Anathema

by Bowman, Lillian

  “Okay, Heidi, let me drive.”

  “You want to drive?”

  “Yes. I’ll take care of this. Let me drive. It’s not assault if I do it. Quickly!”

  “Okay,” she whimpers.

  I expect her to ease out between the seats and climb into the back. I don’t expect her to unlock the doors and get out of the car.

  “NO!” I shout at her, lunging for the steering wheel, but I can’t throw myself into her seat in time to take over, to move us.

  It’s too late. The hunters are already on us, yanking the doors open and pulling me out of the car.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  There are hands everywhere, grabbing me. I scream and lash out with my legs. There are people pulling me, yanking me. I flail out wildly with my hand, managing to seize my backpack with me before I am thrust onto the concrete sidewalk by the road.

  Heidi is still weeping noisily, clutching herself by the open driver’s side door of her car, a useless ball of terror. She begs piteously for them to leave me alone. There are hunters clutching my arms, holding me back, tearing my backpack away. Suddenly I’m slammed against the side of the car and all I can think is that this is it. This is it. My own classmates – not even a real hunting guild – and they’re going to kill me.

  “Got her, we got her!” shouts someone.

  Another voice. “Okay, now what?”

  “Simple.”

  The calm, controlled voice makes chills of genuine terror sweep over me. I’m hauled around by the tenth grader restraining me to face Russell where he stalks towards me, the headlights sweeping over his demonic smile.

  “Haven’t you seen what happens to anathemas on TV?” he asks the other hunters, drawing a knife from his belt.

  I scream and try to wrench out of the sweaty, half-hearted grip on me. I do, and almost get away, but more arms snare me, bowl me over. Arguing erupts around me.

  “Wait, what?” A girl’s voice. “I didn’t think we were here to kill her.”

  “Yeah, you said she’d know about anathema activity in town,” shouts Jimmy Valdez, a ninth grader. “You didn’t say we were hunting her!”

  “She goes to our school,” complains someone else. “This is messed up.”

  “Then hold her still,” Russell snarls as I fight the hands holding me. “I’ll do it myself.”

  “He’s been stalking me,” I gasp, looking around frantically. “Guys, you know me. He wants to murder me. Please, he’s crazy.”

  “Hold her still!” Russell roars, because I’m fighting my way out. No one wants to help him, but they also can’t bring themselves to help me.

  “We can’t just kill her—” someone says.

  And then I drive my elbow into the stomach of the person behind me, and dive forward. My elbows and knees scrape concrete but I don’t care. Heidi’s begging them between sobs to leave me alone, and there’s shouting of people saying they didn’t sign up for this. Some others are backing off, trying to pretend they have no part of it. Russell is shouting and others are wavering.

  “Five thousand dollars. Who wants five thousand dollars?” Russell shouts. “Hey, you’re not getting away!”

  But I stumble onto my knees on the wet grass of the park, my shaking hands ripping open my backpack. Just as a few start towards me uncertainly, I tear to my feet and thrust my machete up before me.

  Everyone freezes in place beneath the dim streetlight. Anger explodes through me, looking at their stupid, stunned faces. It’s like they just realized what’s happening here. They thought they were playing a game with just my life at stake, not their own lives.

  “This is not a game!” I scream at them. “This is life or death. You come at me and I will stab you! I swear I’ll do it!”

  My voice shakes, but they seem to believe me. A few raise their hands, looking frightened by all this. Others are still watching me in a distinctly predatory way like they’re giving a lot of thought to Russell’s promise of five thousand dollars to split. A few are like Heidi, completely terrified. More are beginning to break away from the others and flee down the street.

  “This is screwed up. This is wrong! I’m out of here,” says Jeffrey Levy, starting off down the street. “Corgin, you’re a sick freak. Come on, guys.”

  He’s a popular eleventh grader, and obviously holds some influence with a lot of these people. More begin to follow him.

  “Come back,” screams Russell, starting after them. “Come back, you cowards!”

