The Pleasure of the Hunt

Part 3

UP! UP! UP! she screamed to herself. You can't afford to lie here while the hunters close in! She pushed herself to her feet and glanced around. Where to go from here? The answer seemed obvious. Farther away! If hiding was not an option, she had to go for distance. She had to get as far away from the men with dart guns as she possibly could. How far could she travel in two days and a night on sore, bare feet? Could she take time out to sleep? Could she afford not to?

Most of her run, so far, had been in the shelter of the forest canopy. Standing in the cold water of the stream she noticed the sun was considerably hotter on her skin than when she began in the parking lot and the open meadow. She had prepared for nudity in the open as best she could by getting a tan, but she and Ken lived in the city and there was no place to sun bathe except in tanning booths. (Especially in the nude!) Money being tight, she hadn't been able to afford much of a tan, so she'd have to stay out of the sun as much as possible. Shouldn't be hard.

She started to walk downstream, the opposite direction from the lodge, and was in immediate pain as her feet encountered the small pebbles and debris that made up its bottom. She grit her teeth and bore it, telling herself it was the price of being able to have a baby, assuming she could survive this ordeal at all. If a hunter spotted her departure from the path into the river, he would surely figure she'd go in this direction rather than head back toward her pursuers. But it couldn't be helped. She could no more go the other way than eat a tree!

Amelia kept her eye out for a place to reenter the forest without leaving a trace, at the same time wondering why she bothered if they could locate her with the damned chip. But she didn't know for sure they could do that. It was just a logical supposition because Shala had tapped her watch and sneered. What kind of evidence was that? Maybe there was some kind of time limit to give the quarry a sporting chance. Maybe she had a certain number of hours to outwit them before they zeroed in on her fucking watch. Did it matter? YES! Two girls would survive this hunt. She wanted to be one of them.

That meant she had to outlast all but one of the other girls, presumably Shala.

Again, that seemed to point to opening up the greatest possible distance. She had to get out of this stream without leaving an obvious trail and head off through the forest without using a path. She eyed a weedy knoll on the far side of the stream and, a little farther down, a boulder jutting into the water from a blackberry patch. She weighed the possibilities. The knoll was closer and the weeds would be less painful to push through than the thorny blackberry bushes, but they would flatten more and might give away her route to a really sharp-eyed hunter. She opted instead to splash downstream and clamber up the boulder and into the punishing blackberry bushes. By carefully spreading them and stepping through the opening, then closing them behind her (while enduring the painful scratching of the thorns), she was able to conceal her entry into the forest. She hoped.

But progress from that point was hardly easy. For one thing, it was a lot slower than on the open trails. Climbing over and scrambling through scrub vegetation and brambles was tough going. Her arms, legs and feet were a mass of scratches, cuts and dried blood. Still she slogged on, ever conscious of the threat of death behind her and the promise of a decent life ahead. If she could just move fast enough. And long enough. And stay concealed.

By midday she was lathered in sweat, her skin burning with abrasions. After five hours of running, walking, trudging and climbing through endless tangles of undergrowth, including masses of spiny juniper cockleburs, she was nearing exhaustion. She had begun to dread every footfall on the unforgiving forest floor. On top of all that, her thirst was building up again and the exertion had made her terribly hungry.

She was sure the hunters had been given a hearty breakfast before setting off, but the quarry had been denied anything to eat since five o'clock the previous evening. As the Hunt Mistress had so kindly explained to them this morning, "Since statistics show that four of you will be returned for processing as meat, the NMS prefers your digestive system be empty, for sanitary purposes. Those who have purchased food packs may, of course, use them, but please be forewarned that if captured, the mandatory intestinal cleanse prior to slaughter will be much more severe." Nevertheless, Amelia now wished she had invested the several thousands of dollars they charged for that pathetic little pack of dehydrated food.

At 1:30 she suddenly stumbled on to the verge of a large meadow of twenty or more acres rambling over three hills. She gazed longingly at the soft grasses, acutely aware of the increasing pain attending each step on the harsh litter of the forest floor. How wonderful it would be to walk across that gentle expanse. Yet she would be completely exposed! If any hunter was hiding in the forest surrounding the field, she would be easy game. She considered walking around the perimeter of the grass so she could duck into the woods, but what good would that do? If she were spotted, she could hardly expect to outrun a hunter through the thick forest in her damaged condition.

She looked behind her. Oh shit! In her exhaustion she had been neglecting to hide her passage through the undergrowth. She may as well have laid down a trail with spray paint! The hell with it! She would risk a trot across the fields and hope for the best. At least she could put more distance between her and the starting line.

