The Pantheon

by Amy Leigh Strickland

  “It’s fine, mom, it’s just a little sore.” She pulled her arm away. Penelope hoped it wouldn’t bruise. Even more she hoped that if it did, it wouldn’t look like Peter-sized finger marks. “Thanks Pete.”

  Pete. There was a nickname that made him grit his teeth. “Yeah, no problem.” He couldn’t leave it alone. “And just Peter. Bye, Dr. Davis.”

  Peter left the apartment as fast as he could without looking suspicious. Now he’d spoken to her. Now he knew it was real, the way his blood pounded in his ears when he saw her. Even more distressing was the warning. It wasn’t so much a warning as a riddle. Peter was kicking himself for not being able to find out.

  Someone wanted to hurt them. Someone was going to use fire and their own tricks to hurt them. That could have meant a thousand things. All Peter knew was that it had to be serious for a ghost who had passed so many years ago to make the trip back to warn them. Who was trying to hurt them? And who were the others?

  “Men grow tired of sleep, love, singing and dancing sooner than of war.”

  -Homer

  iii.

  The rich earth sucked up the flowing stream of blood.

  Sun burnt bodies lay all around their feet,

  each as unrecognizable as the next.

  Arrows pierced their flesh.

  It was like a thousand troops had fired at once

  and called down a rain of arrows upon them,

  but there were two left standing over the scene

  with blood on their hands.

  She wiped the splash of hot blood from her white face.

  She could taste a hint of copper on her lips.

  She placed the notched arrow back in her quiver

  and lowered her bow.

  “We made a mess,” he said, while he was laughing.

  “Yes, we did,” she agreed with satisfaction.

  The golden-haired man looked up at his sister,

  alive with the hunt.

  She looked back with identical eyes and then

  she, too, began to laugh at what they had done.

  “That should teach them,” he said with finality.

  His sister nodded.

  “At least,” she said, stepping over crisp corpses--

  The irony did not escape either wit--

  “They won’t ever insult our mother again.”

  That fact was certain.

  “It is an ill thing to be the first to bring news of ill.”

  -Aeschylus

  III.

  Jason Livingstone sat at his desk that Friday, staring at his calendar and wondering how he was going to accomplish everything that needed to be done. He had completely forgotten that Haley, his oldest and only daughter, had a sleepover birthday party to go to. The present was at home in his closet, yet unwrapped. Jason also knew he needed groceries, badly. On top of that, the twins, James and Scott, were having a sleepover at their grandmother’s. It would be a relief when he could sit down that evening with a cold beer and watch Law and Order reruns. He just had to get through the next few hours.

  The bell was set to ring in twenty minutes. Now the waiting was driving him mad. He had so much to do and he was stuck behind a desk. Most students didn’t bother to come into the nurse’s office this time of day. It was a waste of a good sick excuse to go home so late in the afternoon.

  The door at the end of the resting room opened. Jason looked up from his calendar. Standing in the doorway was Olympia Heights Senior High’s self-proclaimed rock star, Astin Hill. Astin had wavy blonde hair and sun-kissed skin. He dressed in boot cut brown corduroys and t-shirts of bands like the White Stripes and the Wombats.

  Every high school had a band, a group of kids moderately talented with their instruments, which changed their band name once a month, and wrote cliché lyrics. They played birthday parties and talent shows but never had a real gig, or a paying gig, or any exposure greater than two hits a day on their Myspace.

  That band usually was followed by a flock of girls that didn’t quite fit in and thought they were too cool for their school. Their other biggest fan was usually an entirely non-talented friend who set himself up as their “manager” and served no purpose other than to mock-up poorly designed posters when they changed their name.

  This band bounced between pretentious names derived from quotations they skimmed in English class, to pop culture references, to crude potty humor. One week they might be The Mortal Fools, and the next they would be calling themselves Dog Fart.

