The Hunt (The Hunt #1)

The Hunt (The Hunt #1) Page 32

“Oh,” she says quietly. “No way.”

I nod. “But he was really strange. Must have spent months just writing up that journal, copying excerpts into it. Everything from textbooks to scientifi c treatises to ancient religious texts. And then there's this really weird blank page—”

“You mean this one,” she says, opening the book to the blank page. And before I can say anything, she continues, “The page that reveals a map when you hold it up to the sunbeam?”

I pause. A map? “Exactly,” I say in a low voice. “That's exactly the page I was talking about.”

She stares at me, a smile cracking through her face. “Liar,”

she says. “You so didn't know about the map.”

“Okay, you're right,” I say to her broadening smile. “I didn't know about the map. But give me a look- see. Hold up that page to the beam. Sun's going down, we don't have much time.”

Sure enough, once she holds it up to the sunbeam, a map bleeds out of the page. But more: not just the outline of a map, but a tap-estry of rich colors splashing across the page like a painting.

“You should have seen this map fi ve minutes ago when the sunbeam was stronger. The colors were fl ying off the page, they burned into your eyes.”

The vista depicted on the map is detailed and comprehensive.

In the bottom left corner, I see the gray slab building of the Heper Institute. Right next to it is the Dome disproportionately large and sparkling. The rest of the map captures the land to the north and east, the stale brown of the Vast transforming into the lush green of the eastern mountains. Most curious of all is a large river fl owing south to north, painted in a verdant deep blue. My fi nger trails along it.

“The Nede River,” Ashley June says.

“Thought it was just a myth.”

“Not according to this map.”

My fi nger pauses. “Hel o, what's this?”

Where the Nede River slants toward the eastern mountains, a brown raftlike boat is drawn. It's anchored beside a smal dock.

Also noticeable is a thick arrow drawn from the boat and up along the river channel, toward the eastern mountains.

“I know, I was confused when I saw that, too. It's as if it's saying that the boat is meant to journey down the Nede River. Toward the eastern mountains.”

“Doesn't make sense. Rivers fl ow from mountains, never up them.”

“Do you think”— her voice lights up—“it was his escape route?

The Scientist's?” She sees my confusion. “Everyone says he got burned up by the sun. But if he really was a heper like you say, there has to be another explanation for his disappearance. Maybe he got away. By boat. This boat.”

Possibly, I think. But then I shake my head. “Why would he leave a record of his escape route? Doesn't make sense.”

“I suppose. But one thing's for sure.”

“What is?”

“This map is for only hepers to see. Nobody else would be able to see this, even accidental y. Not as long as you need sunlight to view it.”

I bend over to study the map more closely. The amount of detail is astonishing the closer you get. Fauna and fl ora reveal themselves with surprising specifi city. “What does this all mean?” I ask.

“I don't know.”

“We'l fi gure it out,” I say.

She's quiet, and when I look up, her eyes are shiny with wetness.

She's smiling. “I like it,” she says, “when you say we.”

My eyes linger on the smal creases at the ends of her lips. I want to extend my hand, trace those smal creases with my fingertips. I look into her eyes and smile in return.

She peers at my face as if it were a page, like a toddler learning how to read, enunciating in her mind the syl ables of emotion on my face.

I'm unsure of what to do or say next; uncertainty fl oods the moment. So I turn my stare down, pretend to study the map.

“Where do you think they'l be sending the hepers?”

“Could be anywhere. It really doesn't matter, they could practical y place an X anywhere on the map as long as it's eight hours out. Not west, is my guess. They wouldn't want the hepers getting too close to the Palace. On a windy day, their scent might be picked up by the Palace staff. They wouldn't want to run the risk of Palace staffers sabotaging the Hunt.”

She's doesn't say anything for a long time. When I look up, she's rubbing her bare arms.

“The other night,” she says quietly. “When the Director was here. Do you remember how he went on about the heper farms at the Palace?” She shakes her head. “He was just kidding, right? The whole thing about heper farms, the hundreds of hepers? That was just a fi gment of his sick fantasy, right?”

“I don't know. Maybe. I couldn't get a read on him.”

She keeps rubbing her arms. “It's so freaky, just thinking about it. I've got goose pimples all over my arms.” She looks at me. “Do you get goose pimples, too?”

I walk over and stand close, looking at the tiny bumps on her arms. “I do get them. But I cal them ‘goose bumps,' not ‘goose pimples.' ”

“ ‘Goose bumps,' ” she repeats. “I like that better. Doesn't sound as nasty as ‘goose pimples.' ”

Before I can stop myself, I reach out and touch her arm.

