Unloaded

by Eric Beetner

  They all smiled at one another, and that night, when she watched her lover leave and melt into the night, she knew she would be his forever.

  She’d seen him!

  Heart pounding frantically against her chest, she floundered through the swamp, gray, rough grass retreating to a bog of brown decay. The light was coming up, growing brighter. They were closer to the border.

  Patched clothes, worn and dirty. But they hung on the straight, lean back and athlete’s body, his blond hair longer and unkempt, still curling like the tendrils of a vine on his white neck.

  She fought for another glimpse, mud heavy on her burning legs. He walked unevenly on higher ground, first fast, then slowing almost to a stroll.

  He was all that mattered. Not the hungry dogs, still barking in the distance, not the grim, implacable guards, not the Ice Queen herself, the Matron with the cruel smile who delighted in her suffering. He was all that mattered.

  She pushed herself faster. Her ankle finally buckled under the weight of the thick sludge, plunging her into the water. She pulled herself upright, brushing the mud off her arms. The green-brown stripes stayed fixed.

  Leeches. Their tiny teeth stabbed her flesh, burrowing holes in her limbs. There was no time to remove them, no time to stop them from sucking the remaining strength from her legs.

  No time.

  Escape…

  They’d gone back to the place where they’d first made love. It was June.

  The girl was busy figuring out the food, the guests, the singers—oh no, he couldn’t do his own singing, he was the bridegroom, besides—she laughed at his easy smile, as he propped on an elbow on the grass—besides, she wanted people to notice her dress.

  She was thinking about lying with him, making love in the afternoon sun, when a shadow fell across the glen. She looked up, startled, but her lover smiled and rose, greeting the youth as if he knew him.

  He was a farmer, a bee-keeper, the son of a rich and powerful man. He owned the adjacent fields, near the river, and had heard of the wedding plans. He brought them honey from the hives, for good luck.

  The young girl accepted it, smiling at first, but grew troubled by the look in the bee-keeper’s eyes, and most of all by the brush of his finger when she took the honey jar from him.

  It burned.

  “Please come for the wedding,” her lover was saying.

  “When is it?” The young man’s eyes continually darted toward hers, and she shivered, thinking of a snake’s tongue.

  “Tomorrow.”

  His mouth looked broken when he smiled. “I will be happy to come.”

  Her lover laughed, that easy music that made her mother love him and her father yield. She moved closer, and he put his arm around her and kissed her, and still she felt the bee-keeper’s eyes.

  The girl turned to him reluctantly, looking at the honey, glowing like the sun in the pot. “Thank you for the gift, and for coming to the wedding.”

  The bee-keeper nodded, his face on fire. Then he turned abruptly, leaving them alone in the clearing.

  Her lover tried to draw her to the floor of the meadow, kissing her lips and cheeks. But she shook her head, troubled. The bee-keeper’s eyes followed her. Scorching her soul.

  She matched her movements to his, a mirror, a shadow. They were climbing a hill, a rocky dry peak with jagged stones and prickly, scrubby bushes that hid the precious path. At least they were out of the swamp.

  The trail turned in on itself, like a snake biting its tail, heading always for the light, the dogs and the guards, behind and close, growling for her scent.

  He was still hesitant, resting now and then to wipe his forehead, looking up as if for a sun that would never shine again. She stopped when he did, looking at him, not noticing the leeches had dropped from her legs or the fresh blood on the rocks from her mangled feet.

  Cross the border. Keep going. Escape.

  The words timed themselves to her intakes of breath, ankle dragging behind her, useless except for the pain.

  She willed him forward. Don’t stop. Don’t look back. He must know she was there. The dogs smelled her again, the shrill yaps bouncing between the dagger-like crags of the hillside.

  The guards. And with them, perhaps, The Ice Queen herself. She shuddered, despite the heat. In the distance, her lover rested against a tree.

  She wouldn’t go back. She couldn’t.

