ANATHEMA
By Lillian Bowman
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
CHAPTER FIFTY
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
CHAPTER ONE
Sixty-two percent of us are murdered within ten minutes of losing citizenship. Most die fleeing the courthouse. Before me stand the double doors to the parking lot. As soon as I step through that sunlit threshold, I’m fair game.
Mom reaches over to squeeze my hand. Her pulse races against my palm. “Your father will drive the car right to the foot of the stairs. When he gets here, we’ll run together. We’ll be your shield.”
My breath seems to be wheezing through a straw in my throat. “I don’t want you getting hurt.”
“Don’t you worry about us right now. You’re all that matters, Kathryn.”
“I’m so sorry.” Tears blur my eyes. “I screwed up, Mom. I really screwed up.”
“We’ll figure out how to live with this when we get home.”
If, I correct her silently. Not when we get home. If.
The wait for Dad feels endless. My heart thunders in my ears. I can’t focus. My panicked thoughts buzz like bees in my brain. I picture myself stabbed, beheaded, gutted… There are so many online horror stories about failed courthouse escapes.
Then our car pulls up. Dad leaves the engine running and rushes towards us. Mom’s hand tightens into a death grip on mine. All the survival tips I’ve read online over the last few weeks flee my mind. Blank terror engulfs me.
Dad’s panting by the time he bursts through the double doors. “Okay. Okay, are you two ready?”
Mom’s voice is terse. “We’ve been ready for five minutes, Frank.”
A tense moment passes as Dad catches his breath. Every second we lose narrows my window of survival. Morning trials are perilous, but afternoon trials are death. Hunters wake up, have breakfast, then head to the courthouse to see if they can kill a newly minted anathema or two. It’s ten-thirty. Breakfast is probably done. We’re drawing closer to the afternoon. For all I know, my future murderer is driving towards us right now.
“Let’s just go,” I urge them. “I can’t stand waiting.”
My parents exchange a meaningful look. They’re both shaking, too. When I was little they had all the answers, but today they’re as frightened as I am. They press in on either side of me.
“Don’t trip,” Mom warns.
“Lydia, maybe we should time this,” Dad says to her, always an engineer trying to figure out a system for our actions. “Take the steps together, on a beat. One-two-three-four-one-two…”
I can’t stand it anymore. Even dying would be better than waiting, waiting. “Let’s just GO!” My legs shoot me forward in a wild run.
Mom and Dad run, too. We burst through the doors. Sunlight envelops us, our feet striking the cement steps. I don’t feel in control of myself. My muscles burn, my body springing forward with animal panic.
Movement flashes in the corner of my vision.
A scream lodges in my throat as a man in camouflage emerges from his hiding spot just outside the doors. He jerks to a halt at the sight of my parents, crushed in on either side of me. The machete in his hand droops downward like the wilting stem of a flower, sunlight dancing over its edge.
My brain freezes.
A machete.
An actual machete.
Oh my God, oh my God. A hunter. Here to kill me.
I knew this would happen. I knew it. But this is real. This is very real and I’m not ready. I am marked for death and I’m not ready. The man wears camouflage gear and a lopsided hat. His beer belly peeks out from under his ratty flannel shirt and hangs over his trousers. He has never met me before and he came here to kill me.
Dad jolts past me several steps, and horror grips my heart. I’m totally exposed. The man lunges forward, machete raised—and like that Mom is in front of me.
“You cut her, you cut me!” she roars, flinging up her bare, vulnerable arms before his blade. My heart wrenches. I fight the instinctive, suicidal impulse to pull her out of the way.
Mom’s maneuver works. The hunter steps back.
As an anathema, I can be killed without consequence. If he so much as nicks one of my parents with his blade, he’ll officially be committing a crime against a fellow citizen of the USA. He’ll forfeit his own citizenship. Then he’ll be declared an anathema like me and stuck trying to escape the courthouse while hunters wait to ambush him.
The hunter withdraws another step, then another. An aw-shucks grin teases his lips. He looks like his favorite football team has lost and he’s trying to take it in good humor. “Guess I was a hair too slow.” He winks at me.
I just stare at him.
My parents urge me onward down the remaining steps. As we draw nearer to the car, my brain begins to work again. My panic recedes, replaced by relief. It’s almost over… Almost over…
I watched so many videos of courthouse escapes on YouTube to prepare for this. They were all shot in the afternoon. Crowds of bounty hunters, psychopaths, and drop-ins waited for brand new anathemas to walk out. They laughed and joked with each other, drinking beer, roasting hot dogs. A festive excitement thrummed on the air. Some jostled for position closest to the doors. Professional hunters were known to camp out the night before just to get those spots at the high volume, urban courtrooms.
