Outcast Read online

  I walked barefoot across the lawn and sat in the swinging chair, the one I made Daddy build for me when I was nine ’cause I’d seen it in a movie once. I’d had my first kiss in that swing. My only kiss. How sad was that? Sixteen and I’d had one virginal kiss my whole life. But it wasn’t like I thought that was going to be it at the time. I mean, it was the beginning of something. The promise of something more. Didn’t think the next week he’d be gone.

  My one shot at happiness gone.

  People would laugh at that, tell me I was still young and all that. Sure they felt bad for me right after Chris was taken. Everyone looking at me with sad eyes. But after a year, well, I’m pretty sure everyone thought it was time to start getting over it. I know his mother and father and sister, Sissy, didn’t much seem to like that I spent more time mourning over him than they did. But they never knew him like I did. They hadn’t spent every free moment with him, climbed the old oak, or sat for hours just talking about stuff like we had.

  We’d been friends since the first day of school at five years old. He’d been the one to seek me out. I never really knew why he’d liked me so much back then, all freckles and a mass of yellow hair. Actually, I was never really sure why he liked me so much in general. He was so easy with himself, so comfortable in his own skin. Good looking, but not too much. Just an easy, average, all-American, they call it, kind of look. Soft dark brown curly hair, a slight build which, as he grew, became perfect for playing quarterback. Well, alternate. He’d probably have become full quarterback had he not been…had he become a senior. Then my boyfriend would’ve been the quarterback. I’d have been dating the quarterback.

  Me.

  Probably most people would have found that really strange.

  I was the total opposite from Chris. Never quite at ease with myself, never understanding how to dress. Always a bit tense around strangers. And being relaxed didn’t help matters much either. Then I was just…odd. When I was really comfortable with someone, I’d make these jokes no one really got. And then there was the way I looked at the world, my little philosophies I always felt like sharing, people just didn’t get those.

  Except Chris.

  He liked my jokes. He laughed at them because they were funny. Not because they were “strange.” Which was what most people thought.

  Maybe with him being so normal and me being so not we balanced each other out. Whatever it was, we’d got on great. I’d never even considered him boyfriend material when it all began; we were such good friends. Poor guy, having to put up with all my crushes and the tears over the years. And then he finally told me the truth. How he’d felt. And then he’d kissed me.

  It was awesome.

  From where I sat on the swing, through the trees, I could see downtown off in the distance, lights flickering as branches swayed gently back and forth briefly obscuring my view. Then not. I could hear the voices, the sound building as everyone made their way to the fair grounds. Couldn’t see anybody, but like with the angels, I knew they were there.

  It would be happening soon.

  The way I’ve been telling it, it sounds like they took hundreds of people a year, but that’s not true. It couldn’t be true, otherwise we wouldn’t have had anybody left. But I had noticed, and I think others had noticed as well, that each year the angels seemed to take more people. This really freaked me out. You’d think it would have freaked everybody out. But I knew a lot of people in town actually hoped they’d be taken once Pastor Warren had convinced them it was a good thing.

  You might wonder why my family didn’t leave when some of the others did. It wasn’t like we were really on board with all the angel worship like most people in the town. But Mother had moved the family back here when I was a baby for a reason.

  See, when her parents had died, the old family estate had been willed to her. If she hadn’t come back to live there, the will stipulated, then the town could do whatever they wanted with the house. There was also something about how her parents’ greatest wish was to have their grandchild raised in the place. It was one final guilt trip from beyond the grave.

  My mother already felt bad that she had moved to be with Daddy. She loved Hartwich, had one of those special connections to it that people who’ve had generations buried in the town cemetery have. She’d moved because she’d gotten pregnant out of wedlock, and her parents had disowned her. Even though she married my Daddy almost right away, it didn’t matter. But then, finally, two years later, something happened and they contacted her out of blue. Said they wanted to get to know me, said that they missed her. Said that family was the most important thing. They were driving to visit us for the first time up north when the guy that had had one too many drinks crossed the median and slammed head first into their car.

  Mother always blamed herself for that.

  When the will was read and she heard their last plea…well, that was it. Daddy got on the phone right away, got himself a job at Tulane, and we were packed up heading “home.”

  Anyway, when the angel thing started to happen, she was ready to leave for the night, sure. She didn’t care what anyone thought. But when the new law was passed that if you left then you could never come back…

  It was a painful choice for her. But she just couldn’t abandon her parents. Not again.

  It tore her up every year. And I think it was starting to weaken her. I think her resolve was getting thin. She wouldn’t last through many more years of this. We’d move. I saw it in her. Maybe not next year or the year after that. But we’d move. She’d disappoint her parents for my sake.

  It felt like an awful lot to put on my shoulders.

  So we were a bit different from most people here who stayed because of their reverence for the angels and Pastor Warren’s church. We’d never really been church-goers even before all the Taking stuff happened. When we’d first come back, Mother had us attend regularly to make an impression on the town. But eventually Daddy said he couldn’t do it anymore:

  “Wasting time indoors like that on a perfectly good Sunday morning. I can appreciate the miracle of the world better by going for a walk.”

