Authors: J Bennett
I spend the first hour of the night committing the pictures
to memory, tracing each face with my finger again and again, staring into the
vacant eyes of my long lost family and imagining character traits. Canton would
have Gabe’s laugh — a free, warm chuckle. He teases. Diana is more serious. She
can turn her face into granite like Tarren. Her voice goes all soft and
dangerous when she is angry. The little girl, Tammy, is boisterous and
aggressive. Gabe is a gurgling infant, the happy kind that never cries. But
what to make of Tarren? Every picture displays his down-turned head and little
balled fists.
The night feels too long, and I’m not tired. I take my time
circling the room, running my eyes over every surface. I peek into the closet
and find it empty. Nothing under the bed either. I re-read each title on the
bookshelf and notice an empty wedge of space between
The
Illiad and The Aeneid.
I sit on the bed and don’t think about Ryan, don’t replay
his death over and over so many times that that it runs smooth as a DVD in my
head, don’t craft and decorate exotic Grand-murdering fantasies and especially
don’t linger on sall the questions huddled together in my mind, heavy and
unbearable. But I don’t cry. That part really is true.
Instead, I calmly pick at my wrists, only it’s hardly any
use at all. New skin has already knitted neatly over the gashes, and I’m sure
this is another angel thing. Or whatever I am now. I slide my fingers through
my short hair. The prickly ends remind me that this is real, but I don’t really
need any more convincing. The song lingers inside me; that need for something
that tugs and taunts all day long and roars like chalkboard scratches at night.
And it’s still night, and I’m still not tired, and I can’t
take this not thinking about stuff anymore. So I slip out the window, glad for
the cold air. Pulling myself up and over onto the roof is surprisingly easy,
though I know I wouldn’t have been able to do it before. I’m thinking it might
be peaceful up here, but it isn’t. The property around the house devolves into
thick woods. My attention is drawn by leaping sparks of energy all about me and
the scents of so many new things. My body responds, hands growing hot and
glowing. Yes, I hold them out in front of me and see that the tips of my
fingers give off a pale hedge of light.
It’s time to know what I can do.
Carpe
noctem.
The trees hold out their limbs for me, and I leap, adjusting
intuitively to land cat soft onto the nearest one. I pounce onto another branch
then clutch one above and swing myself easily around and up onto my feet. I
take a deep breath and exhale slow with reverence. This is an entirely new
body, acrobatic and strong like an elite gymnast. Graceful. Intuitive. Swift.
So many new adjectives that I can rightfully commandeer.
Thrilling. Terrifying. Powerful. The cleave of monster and
human.
Something catches my attention. My body is moving, leaving
my thoughts behind. The prey is a sharp bright point skittering across a branch
next to me. I crouch. The energy roils inside of me. My heart beats loud thuds
that join the high cricket strings. It fills my ears, sweet drum. Strong drum.
Companion hunter.
I leap, swinging, hands ripping on the harsh bark, but I
couldn’t care. Just blood. So close. For a moment I am hurtling through the
air. Wind kissing my face. Just the emptiness and that little dot of energy
growing larger. The squirrel is frozen in fear, its heart throbbing mad, making
me crazy. I snatch it right off the branch as I fall. It’s dead before I land.
* * *
I wake up on the roof and notice my gloves are gone. The sun
is just coming up. Deep gouges score my palms and forearms. I remember and
shiver. Monster Maya is Werewolf Maya. I think I was still in control, and it
was only a squirrel after all, a perfectly acceptable snack. A noise. Doorknob
turning.
I jump, grab the edge of the roof with my left hand as I
fall, swing through the bay window, let go and skid onto my bed, grabbing up
the blanket as I roll.
Tarren cracks open the door and beholds a Maya tortilla
wrapped in blankets with eyes closed, face smooth and serene in slumber. He
stands there for a while and then closes the door. I let out my breath in a big
whoosh and untangle myself from the blankets.