  The difference with this band, which this week was named The Swedish Fish, was that Astin was unreasonably talented. He wrote their music and played lead guitar and under his leadership their band actually played at local restaurants and town events.

  Their local fans were still mostly girls who thought they were far too mature for the musical tastes of their peers, but their online following was growing surprisingly strong.

  While Astin adored the pretentious names, he had the power to veto it when their drummer had suggested they change their name to a crude French translation of a phrase not safe to type into a search engine.

  Astin’s band was good. At least he was good, and the others played their instruments well enough to not detract from the quality of his work.

  Astin had his hands in his pockets, his leather backpack hanging off one shoulder. A pair of aviator sunglasses hung off of his shirt, waiting for the final bell when he would slip them on again.

  “Mr. Hill,” Jason said, glad for a distraction to pass the time. “What can I do for you?”

  “I uh... I have...” Astin dropped his voice as he approached the desk. “I have a rash.”

  Jason tried not to smile. Once in a while he got this kind of problem. As girl crazy as Astin was, it wasn’t surprising. “Where is this rash?”

  “On my hand,” he said, surprising Jason. “It’s white.” He withdrew his hand from his pocket and held it out for Jason to see. “It started in American History. It started itching and I was scratching it and then it turned white.”

  Jason motioned for Astin to sit down in an adjacent chair. He brought a lamp to the edge of his desk and turned it on, holding Astin’s hand close to it. Under the light the white skin seemed not as distinct. “That’s funny.”

  “What’s funny? Is my hand okay? I can’t play guitar if I lose my hand!”

  “I’ve never—hang on.” Jason did something now that Astin didn’t expect. He cupped his own hands over Astin’s palm and brought his eyes down close, trying to block out the light of the room as if he was looking at a glow-in-the-dark image. “Your hand,” he said as he pulled away. “Your skin hasn’t just turned white. It’s glowing. It’s very warm too. Have you burnt it? Come in contact with any chemicals? Been playing with glow-in-the-dark paint?”

  “No. Nothing like that.”

  Jason bit his lip. Astin watched him in silence, waiting.

  “I don’t have any way to run tests here... I’ve really never seen anything like it. Astin... I don’t know if there’s reason to be alarmed or not. If it doesn’t hurt, if you’re not losing skin, keep an eye on it. Wash your hands before you go, but please, if it’s still looking like that tomorrow, go see a doctor. Or go to the ER if they’re not open, okay?”

  Astin nodded.

  “It doesn’t hurt, right?”

  “No. It itched a little but now it’s fine... I guess...”

  “Odd.” Jason said. He pointed to the sink. “Use soap, will you?”

  Astin did as Jason asked, washing twice with soap. The glow didn’t stop. “I’d better get back to study,” he said, grabbing his bag as he passed by Jason’s desk again. Jason merely nodded in reply, going over his medical school books in his mind. “See ya,” Astin said, shoving his hand in his pocket and leaving the office.

  Jason got a notebook out of his desk and wrote down a few notes. It set his mind buzzing to have something to think about besides runny noses and inhalers. Now instead of watching Law and Order tonight, he’d be reading
.

  That night Astin dragged his twin sister, Diana, to a party. Diana was born a few minutes after Astin and every day since, when Astin rose at dawn, energized for the day, she’d buried her face in her blankets and moaned about what time it was. She was blonde, like her brother, with the same fierce blue eyes. That resemblance aside, in all other respects she seemed very different. Where Astin’s skin was tanned, Diana was fair. His hair had a gold shine while hers was a cool, almost platinum, shade. Astin preferred to play guitar and listen to music. Diana spent her time running on the trails in the park behind their neighborhood after dark.

