Bellwether

by Jenny Ashford

  When they got there, they saw that two of the vehicles in their original convoy had already split. Stragglers made their way toward the remaining cars, some of them dragging along their zapped comrades, a few with scratches or bloody noses. Most of the faces were grim and dogged, but there were a few smiles and some relieved laughter. Scott or Seth was one of the smilers, approaching the cars with his baseball bat slung over his shoulder at a jaunty angle. Martin glanced at the bat, looking for traces of blood, but saw nothing. He released a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding.

  “Seth, how many down?” Chloe asked, shoving Ivan into the back seat next to Olivia.

  He lowered the bat and leaned on it as though it was a cane in a vaudeville act. “At least seven, maybe more. We managed to get Franklin out,” and here he gestured toward the drummer boy, who was being bodily carried toward a red van by two beefy skinheads, “and I think the others might have saved two or three more, but it looks like they left already. As for the rest of them…” Seth shrugged. “I guess they’ll be staying here a while. At least until we figure out what to do.”

  A girl with blue-black hair and smeared eyeliner—Seth’s girlfriend, Martin assumed—came up to them, holding a bloodied rag up to her cheek. “What is that thing in there? Some kind of fucking wizard?”

  Chloe just shook her head. Martin noticed how tired and drained she looked; the sight of her almost made him forget the pain in his arm. “Seth,” he said. “You didn’t…” He wasn’t sure how he wanted to phrase it, so he just pointed to the bat.

  Seth laughed. “Kill anybody? Nah, I checked quick. The bald guy’s fine, maybe have a little headache. I think someone whacked the woman with a chair—she came to, but she seemed a little groggy when I left. Which reminds me, we should probably get the hell out of here before they wake up and call the cops or come out here and turn us into the living dead.”

  There were murmurs of assent from the gathered crowd, and a few nervous chuckles. Martin extended a hand. “Thanks, Seth. Thanks everybody. I’m sorry it turned out like this.”

  Seth shook his hand firmly. “Shit, I haven’t had so much fun in ages. We’ll be in touch about Ivan, okay? Let us know if you snap him out of it.”

  “Keep us updated about Franklin, too, and the others,” said Chloe, fishing her keys from the pocket of her jeans.

  “Will do.” Seth saluted them with his bat, then gripped his girlfriend’s hand and headed for the red van. Motors started up all around them, piercing the night.

  Martin climbed into the passenger seat, peering back to check on Ivan. He looked sullen, glancing out the rear window at the lighted front of the church. Olivia sat very close to him, weary but vigilant.

  “How’s the arm?” Chloe asked as she slid into the driver’s seat and started the engine.

  Martin grinned wanly. “Busted and unendurable. Don’t rush on my account.”

  * * * *

  The ride back to Crandall’s was strange and awkward. At first, none of them spoke, the only sounds their ragged breathing and Martin’s occasional yelps of pain. The small car smelled of sweat, intermingled with a hint of blood. The clock on the dash read 4:51 a.m.

  After a few minutes, Ivan’s voice emanated, soft and placid, from the back seat. “They’ll just come back for me, you know. They know where you live.” Martin saddened at the use of you instead of we.

  Chloe’s voice was curiously flat in the dimness. “Well, if they do, I guess we’ll have to be ready for them.” Martin wasn’t sure quite what she meant, but knowing her as he did, he could make a pretty decent guess. He felt suddenly cold. This wasn’t going to end anytime soon, he could see that now.

  “Why can’t you just accept that I want to be with them?” Ivan’s voice rose, impassioned, but when Martin turned to look at him, he could see no trace of emotion on his friend’s shadowed face. Olivia just looked stricken.

  “You know why,” said Chloe, and would say no more.

  After a few moments of riding in silence, trying to convince himself that the pain in his arm was lessening, Martin spoke. “Ivan, do you remember what happened on the first day you went into the church?” His voice sounded so weary that it alarmed him.

  There was a pause. “I met Father, and then Mother,” Ivan said quietly. “They showed me the way.”

  Father and Mother. Oh, man. “Did anybody touch you or put their hands on your neck? Was there a flash of light when they did it?” Martin already knew the answers to these questions, of course, but he wanted to see what Ivan remembered, how much of his previous self was still in there, still accessible.

