By the time we arrive at the bottom fl oor, I'm spent. My knees feel as if a jackhammer has done a number on them, and my heads spins crazily from the spiraled descent. No one else is fatigued; if anything, the energy level has risen as anticipation draws to a climax. There's a lot of chatter, a lot of teeth grinding.
“Are there enough posts for all of us?” Ashley June asks.
Everyone is jostling for position in front of the closed double doors.
“Don't you worry, any of you,” Fril y Dress answers. “There are ten posts inside. Only seven of you. The posts are equidistant from the center, none has an advantage over another. A food item is placed near each post so all of you wil get a chance to see the heper up close and personal.”
Despite her words, they're still pushing. I separate myself inconspicuously to the side.
“What are we waiting for?”
“Just a bit longer. Paperwork needs to be pro cessed upstairs.
They'l let us know when we're good to go.”
“How?”
Fril y Dress shakes her head. “You'l see.”
“Is it really as great as she put it?” Phys Ed asks his escort.
“Better than advertised. So much better.”
“I can smel it!” Beefy says. “Stronger than ever!”
“Nonsense,” chides Fril y Dress. “The heper's still in its chambers.” But she seems uncertain, her nostrils moistening and fl aring.
“It's the same smel ! We've been smel ing this heper all this time.”
I take two steps back, slowly moving away from them.
“Getting stronger by the second.” More drool and shivers.
I play along. But those doors better open soon, because this is a smal enclave we wait in, and in such tight, unventilated quarters, my odor is amplifi ed.
Gaunt Man's head fl icks violently toward me. He's not just hissing; he's slobbering in his saliva. Foolishly, I meet his eyes. He is staring at me with a dawning realization, his eyes blinking, blinking, blinking with a new— At that very moment, the double doors swing open, an expulsion of steam and smoke enveloping us.
Shouts of excitement as we sweep into the room. The expanse, with its high arching ceiling (rounded and bal ooned like an indoor sports stadium) and wide spread of the dusty ground beneath, catches me by surprise. The heper's door is on the ground, in the very center of the arena, shaped and sized like a manhole. Ten wooden posts are spaced evenly around it. We disperse quickly, each of us running like kids choosing horses on a carousel. As Fril y Dress said, there's more than enough for all of us, but that doesn't stop general bedlam from ensuing. It's the morsels. Hunters are fi ghting over posts positioned before morsels deemed most attractive to the heper. Abs and Ashley June are having a feline fi ght over a post in front of a bunch of bananas.
“I was here fi rst,” snarls Ashley June.
“Wel , I'm already strapped in,” Abs hisses back. She snaps shut a latch in the strap around her ankles. “There.
Locked in.
Can't get out now even if I wanted to. And I don't.”
Across from me, Crimson Lips and Phys Ed are bickering over a post in front of some ears of corn. My attention shifts over to Gaunt Man, whose eyes are glowing at me like a bat's. I can't read his expression, but I sense confusion.
He's still trying to fi gure me out, questioning if he really did smel heper odor coming off me.
I ignore him, busy myself with the straps. There are four metal ic cuffs that lock around our wrists and ankles. Each cuff is tethered to the post by thick leather straps. Even strapped in, we have quite a lot of room to range: about a body length from the post. As long as the heper doesn't stray past the perimeter delineated by the morsels, it'l be safely out of our reach.
An escort walks in, stoic faced, and hands each of us a pair of shades. “Lights will be turned up in a moment,” he murmurs, “so the heper can see.” He checks each of our straps, spending the most time on Gaunt Man, whose straps are way too loose. Gaunt Man objects, raising his arm; as he does so, his shirt becomes untucked and he quickly reaches down to tuck it back in.
But not before I see it. A dul glint coming from his belt, curved and long like a dagger's blade.
An uneasy feeling touches the back of my neck. When the escort checks on my straps, it's on the tip of my tongue to say something.
But the escort walks off before I can speak. He stops at the very center of the arena and says, “Welcome to the Introduction, ladies and gentlemen.” Before walking out, he stamps his boot heavily on the circular door three times, a deep boom sounding. The lights inside the arena turn brighter. We throw on our shades.
And wait.
A mechanical whirring sounds from the circular door in the ground, fol owed by a series of robotic beeps. The door opens, just a crack. And then, just as swiftly, it drops shut, coughing up a puff of dust. Heads cock to the side. Then the door opens not a second later, a little wider this time.
Enough to see the outline of a head.
The twin dots of eyes peering out.
all the hunters explode toward the heper. Almost in unison, bodies snap against the restraints, fl ip in the air, and fal to the ground.
