The Hunt (10 page)

Several of the Hunters walked silently past Mara, running their eyes over her as if she were a piece of meat. Aside from Simon, only one man - not attractive, but at least relatively clean - actually addressed her.

He didn't offer to shake hands, but instead looked her directly in the face and said, “I'd like to make a deal with you. I assume you've seen the list of things I'm permitted to do.”

Mara hadn't expected such a direct acknowledgement of the Hunt's reality at this point, but she nodded.

“Okay,” said the man, “if you turn yourself over to me at the beginning of the Hunt, I'll let you select four items from that list to be declared off-limits.”

Mara could hardly believe she was hearing this, and the shock was evident on her face.

“No need to make up your mind immediately,” continued the man. “If you decide to accept my offer, be waiting outside the Hunters' apartment block when I arrive there, which will be a little over an hour after you enter the arena. If you don't turn up, pray I'm not the one who catches you.” He walked away without waiting for an answer, and stood by the wall staring at her.

Mara was appalled, but also tempted. The thought of being pierced with needles terrified her more than anything else, and if she accepted this bizarre offer, she could rule out the possibility of that happening. What else could she rule out? As Mara's mind raced through the items on the list, she happened to see one of the better dressed men shaking
Zong's hand in the same way Simon had shaken hers, grasping the forearm as he did so. That seemed curious. Might it be some kind of sign, like a Masonic handshake? She kept an eye on what was happening elsewhere in the room, and soon noticed two more men exchanging similar handshakes with Kate and one of the women whose names she hadn't heard.

What was it Claire had said?
“I remembered him because the creep shook my hand and said he looked forward to getting to know me... He was strolling along, calm as you please, scrutinising a handheld device...he seemed to be paying close attention to it...I don't know how, but he'd found some way of tracking me...the creep shook my hand.”

Mara shuddered. She felt certain these men were planting tracking devices on their chosen victims. That must have been what they were discussing so intensely. She desperately wanted to examine the forearm of her jacket, but didn't dare. She'd have to wait until they were in the arena.

As if on cue, their escort again clapped his hands and shouted, “Gentlemen, I'm afraid you must now bid the ladies goodbye, at least for a while.”

The men obediently walked away.
Mara thought some of them even looked a little relieved.

“
Ladies,” announced the escort, “it is time for you to enter the arena. Please follow me.”

The women were conducted through a door positioned to the left of the meeting hall, and down an anonymous corridor
, which led to a room containing nothing but an iron gate. To Mara, this room, with its blank walls and white floor, had a chilling aura of finality. For some reason, it reminded her of a passage from Dostoyevsky's
Crime and Punishment
that she'd never managed to get out of her head: “We always imagine eternity as something beyond our conception, something vast, vast! But why must it be vast? Instead of all that, what if it's one little room, like a bath-house in the country, black and grimy and spiders in every corner, and that's all eternity is? I sometimes fancy it like that.”

Stopping before the gate, the escort turned around and waited until the women were assembled in front of him. He addressed them in a solemn voice.

“Ladies, in a moment you will pass through this gate and into the arena. The Hunt will begin as soon as the gate is closed behind you. At one p.m. next Friday, an alarm audible throughout the arena will be sounded for five minutes. If you have not been caught by then, you may return to the gate. Does anyone have any questions?”

The women looked around nervously, but nobody said anything.
“Very well,” said the escort, glancing at his watch. “It is three-fifty-two. You may now enter. The Hunters will be allowed in at precisely four-fifty-two.” Turning around, he grasped a handle on the gate, and pulled it towards him.

As the gate slowly opened, the man stood aside. The women were plainly reluctant to move, and Mara decided to go first. Once they were safe from prying eyes and ears, she needed to have a serious conversation with her companions, and it would be best to immediately establish herself as leader. Taking a deep breath, she marched through the gate.

