Runner: Book II of The Chosen

by Roh Morgon

  “And yet, you’ve been one of the best things that’s happened to me in these last five years. I can’t imagine not knowing you. I just wish you knowing me didn’t cost you your life.”

  My body shudders as I take in and release a deep breath.

  “I… I never thought I could have another child. Because that’s what you’ve been to me—a daughter. I just wish I’d told you…” My chest collapses as the sobs finally break free. The mountains mourn with me, echoing my sorrow, its sound bouncing from cliff to cliff.

  And my sorrow isn’t just for my sandy-haired daughter.

  She wasn’t the only one who died.

  For I’m not only burying her, I’m burying the last little piece of my humanity.

  The golden orb is sliding behind the western peaks as I pound the wooden cross into the ground. My wood carving skills aren’t too great, but good enough that I can read the cross arm:

  SANDY MILLER MARTIN

  JULY 11, 1989 - AUGUST 19, 2007

  I look back one last time at the lonely little mound perched on the mountainside, just as it disappears into the shadows cast by the setting sun, and wish her well on her journey into the light.

  TUESDAY

  CHAPTER 32

  The cabin door clicks shut and I snap the padlock into place, then step out into the late afternoon sun beaming down into the clearing and take one last look around. After saying my goodbyes to Sandy yesterday evening, I’d spent the rest of the night saying goodbye to yet another mountain forest that my wild side had grown to love.

  I don’t understand why each time I find what seems to be the ideal place to live, my life turns into a disaster.

  My gaze falls to the rock that broke Sandy. Scuffing dirt and grasses over the blood-soaked ground, I shake my head at her needless death, then head down the trail to the car.

  It takes much less time than my trips usually take. I guess I’m moving faster without even realizing it. Opening the trunk, I lay my suitcase inside, then set the large backpack next to the entrance of the lodge. I have no further use for it.

  The familiar purr of the BMW signals the beginning of another journey. I have a feeling it will be a long time before it ends.

  The highway sign for my first stop flashes by in the darkness. It’s taken me nearly eleven hours to reach Casper, and the sun will be coming up soon.

  Unwilling to face my next challenge just yet, I pull off the highway and head for one of the roadside motels that dot the outskirts of town.

  As I lie down and stare at the ceiling, waiting for dawn’s darkness to rescue me from my thoughts, I wonder how other Chosen deal with their guilt and regrets. Do their emotions and memories fade with time? Or do they accumulate, becoming heavier and heavier until the bearer collapses beneath their weight and seeks the final death.

  Perhaps that’s what the Old Ones are. Chosen who’ve tired of their immortality and withdrawn to wither away somewhere alone.

  Is that what Nicolas has done? Gone away to die?

  Bloodtears trace wet trails down my face as the words in his letter echo in my head.

  Do not attempt to find me. In this, I promise, you will not succeed.

  WEDNESDAY

  CHAPTER 33

  Bracing myself as I walk into Sandy’s apartment in Casper, I inhale the air that’s saturated with her scent. I smell Danny’s as well, though it’s old, close to a week.

  The rest of the late afternoon passes quickly as I pack Sandy’s things. Her set of little dragon figurines she’d bought the day we moved in to the apartment goes into a box. A photo album she’d made, with pictures of her and Danny and other kids their age, joins it. I add to it a framed photo of her with her cute strawberry-blond boy, both of them grinning as they sit together on the back of a patient-looking horse.

  Oh, Danny…

  The bag of clothes I’ll take to a homeless shelter somewhere along my route. I’ll drop the textbooks off at the college’s used-book store. Anything that I don’t feel comfortable disposing of in the dumpster will be destroyed or disposed of somewhere far from here.

  One more sweep around the apartment to check for anything I missed.

  Damn, this packing and moving thing gets old.

  But this next part? Not something I’ve done before, and I’ve been dreading it all afternoon.

  I unplug Sandy’s cell phone from the charger and turn it on.

  It shows at least a dozen text messages, and a number of voice mails as well. A couple are from girls, but the rest are all from Danny.

  Taking a big breath, I scroll to his number and press SEND.

  The phone rings twice before he answers.

  “Sandy! Sandy, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I promise never to talk to you like that again.”

  Tears well up in my eyes for him, for what I’m about to do to him.

  “Hello, Danny. This is Sunny.”

  “Oh… hi. Where’s… where’s Sandy?” Innocent concern trickles through his voice as he says her name.

  “She, ah… she’s heading out to California.”

  “What?” he asks in confused disbelief.

  “Danny, I’ve boxed up some things for you that she wanted you to have. They’ll be by the front door of the apartment.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I’m sorry.” I hate this.

  “But why? Why isn’t she telling me herself?”

  “She… wanted to. But she just couldn’t.”

  “But what about school? It starts Monday.” His desperation is painful to hear.

  It’s time to end this.

  “Things change, Danny. People change. I’m sorry.”

  “But…”

  I turn off the cell phone, take out the battery and SIM card, snap the card in half, then squeeze the phone until its body crumples within my fist.

