Man Hunt

by K. Edwin Fritz

  "Lucy!" Emma shrieked. "Where the hell have you been? You're missing the feeding. Someone just got thrown against the wall. It was wonderful! Earned an eight point five!"

  "I had to do more bullshit legwork for Dirty Gertie. And I'm not done." She looked at Sherry. "I need to talk to both of you then. Christ, I can't wait to get out of this place."

  "Relax girl," a woman wearing a blue shirt said. "You'll be outta here in no time. What is it now, five weeks? Four?"

  "Sharon, my love, it's a mere twenty-five days."

  "Ooo! Counting by days now, are we?" Sharon said. "That is exciting. Come on over here and help me load bags. Who knows? It might be your last chance."

  Lucy approached the side of the roof and leaned over the edge to have a look. Just then a thin young man was elbowed in the face. She called attention to it and the others quickly leaned over the edge to watch. A few moments later the same man was kicked in the face and he dropped to unconsciousness instantly.

  "Like a stone!" Emma cried.

  "Like a swooning woman!" topped Sherry.

  "Oh, dearie me," Sharon mimicked. She held the back of her hand to her forehead, batted her eyelids, and voiced an excellent impression of a classic Southern Belle. "I cain't imaigine whut's come ova' me. It must be this Su'thun heat. Ohhhh!" When she slumped slowly to the floor the other girls all laughed again.

  As they all watched for more carnage, Lucy thought about her approaching departure and frowned.

  "I swear I'm going to tell her off once and for all when I go," she said aloud to whomever was listening. "I'm too old for this shit anymore."

  "You better be sure you have that cash in hand when you do," said another woman holding a fishing rod over the edge of the building.

  "Yeah, and a head start, too," added Emma.

  "You'd be better off with a gun," Sherry suggested while digging her hand into a bag of food.

  "Speaking of guns, did you girls hear that shotgun blast earlier? I was with Monica when we heard it. She went on and on about omens. I can only imagine what Gertrude must be thinking. I don't want any major shit happening on my way out." She stopped to notice the other five women holding back laughter. "What?" she said, and then their guffaws came. Emma's shriek easily topped the rest.

  "Well, worry no further, girl. Your 'bad omen' is sitting right over there." Lucy followed Sharon's pointing finger. What Lucy saw was the remains of one of the burlap bags of food. The fruit and drink inside had exploded all over the roof. The bag itself was shredded, useless. Lucy started to reciprocate the now infectious laughter even though she was confused.

  "What the hell happened?" she asked through her chuckles.

  "Sherry let off some steam," Sharon told her. "Emma picked up that bag and told her she should imagine it was Dirty Gertie's head. Told her to give it a good kick in the face. The next thing you know, Emma's knocked to the ground covered in water and apple chunks, and Sherry's holding a gun smoking from both barrels!"

  "Made me shit my pants!" Emma bellowed through gales of laughter. Now Lucy was caught in the moment and let her own true laugh pour out. It was clear and pure and beautiful.

  Sherry had turned red with embarrassment and laughed the quietest of all. Soon, however, the joke had lost its flavor and the women turned their attention back to the men below. There were only a handful of bags left in the crate, and those last few always promised a good show.

  "So, what did Dirty Gertie want from you this time?" Emma asked, offering a stolen apple.

  Lucy took it, but didn't answer right away. "Sherry?" she finally asked.

  "Yes?" Sherry answered, biting into an apple of her own.

  "I'm sorry, hon, but Gertrude had me set up an appointment with Monica for you. It's tomorrow, just after lunch."

  "What? Shit! Just because I was trying to be nice to her? That's not fair! What the hell is wrong with her? Lorraine never would have done this!" In her protest she had thrown the partially eaten apple to the ground. There it joined the ranks of the many discarded plastic bottles, orange rinds, banana peels, and rotting apple cores.

  "I suspect," Lucy said, "it was because you let yourself get flustered in front of her. You can't show emotions like that to Gertrude."

  "See, Sherry," Emma jumped in. "I told you she was all-business. You wanted to treat her like one of us, but I told you it would just cause trouble."