  I want to make a dash for Heidi’s car, but that means going straight through the hunters and there are a few who might change their mind. Instead, I creep back, glad their focus has momentarily shifted from me. I begin moving faster and faster, and then I throw a look over my shoulder and see that Russell has noticed. He sees me. He draws his machete and starts after me.

  I launch into a sprint, my legs burning, my breath rasping in and out of my lungs. The machete weighs down my hand, but I dare not let it go. I swerve around the corner onto a familiar street, and the golden light spilling down from the porches beckons me.

  I throw myself up the steps to the nearest door and knock. “Hello, hello, is anyone home? I need help! Please let me in.”

  A curtain slides open, a woman peering out at me, her eyes wide. She lifts something that glows in her hand. My stomach drops when I realize it’s a cell phone. Identifying me. A sharp pain registers in my chest, because I remember doing this whenever a stranger knocked on the door and I didn’t know who they were. Everyone does it. It’s common sense. You check to make sure you’re not being visited by an anathema.

  She is.

  Her eyes widen when she sees what her phone says, her face going pale. Her curtain snaps shut.

  No help here. I dash back down the steps and run farther down the street. Many faces peer at me through windows, but always, always the glowing of cell phones being consulted. Always, the curtains close. Some don’t bother closing the curtains. They just watch me through their windows like I’m on a TV screen. What is it about a thin sheen of window and concrete that fools people into thinking they’re removed from what’s happening beyond it? Then again, maybe I’m just lucky none of these people run out with knives to claim my bounty for themselves.

  Russell appears at the end of the street, following me.

  Terrified, I begin to sprint again, though I don’t know where I’m going. I could pound on all these doors, screaming for help, and no one will let me in. They’ll just let me die. My bad leg is beginning to throb with pain but I barely feel it. I keep running, feeling like I’m in a nightmare, my relentless pursuer barreling after me. I twist around the next corner and it hits me where my steps have brought me, just on instinct.

  Conrad’s street. Conrad’s house.

  I tear up his steps and frantically ring the bell. I pound my fist on the door.

  “Conrad!” I shout. “Conrad, let me in!”

  There’s no sound from inside, so I run back down the steps and peer up from the yard. A light is on, and then someone appears. I can’t make out more than a vague silhouette from Conrad’s room, a shadow swimming against the wavy curtains. I wave my arms desperately. “CONRAD! CONRAD, OPEN THE DOOR! HE’S GOING TO KILL ME!”

  The silhouette withdraws from the window.

  I wait, my heart pounding, frantic terror clawing inside me.

  But the door doesn’t open. It doesn’t. I stare at it, unable to comprehend this.

  It hits me then that it’s not going to open.

  Conrad isn’t going to let me in. He really doesn’t care. He doesn’t care if I die. We’d broken up but it never occurred to me that he hates me this much. All those years together and they don’t count for anything now. My legs feel weak like they’re going to sink beneath me. This is my final rejection by the world. The is the final snip cutting the lifeline tying me to my old existence.

  Dizzy with shock and disbelief, I almost don’t hear the faint laughter from behind me.

  I turn to
face Russell. He’s slowed down to watch me as he stalks down the muted nighttime sidewalk. My heart pounds furiously.

  Russell draws his machete, orange streetlight gleaming off its blade. Triumph seems to radiate from every plane of his face. “Look at that. Ran right back to the ex-boyfriend’s house and he can’t be bothered to help. Practice ended hours ago. You know he’s home.”

  My eyes sting. I blink furiously, refusing to let him see me cry even if his words are ripping a fresh wound inside me.

  Russell’s smile is ugly. “Guess that means you’re all mine.”

  I’m shaking all over.

  “Tell you what,” Russell says, his tone mock friendly. “I’ll go easy on you. Put the machete down, and I’ll just slit your throat, Kitten. Real quick and painless. If you fight me, though,” he shakes his machete at me like an admonishing finger, prowling ever closer, “then I’ll make it real slow. And I’ll make it painful.”

  He’d make it slow and painful anyway. I know that in my heart.

