The Hunt (22 page)

Mara shook her head, and Yuke, who was reading over her shoulder, said, “The bastards!” A Google search revealed that coverage in other online 'newspapers' conveyed essentially the same information. Mara felt as if a wave of cold air had swept through the apartment. She switched off the computer and embraced Yuke, welcoming the warmth of her body. Mara was determined to perform the usual weekend rituals, though this was now very much a performance in the theatrical sense of the word. She spent the rest of the day watching DVDs and ordering food. She was ravenously hungry, and the more she ate, the hungrier she became. Her body was clearly making up for its lack of sustenance during the past week, and Mara, who knew hunger to be a sign of good health, indulged herself with excessive amounts of chicken and pizza. By the time evening arrived, she felt close to bursting, and Yuke, who had only sampled the odd slice here and there, was obviously delighted. They went to bed and held each other close. It occurred to Mara that she really had survived her ordeal, both mentally and physically, and was well on the way to recovery.

Chapter 17

Mara had what appeared to be a dreamless night, and again slept until noon. Yuke also seemed to have rested peacefully, but as she sat up in bed eating the breakfast prepared by Mara, she obviously had something on her mind. At Mara's coaxing, she confessed what it was.

“
I can't stop thinking about that letter. The one suggesting the 2059 bombings were carried out by the government.”

Mara nodded.
“Of course,” she admitted, “the letter doesn't prove anything, but...”

“
But you know it's true.”

Mara sighed.
“But I know it's true.”

“
And that poor girl. Julie. She died because of this. Because the state killed more than a hundred people just to provide an excuse for torturing women. Mara, it can't be true! The world can't really be like this!”

Mara tried to think of something reassuring she could say, but nothing came. And constantly present in the back of her mind was the knowledge that
Yuke could be conscripted into the Hunt at any moment.

They remained in bed for the next few hours, but even as they made love, Mara was overwhelmed by depression. She'd been in an almost euphoric state yesterday, but now felt herself swinging to the opposite end of the emotional spectrum.

As always, Yuke was sensitive to her every mood. Sitting up in bed, she said, “I think I should stay over one more night.”

Mara looked at her gratefully.
“I wish you could stay over every night. But at some point I'll need to confront what I've been through by myself.”

Yuke
hesitated, as if nervous about what she planned to do, then leaned over and whispered, “I promised to heal you. You need another night of dreamless sleep. Let me catch your nightmares.”

Mara gasped in surprise. This was the first time either of them had unambiguously referred to their mysterious bond, and it felt as if a bridge had been crossed. She embraced
Yuke and said, “It's okay, you don't have to whisper. Whatever this thing is, it's very real and very solid. It won't be destroyed that easily.”

An expression of relief spread across
Yuke's face. She held up her left hand, with its missing digit, and said, “I know what you did for me.”

“
But I didn't always know what you were doing for me. You seemed to be sleeping peacefully the last two mornings. In the past, I've always been able to tell when you were dreaming for me.”

“
Your last few dreams must have taken place while you were in REM sleep. They were long over by the time you woke up.”

Mara could hardly believe they were discussing their connection as if it were a practical tool, one that could be picked up and examined. But now that they'd taken the plunge, there was no turning back.
“How did you know the dreams were mine? How could you be certain they weren't yours?”

“
I always feel like I'm observing my dreams from afar, as if I was watching a film. Sometimes a terrifying film, but still a film. You always seem to be directly involved in your dreams. It's the strangest thing I've ever experienced. When I have your dreams, I feel like I'm you, but when I have my dreams, I don't feel like me. I'm not even sure that makes sense. I'm not sure any of this makes sense.”

“
I've heard of identical twins who knew what their siblings were experiencing, even if they were in different countries. What we have must be like that in some way. But it's real enough. You couldn't have simply guessed what happened to me last Monday. Will you...Will you tell me what I dreamed?”

“
The dreams you had on Friday were very fragmentary. There was a girl singing, and a woman telling you to wake up. I couldn't see the woman, only hear her. Then you were sitting on a chair in a dark room. A man was standing over you. He told you he couldn't remember anything that happened in the past, and he had to destroy you, because you could remember. Then you told him that he didn’t exist. He became angry and threatened to take the thing you valued most. When you looked up, you saw there was a mirror where his face should have been. Then...then I appeared, and I started shouting at you, insisting I didn't know who you were. Does this mean anything to you?”

“
I've been dreaming about a woman telling me to wake up for weeks now. And the singing girl must be Julie. She's not actually a girl, she's twenty-one...she was twenty-one. But I thought of her as a girl. The dark room must be the playroom, and the man might have been Tyner. Otherwise, I don't understand that part. The stuff about not remembering the past and the mirrored face mean nothing to me. You not knowing who I am...that sounds familiar, but I can't quite grasp it. Maybe it's a dream I've had before.”

“
I may not be remembering that part correctly. I'm thrown out of your dreams whenever I appear in them. And all these images were bundled together, so there wasn't a clear line between one dream and another, or one person and another. I think I was merging with the singing girl. The dream you had last night was much more coherent. You're standing naked in a small bedroom, waiting for somebody to appear. Eventually, the door opens, and a man walks in. Fat, balding, probably in his forties. He's wearing a T-shirt with the words Dukes of Death Metal printed on it.”

“
Tyner!” said Mara. “That's the T-shirt he had on the day he caught me. When I told you about the Hunt, I didn't describe it to you.”

