to Gavin when I think I see someone ahead. My insides buzz with promise that it might be Gavin and the Brit Devil. I pick up speed, passing Jim and McCoy and focusing on the object in the shape, I swear, of a man hunched over in the clearing.

The closer I get, I see that the man remains in the same position. He doesn’t run or hide, there’s not a single movement as I continue across the meadow to take a closer look and when I get there, I find that it’s only the stump of a tree. I want Gavin so bad my mind is playing tricks on me.

McCoy and Jim catch up. “Everything all right?” asks McCoy.

“Yeah,” I say and continue across the meadow, hoping no one realizes that I’m descending into mental madness. Disappointment sets in as I hurry to get under the cover of trees again. Though the cover is short-lived and we’re back in the open after only a short walk.

I slow to a tiptoe when I notice how the field we’ve come upon has been leveled. All that remains are tree stumps, cut clear to the base. The entire area is covered with them. A chill shimmies down my spine when I wonder who did it. And why? I look ahead to the forest line and suddenly I can’t wait to get within the shelter of its canopy.

McCoy and Jim stop beside me.

“Looks freshly cut,” says Jim. “Maybe a week or two ago.”

McCoy leans down and rubs his hand over the grain of wood on one of the stumps. “Sure does.”

I sweep the area while another shiver takes a turn at my body, wondering if someone could be watching us.

But the area is clear. There’s no sound except our heavy breathing and a few bird calls in the distance. I look at McCoy who shrugs, so I continue toward the tree line. McCoy and Jim spread out to my left still carrying Martha, leaving a few feet between us like we’re sweeping the area for intruders. My head roams back and forth from one end of the tree line to the other and then behind me. McCoy and Jim do the same. Occasionally McCoy and I lock eyes and we both send each other looks to say the whole situation is weird but things seem okay.

I’m almost there, in the safety of the trees, when I realize I have just stepped into a place where the ground feels different under my feet. I tap on the dirt with the toe of my boot. “There’s something under—”

I don’t get to finish my sentence because suddenly the whole world collapses down on me.

I gasp for air, coughing, sputtering earth and grass and an earthworm from my mouth. Before I fell, I caught a glimpse of McCoy, Jim, and Martha as they were sucked down too.

“McCoy?” I yell, still spitting out residue. My face is covered in dirt and mud. I wipe off as much as I can with my sleeve while I inspect my surroundings. I’m at least six feet under, maybe eight or ten feet into the ground. I dig my fingers into the dirt above my head, but as soon as I try to pull myself up, I slide back down.

“Jim? McCoy?” I leap for a root that looks sturdy enough to hold my weight. I miss by several inches. “Are you guys okay?”