Allie's War Early Years

by JC Andrijeski

  “Why the hell would you kiss him? Are you nuts?”

  “He was there... I didn’t really expect him to go along with it like that.” Hesitating, I thought about telling him I’d seen ponytail guy earlier, too, then decided that would only freak Jon out more. Biting my lip, I shrugged instead.

  “...Look, forget it,” I said. “You and Cass stay, watch the show. I know Cass wants to see the headliners. I’ll just go for a walk and meet you back by the hotel.”

  “Alone?” Jon said. The alarm on his face grew more pronounced. “You really think that’s a good idea? With that note this morning, and now a cop following you?” His expression grew uncomfortable. “...A cop that really seems to want to take you home with him, Allie?”

  Hearing the overprotective tone creeping into his voice, I shook my head. “I really don’t think he’s a cop, Jon.”

  “So you think he’s SCARB then? How is that better, Allie?”

  “Jon... please. Just stop, okay? I’m really not in the mood for your big brother thing.” Seeing the frown that came to his face, I sighed, realizing how that came out. “...It’s not you. I just need to be alone for a while. I’m not planning any grand escapades... just a walk. I promise if I see anything weird, I’ll call a cab and go straight back to the hotel.” Hesitating, I added, “And I’ll need to stay with you and Cass tonight. If that’s okay.”

  Jon waved this off, frowning. “Of course.”

  He glanced at the door. I could tell he was fighting every impulse in his being by not telling me not to wander around New York at night on my own where he was also convinced I was jinxed. He’d heard me complain about my last trips to New York, so it was my own fault, really, from telling him too much. He finally nodded.

  “Okay.” He nodded again as if to convince himself, speaking louder as the band started up again. “Okay, Allie. You got your phone?”

  I rolled my eyes. “I have my phone. I have money. I’ll avoid dark alleys, and men who offer me candy. I’ll be fine, Jon. I promise.”

  He winced a little at the anger in my voice, but he just nodded again.

  “Okay,” he said.

  He startled me then, leaning over to kiss me on the cheek.

  “I love you, Allie,” he said.

  He hadn’t said that to me in a long time. Maybe not since dad died.

  My heart got stuck briefly in my throat. Nodding at least partly to avoid speaking, I patted Jon’s arm, forcing a smile that I doubt was very convincing. Then I walked away from his stool, heading for the main door. I pushed my way through the group of people mashed up against the entrance and finally made it outside, to where I could almost breathe.

  I was just standing there, taking in deep breaths, looking around at the different street signs to orient myself, or maybe just to give myself something else to think about... when it occurred to me I had no idea where I was going.

  But that didn’t matter either.

  Picking a direction, I began to walk.

  I made it about four blocks before the crowd thinned enough that I felt like I could breathe again. The street was still busy... I was on the southern edge of midtown, after all... but more like regular, New York busy, not teeming with a crowd trying to get into a sold-out show. The VR advertisements were distracting, but I’d slowly become used to those, too. Unfortunately, that also meant I blocked a lot of things out that I normally might have noticed. The extra sounds and VR people made it easy to avoid faces.

  In fact, the easiest way to navigate that whole mess was to do what most New Yorkers did... just keep my head down, focus on my feet, and not look around too much.

  Maybe that’s why I didn’t see the guy come up behind me until it was too late.

  I FELT HIM right as he reached for me. I started to turn, got a glimpse of blond hair pulled back from a blocky face, a faint smile on full lips, and then an arm slid around my throat from behind, completely cutting off my air.

  It happened before I could yell. In fact, the shock of that first, violent pull on my neck nearly blacked me out. He was already bringing me towards a car on the curb when I'd recovered enough to fight back. Then I felt a sharp prick at my neck, and a harder pressure as liquid was forced through a needle and into my vein.

  I managed to let out a cry at that point, but it was strangled off by the pressure of his arm. I looked for other people, witnesses maybe, but only one guy was looking at me, and he didn’t seem to be about to intervene. In fact, he looked at me like I must be the one who'd caused whatever problem this was.