With my fi ngertips. Her skin, so soft, shivers under my touch. She draws back.

“I'm sorry,” we both say simultaneously.

“No, I am, I shouldn't have,” I start apologizing.

“No, I— I—it wasn't a fl inch. Like, I wasn't drawing back in disgust or anything like that . . . it's hard to explain.” And then she suddenly grabs my hand and places it, open palmed, on her forearm.

A jolt shoots up my arm, a skein of heat and electricity. I draw back my hand, but her eyes are fi l ed with invitation and longing.

“I just . . . ,” she starts.

The goose bumps on her arms pop up even more. This time, when the palm of my hand sinks into the soft give of her arm, she doesn't fl inch back and I don't remove my hand. We look at each other, the tears in her eyes a refl ection of the wetness in my own.

A short time later, she fal s asleep on the sofa. It's a total col apse.

Her body folds up like a failed origami piece, her head twisted to the side against the top of the sofa. Her mouth is slightly open, smal puffs of breath pulsing out. The way her body's torqued, she's going to wake up with a sore neck. I reach out to center her head on the armrest. In her slumber she complies, shifting her head at the gentle urging of my hands. So strange to be touching a person.

I sit on the other end of the sofa, my body heavy but relaxed.

Above us, the sleep- holds hover on the ceiling, two unblinking ovals staring down like all - knowing eyes, leering at me with mocking accusation. They have taunted me al my life, those sleep- holds. There was a time when I harbored a fantasy. In that fantasy, I live the normal life of a normal person. Every night, I take to the sleep- holds, my baby twins— in my mind, always girls— asleep in the next room, their cherubic faces made chubbier as they hang upside down. And my wife sleeps, hanging next to me, her face pale yet luminescent in the mercuric night light, her long hair spil ing down to just touch 188 ANDREW FUKUDA the fl oor, her feet graceful even in the straps of the sleep- holds. And in my fantasy, there is no pulsating push- push of blood into my upside- down face; no pain from the sleep- holds tearing into the skin of my feet; no drip of tears fal ing to the ground beneath me.

Only calm and coldness and still ness. all is normal.

Including me.

I glance over at Ashley June, so wonderful y drooped on the sofa, her chest rising and fal ing, rising and fal ing. Beneath closed eyelids, slight bulges of her eyes move side to side.

A spittle of saliva sits at the corner of her open mouth. I fi nal y let my eyes close, sleep tugging me into a deep, blissful wel . It is new, this sensation.

Of fal ing asleep, lying down next to someone. I drift asleep, as intimate and daring and trusting an act as I've ever risked.

Hunt Minus One Night AT FIRST, NO one is particularly alarmed when Beefy fails to show for breakfast. He's notoriously diffi cult to rouse from sleep, something his now departed escort often complained about. Only after the dishes have been cleared from the table and we're all moving to the lecture hal is a staffer sent scurrying to his room to check on him.

There is surprise, but not sorrow, when news of his disappearance breaks out. We're in the lecture hal by this point, listening to a se nior staffer drone on about upcoming weather conditions (heavy rain and windy) and how they might affect the Hunt in two nights, when another staffer pigeon walks into the hal .

He whispers something to his superior; the superior stands up and walks out, leaving the ju nior staffer at the lectern.

“One of the hunters has disappeared,” he says. He pauses, at a loss of what to say next. “Teams are now scouring this building in an effort to fi nd him. Another search team is surveying the grounds outside. There's a possibility of a sunlight disappearance. But there's no need to be worried.”

Not that anyone is. No tears lost here: it only means less competition for the rest of us. But no cause for outright jubilation, either— it's not as if Beefy were ever a contender. If either Phys Ed or Abs had been missing, there'd be an all - out celebration right now.

“I'm sorry to have to say this,” he continues, “but with al staffers preoccupied at this moment with the search, the lectures for the early eve ning are canceled. You are free to do as you wish. Be mindful that the Gala begins in three hours at high moon, midnight on the dot. May I suggest you use this time to get some beauty sleep?

You do want to look your resplendent best for the cameras and guests.”

Gaunt Man walks up to me as we're all leaving. “Did you see the lectures that were canceled?” He bends down to read the pam-phlet in hand. “ ‘ Taking Advantage of the Fauna and Flora of the Vast' and ‘ The So cio log i cal Heper Tendencies in an Environment of Fear: How Best to Leverage Gain.' Remember how I said all this was a crock, that these lectures, this orientation, even the Hunt, was just a show?”