Untaken

by J. E. Anckorn

  At last, he felt it again.

  A clean silver pulse of energy, different from anything else in this wood.

  From anything else in this world.

  Jake’s vision faded to grey, and still he tried to push his mind out, but the world seemed to tilt sideways, and he sprawled full length in the leaf litter. His mind was too diffused to control his body. He couldn’t figure out which head he was supposed to be in. He was flying above the wood on feathered wings, he was beneath the earth in a fox’s den, he was being hauled from the lake with a silver hook through the flesh of his mouth into the suffocating sky… and then he was back in his familiar body, spent and dizzy, with woozy black and red spots floating in front of his eyes. He tried again to get up, but this time, his arms and legs didn’t respond at all. When he tried to shout for help, no sound came out.

  Brandon

  s the sun climbed to its highest, most sweltering point in the sky, I decided that two fish was plenty. Not like we had any way to keep extra meat from spoiling, anyways. Gracie said we could haul in some big blocks of ice next winter. Put ‘em down in the basement closet, and use it as a fridge. Cold wasn’t going to be our problem, as far as I could see. There was only so much fuel left out there. The generator wouldn’t run on air. There was a log fireplace in the lounge, so maybe we’d be able to shut up the rest of the house and camp out in the one room until spring.

  Jeez, a person could drive himself nutty thinking about all these things. Why had I thought it would be easier up here in Maine?

  I knew that Gracie was disappointed with the way I changed the subject whenever she wanted to talk about her plans for next year. She was all about the improvements we could make to the cabin, or ways we could get food after the roads were gone and the fuel ran out and there was nothing left to scavenge. Although the same concerns ran through my own head in a never-ending loop, it wasn’t something I could talk about without getting buggy. What was the point? If the whole world was gone, then what was the point of any of this? It wasn’t fair. Someone should have been putting stuff back together. If Dad had been here, he would have known what to do, but I didn’t have a clue. I couldn’t do this.

  At least we’d saved Jake. I hadn’t saved Dad, but at least there was that.

  But saved for what? So we could live out here in these woods a couple of seasons before we got sick or froze to death? When I’d first had the idea to come up here, I’d thought the army guys would come. Now that was the very last thing we wanted to happen, what with Jake.

  I might have wimped out on Gracie’s big plans for the cabin, but just try telling her that the kid wasn’t right and she’d clam up like she was fixing to shit diamonds.

  “He’s just a regular kid. He might not be just like us, but that’s no reason to treat him any different. You sound just like those army guys sometimes, Brandon,” she’d snapped at me the last time I’d tried to bring it up.

  I didn’t put it right, maybe. I cared about the little guy just as much as Gracie did, but if she thought we were gonna be able to hide him up here forever…

  And those sunflowers. Those goddamn, creepy-ass sunflowers. She had to know that wasn’t normal. Goddamn seeds one day, thirty feet tall by the end of the week. Good soil. Right. But now, whenever I brought the topic of Jake up, Gracie scrammed. Hid out in her room, talking to that Internet chick, which she seemed to think was some big secret. Gracie thought that as long as the army guys stayed away, everything would be just peachy, but the kid was growing.

  And we had no idea what he was growing into.

  And what are you gonna do about it, even if do you get her to listen, big shot?

  Well, I didn’t have a plan exactly, but we’d have to keep Jake safe somehow, and wouldn’t it be safer for the kid if we stopped pretending all that weird shit wasn’t happening? Gracie would have to see the truth of it sooner or later. I needed her to. She was so smart, and so good at thinking problems through without getting bulldozed by them the way I did. It was weird—she wasn’t like the girls me and Stevie used to run around with at school, but there was something cool about her anyway. I gave the fishing line a pull. Nothing doing. She could at least have come along today, it was so boring sitting here staring at the lake. We could have talked about something different from supplies or Jake. Anything. After spending most of last Fall wishing she’d shut the hell up, I kind of missed her yapping on when we were apart.