  This party was just past the city limits in the woods beyond the freeway. Astin had driven his beloved truck. It was a joint birthday present from their parents, but as Diana combined her commute to school with track practice, Astin pretty much had it all to himself. There was a rest stop ahead and Astin parked his truck under the visitors’ center sign before hoofing it to the party. The foot-worn trail led back fifty yards to where the mix of palms and pines got to be too thick to see anything from the road. The light from the roaring bonfire illuminated the clearing. There was no permit for the fire and nobody was old enough for the beer. Local teenagers had staggered their arrivals so that the police wouldn’t notice a stream of cars leaving the highway and parking off the beaten path.

  Diana Hill wasn’t drinking. She was pacing around the edge of the firelight, watching and listening. Astin sat on an overturned bucket with his guitar on his lap. A small audience had gathered around him. The crowd was swaying to one of the band’s better songs when Diana started to get bored.

  A sane person could only watch drunken classmates act like idiots for so long before the spectacle just turned sad. Diana couldn’t go home until Astin was finished with his little performance, but she sure as hell wasn’t sitting around waiting for it to end. So Diana wandered off into the woods.

  She walked along a sandy path. It was a comfort to Diana, embracing the night. She relaxed as the voices from the party faded. Leaves and twigs crunched beneath her feet. Animals rustled in the trees above. She stopped, closed her eyes, and breathed. Distant wood burning blended with the smell of wet sand and autumn pollen.

  At night Diana would run, sometimes just to chase the river and see if she could keep up. Sometimes she would walk alone and see where the beaten paths formed by nature lead. She never got lost. The city --not being able to run too far in any given direction before hitting a highway-- that was what ate at her.

  Astin was always running around trying to be her keeper, but in truth Diana didn’t need a keeper. The forest spoke to her and her instincts told her where to go.

  Diana didn’t know how long she had been standing quietly, absorbing the night, when she heard something through the deafening rustle of the woods: Sirens.

  She started walking back toward the party, back toward the direction of Astin’s truck. Hopefully he’d meet her there and they could get out before the cops rounded up the kids who had parked much further away.

  Astin slung his guitar over his back and looked across the bonfire, expecting to see Diana propped against a tree. She wasn’t there. He felt like someone had just punched him. Where had she gone to? The sirens broke through the voices at the party. Astin ran into the woods.

  It was too dark. The flashlight he’d brought was running out of power. The light faded to a dull circle of yellow. Each time he shook the D batteries inside and the flashlight got a breath of new life.

  Astin was not nearly as good at navigating the night as his sister. He kept the flashlight on the path ahead instead of the ground directly in front of his feet. Astin tripped. His chin smacked the earth and the flashlight rolled into the bushes. It went out.

  “Shit!” He pushed himself up and dusted off his knees. He could barely see a thing. The moon was a meager waxing crescent. He needed more light.

  Astin looked down at his itchy hand. It had stopped glowing before dinner. Now he wished, sorely, that it would go back to the way it was at two o’clock that afternoon. Slowly it turned white, his palm glowing lightly under the surface. And then his hand got warm and suddenly he had to point his palm down and look away because it was brilliant and blinding. “No way...” he blinked. He couldn’t believe that this much light was coming from him. This much light was coming from his hand!

  The light was bringing attention to him. He heard dogs barking and saw flashlights approaching. Astin turned his hand to the path. The flashlight had fallen just yards in front of him. He scrambled to pick it up. He smacked the sides. The light flickered and came back on, though it was a joke next to the brilliance of his palm.

  “C’mon, c’mon. Dark. I need darkness.” He shook his hand as if there was something vile stuck to it. Then he thought about the way his hand tingled and willed that sensation to go away. The light went out in a quickly fading orange glow. Astin ducked off the path and hid until two police officers ran by. The dogs went off in pursuit of another suspect. The cops followed.

  Astin counted back from ten. When he was sure they were gone he turned his flashlight back on and headed toward his truck.

  Diana was almost there. She watched the beams of flashlights mark the path of their carriers. There was nothing to worry about as long as Astin made it to the truck.

  “They’re coming, run!” someone shouted. She heard rustling in the bushes but nobody was there. The stranger, wherever they were, seemed terrified.