  Resolve forms in my mind, clear and cold: I’m going to fight. He can kill me—but I can also kill him. Anathemas kill hunters, too. This has been coming since the service corridor.

  Russell is larger and much stronger than me, but he can’t use his right hand. He’s fighting with his left hand only. He won’t be coordinated. He’s probably slower than me. Overconfident. I’ve never seen another cheerleader fight a football player to the death, but I have some very real strengths of my own and he has some very real weaknesses. This can’t be a hopeless situation. I won’t allow myself to think that.

  Sweat pricks up on my hands and forehead. I raise my machete and meet Russell’s eyes like I have no fear. “Go ahead, then. Take your best shot.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Russell lunges at me, machete swinging towards my neck. My arms shoot up without me telling them to, blocking his swing with my own. The impact vibrates down my arm, flares pain in my wrists. His strength takes me off guard. I stumble back, leaping just in time to avoid tripping over a low hedge.

  He swings again, and I block it with a vibrating clang. God, that hurts my wrists. He shoves forward, knocking me back. I almost stumble off the sloping side of the lawn, but I catch my balance at the last moment. I back away as he continues to advance, gripping his machete in his meaty left fist.

  “Don’t run away so soon,” Russell taunts.

  “I’m not running.”

  He swings as I duck. The machete snaps through the air over my head, and I thrust mine forward. Shock explodes through me when the blade meets something solid. Russell gives a shriek and stumbles away from me. Blood blossoms in a dark line through his torn shirt. I gape at what I’ve done, astounded. The machete almost slips right out of my hands. Shock and revulsion surge through me. Hurting someone deliberately goes against my every instinct, even now, even with death staring in my face.

  My hesitation costs me. There’s a flash of Russell’s hand encased in the cast. I dodge, but the impact slams my shoulder, hurling me to the ground. I sprawl across the damp grass. My machete clatters from my hand to the cement of the sidewalk a few feet below me. I sway as I find my feet, casting my gaze around for the weapon I dropped. Russell leaps down to the sidewalk and gives a laugh.

  “Looking for this?” He has my machete trapped it under his foot, a demonic grin on his lips in the streetlight. “Not too late to surrender and die quickly.”

  Terror galvanizes me. Conrad’s mom has flowerbed here, lined with bricks planted in the damp ground at a diagonal angle. I don’t think. I tear one up out of the ground, and hurl it at him. The brick slams him in the nose with a sickening thunk, and he stumbles back to the ground. I dive forward to seize my machete, knowing this was all a mistake and I have to get my weapon then get out of here. He rears up with his face smeared with blood and twisted with rage.

  “… KILL YOU…” And then he’s got hold of me, his large body diving into mine hard enough to knock the breath from me. I’m doubled over, crushed on the grass beneath him. His body is hot and heavy and laden with muscle. His hands compress around my throat and I claw blindly at his eyes, trying to scream, trying to escape. I’m only half aware of a sudden flood of light and the screech of tires from somewhere to the side, the slam of sneakers on pavement.

  Then Russell’s weight disappears. He’s struggling against a chokehold, and now tumbling across the lawn. Conrad’s voice is angrier than I’ve ever heard it. “What are you doing?”

  The next moments are confusion, a blur for me. I grab my machete, the only certain thing in the world, and cradle it close. My head is a steady, low throb in tempo with my heartbeat. Conrad has Russell on the ground and he drives a fist into him, another. Then more light, the porch light, snapping on and a door flying open.

  “Stop this!” Mayor Alton screams. “Conrad, you get off him right now!”

  Conrad tears to his feet, rage making him shake, and he hurls Russell away from him contemptuously. “You sick freak! What is wrong with you?”

  “Conrad!” shouts the mayor. “Cool down!” She darts across the yard, seizing his arm. I watch it all, still stunned this has happened.

  “You can’t get away this,” Russell vows, swaying to his feet, pointing a shaky finger at Conrad. “You interfered in a legit hunt just now, bro. You can become an anathema over this—”

  Mayor Alton prowls towards him, and for the first time Russell cringes back, still clutching his nose. “Don’t you dare threaten my son.”

