The Hunt (21 page)

What’s your problem, anyway? What makes you so high and mighty?

If you think we’re a bunch of
its,
you can just walk on out and never think about coming back here. Besides, if you think we’re nothing but
its,
then you’re as much an
it
as we are.”

“Fair enough,” I say, the side of my face stil smarting. “I apologize.”

But in my mind, there is a huge difference between them and me.

But in my mind, there is a huge difference between them and me.

They are savages, undomesticated, uneducated. I am none of those.

I’m a survivor, self- made, civilized, educated. Next to me, though we might look the same, they are nothing like me. But as long as I need them to survive, I’l play along as necessary. “Wasn’t realy thinking, no harm meant at al. Look, I’m sorry, Sissy. Epap, I’m sorry.”

She stares at me, unmoved. “You’re so ful of it.” The moment 152

ANDREW FUKUDA

grows tense as the other hepers, taking their cue from Sissy and Epap, look back at me with suspicion.

It’s little Ben who breaks the tension. “Come here, I’l show you my favorite fruit!” He then runs to grab me, puling me along by my arm to a nearby tree.

“Ben, don’t—,” Epap cries after us, but we’re already gone.

“Come on,” he says, leaping up to grab a low- hanging red fruit.

“The apples from this tree are the best. The south tree has apples, too, but not nearly as good as these ones. Love them.”

So strange, I think, to use the word
love
so openly. And for a fruit So strange, I think, to use the word
love
so openly. And for a fruit to boot.

Before I know it, an apple is sitting plump in my hand. Ben is already tearing into the apple he’s plucked for himself. I rip into the apple, the juices bursting into my mouth. I hear footsteps behind us. The group has caught up. Maybe it’s the sight of me enjoying the fruit with such kidlike joy, but they don’t seem quite as hostile as before. With the exception of Epap, of course. He’s stil glar-ing at me.

“Aren’t these fruit the best? Wait til you try the bananas from—”

Sissy places a gentle hand on Ben’s shoulder. He quiets immediately and turns his head to look at her. She nods softly, then turns to me. It’s with the same look she just gave Ben: reassuring, but with a strange command, a gentle insistence. “Actualy, we would like to know. Why you are here. Do tel.”

After a long moment, I speak. “I’l tel you,” I say, my voice hitching for some reason. “I’l tel you. But can we move inside?”

“Just tel us here,” Epap snaps back. “It’s nice right where we are now and—”

“Inside is fi ne,” Sissy says. She sees Epap about to cut in again and quickly says to me: “The sun can’t be comfortable for you.

THE HUNT 153

THE HUNT 153

You’re not used to it.” She is already beginning to walk toward the nearest hut, not bothering to see if the others folow.

Gradualy, one by one, they do. And last to go is me, trailing al of them into the opening of a mud hut.

What I tel them is almost the truth. That’s not as good as the complete truth, I know; but I like to think I don’t so much lie as neglect to disclose certain parts. Stil, as my second- grade teacher used to say, the almost- truth is the same as an outright lie. But I do it—

lying—with aplomb: easy to do when your whole life is essentialy a lie, easy to deceive when your whole identity has been built on deception.

There are many of us on the outside, I lie. In every sector of community, at every level of society, hepers abound. Our existence is as widespread and diverse as snowfl akes during a night storm.

And yet, like snowfl akes in the night, our existence is unseen. We are joined by our shared lives of secrecy, of passing ourselves off as normal to the general populace. We are scrupulous about shaving, fake fangs, maintaining a blank demeanor. We do not form underground societies but build smal networks of three to fi ve nuclear families. It is a dangerous existence, but an existence not ve nuclear families. It is a dangerous existence, but an existence not without its joys and pleasures.

Like what?

Like the pleasures of family life, I say, continuing my lies, the freedom within our cloistered homes once the shutters have falen at sunset. Foods we love to eat, songs we love to sing, laughter and smiles and (rarely, only when necessary) the crying of tears.

The retention of tradition, the passing along of books and ancient tales.

