Gods of Anthem

by Keys, Logan

  “You first.”

  “No way. Go.”

  She sighs and closes her eyes. “Fine. Lord, please keep Tommy safe in training, and also, whatever he’s sad about, make him feel better. Thank you for making him a Team Leader for the live-fire mission, ‘cause that’s cool, and he’s doing way better than that loser Cory—”

  “Jo.”

  “Well, you are. And God knows more than anyone what a bag of—okay, fine. And Lord, give him strength not to tear the head off of that douche bag—”

  “Joelle.”

  “And could you please, please, please give me something to do tomorrow. Amen.”

  “Amen.”

  She crosses herself.

  “Where’d you learn that?”

  “Veronica. She’s a Catholic.”

  I smile. “Okay then, into your box.”

  “It’s not a coffin!”

  I hold up my hands. “I didn’t say ‘coffin.’”

  “Just making sure. It’s a bed, Tom-Tom. With a top, is all. Wait.” She pauses outside of the conex, eyeing it suspiciously.

  It was made for weapons, but it’s roomy, and we’d outfitted it with a mattress, sheets, and a pillow.

  “What?” I ask, looking over the large metal crate.

  “Would a coffin be better, you think?” She glances around, then whispers, “Is there a reason they use them, like maybe I’ll get better sleep…?”

  I scratch my head. “Um, I have no clue.”

  “Hmm.” She stretches. “I’ll think about it.”

  “You do that.” And I bite back a grin at her seriousness.

  The sky’s a burnt orange with bits of black above a cracked earth, like dry skin without lotion. Earth is barren now. I’m standing at a bridge I’ve seen before, and each time I’m there, I’m saying sorry for everything I’ve ever done, while it sways, offering me passage. But I never go.

  I have something new to add to my confessions. I killed a man. In a rage. The bridge creaks in answer.

  You may walk across me now, it seems to say when I’m finished admitting what I’ve done. It offers me absolution, but I never take it.

  I just wake up soaked in sweat.

  My eyes adjust to the darkness, and I focus on the bunk above me. All at once, I’m panting, then I shout out in fear, clutching my sheets when I see it—her—there.

  Joelle’s underneath the upper bunk mattress, arms and legs pressed into the sides of the metal frame. She hangs above, eyes solid black, like a cat zoomed in on its prey. Her enlarged pupils flicker with an unholy light, and her lips draw back from teeth elongated into needles.

  Slowly, she reaches for my throat, and I call out her name like a prayer on my lips. “Joelle.”

  She snaps back, eyes glazing over in sleep once again.

  Jo-Jo falls, landing on me in a heap.

  This is the first day-terror we’ve had in a while.

  I lie there, breathing heavily, trying to recover. My dream was already weird, then her hanging above has officially freaked me out.

  Thunder makes me jump. Night hasn’t fallen; there’s a storm outside. Lightning flashes and lights up Joelle’s face, relaxed now, and peaceful.

  I sit up, careful not to shift her too much. For a vampire, sleep walking is a terrible thing. I’ve seen it enough to know. I’ve tried to wake her in the past, only to be nearly decapitated.

  She’s as light as a feather, tiny for such a vibrant girl, and I carry her back to her case, laying her inside and tucking her in. She shifts, gives a small smile in relaxation, and sighs, while another string in my heart pulls taut. If I can give her even a moment of faith in this world, I will. My parents always made us feel safe and loved, and I never knew how lucky I was until I met others who’d been abused long before the zombies started to appear.

  In a world that’s far from peaceful, at least I knew what trust once felt like. Some, like Joelle, aren’t so lucky. The people closest to her had forced her again and again under the knife. Someone she’d trusted had strait-jacketed her between feedings until they taught her self-control. And her own mother had brought her into the sunlight with different serums, trying to defeat that certain “weakness” of her prototype.

  I check my watch. It’s time to head back. I’d been napping during my lunch break and Murphy’s funeral detail is working in preparation to bury him—well, his ashes—so we’ve had the afternoon off. I need to ready myself in dress blues. Even though I’m the reason he’s dead, I’m expected to be there and no one has even mentioned my involvement.

