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“Jacob!” I scream at him. “Throw me the FLUN!” He turns to me, fear in his eyes. From the other side of the boulders, panic-ridden beams flash uselessly in quick succession – it’s Epap, senselessly wasting all the rounds in his second and last FLUN. In the flashes, I see tears streaking down Jacob’s face, his mouth twisted in panic. “Now, Jacob, throw me the FLUN!”
He flings it to me; it’s a perfect throw. It has to be. I disengage the safety, firing off a beam even as my arm is still swinging upward. It shoots out, hitting Gaunt Man square on the nose. But the FLUN is still set at its lowest setting. Gaunt Man is merely knocked off his feet, landing on his back, stunned. He’s already getting up, coming again at Jacob.
I reset the FLUN to its highest setting, look up. Gaunt Man is almost on top of Jacob now. I fire off another round. The beam misses left of Gaunt Man by about a yard. He spins, snarls at me. I aim right between his eyes and shoot my last round. The beam flies just over his head, a few inches too high. But he’s blinded momentarily. For a few seconds, anyway.
“Get off the boulders!” I yell, tossing away the expended FLUN. “Everyone, get off now. Regroup down here.”
And I see the hepers tumbling down, their faces taut with fear. Epap lands near me; I grab him by the collar, lifting him up. “Where’re your FLUNs?” I ask.
He shakes his head grimly.
Sissy is right behind, leaping down from the top of the boulder, pulling Jacob roughly down with her. They land in a pile; Epap and I are already hauling them to their feet.
No one has a FLUN.
We start retreating immediately, away from the boulder. Epap grabs the spear I dropped from the ground, then we start sprinting from the boulders.
The hunters are leaping off the boulders now. Gaunt Man lands on the still-prostrate Frilly Dress, letting her motionless flaccid body cushion his fall. All three hunters are FLUN-wounded, but their pain only feeds into their blood thirst.
“Now, David. We need you now!” Sissy yells into the air.
The hunters stoop down, then start racing towards us with ear-piercing shrieks.
“Where is he!” Epap screams, running to the right, searching. “David!”
“We need FLUNs,” I shout.
“Screw the FLUNs,” Sissy yells, and reaches down to the dagger strap tied around her waist. In a heartbeat, she’s slid out a dagger; in one motion she pushes me aside, whips her hand away from the strap, and flings her arm out, across her chest from left to right. Just as her arm reaches full stretch, the dagger flies out from under her hand, palm facing down. The dagger shoots out, a blur of light. She doesn’t pause to see if she’s hit the mark; instantly she’s reaching down for another dagger, unstrapping and flinging, then unstrapping and flinging yet again. Three daggers in the air, slicing through the night towards the three hunters charging at us.
We need a FLUN, I think. Daggers will do nothing—
The first dagger hits Crimson Lips in the leg. To my surprise, she screams in pain, tumbling to the ground, clutching her thigh, the hilt of the dagger jutting out.
The second dagger catches Abs in the shoulder. She spins in the air as if by a violent whiplash, then crashes ungainly to the ground, squealing. The dagger has pierced right through her body, the blade slicing out of her back under her shoulder blade.
How is she doing this? How can the daggers be wreaking such devastating force?
And then I realise what Sissy has done. She has aimed at the very points on each hunter where the FLUNs have already inflicted significant damage. In the X mark of FLUN-punctured soggy flesh and disintegrating muscle and milky yellow discharge. In Abs’ collarbone, in Crimson Lips’ thigh. The only spots where a dagger could inflict real damage.
But the third dagger. It’s headed straight for Gaunt Man’s nose. And he’s already seen what’s happened to the other two hunters. He ducks down in the last millisecond; the dagger sails over his head. And without breaking stride, he still comes at us. Specifically, he’s charging at Sissy, trying to reach her before she can throw another dagger.
And he’s going to make it, by a long margin. Sissy is fluid and quick as she reaches down to her hip for a dagger, but not fast enough, not by half. She’s unstrapping the dagger, has her fingers on the blade, when Gaunt Man leaps at us. Sissy looks up; her face falls. She knows she’s too late.
