The Hunt

by Chuck Wendig

  And it’s then it hits her:

  She needs a future.

  If she makes it out of here, she’s gotta figure that out, and pronto. Time is ticking. The wick on this high school candle is about to burn out. It’s now or never. She flips through the mental scrapbook, tries to figure out what the heck she’d even wanna do with her life, but so far, that scrapbook is just a series of blank pages. Photo corners with no photos.

  A future unwrit, but unimagined, too.

  Dang, dang, double-dang.

  She checks her phone. Four p.m.

  Been here two hours already.

  Only one hour left—

  The sound of an engine. Not a truck engine. Car. Someone yells out: “Bring it to bay three, over here—no, not there, here.”

  A car pulls into the third garage bay door. One closest to Atlanta.

  It’s a little orange hatchback.

  Bee’s car.

  Dread runs through her like a scouring force.

  One guy gets out of her car from the driver’s side. A grungy-looking dude with ratty long hair and bad skin. He meets a stubby fireplug of a man—older, balding, cleanly shaven. “What’s this?” the fireplug asks.

  Grungy guy says, “I dunno. They told me to move it down here.”

  “Put the keys on the pegs, then.”

  Why is Bee’s car here?

  It’s one of two things, Atlanta figures—

  First, they went and got her. Why, she can’t imagine. But maybe someone brought her here. For reasons that aren’t yet clear.

  Second, she came here all on her own. Couldn’t stop herself. Which would mean she’s pulling an Atlanta—stepping right into it. Putting herself in the middle because she just can’t help herself.

  Either way, it’s not good. It means she’s here, somewhere.

  And not down here, either. But probably back up toward the office.

  Atlanta figures she’s going to have to head that direction. Which means crossing wide-open space, because there’s not a lot between the office building and this secondary backlot area. Someone will see her.

  She always knew having to cross that distance was probable—she just figured she’d do it once the sun set. Easier to sneak along—and bring a shotgun—if it’s dark. Now, though, it’s light. And Bee’s presence complicates things.

  That means she has to move now. Not later.

  After Grungy Guy puts the keys on the peg, Atlanta thinks to sneak over and grab them—then drive Bee’s car back up. Two problems there: First, she can’t drive. She’ll probably be able to figure it out, but still. The other problem is it’ll make noise, draw attention. Can’t have that. Not yet, anyway.

  But then a second idea pops into her head.

  It could work. Means a sacrifice, though.

  Atlanta looks around, sees another small stack of cardboard pallets over in the corner. Quiet as a mouse in a cathouse she creeps over and hides her shotgun just behind it. She loads it first, though. Just in case.

  Then, once it’s hidden, she heads out back again. Waits for a few minutes until—

  —the next tanker truck is passing by.

  Soon as it passes, she quick hurries after it, and jumps. She catches the back metal handle off the ass-end of the truck, and for a second her foot drags along the gravel as she struggles to pull herself up.

  Somehow, though, she manages. Stands up on the back and hitches a ride up to the office lot.

  Trickier, now. She’s in the thick of it. Once she hops off the back of the tanker, she’s gotta move fast—people are everywhere. Caterers setting up food, workers unfolding chairs, waitstaff gathering in little pockets, going over how to handle food and drinks and clearing plates.

  There’s a handful of generators running—humming along, not too loud, and so Atlanta darts over and hides behind one of those. That puts her about fifty yards from most of the action. Far away, but not far enough.

  She feels naked without her gun.

  At least she still has a pair of binoculars. Steven’s idea. Steven doesn’t have a lot of actual ideas, but when he does, they seem to be good ones.

  These aren’t much—just little fold-up ones. Atlanta pops them out, takes a glance, peering out at those gathering and getting ready, and—

  There.

  Ty Carrizo.

  Smile as big as a barn door. With him are a couple other guys in sensible suits. They’re standing around, directing some of the workers—pointing here, pointing there, looking at something on a clipboard.

  He starts winding his way through, overseeing everything.

  Someone comes up. His wife.

