The Hunt (7 page)

They THE HUNT 47

worked in the daytime for two days straight. We rewarded them with some extra food. Those things wil do anything for food.”

“Who supervised them? Who could have . . . you let them just roam freely?”

My escort just shakes his head with a “you’ve got a lot to learn, kid” look.

He pushes open the front doors and walks in. The interior is surprisingly spacious and airy. But the conversion from library to guest room is incomplete. It’s realy stil a library, the only modifi cation being a set of sleep- holds newly attached to the ceiling.

Otherwise, the whole library looks virtualy untouched: shelves stil ful of books, old, yelowed newspapers hung in cherrywood holders, and reading desks positioned evenly about the fl oor. A musty smel hangs over everything.

“The sleep- holds,” he says, gazing upward. “Just instaled yesterday.”

“Hepers?”

He shakes his head. “That one we did. Hepers would never come inside. Too afraid of a trap. They’re dumb, but not stupid, know what I mean?”

He shows me around at breakneck speed, pointing out the reference section, the mercuric light switches, and the closet fi led with clothes for me and explaining how the shutters work automaticaly by light sensors. “They’re super quiet, the shutters,”

he tels me.

“They won’t wake you.” He speaks hurriedly. It’s obvious he has something else on his mind. “You want to try out the sleep- holds?

We should try them, make sure they fi t.”

“I’m sure they’re fi ne, I’m not fussy that way.”

“Good,” he says. “Now, folow me, you’re going to like this.”

He leads me down a narrow aisle, his footsteps quick and eager, then turns sharply to the back of the library. Lying on a bureau 48

ANDREW FUKUDA

next to a smal, square window is a pair of binoculars. He picks it up and peers out the window, his mouth open, drool sloshing audibly in his mouth. “I’m demonstrating how to use these binoculars because you asked me to. I’m only responding to your request,” he says roboticaly, his index fi nger turning the zoom dial.

“It’s only because you asked me to.”

“Hey,” I say, “give me a look.”

He doesn’t respond, only continues to peer intently through the binoculars. His eyebrows are arched like the wings of an ea gle.

“You can adjust the zoom by turning this dial,” he mumbles.

“Up and down, up and down, up and . . .” His voice drifts.

“Hey!” I say, louder.

“And on this side is the focus dial,” he mumbles, his slim fi ngers sliding over the control. “Let me explain to you how this works.

Since you asked. It’s complicated, let me explain carefuly. This might take a while.”

Finaly, I snatch the binoculars out of his hands.

His hand snaps around my forearm. I don’t see it happen, he moved too fast. His nails pierce my skin, and for one horrible, moved too fast. His nails pierce my skin, and for one horrible, sickening moment, I think those nails are about to slice through and draw blood. He lets go immediately, of course, even takes a step or two back. A glazed, distant look is stil clouding his eyes, but it is dissipating fast.

Three nail indentations are planted in my wrist, dangerously deep.

But no blood.

“Apologies,” he says.

“Don’t worry about it.” I hold my arm behind my back, feeling the indentation with the fi ngers of my other hand. Stil no moisture: stil no blood. If a drop of a drop of blood had seeped through, he’d already be at me.

THE HUNT 49

“Did I demonstrate it wel enough for you?” His voice is pleading.

“Do you understand how to use the binoculars now?”

“I think I can give it a try.”

“Perhaps one more demonstration wil—”

“No. I can handle it.” Keeping the binoculars behind my back, I turn to look outside. A crescent moon shines behind a scrim of clouds, its thin, sickly light faling down. “What am I supposed to be looking at?”

be looking at?”

He doesn’t say anything, so I turn to look at him. For a moment, the clarity in his eyes turns slightly opaque again. A line of drool that hasn’t yet been wiped away thickens down his chin. “Hepers,”

he whispers.

I don’t want him hovering behind me, pestering me for another

“demonstration,” so I wait until he leaves. I’m fi led with a strange dread but also an excitement as I pick up the binoculars. Other than my family, I’ve never laid eyes on a heper.

