“Where did you hear that?” I ask.
Crimson Lips looks up from her bloody plate and holds my gaze, measuring me. “What, the library? Because I’ve been asking about you,” she says, her voice cool and difficult to read, “and why you were put there. My escort knows everything. Quite chatty, once you get him started, actually. Told me, too, lest we start feeling too sorry for you, of the great view you have.”
“Same view you guys get. Except I’m out in the middle of nowhere. ”
“But you’re closer, though!” Beefy says, blood spraying out of his mouth and speckling down his chin. A wad of half-chewed rabbit liver flies out, landing near Crimson Lips’ plate. Before Beefy can move, she snaps up the chunk and puts it into her mouth. He glares at her briefly before turning his attention back to us. “You’re closer to the Dome. To the hepers.”
At that, it’s as if every head turns to look at me.
I quickly bite off a large chunk of meat; I chew it slowly, deliberately, buying time. I scratch my wrist rapidly. “With about a mile of daylight between me and them. And at night, an impenetrable glass dome insulating them from me. They might as well be on a different planet.”
“It’s cursed, that place,” says Crimson Lips. “The library, I mean. Eventually, it gets to you, drives you batty. It’s the proximity. Being so tantalisingly close, being able to smell them but not get to them. Every person who’s stayed there has lost it, sooner or later. Usually sooner.”
“I heard that’s what happened to the Scientist,” says Beefy. “He got the itch one night. A few months ago. At dusk, he ventured out, went right up to the Dome. Was pressing his face against the glass like a kid outside a candy store. He simply forgot the time and then . . . well, hello, sunrise!” He shrugs. “At least that’s the theory. Nobody saw it happen. They found a pile of his clothes halfway between the library and the Dome.”
“Good riddance, is what I hear,” Crimson Lips says. “He was absolutely useless. They looked at his research after he disappeared. Notebooks and journals filled with absolute dreck.”
Dessert arrives, ice cream. This is one of the few foods for which I don’t have to fake an appetite. I scarf it down, slowing down only when a sharp pain pinches my forehead. The other hunters continue to stuff their faces, especially the two sitting on my left.
They’re in their twenties, both students at the College. He’s a phys ed major, she’s undeclared. Physical specimens, both of them, to say the least. He’s rippling in muscles, although he doesn’t flaunt it. She’s more of an exhibitionist, wearing daring cut-offs that show off her abdominal muscles. Lookers, too, with crystalline skin, high-bridged noses, and doorknobs for cheekbones. Both Phys Ed and Abs have a natural bounce to their step that speaks of effortless strength and agility. But dumb as doorknobs. One thing’s instantly clear: they’re the top contenders. One of them is going to win the Hunt. The other is going to finish whatever hepers are left over. No wonder Gaunt Man is unhappy.
Frilly Dress springs in from nowhere, her shrill voice ringing across the hall like a shattered plate. “And did we all have a stupendous lunch?” she asks. It’s apparent she has: her chin is still dripping with fresh blood. “Time to move on to the next part of the tour. In fact, we’ve been moving so fast, we have almost nothing left on today’s agenda. My, my, my, you all really should pace yourselves slower. You won’t learn anything at this breakneck speed!”
I catch Gaunt Man shoot me a knowing look, as if to say: Didn’t I tell you? This whole thing is a meaningless exercise in redundancy.
“So,” continues Frilly Dress, “the only thing left remaining on tonight’s itinerary is the visit to the Dome. This is going to be a real treat. Mind you, we’ll likely not see any hepers since they sleep at night, but their odours are really pungent there. To die for, really.”
A few necks twitch around the table.
“So, shall we? Make our way now?”
And like that, we’re all standing, waiting for our escorts. And then, away we go.
By the quick pace of our feet rushing down the stairs; by the force with which the exit doors are flung open; by the look of excitement on even Gaunt Man’s face; by the spasmodic and minuscule vibrations of our heads – I know we are excited. I know we are desirous.
As if by tacit agreement, no one speaks. We are silent, our shoes first padding the hard marble floors and then, once outside, lilting on the softer give of the brick path. Even as we walk past the library, nobody says anything. Only Gaunt Man peers inside, curiously, then at me, perhaps wondering why I, of all of them, have been housed in there. When the brick path comes to an end and our shoes hit the hard, dusty gravel of the Vast, it is as if nobody dares even breathe, we are so wordless.