One video was called, ‘Savage Death on Courthouse Steps’. The new anathema emerged from the courthouse surrounded by a family of five. He should’ve stood a chance, but there were too many hunters waiting. Maybe an entire hunting guild. They swarmed in like hyenas.
The hunters ripped the man’s defenders away from him. Then others crushed in on the man and plunged their knives into him from all sides. He disappeared from view under the slashing knives, the shouting men. One of his killers emerged from the mire with a beating heart in his hand, blood on his lips. He threw back his head and howled into the air like an animal.
Most who commented on the video found the howling man funny. He’s apparently famous on the internet: Trent ‘The Wolfman’ Savage. He’s leader of a hunting guild called ‘Death’s Disciples’ and has his own fan page with all of his kills listed. There are dozens of YouTube videos of his exploit
s. They’re all labeled ‘Savage’-this and ‘Savage’-that.
I couldn’t sleep for two days after finding his videos.
I suppose I’m lucky that there are hundreds of people across the United States of America being stripped of citizenship and declared anathemas right now. The only hunter who made it to this courthouse in the seaside town of Cordoba Bay is an overweight hillbilly who wanted an easy kill.
This is lucky. I tell myself that like a mantra. Lucky. Lucky, lucky.
And then my parents and I stumble the final, perilous steps down to our car. Mom jerks open the door and shoves me inside.
The hunter calls, “See you later, girlie!”
My door slams shut on the hunter’s jeering laughter.
I close my eyes until we’ve pulled out of the parking lot. Dad announces, “We’re clear.” His gruff hand swipes back and paws at my shoulder. “We made it, kiddo. The worst is over.”
I muster a smile for him, but we both know that isn’t true. The most statistically dangerous minute of my life is behind me, but I’m not safe. I’ll be an anathema for the rest of my life.
My forehead rests against the cool glass of the window. Our car winds along the perilous stretch of Highway One as it descends into the beachside refuge of our town. Most days the sight of the sun dancing across the ocean makes my heart soar and fills me with possibility.
Today everything seems to be edged with brutal shadow. I have entered a new world.
Only citizens of the USA have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Not those who have been found guilty of committing a crime and had their citizenship revoked. I’m marked for death and that will never change.
I’ll be hunted until the end of my life.
CHAPTER TWO
Our house is on a quiet street ten minutes from Cordoba Bay High School and a ninety-minute drive to Los Angeles. Getting my driver’s license last year was so liberating. I was no longer hostage to urban sprawl. Now I won’t be able to drive a car alone again. I’ll be too tempting a target by myself.
Half the school is gathered on my street, waiting for me to return. They’re sprawled on our lawn, sitting on top of their parked cars, and clogging the neighbors’ driveways. It looks like someone’s even cooking hot dogs. It’s like a massive kegger to commemorate the end of life as I know it. Maybe they’ll hit the beach afterwards. It’s one of those gloriously bright September days when the weather is just warm enough yet the air is autumn crisp. I glimpse flip flops, tanned shoulders, and bikini tops.
My eyes rest on the familiar faces of dance squad cheerleaders and football players. A flicker of relief moves through me at the sight of my closest friends. They’re not in beach gear. Then there are the newer faces, the school newspaper crowd I’ve been getting to know ever since breaking my leg junior year. They don’t look like revelers, either.
As for everyone else? I can’t even remember having a conversation with most of them. They’re probably here for the spectacle. There aren’t many anathemas in a town like Cordoba Bay. Mayor Alton has a zero tolerance policy for crime. She keeps the criminal element out of our town.
The criminal element… like me.
God. That’s really me now.
I’m distracted from my dark thoughts by the sight of someone waving both arms at me. My eyes focus on my best friend since first grade, Amanda Sykes, and my boyfriend, Conrad. Relief washes through me. I grab the door handle, planning to spring out of the car and run to them. I want Conrad’s arms around me. I want to hear Amanda tell me this is no big deal. Maybe she’s already thought of a reason I shouldn’t freak out over this.
My hand freezes on the door handle. A terrible thought grips me.
There are hundreds of people here.
Some might be members of hunting guilds.
I read the forums, the information websites. They all said the same thing: forget friends. You can’t trust your friends once you’re an anathema. You can’t trust anyone anymore. Not classmates, not coworkers, not the nice old lady down the street.
You are a non-citizen. A non-person. All anathemas have a default, taxpayer-subsidized bounty on their heads of one thousand dollars. That number only stays low if you don’t have enemies willing to publicly contribute to the bounty and increase it.