At fi rst, I’m not sure what I should be looking for. Then moonlight spils through a break in the clouds, iluminating the swath of land. I swivel the binoculars slowly, searching: a brief burst of cactus, a boulder, nothing—

A smal colection of mud huts sitting inconspicuously off in the distance. The heper vilage. My guess is it’s about a mile away. A pond of some sort— no doubt man- made; no body of water could possibly survive in this terrain— lies in the center. Nothing moves.

The mud huts are as nondescript as the desert.

Then I see something.

Moonlight glimmers above the mud huts in a concave shimmer.

Then I realize: There’s a transparent dome covering it. It rises high, 50 ANDREW FUKUDA

about fi fty yards at its highest point above the mud huts. Its cir-cumference encapsulates the entirety of the vilage.

Of course; it al makes sense now.

Without the dome, the hepers would be a free- for- al. What would prevent the people from marauding the mud huts at night when the hepers lay asleep and unprotected? Who could stop themselves from feasting on them unless they were sealed in completely?

They’d never have survived a single night hour without that dome of protection.

I zoom in on the mud huts, searching for some sign of life. But nothing moves. The hepers are asleep. Not a chance of seeing them to night.

A heper steps out of one of the huts.

Even with binoculars, I make out very little. A thin fi gure, walking toward the pond, female. It appears to be holding a bucket of some kind. When it reaches the edge of the pond, it bends over, fi some kind. When it reaches the edge of the pond, it bends over, fi ls the bucket. I play with the dial until it comes sharper into focus.

Then I recognize it: the female heper on TV, the one that picked out the last lottery number.

I watch as it stands up, takes a sip of water from cupped hands.

Its back is to me, its head staring east at the mountains. For a long time, it does not move. Then it bends down, cups its hands, takes another sip. Its movement, even for so simple an act, is graceful and sure. Its head suddenly swings in my direction; I fl inch back.

Perhaps it has caught a refl ection off the binoculars’ lens. But it is looking past me, at the Institute. I zoom in on the face. Those eyes: I remember them from earlier this eve ning, on my deskscreen, their brown tone like the trunk of a wrongly feled tree.

After a few moments, it turns around and disappears into a mud hut.

Hunt Minus Four Nights

I AM CURIOUS about the library they’ve lodged me in and intend to stay up through the day hours to explore. But the night’s activities have worn me out; no sooner have I sat down to read the welcome package than I fi nd myself waking up, hours later.

Somebody is pounding at the door. Startled, I jump up, my heart hammering. “Give me a minute!” I shout. I hear a mumbled hammering. “Give me a minute!” I shout. I hear a mumbled response.

Fear douses me awake. I’m realizing now. My face. I’m not ready.

My fi ngers reach for my chin: a faint stubble just breaking the skin.

Enough to be noticed. And what of my eyes? Are they bloodshot with fatigue? And do my fake teeth need to be whitened, my body washed?

Never forget to shave. Get enough sleep to avoid bloodshot
eyes. Never forget to whiten your teeth every morning before
you
leave. And wash every day; body odor is the most
dangerous—

My father’s instructions. I’ve abided by them every single day of my life. But my razor blades and eyedrops and fang whiteners and underarm ointments are stashed miles away at home. Given 52

ANDREW FUKUDA

the right mix of other products, I could cobble together what I need. For example, three sheets of aluminum foil dissolved in horse shampoo with a liberal application of baking soda wil, after a fortnight, congeal into a ser viceable bar of underarm deodorant.

Trouble is, I don’t have these ingredients at hand. Nor do I have a fortnight to spare.

The door pounding gets louder, more insistent. I do the only thing I can. Grab my penknife and quickly raze my chin, making sure not to chafe my skin. That would be a fatal mistake. Then I grab my to chafe my skin. That would be a fatal mistake. Then I grab my shades and head to the front door. Just in time, I catch myself. My clothes. They’re creased from being slept in, a teltale sign that I didn’t sleep in the sleep- holds. I run to the closet, throw on a new outfi t.