Although what confronted Mara on the other side was pretty much what her conversation with Claire had led her to expect, actually seeing it was something else. She stood at the end of what had once been Kilburn High Road, but was now home to the decaying remnants of shops, bars and restaurants. Apartments located above these businesses were mostly hollow shells, their exterior walls long gone, exposing the crumbling interiors like a dollhouse with its front opening removed. The looted and burned skeletons of cars littered the road. Mara could see rats scattering in all directions at the sight of human activity. She heard the gate shut, and turned around to see the nine other women standing by it, looking about apprehensively. Mara could easily imagine them behaving the way Claire's group had, remaining in one spot until the Hunters arrived. There wasn't a moment to spare. Mara addressed the women in a loud voice.

“
Everyone, please listen to me. I know a few things which might help us survive. The first thing I need to find out is how many of you remember one of the Hunters shaking your hand.”

Mara noticed that Julie was standing next to her, as if afraid to lose sight of the woman she regarded as her
protectress. Mara smiled at Julie and grabbed her right arm with both hands, demonstrating the curious handshake she'd received from Simon.

“
Do any of you recall a Hunter touching you like this, with his left hand clasping your right forearm?”

Everyone nodded, and Mara was amused to see the women gazing at her as if she were the answer to their prayers. Given the situation they were in, anyone willing to assume a leadership role was evidently more than welcome to do so.

“Okay,” continued Mara, taking off her jacket. “I have reason to believe the Hunters planted tracking devices on us. If I'm right, they'll have attached these devices to our jackets. So the first thing we need to do is locate and remove them.” Mara examined her jacket. At first she found nothing on the sleeve. Could she have been wrong? Was the handshake merely symbolic? She placed the garment on the ground and ran her fingers along its sleeve, slowly covering every inch, intensely aware she might be wasting valuable time. But there it was. A black speck, so small she initially thought it nothing more than a spot of dirt. It came off with one sharp tug. Mara placed it on the end of her index finger. Only by close inspection could she confirm that it was indeed an electronic device. This, presumably, was why the Hunt authorities insisted on female participants wearing their uniform jackets. On a white blouse, the device might have been visible, but on a black jacket it couldn't possibly be discovered unless somebody were specifically searching for it.

Mara held up her finger and said,
“This is what you're looking for. When you find one, be careful not to lose it.” Several precious minutes passed before every device was located, but eventually all ten women held the trackers in their hands. Mara grinned as she addressed them.

“
We don't have much time, but I'll tell you everything I know. The Hunters can trace these trackers, but don't assume they'll be relying on them. They have machines which detect body heat, but only within a limited range. So you'll need to find tall buildings, and go as high as possible. That way, they can only detect you by entering the building and walking up to your floor. If that happens, you'll need to run. They also have infra-red goggles that allow them to see at night, so stay inside after dark, otherwise you'll be sitting ducks. They're armed with Tasers, and if they touch you with one, you'll be knocked out immediately. If they catch you, they might lock a collar around your neck and tell you they can use a remote control to immobilise you even from a mile away. I'm assured this is not a bluff. I know your instinct is to stay together, but that'll make it easier for them to find you, so we need to split up, at least into groups of two. That way, one person can stand guard while the other sleeps. We should all head off in different directions. But before we do that, I have an idea which will hopefully confuse the Hunters. After you leave this area, drop your tracker into one of the drains along the sides of the roads. They'll flow into the sewer, and if the Hunters can still detect them, they might think we've found a way to hide underground, and waste their time working out how to get down there. But don't drop the tracker anywhere near the place you're hiding, and don't forget to take food and drink from a vending machine.”

Mara felt pleased with this speech. She'd summed up all the important points, and her audience was visibly impressed.
“Does anyone have any questions?” she asked, in a parody of their escort's masculine voice. The women laughed, but already they were splitting up into twos and waving gratefully at her.

As Mara put her jacket back on, Julie approached apprehensively and asked,
“Would you mind if I come with you?”