  And his son. Damon.

  You little dick, she thinks. Daddy’s boy.

  Damon shakes hands with the other men in suits. The wife stands back, silent as a judge, smiling like an Avon lady. Damon heads off with his mother, and the men all keep walking together. They’re coming up on a cluster of servers standing there and—

  No, no, no, no.

  This doesn’t make sense, doesn’t track at all, and here Atlanta feels like maybe this whole thing has slipped a gear because now, now this is turning into a straight-up grade-A certifiable nightmare.

  Her mother stands among the servers.

  Mama, what are you doing here?!

  She’s dressed like the other servers: black pants, white blouse, little black bow tie. She’s nodding and smiling, and then she shakes Ty’s hand like she’s grateful as anything. Atlanta feels like she’s on a kids’ carousel that’s spinning fast, too fast, faster than she can handle.

  You need to get out of here.

  Just go home.

  She could call the police. But on what evidence? They’d laugh her off the phone. Best-case scenario they’d send, what, one squad car? She needs the cavalry. Which means she needs some kind of evidence. She could lie, say something that might bring the whole department here, but if she can’t point them to something—they’ll come, disrupt the event, and go home red-faced and empty-handed.

  Okay, she tells herself. This is fine. Not at all fine, really, but fine as it’s ever gonna get. Plan is still the plan. It just means finding Bee first. Then track down the girls, or drugs, or something, anything.

  Nobody’s down by the garage or the tanks.

  And they’re not keeping Bee or any other girls in plain sight here. Why would they? That means—

  Office building.

  Gotta get in there. Shane said that was always a probable place she’d have to go, so—again, he found a building directory online from when this wasn’t VLS but belonged to Indian Motorcycles. He was able to get a rough layout for her. His take was, if they’re keeping anybody anywhere, it’s the top floor. Executive offices. Best place to make everyone—lobbyists, senators, whatever bigwig shitbirds are flying into this nasty tree—comfortable.

  Atlanta darts around the margins of the lot, trying to act casual, like she belongs here. She waits till Ty is going the other direction and then she moves.

  Behind a few catering trucks. Behind another truck unloading crates of liquor and cans of A-Treat soda.

  “Atlanta?”

  The voice stops her in her tracks.

  Damon.

  She turns. Licks her lips. Fake smiles. “Hey, Damon.”

  “Wh . . . what are you doing here?”

  “My mama, she’s working the wait staff. I dropped her off.”

  “Oh.” He’s there in his button-down shirt and thin tie. Looking handsome, honestly. She wonders, Is he like his father? A littler monster made from the bigger one? Is he ignorant of it yet? What does his future hold? Will he be just like his old man or will he be the wheel that bucks the rut? “I didn’t know you had your license.”

  “I do but only one car between us,” she lies. “So.”

  “So.”

  “Well, I’m gonna go,” she says.

  “Yeah, all right.” He squints. “You could stay.”

  “Huh?”

  “You could come,
sit with me at my table. Free dinner. Maybe we could sneak some drinks. Nobody will know.” He laughs. “Or care.”

  “I’m . . . I’m good.”

  “Sorry about . . . lately,” he says. Her eyes dart around the side of the truck. Ty Carrizo is making his way back toward this direction. Hurry this up.

  “It’s cool.” Even though it’s so not.

  “I just, uhh. We got close and the thing at the party. Freaked me out. And what you said about my dad—”

  “I was on the rag. You know us ladies on our Moon Times. We just get . . . we’re like honey badgers. Speaking of that, I gotta pee. Is there a . . .”

  Ty is roaming closer, talking to a woman dressed like a server.

  “Porta-Johns are over there.”

  She loud-whispers: “They’re totally gross. Is there a better one?”

  He grins. “Yeah. It’s cool. Just walk in. Bathroom right by the front desk. I don’t know if anybody’s in there, but it’s fine.”

  “You won’t tell?”

  “I won’t tell.”

  Ty calls over, ”Damon, come here, son.”

