Arkadium Rising (36 page)

"What…?" was all Mandy was able to say when she turned from her supply cabinet with a couple of aspirin in one hand, and a glass of water in the other.

The Anaki slashed at Mandy's face and throat several times in rapid succession, and it was only after he stopped that Marcus noticed it was a surgical scalpel in his hand. Mandy dropped the water glass to shatter on the floor. She blinked, and at first she looked unharmed, but then the slash marks started to pull wide, and her brow furrowed and she covered her face with her hands as she screamed. Blood quickly soaked her hands and seeped through her fingers. She screamed until the slashes in her throat opened wide, and the force of her screams forced the lifeblood from her.

The Anaki watched her tumble over and then turned his attention to Marcus. The expressionless skull mask covered his face, but Marcus had no doubts that his snarky, shit-eating grin was still in place. Marcus could barely see straight, but it would take a lot more than this little shit to take him down.

The Anaki raised the scalpel high over his head with his left hand. As Marcus waited, anticipating his strike, the Anaki clamped the fingers of his right hand around Marcus's broken arm. The man laughed and
squeezed
, and the world dimmed to the darkness of a deep winter night.

"Looks like it's time for your beauty sleep, big guy," the Anaki said, his voice muffled by his mask. He squeezed again, and Marcus fell forward onto the floor, helpless. His vision darkened completely as he awaited the cold trace of the scalpel against his throat, thinking that at this point it might be a fitting end. But it never came. All that happened was the pressure eased off his broken arm, and his vision slowly resolved.

He saw Delaney squatting over the now very dead Anaki warrior. His throat was no longer there, not really, just the hint of white vertebrae washed in bright red arterial blood, blood that still somehow continued to pump, albeit in ever more diminishing degrees.

Delaney, with a bloodied scalpel in her grip, looked up at him. Her mixture of devotion and seething rage helped to clarify his vision to near-normal levels.

"They're inside," she said, her voice throaty, primal. "The Anaki are inside the walls. And they always have been."

1.

Inside a small stone building wedged between the greenhouse and the barracks, Kylie and Dawn were leaning over huge cast iron wash tubs, scrubbing pots and pans with brushes until their hands were raw and cracked from the harsh soapy water. The building was hot and not well-ventilated. The humidity from the solar-heated water made it feel like a sauna.

Dawn stared mutely at a pot, her expression drawn. Even after finding out that her brother was still alive, her normally bubbly personality was nowhere to be seen. Kylie couldn't really blame her, but Kylie found it easy to lose herself in the drudgery of the work. She didn't know if it was the total lack of hard labor in Dawn's pampered life, but she wasn't able to do the same. Kylie focused on one task at a time. One dirty pan. One carrot to slice. As long as she could focus on that one task, she could push everything else aside. At least for a little while.

Kylie gathered a handful of soapy lather and threw it at Dawn. It landed on her cheek and elicited the kind of reaction she was hoping for.

Dawn let out a choked squeal and her eyes went as wide as saucers. She filled a saucepan to the rim with soap bubbles. "That's it! I've had it with you!" she said, but her widening grin gave her away.

Kylie could feel the other five women staring at them. They all tended to keep quiet so they would blend into their surroundings. No one knew when or if their relatively protected status on the island would ever get taken away. For now, the other women were happy to be an audience.

"Don't you dare!"

"Kylie Dwyer, how dare
you
!" Dawn flung the soap suds at her.

Kylie burst into laughter as the suds coated her arm and clung in a thick gob on the side of her head.

"Hey, you're going to get it!" Kylie hurled a handful of soap at Dawn and it landed on her chin, clinging like a beard.

"You started it." Dawn couldn't say anything more because of her laughter.

"Girls, that's enough!" said Juana, a matronly Hispanic woman. "What's gotten into you?"

"Nothing!" both girls said at once.

Dawn wiped her soap beard away and flung it into the wash tub. She snickered and picked up her scrubbing brush.

"You're in trouble," Kylie whispered, coaxing another round of giggles from Dawn, and then once her friend was laughing, she started up again as well. Kylie had absolutely no reason to find humor in their situation, but once she started laughing, it was hard to pull it back in check.