  She’d laugh at me if she knew I was thinking that, like she did when I fussed after the chickens. Back when we’d met, I hadn’t liked the way she’d laughed at me, but now I laughed with her. She’d been acting so weird lately. She was probably mad at me. Mad she’d ended up stuck out in the middle of nowhere with such a loser.

  I hauled myself to my feet and looked around. There was no sign of Jake. Little guy was off playing in the woods again. God knows what he found to do out there. Maybe it was better not to know. The houses by the lake were real nice ones. Someone had once paid an awful lot of money for these houses—you could see that even with the way they were starting to go to ruin. The biggest of them had a deck that jutted right out into the lake. I could imagine myself sitting out on that deck in the morning, fishing for our breakfast. Gracie sitting beside me, maybe, telling me how I was holding the pole all wrong.

  Dumb. The place was huge—there was no way we’d have been able to keep up with it. No more mansions for anyone. That stuff, the good stuff beyond basic ragged-ass survival, belonged to “before.” The only thing to do with this house was to strip it of anything useful and let the forest take it.

  It was dark inside, of course, and hotter than Satan’s asshole, but the house was still in pretty good shape. As I paced the corridors, my feet sank into impractical white carpeting, and clattered over rich marble. My sneakers left footprints in the dust. It must have been a summer place. No sign of hastily-packed suitcases here. I was probably the first person who’d been in here since the rich dude who owned the place was last here on vacation.

  There was a huge staircase up to the second floor, with a pretty primo sliding banister, and I’d actually run to the top of the stairs and slung a leg over the rail before I realized what a supremely stupid way to die falling off a banister would be. No ambulances, no hospitals, so we had to be careful. Wouldn’t want to miss out on the fun of being alive in this brave new age of shitting in a hole in the ground and bathing in a bucket in the yard.

  The heat inside the house made my skin prickle and itch, and my dirty old shirt clung to the sweat on my back. I wanted to break something, just fuck some shit up to get some of the sudden rage out of me, but the house was so big and silent and sad that it would have been like desecrating a tomb. At the top of the stairs, there was a big pair of double doors, and when I pushed them open, the angry knot in my chest loosened and faded some.

  The room was beautiful. The far wall was made up of delicately arched windows, miraculously unbroken, and through them, the shimmer of the lake spread out before me. The huge expanse of floor was rich brown marble, the domed ceiling high above me painted gold, and the reflection of the sun on the water sent little wavelets of light dancing above me. A dusty giant of a chandelier still shimmered through the gaps in the veil of dust and cobwebs it wore. Whoever had owned this place sure knew how to live. I could almost see the parties they used to have here. Rich city people in tuxes or gowns that cost more than everything I owned. Bunch of stuck-up snobs. It didn’t help them in the end, did it? Now they were all dead and the house was mine. Until the woods grew right up through the floor and the whole thing crumbled into the soil.

  I spun in place, knowing I must have looked like a prime douchebag, but the room just called out for dancing. King of the world! The whole lousy, broken world. My sneakers scuffed and squeaked on the floor. What I needed was some music. God, it’d been so long since I’d heard music, I’d have listened to anything, even some of those shitty old crooner vinyl LPs we’d found in a box in the attic back at the cabin
.

  I closed the doors to the ballroom carefully. There were bedrooms further down the corridor. I should have been in the kitchen, really, looking for food, but God knows we could’ve used some new clothes. The cuffs of Jake’s jeans were about up to his knees he’d shot up so much recently, and mine weren’t much better. Gracie was taller too, and her clothes were getting tight in places where they didn’t used to be. The last time she’d been out in the vegetable garden wearing that old T-shirt of hers, I hadn’t been able to keep my eyes off her chest.

  Not cool.

  She was my friend. She would’ve be all kinds of mad if she’d known that I’d been thinking about her like that. And she was just a kid, too. But when I thought on it, she’d been fourteen when we’d met. It’d been almost a year, so she had to be fifteen now, halfway to sixteen, even. My own birthday must have come and gone in there somewhere, not to mention Christmas.

