The Headhunters Race (Headhunters #1) (4 page)

There are two distinct pairs of footfalls. Prickles of alarm shimmy up my spine and now I’m more desperate than ever to steer clear. I’m hoping it’s the Greenies, but my gut tells me otherwise. I race ahead on tiptoe to the old nurse’s station where I’ll find plenty of cupboards and desks for hiding. I open a tall storage, wincing as it squeals like I’m ripping it off its hinges, but I have no time for something better.

I hear whispers too near for my comfort as I step inside and close the door. I’m so terrified I’ll be seen I forget about the hinges, creaking and groaning and giving me away.

“Over here,” I hear a guy say as footsteps beat a terrifying path toward me. He sounds young. Maybe seventeen, eighteen.

“Yeah, I heard it too. She’s hiding,” says another. This one sounds older.

My heart catches in my throat as cupboards open and slam shut. I slide my knife out and wait for one of the intruders to open the cabinet. The best chance I’ve got is to take him by surprise. One quick jab to the throat or heart should do the trick.

The rustling, battering, and banging continues. I don’t understand why they’re here. No one usually comes to this side of the prison. Through the slit between the cabinet doors, I see a hand reach for the handle, blocking the waning rays of daylight that had been filtering through. My heart beats in quick time while a scream swells in my throat. I raise my knife, ready to slash. Ready to run.

“What are you all doing?” I hear McCoy say all casual-like. I blow out a quiet breath of relief. I’ve never been so happy that he tails me every day. “You boys are missing out on the surprise dinner slop they dumped in a few minutes ago.”

“What? It’s not slop day,” says the older one.

“Are you winking us, Mitchell?” says the younger guy.

McCoy grunts. “No, I ain’t hoodwinking you. You’re gonna miss out though, if you don’t hurry your haunches back to the main center.”

The thought of extra slop gets the men scurrying off like rats on a dead roach. They must know McCoy because they knew his last name. I stay huddled in my position until I’m sure McCoy is gone too. While I wait, I can’t stop thinking about the extra slop. I’m angry at myself for missing out. For being stuck. In the three years that I’ve been here, I can’t believe today is the one day King decides to give us extra.

But the more I think about it, the more it seems too good to be true. Why would King give us extra anyway? The only thing I come up with is that King must’ve ordered the extra rations to celebrate the forthcoming race.

Of course he did! He’d want as many prisoners as possible to carry themselves to the end. King wants to make certain one of the prisoners is able to bring back Gavin’s head.

When I’m sure the coast is clear, I carefully liberate myself from the cabinet, sheath my knife, and move to the hall, hoping there’s still time to fight for my share of slop. Instead, I’m greeted by McCoy. He leans against the wall, arms crossed over his chest and looking like he’s waiting for me.

“Don’t bother going to the slopfest,” he says.

I stop in my tracks, dumbstruck. First he stalks me in his never-ending quest to find my food and water sources and now he wants to prevent me from getting slop. “I have a right to it as much as you do,” I say and charge past him anyway.

“There isn’t any slop,” he hollers after me.

I give myself a few seconds to let my mouth hang before I whirl around. “What do you mean there isn’t slop? I just heard you tell those morons there was slop. Why are you lying to me?”

McCoy straightens, pushing himself from the wall, and I catch a sheepish curve form at the corner of his mouth, like he’s guilty and I’ve caught him and he knows it.

He does a little head shake to move his bangs out of his eyes, revealing the small dark mole high on his cheekbone. “I lied to them,” he says, raising his brows and nodding toward the empty hall.

Heat blossoms over my chest and neck as the impact of his words dawns on me all at once. There isn’t any slop. It
was
too good to be true. My stepfather would never give us anything more than he had to. The worst part of this revelation is that McCoy did it to save my rear.

Why?

It only takes a millisecond for my brain to conjure up the answer. He can be a hero all he wants, but I can’t outright thank him. Not with him grinning at me like that. Verla pounded it into my head that showing gratitude inside a prison is a sign of weakness. She learned it the hard way. The vile way.

I will not show weakness.

With nothing else to say, I turn and continue the other way, leaving McCoy to wonder why I’m a jerk and me wondering if I’ll ever be normal again.

I practically leap out of bed. Zita is fast asleep and I think about how grateful I am we’re friends. I won’t let her down. I can’t let her down. I pull on my boots, comb through the knots in my hair with my fingers, and tiptoe out to hunt. I’m pleasantly surprised to see McCoy still sleeping, flat on his back with his arms crossed over his chest.

Finally, I can hunt alone.

Over the last three years I’ve realized I’ve had the most luck in the stinky garden, so that’s where I race off to first. I settle into my spot and wait for something to traipse in through one of the breaks in the wall. I’m really hoping something comes around soon so I can get to strategizing. I need to have some type of plan in place for how far I’ll travel each day, how much time I’ll spend hunting for food and water, where and how long I’ll rest, and how I’ll avoid the cannibals. But as usual, time ticks by and I get nothing.

I hate disappointing Zita. She’s the furthest thing from a hunter. She’s too noisy and doesn’t have the patience so she relies on me for this part of our survival. I don’t mind a bit. I’d rather be hunting and scavenging than sitting in the cell we call home all day. Zita does the other chores, like making sure the fire is ready for any catch I might bring home, listening for word of the goodie two shoes club that may have dropped in clothing and supplies, and usually she’s the one that gathers the water so we can drink and bathe and wash our clothes once in a while.

It’s a fair trade because it takes her four trips each day to fill the sink. She goes with Boom, who can barely walk, and I think she carries his water too. I don’t mind her helping him. I’m just not sure what ulterior motives he might have. And McCoy, what can I say about him except that some days he drives me to insanity. Each morning my goal is to try and outrun him while his goal each day is to provoke me.