Then there are the very occasional secret meetings we have with 154 ANDREW FUKUDA

other heper families in the bright of day while the rest of the city sleeps behind shuttered wals, oblivious. And as we get older, there are the possibilities of romance, the exhilaration of faling in love, the eventual beginnings of our own families.

Why are you here?

I was recently hired to be on staff at the Institute.

You replaced the Scientist?

Yes, I have replaced the Scientist, moved into his abode, am continuing his research. He was very diligent, extremely hardwork-ing; it wil take me months just to catch up.

ing; it wil take me months just to catch up.

And so you know about him.

Of course.

That he was a heper.

A pause. Yes, of course.

Where did he go? He just disappeared on us.

What? What did you say?

Where did he go?

Can I have some more water, please?

Where did he go? He told us he was going to get us out of here.

To a land of milk and honey, fruit and sunshine.

It is something you think about, getting out of here?

Of course. Every day. We have been here al our lives. Imprisoned by glass, imprisoned by the desert, imprisoned by fangs and claws.

The Scientist told us he was going to get us out of here. But he never said how or to where. Do you know where?

I do.

Where?

I point to the eastern mountains. Over there. Over those mountains. Where we are originaly from. Where there are thousands of our kind. A land of milk and honey, fruit and sunshine.

THE HUNT 155

How? It is too far away. We wil die.

I nod. Of thirst, of starvation.

But they shake their heads. No: we wil be hunted down and kiled before we get halfway there.

Of course. Of course.

How wil we get out?

I answer without looking at them. The Scientist. He wil get you out.

Sissy nods with excitement. That’s what he said. That he would lead us away. That we should always trust him. Even when al hope seems gone, he told us never to give up, that he’d come through seems gone, he told us never to give up, that he’d come through for us. And then he disappeared one day. It was hard for us; we almost gave up hope. And now you. You appearing out of nowhere after al this time. You can help us, right?

Give me time, give me time. The Scientist left me mountains of papers to get through.

Wel, we have a lot of that. Time.

I wake with a start. It takes me a second to realize where I am.

Stil in the heper vilage, stil in a mud hut. On the fl oor, lying down, head atop a soft sack. The sun shines through the sievelike ceiling, leaving a patchwork of sunspots about me.

They are sitting in a semicircle around me. A few of them are lying down in a semidoze.

“He’s awake!” Ben says.

I leap to my feet, heart hammering. I’ve never woken up in a crowd. In my usual life, I’d be dead by now. But they’re looking up at me with amused, harmless faces. I sit back down, unnerved.

Sissy tels Jacob to fetch some more water, David to see if bread 156 ANDREW FUKUDA

has arrived in the Umbilical, and Ben to pick some more fruit and vegetables. The three scuttle off. Only the two oldest, Sissy and vegetables. The three scuttle off. Only the two oldest, Sissy and Epap, remain. Somehow, I don’t think this is unintentional.

“How long have I been out?”

“Two hours. You were just talking, then next thing we know, you’re knocked out cold,” Sissy says.

“Snoring, too,” Epap sneers.

Judging from the position of the sun, it’s about midday. “This is my usual sleep time. And I’ve been realy up and about the past couple of days. Sorry I crashed on you. But I’m that knackered.”

“I was going to kick you awake,” Epap says, “but she let you sleep.”

“Thanks,” I murmur, my voice hoarse with dryness, “and for the pilow, too.”

“You looked like you could use some sleep. Here,” she says, handing over a jug of water. “Sounds like you could use some more water, too.”

I nod my appreciation. The water slides down my dry, sandy throat. I’m a bottomless bucket: no matter how much I drink, I can’t seem to get enough.

“Thanks,” I say, handing back the jug. Hung on the wals around

“Thanks,” I say, handing back the jug. Hung on the wals around me are brightly colored paintings of rainbows and the mythical sea.

On my right is a bookshelf fi led with worn- out books and a few pottery fi gures.

“How did you learn to read?” I ask.

Epap looks down. “From our parents,” Sissy answers.

I look at her.