  We did attend the Church of the Angels once, though. All three of us. Even Daddy. It was out of curiosity, of course. I know Daddy had thought the Church of the Angels would be a passing phase, but once everyone in town started reciting its tenets, started handing us pamphlets and explaining the Glory, well, curiosity got the better of us.

  That’s the first time we’d really got to see Pastor Warren do his thing. He was a very sweaty man, much more so than most. He was kind of weedy looking, but that was me projecting my opinion on him. Others would simply say skinny. He was also losing his hair, trying to pretend he wasn’t. Wore a hat all the time—even indoors. His eyes were buggy. Many of the ladies in the town called him handsome. Chris and I just thought he was freaky.

  We thought the whole damn thing was freaky.

  Pastor Warren started off the sermon with the prayer to the angels, thanking them for choosing us, and blessing them as they had blessed us. Then he turned and spoke to us for a stupid long time. Telling us our duty to the angels. It was really spooky, but you could hear these sounds in the church, hard to describe, kind of like moaning I guess. I assumed it had to do with the way the church was built and air passing through it, but it sounded otherworldly for sure. In fact, there was a section of the service where we just sat quietly and listened to those sounds. For messages, Pastor Warren had explained.

  Then a pad of paper was passed round. You’d take a piece and write your sins onto it and then place it in the copper plate that his assistants, “disciples” they were called, would present to you. The ceremony ended with one of them going up into the tall tower attached to the church and sending the papers flying on the wind.

  Chris and I spent the remainder of the day walking around picking up the papers, reading the sins. We collected a pile and sat in the long grass, trying to figure out who in the town belong
ed to which one. We almost died from hysterics when we read Sissy had a huge crush on Mr. Malone the algebra teacher.

  That was how it was with Chris.

  Take a really strange day and make it a good one.

  Now sitting on that stupid swinging bench, I felt that familiar empty feeling again in my stomach. The memories that swing evoked were just too much to handle. I stood up in frustration and turned back toward the house, marching up the slight slope to the small side door.

  That’s when I saw it.

  4.

  Out of the corner of my eye.

  I hadn’t realized I’d seen it till I was inside the house, but I stopped in my tracks, heart in my throat, when it dawned on me. My hand was hovering over the light switch to the main hall, but I thought better of it and didn’t turn it on.

  As quietly as I could I climbed upstairs to my room. Even though I hadn’t turned on a single light, I still felt a need to crawl across the floor of my bedroom to avoid being seen through the windows. Okay, so it might have seemed like a ridiculous thing to do, but my fight-or-flight response was keen. I felt this crazy strong need to survive even if I looked silly doing it. When I finally reached the other side, I pulled myself up with the help of the window seat, inch by inch, until I could just barely see outside. This didn’t do much of anything as I was level with the tree line. So I pulled myself up further. And a bit further. Until finally I was sitting, half-hidden by the wall, staring down at the lawn.

  And it was staring right back up at me.

  Holy shit! My heart jumped right into my brain then, and I fell off the bench.

  A second, that’s all it’d taken to process what I’d seen. Less than, not that I counted or anything. A black silhouette. Huge, over seven feet, I’d guess. And wings. Honest-to-goodness wings, open wide in my direction.

  It stood on two feet like a person, but its head wasn’t shaped right, the body too broad. Closer to a minotaur I’d say. Though no horns, no bull’s head. Okay, I don’t know where the minotaur idea came from, but it felt accurate even if it wasn’t really. And, yes, I happened to know what a minotaur was.

  All in a second.

  Holy shit.

  Shook my head at that thought. Holy shit indeed. Very holy.

  Too many emotions were running through me. Then a thought. Better make sure it’s still there.

  It’s still there.

  And still staring right up at me.

  With my back against the wall, my knees pulled in tight, and tears forming in my eyes, I tried to figure out what to do next. I couldn’t understand why it was just standing there, why it hadn’t just taken me already. Why I could see it in the first place.

  Like I said before, in my mind, the only reason angels show themselves is because they want to be seen.

  What did it want from me?

  Then something inside me switched. Just like that. I’ll never understand what happened. All I know is, it did. Sitting there, in the corner of my room, shaking and scared and stuff, it just seemed so unfair. This was my home, damn it. This was where I grew up, this was where my mother grew up, and her father before that. And that creature was just going to stand outside my window and terrorize me? Make me scared in my own home?

  It was bad enough this thing was responsible for making me frightened every day of my life. Wondering and worrying about Chris. Made me cry almost every morning and made me numb to almost anything else. Made my grades suffer, affected my future. What the hell was I doing just sitting shaking in the corner?

  I was tired of it. Tired of all of it.

  No.

  I was damn angry.

  Chris had taught me how to shoot a shotgun last year. He’d taken me out late one night, deep onto the furthest corner of their property, and told me to point it at the old oak. Poor thing was riddled—the history of the Hamilton boys as demonstrated through bullet holes. Rifles, hand guns, shotguns. All from different eras.