  Even after ponytail guy yanked the syringe out of my neck, I struggled as he dragged me towards the car door. I barely had time to notice it was being held open the guy who’d been carrying the cattle prod earlier that day, only now he was wearing street clothes and no goggles. Then the two of them were forcing me through the opening. I fought harder, shrieking. I saw a couple of people step around the car, giving it a wide berth, a faint alarm in their eyes, but no one tried to help. I could only hope at least one of them called the cops on their headsets.

  I only really got out one good yell before a hand clamped over my mouth.

  I was having trouble moving now, too. I managed to plant my feet on the door and the side of the car, using my weight as leverage to keep them from forcing me through the opening, but my knees kept buckling as I lost control over my legs.

  I kept trying to scream through ponytail guy’s fingers, but it all happened too fast.

  Cattle prod guy wrenched my ankle to get my foot out of the door’s armrest where I’d be fighting to lodge it. Then he and ponytail guy forced me into the car. Ponytail got in with me, and the other guy slammed the door behind us. Turning at once, I scanned the mechanism with my eyes, looking for the latch, but it was one of the newer ones with a DNA lock.

  The whole thing probably only took a few seconds.

  Ponytail guy still had ahold of me around the throat, but he’d let go of my mouth to hold my wrists instead. The fingers gripping me were covered in rings. As the drug really started to kick in, I could only stare down at them, trying to make meaning of them.

  One silver ring had the same spiral pattern as his necklace.

  I realized only a second later that I’d stopped yelling. Looking around at the tinted windows, I realized they were probably soundproof. Which was why they’d let go of my mouth.

  The drug made it hard to talk, much less think.

  “Serial killer?” I slurred. “...I going to die?”

  The man’s lips lifted in a faint smile. “Ms. Taylor, just relax. We’ll explain everything... the effects of the drug won’t last long.”

  “...I under arrest? Am I?”

  The man’s smile widened. “No. Not exactly.”

  “SCARB?” I managed. “...You a cop?”

  “No, Ms. Taylor. We are not with any of the state- or court-sponsored police. So you needn’t worry...” He patted my leg. “We won’t tell anyone your secret. Word of honor.”

  “Secret?” I managed. I stared from him to cattle prod guy in the front seat.

  “We know who you are, Alyson," Ponytail guy said seriously. "More importantly, we know what you are...”

  I forced my arm over, showing him the ‘H’ tattoo above my government barcode. I pointed at it, fighting to stay conscious. “Human,” I managed. “...Human!"

  “Then I guess you’re just fucked, girlie,” the driver said from the other front seat.

  The voice had a Russian-sounding accent.

  When the voice's owner turned around, I recognized him as the third guy I’d seen by the park. He was still wearing the same leather jacket, and his spikey brown hair stood up above a pock-marked face with tattoos down one side of his neck. He smirked at me, winking one of his blue eyes.

  Staring around at all three of them, I felt my disbelief turn rapidly into anger.

  An anger I was more than happy to aim at these guys.

  If only I could make my tongue work.

  I tried to f
ight my arm away from ponytail’s fingers, but ponytail just seemed to be waiting for the drug to knock me out. The idea of being unconscious with these people terrified me. I tried to look out the window, to pay attention to where we were going, but everything blurred past my eyes; I couldn’t focus on any of the signs well enough to track them. I was pretty sure we were going north, but I didn’t know how helpful that was. A lot was north of here.

  Central Park. Harlem. Canada.

  My mind wasn’t really working anymore, so the fear just looped around me in sickening spirals, making me breathe too much.

  The man smiled at me, even as his face began to blur. “Just relax, Ms. Taylor,” he said gently, stroking my head. “We’ll be there before you know it...”

  The interior of the car started to undulate in slow-motion, worsening that sickening feeling. Everything but a bright light in the dead center of my vision blurred into bland color.

  And then it really was too late.

