The Hunt (13 page)

And that’s when I see the window.

Jump up, heave it open.

Not a milisecond later, the group fl ows in like a black wave.

They’re so synchronized: on the wals, the fl oor, the ceiling, there’s no jostling for position, no elbowing. Just a coordinated rapid sweep into the lecture hal, eyes spinning, nostrils fl aring.

“It jumped! It jumped outside!” I yel, perched in front of the open window, pointing out. Even before I fi nish yeling, four of them are up there on the perch, jostling for position, peering through the window with me, their heads disconcertingly close to mine. A strong breeze thankfuly picks up, gusts through the window.

“I can smel it everywhere! It’s like it’s right here, hiding, where?”

“I can smel it everywhere! It’s like it’s right here, hiding, where?”

“It’s gone—”

“We can chase it down, can’t have gotten far—”

“Maybe,” I say. “If we go quick, we should be able to get to it.”

They are bunching their legs, readying to leap out of the window, when a whisper freezes them in place.

“You’ve been had.” A wet, quiet, sinister whisper, seething with threat.

It is the Director.

He’s not looking at us, merely glancing at his nails, marveling at their pastel gleam in the moonlight. His voice is quiet, seemingly indifferent to whether anyone is listening.

“Some of you here think you’re so smart,” he purrs. “You think you’re such a quick study, that you know better than the experts here. A couple days at
my
establishment and suddenly you think you’re smarter than the specialists who’ve devoted their lives to this THE HUNT 93

fi ne Institute. Did you realy think that the Institute
I
run would be so careless as to alow a heper to be on the loose, to roam un-checked through the grounds?” He studies his nails.

checked through the grounds?” He studies his nails.

A pause, then he continues, his voice even softer now. “And did you realy think a heper would be so stupid as to be caught outside the protection of the Dome after dusk?” He puts his right hand down. “They might be animals, but they’re not stupid. Like some of you here.”

It is deathly quiet. “There is arrogance and ignorance in spades here. Funny how often they go hand in hand. You need to remember who you are. You were selected by luck— not by merit, not by demonstrated ability, not by anything earned.
Dumb
luck. And now you saunter into
my
Institute and think you run the whole damn place.

“There is no heper. Yes, there is a discernible smel of heper that has blown in from the outside. It is more pungent than usual, yes.

But there is no heper, not inside, not the way you think. You’ve al been victims of mass hysteria.”

Beefy, despite the Director’s words, suddenly shivers. With desire.

He can’t hold back, he can’t deny the heper smel in his nose.

Saliva from Phys Ed, hanging from the ceiling, drips down onto a chair. They can stil smel me. They can’t help themselves.

“Ah,” continues the Director, observing these reactions, “the power of mass hysteria. Once you’ve been told there’s a face of a heper imprinted on a tree bark, you can’t unsee that image so easily, can you? No matter what we say, you’l stil see a heper.

The conviction proves to be . . . sticky. Not so easy to unring a bel once it’s been rung. Look at you al. You’ve almost got me convinced.”

Something lands on my hair, sticky and slightly acidic. I glance up; Abs is up there, hanging upside down. She’s gazing at the Director, trying to control herself. More saliva drifts down, silvery and shiny like a spider’s thread.

94 ANDREW FUKUDA

“It’s understandable, your susceptibility to mass hysteria. You’re al heper virgins: you’ve never seen, smeled, or even heard a heper before, not a live one, anyway. So at the fi rst hint of suggestion, you’re al gone, lemmings charging off a cliff. And there’s no breaking out of it now. We’ve seen this happen time and again here at the Institute, with the new hires. They come here, wet behind the ears.

Some come to see a heper behind every shadow and lose their ability to function. Eventualy, they lose the ability to perform even the simplest of tasks.”

His head revolves, looking at each of us in turn. “We are not without our options, however.” At this, he glides away into the peripheral darkness. Frily Dress emerges moments later, her face peripheral darkness. Frily Dress emerges moments later, her face beaming.