Even as I begin pulling long wooden splinters from my skin,
I follow Tarren’s energy as he moves through the house. When he steps outside,
I scramble back up onto the roof and stretch out onto my stomach.
Tarren stands below me looking out along the empty gravel
road. I can only see the back of his head, but I imagine his face is grim and
determined. He takes off running, red pain springing up in his aura near his
injured rib. His fluid gait reveals a natural athleticism.
There are heavy things on his mind. Dark things. What
happened to the shy boy in the photographs?
* * *
Gabe cradles a bowl of drowned cereal in his arm as he
clicks through emails. All three computer monitors are alight. Bluegrass twangs
from the speakers on his desk as he flips across tabs in his browsers, pulling
up and quickly dismissing page after page.
He flinches when he catches me out of the corner of his eye.
“Jesus, put some bells on or something,” he says with a
smile.
“Morning,” I reply. “You’re wearing the same jeans from
yesterday.”
“Changed my shirt though. Even hit some deodorant now that
we’ve got a girl in the house. You’re welcome.”
He’s expecting a retort back, but my throat has gone tight.
I’m ready to cry all over again, because I’m suddenly so grateful that he’s
treating me like a normal person and so terrified because he’s also treating me
like a sister.
“I caught a squirrel,” I tell him.
Gabe spins around in his chair and looks me over, noting my
dirt-streaked elbows and pine needle hair accessories.
“Did it have a crooked tail?” he asks.
“The squirrel? No, I don’t think so.”
“Good. I like that one. He’s like boss of the squirrels.
It’s cool.” Gabe spins back around and leaves the spoon sticking out his mouth
as he opens another email. “Oh, and you probably shouldn’t tell Tarren about
the whole squirrel killing thing,” he mumbles. “He can be…well, sometimes it’s
just better not to tell him things.”
I study the warring action figures arranged on the shelf
above Gabe’s computers. A Cylon from Battlestar Galactica is locked in deadly
combat with a samurai sword-wielding Bratz doll. Disgraced green army men lay
where they fell. I can’t imagine the fused feet were anything but a liability.
Wolverine has his claws plunged through a Happy Meal Shrek figurine.
Eyes stare out at me from the left computer screen, and I
turn and take note of a young girl positioned and smiling in the fake way of a
school picture. She looks a little like my freshmen roommate. Same upturned
nose and long neck. Rachel must be in class right now. Listening. Studying. Not
being a monster.
The girl on the computer screen is not in class. Her picture
on the screen accompanies her obituary.
“Did you, uh,” I try to be cool about this. “Is this an
angel you, uh…”
They do kill people,
I remind
myself.
Lots of people
.
“No, not us,” Gabe follows my gaze. “But someone did, or
something. Obits are how we find them. Angels.” He nods to the computer screen.
“Google alerts are the greatest thing ever except for Keira Knightley.
Basically, I set specific search terms, and Google trolls through all the news
and sends back anything that matches.”
“And you look for dead people?”
“Right-o.” Gabe spins his chair around, so that he faces me
again. “Mostly heart attacks between the ages of 15 - 45 but also radiation
poisoning and, of course, unexplained causes as the catch all for the rest.”
“That’s a lot of obits…wait, radiation poisoning?”
“Failed angles. Not everyone survives the infection process.
It wreaks havoc on your body, screwing up your DNA, no offense. For some
people, their bodies give out. Radiation is a strong component of the process.
Sometimes the coroner can’t figure out any other cause of death, so they say
radiation poisoning. Wha-la, failed angel. And where there’s one dead angel…”
Body on fire. Turning, twisting,
contorting into something else entirely. Every cell exploding in my veins.
Bones shattering like glass. The fear of not knowing what is happening or if it
will ever stop.
“Oh,” I say when Gabe raises his eyebrows. “Uh, where
there’s one angel, there are bound to be others.”
“Bingo, Yahtzee and Connect Four.”
“And heart attacks?”