Mara was touched by the look on the girl's face. Julie couldn't have been more than four years her junior, yet apparently regarded her as a mother figure. Mara realised she'd more or less accepted this role, and had bee
n thinking of Julie as a 'girl'. She was almost certainly the youngest person there, and the circumstances of their first meeting made Mara feel protective towards her. She smiled at Julie and said, “We'll look out for each other.”

Watches were not permitted in the arena, so there was no way of knowing exactly how much time had passed, but Mara thought they still had at least forty minutes before the Hunters arrived. The other women were already on the move, and Mara began striding rapidly down the main road, gesturing for Julie to follow. Walking as quickly as possible, they passed a church which Mara briefly considered using as a hiding place: its upper floors were certainly high enough, and even an atheist can be moved by the impulse to seek sanctuary in such a construction. But it was too close to the gate, and also perhaps too obvious. So they turned off to the left, and started exploring the network of side streets: Mara instructed Julie to drop her tracker down a drain in one of them, and disposed of her own soon afterwards.

The landscape through which they passed held a grim fascination. Mara knew Kilburn had been effectively abandoned during the forties due to multiple bank repossessions, but she couldn't account for the sheer scale of destruction. As Claire had observed, the area resembled a war zone. Some buildings appeared to have been partially torn down or blown apart, yet right next to them were places that seemed comparatively pristine. One store even had an unbroken window on which the words 'Do your fresh shop here' could be deciphered. The store itself was empty. As Mara and Julie turned a corner, a vending machine stood out amidst the wreckage, and they stopped to take sandwiches and bottles of water from it, placing the items in their jacket pockets. They were moving in the direction of some large apartment buildings which looked relatively intact, at least from a distance.

There turned out to be six such buildings, each approximately twenty storeys high, arranged around a grassy square that had seen better days. It had presumably once been used for recreational purposes, but was now an impenetrable jungle. Observed up close, the buildings themselves were much the worse for wear: one was leaning at a sharp angle - Mara immediately thought of it as the Leaning Tower of Kilburn - and gave the impression that it would eventually topple and knock over the next building, perhaps bringing down all six like a row of dominoes. A particular block caught Mara's eye. The apartments on its lower floors were heavily damaged, but those higher up appeared relatively unscathed. The Hunters would undoubtedly be in the arena by now - Mara wished she could see their faces when they tried locating the trackers - and it would be dark soon, so this was as good a place as any to spend the night. The building had no front door, so they cautiously entered, discovering a lobby filled with tattered furniture, empty cans, piles of mattresses, and various unidentifiable objects. Since they weren't wearing the most appropriate attire in which to negotiate such an obstacle course, they progressed slowly towards the staircase on the far side of the lobby. There were flies everywhere, and the building was infested with rats. Even the stairs were filthy, with more junk to clamber over or push aside on every landing. Former occupants would have relied on elevators, but there had been no electricity here for a decade. The smell on the lower floors was awful, but as they gradually ascended, the air seemed to become clearer. Perhaps they were simply growing used to it. Upon reaching the top floor, they left the stairwell and entered a corridor, choking on the clouds of dust they stirred up with every step. Stopping in front of a randomly selected apartment, Mara tried to open the door, which was locked. By kicking at the flimsy wooden structure's base, the two women forced their way in.

The apartment contained nothing except bare walls and empty rooms. Mara assumed nobody had been there since the forties. It wouldn't be the most comfortable place to hide out, but they were unlikely to be discovered unless a Hunter decided to go from floor to floor trying to detect body heat. Mara and Julie took turns relieving themselves in the bathroom. There was no water, not even in the toilet bowl, so they'd have to make the bottles from the vending machine last. Doing their best to ignore the dust, they sat on the floor and leaned against a wall, holding each other for comfort and warmth. It was already growing dark, and Mara wondered what Yuke would say if she knew her lover planned to spend the night in another woman's arms. The thought made her chuckle. Yuke would be delighted to learn Mara was okay.