Chapter 26
brEK
The clapclapclapclap of the boards has my heart racing. Everyone is staring at it with confusion. Hunts aren’t run back-to-back, so the second morning in a row that the boards announce the numbers for a hunt makes everyone uneasy. Fearful.
My stomach drops as I stare at my number up there. The food I’d just eaten feels like it turned to lead in my stomach. I’m going to die today.
Malcolm grips my arm. “Take a breath,” he says. “As soon as you’re off the truck, start running back to the barracks, okay? I know it’s more difficult than it sounds, but also try to keep as quiet as you can while running.”
“If you see someone shot or… anything else, don’t scream.
Don’t make any noise to call attention to yourself.
Just run,” someone else says. “The hunters generally pay for one kill. So if they’re occupied with someone already, they’re likely not going to come after you, but then again, we’ve never done this two days in a row. ”
My hands are shaking. I keep them fisted against my thighs. I’d really like to cry right now. I want to turn hysterical and let it out. I’m going to die today. I should be allowed to cry, right?
What the hell did I do in life to deserve this? How did I piss off karma?
Malcolm and the other guys are still talking. Giving me advice. Telling me how to get back to the barracks. Cautioning me about trusting any others I find out there. Everyone has the same goal, and that’s to survive. If that means throwing you under the bus to do so, they’re going to do it.
I hear their words as if they’re a dozen feet away. My vision blurs as I stare at nothing. This can’t be happening. I’m not ready to die.
The minutes tick by loudly. I hear every single second as if there’s a clock in my head. Tick. Tick. Tick. Counting down the last minutes of my life.
In a daze, I follow the other three guys from the barrack I’m in to the door. We load into the bed of a waiting pickup truck. I’m holding back my vomit. I’m the only new one in this round. New as in just arrived two days ago. The others have another day to rest.
The truck drives for ages. We’re not following a path but winding through trees, over roots, through brush. It stops, and we’re let out.
For a second, I turn in a circle and look at my surroundings. Trees. All I see are trees. It’s not completely flat here, but the earth rolls up and drops down. I don’t remember those dips while in the truck.
The truck drives on, continuing straight. Meaning we can’t just follow it back. One of the guys with me runs, but not in the direction we came from. I’m tempted to follow him. Maybe he knows where he’s going. Is there a different barracks closer than the one we came from?
In the distance, I hear a gunshot echoing off the trees. I jump and start running blindly. My heart races loudly, echoing in my ears. I run without direction. Run as fast as I can, crashing through dead limbs and over fallen leaves. I’m not quiet.
I’m breathless, though, so I can’t scream, even if I wanted to. The stitch in my side is becoming far too painful to keep moving, but I push on, terrified.
A shot, closer than the previous, hits off a tree ahead, and I abruptly change the direction I’m running. Away. Away, away, away. I try to lose myself in the mess of trees, not keeping a direct path, so I’m less of an easy target.
Somewhere to my right, someone screams. Until this moment, I never understood when someone claimed a scream is filled with pain or fear or something else. I can hear their pain, though.
Oh my god, I’m going to die.
There are sounds to my left. Like someone is pacing me. Are they going to come at me with a knife?
I run for as long as I can before I don’t have a choice but to stop. My side hurts so fucking bad. I lean against a tree. For just a second, I remain upright. Then I’m bent over vomiting up everything I just ate.
Ew.
When I’m relatively certain I’m finished throwing up, I move away and crouch down within a thicket of brush at the base of a tree to catch my breath. I remain absolutely still and force myself to breathe quietly.
What if I stay right here and just wait it out? Eventually the hunters will vacate for the night, right? But how the hell will I make it back in the dark?
I close my eyes and concentrate on calming down. I try to recall everything Malcolm said. I’m doing exactly what he said not to do—letting my fear control me. Overtaking all my senses and thoughts.
The unmistakable sound of running has me opening my eyes. Very carefully, so I remain as silent as I can, I crouch down further, trying to hide myself. I’d really love to merge myself into the trunk of the tree. Try as I may, that doesn’t seem to be an option.
The running gets louder. I can hear their breathing. The sounds they’re making. Apparently, they weren’t cautioned about their noise.
I keep my mouth shut and my body as still as the fucking tree and stare out at nothing. Only because I’m tracking the movement getting closer do I manage not to jump out of my skin when a guy comes into view.
I’m immediately disturbed by how young they are. There’s no way that guy is more than a teenager. I’m not talking like eighteen or nineteen, but maybe fourteen or fifteen.
His obviously young age has me nearly calling out to him. But then I see the very thing I don’t want to. Something whizzes through the air and plunges into his back. He screams and drops. I stare in horror at the stalk of an arrow sticking out of his back.
He gets to his feet, trying to run on. I hear his sobs. His begging.
Footsteps of the individual I assume shot him are now audible. While I’d really love to close my eyes and block it out, I can’t. I can’t look away.
The man with the bow slung over his back isn’t in a hurry as he walks toward the teenager. The kid screams as he tries to get away, but he’s bleeding too profusely. I think the arrow might have pierced his lung.
I watch in absolute horror as the hunter begins hitting him with his fists first. Then he takes a short knife from his body and brutally murders him.
When the boy is nothing more than a bloody heap, the man stands over him, chest heaving. If I were a hero, I’d run out and use that damn bow on him. Make him become the hunted.
I’m not a hero.
I remain where I am, staring in terror. Shaking. Trying desperately to remain silent and still. For a long time, the man stands there and looks at his victim. Then he turns to retrieve his bow and walks away.
Walks away like nothing happened. Like he didn’t just murder an innocent boy.
Tears trickle down my face as I stare at the body crumpled on the forest floor. An hour goes by. Maybe four or eight hours. I can’t look away. My stomach churns.
