Beyond Anon

by Giglio, Peter

  Michelle shrugged then started the ignition. “Beats the hell out of me. Going mad, I guess, or it’s the luminous company I’m keeping.”

  “Aww,” Laura said, flashing a smile.

  “Funny is fine,” Michelle said in a serious tone. “But keep cute to a minimum.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because it’s bound to break my heart.”

  7

  A predawn haze over Wyoming, Laura pointed out the window and asked, “Is that a butte?”

  Michelle, tension getting the best of her, didn’t reply. This wasn’t a vacation, and she wished for the hundredth time that Laura wasn’t here. The idea of ditching her at the next rest stop, though completely horrifying and wrong, wasn’t off the table.

  She kept expecting to see police lights in her rearview or roadblocks up ahead. After all, Anon had to know where she was going. Then again, blue force wasn’t their style. They were using the cops as intimidation, not muscle. And they wanted Michelle back. She wasn’t so sure Anon was powerful enough to erase a police standoff from the public’s memory. And that’s exactly what would happen if she were cornered—a standoff. She didn’t know how she’d pull it off, what she’d use as artillery, but she was ready to fight.

  “Sorry,” Laura said, clearly getting the message. “I’ve never been this far west before.”

  “You’re not missing much,” Michelle snapped.

  “It’s…kind of neat.”

  “Nothing neat about where we’re going. And the town we just passed, Laramie, is where Matthew Shepard was tortured and killed for being gay.”

  Laura went silent, leaning against her door and staring out the window.

  “I hate this place,” Michelle said. “You may think hate’s too strong a word. But it’s the right word.”

  Laura closed her eyes and went silent.

  And Michelle went back to thinking about police cherries and sirens and uniforms and guns. She played and replayed scenarios in her mind, all of them ending badly.

  In this desolate wasteland, she could see for miles. That brought some comfort, but not much.

  All too easy, she told herself. And that realization terrified her. Still, though almost certain she was heading into a trap, she knew she was going in the right direction.

  Michelle put a hand on Laura’s arm. Laura opened her eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” Michelle said.

  “I know,” Laura muttered.

  —Chapter Fourteen—

  1

  When Rory started to fade, Reggie felt no sense of pleased righteousness or surprise. Terror sweeping his brother’s face, Reggie was consumed by sorrow.

  No words were shared between the brothers. Reggie had already said his piece, and what more could Rory say? Reggie understood his brother’s pain, and he unconditionally loved him. Rory had been fooled twice, the shame squarely on him.

  The whole thing took a long time, as if someone—or something—wanted Reggie and Rory to exchange words.

  The Game desired pageantry.

  Rory completely gone, Reggie regarded his brother’s restraint as his finest moment.

  Silence was deafening.

  2

  As Rory was taken from The Land of Shadows, Faith Breedlove’s Lexus sedan pulled into Dexter Ridge. Defunct businesses, more decrepit than age warranted, lined dust-laden streets. Tumbleweeds did slow, graceful dances across dead terrain. And the largest building in “The Ridge,” as residents had once called it—some lovingly, others with disdain—stood in the middle of town, visible from all corners, not that many were left to see it.

  Michelle and Laura shared fearful glances as they moved ever closer to the monolithic structure. Wind howled. The car shimmied. Every muscle tense, heart thumping into overdrive, Michelle drove slowly.

  “You weren’t kidding,” Laura said, breaking the silence. “This place is…wrong.”

  “This is what Oak Lawn’s going to be soon,” Michelle said. “If I fail.”

  “If we fail,” Laura corrected. “How did you know to come here, Shell?”

  “A feeling,” Michelle said flatly. “It hit me right before I called you. I don’t even know if the feeling was right. I hate to say it, but this may be a fool’s errand.”

  Laura exhaled a deep breath.

  “They know I’m here,” Michelle said. “I can feel it.”