  We rarely dress in our formal wear with black beret, a jacket adorned with medals, and so on. I look like an idiot, but a clean, sharply decorated one, at least.

  The tie keeps knotting into a mess. I’m still fighting with the thing when a small chuckle comes from behind me.

  “I can help.”

  Joelle steps forward, face flush with sleep. It’s nice to see color in her cheeks; she must have already eaten. Her braids are a mess, tangled up in medusa loops. Her eyes, thank God, are normal.

  “There,” she says, having somehow made a perfect tie with her tiny hands.

  I do a mock salute, snapping my heels together.

  She laughs, then turns contemplative. “You know, you’re gonna make someone very happy someday, Tommy Hatter.”

  With my best cocky grin, I wink at her and don my hat. “Nah, it’s just you and me, kiddo. Us against the whole world. I’d be all right with that.”

  Joelle nods. “Me, too.”

  The funeral’s pathetic. Worse than pathetic. Thunder drowns out the twenty-one gun salute; the bugle’s wet inside, so it sounds like a drowning sheep bleating for help; and the folded flag flies loose from one of the detail to blow across the lawn while everyone chases it. I can’t hear what Sergeant Nolan says at the podium, and pretty soon, we’re all soaked by rain.

  No family. No friends. Murphy’s gone, and it’s all my fault.

  They don’t even call it “friendly fire.” Just a “training accident.”

  I cringe at the fact that his resting place isn’t even in his own country. He’ll remain here in Sweden. Again, my fault.

  A song kicks on. We usually play their favorite, and at first, I can’t hear it. But as they lower the urn, Cory turns the music to blasting.

  Then, I recognize the tune. Queen.

  Cory grins, and I stay in salute, glaring at him. He’d plucked it from my head that that song bothers me, and probably didn’t know any from Murphy’s choices.

  I grind my teeth as he mouths to me the part I most want to avoid: “Momma, I don’t wanna die.”

  As soon as we’re dismissed, I spin round and walk off. My heartbeat’s too quick; not a good sign. I make my way past our barracks and straight to the other side. We have a free afternoon, and I’m going to have a beer. Sometimes that calms the beast. Right now, it wants Cory’s head. No, scratch that. It wants to turn Cory inside out.

  Usually, he’s not into revenge, but lately he’s capitalized on my own feelings more naturally. Now, it fishes through my emotions, aiming to be set free on Cory.

  To let me watch as it peels his skin from his bones….

  I shake my head and walk on, unheeding of the rain.

  There’s a small bar with only a few tables, but I’ve managed to beat the crowd. The cute Swedish waitress sashays over. “What’ll it be?”

  She sets a napkin down and cocks a hip.

  “Whiskey,” I say automatically.

  I don’t know where my beer idea went. She leaves and brings some foreign label to my table. I’d pictured Jack Daniels, but this hits the spot with a burning-good-feeling, and the monster quiets. I take another shot, then another as the place fills with soldiers.

  I know I need to leave before—

  Cory walks in. He searches the room, already knowing where I am. This brain scanning thing of his is at an all-time level of annoying.

  He spots me and comes straight over.

  I get up
.

  “Sit,” he says, snapping his fingers for the waitress.

  She rolls her eyes, strolling over on slow feet. Obviously she’s met Cory a time or two.

  He grins at her reluctance. “Whatever he’s having, and a Heineken for me, sweet cheeks.”

  She frowns and sends me a “this guy” glance before turning for the bar.

  I remind myself to tip her well.

  “What do you want, Cor?”

  “We need to talk. We’ve got orders.”

  He pulls out some papers, handing me one with my name and rank on the top.

  “Nolan’s sending us out. Tomorrow.”

  I scan the document in confusion. “Where?”

  “America.”

  I blink up at him, then search the paper again to see he’s correct. “No way.”

  “Yep. It’s time to take it back. We move out at zero six hundred to do a go-see mission for the bigger forces. It’s now or never, bro.”

  I chug my drink in a daze, and the fiery liquid burns a hole in my gut. “How long are we staying?” I ask, wiping a hand across my mouth, forgetting just how much I hate the guy sitting next to me.