“Iced. Angels kill by absorbing a victim’s energy. It’s what
they feed off of. As the angel is sucking up the energy, the victim’s heart
just gives out. It’s what actually kills the person. Heart attack.”
But Ryan had such a strong heart. I
would lay my head against his chest and…
I swallow. “You said ‘iced’?”
“Oh yeah, well angels suck away body heat with everything
else. Victims are ice cold. That’s how I tell a regular heart attack from an
angel. Autopsy will show a way low body temp at death.”
Ryan cold and dead and alone. Frozen on
the pavement while I fly away. Warm breath stolen. Hot lips chilled.
Gabe continues, “If I find a heart attack where I shouldn’t,
say a healthy 30-year-old athlete, I look for other unexplained or strange
deaths in the area or a spate of missing persons. That’s how we find them.”
He clicks a tab on the middle screen to reveal a map of the
United States smattered with multi-colored pins.
“Google maps are the shit. Google should just take over the
world, seriously,” Gabe says. “This map is totally interactive. I load on all
my suspicious obits — those are the red pins — and look for patterns.” His mouse
grazes across the screen, and each pin lights up with notes. Names. Dates.
Modes of death.
“Most of the angels move around a lot,” Gabe continues.
“It’s the only way not to get caught. By following a wake of bodies, we can put
together a crude trail. If I confirm angel, the pins turn white, and we load up
the car and go.”
I don’t know how to be cool or good about this, so I just
tell the truth. “That’s really creepy.”
Gabe shrugs, “I just kind of zone out while I do it, you
know,”—here he makes quotes with his fingers—“compartmentalize.” There’s a note
of bravado in his voice while he offers this explanation, and all of this is so
wrong, so dark and twisted. How can two guys living out in the middle of
nowhere be fighting a war?
Here’s the part where I would have asked all about Grand and
all about Diana and what happened to Tammy and all those other big, mean,
skittish questions — I’m sure of it — except that Tarren walks through the
door. He’s dripping sweat, face flushed, but it’s his own fault for wearing
long sleeves and pants on such a warm day.
“Practice in half an hour,” he says to Gabe, “but one of us
should stay here.”
“Well, I gotta’ do a ton of work on the websites anyway,”
Gabe says. “Did I tell you about the new one I’m putting together? HatersHatingTogether.”
“Ridiculous,” Tarren mutters under his breath. Gabe doesn’t
hear him, but I do.
“Okay,” Tarren says louder. “You stay, but get in a
workout.”
“Sure, sure, but I’ll probably go easy, you know, the
ankle.”
“Not too easy.”
It’s 8:00 in the morning, and Tarren is already firing on
all cylinders. His aura is taut, ticking up and down like an animal on the
prowl. So many dark hues shifting within his blues. It makes me nervous. So do
his eyes, and that scar. Actually, everything about Tarren unnerves me. Even
Superman had a day job.
After Tarren leaves, Gabe is overly attentive to my needs. I
assume this means Tarren tasked him with Maya sentry duty. Probably warned him
that I was liable to go on a murderous rampage if let out of sight.
Gabe wants to know if I’m thirsty, if I want to watch one of
his vast collection of Bruce Lee movies, if there are any video games I like or
music I want to hear. Do I know any good Chuck Norris jokes?
The only thing I know is that I want to go home. The only
thing I want is Ryan alive and Grand dead but only after lots of suffering.
What I say out loud is “I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine infinity plus one.”
This last assertion wins a chuckle from Gabe, but, more
importantly, he stops asking me stupid questions. My turn.
“When do we find Grand?” I ask. “When do you start training
me?”
“Uh…” Fine yellow hues pulse through Gabe’s aura. “Later,”
he says. “Want to go work out in the basement? I mean, I don’t
have
to just because Tarren said so. He thinks he’s the
leader of the team, but it’s like—dude, there’s no team. It’s just me, and I
think you’re full of shit.”
We stare at each other.
“We got weights and stuff down there.”
“Sure.”