  Jeez, what a raw deal!

  Christmas.

  God, it was a stupid idea. Gracie would likely think I’d gone nuts, and Jake wouldn’t get it at all. But wouldn’t it be nice to work on something fun for a change? Not something to keep us alive, but something to actually enjoy? It was late afternoon by the time I was done in the house. I loaded canned food, matches, and an armful of clothes smelling like the ghosts of other people’s laundry detergent into the saddlebags we’d rigged on the bike. There was still no sign of Jake. I sure hoped the kid hadn’t wandered off too far. Gracie would spit nails if we had to risk the road back in the dark, and there was an hour’s ride ahead of us. I buckled the saddlebags tightly shut and made my way over to the edge of the woods.

  It was much darker under the trees than it was in the open, like the night was creeping out from its den somewhere in the heart of the forest. A shiver ran up my spine. Why anyone would live all the way out here in these creepy-ass woods if they had a choice was beyond me, ballroom or no ballroom.

  “Jake? Buddy, if you can hear me, you’d best get back here.”

  A bird scolded in the branches above. A fish jumped in the lake. Otherwise, all was silent.

  “Jake?”

  Great. Just perfect. I’d go a little way into the woods, then call again, but only a little way. It was spooky under the trees. Things rustled in the bushes. What I wouldn’t have given to be on a good city street, listening to the sounds of cars and sirens and other people’s TVs turned up too loud.

  “Hey? Jake? Just remember, if we’re late back and Gracie yells, it’s your—”

  A small body lay still in the dirt in front of me.

  “Oh God, Jake!”

  I flipped Jake onto his back, then brushed dirt of his face. His skinny little chest hitched, and I knew he was breathing at the very least.

  “Jake, buddy, wake up! Please.” His nose was crusted with dried blood. “Jake, seriously, you’re scaring the shit out of me.”

  Slowly, Jake’s eyes slid open. His brow creased in a frown as his eyes fixed on mine.

  “Jake, dude, are you okay?”

  “Fell,” whispered Jake.

  “Fell? How in the hell did you fall?”

  “I climbed. Up a tree.”

  “Why would you be climbing any damned tree? Who do you think is gonna help you if you’re really hurt? Are you really hurt? Jeez, what a goddamn mess this turned out to be!” I shook. If anything was broken, just what were we going to do about it?

  Jake climbed slowly to his feet.

  “If you broke your back or anything you shouldn’t be moving,” I told him.

  “I didn’t break my back,” said Jake. “I just fell down. I’m fine.”

  “Gracie is gonna go crazy.”

  Jake rubbed his head. “Secret.”

  I stared at Jake. He didn’t seem to be in pain. His eyes were focused. He looked a little pale, but that didn’t mean much on its own. “You mean we don’t tell her you fell?”

  Jake nodded. “Gracie will be sad if Jake fell.”

  “She’ll be fucking furious.”

  “Gracie says ‘fuck’ is a bad word,” said Jake, primly.

  I snorted a laugh in spite of myself, and Jake giggled too.

  “You’re sure you’re okay?” I asked him. “Nothing hurts? Your head feels okay?”

  “I feel normal,” said Jake.

  “Wave those arms around. Wiggle those fingers and toes.”

  Jake did as he was told. “See? I’m not broken.”

  “I guess you’re not, and even if you were, what in the hell would I be able to do about it?” I shrugged, and after a beat, Jake copied me.

  “We won’t tell Gracie, I guess, but if you start feeling weird, you come tell me, okay? If your head starts hurting or you feel dizzy, anything.”

  Jake nodded solemnly. “I will.”

  If anything felt weird. That was real funny. Maybe I should have just straight out asked the kid about everything right then; about those sunflowers, for starters. But Jake looked so small and worried. There was a big smear of mud on his face, and I tried my best to wipe it off while he stood there impassively. Trustingly.

  We’d talk another time, when I knew the kid wasn’t about to drop dead of a brain hemorrhage or something.