The door, again, fal s shut.
In a blink, everyone is upright and lurching against the restraints.
I pul against my mine, frothing at the mouth as I swing my head wildly to and fro. My shades fl y off.
I blink at the sudden brightness of the arena, now awash in vivid, keen colors. I see the hunters with a clarity that seems to enliven them. They are animals, bestial and overtaken with heper lust. Phys Ed and Crimson Lips have given to scratching their necks, leaving long white etches where their nails rake into skin. Their mouths gape wide, then snap shut like a steel trap, the harsh, rocky sound of teeth gnashing against teeth fi l ing the fetid air.
The trapdoor opens again; a ful y extended arm holds up the door. A head emerges from underneath, peering around like a peri-scope. Apparently assured, it steps out, leaving the door opened, all the better for a quick escape.
For a moment, all is quiet. The sloshing of saliva ceases; the crack of necks and knuckles and spines stop. We study the heper with an almost innocent curiosity, as if we don't mean to pil age its intestines and suck its blood and gorge it at the drop of a hat.
It is the same heper as the one on TV, frail and wispy. It blinks, surveys the piles of morsels distributed around it.
Then Ashley June lets loose a horrifi c scream of desire into the air. Within seconds, we're all yowling and mewling.
The heper is unmoved by the cacophony as it walks to the fi rst pile of food. Two loaves of bread, placed in front of Crimson Lips' post. The heper picks up a loaf, rams it into its mouth, and tears off a mouthful. It moves effi ciently, businesslike, as it grabs the other loaf and tosses it into the open door without so much as a glance at the hissing Crimson Lips. It's done this before. It shuffl es over to the next pile, bottles of water.
It twists open a cap, hoists the bottle upside down, and guzzles down water. Doesn't linger. Cradling the remaining bottles in the crook of its arm, it carries them over to the open door and drops them in. Then it is up and moving to another pile, the candy. all the while, even with snarls and screams about it, the heper never looks up. It is cool y minding its own business.
The heper moves past a stack of notebooks in front of Gaunt Man and toward the candy. My eyes catch a glimmer of stale light from Gaunt Man's waist. The dagger; Gaunt Man is taking it out now. White veins in his bony hand bulge out like sickly squirming worms as he grips the dagger and starts fi ling away at the leather strap. He knows he has to move fast: the heper isn't exactly laying out a picnic mat to dine in our midst. It's simply going to throw all the food and drinks and notebooks into its chamber and then dis-THE HUNT 101 appear. It'l be gone in less than a minute. A rage fi l s the arena, an explosion of frustration at the feeling of being cheated. Ashley June gives another bloodcurdling scream.
She strains against the straps, a desperation attending her desire.
Gaunt Man attacks the straps with extra fervor. He pul s taut the strap tethered to his left wrist while his right arm pistons back and forth, sawing away.
And just like that, the strap fal s in two. He stares stupidly at it dangling in half. Then it hits him; I see his body go erect.
Fantasy is now a dusking reality. And he's hunched over again, fi ling away at the straps tied to his legs, his right arm a blizzard of speed.
The heper has no idea. It is standing over the pile of candy.
It's unwrapping a candy, sucking on it, oblivious to what's going on behind him.
Gaunt Man has sliced through the two leg straps. He switches hands, starts sawing away at the fi nal strap on his right wrist.
The heper pauses, lifting its head into the air like a dog catching a scent.
Then it bends down and picks up another piece of candy.
The last strap is giving Gaunt Man some trouble. Perhaps in his excitement he's not focusing, or perhaps it's on account of having to use his left arm. But he's slower, and it's frustrating him. He lets out a scream of frustration that knifes into my ear drums.
The heper winces, then spins around. It sees Gaunt Man, the sliced straps dangling from his left arm and ankles, and it understands the situation immediately. In a blink, it spins, dropping the candy, its legs already pumping to the door in the ground. Just fi ve paces to get there.
At that very moment, Gaunt Man slices through the fi nal strap.
He spins around. He is twenty paces from the trapdoor. The heper is fl ying toward it, now only three paces away.
Before the heper takes another step, it is tackled by Gaunt Man.
They rol in the dirt, Gaunt Man's tackle carry ing them ten yards. They separate briefl y: the heper leaps to its feet, lunges for the trapdoor.
Gaunt Man sideswipes it, sends it back down to the dirt.
The heper scrabbles against the ground like a rabid crab; Gaunt Man leaps atop it. They're about the same size, but it's no match. Not even close. Gaunt Man's fi ngers sink sickeningly into the heper's back; blood quickly spreads on its shirt.