  Cory’s gone pale. He drinks his beer before looking at me with a flash of fear. “For good,” he says. “We don’t come back. We win, or die trying.”

  For a moment, I chew on my cheek, considering this, then pull out my money. On my way out, I tuck it into the waitress’s apron, numbly ignoring Cory’s calls at my back. My emotions are a swirl of alcohol and excitement mixed with dread.

  I don my hat and stumble out into the rain. The sky’s a dark purple. Sweden: purple, and not America’s orange. My dream had somehow heralded this news.

  Strange, but that’s how it feels.

  For the last two years, I’ve only been able to imagine the big orange sky.

  “Well, I’ll be damned.”

  I’m going home.

  Jeremy’s in the alleyway outside of Kiniva’s ring where we met that first night. For twenty long minutes, he’s paced and mumbled his speech in practice.

  “It’s great that Kiniva’s letting me do this,” he’d said, and I’d acted surprised.

  Crystal hadn’t given me away, not even then.

  She’s watched me carefully tonight, but after throwing me out of a side door after I’d won the match, she’d not mentioned it again.

  Tonight’s it. Our last chance to get reinforcements for the Skulls and their big plan. Kiniva’s army is here, too. I’ve seen them with their guns and berets standing along one wall while the Skulls are lined up against the opposite. There are too many of them to count, and the place is full to its limit with people from all walks of life. Even a few plastics from the Upper Side are in there, frozen faces watching the ring as eagerly as their fake skin will allow.

  Some scoff at the idea of them being here. To me, it’s the biggest sign of hope for change.

  Pretend Man is nowhere to be seen and I haven’t had time to ask Crystal about him again.

  Jeremy’s got both of my hands in his, now. The dark alleyway makes things intimate, but my throat’s too dry to even wish him luck. Hard to concentrate with him rubbing the insides of my wrists with his thumbs.

  In this cramped, hot space, with barely inches between us, I’m trying to see the voice of the revolution standing across from me. What I’m not doing is imagining. He likes me, sure, but it’s a “passing fancy,” as my mother would say.

  I have no thoughts of what it would be like if I were just a girl and Jeremy were just a boy who didn’t have the weight of the world on their shoulders. We could run away, and he wouldn’t have to save everyone.

  Just me.

  And then, Jeremy kisses me.

  Though it’s not the shock to my system as I’d dreamed, more like slipping into a warm bath—subtle and slow at first, like a handshake—and I wait for him to return to his sanity.

  But he doesn’t.

  So I eagerly kiss him back. And the spark grows from its place where I’d all but stamped it out; it bursts into flames—a brush fire in the middle of the Sahara, a volcano erupting to burn away every idea of love I’ve ever known.

  This … could not be imagined. It alters fundamental thoughts I’d had about this type of connection. No rationalizing it, this insane sensation of complete chaos. You happily throw yourself into it, even if it’s the most idiotic and unreasonable feeling in the world.

  Love being just … love.

  Just me.

  Just him.

  And he’s kissing me harder and faster with his hands on my neck and back and face…. Earnest, meaningful kisses that, by the quickened breaths in between, are surprising to him as much as to me.

  And when he finally pulls away, I still cling to his hoodie to keep from losing my knees.

  Doubt follows.

  “Liza,” he whispers, and I brace myself.

  “Yes?”

  “How will I be brave?”

  My shoulders sag, and my heart breaks a little to hear the terror in his voice. I come to my senses. “Jeremy, you don’t know any other way to be.” Then, I whisper against his mouth in a new boldness, “And I’m right here. Always.”

  His smile and mine, they slowly bend together, fused at the lips.

  He turns to leave, yet pauses. Jeremy Writer is conflicted. Over me. My heart leaps. Selfish to notice, but oh-so-good to feel. His insane quest is momentarily on hold for this girl, right here.

  He snags my arm, pulling me to his ropy, muscular body. And Jeremy brands me again, this time so hard my toes curl and my skin prickles. He marks me in ways that won’t soon be forgotten, if ever.

