The Taking

by Becky Johnson

His stomach rolled with disgust at the thought of all those people safe in their homes. If they noticed that he was out in this truck with an eleven-year-old boy or if they saw Sarah wandering the streets their only response would be to be grateful that it was not them. He was turning onto Fifth Street when his phone buzzed. He scrambled for it.

  “Sarah?”

  “Matt. Thank God.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Mostly. I think. I don’t know. Matt, I saw one. One of the Takers. It was only feet from me.”

  “Yeah, I saw some too.”

  “You found Henry?”

  “He’s right here with me. We’re in my truck on Fifth. Where are you?”

  “I’m on Main. I’m heading back home now.”

  Matt spent a tense second debating. He was only about three blocks from home. And Sarah was four or five blocks in the opposite direction. If he took Henry home first, he might have to fight him to get out of the car, and he and Sarah would be out longer. He made a U-turn.

  “I’m on my way to you now.”

  “No, get Henry home.”

  “We’ll all be safer much sooner if I come get you now. Plus, I already turned. Stay on the phone with me and keep walking this way. I’ll be to you soon.”

  Matt lay the phone on to the seat next to him. “I’ve got you on speaker, Sarah. I’m turning on South.”

  “Ok. I see the corner of South and Main ahead of me.”

  They could hear the sounds of her steps and breathing. Then nothing. Complete silence.

  “Sarah?”

  Nothing.

  “SARAH?”

  Henry and Matt looked at each other. “Maybe her phone ran out of battery?”

  “Maybe.”

  Matt pushed down on the gas pedal, and the truck lurched forward.

  He tried to call Sarah again. The phone just beeped. He could see Main and South just in front of him.

  He turned the corner so fast the truck felt like it tipped on two wheels. They spotted Sarah coming toward them at a fast clip. He let out a breath of relief and pulled up next to her. Henry scooted over to the middle of the bench seat as Sarah scrambled into the passenger side.

  Matt locked eyes with Sarah, then focused on driving. “How are you? You okay?” She gave him a look that clearly called him an idiot even as she wrapped an arm around Henry’s shoulder. He guessed it was a stupid question. How could any of them be okay on the night of the Taking?

  “Hey, Henry.” She hugged him a little closer. “I’m so glad to see you.”

  Henry sent her a grin. Now that he sat between the two adults in the truck, he relaxed, but then it was hard to be tense around Sarah. Matt always found her soothing. One reason she was his best friend.

  “I’m good. You should have seen! There were Takers all around me, and Matt came out of nowhere. It was awesome.” Yeah, awesome.

  Matt turned the truck onto Third. Home was right in front of them. In seconds they pulled up to the curb as Matt stopped, pulled the emergency brake, and turned off the truck. All three looked around, heads turning from one side to another. The street was the same it had been all night. Dark, quiet, normal. “Okay. We can do this.” Matt’s voice broke their silence. “Ten feet, guys. Quick and quiet, then we’ll be inside.”

  “Right,” Sarah held up the key. “I’ll go first.”

  “We’ll go together.”

  They locked eyes again. She nodded. At the same time, they turned to the doors to exit the cab. Sarah jumped out her side while Matt grabbed Henry. The boy had wide eyes as the three hurried to the house. Sarah opened the door. Together they all went in and locked the door behind them.

  The Game Changes

  8:15 p.m.

  The three townspeople chosen stood at the exit saying their last goodbyes. Paul wasn’t looking at them. He stared at the Mayor. That scumbag thought he could get away with all of this. He was going to keep doing this. Every month, he and his cronies would manipulate the people of this town to sacrifice themselves. Meanwhile, they were always perfectly safe. They reaped all the benefits of Heritage without any sacrifice.