* * *
Groaning stairs lead us down into a musty room with
unpainted concrete walls. It is cooler down here, shadowy and bare. An old
couch stands in the corner, stained and frayed and looking like it would be
comfortable on the porch of a frat house or hanging out on any local curb. I
know what a bloodstain looks like, but I don’t ask. Gabe is showing off a
scuffed pool table, noting that two of the balls are missing, but since they
are one solid and one stripe, it works out just fine.
A cardboard cutout of Keira Knightley pouts in the corner.
She’s in full
Pirates of the Caribbean
regalia:
tight bodice, long skirt, feathered hair and dark, sultry eyes.
“She likes to watch me work out,” Gabe says. “Can’t say I
blame her. It’s not every day you get front row seating at the gun show.” He
makes a bicep for Keira and kisses it. I roll my eyes.
The “gym” consists of scattered free weights and an exercise
ball on the floor, a bench and weight rack, and a pull up bar hanging from a
door frame on the other side of the room.
“Fox Cave,” Gabe nods to the door.
“Fox Cave?”
“You know, like the Bat Cave. It’s where we plan stuff.
Strategize.” Gabe shrugs like this is obvious. “Oh, that other door down there
is Tarren’s lab. Don’t bother him in the lab unless it’s important. He’s real
pissy about that.”
I don’t ask what Tarren does in his lab. I’m getting that
dizzy-sick feeling again; the one where my brain starts edging toward the door,
ready to flee this new, insane reality.
Gabe lies back on the bench, reaches up and wraps his hands
around a bar loaded with weight. The bar is clearly stacked for Tarren, but
Gabe sets his face, hauls in a heavy breath and pulls the bar up and out of the
rack.
I perch on the couch, away from the bloodstain and watch how
his energy quickens and turns dark at the edges as he strains to lower the bar.
Something about being down here, about Gabe and the way his
face is flushing red as he tries to show off, eases my tension. I begin asking
small, safe-ish questions.
Between grunts and gasps, Gabe tells me that he is 23. His
favorite color is usually blue, but sometimes green and sometimes the bright
yellow of highlighters.
Tarren is 26. Gabe doesn’t know his favorite color.
When they’re not on a mission, the Fox brothers train almost
constantly. They’ve erected a makeshift shooting range in the backyard and take
fighting classes in Pueblo and even up in Colorado Springs. Gabe lists them
off: Mixed Martial Arts on Monday and Wednesday, Krav Magna on Friday and
Sunday, CrossFit on Tuesday and Thursday. Yoga on Saturday.
On the fifth rep, the bar tilts to the left as Gabe pushes
it up with trembling arms. I think it’s going to topple sideways, but with a
grunt he gets it up and drops it with a heavy clang onto the rack.
“You’ve got to reach…muscle failure… ‘S how you bulk up,” he
informs me through panting breaths. “If Keira starts swooning…make sure
and…catch her.”
I look at his thin, boy’s body and hide my smirk with
another question. “Yoga, really?”
“That was my idea actually,” Gabe grins and sits up on the
bench. “I convinced Tarren that it helps with flexibility and concentration and
gave us a day to recover so we could beat the shit out of ourselves all over
again the next week.” Deep purple humming bird wings are taking flight in his
aura, and I think I know where this is going.
“And?”
“And maybe Francesca happens to take the same class. Total
coincidence. It seems we both have very centered souls.” The red is dropping
out of Gabe’s face but stays in his cheeks.
“Does her Downward Dog happen to be at the center of your
soul?”
“Oh, you’re dirty. That’s just, well, God, she’s really
flexible. And her hair, sometimes it gets loose. You should come with. Just
don’t, like, start doing finger pushups or anything. Got to keep the super
powers on the down low.”
I try to laugh. Super powers.
Not
exactly
.
