The Prey by Andrew Fukuda Read Free Book Online Page A

Sissy steering at the bow. I need to be alone. Nothing moves in the moonlit plains; it is as still as a black-and-white photograph. The river is all sinewy muscles now, tendons rippling along its length, flowing quickly. It seethes forward, eager and angry in equal turns.
    I am thinking of Ashley June.
    Crimson Lips’s words reverberate in my head, even hours later. When it was finally over …
    The last I time I saw Ashley June, she was on a monitor screen at the Heper Institute, hunched over the kitchen workstation, furiously writing a note. I still have that note in my pocket, damp and sodden, fraying at the edges. She had risked her life, fled into the bowels of the Institute, for the smallest possibility that I’d return and rescue her.
    I’ve studied that note countless times. I know the shape of every letter, every curl and dot. I take it out now, the paper damp, her handwriting blurred with moisture.
    I’m @ Intro. Will wait 4 U.
    Never Forget
    One last time, I run my finger over her handwriting. A wind blows, cold and harsh, and I already know what I will do next. I close my eyes, unable to look as I rip off a small piece from the corner of the paper. I release the ripped piece into the wind. It whips away, fluttering like a tiny moth as it disappears into the night. I rip off another piece; and another; and another. And as the moon rises higher, I release a hundred million of these pieces into the wind, the paper in my hand diminishing. Until there remains only a piece the size of a small fingernail clipping, so small I cannot tear it any further. For a long time I hold on to this piece. Then with a silent shout of grief, I release it, and it is gone, and there is nothing left in my hand.

 
    6
    I ’M SHAKEN AWAKE. David’s pale face looms over me.
    “What is it?” I say. The sky is dark, it is still night. “More hunters?”
    David shakes his head. “No. Something else.”
    “Epap? Is he okay?”
    “He’s fine.” David pauses. “It’s something … We don’t know exactly…”
    I’m on my feet immediately. The current is fiercer now, a torrent, as if the river’s patience has suddenly and decisively snapped. Sprays of water, kicked up like geysers, smack down on the deck, leaving the imprint of splayed hands. The sky is as dark and chaotic as the river, clotted scabs of black.
    Everyone’s looking at me, fear written all over their wide eyes and pinched lips.
    “The current’s fast because of all the recent rain,” I say, trying to calm their wrangled nerves. “But I wouldn’t get too spooked over it.”
    “We lost the steering poles. The current ripped them out of our hands.”
    “What?”
    “But that’s not why we woke you,” David says. “Can you hear that sound?”
    At first, I hear nothing beyond the slap of water against the boat. But gradually, I discern a faint hiss, like static over the radio, distant but unsettling. I shut my eyes, concentrating. “Ahead of us. Farther down the river.”
    “I first heard it about ten minutes ago,” Epap says quietly. “It was on and off, fluctuating. But now. Listen to it. It’s getting louder. Closer.”
    I stare ahead as far as possible. Which, in this darkness, is only about fifty meters. Even the riverbanks have disappeared from sight. Fear like a dirty fingernail scrapes along my spine.
    “I think that sound is a waterfall,” Epap says. “The Scientist taught us that waterfalls make a hissing sound as you approach them from afar.” He turns to me, his face dotted with spray from the river. “What do you think, Gene?”
    “I don’t know the first thing about waterfalls. Before now, I thought they belonged only in fantasy novels.” I stare into the darkness ahead. The hissing has become more like a sizzling sound. Louder, more ominous.
    “I think this boat is headed right for a waterfall,” Epap says. “We need to get ready to swim for the riverbank.” He looks at me and I nod back. “I’ll untie the rope off the