  Ivan didn’t reply right away, not until Chloe said, “Hey, idiot, he asked you a question.” Clearly, Chloe’s patience with the whole situation had long run out. Her jaw was tight as she turned onto the road that led to Crandall’s.

  “I don’t really remember what happened.” Ivan pressed his lips together, as if to prevent anything further from escaping them.

  As the car puttered between the trees, Martin told the girls what he had seen—the light like camera flashes, the sudden willingness to fight on the side of their enemies. Chloe simply nodded; she had noticed it, too, then. When he turned to face Olivia, her expression was grave. “So what you’re suggesting,” she said, glancing up at Ivan briefly and pulling at her bottom lip, “is that these people—or at least that thing in the veil—somehow have the ability to just touch you and…what? Make you like them? Take away your powers of reason? How would they be able to do that?”

  Martin shrugged as Chloe pulled the car into the dirt lot behind the house. “I’m just telling you what I saw. I don’t have an explanation. It must be something…” he paused, searching for words, “well, maybe not supernatural, but something extraordinary. I mean, look what they did to him.”

  Ivan stared straight ahead as if he hadn’t heard.

  Chloe parked and killed the engine, and they dragged themselves from the car like the dazed survivors of a bombing raid. Ivan got out along with them, obviously tired and partially beaten, his lowered head a sign of obedience, or perhaps resignation. Martin noticed, however, that he glanced furtively up the path they’d come, as if searching for rescue, or determining how fast he’d have to run to get to the road before he was overtaken. Martin fell back and made a point of placing his functioning hand on Ivan’s arm. He felt horrible for having to treat his friend with such distrust, like a common criminal, but he could see no way around it. Olivia held onto Ivan from the other side, and the three of them followed Chloe as she thumped up the back stairs, digging the house keys from her pocket.

  The house was dark except for the kitchen light, which could just be seen as a crack of brightness through the chintz curtains. The exhausted party led their prisoner onto the enclosed porch, which smelled of coffee and cigarette smoke, and was lit only by the first fingers of dawn seeping through the clouds. Ivan went along, his shoulders slumped forward. Martin tightened his grip, not entirely buying his friend’s submissive act.

  Chloe got the back door open and went inside. The light from the kitchen seemed blinding to Martin’s tired eyes, and he squinted, the pain in his arm returning with the jolt to his senses. Not long now, and he could go to the hospital and have the broken bone seen to. Until then, he gritted his teeth and bore it as best he could.

  He and Olivia were pulling Ivan along, perhaps a little roughly, but he was still putting up no resistance. As they crossed the threshold, a strange sensation tingled through Martin’s body, and then Ivan stopped, cold, and remained on the porch.

  Both Martin and Olivia turned in tandem, their fingers still fastened around Ivan’s arm. The prisoner just stood there, his face neither defiant nor mocking. “Come on, Ivan,” Martin said gently. “My arm is killing me. The quicker you get in here, the quicker this can all be sorted out.”

  “Please, Badinov,” said Oli
via, using one of her old pet names for him.

  Ivan didn’t even smile. “I can’t come in.” His voice was toneless.

  Martin felt his frazzled nerves beginning to vibrate in his irritation, which in turn made his arm throb anew, this time with doubled fury. He yanked hard on Ivan’s sleeve. “Of course you can come in. We’re not letting you go back to them, okay, so you can just forget it. Quit screwing around, we’re not in the mood.”

  “No, Martin, I mean I literally can’t come in. Look.”

  At this, Ivan raised his hand and moved it toward the door opening. Just over the threshold, his hand stopped short, the flesh of his hand flattening, exactly as though he’d pressed his hand upon a pane of clear glass.

  Martin’s mouth fell open. Yes, Ivan had told them about the dwarf who had come here, about what had happened when she tried to get in. Martin hadn’t seen it with his own eyes. Now he just stood there, watching his friend’s hand floating in space. It was eerie and terribly, terribly wrong. “How…are you doing that?” he finally managed.

  Ivan looked back at him, icy eyes blank. “I’m not doing anything. I just can’t get in.”