The escort is not happy. “I’ve been knocking for fi ve minutes.

What’s the matter with you?”

“Sorry, overslept. Sleep- holds were comfy.”

He turns, starts walking. “Come now. The fi rst lecture is about to begin. We have to hurry.” He takes another glance back at me.

“And lose the shades. It’s cloudy to night.”

I ignore him.

The Director of the Heper Institute is as sterile and dry as his surroundings, which is saying a lot. His face has a plastic sheen, and he likes to stand wherever it is dark. He exudes an austere authority that is both quiet and deadly. He can whisper a rat to death with the razor- sharp incisions of his carefuly nuanced words.

“Hepers are slow, hepers like to hold hands, hepers like to warble their voices, hepers need to drink copious amounts of water.

They have an expansive range of facial tics, they sleep at night, they THE HUNT 53

are preternaturaly resistant to sunlight. These are the rudimentary facts about hepers.” The Director speaks with a practiced élan. He pauses dramaticaly in the dark corner, the white glow of his eyes disappearing, then reappearing, as he opens his eyes. “After de cades of intense study, we now know signifi cantly more about them. Much of this information is known to only a few of us here at the Heper Institute of Refi ned Research and Discovery. Because you wil be hunting hepers in four nights, it has been determined that you, too, wil become privy to the latest research. Everything we know about hepers, you wil know. But fi rst, the waivers.”

We al sign them, of course. The papers are handed out by of-fi cials in gray suits who emerge from the darkness behind us.
All
information learned over the next few weeks will not be
disclosed
or disseminated to any person after the Hunt is
completed unless
the Heper Institute expressly grants
permission.
I initial next to it.

You may not sell your story for publication or option said story
for
a theatrical production unless the Heper Institute expressly
grants
permission.
I initial next to it.
Compliance is total and
irrevocable
.

I initial next to it.
Upon punishment of death.
I sign and date it.

I initial next to it.
Upon punishment of death.
I sign and date it.

The Director has been watching us carefuly as we sign, each hunter in turn. His eyes are black holes, sucking in observations with a slippery, keen acuity. He never misses a thing, never guesses wrong. As I hand over my waiver papers, I feel his eyes clamp down on me like a suddenly jammed stapler. Just before the papers are taken from me, they dangle off my hand, shaking ever so slightly.

His eyes fl ip to the papers, to the way they are quivering. I know this without looking, from the piercing cold burn on my wrist where his eyes settle. I grip the papers tighter to stil them.

Then I feel his stare shift away, the cold burn on my wrist evap-orating. He has moved on to the next hunter.

54 ANDREW FUKUDA

After al the papers have been colected, he continues without missing a beat. “Much of what is known about hepers is more fi ctional than factual. It’s time to debunk these myths.

“Myth one: They are wild beasts at heart and wil be continual fl ight risks. Fact: They are easily domesticated and are actualy quite afraid of the unknown. Truth is, during the day while we sleep and the Dome is retracted, they are unsupervised and free to roam.

The whole stretch of the plains, as far as you can see, free for them The whole stretch of the plains, as far as you can see, free for them to escape, far and away. If they choose. But they never have. Of course, it’s easy to understand why. Any heper who leaves the safety of the Dome is— come nighttime— free game. Within two hours, it would have been sniffed out, chased down, and devoured.

In fact, this has happened. Once or twice.” He does not elaborate.

“Myth two: They are passive and submissive, ready to lie down rather than fi ght back. Ironicaly, this myth has been perpetuated by previous Hunts when the hepers showed anything but re sistance. Historical accounts of that Hunt refl ect how useless they were: fi rst, the initial fl ight, where they proved to be slow and disorga nized; and second, their submissive surrender when surrounded by us. Even when we were two miles away, they just gave up. Stopped running. And when we came on them, not a single one fought back, not so much as even a single raised arm.