  Very few people ever get kissed like this.

  That much must be true.

  A throat clears behind us, and we break away guiltily, though still smiling.

  Crystal stands in the doorway, and my smile falls to realize. But she doesn’t look angry, or jealous … well, maybe a tad jealous, but mostly happy for Jeremy.

  “It’s time,” she says, and the way she regards me, the strangeness since the zombie fight, is felt only momentarily before she masks her face.

  It’s like she can’t figure me out, but at the same time, she’s amazed at what I’d managed. It feels good.

  Jeremy nods, then leads the way, shoulders set, chin up.

  Following, I try to ignore the wisdom in the meaningful look Crystal gives me. She knows Jeremy better than us all, it would seem.

  Careful, her eyes say. Careful.

  Jeremy’s voice echoes across the sea of people. With a clear thunk, he adjusts the microphone, then stares out at what must be quite a sight. People—all kinds, colors, beliefs, ideals—stand outside the velvet ropes of the Authority, ready for him to say what’s next.

  One night, Jeremy ranted on the roof for hours before turning to me, looking utterly terrified. “I won’t be made useless!” he’d said.

  And he meant it.

  Now, at the podium, a kind of sureness overtakes him. Maybe it’s the effect of his view, or maybe it’s just normal for a man on a mission, but his face transforms into a thing of beauty.

  “Peasants of the Authority,” he calls into the dead of their silence, “we beseech each and every one of you, in this war, this united fight—and it is just that: a war. When I look around, I see allies, families born into oppression, brothers related to me by more than blood … because we are chained by poverty now—poverty of the mind, and worse, poverty of the spirit. Robbed daily, though not simply of our wares. It is a mental holocaust we must fight, and together, I tell you, we can win.”

  Some murmuring of agreement begins, but is quickly settled back into quiet.

  “Silence…?” he says. “It is silence that imprisons us. When nothing is said, everything is agreed to, falsely. But I tell you, a man, a woman, with no voice is despair, a sister with no influence is asleep, and a brother with no honor is already dead. Slavery has no gender, no race, no class.” Jeremy sends me a sidelong glance. �
�We are no greater than the zombies outside of our walls, and it is time to wake up!”

  The crowd cheers.

  “The Authority has said: Dream! But in truth, they mete out our destinies in tiny rations; they’ve said how far we can go, how long, and where. Aspirations are useless, because to aspire, is to reach. Dream, they say, but not too big. Laugh, they say, but not too loudly. Love, they say, but not too hard.”

  Now, Jeremy’s looking right at me. Avoiding Crystal, I stare straight ahead, cheeks heating.

  Jeremy closes his eyes for a moment, waiting for quiet before he turns his back to the audience. In one smooth movement he pulls his shirt over his head to show three long scars from neck to rump. Lines are revealed, each several inches wide, as if someone had stripped off the skin so deeply they could never have healed without thousands of sutures.

  A gasp ripples through, and some of the men nod as if they’ve seen this before. The Authority must have done this to Jeremy during his purging. A tarantula tattoo sits on his right shoulder blade.

  He returns to the microphone, purple eyes somber.

  “When you find you cannot contain yourself any longer and you imagine things beyond the walls they’ve built for you, constructed to imprison your desires, and when your heart is filled with impossible things, then, I say, you have achieved true independence. Our Anarchy is not simply a battle of flesh and blood; it is a war of the mind. The time is always now to declare your freedom!”

  Again the crowd cheers, making the rafters shake.

  “The Authority says that Anarchy is the devil. But I say that a man who’s both an anarchist and a patriot has been ordained by God himself!”

  The roar is deafening. People stomp so hard, I worry they’ll send out guards.

  “To talk of history, of how it was,” Jeremy goes on, “is the lament of the poor man, of those who cannot see the riches deep within. Inside the child’s mind, what we beat away, and on these dark streets, the urchins have more gold than all of you. Why? Because they go out at night, while you are in at curfew, hiding. If we seek the truth, we are never broken!

  “These!” He lifts his hands. “These are your liberators! Against all Authority!”

  “Against all Authority!” the Skulls yell back.