A butterfly catches my attention when it flutters in through the broken glass. I can tell it’s a monarch with its orange-and-black hues and white spots, Verla’s favorite. I’m hungry, but I can’t bear the thought of eating it because she always said if a butterfly lands on you, it means you’re on the verge of birthing a better you. Of course, it sees me and flutters right back out the window.

Since the stinky garden turns out to be a bust, I decide to take a break and go bait in the darkroom. The room is not silent as I prowl toward the double doors that once opened into the mental patients’ dining hall. The low scratching of a mouse is music to my ears. My stomach grumbles hungrily. With a stealthy hand, I slide my knife from my thigh and position it with the weight of the handle just right in my palm, ready for throwing.

My eyes take a few seconds to adjust to the blackness as I enter through the door I propped open long ago. The mouse is somewhere beneath the paint-blackened window nearest me. I can just make out the baseboard, made of the same sterile white tile the floor used to be. This makes it easy for me to spot the outline of his small dark body against it. I tiptoe closer, holding my breath. All I need is a visual and he’s mine.

Somewhere in the kitchen there is a long drawn out squeak followed by a dull thud, like the wind caught one of the cupboard doors and is pitching it against another. I wince, wishing it would stop, knowing I’m about to lose the only meal Zita and I will have today.

When the racket finally ceases, I tilt my head and listen. Nothing. The mouse has run off but I don’t waste my visit. It takes me no time to get my bait spread out. I scatter bits of slop along the baseboard where the rodents tend to roam. I place extra near the crumbled cinder blocks where parts of the outside world are exposed and the rats, mice, and lizards rotate in. I used to think about crawling through the openings myself. Until I tried it one day and found myself facing long-barreled rifles taking aim from the guard towers.

With baiting done, I sit far enough away so I don’t spook anything, but close enough to send off my blade. I doze in and out of sleep, thinking about the race, thinking about revenge, dreaming about the lack of food and starving and becoming a cannibal. I wake with a start. The cupboard in the kitchen is creaking and slamming again. A cool breeze pours through the opening in the wall. I’ll die before I ever turn to cannibalism.

I think back to the stories my mother told me and Gavin about the cannibals. How the town used the church bells to send up an alarm. The cannibals knew our citizens were well fed. Water Junction used to be an old mining town back in the late 1800s before it became a cattle and farming community. It’s why we fared better than most during and after the Kill Plague. We knew how to feed ourselves.

The Kill Plague wiped out much of the world’s population. Fifty percent died in the fall, another thirty-five percent were killed the following spring, after the flu virus mutated.

Industry came to a halt. People didn’t know how to work the machines. Food was scarce. My mother said people relied heavily on automation in the old days and didn’t know how to grow their own vegetables. They didn’t know how to farm. It wasn’t a skill you could just decide to do one day. Farming was specialized. It took specific techniques and knowledge and most of all time to get it right.

Some pockets of people that remained took over towns and tried to rebuild their lives, grow food, and form some type of civilized society. It took years though, and many of the survivors in other towns and cities starved to death. Other survivors turned to cannibalism. The taste for human flesh never receded, even after people relearned how to farm and cultivate the lands. Besides, once you were a cannibal, you could never come back. If you did, you were hung. No town would accept you. No one wanted to always be looking over their shoulder.

That was twelve years ago. I remember the cannibals attacking our town a couple of times a year. I heard they stopped after I went to prison. The prisoners that came in after me said they were attacking Millers Creek. I guess that makes sense because the desert cannibals are a lot closer to them than they are to us.

I take a sip of water and adjust my position, but then realize I’m tired of sitting in darkness so I head back to the stinky garden. It’s not long after I make myself comfortable when I hear the pitter patter of paws. This sound is different from what I’m used to. Not a bird or a rat, or even a lizard. Something I don’t hear often. A rabbit. I slide out my knife and listen. The distinct shuffle of a hare moving about is originating from behind the tree. I lean forward quiet as I can, but I can’t see it. I wait a few seconds and continue to listen.

My patience pays off. The bunny hops out, hesitates, and then takes another hop before sniffing at the ground. I’m positioning my throwing hand when two more follow the first. My heart soars even though I know I can’t catch them all. But the impossibility of the situation doesn’t prevent me from thinking of a way. If I can get my hands on all three, we could feast tonight and there’d still be plenty for Zita and maybe a leg or two for me to take on the race.

The first thought that enters my head is wishing I had some sort of net. Or that I’d learned how to set up a snare. Verla hadn’t known either.

I glance around, hoping I’ll see something that gives me a solution to this dilemma. The only things I see are broken pieces of tile and cement from the floor, which gives me an idea. I can throw my knife at one and hurl a piece of rubble at another. Two isn’t better than three, but it’s better than one.

I run through a couple of scenarios in my mind. Pitch the rocks first and then the shank. Release the shank first and then the rocks. Or toss one of each, a rock and the shank together at once. No matter how I look at it though, I could end up with nothing. I’m not coordinated enough to throw two different types of objects at once. Two knives is a piece of cake. A rock and a knife will not happen. Besides, the reality of my situation is that I can’t get greedy.
Greediness will lead to your downfall.
That’s what Verla always said.

Defeated, I choose the plumpest and release my shank knife with one swift, smooth movement. At the same instant, something shiny and metallic catches my eye on the left, sailing through the air as if rendezvousing with my blade.

Another knife. I spin around to see who is poaching my prey, and who I might have to protect myself against, knowing that I’ve just let go of the one thing I could use to defend myself.

I grunt when I see McCoy. Standing there grinning like he hasn’t done anything wrong. “What are you doing here?” I demand and walk over to retrieve my knife and my catch.