VIII
We came up upon it too fast. I wasn’t ready. My feet involuntarily stopped and my head began to spin. We had reached the ruins of the church. My body shook and I was certain that I would either faint or cry. I did neither. Instead I just stood there, staring at the spot where Milton had lain when I saw him dead.
“This is where he died.” My anxiety showed through my voice.
The metal cross from the roof lay nearby. I stumbled over the rubble and got it, placing in the ground right where he had been. I had read about praying, but had no knowledge of how to do it. I knelt down near the cross and whispered to it. “Please, somebody take care of Milton’s soul. Thank you for listening.”
“There are still holes, they were definitely grenades.” Dala said, looking around. I couldn’t help feel annoyed that she paid no respect for my fallen friend.
Lace put her hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry Hardin. Milton was the one that trained me.”
“Me too. He was really something.” Morome added.
This took me by surprise. For some reason I had never thought about others being trained by him. I always thought I had been his only partner. It showed that despite being a hunter for a while, I had no idea how the office worked.
“How was he to you all?” I asked, trying to make it seem that it was no big deal that they also knew him.
“He was nice.” Lace said.
Morome laughed, “He was insane.”
We all laughed, momentarily forgetting the danger we were still in.
“Hey come on, we shouldn’t stay anywhere too long.” Peter sounded worried. It was interesting that out of everyone there it was the one who had never hunted that was the most worried.
We continued on. I felt considerably better than I thought I would. Peter still led the way. The landscape never changed, save for some dead trees appearing here and there. We hid in places, snuck around others. Our eyes and ears were on full alert. Luckily they did not pick up anything. There was no one in any direction. There could have easily been a trap just ahead the whole time. After a while we snacked on Nutrition, but didn’t stop.
“You know,” I started with a chunk of dried up Nutrition in my mouth, “come to think of it, you all decided to come with a lot less begging than I thought it would take.”
“Anybody who doesn’t want the Hunting Office to close would have come.” Lace said.
“So what’s going to happen when we come back? Even if we talk to the Cityers, the leaders are still going to be expecting food or they will close the office anyway.” Peter pointed out.
“If we can make trust then we won’t have to worry about hunting being dangerous anymore.” I said.
“I don’t know,” Peter groaned, “I’m still worried about whether or not they will want to talk.”
Dala appeared at his side. “You can go back to Humurom if you want.”
“Oh no, I’m enjoying the fresh air.”
“Well, fresh enough.” Morome said.
“That’s why we all wanted to come out here.” Lace said. “It may be dangerous, but we are doing something, not just waiting for others to decide things for us.”
“Exactly.” Morome agreed.
“Alright, let’s keep it down; I don’t want to be seen by anyone.” Peter really was becoming the leader.
There were several more minutes of silence. Suddenly I thought of asking about something that had been bothering me for a while. “Does anyone know what happened to the second case?”
Lace appeared concerned. “What second case?”
“You guys didn’t know there were two cases?”
“Cases of what?” Morome demanded.
I found it hard to believe that they wouldn’t know about it, but then again it wasn’t hard to imagine that Matilik would keep it a secret. “When we brought back food that time, it was in a case that we found. The second case had weapons in it. Does anybody know what happened to them?”
“I never knew you found cases; nobody told us anything about where the food came from.” Morome said.
Dala chuckled, “If I knew there were weapons I definitely would have tried to get them. What were they?”
“Guns.”
“I bet they were mad to lose them.” Dala laughed.
“I think that’s why they attacked us.” I said thoughtfully. “And when they saw we didn’t have them they left.”
“What do you think they thought about that?” Peter asked.
“I think . . . they thought we were going to attack. I have a thought that they keep attacking because they are confusing our hunters for attackers.”
Dala nodded. “That actually makes a lot of sense. Did you tell that to Matilik?”
“No, this trip was to be only about food to him. I knew they weren’t going to let me leave if I told them anything else.”
“I can’t believe they let us leave at all.” Lace said.
I thought back to what Stud told me when we were watching the aftermath of the decision to close the Hunting Office. “They were desperate. They knew it was the only way to keep people hopeful, at least for a little while.”
“How can anybody be hopeful down there?” Dala said. “Every day that I come out to hunt I want to run and never stop.”