  “That’s enough, now.” Chloe marched forward and thrust both her hands through the doorway, catching Ivan’s hands in hers. She pulled, the cords in her arms and neck standing out with the effort, but as soon as Ivan made to cross the threshold, he was halted by the invisible barrier. Chloe let go of him, breathing hard. “What the hell is going on?”

  “It’s just like he told us about the dwarf, remember?” Martin said, refusing to take his eyes off Ivan. “They can’t get in here. Whatever it is that Mother and Father do to them,” and Martin felt himself wince inwardly at his use of the familial titles, “it makes them not able to come in.”

  “Why wouldn’t they be able to come in here?” Olivia said, eyeing Ivan with suspicion. “They seem to go in and out of other places just fine. Sammy comes in the coffee shop, and I’ve seen some of the others going in and out of stores.”

  “Something about this house must be keeping them out,” Chloe said, and at her words Martin flashed on that afternoon when the bald man and the girl had come, the way the man had leaned forward, trying to look inside, and then snapped back as if he’d been burned. Then there was the recurring dream, of the banging on the outside walls of the house growing louder and more insistent. What did it all mean? Was this what the dreams warned them about? He realized he was tuned out; when he came back to himself, Chloe was speaking again. “So what are we going to do with him? Chain him up outside like a dog?”

  “He can sleep on the back porch,” Martin said, shifting his broken arm a little and almost crying out when he heard the bones grinding. “We can dig out that old camp bed. Someone’s going to have to stay up and watch him, though.” At this last, he gave Ivan a sympathetic glance: Sorry about this, buddy. Ivan simply stared back at him as if he was a complete stranger.

  “Well, I guess that’ll be me,” Olivia said, stifling a yawn with the back of her hand. “Clo, you’d better get Martin to the emergency room before he passes out from the pain. Don’t worry, I won’t let this asshole go anywhere.” She smiled a thin little smile, then turned to the cupboard to get the coffee tin.

  “All right. I’m sorry how this all worked out.” Chloe glared at Ivan, then took Martin by the arm. “I think that camp cot is in the closet in the spare room. You might want to see if you can find those handcuffs from last Halloween, too. Just in case.”

  Olivia looked startled, but then nodded. “I’ll find them. You’d better get going.”

  “Okay. We’ll try to be as quick as we can. After we’ve all had some sleep we can have a long talk about what we’re going to do next. Come on, Lefty.” She led Martin out the back door past the stoic Ivan. She couldn’t resist poking their former friend in the chest as she passed. “You be good. Or else,” she hissed.

  * * * *

  It was nearly ten in the morning when Martin and Chloe returned from the hospital, so tired they could barely see straight. Martin’s arm was encased in plaster, and his good hand clasped a prescription bottle of painkillers they’d picked up at Walgreen’s on the way home.

  Ivan was snoring loudly on the back porch, his form barely covered by a threadbare quilt. His right wrist was cuffed to the beam nearest the cot. Olivia was perched on a chair just inside the kitchen, watching Ivan with red-rimmed eyes, her fist curled around a half-empty coffee mug. “How’s the arm?” she asked as Martin and Chloe passed.

  “He fucked it up good,” Chloe said, helping herself to a cup of the strong brew. “Broken in two places. How’s our pet zombie?”

  Olivia managed a wan smile. “Well, after you left he tried to talk me into coming back to the church with him, but when he saw he wasn’t getting anywhere he finally went to sleep. He’s been out for at least three hours.”

  “You should go up and get some sleep now. You, too, Martin, rest that arm. I can watch him for a while.”

  “Are you sure?” Martin said. “We’re all so tired, and he’s cuffed and sleeping…”

  Chloe added creamer to her coffee. “I know. I just want to make sure he doesn’t go anywhere. Plus, I don’t want to be caught unprepared if some of those assholes come looking for him. I’ll be fine for a while longer, don’t worry.”

  Martin didn’t think she looked fine—her eyes were bloodshot, she was dirty and disheveled, with a bit of blood crusting around her nostrils. Her limbs sagged, and her movements seemed overly deliberate, like a drunk’s. Martin was too exhausted to argue with her. “All right. I’m taking next watch. Even though I’m a cripple.” He was glad he still had the energy to joke, at least.