“Here’s a cruel lesson about the world, Anathema,” wrote one of the information sites. “There is an enormous number of people willing to end your life for one thousand dollars. Accept that now and don’t forget it. Optimists and idealists who see only the best in people die very quickly once they lose citizenship. Be a cynic. Be a pessimist and don’t apologize. See that glass as half-empty because it IS half-empty! See the worst in people and maybe, just maybe, you’ll survive the United Sociopaths of America.”
Mom and Dad slide out of the car to greet the crowd, but I don’t. The faces suddenly look menacing. The eyes calculating. I can’t bring myself to move. Mom ducks back down and says something to me, but I can’t hear her through the roaring in my ears. I am paralyzed, my heart pounding like a war drum.
My classmates seem perplexed. They’re exchanging glances. Mom turns to Amanda and hugs her, then she embraces Conrad. Some of my friends from the school newspaper shoot me encouraging smiles. Siobhan Park practically throws herself into my mom’s arms. Since Siobhan and I aren’t even friends, I suspect that’s a hug of celebration.
Amanda marches up to my window and taps on it delicately. “Come on out.”
Sweat prickles my hairline. I can’t leave the car. I can’t risk it. I shake my head.
Amanda pounds the flat of her palm on the window. “Open the door, Kat!”
Finally, my heart thundering in my ears, I shove the door open. “Get in, get in, get in!” I almost scream it. “And lock the door!”
“I’m doing it.” Amanda’s infuriatingly slow about it. She drapes herself over the seat next to mine. The sunlight burnishes her chestnut hair with gold. “What’s your deal?”
“Do you have to ask?” My voice sounds hysterical. “I lost citizenship, Amanda. I’m an anathema!”
She arches her eyebrows. “Uh, yeah. I know. We all know. Colin’s mom works at the courthouse. She called him the minute she heard the verdict.”
Colin Schwartz. Right. That kid who always does Amanda’s chemistry homework for her.
“Don’t you get it?” My eyes rake over the crowd. Every flash of sunlight across keys and belts makes me flinch. I keep thinking I see knives. Just like the hunter with his machete. “These people might be here to kill me.”
“They will not kill you.”
“A guy with a machete was waiting for me outside the courthouse. An actual machete.” I’m gasping for air now. This can’t be my life. It can’t be. “He was really there. He wanted me dead.”
Amanda grabs my shoulders and looks right into my eyes. “Kat, focus on me.”
“I am focusing.”
“Breathe.”
“I am breathing. Hear that sound? It’s me breathing!”
Her eyes bore into mine. I can see the line of her contact lenses against her sultry dark eyes. “Trust me, no one will kill you here. I’ve told everyone not to. They know they’ll suffer terrible consequences if they go after you.”
“What consequences?”
“My wrath and undying enmity, of course.”
It’s no small threat. She’s the most popular girl in our school. People are legitimately terrified of crossing her.
Still, my best friend shouldn’t have to threaten people just to keep me safe from them.
Amanda draws me into her arms. I lean my head on her shoulder miserably. “Your undying enmity won’t stop the kids in hunting guilds. They’ll just see one-thousand dollars when they look at me.”
There’s a smile in her voice. “I think you’re underestimating the power of my undying enmity.”
I stifle a laugh.
“And come on, Kat, most everyone here really did come to support you. Everyone’s
so surprised this happened. It’s going to take them time to stop seeing you as Kathryn Grant, classmate, and start seeing you as an anathema. That’s basic psychology.”
I don’t miss the implication: eventually the shock would end. Eventually they would start seeing me as an anathema. And a legitimate target.
“Besides,” Amanda adds, “who hunts someone for only one-thousand dollars? You’d have to be totally, pathetically desperate for money.”
“I guess.”
It reassures me a bit to think about that. The fact is, most people in Cordoba Bay aren’t, in Amanda’s words, ‘totally, pathetically desperate’ for money. My parents aren’t poor by any means, but they’re a rarity in our town simply because they both need to work for a living. Most of my classmates arrived in Cordoba Bay along with the new mega mansions a decade ago. They come from families where their parents don’t work, or haven’t needed to work for years.
“And don’t worry about the local guild, either,” Amanda tells me. “Conrad carries weight with them. He’s a member.”
Conrad. That’s right. Conrad is part of the community hunting guild. I straighten and search out my boyfriend’s worried face in the crowd. I pick out his head of copper hair sun kissed with streaks of gold. He’s standing with his friends, watching me.
He’s assured me he only participates in the guilds for college admission purposes. It unsettles me anyway. Being a member of a hunting guild means theoretically agreeing to help kill anathemas.
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