  "Emma," Lucy said. But Emma kept going.

  "Now you've got to go sit with Monica because of it, and all you had to do was listen to me. I told you yesterday when you brought this up that–"

  "Emma!" Lucy was suddenly stern, and Emma stopped. "Lay off her."

  "But I'm just trying to help her out."

  "Not now. Not like this. Gertrude says to lay off." The name brought instant silence and the women quickly busied themselves over the last few bags of food.

  "So, Erin," Emma said to the youngest woman in blue. "Has Monica ever gotten you to cry?"

  "Are you kidding?" Erin said. "Who hasn't cried in that ugly office?"

  "O.K. Fair enough," Emma continued. She noticed that Lucy was eying her closely, but she continued nevertheless. "But what I meant was if she's ever forced you to talk about… well, about whatever some man did to you back on the mainland. Has she?"

  "No. Not yet. But I've heard the tales. I'm afraid I might disappoint her, though. I wasn't raped. My story isn't even sexual."

  "Really?" Sharon and Lucy asked at the same time. "You're lucky," Sharon finished for the two of them.

  "You really think so?" Erin continued. "My dad used to beat up my mom and me. He loved my brother, though. All-star quarterback. You can't compete with that."

  "God, men are pigs," Sharon said. "Just look at them down there. With all their pride in that little 'family' of theirs, they can't even organize a fair way to divvy out bags of food. Pathetic."

  They watched in relative silence as the last bags were lowered. An excellent fight broke out when the second-to-the-last bag went down, and all the women cheered. In the end, one man fled with the prize and two more chased him. The final two lay panting, both fully beaten.

  "Well, there's only one left," Erin said. "Anyone hungry?"

  "I'll take it," Sherry said. "I only had two bites of my apple." The other women began to smile. Making any excuse to prevent the men from getting the final bag had become standard procedure. "I might want a snack later," she said with all the innocence she could muster.

  The others smiled wider and she caught the incoming bag with a swift, strong hand, and tore open the drawstring tie. She pulled the apple from its middle and bit into it, looking over the edge again. At first she saw nothing she hadn't seen before. The last few men always sat on the ground nursing their wounds. Then, she looked a little closer and lit up. "Shit, he's the one we chased in there!" she yelled, pointing.

  "What?" Emma and Lucy said together. They all peered over the edge.

  "That's him, alright," Lucy said. She was using the binoculars they always kept down in the warehouse.

  "Fucker should be run over right where he lays," Emma said. "Lucy, you want me to take him out?"

  Lucy slowly lowered the binoculars and looked down at the two remaining men without speaking. Neither Emma nor Sherry nor any of the blue squad girls said a thing. This was considered official Cause business. "No," she finally said. "I told Gertrude about what happened. He's her problem now."

  "Oh, shit," Emma nearly gasped. "Did she freak?"

  "Yeah," Lucy said. And that was all. The lingering silence was thick with anxiety.

  "That's it?" Sherry finally said. "What do you mean, 'Yeah'? What happened, for God's sake? Give us the goods!"

  "Like I said, she freaked." Then, seeing that all the girls, not just Sherry, were eyeing her with increased bewilderment, she added, "If I told you more, you'd lose respect for me." She paused. "No, actually, I think you'd lose even more respect for her. And The Cause can't afford that. Gertrude is nuts, I'll give you that, but in matte
rs of The Cause she knows what she's doing." She was speaking mostly to Sherry, of course, but a little reinforcement for Emma and the others didn't hurt.

  "No," she went on. "We don't take him out. Gertrude is aware of him, and we don't want to cross her. He'll get what he deserves." Then she stood up and looked back at her two companions, the women with whom she would spend the majority of her final twenty five days on the island. "Where's he going to go?" They all smiled at that. Another perpetual joke making its serviceable rounds. "But I took a hell of a bitching because of that fucker, so I'm still taking my revenge."

  "Alright, here we go!" Emma nearly yelled. "What's the plan?"

  "Short String," Lucy said. "Simple, but effective. Who's joining me?"

