The Hunt (4 page)

Somebody was just here. A few moments before I arrived.

I live alone. I have never invited anyone here. Other than me, nobody has even stood at the front door before. Until today.

nobody has even stood at the front door before. Until today.

Cautiously, I make my way around the perimeter of the house, looking for signs of disturbance. Everything looks fi ne. The stockpile of cash left by my father and secreted in the fl oor boards, though slowly diminishing, is untouched.

Closing the front door, I stand listening in the darkness of my home. No one else in here. Whoever was standing outside never came in. Only then do I light the candles. Colors break out.

This is my favorite time of day. When I feel like a prisoner taking his fi rst steps of freedom or a diver rising from the depths of the 24 ANDREW FUKUDA

mythical sea, drawing in his fi rst gasps of air. This is the moment, after the endless gray black hours of night, I see color again. Under the fl ickering light of the candle, colors burst into being, fl ooding the room with pools of melted rainbows.

I put dinner in the micro wave. I have to cook it twenty times, because the timer only goes up to fi fteen seconds. Hot, slightly charred, is my preference, not the tepid, soppy mess I’m forced to eat outside. I remove my fangs, place them in my pocket. Then I bite into the burger, relishing the heat as it attacks my teeth, savor-ing the solid feel of charred crispiness. I close my eyes in enjoyment.

And feel dirty, ashamed.

After my shower— showering is this thing you do where you rub gobs of hand sanitizer and pour water over your body to get rid of odor— I lie on the sofa, my head propped up on folded sweatshirts.

Only one candle is alight; it casts fl ickering shadows on the ceiling.

Sleep- holds dangle above me, placed there years ago merely for show on the off chance a visitor might drop by. The radio is on, the volume set low. “Many experts are speculating that the number of hepers wil be in the range of three to fi ve,” the radio analyst says.

“But because the Director was silent on this issue, there realy is no way of knowing.”

The radio program continues, with a few calers chiming in, including a crotchety woman who speculates that the whole thing is rigged: the “winner” wil end up being someone with deep pockets and close friends in high places. Her cal is suddenly cut off. Other calers weigh in about the number of hepers in the Hunt this time.

Only one thing is for certain: it has to be at least two, because the Director— in a voice loop that has been played over and over—

used the plural tense: heper
s.

I listen to a few more calers, then get up and switch off the raTHE

I listen to a few more calers, then get up and switch off the raTHE

HUNT 25

dio. In the quiet that folows, I hear the gentle
pit- pat
of rain on the shutters.

My father sometimes took me out in the daytime. Except for the times he took me swimming, I hated going outside. Even with sunglasses, the brightness was overwhelming. The burning sun was like an unblinking eye, spiling light like acid out of a beaker, turning the city into an endless fl ash. Nothing moved out there.

He would take me to empty sports stadiums and vacant shop-ping mals. Nothing was locked, because sunlight provided the best security. We’d have the whole Core Park to fl y kites or the empty public pool to swim in. He told me this ability to withstand sun rays was a strength, made us superpowerful.
We can withstand
what
kills them
. But to me, it was only something that made us different, not stronger. I wanted to be like everyone else, cocooned in the dome of darkness that was home. Blackness comforted me. It hurt my father to hear that, but he didn’t say anything. Gradualy, we stopped going out.

Except when a certain awful need hit us.

Like right now. I open the door. The rain has stopped.

I venture out.

The city is fast asleep behind shuttered husks of darkness. I “bor-row” a horse from a neighboring yard and ride down empty streets under an overcast sky.

I head out today because every few weeks I get the urge. When my father was alive, we’d venture out together. The shame was mu-tual because we’d never speak, wouldn’t even look each other in the eye. We went far, past the city borders, to the Vast Lands of Uncertain End. That’s a mouthful, and most people simply cal it the Vast.

26 ANDREW FUKUDA

It’s an endless stretch of desert plains. Nobody knows how far it goes or what lies beyond it.