“It’s a program I came up with. The new hires were getting too distracted, so we had to come up with a way to, wel, desensitize them. The option of sniffi ng acidic powder to numb the smel nerves in the nostrils was considered, but not seriously. My plan was more humane.” She nods toward the back of the lecture hal.

A beam of mercuric light cuts through the lecture hal. An image lights up on a screen above her. We see a large room, like an indoor arena of sorts. Dotted around the perimeter are wooden posts sticking out of the ground like tree stumps. Thick, hardy leather straps are tethered to each post. Even on video, a palpably ominous air hangs over everything. A sense of sour dread seeps off the projected image.
Nothing good happens in there,
I think. My insides contract and chil, become lined with a fi lm of frost.

The place looks strangely familiar. I search my memory banks, trying to—

And then I recal. The lottery pick. The old, emaciated heper picking out the numbers. It was fi lmed right from this arena.

Frily Dress, sensing the rapt attention, pauses dramaticaly. She THE HUNT 95

tugs on her earlobe. “This converted work space is now affection-ately caled the Introduction. The name says it al. It is where you ately caled the Introduction. The name says it al. It is where you wil be introduced to your fi rst live heper. In the fl esh, in the blood, right before you.”

Crimson Lips lets rip a huge snarl. Beefy starts grunting. Drool streams down now from the ceiling in rivulets.

“Calm down. Nobody is going to be eating a heper. Not today, anyway. Not one fang, not one fi nger, wil so much as touch heper fl esh. The leather straps that bind you to the posts wil ensure that.”

She picks up a long ruler and uses it to indicate a circular trapdoor on the ground that looks very much like a manhole. “The heper wil emerge from this door on the ground. It wil come out, after you’ve al been secured to your posts, and for about fi ve minutes, you wil get to see and hear and smel the heper. The only senses you wil not be using— for now— are touch and taste, obviously. But that heper wil be suffi ciently up close and personal. And you wil be able to smel it— real heper, rather than your hysterical imaginings.

It wil set you straight. The Introduction has been incredibly successful with our new hires. After this exposure, they’re no longer heper virgins. Their ability to focus and not be distracted by faint heper odors is much improved. We think the program wil be just the ticket for you al.”

“So there is heper in this building!” Gaunt Man says, his voice loud and gruff. “That’s why heper smel is so strong!”

and gruff. “That’s why heper smel is so strong!”

“There’s one heper. And you haven’t been smeling it. It stays in its quarters. And that door you see in the photo is steel- reinforced and locks from the inside. It is completely safe in there. Has been for the past three years. And the sily thing has enough food stored up in there to last a month.”

“But how do you get it to come out at the Introduction? How do we know it’s going to come out when we’re there?”

96 ANDREW FUKUDA

She scratches her wrist. “Let’s just say that we offer choice morsels it can’t refuse. Fruits, vegetables, sweet chocolate.

Besides, it knows it’s in no danger. It’s done this a dozen times, knows that everyone is securely tethered to their posts. As long as it stays in the safe zone and doesn’t stray too close to a post, it’s fi ne. Nobody can touch it. It’s free to gather up the food to its heart’s content.”

“Is it the one who—”

“Now, realy,” Frily Dress interjects. “Do you realy want to keep asking me questions, or would you rather move on down to the Introduction?”

Judging by the speed with which we zoom out, turns out it’s a rhetorical question.

rhetorical question.

We are as giddy as schoolchildren on a fi eld trip to the amusement park. It takes us fi ve minutes to get to the arena, or rather, to descend there. Turns out, the fi ve fl oors aboveground are just the tip of a very cold, black iceberg. Whole fl otilas of fl oors exist beneath the ground. The farther we descend, the colder and darker it becomes. There is no sign that anyone lives or works or uses or visits these ghost fl oors anymore. We descend into the depths of the earth, the pul of claustrophobia closing in on me.

By the time we arrive at the bottom fl oor, I’m spent. My knees feel as if a jackhammer has done a number on them, and my heads spins crazily from the spiraled descent. No one else is fatigued; if anything, the energy level has risen as anticipation draws to a climax. There’s a lot of chatter, a lot of teeth grinding.