I knew how she felt. The only thing that kept me from leaving and never returning was my mother. I couldn’t leave her and I couldn’t bring her. I sympathized with Dala more now. She was so young, and yet lived in Humurom too long already. It’s a wonder that somebody let her be a hunter at all.
“How did you become a hunter so young?” Morome asked, echoing my thoughts.
Dala sighed deeply, as if remembering great adventures of the past. “Both my parents died when I was real young in the sickness outbreak ten years ago. My guardian was in the Hunting Office. He couldn’t control me so he took me out hunting with him. The leaders were mad when they found out, but I was already trained and nobody was volunteering anymore.”
The sickness outbreak was a terrible thing that happened when I was only twelve. About twenty people died, which was a lot considering how few people there were to begin with. Nobody knew what caused it for certain. “My dad died in that outbreak . . .” They all looked at me. I hadn’t discussed that with anyone.
I had enough with Peter leading. He had no idea where he was going and nobody seemed to care. I took over as leader and put us back in the right direction. An hour later we arrived at the Hunting Grounds. The only way to tell we were anyplace different was because there was a string of dead trees in the distance. That was the unofficial end of our zone. The Cityers were thought to be beyond it. It was just a little ways passed that that the guard had been when Milton knocked him out.
We stopped at the trees and made sure that our path was clear. This was the real beginning to our journey. The hunters readied their weapons. I slid mine in my belt, hoping it would show a peaceful gesture.
“I’ve only been this far once and I’ve never seen anyone.” Lace said quietly, cautiously.
“I’ve never seen any cities near here.” Morome said. “I doubt there are big groups of them here. We’ll have to keep going.”
And we did. Peter turned out to be fairly good at keeping silent. The sun was setting behind the constant cloud cover. It slowly grew darker, perfect for sneaking around. When it finally dipped below the horizon I realized that we need a new plan. It was getting too dark. Only minutes later we couldn’t see anything at all. We gave up and sat down. We ate without making too much noise, and then assigned night watch, though it should have been called night listen. Peter had first watch, followed by Morome and then Dala. We managed to find a dry area and tried to get some sleep.
It was incredibly difficult. My ears picked up every little sound and turned it into monsters and attackers. I concentrated on the others’ breathing and hoped to get to sleep. I finally did and had a strange dream about people b
eing ground through a machine. It was gruesome but it didn’t have anything to do with Cityers so I was alright with it.
I found myself staring into the darkness; my head ached after resting on the hard ground for so long. There was no good position to be in, not that it mattered I couldn’t get back to sleep anyway. Then I began to wonder why I woke up in the first place. There was a noise, a shuffling nearby. I jumped out of my skin when Dala began talking.
“Hey, hey, get up. There’s something moving over there.”
The heavy breathing stopped, we were all awake. The noise slowly got louder. I strained my ears and listened hard. Footsteps. I couldn’t tell how many, but quite a few. My breathing became shallow in anticipation of them finding us. They were at least twenty yards away, walking in a group. The noise slowly declined into the direction that we were headed. I couldn’t tell what anybody else was thinking, but I was freaking out inside. What if they were the Cityers? This was not the chance I had been looking for. Any type of noise would probably draw an attack. Where were they coming from and how come we didn’t see them? Where were they going? Back to a city? I thought about following them but there was no telling if there were any trying to catch up that we might run into. The best chance we had was to wait until morning and then follow.
Minutes passed. I didn’t know what to do. Stay up and wait for more sounds or go to sleep. The hunters were still up, on high alert; waiting for further clues. There was only silence once more. The footsteps were gone and we had no idea where they were.
A scream. I froze with terror. It came from somewhere in the distance; in the direction the steps went. More followed. There was nothing we could do but sit and hope. Had they been ambushed? Were those people being attacked by Cityers? Then something else happened. A light appeared on the horizon. Small at first, growing in size until it glowed high into the darkness. It wasn’t the sun; the sky would have lightened before its appearance. It was a fire. Wood cracked and burned, accompanied by more screams. There was a city out there.
I dug my hands into the dirt, attempting to fight the urge to help. Whatever was going on out there was none of my business, and going would only make things worse for us. In the growing light I could make out the team. We all had the same look of terror, of surprise etched across our faces. Nobody moved; nobody dared give away our position.
The screams soon stopped, but the fire would continue throughout the night. Finally being extinguished by rain and having nothing left to burn. No one slept the rest of the night. We watched quietly, getting soaked in the rain.