  Atlanta quick pivots around the backside of the truck, breath held in her chest, waiting for that shoe to drop, for the sword to fall, for the earth to split open and swallow her, but . . . Damon calls after, says, “All right, Dad, hold on.”

  Nobody comes for her.

  Nobody saw her.

  She skirts the edge of the lot, smiling to a few servers.

  Then she’s in the front door of the office building.

  Marble floors. A fountain against the wall—water cascading down over three big metal letters: V L S.

  All around, kiosks with information like it’s a car lot salesroom: information about hydraulic gas fracturing, how it works, how it’s safe, how it’s good for America. Flags and bald eagles and whatnot. Doesn’t say anything about filling the air with plumes of fire and poison smoke or tap water catching fire.

  No time to worry about their propaganda.

  She actually does use the bathroom because, well, bathroom. Plus, while in there, she texts Shane to let him know she got in.

  Then, while nobody’s here, she ducks into the elevator.

  Atlanta heads to the fifth floor. Top of the building.

  Best way she can describe this floor: dudely. It’s like how when you go into Walmart or Target and you smell all the smelly candles, there’s always one candle that’s clearly marketed toward men. It’s called sandlewood or oiled leather, and the candle itself is nearly always black or dark brown, and it smells like a fake cowboy’s cologne. All hat, no horse.

  This floor is that. Dark woods and leather chairs and man scent.

  Pretty simple layout—whole thing is in a long rectangle. Door after door, each marked with executive names. As you go from one end to the other the offices get nicer and bigger. She sees a conference room, a break room, and on both tables she sees bottles of good liquor. Dozens of them. Little baggies, too, some with white powder, others with pills.

  That could be it. Could be enough to call the cops.

  But what about Bee? What about the girls?

  She envisions a scenario where the cops show up, and Bee?

  Bee just disappears.

  Or ends up dead—another teenage “suicide.”

  Atlanta has to keep looking. Just in case—since she remembers what happened last time she tried this plan at Wayman’s dogfight—she checks her phone. Full battery. Strong signal. She quick leans in, pops off a shot with the phone’s camera of all the drugs.

  That’s something, at least.

  She keeps on poking through offices.

  There, at the end. One more office.

  Name on the door: CARRIZO, T.

  She tries the handle.

  Locked.

  Well, well, well.

  No window, so she can’t peer in. The handle isn’t much to look at—just a standard doorknob. She takes a look around and sees a potted plant on a metal stand—a small pedestal, same brushed-nickel color of the letters in the fountain downstairs. A little hint of the industrial here in this wood-and-leather kingdom.

  Atlanta sets the plant off to the side, picks up the stand.

  Got some heft to it.

  She goes to the door, lifts it—

  —and with a grunt, brings it down on the doorknob.

  The knob rattles. But otherwise: nothing.

  Dang!

  She does it again, harder this time—

  —and the knob pulls away from the door. Not all the way.

  But one more hit—wham—and the knob hops off like a bunny rabbit, rolling away. The door drifts open without a sound.

  “Bee,” Atlanta says.

  She sits at Carrizo’s desk, eyes puffy from crying. Mouth bound up not just with a swatch of duct tape but a whole binding of it—over her mouth, around the back of her head and neck, and back again a few times. Her hands are behind her.

  “Mmmph,” she pleads.

  Then her eyes go wide.

  Atlanta knows what’s coming. A shadow falls over her—

  She moves fast, throws a hard elbow backward. It connects with someone’s head, and a man grunts—

  —just as something jabs Atlanta right under the arm.

  Everything goes full-tilt boogie. Her bones lock. Muscles go from gooey fish guts to hard concrete. She can feel her teeth.

  And next thing she knows, she’s shaking on the ground, mewling like a half-dead kitten. Standing above her, with a bloody nose, is Moose Barnes.

  “You again,” he says. His voice is rough-hewn, like a splintered board after someone broke it in half. It’s got a tremble to it. “Shit.”