Gabe moves on to pushups, executes twenty, thirty, forty
with ease. I am highly attuned to his energy, how it rises up as he begins to
reach his limit. His head drops. Eyes squeeze shut. He’s distracted,
vulnerable. A new and dark awareness is awake inside of me. I know exactly how
quickly I could leap from the couch, how I would subdue him and connect to his
energy before he could counter my attack.
This is the sense of a predator, the mind of a monster. Gabe
rolls over and wipes his face on his shirt. So many moments open for attack.
Such blue, bright energy he has.
Gabe looks at me, tugs his shirt back down and smiles in
this awkward, sheepish way. I pretend like nothing’s wrong. Horribly, terribly,
irreparably wrong.
“I still can’t believe you’re here,” he mutters.
To mask the fact that I kinda want to drain him, I break eye
contact with Gabe, thrust myself up from the couch and walk over to the pull up
bar. I jump up and hang.
“How do you get the guns?” I ask to break the silence.
“Gun shows.” Gabe lies against the ball and crunches up.
“It can’t be that easy.”
“Oh but it is…No background checks…Nothing...You can get an
arsenal…with cash and a handshake.” He speaks with the rhythm of his motion.
“God bless…paranoid Libertarians.”
Before, when I was human, I could do exactly one pull up. I
was very, very proud of that pull up. Now, my chin rises up to the bar easily
as if my body were filled with hollow bird bones.
“It seems impossible,” I say to Gabe, “that you can just buy
all this illegal stuff; that you can kill people without getting caught.”
Gabe laughs and sits up on the ball. “Remember this, it’s
important. Whatever you want, you can get it. Guns, drugs, people, credit card
numbers, whatever. As long as they can’t find you, they can’t stop you.”
“How can that possibly work?”
“It’s not easy, but it’s doable. Especially online. There
are ways to cover your tracks, to be anonymous or to be someone else entirely.
If you got the right skill set, you can go anywhere, find anything, do anything
and never get caught. As long as they don’t know who you are, they can’t find
you.”
“And if they can’t find you, they can’t stop you,” I finish.
“Bingo, Yahtzee, and Connect Four. You just learned a very
important life lesson.” Gabe’s enjoying himself. Everything he just said
terrifies the piss out of me.
“But if you do get caught…” I venture.
“Not an option.”
“But if you do…”
“How many is that?”
Throughout our conversation, I’ve been steadily pulling
myself up to the bar.
“I don’t know.” I drop down, brush my hands on my jeans.
“No, no, keep going,” Gabe says, but I shake my head. “It’s
okay Maya, it’s cool.”
I look at Gabe, at his free smile and bright elf eyes. He
does think it’s cool. Little boy lost in his comic books.
* * *
Tarren returns to the house in the evening and unloads
groceries from the car. Relieved of guard duty, Gabe steps outside and is soon
arguing with his cell phone.
The last item that Tarren brings in is a dune-colored guinea
pig. It’s a small thing and huddles in the corner of its cardboard box. Poor
little dinner.
“Nah man, Smith and Wesson, SD40. No baggage on it.” Gabe’s
voice carries to my sensitive ears. “Oh bullshit, I don’t got a week.”
“Don’t kill that at the table,” Tarren nods toward the
guinea pig.
Shame unfurls in my chest. Yes, I would have killed the
guinea pig at the table. It’s everything I can do to hold myself back this
long. I want to grab its soft body in my fist and squeeze.
I look at the animal now, concentrating on the shivering
body beneath its bright, energy. I had a guinea pig once. She was a tawny
orange color, so I called her Cheez-It, my favorite snack at the sophisticated
age of seven. I fed her pellets every morning and then mixed salad and chopped
carrots at night. I remember taking her out after school and putting her in my
lap, amazed that I owned this living, breathing, wonderful creature.
I pick up the box. “I’ll take it upstairs.”
“Well, okay,” Tarren shrugs.
Later, when the little brown guinea pig is iced and tossed
out the back window, I hear a soft knock on the door. I would have expected
Gabe, except that I feel Tarren’s ticking energy waiting on the other side.
