Filed To Story: Sunrise on the Reaping Book PDF Free
“But he does. All the male Careers are dead, Haymitch.” Maysilee loads her blowgun. “That’s either Hull or Buck.”
I pull my knife and my ax. “Let’s go.”
I ditch my pack in a patch of katniss and we take off toward the disturbance. I can’t shake the image of those baby mutts from my mind, but I forge ahead, already thinking of protecting my kneecaps. The weird baby noise becomes more distinct and less recognizable, but it’s overlaid by some very familiar moans of human pain. Suddenly, Maysilee yanks me to the ground and I’m peering through the bushes down a small slope into a clearing.
About fifteen feet away, Buck and Chicory lie writhing on the ground. Long metallic spikes that resemble knitting needles protrude from their flesh. They paw at them with clumsy hands, as if they’ve got really bad frostbite or something’s disabled their fingers. I’m trying to make sense of the scene – does Silka have a weapon that shoots projectiles? Did they run into a pine tree with detachable poison needles? Is there an army of mutt wasps with wicked stingers? The mutts so far have come in droves, be it butterflies, bats, squirrels, or ladybugs, so I’m thrown when the lone source of the attack waddles into view.
Porcupines inhabit the hills around 12. Lenore Dove has an affection for the ones back home –
quill pigs she calls them – saying they’re misunderstood. They can’t shoot quills like people think; you have to come in contact with them, especially their tails, and if you leave them be, they leave you be. But even she would have trouble loving this massive mutant beast. It’s the size of a bear – in fact, it might have been crossed with one in the lab, given its claws and teeth. Like everything in the arena, it’s striking in its way. The rows of pure gold, silver, and bronze quills adorning its back, sides, and tail gleam in the sunlight. But I’m long over being seduced by the arena’s beauty.
Distorted baby sounds continue to stream from its mouth as it snuffles around the clearing. Hull, who has a half dozen quills dangling from his swollen face, hollers as he lunges at it with a pitchfork. The porcupine responds by backing toward him, its deadly rear raised and bristling. Hull could run away, but he’s trying to get to his allies. Hoping they might be only injured, instead of dying.
“We need some kind of shield,” Maysilee whispers, sliding off her backpack and pulling out our tarps.
I run my fingers over the thick canvas, coated with something to make it waterproof, though not necessarily quill-proof. “Maybe if we double them up?” I suggest. Layered together, they feel a bit more secure. “Okay, what’s the plan? I think we’re safe if we keep our distance. It has to make contact to quill us.”
We weigh our options. Maysilee decides, “I can try the darts if we’re a bit closer, but I’m afraid they’ll have trouble getting through to its skin. You think you could get a knife in it?”
“Not sure. It does look pretty well protected. Maybe if we flip it on its back? Get the underbelly?”
“Flip it with what?”
I spy a sturdy tree limb on the ground. “Branch might work.”
Just then, the porcupine twists its hindquarters and drives a slew of quills into Hull’s thigh. He cries out in agony and sinks to the ground. I retrieve the branch and start snapping off the smaller shoots to streamline it into a staff. The sound draws the attention of the beast and it begins to clatter its teeth together. As it shifts in our direction and approaches, a stench of musk and roses washes over us, making my eyes water.
Maysilee hoists the double tarp in front of us and we peer over it. “I don’t have a lot of confidence in this flipping thing,” she says. “And it’s still too far for darts. What about your ax? Can you throw it?”
With the amount of kindling the world’s required of me, chopping wood for white liquor and laundry, I’ve messed around with axes plenty. This one’s on the long side and I’ve never practiced with it, though it’s not dissimilar to one I threw with Ringina back in training.
“I can try,” I say. “But you better have those darts ready.”
I shove my knife in my belt and get a double-handed grip on my ax, the way they said was best in the gym. “Okay, now.” As Maysilee lowers the tarps, I drop the ax back behind my head and then launch it at the porcupine. It makes one rotation before the blade buries itself in the beast’s side.