  Then he grabs a hank of her hair, and begins dragging her down the hall, back out of Carrizo’s office. She wills her muscles to move, tries to get them to do anything except hang off her body like moss off a tree—she starts kicking, reaching for him.

  A door. Open. Her, thrown through it. The floor here is enameled concrete—smooth, the fluorescents above captured in it like liquid light. Metal shelves rise around like Erector sets. She reaches for one, tries to stand.

  A fist pistons into her kidneys. She cries out, doubles over, curls up.

  Moose growls at her, grabs her wrist, and slaps one of the shackles from a pair of handcuffs over it. It whiz-clicks shut. Then he secures the other end around one of the metal shelf posts. She feels him patting her down. Going through her pockets. “There. Stay here.” He walks away carrying her phone and one of her shotshells. He holds it up, stares at it like it’s a piece of alien technology. “You got bullets but no gun. You’re a dumb bitch.”

  “Not a bullet,” she gasps. “Bullets are different.”

  “Whatever.” He heads toward the door.

  “Wait,” she groans.

  He turns back around.

  “What the hell is this?” she asks. “Why you? You seemed . . . like just some dope jock asshole. But now . . .”

  “I’m in deep.” He looks lost. Swallows hard. He’s strung out, maybe—way his back teeth grind. He’s on something. Coke or pills or worse. “They, they got plans for me if I just . . . hunker down. You can’t be here. You’re gonna ruin it.”

  She sneers at him, “You killed her, didn’t you? Samantha.”

  He winces like she slapped him. “She messed up. Okay? Wanted to end the partnership with Carrizo. And Carrizo . . .” But the words fall apart in his mouth and he just stares off, haunted by whatever’s in his own head.

  “So you killed her. Made it look like something else.”

  He makes a sound in the back of his throat. Something like a whimper. Then he hurries out of the supply closet, slams the door. Locks it.

  She screams.

  No phone. No way to call out. She should’ve sent the pictures of the drugs to Holger when she had the chance. Dangit! Shit!

  All around her, the mostly empty shelves of the supply closet. Three sets of shelves. Far wall, which she can’t reach,
is home to staplers, hole punchers, paper reams, even a paper cutter—one of the ones that’s shaped like an executioner’s blade. If I could get my hands on that . . .

  But the shelves are bolted into the concrete. Industrial manufacture. She shakes it, tries to pull them apart. They’re solid.

  Not much on her side of the shelves. Just cleaning supplies: Windex, bleach, paper towels, all that. She winces as she turns—her body still feels sore from the stun gun, and the pain that radiates out from her kidneys is its own special hell. Maybe something’s broken inside. Did Moose hit her that hard?

  She’s got one hand free. She pulls at the metal cuff. It’s tight. So tight. Almost cutting off the circulation to her hand.

  Time passes. No idea how much.

  Maybe I can pick the cuff lock.

  She feels around her pockets for something, anything. She’s never picked a lock in her life, but now she sure as hell wishes she learned. Wishes, too, that she’d brought a penknife or something with her. But she’s got nothing.

  Maybe one of the Windex bottles. She pops the top, pulls out the tube. The cleaning fluid stink fills her nose. She tries popping the tube in there, but the thing almost leapfrogs out of her hand. Don’t cry. Atlanta blinks back tears. With a steadier hand she tries pulling apart the mechanism that forms the spray bottle part of it, and there’s a little spring in there and—

  Again it slips out of her hands, this time lubricated by the cleaning fluid.

  “Dangit,” she hisses, and kicks her boot against the shelves.

  Clang, clang, clang. The shelves judder but don’t budge. A bottle of bleach rolls off, thuds against the cement.

  Bleach.

  She thinks, Doesn’t bleach, like, eat through stuff? No, no, not on its own. Suddenly she’s chiding herself: You need to pay better attention in chemistry class. She’s always saying how oh, ha ha, school is so worthless and they don’t teach us anything worth a spit for use in the real world, but this sure feels like the real world and right now she needs a way to magically use bleach to get through these handcuffs.

  Then she thinks—

  Maybe there is way, after all.