Yuke
took a deep breath and continued. “He handcuffs your hands behind your back, and attaches a leash to the collar you have around your neck. He firmly grips the end of the leash and leads you out of the room, into a hallway, through a door, into a corridor, down in a lift, across a lobby, through another door. Then you're standing on a road lined with half-destroyed buildings. You see four or five other women - all naked, all with their hands cuffed behind their backs - walking ahead of you, each one following a man holding a leash. You're all heading towards a large gate. Once you pass through this gate, you're taken into a reception area. A woman sitting behind a counter shouts, ‘Don't forget your belongings!' but the man, Tyner, just drags you through the main entrance and into a street. At first, it seems to be a normal London street. Turning towards Tyner, you ask, ‘Why have we left the stadium?' and he says, ‘We're still in the stadium.’ Then you ask, ‘Is the Hunt over?' and he replies, ‘The Hunt will never be over.' You suddenly realise the street is full of bound and naked women, hundreds of them, being led on leashes by men. Tyner keeps walking until he comes to a restaurant. He ties you to a post outside, then goes in and sits at a table. You watch him through the window as he eats a large meal: a starter, main course, wine, dessert, coffee. When he finishes, he comes out and drops a piece of meat onto the filthy pavement in front of you. You get down on your knees and devour it hungrily. That's when the dream ends.”

Mara began to cry. She threw her arms around
Yuke and said, “It's an awful dream. Thank you for protecting me from it. But tonight, I need to start having my own dreams again.”

It was almost time for
Yuke to catch the train back to East Finchley. As she put on her uniform, she said, “If you need to talk in the night, call me.”

Mara felt sadder than ever to see
Yuke go. It was as if a part of her own body had been ripped away. Trying to take her mind off Yuke's absence, she decided to check her email again. There were several messages from friends, who expressed their joy that she was safe. Some of them suggested getting together for a drink the following weekend. Mara dreaded the inevitable questions, but she longed for normal company, and decided she'd arrange something within the next few days. Bringing up the
Daily Male
website, she scrolled from page to page, searching for more information about Julie. And there, in a relatively prominent position, was a report headlined “Hunt Death Due to Natural Causes.”

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Julie Weisz's death during a Hunt occurred due to natural causes, according to a

pathologist's report. Dr. Frederick
Letap, who conducted the postmortem examination,

concluded that Miss
Weisz died of a heart attack. 'Her heart was weak,' claimed Dr.

Letap
, 'and she could have died any time. That she happened to pass away during a Hunt

was simply a coincidence.' Dr. Alex Roberts, the physician who examined Miss
Weisz

on a daily basis while she was participating in the Hunt, insisted, 'Miss Price was coping

admirably, and hadn't been treated any differently than the other contestants. It's not

usual for twenty-one-year-olds to die of heart-related illnesses, but it does happen, and

nobody connected with the Hunt is in any way to blame.' Robert Price, in charge of Miss

Weisz
at the time of her death, expressed his sympathies to her family. 'Julie was a great

girl, and I enjoyed getting to know her. I knew I'd done nothing wrong, but it's a relief to

have this confirmed officially.’

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Mara thought back to her encounter with Let's-Make-a-Deal - or Robert Price, as he seemed to be named - recalled his twisted face as he hissed, “I intend to make sure this vile cunt remembers tonight for the rest of her life.” She recalled Julie being dragged away, screaming “I'm in the house now,” knowing she was going to die. And she looked again at the
Daily Male
article, which claimed this healthy young woman had suffered a heart attack. The fact that Julie's heart attack occurred while she was being tortured must have been purely coincidental! Indeed, from the tone of the article, one might have assumed Julie and Price spent their time together drinking tea.

Given what Mara now knew about 2059, none of this surprised her. But surely there was a way to reveal the truth: if not about the bombings - most people would refuse to accept that
- then at least about what took place during a Hunt. Sensitive information was once spread via the Internet, but following a series of high-profile whistleblower incidents earlier in the century, the world wide web had been ring-fenced so that only information approved by the government could be viewed in the U.K.

The last time Mara had seen Julie's parents, they'd begged her to leave them alone. Was it her responsibility to tell them what really happened? Or would it be better to let them think their daughter died peacefully? They had a right to know the truth; but how could they possibly cope with it? She vividly remembered the day she'd discovered the corpses of her own parents, lying side by side in their bed. The memory filled her with sadness. But losing one's parents belonged to the natural order of things, even if suicide hardly counted as a natural death. Losing a daughter was something else entirely, a horror beyond contemplation. Mara felt an almost palpable connection to the
Weiszs. One way or another, they were all victims of the Hunt. She took the Hunt pamphlet from the drawer where she'd deposited it, and read the section towards the end, which claimed, “Any Hunter whose behaviour results in the death of a captive will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.” Mara laughed sardonically. Price would not be seeing the inside of a courtroom any time soon.

Mara started going through the list of changes her editor required in the manuscript of
French Kill
. As usual, the suggestions were intelligent and respectful of Mara's intentions, aimed only at clarifying the narrative and eliminating inconsistencies. Mara was appalled to discover that, during the period in which she'd been working on the novel with the threat of the Hunt looming over her, she'd become so distracted that she'd revived a character killed off earlier, and provided two hopelessly contradictory backstories for the victim. She spent the rest of the evening making the necessary alterations, thankful she'd only embarrassed herself before her editor rather than her readers. She sent off the corrected draft around two in the morning, and collapsed into bed with the feeling of a job well done. As she closed her eyes, she mentally prepared herself for the nightmares which seemed inevitable now that Yuke was gone.