The Hunt by Andrew Fukuda Read Free Book Online Page A

touched. The skin of her fi ngers brushed against the open palm of my hand. We both fl inched back
    — I in surprise, Ashley in revulsion. She was quiet, perhaps colecting herself. I was about to push the closet door open when she spoke.
    “Wait?”

    “Wait?”
    I paused. “What is it?”
    “Can we just . . . stand here for a bit?”
    “Okay.”
    A minute passed. I could not see her in the dark, what she was doing.
    THE HUNT 39
    “Are you . . .,” she began.
    I waited for her to continue. But for a long time she did not say anything.
    “Do you think it’s stil raining hard?” she said fi naly.
    “I don’t know. Maybe.”
    “It’s supposed to rain al night, the forecast said.”
    “Did it?”
    And again, she was quiet before speaking again. “You always walk to school, don’t you?”

    I paused. “Yes.”
    “You brought your umbrela to night?”
    “I did.”
    “I walked to school to night,” she said, and we both knew she was lying. “But I left my umbrela at home.”
    I did not say anything.
    “Do you mind walking me home?” she whispered. “I hate getting wet.”
    I told her I did not mind.
    “Meet me by the front gates after school, okay?” she said.
    “Okay.”
    She then pushed open the closet door. We did not look at each other as we joined the group. The guys kept looking at me expectantly, and I gave them what they wanted: I mouthed,
    “Wow!” and bared my fangs. They scratched their wrists.
    Later that night, after the last bel rang and the students poured out of school, I sat at my desk. I stayed there even as the din of the halways subsided, even as the last students and teachers vacated the school, the clip- clop of horse hooves fading into the distance.

    the school, the clip- clop of horse hooves fading into the distance.
    Rain gushed down in thick columns outside, splattering against the window. Only after the dawn siren rang hours later did I get up and leave. The front gates were empty of people as I walked past, 40
    ANDREW FUKUDA
    as I knew they would be. It was frigid by then, the rain stil pouring down heavily, as if trying to fi l the void of the emptied streets. I did not use my umbrela. I let the rain soak my clothes, seep al the way through to my body, the wet cold licking my chest, stinging my skin, freezing my heart.
    The Heper Institute
    THE RIDE IS long. Even the stretch carriage becomes uncomfortable and jarring after the fi rst couple of hours—
    it’s not built for long- distance travel. Long travel is very rare: the appearance of the deadly sun every twelve hours restricts travel.
    But for the sun, travel distances would be much longer, and loco-motive technology would probably have supplanted horses long ago. In a world where, as the saying goes, “death casts its eye on us daily,” horses more than suffi ciently meet the short- distance travel needs.
    Nobody speaks as we travel through the outskirts, along roads that Nobody speaks as we travel through the outskirts, along roads that get bumpier by the minute until they yield to the give of desert sand.
    Finaly, some fi ve hours out, we pul up in front of a drab government building. I step out, legs stiff and unsteady. A desert wind blows across the darkened plains, hot but somehow refresh-ing, sifting through the bangs of my hair.
    “Time to go.” We are escorted toward the gray building, the offi cials’ boots kicking up slight puffs of dust. Several other carriages are parked off to the side, the horses tied but stil jaunty from their journey, their noses wet and wide with exertion, heat steaming 42
    ANDREW FUKUDA
    off their bodies. I quickly count the carriages: including the one I shared with Ashley June, there are fi ve others. That makes seven lottery winners.
    Nothing about the spare gray of the building’s exterior prepares me for the opulence of the interior. Marble fl oors glow with the ebony hue of old world craquelatto. Interior Ionic columns, scrols curling off top and bottom, stretch high to