“Some of us had both parents here. Most of us had only a father or a mother. None of us are siblings, in case you’re wondering, except for Ben and me. We’re half- siblings.”

“How many parents?”

THE HUNT 157

“Eight. They taught us everything. How to read and write, how to paint, how to grow vegetables. Passed down to us ancient traditional tales. Taught us to grow physicaly strong, to run long distances, swim. They didn’t want us to get fat and lazy, just waiting for our food to appear every day. We had something caled

‘school’

every day. You know what ‘school’ is?”

I nod.

I nod.

“Our parents pressed us hard, made us learn quickly. As if they feared time was short. As if they believed they might one day be gone.”

“And what happened to them?”

“One day they were gone,” Epap says, an anger tingeing his words.

Sissy speaks, quieter. “About ten years ago. They were given maps describing the location of a fruit farm. We were suspicious, of course, but we hadn’t been given any fruit or vegetables in weeks.

Our lips and mouths were breaking out in painful blisters. As a precaution, our parents made us children stay behind. The parents left at the crack of dawn. They never came back.”

“The fi ve of you can’t have been much more than toddlers yourselves,” I say.

She pauses before answering. “Ben was only a few weeks old.

He barely survived. And there were more than fi ve of us. There were nine.”

“The other four?”

“The other four?”

She shakes her head, eyes downcast. “You have to understand.

It was just Epap and me looking after everyone. We were, like, seven years old. When the Scientist came, he realy helped us. Not only because of the extra food he’d smuggle in, the books, blankets, medicine when one of us would fal il. But he was such a morale booster, a great storyteler, realy encouraging. That’s why 158 ANDREW FUKUDA

it was so crushing when he fl at- out disappeared on us.” She looks at me. “And you’re teling us he’l somehow lead us to the eastern mountains someday? The land of milk and honey, fruit and sunshine?”

I nod.

“You’re lying,” Epap says. “About the Scientist. And about the heper civilization over the mountains. There’s nothing beyond those mountains.”

“I’m not.”

“You and your damn poker face. Think you can hide behind that and fool us? Maybe the younger ones, but not us. Certainly not me.”

“Tel us what you know, Gene,” Sissy says gently, earnestness in

“Tel us what you know, Gene,” Sissy says gently, earnestness in her brown eyes. So strange to be caled by that name. Her eyes, with the sunlight refl ecting off the fl oor, are a shade lighter than I remember. “How do you know about the heper civilization past the mountains?”

“It’s in some of the Scientist’s journals I’ve been reading. The Scientist made some entries. He had reason to believe there’s a whole civilization of our kind beyond those mountains. Where hundreds, maybe thousands of us live.” The lies slip off my tongue smooth as silk.

“How did he come by this information?”

“Look, I don’t know. But he seemed to believe so.”

“Liar!” interjects Epap. “If there’re so many of our kind, why haven’t we seen any of them? Why haven’t they ventured out here?”

“Would you?” I ask. “Knowing what you know, would you come out here and place yourself within reach of them?”

He doesn’t say anything.

“It makes sense,” Sissy says. “Any heper colony beyond the mountains would be safe from people. It would take— even with THE HUNT 159

THE HUNT 159

their quickness— at least eigh teen hours just to reach the mountains.

They’d never get there before sunrise. No cover at al out there—

the sunlight would incinerate them al. The distance is the perfect moat of protection.”

“You don’t believe him, do you?” Epap asks incredulously. “We don’t know anything about this guy. He just appears out of nowhere, saunters in with this know- it- al attitude.”

“Epap,” she says softly, a hand on his shoulder. That’s al she has to say. Or do. Immediately, his irritation fl utters off him in droves.

“We know a lot. Gene’s for real, there’s no denying that.

We’ve seen him in the sun, eat our fruit, sleep, just act, wel, like us.

You saw him blush. You can’t fake that kind of stuff. So he’s one of us. And we also know— whatever you might personaly think of him— he’s a survivor. He has learned how to live even in the midst of them. For years. He’s valuable to us, to have someone like that on the outside.”