  The Warden let his wife do what she wished. And the guards…the murmur, the rustle, words not understood, but only felt…

  Had she really thought of staying, back there with the fisherman? Memory drowned her, a flood of sound. The cries, the agonized cries…

  Never. Never go back.

  “Escape,” she whispered, startled by the urgency, the fear in her own soft voice. “Escape.”

  The morning of her marriage was the second happiest day in her life. The sun shone with a gentle warmth, bathing the revelers in the lovers’ sense of joy. Her father stood proudly, her mother cried. The singers didn’t make the fine ears of her husband ache too badly, and everyone enjoyed the feast, eating and drinking into the late afternoon.

  Her lover—her husband—entertained a small throng of admirers heading back to the city. She looked at him proudly, knowing he was hers. Not wanting to interrupt, she took some of the containers to the river for washing, the honey pot of the bee-keeper among them. It glowed red in the slanting rays of the late afternoon, but she was too joyous to pay attention.

  She was kneeling near the edge, smiling at her own reflection, when she saw him behind her.

  His eyes glowed like the honey.

  She scrambled on the bank, stood up rapidly.

  “Is—is there something you wanted?”

  Her husband was too far away to hear her muffled scream, to see the wedding garment ripped from between her legs. He couldn’t see how she pounded his chest and tried to scratch his face, twisting as his hands covered her body and threw her to the ground. He couldn’t smell the odor of fear and sweat and semen, or taste the blood that poured from her body or feel the invasion, the rape of her body and soul.

  The bee-keeper carried her back to the glen, washed. He claimed she’d fallen and stepped on a snake.

  Push aside memory. Pain of her legs and hands and arms held strength. Focus on pain, on the man in front of her. Pain. Love. Life. Full and terrible and hard to bear, but all there was, all she wanted.

  The top of the hill. Lush meadow stretched before them, encircled by a stand of laurels. Almost there.

  He was walking listlessly, hesitant and slow.

  A long, deep growl made the laurel leaves tremble. The guards. They would not be denied again.

  She started to run. Her ankle buckled and she tottered, just managing to stay upright. She strove forward, forgetting pain, forgetting everything except escape.

  Don’t look back. Don’t wait for me. I’m here. Keep going!

  Exhaustion and dejection weighed on him like mourning clothes. Sweat dotted his brow, his cheeks hollow and stretched. Doubt twisted his face.

  She fought her breath, struggling to catch him.

  Run, I’m behind you! Run, Run!

  Light streamed through the green canopy, a full, rich sunshine, and she could hear the birds, the small animals waiting.

  The border. Safety. Life.

  The dogs bayed and lunged, the hot stink of their breath burning her legs. Still he wavered.

  She wanted to scream, but her throat closed, as if the bee-keeper’s hand was still around it. She wanted to run faster, but she froze, as though his arms were still wrapped around her and his weight was trapping her to the ground. She wanted to yell, to shout that she was there, to tell him she was alive.

  Run, damn you, run, don’t wait for me, don’t look back, don’t look back!

  …their screams rose and joined in the air, her voice finally free. And for a heartbeat he saw her, bloodied and torn and suffering.
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  “Orpheus!” she cried. “Orpheus!…”

  And Eurydice died again.

  The Ice Queen smiled, and somewhere above a granite boulder cracked open with the frost. The girl sighed. In the laurel grove, a leaf withered on a stem, dried and curled, and floated to the forest floor.

  She sat by the river, watching the fisherman. She thought she was looking for someone in the boats, but she couldn’t really remember. Someone new asked her once how long she’d been there, and she couldn’t remember that, either.

  She knew she couldn’t leave. Not ever. But why would she want to? There were things to do. The same things, every day, but that was all right.

  Sometimes in the dark forest men and women looked at her, tears on their cheeks. She was always surprised when she felt her own face, and found it, too, was wet. She remembered tears. And songs, though they wouldn’t let her sing them.