As the sun begins to go down, I force myself to get to my feet. I haven’t heard movement in… hours. Many hours. After the murderer walked away, this part of the woods has been silent.
Cautiously, I move toward the boy and then stop. I shake my head. I have no idea what happens to the bodies, but I don’t think I can stomach getting a closer look at him. I turn and begin walking.
This time, I’m very aware of my surroundings. I walk as quietly as possible, keeping my focus on every single movement and every tiny sound. For a while, I simply walk away from the murder. I don’t have any direction. I don’t know where the barracks are. So I walk.
Eventually, I come upon a tree with a marker, pointing me in the direction of the barracks.
Malcolm said the signs toward the barracks are for us.
The hunters aren’t allowed near them. This isn’t an ambush.
This is hunting humans as wild game. They’re not allowed to stand outside the barracks and kill as we step out.
Having said that, I don’t know where their circle of hunting land ends, so I continue to keep as quiet as I can and follow the trajectory of the arrow.
Which proves difficult. There’s no path.
I haven’t seen another arrow in a while.
Try as I may to walk straight, I constantly have to move so I don’t run into trees.
It’s dusk when I come across another arrow. This time, there’s a sign that says, ‘No hunters beyond this point.’ I’m in the safe zone.
That safe zone is relatively small. I don’t take more than a dozen steps forward when the barracks come into view.
I have no idea if this is the same one I left this morning.
I imagine it is. I don’t think I ran far enough in the woods to come across another, and I’m relatively certain I was running in the direction the truck had come from.
There are three men standing outside the barracks with rifles in their hands. They see me coming. They’ve probably seen me coming for quite some time. None of them react to my appearance.
My feet slow as I get closer. I am approaching armed men. Men who work with people who hunt humans for sport. They’re not safe.
“Congrats,” one of them says. I’m disgusted when he smiles. “First win?”
I nod. Does he really think this is a fucking game? That boy who was killed will never reach adulthood! That’s not a game. It’s a fucking crime.
“Nice job,” he says.
“Thanks,” I mutter. What else am I supposed to say?
Another man opens the door for me, and I enter the barracks again. Do I recognize the faces? I’m so damn tired and traumatized and scared that I’m not sure. Malcolm steps out from between the racks of beds and smiles.
“You made it, man.”
I nod.
“Nice job. Not going to lie, I had my doubts.”
“Me too,” I answer.
He grips my arm and pulls me to the bunk he had two nights ago. I drop onto my side and close my eyes.
“Didn’t go well, huh?”
“Someone is dead,” I say. “I’m not sure how this can ever go well.”
He nods. “Not what I meant.”
“We’re hunted like deer,” I hiss, tears stinging my eyes. “No. Worse than that. Deer are simply caught. They aren’t treated the way I… saw.”
Malcolm sighs. “Ah. You were unfortunate enough to have to witness a death.”
“Why do they do this?”
“I don’t know.”
“He was just a kid,” I say, tears trickling down my cheeks again. “He couldn’t have possibly done anything wrong to deserve that murder.”
“A kid?” someone asks.
“Yeah. Maybe fifteen.”
“Jesus,” someone else mutters.
“Get some sleep, Brek. They’re clearly changing the parameters of the game, and we don’t know what tomorrow holds. Sleep.”
Malcolm gets up, and I’m left alone. I try like hell to forget what I saw, but with my eyes closed, I keep seeing the kid being shot, beaten, and stabbed over and over again on a loop. It doesn’t stop. I don’t stop hearing his screams or his voice as he begs to have his life spared.
Someone find me, I pray. Please. Someone find this place and let us go.
How can this place exist? A sour pit in my stomach has a little voice in my head telling me that the only way it exists is because authorities are looking the other way.
Government officials are looking the other way.
A shady cop or politician knows it’s here and may have even participated in a kill, in exchange for their silence.
As I doze, the faces of my friends fill my head. Memories of us as children. Laughing. Exploring. Telling secrets. Sharing stories. Camping out in Oakley’s backyard.
Then I see Voss and the last month that we’ve spent together. Getting to know each other. Having a relationship. Him and little Axl.
Just before I fall asleep, I realize that I’m watching the best moments of my life play before my closed eyes. Maybe a last hurrah. My brain is telling me I’m not going home. I’ll never see the people I love more than anything ever again.
My life is playing out right before I die. It wasn’t skill or strategy that kept me alive today. It was luck. Pure fucking luck. I’d been running blindly in terror just as that kid had been. It was luck that the hunter caught sight of him over me.
It should have been me. Next time, I won’t be so lucky. My luck is already fading. I was lucky enough to meet the best friends a person could ever have to counterbalance the shitty parents I have. But that luck was already wearing thin when I got into the car of a man who sent me to this hell.
Today was the last sliver of luck I had left. I used it all up. The next time I’m released into the woods to run for my life, it’s going to be me on the ground, brutally murdered.
Simply for existing in the wrong place at the wrong time. There’s no Loren to happen upon my abandoned backpack and follow a trail to find me right before I die. I didn’t leave anything behind. Except maybe my phone. Is that enough of a breadcrumb?
Can’t be. I didn’t leave it somewhere that someone would stumble across it. If it’s anywhere, it’s in the back of the Shuttled I ordered. What good is it there?
My dreams alternate between the boy being murdered and the happy moments in my life. Sometimes, they coexist in my dreams, as if we’re splashing around in Honey Bee’s pool, and ten feet away, the boy is being murdered.
If I live, it’s going to haunt me for the rest of my life because I should have helped him. He was a kid. He shouldn’t have died.
As we laugh in the pool, the kid screams for his life. Begs. Bleeds. Dies brutally.
And we continue to laugh, oblivious.