Because I live in the outer suburbs, far from the tal offi ce build-ings of the Financial District and farther yet from the center of the metropolis where towering governmental skyscrapers clutter the landscape, it doesn’t take long before the city is wel behind me.

The city boundary is vague: there’s no wal to demarcate the beginning of the Vast. It arrives indiscernibly. Scattered homes give way to dilapidated poultry farms, which in turn cede to crumbling shacks long ago abandoned. Eventualy, it’s just the spread of empty land. The Vast. There’s nothing out there. No place to fl ee.

Only the cruelest of elements, the three Ds: desert, desolation, and death.

There’s no escape for us out here,
my father would say,
no
sanctuary, no hope, no life for us at all. Don’t ever come out
here thinking
there’s escape to be had.

I don’t dilydaly out here but head north. About an hour out, an isolated mound of soft green fuzz sits there in the middle of the Vast, an aberrational oddity discovered years ago by my parents.

And what I need is in the green fuzz. By the time my feet hit the soft grass, I’m sprinting toward a glade of trees. I reach for a red fruit hanging off a branch. I tear it off, shut my eyes, and sink my teeth through the skin. The fruit crunches in my mouth, watery and sweet, my jaws working up and down, up and down. When my father and I ate the fruit, we’d eat with our backs to each other.

We were ashamed, even as we chewed, bite after bite, juice running down our chins, unable to stop.

After my fourth fruit, I force myself to slow down. I pluck away at the different offerings of fruit, tossing them into a bag. I pause for a minute, gazing up at the sky. High above me, a large bird glides across the sky, its wings oddly rectangular. It circles around me, its form strangely unchanging, then heads east, disappearing into the THE HUNT 27

distance. I pick a few more fruit, then head over to our favorite spot, a large tree whose leaves spread lush and high. My father and I always sat under this tree, munching fruit, back against the and I always sat under this tree, munching fruit, back against the trunk, the city in the far distance, darkened and fl at. Like a dirty puddle.

Years ago, we would explore the green fuzz for signs of others like us. Signs like rutted cores of discarded fruit, trampled grass, snapped branches. But we almost never found anything. Our kind was careful not to leave any giveaway signs. Even so, I’d occasionaly fi nd that unavoidable and clearest of signs: less fruit on trees.

That meant others had been there as wel, plucking and eating. But I never saw any of them.

Once, between bites, I asked my father, “Why don’t we ever see other hepers here?”

He stopped chewing, half turned his head toward me. “Don’t use that word.”

“What word? Heper? What’s wrong with—”

“Don’t use that word,” he said sternly. “I don’t want to hear that word coming out of you ever again.”

I was young; tears rushed to my eyes. He turned fuly toward me, his large eyes swalowing me whole. I tilted my head back to keep the tears from rimming out. Only after my tears dried did he turn his eyes away. He gazed afar at the horizon until the rocks stopped eyes away. He gazed afar at the horizon until the rocks stopped churning inside him.

“Human,”
he fi naly said, his voice softer. “When we’re alone, use that word, okay?”

“Okay,” I said. And after a moment, I asked him, “Why don’t we see other humans?”

He didn’t answer. But I can stil remember the sound as he bit off large chunks of apple, loud crunches exploding in his mouth as we sat under a tree drooping with ripe fruit.

And now, years later, there’s even more fruit hanging off the 28

ANDREW FUKUDA

trees, an overabundance of color in the verdant green fuzz. So sad, to have colors signify death and extinction. And that’s how I eat now, alone in the green fuzz, a solitary gray dot among splashes of red and orange and yelow and purple.

Dusk arrives, the night of the lottery. Inside every home, young and old are awake, jittery with excitement. When the night horn sounds, shutters and grates rise, doors and windows fl ing open.

Everyone is early to work and school to night, to chitchat and tap impatiently on computer screens before them.