A squeal of pain and indignation rings out. The mutt puts us squarely in line with its butt, but I’m not too worried because we still have ten feet between us. Then it begins to demonstrate some unusual behavior, quivering at first, which leads to it shaking like a wet dog. The quills shoot out in a sunburst, and Maysilee barely has time to yank the tarps back up before a dozen pierce them. One sticks the bulb of my nose and another comes a hair’s breadth from my pupil, dangerously close to blinding me. I jerk back and rip the quill from my nose. Tiny bits of my flesh cling to the barbed end, leaving a raw, stinging wound.
Still keeping the tarps aloft, Maysilee removes a spike from her cheek with a wince. “Once again, you were misinformed.”
“I’m sorry. Nothing behaves naturally here.” She turns the tarps ninety degrees to get the quills away from our eyes, and we peek over the top. I spot my ax lying on the ground, freed by the mutt’s shaking. “Think my ax did any damage?”
“Hard to tell,” she says.
The porcupine goes on the rampage, stamping its feet and fussing like a toddler having a meltdown. Only, I know it’s nobody’s baby, just an abomination whipped up in a test tube to murder us. It begins to shake again. We duck below the tarps for cover as another round of quills peppers us.
A cannon sounds, and I know one of the Newcomers has gone. Two remain alive. I don’t know what poison the quills carry, but my nose has swelled up like a ripe strawberry. If we give them the antidote, could they recover still? Should I drink some now? Is one quill enough to kill you?
“We need to get to them,” I tell Maysilee. “Try the antidote.”
“Yes, but I don’t think your stick’s going to be of much use,” she says.
“I don’t think anything’s going to be of much use since it can shoot those quills.” I watch the creature continue its tantrum and think of Sid when he was a little one. “Maybe we’re going about this all wrong. Maybe we should try soothing it.”
“Soothing it?”
“Yeah, like when you try to calm down a baby. And then just get it to move on.”
“Sing it a lullaby maybe?” Maysilee deadpans.
“Maybe,” I counter. “Or give it a pacifier.”
“I guess you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.” Maysilee unearths the cans from her pack. “Olives or sardines?”
“Well, the olives are easier to throw.” I pull one out and chuck it in front of the porcupine, which ignores it. I bounce a few more off its nose. The cries mellow to whimpers as it runs its snout along the forest floor, snarfing up the olives. “Who doesn’t love salt?” I lob another one a couple of feet ahead of the mutt, and it lumbers after it. Then another and another, stretching the distance each time, until I’ve got it ten yards outside the clearing. Out of olives, I throw the empty can as far into the woods as my strength allows and hear the porcupine crashing through the trees like a dog after a bone.
A second cannon fires. Maysilee’s in the clearing in a flash, trying to tip the antidote between Hull’s lips. I check for Chicory’s and Buck’s pulses, just in case those cannons were for some unfortunate tribute elsewhere. Nothing. I join Maysilee, who’s managed to coax some of the syrup down Hull’s throat, and begin plucking quills from his leg to reduce the poison.
“Come on, Hull,” she tells him. “You’ve got to drink this down. Come on, now.” He’s trying, his throat muscles rippling with the effort, but the antidote’s bubbling back and spilling down the side of his face. We continue, her coaxing, me plucking, until the cannon sounds, and even then, for a few minutes more because maybe someone as young and strong and deserving of life as Hull might find his way back to it. But he doesn’t and so, finally, we give up.
The hovercraft approaches, a vulture hungry for the remains of our allies. From deep in the woods comes the sound of the porcupine chomping on the olive can, its targets long forgotten. Evening air cools my cheeks and diffuses the creature’s musk. Maysilee passes me the bottle and I take a swig of the antidote. I don’t know how much poison one quill delivers, but why take a chance? It tastes like somebody mixed chalk bits in buttermilk and forgot to stir it.
Maysilee and I go around and shut each of the dead tributes’ eyes and try to arrange their bodies properly so their families’ last image won’t be of their contorted limbs. On our way out of the clearing, we collect the ax, our tarps, and their supplies. The claw begins its descent as we reach my backpack. We sit smack down in the clump of katniss, side by side, completely done in.
New Book: Returned To Make Them Pay
On her wedding anniversary, Alicia is drugged and stumbles into the wrong room—straight into the arms of the powerful Caden Ward, a man rumored never to touch women. Their night of passion shocks even him, especially when he discovers she’s still a virgin after two years of marriage to Joshua Yates.