  Part of Paul wanted to rush the stage and attack the Mayor. He wanted to feel his nose crunch under his fist and watch him fall with blood spurting. He could almost feel his knuckles making contact, but resorting to force wasn’t going to solve this problem. Violence would likely just give the Mayor more power. He would spin it, so Paul and anyone else who dared to stand up to him was the enemy, out to destroy Heritage. The people of this town would believe it. The Mayer had everyone convinced he was the only one with answers, the only one who was telling them the truth and that anything else they might see or hear was fake. If Paul was going to beat him, he needed to show the people of this town a truth that couldn’t be made to appear false.

  That meant he couldn’t help the three people about to go out into the night. He couldn’t save them from being Taken, but he could make sure this night never happened again.

  "Mayor!" Calling out, Paul pushed to his feet.

  8:20 p.m.

  In the center of town just outside of Town Hall, the Takers appeared. Twelve of them. They started in a group, but through means unseen from the outside they communicated and started to fan out. With one foot in their world and one in this, they surrounded Town Hall.

  Their unseen eyes fixed on the door that had yet to open. A sacrifice was waiting, and they were growing tired of the delay.

  8:20 p.m.

  Paul's voice broke through the silence of the hall. The Mayor turned to look at him. Paul opened his mouth, his scathing criticism ready to release. He pulled in a breath, and cold air filled his lungs.

  Too cold.

  Around him, Paul saw the town members shivering. The intense cold registered all at once. It was unlike anything Paul had ever felt before. It wasn’t the cold of a winter morning or even an ice bath after a hard soccer game. No, the cold seemed to permeate deep into the bone, until the icy feeling seemed to come from within, rather than from the outside. A cold so absolute that his muscles locked, and his words failed.

  His knees started to buckle under the weight of the ice pulling him down. He fought to stay upright, but before he could fully process the actions of his muscles, he was on his knees. His neighbors suffered similarly. People went down on their knees. Some collapsed entirely, falling onto the floor of the meeting room. Every movement felt weighted as though the cold encased his bones in ice. Up at the front, the Mayor didn’t seem as affected as everyone else. He still stood, although he clutched the podium for support.

  “Quickly,” Paul saw the Mayor’s mouth move, but the sound of those words came a second later, as though they were traveling a much greater distance than across the room. “We have delayed too long. The volunteers must go outside.” The Mayor’s men moved as one, slowed, but not stopped by the cold, across the room and to the three that knelt crumpled by the door.

  Paul tried to move, to speak, but the cold was a pressure that held him to the floor. He turned his head with an effort and looked to the door. How were the Mayor’s men moving so easily? They were slow, and it appeared that it was an effort, but they were still able to move. The men pulled up the three people by the door and shoved them outside. The door banged shut, and the click of the lock sounded loud in the stillness.

  An abbreviated scream from outside pierced the air and echoed in the room as warmth slowly returned. Paul knelt on the floor waiting for feeling to return to his limbs. He pushed himself up and slowly climbed to his feet. His right knee twinged and he spent a minute rubbing it. Around the room, the others were slowly rising to their feet as well.

  At the front, the Mayor made a show of shaking out his arms and legs as though he had been as frozen as the rest of them.

  "Check the front.”

  The man closest to the door opened it a crack. He looked back and nodded his head.

  The Mayor spoke. “Ring the bell. It’s over.”

  8:20 p.m.

 
The normality of the night came to a crashing halt as Ruth approached Town Hall. When she was a block away, time slowed. It wasn't apparent at first, but then she noticed how long it took her to take each step. How hard it was to lift her foot. She’d been tired before, but this was something new.

  She pressed on, keeping her gaze on her feet until her mind sent the message to move, but her foot wasn't able to follow the command. It stuck to the ground like cement. With great effort, Ruth raised her head. And felt her bowels loosen.

  Ruth wasn't afraid of death. She believed in God and hoped to see her dear Sam once again. But what stood in front of her was worse than death.

  Directly ahead, no more than ten feet away stood a creature. It was over six feet tall and wore a long black robe. The black hood covering its face kept all details hidden, but Ruth got the sense that whatever the creature’s purpose was tonight, it wasn't over.

  The creature did not attempt to move forward or attack Ruth, it simply stayed still, blocking her path to Town Hall.