  SEVEN

  WHEN I OPENED my eyes, a searing, mind-crushing headache forced them closed again. I had to try three or four times before I managed to squint around the edges well enough to make out the space where I lay.

  Seeing didn't really help at all. I had no idea where I was.

  Even after my brain caught up, a good thirty or forty seconds later, reminding me of the sandy-haired man and the syringe, I couldn’t make sense of the dark expanse of nothingness that surrounded me... or how cold I was.

  Directly overhead, black, snakelike branches partially blocked a faint view of stars. The sky still seemed to be tinged on either side from the glow of city lights. I was outside. My back dug into something hard, and my arms were wrenched behind me, feeling like they were about to be ripped out of their shoulder sockets. I was cold because all I wore was the skirt and the lace top over a tank top. My jacket was gone.

  I tried to move, to see if there was any play in any of my limbs. As soon as I shifted my leg though, I let out an involuntary moan. My body slipped sideways down whatever it had been tied to, wrenching my arms and shoulders even more. Whatever they'd bound me to, it was long and rounded... like a log, maybe. When I tried to move again, I slid more, and the pressure on my arms and legs became excruciating. At the same time, my own weight rendered me pretty much immobile, making it even harder to find leverage.

  Which had to mean the log was suspended somehow. I was at least a few feet off the ground, and my arms and legs had been cuffed to the log itself, otherwise I’d just slide all the way down to the ground. I tried using my eyes to see where I was, who else was there, but all I glimpsed was shadowy forms and more trees. What looked like a white, stone basin stood to my left. Around it had been piled a number of shadowy objects with square corners and pointed edges. It looked too symmetrical to be natural, whatever it was. Someone was squirting something on it while I watched, but I couldn’t see their face.

  “Where am I... ?” I managed. I had to stop midway, swallowing thickly. My tongue still didn’t want to work right. “...Who’s there? Please! Can you hear me?”

  “Relax, Ms. Taylor.”

  Recognizing the voice, I felt my stomach sink.

  Ponytail guy.

  A match was struck not far from where I lay. Whoever held it threw it towards the ground before I could make out their face, but the match didn’t complete its arc. Instead it bounced halfway, in the shadowy pile heaped around the stone basin.

  There was a whup sound, like a heater turning on. Flames shot up from the piles around the basin, illuminating a stack of packing crates and wooden pallets, wet with starter fuel. I found myself blinking into a large campfire arranged around the stone basin in some kind of shape. The edges of the fire were bounded by granite stones, but I could see spokes coming off, too, almost like a wheel. From the fire's size, and the burning, rectangular pallets, it reminded me of the beach parties we had at home. It burned high enough that a wave of heat washed over me, initially providing some relief from the cold.

  Then I realized that one of those spokes coming off the main fire led to me.

  Looking to the left, where another spoke of dry wood had been piled up, leading away from the center fire in the opposite direction from me, I found myself meeting a set of purple eyes I recognized. She was far enough away that I couldn’t be sure at first, but when the fire illuminated her face, I realized I'd been right.

  It was the seer from that morning.

  From her predicament, I could guess my own. She’d been tied down with what looked like green-tinted chains, her arms locked around a thick log. Under her, someone had piled another stack of wooden pallets and broken crates. They weren’t burning yet, but my eyes once more followed the trail of splintered wood leading from the center fire to hers. It was then that I noticed that the campfire in the center formed a triangle. Bordered by those large, white, granite stones, I might have missed it at first if I hadn't seen one corner of the triangle pointed at me.

  Then I saw the third body. That one was a man. He'd been tied to a log the same as me and the woman, but he must not have struggled much. Unlike me and the seer, he was still balanced on top of the log, his posture eerily serene.

  Gasping as this all sank in, I struggled harder, fighting to loosen my arms.

  It only made me slide sideways even more.

  Which meant I’d be closer to the fire when it came.