She nearly cried with relief as the cool grass caressed her punctured and bruised feet, but kept a wary eye on the edges of the forest. Her naked body felt baked under the hot sun by the time she reached the far side of the fields and reentered the woods. She cringed as her feet once again encountered cruel torments, but forced herself on.

Then, as suddenly as the fields had appeared, she found herself on a path. The ground was smooth and relatively free of painful debris. She knew she shouldn't stay on it, but the relief was too great. Terrified by her softness, she nevertheless struck out along the path. At least it was headed in the right direction.

By 5:45 exhaustion, dehydration and hunger were causing her to stagger as she alternately walked and jogged. When she came across a stream, she dropped to her hands and knees and drank deeply, splashing water on her face to revive her spirits. She was still alive! There was not the least sign of a hunter or any other human being. She had to keep going until nightfall. Then it would be another full day. NO! She couldn't think about that! First she had to survive this horrendous day. That tomorrow would be even worse was too demoralizing to think about! She got to her feet and resumed her trot despite her body's painful objections.

As she forced her body onwards, she thought about the other girls, wondering where they had gone in this vast expanse of forest and meadows. Had any of them been caught yet? If so, it enhanced her own chances of survival. The instant the thought came to mind she was engulfed in self-disgust. It was shameful to wish disaster on the others to improve her own odds. They had all signed up to be hunted for the same reason she did: desperation to pay off the NMS debt heaped upon them by desperate parents. All except Shala, whose debt had already been paid. Shala was in it now only to add to her wealth. She had learned how to beat the system, but did so at the expense of the others.

While Amelia resented Shala's contribution to her peril, she felt no resentment toward her parents for taking out a loan on her life in the first place. The reality was, she and Ken would probably end up doing the same thing with their own children. Most people did. Survival in today's world involved a complex of desperate financial measures. It cost a lot to give birth. It cost much more to raise the child. It cost even more to feed, clothe and house yourself and your family. Failure to meet these costs resulted in conversion to meat to feed those more worthy of survival. Life was hard, and, without enough money, short. How could she resent what her parents did?

By 6:30 Amelia was struggling to ignore the agony in her lungs, legs and feet. A training schedule tailored around her work days had simply not prepared her for this endless, naked flight through rough, hilly terrain on a mercilessly hot day with no stops for rest. And all on an empty stomach. She could feel her legs growing weaker. She had to stop soon or she would stumble and collapse. Yet she could not! As long as there was light she had to keep ahead of the hunters.

At 7:15 she came across a dead tree blocking the path. It was a small tree, no more than three inches in diameter and only a foot above the ground. It should have been easy to step over, but her strength was so drained she tripped and crashed to the ground on the other side. She lay there for several minutes weeping in frustration before she could summon the energy to climb back to her feet and struggle on. Half an hour later she banged a toe into a rock and tripped again, this time to the accompaniment of immense pain. She rocked herself on the narrow path, gritting her teeth and hugging her knees to her breast until the pain faded to bearable. She made herself stand up and start walking again, grunting each time the injured foot touched the ground. Had she broken the toe? It didn't matter. Better she suffer the pain than be caught! The toe would heal. Death is permanent.

The sun set at 8:13 and by 8:30 the it was becoming difficult to see. Amelia knew she had to stop. So did the hunters, she hoped. Walking slowly, her legs trembling with exhaustion, her toe aching, she searched the forest on both sides of the path for a place she might lie down and sleep in relative safety and with a minimum of discomfort. She had seen a number of cave-like shelters in hillsides and clumps of boulders in rocky outcroppings that would hide her from view, but they would also present a wall on one side against which she might find herself entrapped. She wanted the option of being able to run from an approaching hunter in any direction. She kept walking, squinting in the darkling, moonless gloom.

Finally she spotted a tall stand of weeds and dense bushes off to the left of the path. It looked feasibly opaque to passing hunters if she were careful to obscure her route to it. She continued up the path until she found a rocky area surrounded by raspberry vines and other ground cover that would not (she hoped) show her exit from the trail. Stepping gingerly onto the rocks and then into the prickly vegetation on the other side she carefully made her way back around to the back side of the tall weeds and bushes. Pulling down just enough of the weeds to make a thin leafy bed over the rocky ground, she nestled down and curled into a ball, shivered from a combination of fear, exhaustion and exposure to the increasingly cold night air. Every inch of her body ached or itched or both, but she lay still, listening intently for footsteps or telltale rustling in the forest around her. Her misery mounted as the minutes dragged by but she forced herself to lie still until exhaustion swept her into sleep.

She slept soundly. Too soundly.