"Keep it up, you two," Juana said. "You won't be laughing when they kick you out of the kitchen."

"They'll turn you into an Eve, and then you won't be walking straight after that," another woman chimed in.

That was enough to kill their temporary respite. They reluctantly went back to their drudgery. After a couple of minutes, Kylie looked over at her friend and she was still grinning.

Definitely worth it
, she thought.

A few minutes later, a girl with long red hair came running into the kitchen. "They're here!" she yelled. The girl was no older than either of them, but she didn't labor alongside them. She wore a gaudy pink silk robe that was hard to keep tied, and her face was covered in freshly-applied makeup. Kylie didn't care how many pots and pans she had to scrub as long as she didn't have to live the life that was forced upon the girl in the pink robe.

"What is it, Eve?" Juana asked.

At first the girl didn't respond, not yet familiar with her new name, and sobbed uncontrollably. Juana approached her with open arms, but the girl cried even harder. This turned Juana's mood on a dime and she slapped her so hard she nearly knocked the poor girl over.

"Ah…" The girl covered her face and shied away. "Please… don't."

"Start talking or I'll slap your teeth from your head." Juana pushed her sleeves back to reveal doughy but muscular arms.

"The An-Anaki…" the girl said before her chest hitched in fear. "They're here!"

The kitchen buzzed with conversation at the news.

"How did you hear this?"

"Joseph, he was called away when we were busy… you know… and I tried to follow him. That's when I heard everyone talking as they were running toward the wall, and—"

The sound of gunfire cut her off. She screamed, and the voices of the women only became more feverish.

"But they're outside the walls, right?" Juana asked.

"Ye-ye-yes." A crimson palm print bloomed on the girl's cheek from Juana's slap.

Juana exhaled and the tension eased from her meaty shoulders. "So we have nothing to worry about."

This calmed the girl, as well as the others. She began to nod as if she were replaying Juana's words in her head.

"Okay, everyone. Everything's fine. The walls will hold, just like they always have. We're safe."

"Are you sure?" one of the women asked.

"Yes, and we need to get back to work. If we don't do our job, then everything falls apart. The foundation of the Arkadium is in the kitchen," Juana said, as she had so often since Kylie met her.

"Ain't that the truth!" one woman said.

"I said it, didn't I?" Juana replied. Everyone had a good chuckle and got back to their work.

Kylie unplugged her sink, and then did the same for Dawn.

"What are you doing?" Dawn whispered.

"Not waiting around, that's for sure."

Kylie grabbed Dawn's hand and pulled her along to the door.

"And where are you two going?" Juana asked.

"We're out of suds so we're going to the storeroom. We can't be the foundation of the Arkadium without soap! Anyone need anything?"

The others bought their excuse. Kylie and Dawn pretended to memorize everyone's supply order, and then as everyone went back to their work, and with the sound of gunfire only intensifying, they hurried out into the daylight of the courtyard.

2.

The courtyard was a beehive of crazed activity. Kylie and Dawn ran hand in hand, not just so they wouldn't lose sight of one another, but also for the comfort it provided. They were nearly plowed over by a group of ten or more armed men who were charging toward the front of the fort.

"Hey, watch it!" Dawn shouted, and luckily no one stopped long enough to see who had spoken. Women didn't speak up on Sanctuary Island. The Arkadium was really no different than many religions or cults run by men, for men.

"Dawn, let's not draw any attention."

"Okay, you got us out of the kitchens… now what?"

"I… I don't know. I didn't think that far ahead. I just felt trapped down there, like I couldn't breathe."

More gunfire erupted. The breeze tended to swirl through the courtyard, so Kylie couldn't pinpoint the direction of the faint smoke billowing over them. It was wood smoke, and her mind started to retrace her path through the site where the plane had crashed, which ultimately led to Dawn's discovery of Kylie's father… but Kylie forcefully blocked it out, not allowing her mind to leave right
here
, right
now
.

"We better find RJ," Kylie said. "He's probably still at the keep."

"With all the commotion we might be able to sneak up past the Tree."

"Well, then, let's go!"