  “See this? This is from the Civil War.” Chris ran his finger over a hole that was little more than a groove now, covered in moss.

  He showed me how to load the thing, point, and fire. First time scared the hell out of me. I didn’t expect the recoil or the sound. Thought we’d wake up the whole town. But Chris said he was impressed.

  “Why? I totally moved off target!”

  “Yeah, but not by much. And you didn’t stagger, didn’t stumble over or anything. That’s really impressive,” he said, and it sounded like he meant it. But I was pretty sure he was just being his typical sweet self. At any rate, next time I was ready, and I managed to hit the tree. Actually it was kind of crazy, I’d actually managed to hit that same groove from the Civil War. Chris had complimented me on my aim even though I knew it’d been an accident. I kind of had to admit liking the feel of shooting. But when Chris asked if I wanted to go hunting with him next season, I said no. Couldn’t stomach the idea.

  Different thing, shooting animals.

  Angels aren’t animals.

  We had a shotgun. Mother couldn’t live comfortably without one. Daddy couldn’t live comfortably with one. But Mother won that round.

  I was damn angry.

  I stormed downstairs. I didn’t feel a need to hide anymore. Made my way to the gun cabinet, unlocked it, grabbed the gun. Then I went to the safe in Daddy’s study for the shells and loaded it. It felt heavier than Chris’s. Felt more dangerous.

  My stomach turned, and I thought I might be sick. But then the rage came back, and I felt right again.

  When I got to the back hall, I took a deep breath and flattened my back against the wall. I slid along down the corridor keeping an eye on the window in the door. I couldn’t see anything but darkness through it. The angel couldn’t be far away. My room was almost directly above that door. Unless, of course, the angel had gone and that would be a good thing, right?

  Right?

  I made it to the door and kept to the left. I stared out the window, but it was hard to see at that angle. If I was going to go through with this, I couldn’t just stay inside. On the count of three, then, on the count of three I’d swing open the door, rack the shotgun, and step outside. That was the plan. On the count of three.

  One.

  That was the plan.

  Two.

  ’Cause I might be losing my mind.

  Three.

  I was outside, a loaded chamber hot in my hands, before I could process the idea of turning a doorknob. My adrenaline was surging.

  No angel to be seen.

  “Where are you?!” I cried out. I had some nerve, calling like that. “I know you’re out here, and you’d better show yourself!” Or else what?

  It was obviously calling my bluff. Probably standing two feet away from me, all invisible-like and laughing at me. I must have looked damn crazy standing there in Daddy’s old Columbia T-shirt, aiming a gun at the dark of the yard.

  That’s when the screaming started. Not my screaming. I was still dealing with the invisible angel issue. No, the screaming from through the forest, across the river, and in the town. The screaming where the lights still twinkled from between the trees.

  They were back. And it was business as usual, it seemed.

  Got me right riled up.

  “Show yourself, you son-of-a-bitch!”

  You must come with me.

  The voice was in my head, but it wasn’t a thought. I turned and he was right there, standing right there so close I could have seen the whites of his eyes. If he’d had anything other than deep black holes where eyes ought to have been. I staggered back. I believe instinct took over because the shotgun fired in the opposite direction, and he disappeared.

  Good effort.

  “I don’t think sarcasm is helping your situation right now!” I called out at no one as I racked my second round. The sound was comforting.

  He reappeared maybe ten feet away in front of me. I heard laughing in my head.

  You
’re strange.

  That’s the last straw, buddy.

  “Yeah, well, you’re dead.”

  And I shot that angel right in the face.

  5.

  I locked up the gun cabinet with shaking hands and leaned my forehead against the cool glass. What had I done? Oh dear god, what had I done? Tears were forming in my eyes again, tears of panic and confusion. Couldn’t go hunting with Chris, oh no, that would be cruel. But shooting angels in the face? No problem.

  Oh dear god.

  I didn’t want to go back out there. I couldn’t go back out there. After I’d fired the gun and he’d fallen backward clear off his feet, wings splayed out under him, one on a funny angle, well, after that, I’d just run inside. Fight-or-flight response. How about fight and then flight response? How about the shoot-angel-in-face-and-then-run-away-as fast-as-you-can response?

  Aw, man. I’d just shot an angel in the face.

  I made my way into the foyer and sat down on the stairs. I glanced up at the big old grandfather clock. It was going on ten. My folks would be home soon.

  “How was your evening, honey?”

  “Killed an angel.”

  “Well, isn’t that nice.”

  That wasn’t happening. Daddy never liked guns in the first place, Mother just pretended to. I was so grounded.

  I stood up. I had to get rid of it. I’d take it into the forest, bury it or something. Could I do that? It was huge after all, and I wasn’t exactly super in-shape or anything. I could get the wheelbarrow from the shed, and all I’d have to figure out was how to get him into it. I could do that.

  I had to do that.

  Went out the back door this time, trying to avoid the scene of the crime for as long as possible. I walked down the back porch along the garden path to the small shed in the back, unlocked it with the key hidden under the ceramic turtle. Grabbed the wheelbarrow and made my way around the side of the house.