Man Hunt Read Free Page B

eyes. S neakers! he thought, amazed. NEW sneakers! He watched as the other man ran down the alley, and for a moment Obe slipped into an imaginary world where he ran without landing his bare feet on pebbles or cracked asphalt or the occasional chunk of some long-lost broken glass, and with ease his desire elevated to greed.
    Then the car engine screamed into life again, the tires squealing with bloodlust as the brake was gradually released. When they gripped the pavement solidly and tore off after the fleeing man, Obe flung himself against the brick wall at his back. The car raced past– his eyes could not help but find and focus on the mangled, bloodstained grill– kicking up dried leaves and a new cloud of dust. He could do nothing but cower, his mumbles returning full-blown. As the car shot through the end of the alley and screamed around the corner, Obe felt the shame of having again falling to their precise expectations.
    But soon the car's song of roaring engine and squealing tires was lost to the city's maze of concrete, and he knew it was over. He had survived.
    Obe
    like robe… Obe like globe…
    hugged his knees and allowed his silver litany to slow, fade, and eventually die as the cloud of dust settled over him.
     
     

2
     
    Obe reached up and scratched his head through a mass of thick, dark hair. It was stiff and coarse and hadn't seen so much as a bar of soap since the day of his release.
    My mind , he thought once more. How could I let them take my mind? So many memories had been obliterated from the constant, brutal torture and subsequent brainwashing he had endured. His family. His friends. Even his name. So little knowledge of his true self was left. He thought of himself as 'Obe', a pathetic label of some kind that he knew was not right. It suggested small things, weak things. Things that screamed till their throats were hoarse. 'Obe' was not his name, but he knew no other. His real name began with a 'C', he thought. Or perhaps a 'Ch' or 'Cr' even.
    It could be an 'M' for all you remember, he told himself. This loss, this empty part of himself, taunted him again, and he tried once more to remember what had somehow been stolen. But as always, there was only that sound of 'C', and he soon swore angrily.
    What his mind had retained were a few hundred scraps of disembodied images and sounds, most as meaningless as foreign road signs. But one, a vague knowledge of a loving brother, he held onto with desperation. It was the only piece of himself that was still wholly his. We played catch across a stream, he thought, only we used rocks. It was fun. We laughed a lot. He had no images of this memory, if that's what it truly was, but still his mind had always insisted the events themselves were true.
    Obe breathed out a full sigh, his ribcage exposing how much weight he had lost. He concentrated, forcing himself to think positively, and soon stood and stretched his back and arms. He'd escaped another hunt just now, as simple as it had been. He was another small step closer to home, to his brother. It felt good to stand so open to the world around him, to a form of vulnerability. He was, for the moment, unafraid.
    He turned and walked carefully on his sore feet in the direction the man in the green sneakers and the car had gone. His thoughts returned to the sneakers. How wonderful it would be to own a pair once more. To be able to run in comfort. His feet had been ripped apart one cut at a time the last few days. The women had taken his when he'd been transferred to the island's "blue sector". They said it was part of his education.
    Obe stopped at the end of the alley and observed the wide street it opened onto. To the left the street went steeply downhill. This was the direction the man had run. Good for him, Obe thought. Downhill is faster. To the right the hill quickly leveled off, and Obe could see how the road bowed in the center from decades of nature's abuse. The yellow lines that had once separated