  I stare at her, this icy, menacing woman with her quiet voice. She’s raised Conrad alone since he was three, after her husband died on a business trip to Tijuana. She rose to town mayor and clamped down on crime with an iron fist. As imposing as she is, though, she never showed this face to me before I became an anathema. I’m only half aware of Conrad gathering me to his chest, and he’s staring at his mother, too, like he’s stunned by her.

  “I can press charges,” Russell says belligerently. “He broke the law. This is the same way she lost citizenship.” He jabs his finger in my direction.

  “Only if you’d died because of his interference. You look very much alive to me.” She looks him up and down. “I assure you, Russell, pressing charges would be a grave mistake. If you take on my son, you will ignite a war between our families, and your parents will suffer dearly for it. Do you want that?”

  Something about Mayor Alton’s soft voice chills Russell. He looks at her, pale, mopping at his bloody nose. “No, ma’am.”

  And then suddenly, she’s the woman who used to give me quotes for the school newspaper. Who made dinner for Conrad and me while we watched TV. “Good. I know you two boys can be friends again soon.”

  “But… but…” Russell sputters, then falls silent at something he sees on her face.

  “Go home, Russell.”

  He shoots me and Conrad a last impotent look, and then begins to stagger off down the street. Mayor Alton turns towards us. “Are you coming inside, Conrad?”

  Conrad doesn’t ask for permission to bring me in. He just helps me to my feet. And then we’re moving inside the door that denied me admittance when I desperately needed it. Suddenly I begin to make sense of it. I peer over my shoulder before the door closes, seeing Conrad’s car still on, idling in the street.

  He wasn’t the one home when I rang. He wasn’t the one gazing at me through the window of his room. It was Mayor Alton.

  I’m left alone with her in the kitchen as Conrad goes outside to park his car in the garage. She boils herself tea. My gaze meet hers over the steam wafting up in the air. Her eyes are like blistering ice.

  “Why do you hate me so much?” I demand, my voice hoarse.

  “I don’t hate you, Kathryn.” She slaps down an empty mug. “You are absolutely beneath my hatred. Tea?”

  I stare at her. I’d be safer drinking rat poison than something she prepared for me right now. “You’re trying to get me killed!”

  She plops a tea bag into her own cup
. “If all goes to plan, I’ll be the next Governor of this state. My entire reputation rests on my effectiveness when it comes to staunching crime. Have you even thought about what it will do to my public image if my own son is dating an anathema?

  “That’s what this is about?” I say disbelievingly. “You want me dead to help your career?”

  “‘Career’?” she echoes. “I’m not your mother, shuffling papers in an office, or your father, designing hot tubs. I do something vitally important. Right now, I keep this city running. That’s more than a mere career, Kathryn. If all goes to plan, I’ll one day take charge of the most populated state in the nation. From there, the sky is the limit. My plans aren’t just about me. They’re about the very future of this nation. If I have to get a hunting license myself, I will obtain it just to rid myself of you.”

  Anger swells inside me like a hot red tide. “Get a hunting license then.” The words are like bullets firing from me. “Because there’s one great thing about being an anathema: I get to kill registered hunters. Even mayors who dream of being queen.”

  “You don’t want to threaten me, little girl.”

  “I think I do,” I say, my voice shaking. “I think I love threatening you.”

  At that moment, Conrad trundles back in. Mayor Alton and I both straighten, looking casual. Awkward silence falls over the room.

  “I parked my car,” Conrad says.

  Silence greets this. Mayor Alton pours hot water over her tea bag. Then she snaps around and crosses the room to him. I think she’s going to hug him.

  Instead she slaps him. The sound makes me flinch.

  “What were you thinking, Conrad? People lose citizenship that way!” she shouts at him. “You don’t attack a hunter to protect an anathema!”

  “He was trying to kill my girlfriend!” Conrad roars back at her.

  Mayor Alton makes a disgusted noise. She takes her tea and whips away from us, her heels clacking their way across the floor.