I let him in, but he pauses at the threshold. Tarren is very
good at keeping his face calm, but there are things he cannot hide from me.
Little by little, I am learning to read secrets in the ever-frayed patterns of
color and movement within his aura.
Tarren doesn’t give away his exhaustion, but I can see it in
how low his energy lays across his frame. The rib is killing him; each breath
stitches red through the murky blue. I wonder why he is so relentless in his
concealment of vulnerability.
“Come in,” I tell him softly.
Tarren sees the sympathy on my face, frowns and steps into
the room, dropping several bags at the foot of my bed.
“We got most of the clothes and things on the list,” he
says. He is looking straight ahead. Not at me or the pictures. “And this. Gabe
picked it out. He said you were a Mac. Probably not a good idea, but…” he
trails off as he hands me the box tucked beneath his arm.
Tarren’s fingers brush my wrist. He flinches. The hunger is
everywhere, drawing me to him, and we’re standing so close. My hands grow hot,
and I fight to keep my skin down over the slits. Tarren’s heart is picking up
beats, and so is mine, but only I can hear their discordant melody.
“Thanks,” I turn away from him.
“Maya, you can’t…”
“Can’t contact anyone, I know.”
“You have to be careful about everything. No logging into
old email accounts. No social media things.”
“I get it,” I say putting the computer box on the bed and
wrapping my hands around my waist. “Nothing. Nada. Nusquam. Old life, gone,
gone gone…and more gone.”
We stare past each other at odd angles of the room. Tarren
pretends to gaze out the window. I look at the empty wedge of space in the
middle of the bookshelf. The silence roams wide circles around us, teasing. I
assume he still wants to kill me. I can’t blame him, I really can’t. This
realization hurts. Would I kill me too?
Tarren rescues me from my thoughts.
“Is everything…uh, comfortable. The room? There’s extra
blankets in the closet.” He actually mumbles like a real person.
“Tarren, you don’t have to…” I can’t help myself, “act like
you want me here.”
His mouth grows tighter. “We have a responsibility for you
now.”
We both just let that hang there for a while. Tarren’s got
those arctic eyes on again, and they wander away from my gaze.
“There’s uh, one more thing, Maya. I left it in the hall.”
He leaves the room, and I wonder if he will come back. It
might be better for us both if he doesn’t. Gabe needs to be here. He is a
circuit breaker, grounding the tense currents that run between Tarren and me.
As far as I can tell, Gabe’s face always follows his energy. No hidden
emotions. No secret nightmares.
Tarren returns, carrying a long roll of paper in his hands.
“On that first night, after you, uh, fell asleep, I went
back to the campus.” He pauses to lick his lips. I watch the scar move as he
speaks. “I was in your apartment when Grand snatched you. I’m usually careful,
but when Gabe called I left without cleaning up. So, I had to get back before
the cops started dusting the place.”
The expression on my face stops his rush of words.
“You think we’re crazy. Yeah, so do I,” Tarren says, and he
must be more exhausted then I realized, because his face breaks into a shy
smile that is so endearing I almost lose the seethe of my anger. In that smile
I see the little boy from the photos. The way he ducks his head, has no idea
how handsome he is. I still hate him though.
“You’re mad, of course, but we were trying to…and, I didn’t
mean….well, it doesn’t matter. We didn’t protect you. We failed.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I finally break in.
“Because,” Tarren holds out the roll of paper to me. “I
shouldn’t have taken it, but I just, it seemed like something special…”
I unroll the paper, slow at first, then faster and faster as
I realize what it is. I kneel on one corner and push the paper wide. Avalon
opens below me, and I drop into the magical island. I find myself wandering the
interlocking pathways, making sure the trains are still running, the buildings
are stable and humming with productive work. Bikes whiz past, and I run to the
great knotted trees in the center park. Ryan is here, everywhere, in the tall
silhouette of each building, in the wind-powered turbines rotating lazily in
the breeze, in the shimmer of the sun over the ocean.