  Once in a while she thought she’d hear music, the sound of a lyre and a voice, somewhere in the forest. Once she’d caught a glimpse of a young man, blond, with curling hair like ivy, so beautiful…

  But then the Ice Queen sent the Furies after her and they didn’t let her go back to the forest for a long, long time.

  Back to TOC

  THE SHY ONE

  Alison Gaylin

  Cody was the cute one. Max was the intellectual, Dean the bad boy, Terrence the clown…That’s what the magazines said, but you didn’t need the magazines to know it. All you had to do was look at them—the clothes they wore, the way they moved in their music videos, Terrence puppy-dog bouncing, Dean swaying his hips…All you had to do was watch and take note: The hair, for instance, could tell you a lot. The smiles—dimpled or wicked, ironic or sweet. The way their eyes locked up with yours—one gaze knowing, the other questioning, the other somewhat blank, as though he were searching for his own reflection in your pupils.

  Katie Flynn knew those four. Loved them, just as everyone in the Fandom loved them. But there were five boys in the band, and Sean was the fifth.

  Sean was the one you’d die for. Sean was the one who could make you kill.

  The rest of the band had dark hair, but Sean’s was sandy blond. The other four were Australian, while Sean spoke with a soft Kiwi accent, each sentence a song. In interviews, Cody, Max, Dean and Terrence all answered fast, jostling for the right answer, the clever quip. “Terrence never shuts up,” Cody would sigh. And he was right.

  But Sean rarely spoke. Sean was The Shy One. “The others are cleverer than me,” he once told Tiger Beat. “I let them do the talking.”

  Katie had an autographed poster of the whole band on her bedroom wall—a big glossy shot on the beach, sun shining through their hair. There was a kiss print in the corner, which embarrassed her a little. It had been done with a computer; she’d never wear that shade, let alone kiss a poster. Still, it was one of the most special things she owned. In it, all the boys were smiling and in their bathing suits, each bare chest tattooed with a for-real Sharpie signature. Katie had bought it off e-bay. They’d signed it personally, while on their most recent European tour. She liked running her fingertips over the signatures, feeling the imprints that the pen had made. If she held it close, Katie swore, she could even smell the ink. (To be fair, that could have been just her imagination.)

  Under her pillow, though, was something even more special: another picture, unsigned, of Sean, The Shy One. In the photo, he wore a black T-shirt, half-closed eyes and a crooked, uncertain smile—as though the picture, his life, all of it had happened a few moments before he was ready. He was sitting on a blue fluffy chair that could have been Katie’s own chair in Katie’s own living room in White Plains. She had one just like it. That had to be a sign.

  Every night, when her parents were asleep and they thought she was too, Katie would slip the picture out from under her pillow. She’d shine the light from her phone into Sean’s green eyes until they glowed back at her and they could share each other’s loneliness.

  “Someday,” she would whisper. “Someday, Sean.”

  Katie didn’t much like the other girls in the Fandom. Besides the band, she didn’t have anything in common with them. She followed the most popular accounts on Instagram, but only to see the dumb pictures they posted—screen grabs from music videos, pictures of cats and baby brothers and sisters wearing T-shirts that read “I heart Cody” or “Max is my Man.” Really dumb stuff, not to mention the comments posted beneath. (OMG what a cuuutttteeee BaeBae! And such good taste!!! What’s your kitteh’s name? His name is Cody lol!)

  Katie liked looking at the pictures, though. And the comments, dumb as they were, were full of feelings she that she shared. She loved all the Boys as much as anyone in the Fandom loved Terrence and Cody and Max and Dean. But what she and Sean had was different. It was special. In the whole world, he was the only person she could talk to. Strange, yes. The one friend on earth she could confide in, yet she’d only seen him in two dimensions.

  She didn’t find that sad, though. Some people didn’t have anyone at all.

