And I had never met a man who hunted humans before.
Justin took big strides beside me. He had his hands curled into fists at his side, and he seemed full of nervous energy.
“Did you see it? The way I smashed into him?”
“I saw him punch you in the face.”
Justin’s cheek was red from where Torben’s fist had connected with it, though mercifully the hunter had missed his eye.
Justin turned his head to me. “You could at least say thanks, you know.”
“For nearly getting us killed?”
He shook his head. “For saving you.”
I stopped walking. The side of the slope was slippery and the quickly darkening sky didn’t give us much time to waste, but I felt if I didn’t straighten this out right now I was going to end up pushing the kid down the hill.
“When we set out, when I agreed to let you come with me, what did I say?” I prodded his chest. “I told you that you do exactly what I tell you.”
He scratched his ear. “But you weren’t – “
“Shut up,” I said. I felt my body tense up and my pulse quicken. “If it weren’t for you climbing through the barricade like some clumsy chimp, we wouldn’t be in half the shit we are now.”
“I just thought – “
“Shut. Up.” I said, through clenched teeth.
We walked up the hill for thirty minutes, enough for my calf muscles to start to throb. It would have been more of a struggle of course, if I had my rucksack with me. But thanks to Torben, that was gone, and along with it were ninety per cent of our supplies and the GPRS tracker.
A freezing breeze lashed at my cheeks and nipped at my skin. I felt my chest and arms go cold, but I didn’t zip up my coat. I was thankful for it, truth be told, because it would make it much easier to stay awake, and I had a long night’s watch ahead of me. The sky was completely black now save for the glow of the moon and stars.
“Here’s good,” I said.
We stopped fifty metres short of the summit, where some natural force had carved a small recess into the side of the hill. It wasn’t a four-star room with a king-sized bed, but it would be good enough to give us some protection for the night. Besides, there wasn’t much likelihood of stalkers all the way up here.
Justin threw his pack on the ground and was about to sit on it.
“Wait. Open that up and tell me what we’ve got.”
He knelt down and unzipped his bag. He put his hands in and fished through it, and then sighed.
“Pass it here,” I said.
With my rucksack gone, whatever was in Justin’s pack was all that we had. With the shortcut through the village now out of the question due to the barricade and the presence of the hunters, taking the motorway route was our only course. I needed to see if we had enough supplies to make it.
I opened the bag and tried to see what was inside by the dim glow of the moonlight. I couldn’t read the labels on the tins, but I could see how many we had, and it didn’t look good; a few tins, some water, a can of fizzy pop and a bar of chocolate. We had enough for a few days at most, nowhere near enough to make it to the farm. All things considered, we were screwed.
“What’d you reckon?” asked Justin.
I looked at him. He was already a skinny boy, despite living in the safety of the town where food wasn’t much of a pressing concern. He was probably just a naturally thin person. God knows what he was going to look like after a month in the wilds.
“I think you’re going to need to get a belt soon,” I said.
Justin rubbed his hands together. His coat was thick and it was zipped all the way to the top, but his body still shook.
“Can you light a fire?” he asked.
“No chance.”
“But I’m freezing.”
I clenched my fists, breathed in, and fought back the rising irritation. I couldn’t afford to spare the energy it would take to be angry with him. “Weren’t you listening back in the village?”
“Course.”
“Then use this genius memory of yours and tell me what Torben said.”
He stuck his hands in his pockets. “That they’re going to hunt us.”
I nodded. “And evidentially, this is a game to them. If we light a fire up here at night, we might as throw them a welcome party. Wait ‘til the morning”
It was pitch black and the only sound was that of the wind as it blew through the grass. From our shelter we had a perfect view of the countryside for miles around us, though in the night time, that didn’t help much. Even the most innocent of shadows took on a menacing form; the branch of a tree became the spindly arm of a stalker, the swaying of a bush in the wind became the movement of an infected. Now though, we didn’t just have the stalkers and the infected to worry about. For all I knew, the hunters could be sneaking up the hill side ready to attack. Maybe Torben would tire of making this a game, and would just decide to kill us instead of toying with us.
I looked at Justin. His eyes were wide open, and he was staring into the distance.
“You sure they can’t fix it?” I said.
He turned and looked at me. I could see faint rings under his eyes, the beginnings of the marks of those who live in the wilds. He was starting to realise that sleep was hard to come by out here.
“I told you, I took the battery out and I broke it. Even if they got another one, they wouldn’t be able to do anything. I’m not stupid.”
I let out a long breath. “I hope you’re right.”
Justin picked up a stone from the ground. He twisted it in his hands, moving his fingers along its surface. Then he pulled his arm back and threw it down the hill.
“None of this would have happened if you’d listened to me,” he said.
“’Scuse me?”
He scrunched up his face. “I wanted to take the motorway route. I told you that’s the route the GPRS programmed. But no – you didn’t listen to me. Because you never listen to anyone.”
“Listen to people and you start to hear the wrong things,” I said.
“If your way was right, then I’d hate to be around when you’re wrong.”
“Shut up and get some sleep.”
He was right, I knew. This time, just this once, he was right. If we had taken the motorway route, none of this would have happened. But then, how was I supposed to know Blackfoot would be barricaded? There was no way to predict something like that, and on paper it was a good short cut.
Still, I should have listened, and because I hadn’t our situation was a hundred times worse. We had hardly any food, and as well as the stalkers, infected and whatever the hell else was out there, we also had a group of men hunting us for fun. We were hundreds of miles away from the farm, and the idea of getting there seemed so far in the distance that if it weren’t so damn cold, I would have said it was a mirage.
“Want me to take watch tonight?” said Justin.
“No,” I said, my body screaming at me as I spoke the word. I felt tired all the way down to my bones, and my eyelids were lead weights, but it was too dangerous for me to sleep.
It was going to be another restless night.
Chapter 10
Dawn broke and the sun hung weakly in the sky, the gas giant finding it as hard to rise as I was. My back ached from a night spent propped up against the side of a hill, and there was a deep pain in my stomach. When I moved I felt a pang in my stomach, and I couldn’t stop the groan that escaped my lips.