  Laura’s eyes went wide. “Then where are the fucking cops? You’re wanted in connection to—”

  “No,” Michelle snapped. “That’s the least of our concerns. Trust me.”

  The car entered the massive parking lot and eased into the spot closest to the building’s main entrance. Reserved for Associate of the Month, read a faded sign in front of the parking space.

  Michelle’s bracelet grew warm against her wrist and started glowing, pale blue. Eyes wide, she studied the gleaming band.

  “Jesus Christ!” Laura shouted. “What does it mean?”

  “I…I don’t know.”

  Laura massaged her temples with tremulous hands and said, “I’m scared, Shell.”

  “Listen up,” Michelle said. “You’ll take my place in the driver’s seat. Keep the car running and wait for me. If you catch a whiff of danger, see anything at all that looks threatening, haul ass home as fast as this thing will take you. Keep the doors locked and the windows rolled up tight, okay?”

  “Okay,” Laura squeaked.

  “If cops do show up, surrender to them.”

  “Uh, yeah, like I’m going to take on the law or something.” Laura laughed nervously.

  The brass serpent grew warmer. Glowed brighter.

  “Ready?” Michelle asked.

  “Hell no,” Laura said.

  “Perfect. Let’s roll.”

  Michelle and Laura quickly got out. Laura ran around the car. They shared a brief but tight embrace.

  “Be careful,” Laura whispered.

  “You, too,” Michelle said, pulling away from her best friend, tears in both of their eyes. “Now stop being cute and get in the car.”

  A brief, quivering smile found passage onto Laura’s lips. She slid into the car and slammed the door. The click of engaging door locks pinged through brittle, stale air, Michelle hurrying toward the entrance of the building.

  She grabbed the handle of the large glass door, pulled, and the door came open. Sure she’d have to find a way to break the glass, she was grateful for the convenience. The double doors beyond the first set were also unsecured, and her gratitude soared.

  The feeling didn’t last.

  The moment she stepped into the lobby—musty and fetid beyond reason—a terrible weight pushed down on her shoulders. Unable to stand, she knelt on the hard, marble floor and fought for breath.

  The serpent glowed brighter, her wrist burning painfully.

  Hunching closer to the floor, she choked. Unable to breathe, certain she would die here in this horrible place, she thought about Laura.

  Then azure light shot out of her bracelet, encasing her in a pulsating blue orb. The nimbus expanded. Michelle stood. She could breathe. But it was more than that. The air was cleaner than anything she thought possible. She squinted against the strong light, a feminine silhouette taking shape in its brilliance.

  A young, dark-skinned girl, no more than twelve or thirteen, stepped out of the light. She wore a flowing white dress. And on her wrist—

  “No,” Michelle said, pointing at the bracelet that adorned the girl’s arm, a perfect replica of the one Michelle wore.

  “Don’t worry, Michelle,” the girl said. “If I’m not mistaken, a wise man once told you about symbols and how they are often misused.”

  A bright flash, then Pa, as he had been in better times, filled Michelle’s mind.

  He says, “The symbol in the swami’s crystal ball is called a swastika, a symbol used for over three thousand years to represent ideas like strength and good luck. Unfortunately, it’s become a symbol of hate due to the actions of very evil peopl
e.”

  Head lowered, the girl extended her arms. With a whoosh, large, white wings flowered from her back, sparkling majestically. The girl looked up, smiling.

  The strength of a thousand thoroughbred horses galloped through Michelle’s muscles.

  And the angel, or whatever the girl was, said, “Bury hatred. For this place. For all the evil you’ve endured. Can you do that?”

  Michelle replied, “I don’t know.”

  “You must.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  The angel extended a hand. Michelle took it. “Close your eyes,” the angel said.

  Michelle did as she was told and felt the ground beneath her move. When she opened her eyes, she stood in a drab, red hallway, surrounded by gray pillars. The angel was gone.