  I’m sorry, Danny. More than you’ll ever know.

  Once again the highway stretches before me. As I drive into the setting sun, I dwell on all that has occurred in my life since I left California.

  I’ve discovered that I’m not alone, that there are others like me.

  The one thing I swore I’d never do, I’ve done.

  It healed me.

  I also found love, not once, but twice, though they were different kinds. And I lost both of them in different ways, yet at the very end their goals were the same—to help me Change, to accept and be what I am.

  And I do.

  So now I head west to keep a final promise to one.

  And to break a final promise from the other.

  Soulless Ones

  They say we have no souls

  No life

  No love

  But how can soulless ones

  Live so brightly

  Love so deeply

  If we have no souls

  They say we have no feelings

  No pity

  No remorse

  But how can one empty of feelings

  Let pity stay the hand

  Know remorse with every step

  If we have no feelings

  They say we are monsters

  Governed by need

  Driven by lust

  But how are we monsters

  If all have need

  And all feel lust

  When all are monsters

  To another

  They say we have no souls

  Then why do soulless ones

  Feel love so strongly

  So fully

  Feel loss so bitterly

  So utterly

  If we have no souls?

  ~ CN

  TUESDAY

  CHAPTER 34

  It’s been nine days since I became a full-fledged monster, and nearly six months since I left the west coast. A sick laugh escapes as I remember the trivial events that prompted my flight to Colorado. They pale in comparison now, and seem like something from a child’s dream. Nothing like the nightmare I left in the shadow of Pikes Peak.

/>   But it hasn’t all been a nightmare. I did find something I’d thought to be impossible in this life.

  Inhaling sharply, I slap those memories down and shove them back into the black box. Because those memories, the memories of what I lost, are too full of pain and regret. I grab the stillness and relief flows through me as those emotions, and everything connected with them, smother under the cold detachment.

  I pull into the parking lot across the street from where my daughter used to work. Hopefully she still works here, because I don’t have the patience anymore to sit outside her house and watch for her. Those days are over.

  But I do need to see her, to reassure myself that my human life wasn’t just another dream.

  Then I’ll decide how much of my promise to Sandy I can keep.

  Tugging the baseball cap brim lower, I grimace at my reflection in the car window. My disguised self glares back in the form of a punk street kid—pierced, tattooed, and wearing ragged clothes. The piercings will heal as soon as I take out the jewelry, and the fake tattoos, though just hand drawn on my skin, will fade within the hour. The tats aren’t very good—I was never much of an artist. But they’ll do the job. I put on my sunglasses and head toward the building.

  It’s late afternoon and the lobby is beginning to fill with people leaving for the day. My jaw clenches as the fragrant chorus of human blood hits me. Even though I gorged on several deer last night, this may be harder than I thought.

  Walking past the staircase to the far side of the elevators, I stop and casually lean against the wall as though waiting for the doors to open. Andrea’s always preferred stairs and I’m hoping to catch sight of her as she comes down the wide stairway. I watch the other workers as they descend in twos and threes, deep in their conversations.

  The elevator next to me opens and people brush past me as they exit. I’m trapped between them and the wall at the end of this short hallway and, without warning, violence coils in my muscles.

  I need to get out of here. Coming inside was not only risky, it was stupid.

  Waiting until the last of the crowd leaves the elevator, I start to follow them toward the front door.

  And then I look up, and she is standing at the bottom of the stairs, not twenty feet away, staring directly at me.

  Oh shit.

  I dart into the elevator, nowhere else to go. The doors begin to close and I let out my breath. And then a slim hand shoots into the rapidly shrinking gap, followed by a slender arm, and her shoulder wedges into the opening. The doors rebound and she steps inside and stands there facing me, the confusion on her face giving way to recognition.

  “Hello, Mom.”

  My chest constricts as I struggle to stay within the stillness, to not react to the sound of her voice saying “Mom.” I hold my breath, terrified of her scent, because to want her blood is more than I can take. Somewhere deep inside me I find the icy strength necessary to get through the next several minutes without having a complete breakdown.

  Grateful my sunglasses hide the pink veil, I tip my head and face her.

  “Hello, Andrea.”

  The elevator doors shut behind her. I reach over, press 3 and, when the elevator begins to rise, press STOP. The car clanks to a halt.

  Turning to face her again, I’m not surprised to see both hurt and anger blazing out of her blue eyes.

  “Can you suggest somewhere private that we can talk?” I quietly ask.

  Biting her lip, she stares at me a moment, her eyes scanning over me. I see bewilderment creep in as she notes the differences between me and the woman she used to call Mom.

  Nodding, she presses L with a shaking hand, then folds her arms and turns her back on me to face the door.

  This is going to be very painful.

  As we cross the street, I’m aware of her glances in my direction, and can sense the alarm growing in her.

  “You walk differently,” she finally says as we step up on the sidewalk.

  Yes, I do. Like a hunter, a predator. A killer.

  “Where’ve you been?” she asks after a long moment.

  “I’d rather wait ’til we get to where we’re going, okay?”