They ran against the tide of people. Everyone looked scared. No one knew what was going on. It was like a microcosm of current life outside the island. Kylie hoped they would be able to get past the keep's ground level. They weren't training, so they weren't permitted above the keep's temple where everyone prayed under the Tree of Life.

For some reason an armed man stood guard outside the keep's door. Kylie had never seen a guard stationed outside the keep. At the spiral stairwell leading to the upper floors, sure, but not outside. She was trying to figure out something to say to the guard as they approached.

"What now?" Dawn whispered.

"I… I don't know." Kylie hooked her arm through the crook of Dawn's elbow. "This was a bad idea. Let's just go back to the storeroom."

"Kylie Ann?" a familiar voice called out, stopping her in her tracks.

She turned at the sound and felt momentarily disoriented. Her mom was walking toward her, and she was accompanied by Jason, a young woman, and one of the guardsmen.

"Mother?" Kylie said, subconsciously drifting toward the sight of familiar people.

"Mrs. Dwyer?" Dawn said, stunned just as much as Kylie was.

"What are you guys doing here?" Kylie asked. "And who are you?"

"I'm Leah."

"Marcus and his people… they're part of this, the Arkadium," Linda Dwyer said as if that were a positive statement instead of an uttered damnation. Her eyes were clear. Alive. Her anger was gone and she looked healthy. She looked like a different person.

"Mom…" Kylie paused, not wanting to finish her sentence.

"What is it? What were you going to say?"

"You look so… happy."

"I am. I truly am. I finally know my path. God has spoken to me and opened my eyes to so many things these last several days. The Arkadium—"

"Don't tell me you've fallen under their spell?"

"It's not a spell. It's the truth. The plain, honest truth of our Lord Jesus expressed through the will of Nature."

"Mom… they kidnapped us. Took us prisoner. If it wasn't for RJ… if he didn't…"

When Kylie's voice failed her, Dawn said, "They kidnapped us to turn us into sex slaves."

"Then it must be God's will."

"That's so much
bullshit
, Mother. You can't just excuse every evil fucking thing in the world as God's will. Or the whim of Mother Nature. So God and Mother Nature wanted us to get raped?"

"So were you…?" Linda said, trailing off. "It wouldn't surprise me if you were based on your immoral path before Election Day."

"No…" Kylie said, and took a deep breath. "Like I said, RJ saved us."

"No, little girl, that's where you're wrong. God had other plans for you, and that's why you're…" She examined her daughter with a critical eye. "That's why you're a dishwasher."

"I suppose it's also God's will that Dad's dead?"

Her mother's expression shifted from the height of religious fervor to utter sadness in the time it took for her brain to process the information.

"Dad died trying to save a little girl. A stranger. A little girl who never hurt anyone in her entire life. They both died. She was cute. Like five years old. And he died, blistered and burned in the middle of a forest turned to ash. That was God's will? Really, Mother?"

The world around Kylie had disappeared. Nothing remained but the narrowing tunnel leading to her mother's fractured face, now slick with tears.

A number of people were running toward them from around the curve of the keep. From their looks of terror, they were more so running
away
from something than running toward Kylie or the fort's front wall in the distance.

"What the…?" Dawn said, but never finished.

Among the stampede of people, Kylie counted three women from the kitchens, Juana among them. There was a mix of other people—masons, laborers, gardeners, Eves—at least twenty by her rough count.

Juana's shapeless shift was covered in blood, and an open laceration on her upper arms streamed ribbons of blood down her front.

The armed man guarding the keep's door came trotting over. "What is it?"

Kylie said, "We don't know."

The man lifted his weapon, aiming in the direction from which the people had come.

Dawn shouted, cupping her hands around her mouth. "Juana! Juana, what's going on!"

Juana, panting for breath, bleeding uncontrollably, slowed her pace, but only long enough to say through wheezing breath, "They were already… here… hiding…"

Kylie didn't understand what she meant, and she took off as fast as she could, rejoining the others. The straggler of the group, a man in his early sixties, a man Kylie had never met, but was pretty certain worked in the greenhouse, rounded the bend, took a few choppy strides, and then looked back over his shoulder. He panted, clutching his heart, his skin a sickly gray pallor.