  When she finally managed to look away, Ruth gasped at the view in front of her. At the horror of at least a dozen more creatures gathered around Town Hall. Their focus stayed fixed on the structure and what was happening within.

  As Ruth watched, the doors to the building opened and three figures were shoved out. Ruth stood there terrified, as the creatures moved forward and someone on the ground screamed before a pulse of air shot outward. It knocked her off her feet. She fell back, sprawled on the ground. When she lifted her head, they had all disappeared.

  The door opened again, and then the clang of the bell broke the silence.

  The eye of the storm

  8:25 p.m.

  The clang of the Town Hall bell reached Sarah, Matt, and Henry where they crouched in the living room of Sarah’s home. When the last ring of the bell echoed into silence, they sat exchanging heavy glances, hoping that the ring was real. Every new moon when the sacrifice was Taken, the signal rang to let everyone in town know it was safe again. Most people still chose to remain in their houses until the morning. The next day everyone would pretend the events of the night before never happened.

  Matt got up and went to the window. “I don’t see anything.” He looked back at them. “I’m going to go check it out.”

  “What? Why?” Henry’s voice rose thin and panicked. “We should just stay here.”

  Matt started to answer, but Sarah beat him to it.

  “Hey Henry, nothing about this night has been normal. We all saw the Takers, and yet we’re still here. I don’t think that’s ever happened before. The lights? That never happened before. The town council may think this is over and hopefully, they’re right, but I think we need to check everything. Just to be sure. Matt will be right back, and you and I will be fine here.” Sarah nodded at Matt who slipped out the door.

  Outside the night had the same faint rustle of the wind through the leaves, same chorus of crickets, same faint crackle of small animals moving through the grass. Matt looked up and down the neighborhood street. None of the houses showed any signs of life. He didn’t hear anything from the town center. Could he really believe it was over? He walked a quick circuit of the house. Nothing.

  It didn’t feel right, but then nothing about this night felt right. The new moon was always fraught with a sense of alternate reality, but this was different from any other Taking. It was completely different.

  Matt stared in the direction of Town Hall. He wanted to see what was happening there.

  Mind made up he strode back into the house. Unlike checking outside on their own street, Sarah did not support the idea of him going to Town Hall. In fact, Sarah and Henry both argued with him.

  "What will you do if you do see something? We’re safe now. If we stay right here tonight, then tomorrow we can do whatever we need to."

  "We don't know that we are safe here." Matt countered, and then when he saw the terror on Henry's face. "I'm sure you're safe, but it still feels off, and I would rather know if we have to deal with something else tonight."

  Matt waited to let that sink in. "I can drive to Town Hall and be back in less than twenty minutes."

  Fifteen minutes later, most of which was spent convincing Henry and Sarah that this was the right course of action, Matt turned his truck toward Town Hall and motored off.

  8:45 p.m.

  Sarah slumped on the sofa, suddenly exhausted. The adrenaline of the last few hours faded, leaving her as tired as if it was three in the morning instead of almost nine. Henry still stood near the locked front door where Matt had just walked out. His backpack still settled over his thin shoulders. Sarah looked down. Her bag was still slung across her body, as well. She lifted her arm and leaned forward to pull it overhead. Relieved from the weight, she slumped back against the cushions. Somehow, it felt like the softest sofa on which she had ever laid her head.

  She motioned to Henry. “Come on, come sit down.” Her voice was loud in the tense stillness of the house, and Henry jumped. He looked back and forth between the front door and her before he made his way over and sank onto the sofa next to her.

  “Do you think,” he swallowed, “I mean …” He paused again, looking at his bent legs. Leaning against the cushions, Sarah rolled her head over to face him, struggling to keep her eyes open. She was so tired it felt like they weighed ten pounds each.

  “Do I think, what?” She prompted when Henry didn’t say anything else.

  “Is it really over? For sure?” The words came fast and were accompanied by a quick dart of Henry’s eyes to Sarah’s face before he looked back down at his knees.

