Page 69 of Hunt Me
The small primary school sits abandoned on the other side of the road to where we are hiding. The windows are dark, and no light is shining from within, but it’s not like any of us would expect that to be the case. No group would have survived this long if they did stupid shit like that. A fire lighting up the insideand no window coverings would be broadcasting to every fucked up piece of shit out here that there is someone in there. Someone that they will assume is weak and stupid. Someone that they could easily take advantage of.
My mischievous little deer is not weak, and she is certainly not stupid. Her skills for covering her tracks were impressive. Marks were left until the first crossway as if she didn’t want to risk being found close to the building we were inside, so she decided to begin covering her tracks as soon as there was an opportunity to confuse us. Immediately, Liam had suggested to follow our earlier plan of going to the riverside, exactly where I had crossed over and work our way back through the direction I had travelled.
Each school was upturned not wanting to leave any possibility that she was still there. I couldn’t move on until I knew every cupboard had been searched. Vish had found a sign of someone staying in one, but judging by the level of dust that had collected around the old belongings, along with the thick layer of mould growing inside of each of the tins, it wasn’t her.
My little deer wasn’t just new to the city, ruling anything old out of the equation, but I know with certainty she is not alone. The guilt wrapping through her when she ate, how she’d all but cracked open, showing how much she held on her shoulders, was too familiar to brush off as mere loneliness. Fauna has a group for which she feels responsible.
‘Think this is it?’Vish asks, his black mask pulled in place, covering the lower half of his face.
Vish’s mask is one of the plainest and darkest of The Skulls, second only to Foster's. Despite his joyful nature, Vish claims he’s not found the‘right one to fit his personality’and sticks to a makeshift covering with a skulls smile painted across the jaw.
Liam, who is crouched beside him, has a pure white Skull with a golden crown. He prides himself on keeping it clean, unlike mine, which is currently marked with the red fingerprint I didn’t bother wiping off.
When I am out, I prefer my mask bloodied. That way, there are no misunderstandings when I encounter someone on my travels.
I am not friendly.
‘It’s too silent,’Liam observes the tinge of a Geordie accent still seeping through despite being surrounded by so many other dialects for the past few years.
‘She’s here,’I say with certainty.
I can feel it.
My little deer is inside, and I’m not finished hunting her.
I’m only just getting started.
‘Stay here,’I instruct, pulling myself into a crouched position. One ready to move.
‘Out here?’Vish’s annoying voice whispers.
‘You got hearing problems now? Yes, out here.’
‘Why?’
I glare at the man I’ve known most of my life.
My teeth clench together,‘because I fucking said so.’
It’s not lost on me that Liam stays silent, not challenging my wishes. Which is suspicious in itself because he usually has a whole load of bullshit to say on my orders, just like Vish does right now. I look at him, waiting for him to speak.
Liam shrugs,‘You want us to wait out here? We wait out here.’
I don’t buy it for a second, neither of them are ones to happily sit back and not be involved with the drama.
Twigs move aside as Vish scrapes his boot across the concrete ground. He looks like a kicked puppy. Good job I don’t care.
‘Stay,’I bark at the sulking man and give one last suspicious look in Liam’s direction.
The lighting is dark, and the sun set around an hour ago. It is only just shifting into spring, which has been a welcome reprieve to most. Others see the long nights as depressing. Me? I couldn’t care less.
I thrive in the darkness.
The full moon is high above me, and several stars shine brightly with it. There is not a cloud in sight.
My movements are silent as I walk around the street, using the cover of smashed-up cars to hide myself from any watchers — another reason why I did not trust those two dafties to join me this time. Most of the time they’re fine but they haven’t had a one hundred per cent success rate with not giving away our location. Liam and his‘big bonedness’, as he likes to call it, can have a couple of trips and falls that end up setting off a series of movements like a bull in a china shop. And I can’t risk giving my mischievous little deer any warning that I am near. She cannot be given another seconds chance to keep running from me.
Red bricks make up the side of the school, and I come to the side of a grey door, where the clear sign for a fire exit is labelled above.