  "I can't," Sharon said. "It's time for my routine."

  "Me too," Erin said, clearly upset.

  "Me three," said Vicky, the third blue hunter.

  "Blow it off!" Emma suggested.

  "Yeah, right. Like you'd blow off Gertrude's schedule."

  "Dirty Gertie is different," Emma began. But the three women in the blue shirts were already leaving.

  "Sorry, Lucy. Maybe next time. We'll see you Wednesday."

  As the other women began their descent into the cavernous building below, Lucy prepared the final bag and leaned over the edge. She saw that the two men were stirring, perhaps getting ready to leave, and yelled loud enough to be heard.

  "Hey, Sherry! Look at what we've got here!" The men, predictably, looked up.

  "Well, well, well," Sherry said loudly, joining in. "Isn't that interesting. The two douches who fought the hardest lost out. How tragic. How utterly fucking pathetic. LOSERS!"

  "LOSERS!" Emma echoed. The light in her eyes that was always present whenever she laughed her signature cackle was beginning to grow.

  "Hey, Sherry!" Lucy yelled.

  "Yes, Lucy?"

  "What do you say we give these poor souls a break?"

  "Why, whatever do you mean?" All three women were giggling now.

  "Well, I just so happen to have one more bag of food here!"

  "You don't say!"

  "Yes, indeed I do! And I was just thinking we could give it to them!"

  "Oh, Lucy," Sherry cooed. "You are such a dear. However did you turn out to be such an angel?"

  "Just luck, I guess! Here you go boys!" And without further warning she tossed the bag over the edge of the roof. One of the men– in fact, it was their GOPHER– was instantly on his feet, scrambling to the area where it was headed. Fifteen feet from the ground the bag jerked in mid-air, restrained by the thick fishing line attached to it. The three women howled at the look of shock and disappointment on the GOPHER'S face. Sherry held onto the newly recovered fishing pole. A knot that had been tied into the line was wrapped around a short piece of red yarn that now dangled only one inch from the end of the pole. This marker kept every bag out of reach.

  "Sorry chump!" Emma shrieked. "We're all out of line!"

  "Yeah, see if you can jump for it, pig!" Sherry added. The three women laughed again and peered over the edge.

  The man looked like he was summoning the courage to give them all the finger. But he won't do it. Lucy thought. No, he wouldn't dare.

  Lucy saw it start before the others, but soon they all were watching the inevitable ending take place. The other man, clearly the veteran of the two, snuck up behind their victim and used a double-fisted hammer to slam the GOPHER in the back of the head.

  The women roared their cheers and Emma, dutifully following years of tradition, retrieved the bag of food and began to untie it. Whenever they played "Short String" with a pair of men, one would eventually best the other and be given the food as payment for such excellent entertainment.

  When Emma tossed the bag over the edge a moment later, the victor caught it deftly with one hand and quickly made his way out of the alley. Behind him, the man who had caused Lucy to receive Gertrude's berating lay unconscious.

  Lucy's smile faded into a smirk as the others watched the victor leave. Another moment later it was gone entirely.

  "What's that look for?" Sherry asked when she saw it.

  "Oh, nothing," Lucy said. "I guess there are some things I'll miss from this place."

  "You'll be missed," Emma said.

  And coming from the usually wild Emma, Lucy's heart broke just a little. She smiled her thanks in reply.

  "Any regrets?" Sherry asked. And at this Lucy actually balked. It wasn't that she didn't have regrets. It was that she hadn't realized how short her time really was until just then. The question framed her time there, and her time there was all but over.

  A recurring thought came to her, one that she'd been toying around with for months now. She had kept a diary as a little girl and at the time had thought she would grow up to be a great novelist. But little Lucy had fallen heartbreakingly short of this dream. She hadn't even finished filling out the diary let alone ever written an actual story. For some reason she had never seemed to have the time.

  Or the nerve, she admitted.