  She lost her balance for a moment, the floor teetering abruptly. A series of tortured faces pressed out of stone walls, features slowly changing in the ever-shifting pall for above.

  This, she knew, was The Land of Shadows.

  3

  Laura lit a cigarette, but she didn’t crack the window. Never taking her eyes from the front doors of the ominous building, she listened to static from the radio, which was set on scan. She couldn’t get over how dead this place was, and how alive it had clearly been.

  The radio picked up a signal, faint at first but oddly recognizable. Someone was talking. Then the voice—Michelle!—grew loud: “Watch out!”

  Laura turned and looked through the back window too late, Fatima’s blue Escort fast approaching.

  A nerve-shattering crash whipped her forward, a blooming pillow catching her in a jagged, crunchy embrace.

  Pain screaming from her chest and neck, Laura’s vision swam. Breathing shallowly, she felt her body for injuries, but numbness swept her arms until they felt detached.

  In the cracked rearview, she saw a blurry form stagger from the other car.

  How was the other driver okay? she wondered. Then, disengaging unwittingly from matters at hand, she thought, I hope that bitch has insurance!

  The staggering form approached. Laura, suddenly remembering Michelle, and where she was, and what she’d been told, shifted the car into reverse and floored the accelerator. The wheels squealed, black smoke billowing around the windows, but the car only rocked back and forth.

  Vision balancing, she turned and saw Michelle’s sister at the window. Dawn took a step back and aimed the gun at her.

  Laura ducked.

  A loud explosion rang out, glass shattering, falling around her as a high-pitched whine dulled her senses.

  “Please!” Laura cried. “Please, don’t…”

  Another blast, not as loud as the first, sounded.

  Laura saw stars one last time, then everything went dark.

  4

  In moving images superimposed over the dim world, Michelle saw Dawn kill Laura.

  At first she denied the vision. Told herself it was a trick, though she sensed otherwise. Things were different now. She was powerful. Although sadness and guilt gripped her, she couldn’t give into her demons. Not anymore. It hurt bad, but so much was on the line right now.

  She blinked the vision away and focused on her strange environs. Unsure which direction to go, she slowly spun, looking for a sign. The air was scentless and still. And it was quiet here, which seemed impossible with all the movement. Her own motions didn’t even make a sound.

  A droplet—rain?—pelted her cheek. She wiped away the liquid and looked at the crimson streak across her fingers. Blood.

  She gazed up.

  Against the erratic red sky, yellow dots danced.

  “Lightning bugs,” she said.

  5

  Entering the building, Dawn was pressed to the floor by a massive force. She focused on Michelle but couldn’t get a read on her. Michelle wasn’t here. Where else could she be?

  Then the answer hit her harder than the car crash moments earlier.

  The Land of Shadows.

  You have to go back, the voice said.

  “No,” she wheezed, desperate for oxygen. “I…don’t even know how.”

  State your intent.

  She shook her head, tears falling from her eyes. Her grip tightened on the gun, and she turned it on herself, digging deep for the will to squeeze the trigger. But she didn’t want to die. She’d hardly lived. And there was more.

  Anger.

  Michelle had no right to leave. All Dawn ever wanted was to be together with her sister. She didn’t understand why that wasn’t enough for Michelle, who had always been the difficult one. Had always done things her way. Dawn, powerless and alone, had been the one to suffer true horrors. Michelle had suffered, too, but she had no right to act like she’d cornered the market on pain.

  She can’t be right, Dawn told herself. She doesn’t even believe in anything, and she’s distrustful and dangerous.

  Dawn knew she was Michelle’s protector. But she couldn’t save her sister from herself if…

  You’re going to die, the voice said. Unless…

  Hunched in agony, Dawn caught her reflection in the marble floor. Pale. Face drenched in blood. Pain blazed merciless trails up and down her spine, her vision hazy.

  She sucked in a hot, suffocating breath.

  “Take me back to The Land of Shadows,” she said.

  The room darkened, as if the sun were suddenly eclipsed.