  “They rang the bell so…” The lie of those words suddenly caught in Sarah’s throat making it impossible to finish the sentence.

  It was never over. Every month the same thing happened in Heritage, again and again. And this month it was worse. What if that was the new pattern? What if the Taking was just going to be worse and worse every month until they were all dead?

  Sarah felt her heart racing faster. A thud hammering in her chest. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. People weren’t supposed to live with this much fear. Fear that controlled everything they did and said. It controlled what they wore and where they worked. It even controlled what they named their children. No one named their child something exotic like Mason or River. No, names were the same simple names they’d always used for generations. Names that were common, names that kept anyone from being different.

  The entire town worked hard to keep everything the same, to keep everything normal, whatever that meant. The enormity of the control the Takers had over her world hit Sarah. Everything in her life was controlled by the Takers and the fear in which they held Heritage captive.

  She suddenly sat forward, her fatigue vanishing in the face of the realization. Henry gave a start next to her. Oh, right his question.

  “They ring the bell when it’s over for the night, so we should be safe.” The words felt false and tasted like ash in her mouth. But what else could she say? It was the same sentiment she’d heard her whole life: we are safe for now. But safety was always transient, like a mist that vanished with the sunlight. Security was for people who didn’t live in Heritage.

  8:51 p.m.

  The meeting room was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. People still knelt on the floor in little huddles, their arms wrapped around each other. Quiet crying came from somewhere in the back corner. The Mayor and his men gathered in the front of the room. Whatever they were looking at was not visible to everyone else.

  Paul pushed himself up and sat heavily in a chair. He could barely believe the events through which he had just lived. The cold, the light, and the Mayor. Through sheer force of will, he prevented himself from glaring up at the man.

  Slowly around the room, people began to get up, but they stayed huddled as families and friends clung to each other. The silence was heavy, not with dread as it had been earlier, but with an uneasy tension of distrust. They believed in the Mayor;
they believed his words about the Takers and how the sacrifices kept them safe. They followed his rules and voted in his sham of an election, where no one else ran against him and he always won. They believed him, so completely they ignored their own common sense, blindly following his orders.

  Now after seeing three people forced outside to die, they were unsettled and wary. It was supposed to be one, one person, one night a month. Now three had just been pushed outside to face their darkest enemy.

  The Mayor glanced out over the crowd and stepped away from his men. With a subtle gesture, his men backed away from the podium. As Mayor stepped forward, his eyes glistened with unshed tears, and when he started to speak his voice was shaky.

  “I don’t have words to express what is in my heart right now.” The crowd settled and stared forward, waiting for profound words from their leader that would magically make the hell they just lived through okay.

  “I know you all are afraid. I’m afraid, and I don’t have all of the answers for you just yet, but I can tell you this.” He paused and looked down. “We did the best job possible tonight. Our actions saved the lives of our children and our families.”

  Paul looked around to see every eye focused front. “I don’t know why the Takers wanted three tonight. I have my suspicions, but nothing I can say for sure.” His tone was just shy of accusing. Making it obvious there was someone to blame, but not actually saying what the reason was for the change of events.

  “Let us remind ourselves why we do this. We sacrifice to the Takers, but our town remains pure. Our children grow up to be good members of our community. We are not corrupted by the greed and hatred that rules the world. We sacrifice, but we sacrifice for the good of each other, for the good of the ones we love.” Around the room, people started to nod their heads agreeing with words that somehow made the horror of tonight acceptable.

  Paul felt a scream welling in his throat. A scream against the insanity of an entire group of people blindly following a narcissistic lunatic because they were afraid. He didn’t understand. He couldn’t comprehend what was going through their head. As he grit his teeth and planned his scathing speech, he glared around the room. His eyes slid over couples, siblings, and a husband and wife with their hands on her pregnant belly. He gazed at the couple, and he remembered standing with his wife that way. He remembered the joy and the fear. The world was so big and the people you loved so fragile and small. When you are afraid of losing everything, you will listen to the person who will tell you how to save them, even when that person is lunatic.