At school, there’s not even an attempt at normalcy. In second At school, there’s not even an attempt at normalcy. In second period, the teacher doesn’t cal the class to order but simply disregards us as she taps away on her deskscreen. Halfway through class, a citywide announcement on the intercom is made: Because work productivity in the city has falen so drasticaly, the announcement of the lottery numbers has been moved up a few hours. In fact, it wil now be broadcast live in a few minutes. “Have your numbers in front of you,” the announcer ends cheerily, as if everyone hasn’t already memorized them.

Instantly, delirium breaks out in the classroom. Students rush back to their seats, eyes fastened on deskscreens.

“Are you ready for the lottery yet?” the news anchor says a few minutes later, al aplomb abandoned in his excitement. “I have mine right here,” he says, holding up a sheet of paper with his numbers.

“To night might just be my night, I woke up with a feeling in me.”

“As did every citizen of this great city, no doubt,” chimes in his co-host, a slim woman with jet black hair. “We’re al so excited.

Let’s go now to the Heper Institute, where the numbers are about THE HUNT 29

to be picked.” She pauses, her fi nger reaching up to her earpiece.

A feral glint invades her eyes. “We’re getting word now of a surprise.

This is a whopper, folks, so sit down.”

This is a whopper, folks, so sit down.”

In the classroom, heads snap back and then lurch forward. No one says a word.

“Instead of having the Director pick the numbers, the Palace has decided a captive heper wil pick the numbers.”

Somebody snorts loudly; several students suddenly leap onto their desks.

“You heard that right, folks,” she continues, and her voice is wetter now, with a slight lisp. “We’re getting a live feed. . . .” She pauses again. “I’m hearing that it’s coming from a secret location from within the Heper Institute. Take us there now.”

Instantly, the view of the newsroom switches to that of a bare, cavernous indoor arena. No windows or doors. Placed in the center of the arena is an empty chair. Next to it, a large hemp sack and a glass bowl. But nobody is looking at the sack or the chair or the glass bowl. Al our eyes are fastened on the blurry image of a male heper crouched in the corner.

It is el der ly and wiry, but its stomach is fat- marbled and protrudes disproportionately to its thin frame. Hair plasters its arms and legs, and the sight of the hair sends a river of lip smacking through the classroom.

The videocamera zooms in and then out on the heper. But clearly The videocamera zooms in and then out on the heper. But clearly the camera must be running unmanned, on autopi lot. If anyone were in the arena with the heper, the heper would have been devoured within seconds. The newest wave of videocameras—

weighing a relatively spry two tons— is capable of autozooming, a technological advancement unimaginable just a de cade ago.

The camera zooms in now, capturing the heper’s uncertainty as 30

ANDREW FUKUDA

it gazes upward at something offscreen. Then, as if instructed, it gets up and walks to the chair. There is indecision in its every step, caution. Emotions pour nakedly off its face.

A student shakes his head violently, drool trapezing outward, some of it landing on me. Saliva pours out of our mouths, colecting in smal pools on desks and the fl oor. Heads are half cocked sideways and back, bodies tensed. Everyone in a trance
and
a heightened sense of alertness.

The news anchors have been silent.

The heper reaches the chair, sits down. Again, eyes bulging wide, it looks offscreen for direction. Then it reaches into the hemp sack and takes out a bal. A number is printed on it: 3. It holds the bal up to the camera for a second, then puts it in the glass bowl.

It takes a moment before we realize what’s just happened. The It takes a moment before we realize what’s just happened. The news anchors break their silence, their voices wet and blubbery with saliva. “We have the fi rst number, folks, we have the fi rst number. It’s three!” Loud groans al around, fi sts crumpling sheets of paper. The teacher in the back of the classroom whispers a cuss.

I stare down at my own paper: 3, 16, 72, 87. Cooly, I cross out the number 3. Only a few classmates are stil in the running. It’s easy to spot them. Their eyes are sparkling with anticipation, drool running down their exposed fangs. Everyone else is unclenching now, muscles relaxing, mouths and chins being wiped. They slump in their chairs.

The heper ner vous ly reaches for another number.

16.