  Out of the corner of my eye I see her nod, then she reaches up and wipes her cheek.

  Oh, Andrea. I am so sorry. I never should’ve come back.

  We cross several more streets and enter a parking lot for the beach. Andrea takes out a cell phone from her purse, presses a number, and holds it up to her ear.

  “Hello, Cynthia? I have a few stops to make after work. Is it okay if I pick Rhia up a little late?” Her voice trembling, she pauses. “All right. I’ll be there by six. Thanks.”

  Rhia. Her daughter. My granddaughter.

  My head feels as though it’s going to explode.

  Andrea puts the phone back in her purse, then folds her arms and hunches over as we continue across the asphalt.

  Swallowing, I concentrate on the arctic calm that is the only thing keeping me sane.

  When we reach the sidewalk that runs along the edge of the beach, she turns and we follow it, our silence now muffled by the roar of the ocean. She steps off the concrete into the sand and heads toward the scattered picnic tables paralleling the walkway. I trail her, reflecting on what a beautiful woman she’s become and how well she wears adulthood.

  Andrea stops by a table apart from its neighbors and sets down her bag. My skin tingles beneath her heavy gaze as I walk past her to the far end of the table. Taking a seat upon it, I focus on the horizon where sky meets water and taste the ocean scents traveling in the salt-laden air. Seagulls wheel overhead beneath the late afternoon sun, screeching at one another as the waves pound the shoreline. The churning sand beneath the watery onslaught mimics the emotions roiling deep in my gut.

  Andrea sits down on her end of the table, a breeze blowing her dark hair across her face, and stares out toward the sea.

  “Why?” she asks, her voice cracking. “Why didn’t you come home?”

  My throat tight, I whisper, “Because I couldn’t.”

  “Why not? What happened? Everyone thought you were dead.”

  I am.

  “Everyone except me,” she croaks. “I knew you weren’t. They kept telling me you were and I knew you weren’t.”

  There are no words I can say to explain any of the last five years, or why I didn’t come home.

  The surf crashes over and over, accenting the mute pain between us.

  “So why now? Why did you suddenly decide to come back now?” She turns toward me. Accusation thickens her voice, and I can’t bear the thought of seeing it on her face.

  My gaze drops to the sand stretching before us.

  “I needed…” The words catch in my throat. “I needed to know that you were all right.”

  She jumps off the table and stands in front of me, her fists clenched in fury.

  “What’s wrong with you? Look at me, dammit! Take off those damn sunglasses and look at me, for God’s sake!” Her lips quiver as tears stream down her cheeks.

  The icy envelope protecting me nearly shatters, and I choke on the bitter tastes of sorrow and guilt. Fear of losing control triggers something within me, and lightning-quick, my mood shifts. Muscles tense and pink anger hovers on the edge of my sight.

  The only way she’s going to accept my lack of explanation is to show her.

  I slowly reach up and take off my hat and set it on the table, then take off my glasses. My vision has cleared, the pink gone, but it’s not going to make any difference. I look up into Andrea’s face.

  Her sudden intake of breath pierces the frozen detachment and stabs me deep in the chest.

  “My God, what happened to your eyes?” Hers glitter like twin sapphires, brimming with fresh tears as she stares into mine.

  We used to share the same blue color. But no longer. Today mine are glaciers, with only a hint of palest blue, the price I had to pay for subduing the hunger.

  She peers closer and my body turns to stone. />
  “You’re not… you’re not wearing contacts. Why are they so… ?”

  Cold? Inhuman?

  Because, my sweet daughter, they are the eyes of a monster. And there is nothing I can do to change that.

  She reaches out to my face and I pull back to avoid her touching my cool skin. She slowly lowers her arm, then closes her eyes and turns toward the sea.

  “You want to know if I’m all right? Well, I am. Perfectly. I’m married now, to a really great guy.” She pauses, sniffling. “And I have a…” Shuddering gasps rob her of the last word.

  “A daughter,” I finish, my voice barely above a whisper. “I know.”

  “You know? You know? How do you… ?”

  Her body trembles as she raises a hand to her mouth. I fight to keep my seat on the table.

  “I’ve been watching you off and on since I found you at City College three years ago.”

  Her back stiffens and she hugs herself again. Andrea slowly turns around to face me.

  “You’ve been watching… ? Why didn’t you… ?” The grief and shock painting her face only underscore the tragedy of her words.

  “Because I couldn’t. Because of this.” I hold my hands out, indicating my face and body. “Because of how you’d react, how you’re reacting now.” I pause, my fingers curling, their razor sharp nails biting into my palms.

  “When I found you, you’d made a new life for yourself and seemed happy. You had school, goals, friends—a life. And it would’ve ruined everything for you if I came back into it.”

  “No, it wouldn’t—”

  “Yes, it would’ve. Because I couldn’t have stayed.” I take a deep breath and go on.

  “Because I can’t stay. Because I’m not… your mother… anymore.” My voice trails off as I shift my gaze from her bright blue eyes full of tears to the grey blue of the thundering sea.