And right then, off to the side, Epap heaves the spear.
It hums through the night air, an awesome throw bereft of hesitation. It bludgeons right into Gaunt Man’s nose, dead-on.
A horrible squishing sound. Gaunt Man’s head snaps back, his legs fly out from under him; flipped, he hangs frozen midair, his body parallel to the ground, then crashes down. The spear has impaled his face, ridiculous as the fabled Pinocchio nose.
I grab Jacob and Epap and start hauling them backward. Sissy has bought us a short reprieve, nothing more. She knows it, too.
“David!” she yells. “We need you now!”
And then we hear it, finally, the sound of hooves striking the ground, the carriage grinding towards us.
“What took you so long?!” Epap yells.
“The stupid horse,” David says, his face petrified at the sight of the hunters sprawling on the ground, groaning. “It took off in the wrong direction, it was trying to get away.”
“Let’s go, please let’s just go.” It’s Ben in the carriage, smeared tears glistening on his cheekbones.
“It’s OK, we’re going to leave now, OK, everything’s fine,” Epap says.
We’re all piling in. Something is wrong, though, something I can’t put my finger on.
“Wait,” I shout. I grab Epap’s shoulder to stop him from getting in. “Get out!”
“What is it?” His eyes aren’t angry, as I thought they might be. Instead, fear dots his eyes.
I spin around again, trying to figure something out. My eyes catch Sissy’s eyes. They’re a reflection of my own: a sense of impending danger, that we’ve forgotten something—
Someone.
“The Director,” I whisper.
I spin around again, eyes scanning the darkness. Nothing. “Nobody move,” I whisper.
We all freeze, barely able to breathe. He’s out there, behind the wall of darkness, watching us. I know it. Waiting for us to expend all our weapons, to tire ourselves out on the other hunters. Watching and waiting for us to crowd into the carriage; once we’re packed in like sheep in a pen, he’ll fly in for an enclosed orgy of frenzied feasting, his teeth and claws slashing wildly like razor blades, turning the carriage into a bloody coffin.
Sissy knows it, too. Without moving, she whispers, “David, give me the FLUN we left with you.”
“It doesn’t work,” he says. “I tried to shoot it, but it wouldn’t fire—”
“The safety,” Sissy says. “Gene told you to disengage—”
“How?! I don’t know how—”
The horse’s head suddenly snaps to the left, its nose flaring in panic.
A black shape flows out of the darkness, unnervingly fast. The Director comes at us silently, bounding on all fours, twenty yards at a time, the speed pulling his cheeks back, peeling his lips away, leaving his teeth bared in what looks like a sickening, jovial smile. He flings his body upward, towards me. He is coming for me first.
I close my eyes to die.
Seconds later, I’m still alive; when I open my eyes, he’s standing in front of us, ten yards away. He is not looking at me. Or at Sissy. He’s looking behind us.
I turn. David is standing on the driver’s seat, the FLUN pointing at the Director. Behind his hand, hidden from the Director, I see the safety switch. Still engaged.
“It’s on the highest setting,” David says, his voice sturdy. “Set to kill.”
The Director scratches his wrist. “A little boy wants to play hero. So cute.”
“The FLUN that’s strapped on your back,” David says, ignoring his words, “throw it over here.”
“What’s it
to you? I can’t possibly hurt you with it—”
“Just throw it now!” David yells, fear sparking off his words. His eyes flicker towards the boulders. Dark shapes are beginning to pick themselves up off the ground.
“Ahh, I see,” the Director says, observing. “You’re worried about the other hunters.”
“No,” David says. “Just you. You’re the only one I’m worried about right now. And that’s why I’m about to shoot you in three seconds unless you hand over the FLUN.”
And there must be something about David’s tone, because the Director does just that. The FLUN lands at Sissy’s feet. She picks it up.
“Now what?” the Director asks. He studies David’s face. “Are you really going to kill me? Why, I’ve known you since you were born. I’ve seen you grow up, from when you were just a little bay-be. I was the one who sent you all those gifts on your birthday, the books, the cake, do you remember that? Are you really—”
“Yes,” Sissy says, and fires a round into his chest.