  What she really wanted to do before leaving the island was to leave behind something memorable. A story or perhaps a letter of some kind that might, in its own way, make her live forever. She imagined hiding it before she left and having it sit, unseen, for years. She wouldn't have to face any of her peers that way. She wouldn't have to face Gertrude.

  It was a feeble action, surely, but one that had caught her fancy the last few weeks. It was romantic, in a way, and she was positive she'd never in her life find any other kind of true romance.

  I certainly wouldn't be forgotten, she thought. And suddenly she realized she was still afraid of some things. She was afraid of becoming a nobody once again. The realization quickly overwhelmed her. To be nothing after all she'd experienced and done on the island would not just break her heart, but snuff it out completely. She was, in fact, terrified of it.

  At that exact moment Lucy made the decision to go ahead and write her letter. She took another bite of apple and enjoyed its sweet flavoring.

  "No," she said. "No regrets whatsoever." She took one more giant bite from the apple and then tossed its unused remains to the ground. "Now come on," she said with a deliberately mischievous smile. "I want to go hunting."

  The other girls followed her down the ladder and into the darkness below. Behind and above them, the half-eaten apple began its journey toward spoil and rot.

  CHAPTER 8

  GROCERY DAY

  1

  There were forty-some-men in the Family of Blue, and all of them were on their feet now. Grocery Day had begun, and as Obe looked upward he saw that another fishing pole had appeared beside the first. The woman operating the first pole was already lowering the satchel of food swinging by its hook when three men burst into the area directly beneath it and a clearing formed. These three were ravenous, pushing and clawing each other, trying to grab at the food even though it was still well out of reach. The other men in the alley did not speak or move. They only watched in a strange, respectful silence.

  Five feet over their heads, the bag stopped and hovered. All three men jumped and stretched in vain. Obe's nerves started to twitter as this new and cruel act played out. He felt his lips begin forming his healing words again, and he stopped it consciously. Then the bag dropped and lifted, deliberately taunting the starving men.

  "C'mon boys! You can get it!" a woman yelled from above. The three men jumped again in such futility that the women on the roof laughed.

  Finally the satchel of food was lowered enough for one man to grab it. Immediately one of his starving companions began wrestling with him. The third man ignored them, lost in the glorious sight of the second approaching bag.

  During the whole degrading charade, none of the other men in the alley made the slightest move. Obe couldn't decide if this was in respect for these famished men or because nobody wanted to fight them. The two who were wrestling were vicious. Scratching and pulling, they were more like brawling a
lley cats than human beings. More like scorned women than prideful men.

  When all three early-goers escaped with their prizes and their scratched faces, four new men ventured into the clearing. This time, however, the other men took action. As a circle formed around them, these four were bumped, pushed, and chastised as they awaited the descending food. Men would take a step forward, shove one of them, and then step back, all to the laughing delight of the rest.

  This is a family? Obe thought.

  He saw Jain, Rein, and even Doov grinning almost wickedly, approving and encouraging the minor abuse. The four men in the middle did not fight back. They took the shoves and shouts without so much as a look at their aggressors. Strangely, however, they didn't fight amongst each other. When one gray-haired man leaped at the descending bag and pulled it off its hook, the others allowed him to keep it, and he escaped the alley completely unscathed. His absence created an opening that was immediately filled.

  But the gray-haired man was the first and only who got away without paying a price. The next bag caused a small scuffle. The one after that caused two men to wrestle. And when yet another arrived, three new men ventured in and all had their hands in the little fray.

  The women never dropped more than one bag at a time, and as this perverse version of grocery day continued, each satchel caused a disruption when it reached a plausible height. Each bag was a bigger and bigger prize.

  Slowly, more and more men advanced into the clearing to take their turn at jumping and grabbing. At least a dozen burlap bags of food had been taken when Obe suddenly realized he had become an observer instead of a participant.

  Get your food early, both Doov and Leb had advised him.

  There was no clearing anymore. Several men, Jain among them, were openly aggressive. They shoved and elbowed their way to the center, heedless of any pain they caused. Obe was on the outskirts of the throng of men. It would now take extreme effort to make his way in to the area directly beneath the drop zone.