  My gaze jerked to the right, trying to get a look at the face of the third man. It took me longer to make him out since the smoke was billowing that way and a tree stood between me and him, but I finally glimpsed his face when the wind shifted direction. Whoever he was, he seemed more okay with the proceedings than either me or the female seer. He was young, maybe in his early thirties at the most. He stared at the same stars I’d been looking at, only with an expression of near-bliss on his face. Tattoos covered his bare upper body, along with burns and scars in what looked like the shape of symbols. I didn't recognize any of the symbols, but I saw the triple spiral pattern among them, so I had to assume he was a believer.

  Thanks to the fire, I could also now see the men who held us captive.

  I made out at least six. I watched three tend the fires, prodding and pushing the wood to make sure it was slowly spreading towards the three of us, in reasonably equal proportions. I wondered if they’d put starter fluid on the wood that led to each of our individual pyres... and got my answer when the first log on the spoke leading towards me caught fire, and went up with a fuel-aided whup. As I watched the flames begin working their way across the five or so yards to me, however, I realized it was burning too slowly to be covered in fluid like the central fire had been. My throat had gone completely dry, to the point where I couldn’t swallow, much less scream. I guess I was probably in shock.

  I was having trouble really processing this. It was hard to believe it was real.

  I was going to die. By fire, which had to be on my top five worst ways to die list.

  I was still staring around, trying to make sense of the scene before me, when the man with the sandy-blond hair appeared over me. I found I could only look at him at first, tryng to breathe, feeling my breath catch on the smoke.

  "Relax, Ms. Taylor," he said soothingly. "I know this is frightening... but you have been chosen to be part of something glorious. Whatever pain you feel in the process will be nothing to you once you are on the other side...” He smiled at me, and the smile seemed almost genuine. "You will be welcomed back to the halls of our Ancestors as a hero...”

  I just stared at him, unable to make any sense of his words.

  “Why?” I said finally.

  He smiled at me. “I am sincerely beginning to believe you that you don’t know who you are, holy one.”

  “Who do you think I am?” I said.

  "I think you are one of our beloved intermediaries," he said, smiling wider. "It was no easy thing, finding you. We began to fear that it would be too late to make the offering at all... that the Bridge would arrive befo
re we could attempt the cleansing...”

  "Cleansing?" I swallowed, trying not to eye the fire I could feel inching closer to my skin. I couldn't help but think about how easily the lace shirt I wore would go up, and my hair, which was coated in a layer of hair spray. The skirt would take longer to burn.

  I knew talking to him was doing me exactly no good whatsoever, but it was keeping me focused on something other than my imminent death. I was trying to think around the edges while I spoke, looking for a way out of this, but mostly, I just tried to keep my mind working in reasonably straight lines.

  More than anything, I tried not to think about my mother and Jon.

  My mom would lose it. I mean, really, really lose it. She was still a basketcase from losing dad, so I knew this would send her over the deep end. If they dragged her to New York to identify the burned up corpse of her daughter found in some park...

  "Where am I?" I said, as the thought tried to keep going.

  I looked around the trees and lawn, and found I vaguely recognized this place. I could see arches between columns, some kind of medieval-looking structure that looked almost like...

  "Is this a church?" I managed.

  "In a manner of speaking." The man smiled.

  "You're burning people outside a church?" I stared at him, unable to keep the disbelief out of my voice. "Didn't they stop doing that a few hundred years ago?"

  When he only smiled, I struggled with my wrists again but only managed to slide a little further down the side of the log. I was getting dangerously low now. I wouldn't even have the log to protect me, or to buy me time when the fire reached the end of my spoke. But I couldn't figure out what else I could do, other than lie there and wait for a slower death. They hadn't tied me with rope, but with handcuffs, presumably the same as the seer's. Whatever material it was, it gave slightly under my fingers, but I couldn't make a dent in it.

  “We are making an offering to the Three,” the man explained. “You really should feel honored, Ms. Taylor. Your blood will shape the course of our races for generations to come... it will help bring us to the next stage of our evolution...”