  The lobby elevator dinged, capturing Dawn’s attention. The doors opened, a black mass moving within the gray interior of the elevator car. The mass, like a body of water, spilled across the floor, moving toward her.

  Closer…closer…

  A legion of spiders, she realized with a shudder.

  We have to make you stronger, the voice said.

  She could breathe now, but she couldn’t move or speak. Thousands of hairy, fast-moving legs played across her body. Under her clothes. Up her chest. Her neck.

  Into her mouth.

  They skittered down her throat. They pried into her lidded eyes and sped across the back of her eyeballs.

  Every orifice was soon consumed with writhing arachnids. But something miraculous was also happening.

  Pain ebbed, replaced by a thing she could use.

  Power!

  She sped through the darkness on new legs, unable to see. She didn’t have to. Her legs knew where she was going.

  Light cracked sightlessness. And a childish utterance from Michelle’s soft voice—“Lightning bugs”— shattered silence.

  6

  “Fireflies,” Dawn corrected.

  The yellow lights died in an instant, and dead insects began raining down. Through the fog of falling bugs, Michelle blanched upon seeing the impossible thing her sister had become. The face was all Dawn, orange eyes blazing through the gloom, but her body, hairy and black, was all arachnid.

  On eight legs, the Dawn-thing skittered closer and said, “I only wanted to help you.”

  “The friend of my enemy is my enemy,” Michelle replied.

  “I’m your sister.”

  The rataplan of splattering carcasses grew louder as the rain intensified.

  Michelle shielded her face, firefly corpses pelting her flesh with maddening force. She said, “I love you,” pushing hard against notions of betrayal and resentment, though those feelings boiled deep within, and concentrated on better times.

  The Dawn-thing sneered as it came face to face with her sister. Michelle stood her ground.

  “You ran away from me,” Dawn hissed.

  You shot at me! Michelle thought, but she didn’t say it. With sad, wide eyes, she met her sister’s intense glare, one side of her mouth turned down, the other almost smiling. “I’m done running,” she said. Then her lips slowly curled upward on both sides.

  “You hate me, don’t you?” Dawn growled.

  Michelle shook her head.

  “Look at you,” Dawn said. “So righteous. So sure of yourself. You make me sick.”

  “I love you,” Michelle repeated.


  “That’s ridiculous! You expected me to suffer for eternity! Are your convoluted notions of what’s right really more important than your own fucking flesh and blood?”

  Thinking about Dawn as a child, Michelle didn’t reply.

  “While you brooded in school about snickering assholes and ineffective administrators—oh, poor fucking baby—needles were jammed into my lidless eyes! Monsters, half-man and half-animal, brutally raped me! My limbs were ripped from my body! I was always made whole again, so vile things could be done to me over and over. I was set on fire! I was butchered slowly and force-fed my own flesh and organs! Do you understand? Did anything like that happen to you?”

  Michelle shook her head. “Who did those terrible things, Dawn?”

  “What the fuck does that mean? We both know who did those things to me!”

  “Look at what you’ve become, sister. One of them.”

  “What would you have done?” Dawn snarled. “Facing an eternity of torment with no hope for escape is a high price to pay for being born into the wrong family!”

  “Things would have changed. I would have—”

  “Would have but didn’t!”

  Dawn’s mouth spread into an unholy rictus lined with black gums and long, pointed teeth, her spider body rising on hind legs.

  Michelle balanced herself in a defensive crouch on the teetering floor.

  Firefly rain didn’t cease.

  The Dawn-thing lunged.

  Michelle sidestepped snapping teeth without a centimeter to spare. She looked at her bracelet, glowing brightly, and a series of weapons scrolled through her mind. She dismissed swords that, while noble and valiant in appearance, weren’t her style. Rather, she concentrated on a shotgun.

  The Dawn-thing reared back for another attack.

  Michelle swung her arm, which had become the gun, at the beast.