“It never gets old,” an escort finally says. And at that, the pace quickens even more.
I worry that the collective excitement will spring everyone into running. It wouldn’t take much to set them off. If that happens, I’ll be exposed. Because I can’t run, at least not as fast as everyone else. Not by half, in speed or stamina. I still remember in first grade how all my classmates used to zoom past me, and all I could do was plod along as if I were in a vat of mercury. Always fall, my father would say, always pretend to trip and sprain your ankle. Then you can sit out.
“Hey,” I say to no one in particular, to everyone in particular, “there’s no way we can get inside the Dome, right?”
“Nope,” answers my escort.
“Probably won’t even see any hepers, right?”
“Nope. They’re all sleeping this time of night.”
“So we’ll see exactly what we’re seeing now, but closer up?”
“What?”
“Well, just mud huts, a pond, laundry lines. That’s all, right?”
“Yup.”
“Boring,” I say daringly.
But the group buys it, at least enough to dampen their excitement. The pace slows.
Fifteen minutes later, we’re nearing the Dome. Its scale as we approach takes me by surprise: it towers above us and cups over much more acreage than I previously thought. Crimson Lips starts twitching as she walks in front of me. Abs’ shoulders hike up, stiffening with excitement. Phys Ed, walking next to her, is elevating his nose into the air, sniffing.
“I smell them. I smell heper,” Gaunt Man shouts, his gnarled voice exploding into the night’s quiet. Other heads snap up with a crack, noses pointed upward and around, sniffing.
About fifty yards out, they crash through the tipping point and break into a stampede. I plod behind them, running as fast as I can. They are blurs, a haphazard menagerie of black oscillations and grey smudges, legs springing and pumping, arms swinging upward and out. There is no grace or order about their movements, just a random assortment of cuts, springs, leaps.
By the time I catch up with them, they’re pressed up against the glass, too fixated by the Dome to notice my late arrival. Inside the Dome are about ten mud huts. They’re dotted evenly around the compound, about half of them clustered near a pond. And the pond is remarkable: first, for its very existence smack bang in the middle of the desert; but also for the perfectly symmetrical circle it makes. Man-made, without a doubt.
Next to the technological wizardry of the pond and Dome, the mud huts look like prehistoric relics. The walls are cratered and rough, punctured by small, unframed windows. Each hut sits on two encircling rows of rectangular stones, coarsely fitted together.
“Can’t see a thing inside,” Beefy says.
“Probably all just sleeping, anyway,” an escort says.
“But take a whiff, I can smell them. Stronger than usual,” says my escort, standing next to me.
“Just a bit,” another escort says, at the other end of the group.
“More than just a bit,” my escort says. “It’s pretty strong tonight. They must have been running around a lot, sweating earlier.” But a frown crosses his face. He turns in my direction, takes another sniff. “Very strong tonight. Odd, t
hat.”
I force myself to remain calm. It’s me who’s giving off the smell, I know that, but I can’t move or do anything too drastic. So I try to distract. With a question: “How deep is that pond?”
“Not sure,” he says. “Deep enough to drown in, I suppose. But no heper has ever drowned. They’re like fish, those things.”
“No way that pond’s natural,” I say.
“Genius in the midst of us,” Gaunt Man says, then spits in the dusty, hard ground.
“Is this glass Dome porous?” Abs suddenly asks. She’s been so quiet, it takes me a second to realise the pretty voice belongs to her. “Because I can smell heper. So much better than the artificial smells they sell.”
“It does seem to have got stronger over the past few minutes,” Phys Ed says.
“Must be porous. I can really smell them!” Abs says excitedly.
“Didn’t think so, but the air really is thick with their odour . . .” my escort says distractedly. “Daylight was hours ago. Almost eight hours ago. Shouldn’t be this much odour lingering.” His nostrils are working faster now, flaring with alarming wetness. Those nostrils start turning towards me, like eyes widening with realisation.
I shift away from the group. “I’m going to walk around the Dome, see if I can see anything on the other side.” Thankfully, no one follows me. On the other side, hidden by the mud huts, I spit into my hands, then vigorously rub my armpits. Pretty disgusting, but so is the alternative, which is being ripped apart into a hundred pieces.
When I return to the group, they’re ready to head back. “Smell’s gone,” Gaunt Man says with a hangdog expression, “and nothing to see. Hepers are all asleep.”
We start to head back, despondency dragging our feet. No one says a word. I take the back of the line, downwind.