  “Quick, hide here!” Another voice. Diana whipped around. Nobody was there.

  “Leave her alone. She’s mine.” She looked up. There was an owl in the tree. Had the owl spoken to her? No. That was stupid.

  She waited. No more voices. Diana moved faster toward the truck. She was thoroughly freaked out now.

  “Hey, hey you.” Voices again.

  “Oh no, he can see me...”

  “Get out of here,” the first voice sounded angry. “Get out. This one’s on my turf!”

  Who the hell was talking? Diana was debating her sanity when something hit her in the head. A rock? An acorn? The voice erupted into a scream, “Get out or I’ll kill you!”

  She ran. Her feet reached for the path in the dark, but at her panicked pace she found only sticks and sand. Branches struck her arms as she guarded her face. All sense of direction that the night usually afforded her receded into the background behind fear and alarm. She charged through the pitch black night, the sounds of nature were cranked up to a deafening roar. There was no telling which way to go in all the noise. Which way was the party? The siren? The voice in the trees? She turned around as she ran in one last-ditch attempt to glimpse the source of the voice. A branch caught her foot. She fell.

  Diana landed with her arms out. She felt the broken branches on the ground scratch her limbs. The palms of her hands stung from the scrapes and embedded grains of sand. She didn’t dwell on it for long. She rolled quickly, still looking for the source of the voices. She almost didn’t notice the shadow of a person sitting propped against the tree in front of her.

  She assumed it was another partygoer, drunk and sleeping, away from the noise of the party, probably passed out there after wandering off in the dark. The sirens were getting louder. She could see the blue and red playing off the trees and after what she’d just heard behind her, she welcomed their presence. She crawled over to the other person in the dark.

  “Hey kid, we gotta go. There’s someone out here besides the police.” The figure didn’t move. As Diana’s eyes focused she could make out a male figure, though not much more. “Didn’t you hear me? Police? Crazy person in the woods! Come on!”

  She reached out and grabbed his arm. The first thing she noticed was that the skin was hot and sticky. The second thing she noticed was that it was wet. As she tugged, already too late to stop her momentum, the face fell into a sliver of dim moonlight, casting stark shadows over what Diana saw were horrible, third degree burns. The eyes were wide and empty. And then the body slumped forward, leaden
, and landed on her.

  She screamed.

  Diana tried to throw the heavy body off of her. She scrambled backwards in the dirt, unable to hear her own voice breaking.

  “Diana!” Astin’s voice broke through the noise. “What happened?” He jumped through the tangle of kudzu that stretched between the trees, choking the life out of them. The flickering yellow beam from his flashlight revealed the bloody, charred body and his sister covered in blood, kicking it off of her legs. The corpse was still smoking. Her screaming ceased and they both stood in silence for a moment, staring, until they heard footsteps approaching through the woods.

  “Oh, this isn’t going to look good,” Astin said as he lowered his flashlight.

  The Olympia Heights police force had arrested seventeen of the hundred or so teenagers that had attended the party. Of those seventeen, fifteen were lined up on a bench in the police station with zip ties around their wrists. Astin and Diana Hill weren’t so lucky. They got the real handcuffs.

  The police had them in the interrogation room for the last four hours. They told the same story to the police repeatedly and the cops changed who was the good cop or bad cop every five minutes. The whole night shift at the station was whispering with excitement about going to bust up a kegger and stumbling upon a murder.

  Astin and Diana could hear the muffled conversation through the two-way mirror.

  “Mom’s going nuts. She’s gonna burst a blood vessel or something,” Astin was trying to make light of it all to raise Diana’s spirits, but it wasn’t working. She kept staring at cup rings on the table.

  “Who was that? Who do you think that was?” Diana asked.

  “I dunno Di,” Astin sat back down in his chair. At least they’d been brought coffee. He never stayed up this late. Astin took a long sip. “A guy,” he said finally.