From around me, I hear the sloshing of mud, mewling sounds of desire.
I throw Ben atop the horse.
Piercing, ear- shattering screams fal all around me. Behind me, behind me, they're leaping for me.
I bend my leg, readying to mount the horse.
The horse shoots off into the dark, leaving me behind. I see Ben clinging around its neck for dear life, then they quickly disappear into the darkness.
I grab the FLUN strapped around my neck, disengage the safety.
Primal screams fi l the air.
I start sprinting, hands at the ready on the FLUN, head turned back, on the watch. Don't get disoriented, don't lose your bear-ings. I shade closer to the riverbank on my right.
Be quick.
I steal a look backward. Dark shapes bob like fl oats in a pool, a wave of them fl owing toward me. Another shape comes screaming at me, its stark naked body glistening like wet marble, its bared fangs almost a halo of light. I fi re the FLUN. The fi rst beam misses but the second strikes its stomach, and it doubles over in the air, landing right at my feet, its eyes clenched in pain, its scream unbearable. I feel its spindly fi ngers grip my ankle, its warm breath on my shin.
“Ja!” I shout as I force my legs to turn and run.
A hiss to my left. I turn— And duck. A shape sails over me, landing on its feet. Spins.
Is at me, hands on my neck, mouth open. I see the fangs, then the dark wel at the back of its mouth. If I miss, my fl esh, my blood, my bones, will disappear down that black well.
The beam hits right into the open mouth, right down the throat.
It doesn't scream; it can't.
I fl ing the FLUN away, completely expended now. And I'm running again, the dock coming into sight.
A wave of them seep into view on my left. In front of me.
They've cut me off. Half of them streak down the dock for the boat, the other half come after me. I'm trapped on al sides: behind, my left, in front. They're everywhere.
Except the river.
I make a harsh right, dashing for the riverbank now. The ones who were behind me, they're on my right now and closing in on me with furious intent.
I'm thirty yards away.
They pour into view from the right, like the waters of a broken dam a hundred yards away.
Twenty more yards. My knees buckle.
Then it's over. Just like that, they've cut me off. I see a string of them pour in front of me, lining the bank, crouched down, readying to pounce on me.
But I don't stop. Even as my eyes tear over, even as my legs threaten to col apse under me, even as my lungs fi nal y burst in a spray of acid within, I don't stop. I will not die standing. I will not die kneeling. I will die fi ghting and running. I will meet them head-on. And a sudden surge of anger fl ushes into me, hotter and brighter than the lightning that streaked the night sky, a bolt of energy that charges my body.
Never forget. The voice of Ashley June so clear in my ears.
Never forget who you are. And it is the voice of my father, deep and solemn.
With a shout, I hurl myself toward them.
They charge at me.
And then I leap in the air, higher than I ever have, sailing over them, fl ying toward the river. The waters rush up to meet me.
“The forbidden stroke!” I scream.
And then I am in the river, its waters surprisingly warm. The quietness underwater is a momentary but wonderful reprieve from the howls and screams. Just the sound of bubbles and a background churning. Then the sound of splashes, one after the other. They're jumping in after me.
I extend my arm in front of me, gloriously stretched out, and stroke down. I feel the propulsion of my body, the fl ow of water past my head. Then I start kicking, extending my other arm and stroking down. The way I've always wanted to swim, the way it has always felt to swim. I lift my head for a moment: they're in the river now, but harmless. In here, they're the plodding dog to my swift dolphin.
The boat has pushed off the dock and is safely downstream, in the center of the river. The dock is overfl owing with people hissing and snarling with anger. I see Epap and Jacob working the poles, pushing away at good speed.
I try cal ing out to them, but I can't be heard above the din of rage or the pelting of rain on the river. I shout louder, but the wind now carries my voice away from the boat, from the hepers. I swim a few more strokes, but though I'm fast, the boat, catching the downstream better than I, is faster. It pul s away just as I feel a sudden drop in energy. My body feels impossibly heavy, arms and legs bloated with heavy fl uid.
My lungs seem unable to draw in air.
“Hey!” I shout. “Wait!”
It's my clothes, I realize. Soaked through, they've become dead weights. But I can't take them off; no way I can tread water and undress at the same time. So I slog on, concentrating on putting one arm after the other, stroking as hard as I can.
But as much as I try, the boat is getting farther and farther away.
They are leaving me behind. The hepers.
I fl ip onto my back and fl oat, too tired now; raindrops fal on my face. I fi nal y understand what it is to be discarded.
I've felt it all my life, but now I know it.