  “Well, let’s get going, before anything else goes wrong,” I said.

  As Jake clambered onto the back of the trail bike, he kept looking back at the woods like he was expecting them to wave him goodbye or some shit, but that was just normal Jake-level weirdness as far as I could see. I took my time adjusting my helmet. My hands were still shaky from seeing Jake laying there on the ground, and the last thing I needed was to wipe out on the bike. I squinted back over my shoulder at Jake.

  “If you need to stop, you just let me know, okay? Don’t need you falling off now.”

  But the kid was staring back at the woods again, in a world of his own.

  Gracie

  6_Star: You should just tell him. What’s the worst that can happen?

  GRC97: I’m stuck in a cabin with him for the next 40 years of ultimate awkward?

  6_Star: You didn’t tell me you guys live in a cabin. Rustic.

  GRC97: I guess you live in some underground bunker. With doors that go “swoosh.”

  6_Star: Not exactly. And you changed the subject.

  GRC97: Haha, I’m not telling him. I’ll get over it right?

  6_Star: I guess. When I was your age I used to get crushes all the time. And as soon as I saw a new guy I liked better? It was like the first guy had never existed. Not gonna work for you though, huh?

  GRC97: I’m not even sure if it’s a crush. It’s just…weird. How old are you, anyway?

  6_Star: A/S/L? That’s old school, G. I’m 35. Young enough to remember my first crush (which this totally is btw) on a guy. Honestly, just tell him.

  GRC97: IDK…

  6_Star: Or don’t. But you’re gonna feel awkward around him anyway, right?

  GRC97: So what’s the update on the Big Bads?

  6_Star: Well, something’s going on. They’ve called in another unit, but they’re not moving anywhere. I don’t think it’s anything for you guys to worry about. They’re hardly going to call in backup to deal with 3 people. And that was subject change #2 ;-)

  GRC97: Cool. At least one thing is going right for me. How are you? How is Jami?

  6_Star: Ugh. It’s not good. He’s hanging on. Lisa does what she can, but we’d need a medical suite to help him. The infection is spreading. Lisa thinks he needs an amputation, but we don’t have the stuff to do it…so it’s wait and see. As usual. He keeps screaming. I kind of find myself wishing it would just be over for him. Then I feel guilty.

  GRC97: You shouldn’t feel guilty. I’m sorry. I wish we could help.

  6_Star: Me too.

  “What you doing up here? I thought you were going out?”

  I jumped when I heard his voice. “Nothing, Brandon,” I said, closing my chat window. “Just reading. Jeez, you shouldn’t creep up on me like that!” Had he seen the screen? M
y cheeks heated up. This Brandon business was getting really old. “Are you going to be fooling around in there all day again?” I asked him.

  The attic of the cabin was divided in half. One half was my room, the other half was a dark and spooky cavern stuffed with boxes. Brandon had been hauling junk out through my room for the past two days, and if he was going to be at it again today, there was no point even trying to talk to 6_Star.

  “Why don’t you let me help?” I asked him. “The quicker it gets done, the quicker I get my peace and quiet back.”

  “Nah, that’s okay,” said Brandon. “It’s hot, and it’s pretty gross back there. Wouldn’t ask you to deal with it when I’m the one with the hair up my ass about getting organized.”

  “So says the guy who makes me gut the rabbits every time!”

  “You gotta learn how to do it,” shrugged Brandon. “It’s still cluttered as shit, besides. We’d just get in each other’s way.”

  He shrugged his shirt off, ready for work. The sun had painted his skin a golden brown. It suited him. Made the lighter licks of brown stand out in his dark hair. He bent to toss his T-shirt on the bed, and my eyes followed the way his muscles shifted. Would his chest be hard or soft if I laid my hands against it? I studied the curls of hair at the back of his neck. What would he do if I pressed my lips there?

  Laugh at me. That’s what.

  “What?” He turned back to me, frowning.

  I tore my eyes away. “Nothing,” I stammered.