“Are there enough posts for al of us?” Ashley June asks. Everyone is jostling for position in front of the closed double doors.

THE HUNT 97

“Don’t you worry, any of you,” Frily Dress answers. “There are ten posts inside. Only seven of you. The posts are equidistant from the center, none has an advantage over another. A food item is placed near each post so al of you wil get a chance to see the heper up close and personal.”

Despite her words, they’re stil pushing. I separate myself inconspicuously to the side.

“What are we waiting for?”

“Just a bit longer. Paperwork needs to be pro cessed upstairs.

They’l let us know when we’re good to go.”

“How?”

Frily Dress shakes her head. “You’l see.”

“Is it realy as great as she put it?” Phys Ed asks his escort.

“Better than advertised.
So
much better.”

“I can smel it!” Beefy says. “Stronger than ever!”

“Nonsense,” chides Frily Dress. “The heper’s stil in its chambers.”

But she seems uncertain, her nostrils moistening and fl aring.

“It’s the same smel! We’ve been smeling
this
heper al this time.”

I take two steps back, slowly moving away from them.

“Getting stronger by the second.” More drool and shivers.

I play along. But those doors better open soon, because this is a I play along. But those doors better open soon, because this is a smal enclave we wait in, and in such tight, unventilated quarters, my odor is amplifi ed.

Gaunt Man’s head fl icks violently toward me. He’s not just hissing; he’s slobbering in his saliva. Foolishly, I meet his eyes. He is staring at me with a dawning realization, his eyes blinking, blinking, blinking with a new—

At that very moment, the double doors swing open, an expulsion of steam and smoke enveloping us.

Shouts of excitement as we sweep into the room. The expanse, with its high arching ceiling (rounded and balooned like an indoor 98 ANDREW FUKUDA

sports stadium) and wide spread of the dusty ground beneath, catches me by surprise. The heper’s door is on the ground, in the very center of the arena, shaped and sized like a manhole. Ten wooden posts are spaced evenly around it. We disperse quickly, each of us running like kids choosing horses on a carousel. As Frily Dress said, there’s more than enough for al of us, but that doesn’t stop general bedlam from ensuing. It’s the morsels.

Hunters are fi ghting over posts positioned before morsels deemed most attractive to the heper. Abs and Ashley June are having a feline fi ght over a post in front of a bunch of bananas.

“I was here fi rst,” snarls Ashley June.

“Wel, I’m already strapped in,” Abs hisses back. She snaps shut a latch in the strap around her ankles. “There. Locked in.

Can’t get out now even if I wanted to. And I don’t.”

Across from me, Crimson Lips and Phys Ed are bickering over a post in front of some ears of corn. My attention shifts over to Gaunt Man, whose eyes are glowing at me like a bat’s. I can’t read his expression, but I sense confusion. He’s stil trying to fi gure me out, questioning if he realy did smel heper odor coming off me.

I ignore him, busy myself with the straps. There are four metalic cuffs that lock around our wrists and ankles. Each cuff is tethered to the post by thick leather straps. Even strapped in, we have quite a lot of room to range: about a body length from the post. As long as the heper doesn’t stray past the perimeter delineated by the morsels, it’l be safely out of our reach.

An escort walks in, stoic faced, and hands each of us a pair of shades. “Lights wil be turned up in a moment,” he murmurs, “so the heper can see.” He checks each of our straps, spending the most time on Gaunt Man, whose straps are way too loose. Gaunt Man objects, raising his arm; as he does so, his shirt becomes untucked and he quickly reaches down to tuck it back in.

THE HUNT 99

But not before I see it. A dul glint coming from his belt, curved and long like a dagger’s blade.

An uneasy feeling touches the back of my neck. When the escort checks on my straps, it’s on the tip of my tongue to say something.

But the escort walks off before I can speak. He stops at the very center of the arena and says, “Welcome to the Introduction, ladies and gentlemen.” Before walking out, he stamps his boot heavily on the circular door three times, a deep boom sounding. The lights inside the arena turn brighter. We throw on our shades.