Ashley June once described to me how she would stand in the schoolyard and be tempted to prick her fi nger. To let the end come, to give in. It would be so easy now. To close my eyes, let my body drift, let them come after me. To fi nal y succumb. With so many of them, the end would come quickly.
But to let it end now would be to discard the only person who refused to discard me. Ashley June.
I fl ip over, force one stroke after the next. My strokes are vapid, my arms feel like clumps of mud sloshing through water. I begin to sink.
Then I hear the sound of splashing near me.
Hands grab my back, turning me over. An arm snakes around my chest; a face rises up from underneath, presses up next to mine.
“I've got you now, just fl oat, I've got you now.”
In my fatigued state, I think it's Ashley June, her voice whispery, water spitting out onto the back of my neck and ear, the breathing husky and warm. I want to ask how she broke out of the pit, how she got here so quickly— But then I am being hauled up like a net of fi sh into the boat.
They pul me to the center, faces gazing down at me with concern. It's David. Jacob. A body fl ops next to mine, wet and black like a seal.
Sissy.
“Turn him to his side,” she says, sputtering water.
I feel the press of wood against the side of my face, weathered and smooth, the soft clap of water smacking the underside of the boat. I hoist myself into a sitting position.
The boat is little more than a glorifi ed raft, but a wide and sturdy one at that. In the center is the cabin, little more than a wooden dugout. At the back of the boat, Epap and Jacob are still pushing down on the poles, guiding the boat downstream, away from the bank. And there is Ben: sitting under an enclosure, hug-ging his knees. He looks at me; a smal smile breaks out from his tear- streaked face. He thumbs to the back of the cabin, and when I hear a whinny sound from behind it, fol owed by the hol ow clump of hooves on wood, I understand.
all night long, they fol ow us along the bank of the river, hundreds of them snarling with the hatred of the cheated and unjustly deprived. It is an endless night, fi l ed with rain and darkness and the incessant sound of their primal screams. Eventual y, the rain subsides and the clouds move on. The moon and stars come out, shining their sickly light on the hundreds of people crowding the bank, their eyes wide with desire even now. The moonlight infuriates them, but they stay with us yet, refusing to leave. The night sky lightens as it always does eventual y, and a hint of gray intrudes on the blackness.
Gradual y they leave, just a few at fi rst, then, with a col ective howl that lasts over a minute, fi l ed with the rage of unconsummated desire, they turn as one and sprint back. Back to the Institute, back to the cloistered darkness within its wal s.
We decide to go on shifts throughout the day: two working the poles, one on lookout. When not on a shift, we sleep in the cabin— or are supposed to, anyway— a simple shacklike structure built of wood, opened on the front end.
They let me have the fi rst shift off, but I'm too wired to sleep. I spend my time dousing my shirt in the river and letting the horse chomp down on the shirt for water. Like the others, I keep scanning the Vast for signs of movement, even though I know the hot and bright sun is protection enough. An hour later, my legs eventual y tire and I lie down in the cabin. Sleep fl itters in and out like a butterfl y with a missing wing: lightly, erratical y.
But when I awaken, it is late afternoon. They've let me sleep through two shifts. Next to me, Ben and Epap are snoring away, Ben murmuring incoherently. Sissy is standing at the front on watch duty, and I join her.
“They'l be back to night,” she says.
I nod. “And tomorrow night. And the night after that, maybe.”
She runs her arm across her nose. “We better hope this river goes on. If it comes to an end today, tomorrow . . .”
She doesn't need to fi nish her sentence.
We are quiet for a while.
“Wil they ever stop coming after us?”
“No.” I stare out at the eastern mountains. “So long as they know we're out here, they will keep coming. They'l never stop.
They'l build halfway sanctuaries to shelter in the daytime, use them like stepping- stones, gradual y make their way to us.”
She takes a drink from her cup. Looks out into the plains.
“We can stop in the daytime,” she says, “for food. If we see any game, we can hunt it down. We need food.”
“We have weapons?”
“David grabbed a spear. I have my daggers. That's all we have.”
“That's all we had time for,” I say.
“We could have done better. I could have done better. I didn't grab a single thing. Even Epap grabbed the Scientist's Journal. And Jacob grabbed Epap's bag. Not much in it, just some clothes and his sketchbook, but at least he grabbed something.”
“It was pretty crazy,” I say softly. “There wasn't any time at all.”
The water laps against the side of the boat, a rhythmic knocking. She stares down at her hands, shuffl es her feet a little. “Thank you for going back for Ben,” she says, then walks to the back of the boat.