  Chloe grinned, her eyes sliding closed for just a fraction of a second too long. She chugged back half the mug of coffee, then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Go on, you two.”

  He didn’t know about Olivia in the room down the hall, but Martin barely managed to wriggle under the covers before he was overtaken by the blackness of sleep. For a while he thought of nothing, dreamed nothing, was aware of nothing. After some unknowable length of time that could have been five minutes or five millennia, the dream came, and it was very bad. The worst it had ever been, in fact. When it reached its climax, Martin bolted out of sleep, soaked with sweat, his heart sounding like a series of sonic booms. When he regained enough of his senses to look around the room and establish its reality, he saw by the light from the windows that it was roughly mid-afternoon.

  His arm was throbbing in time with his heartbeat, and with a grimace he pushed himself out of bed and padded down the hall in his bare feet, filling a glass with water from the bathroom sink and swallowing two of the painkillers, willing them into his bloodstream as quickly as possible. He heard sounds from Olivia’s room (it used to be Ivan’s room, too, he thought), a bang like something hitting the floor, and then muffled swearing amid heavy breaths. After a moment, Olivia materialized at the bathroom door, bleary-eyed, hair a dark tangle. She was wearing a pair of Ivan’s boxer shorts, and the T-shirt she’d worn the night before, still streaked with sweat and blood. “The dream,” she said, and then words failed her. Martin hugged her, awkwardly, trying to keep his injured arm straight. She was trembling like a captured rabbit. “It’s because Ivan’s here, isn’t it?” When she pulled away, she looked at him, her eyes like black holes. “That’s why the dream is so bad.”

  “I don’t know.” He did know, though, sort of. “We should go down and check on Chloe.”

  Olivia nodded, then went back to her room, returning a few seconds later with a black robe thrown over her clothes and her hair pulled away from her pale face with two red barrettes. They went downstairs in silence.

  Chloe, amazingly, was still awake, sitting at the kitchen table with one leg tucked beneath her, flipping through a magazine. Ivan was snoring from the porch, the sound and rhyt
hm of it so familiar, so normal, that, for a moment, Martin hoped the whole thing had been a nightmare, that Ivan was fine and would awaken with his usual grumpy witticisms and appetite for French toast. This was a futile hope, and Martin quickly abandoned it.

  “Morning, kids.” Chloe offered her cheek and Martin bent to kiss it. “Grab yourself some coffee before I drink it all.”

  “Any problems?” Martin said, sliding into the chair opposite her.

  “No. He hardly moved a muscle. How are you doing?”

  “Okay. Just popped a pill, all’s right with the world.” He wasn’t going to mention the dream just now; he didn’t want the idea of it keeping Chloe awake when she so clearly needed sleep.

  Olivia had other plans. “The dream was really horrible, Clo,” she said, turning her head from where she stood at the counter, spreading cream cheese on a bagel.

  Chloe looked at Martin, not saying a word, but with a question in her eyes.

  He sighed, shooting a glare at Olivia’s back. “Yeah. The worst yet. I’m surprised you didn’t hear one of us screaming.”

  Chloe tapped her fingers on the magazine that lay open in front of her. Her gaze slid over to the open back door, to the sleeping form of Ivan, which was just visible in the shadow of the porch overhang. “You think it’s because of him?”

  “Yes,” said Olivia, without hesitation.

  “It could just be a coincidence,” Martin said lamely.

  “Hm.” Chloe sat back in her chair and crossed her arms. “If it isn’t a coincidence, do you realize what it could mean? It means that Ivan is the enemy now, one of the people the house is protecting us from.”

  It was a big assumption to make, but in view of the dreams, Martin had to admit it was a reasonable one. He didn’t like to think of his best friend as an enemy, as one of the faceless hordes that banged on the walls relentlessly in his sleep, seeking…what? Entry? Revenge for some imagined wrong? It was horrible, but considering Ivan’s behavior, could there really be any further doubt? Was he, in fact, so far gone that he would actually try to kill them if he had the chance, to further the agenda of his new masters? Martin felt a chill at the thought, and tried to push it out of his mind. “Maybe if Ivan stays with us, we can snap him out of it.” The words stole furtively from Martin’s mouth, ashamed of themselves.