  For ten months, Katie spoke to that picture every night. She would slip it out from under her pillow before going to bed and tell Sean about her hopes, her dreams, the funny things she’d seen on YouTube that day…She’d tell him about the moments she felt glad to be alive and the long, aching stretches when she yearned for something different, something better. At the end of the tenth month—at midnight on September 30 after a solid hour of talking to him, Katie told Sean she loved him.

  One week later, he started talking back.

  “You should go out,” Sean said. It wasn’t the first thing he’d said to Katie. The first had been “Hello, you,” and that had been a day ago, in a voice so soft and whispery she’d thought it was the wind.

  “Over here,” he’d said. “Look here.” And that had been the second thing—the thing that made her jump back, for when she’d looked at the picture, she’d caught his lips moving.

  Then came Sean’s final words that night: “You’re stronger than you know.”

  It had made her cry, but in a good way. Not so much because of the words themselves, but because it proved to her that it was really Sean speaking, his lips really were moving; it wasn’t in her head. You’re stronger than you know. Katie never would have had that thought on her own.

  The next day, all day, she’d gone without looking at the picture. Her parents were keeping an unusually close eye on her. Or at least that’s how it felt. She’d be watching TV, and she’d catch her mother staring at her. Or she’d be on her iPhone, scrolling through Instagram and see her dad’s shadow in the doorway. They watched Katie through breakfast, lunch and dinner. “Anything interesting happen today?” her mother had asked over dinner as she was slicing the roast beef. And when Katie replied, “No,” they had stared at her for what felt like a full minute. It had taken all of Katie’s willpower not to scream at the top of her lungs.

  After her father had gone into the living room to read his newspaper, Katie had helped her mother clear the plates, just like always. At this point, it had been close to sixteen hours since she had seen Sean’s lips moving. She longed to be with him again, so much so that she could physically feel it—little parts of her dying and crumbling and turning to dust.

  Soon, she kept thinking. Soon.

  But then her mother spoke. “Katie.” Her voice was a sheet of ice. “Last night, in your room…”

  “Yes, Mother?”

  “I thought I heard talking.”

  Katie’s heart started to pound. “You heard wrong,” she said. “There was no talking.”

  “You’re alone in there?”

  “Yes, Mother. Of course I’m alone.”

  “You aren’t skyping or—”

  “Who would I skype with?” Katie said. “I have no friends.”

  Not the whole truth—not now, anyway—but at least it made her mother shut up. After they finished clearing the dishes, Katie went into he
r room, and slammed the door behind her. Now, Sean.

  She couldn’t wait until after her parents went to sleep—she was too keyed up, those words scrolling through her mind, that gift he’d given her: You’re stronger than you know.

  She flew at her bed and slipped the picture out from under the pillow and shined her phone on his beautiful face. “Sean,” she whispered. “We almost got caught.”

  His eyes glowed. “You should go out.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know,” he said. “You know what I mean.”

  She did, of course. But it made no sense. She didn’t leave the house. He knew that. She hadn’t left the house since the boy down the street, and that had been such a long time ago.

  “You don’t leave the house,” Sean said, “because they won’t let you.”

  “They do it for my own good.”

  “How could that be for anybody’s good?”

  “They’re keeping me safe.”

  “They’re keeping you prisoner, love,” he said it in that Kiwi accent, the words scented like beach sand, wrapping her warm like a lullaby. “They let the cat wander about the neighborhood, but not you. Does that seem fair, Angel? Does it?”

  “It’s…it’s a dangerous world out there, and—”

  “You’re stronger than you know.”

  “Katie?” it was her mother’s voice at the door.

  “Crap,” Katie whispered.

  “Escape,” Sean said.

  “Who are you talking to, Katie?”

  “I’m reading from a book, Mother.”

  “Out loud?”

  “I’m praying.”

  Silence.

  Katie held their breath. Sean held his along with her, both of them waiting, both hanging from the tensest of threads until they heard Mother’s retreating footsteps, her parents’ bedroom door closing softly.