There was a lot of uncertainty going through my mind, but one thing I knew for certain: The Watchtower had to be destroyed.
After several minutes of gathering my thoughts, I pulled myself onto my feet.
Varo did the same. I was still angry with him for what he did—bringing me back here. However, I didn’t have time to dwell on the matter. Besides, I would need all the help I could get. I didn’t have the faintest idea of how to take down an evil primordial monolith, but I knew I had to start somewhere.
Varo and I made it to Coyote’s cabin before nightfall. The old man sat on the porch while Lu paced the front yard. She stopped walking as we approached, and her expression relaxed.
“I told you they’d be back,” Coyote said to Lu just loud enough for me to hear.
“I need to know everything you know about The Watchtower,” I said, disinterested in any small talk that might slow down the conversation.
Coyote nodded. “I don’t know much, none of us do, but I’ll share what I know.”
Inside, the four of us sat together in the small living room. Coyote sat in his chair while Lu, Varo, and I squeezed onto the couch. The old man poured us each a generous amount of whiskey, saying, “You’ll need this.”
“I’m eighteen,” Lu said.
Coyote only shrugged and Lu seemed more than happy to accept the offering.
I was thankful for the drink. However, after a few sips, I realized–for the first time in a long time–I had no interest in dulling my senses. I wanted to be fully present to understand the gravity of the situation, no matter how hard it might be to stomach.
Varo didn’t seem to share my sentiment. His glass was half-empty before Coyote even began to talk. His hands fiddled nervously with his lighter.
“The town of Judgment was formed in 1962,” Coyote began. Outside wind blew aggressively against the sides of his cabin. “But The Watchtower has been here longer than that–none of us know how long. From our best guess, it is older than the continent.”
In my head, I imagined The Watchtower appearing out of thin air; I hadn’t considered that it had predated the town. Or the country, for that matter.
“There’s a handful of documents that The Watchmen have found over the years that reference The Watchtower.”
“Who’re The Watchmen?” I asked.
“They’re the ones in charge of this town—the ones who built it. They have a special connection to The Watchtower. But that’s neither here nor there. What’s important is that none of us know the origin of it or its residents.”
“Residents? People live inside of it?” I couldn’t remember much about going into The Watchtower, but it certainly didn’t seem like the kind of place anyone could live.
“I don’t know if I would use the word ‘people’,” he explained. “But beings of some kind. In all my time living here in Judgment, I’ve only had the displeasure of seeing one.”
“Mom used to talk about them sometimes…taking guesses as to what they were,” Lu said as she stared at her hands.
“We all call them Primores, but most of us don’t talk about them,” Coyote explained. “Carmen was always fascinated by the world around her. It doesn’t shock me that she was curious about them as well.”
“If they are so terrible, why is this town here?”
Coyote smiled and took a long sip of his drink. “Even terrible things can give pretty gifts. The Primores have kept us young for over sixty years. We don’t age like the rest of the world. As time slips by outside of Judgment, we are all held above it.”
For a moment, I tried to imagine what that must be like. I imagined myself just as I am, while the world around me changed like the seasons.
“There were thirty of us,” Coyote said. “In the late 1950s, a group was formed outside of Oklahoma City for people with terminal illnesses.”
I stared at Coyote, considering his words. The 1950s seemed a long way away. Coyote looked too young to be discussing them the way he was, but I had seen the pictures.
“At first we talked about our bucket lists and the things we’d miss the most when we died,” he chuckled. “It wasn’t the happiest group in the world, but it felt…good to know I wasn’t alone.”
“What does this have to do with-”
“I’m getting there,” he shot an irritated look at Lu. “Leon was interested in alternative medicines. He had traveled to India, Thailand, and Peru, seeking different methods to heal. Somewhere along the way, he met someone who claimed that there was a giant rock, somewhere in the States, that granted immortality.”
“The Watchtower,” I said.
“Yup. When he told us this…I don’t think any of us believed him, but there was little else to do other than sit and wait for death. So, we began to search for this…magic rock.”
“How long did it take you to find it?” I asked.
“Years,” he gave a solemn nod. “About ten of us died from our conditions before we found it.”
Beside me, Varo was silent, clutching his glass so hard I thought it might break.
“We started off by camping in front of The Watchtower. Slowly, our ailments faded the longer we stayed there. Realizing Leon was right, we…formed a town. We used to have things brought in, water, food, tools, and building supplies. But as we asked for more years from The Watchtower, it began to ask more from us as well.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“At first, our technology began to fail. Cars broke down, and TVs only played certain stations. It was clear that The Watchtower wanted us to disconnect from the world–so we did. Then the water trucks stopped, so The Watchtower granted us immunity to thirst-”
“But not to hunger,” Varo’s dark eyes met with Coyote’s.
Coyote gave a slow nod. “Never to hunger.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” Coyote admitted. “Leon and the other Watchmen think it has something to do with children.”
“Why would it care if children were in Judgment?” I asked.
“Because the Primores need young women,” Coyote said, refusing to look at either Lu or me.
“Why?” I asked.
But I already knew the answer. The pain in my lower abdomen told me enough. The memory of a life being forced inside of me was not a sensation I could forget.
“That is how it keeps its own population alive,” Coyote continued to explain. “Every few years, a young woman is chosen to be an offering to The Watchtower. She’s sent into the caves below it and…when she returns to the town, she is with child.”
I knew the truth already, but hearing it spoken aloud made my head swim. I felt sick.
“Varo and I left when I was really young,” Lu said with a shaky voice. “I didn’t realize those women who came back from the caves were…”
“Yes,” Coyote cleared his throat. “The mother never makes it through the entire pregnancy and the child is always…wrong. Leon is-”
“Which one is Leon?” Lu asked.
“He considers himself a mayor of Judgment. He’s the only one who’s stepped up. The only one willing to talk to the Primores.”
“No one else talks to them?”
“Not anymore. They’ve chosen him to be their spokesman. When the child comes, the Primores ask for it back. Leon obeys. There’s no other option.”
The sickness I was feeling only intensified.
I couldn’t decide if I was going to faint or vomit. I set my glass on the table and ran my fingers through my hair. The realization of what happened to me was beginning to set in. I might not have remembered much about the caves, but my body remembered what had been done to it.
“So, the people who live here are the same people who have always lived here?” Lu asked. I could barely hear her over the sound of my heart beating in my ears.
“Most of us, yes, but others joined along the way. Some found their way on their own, others knew people who were here already.”
“When did our mother join?” Lu asked.
“She arrived here in the 1980s,” he said.
“But she knew…about the truth? The ‘offerings’ and the slaughterhouse?”
“Most people don’t know about the slaughterhouse,” Coyote said. “But they all know about the offerings. It’s always painted in a rather honorable light. The mother is always seen as something holy–something close to a goddess. During her last few months, she’s always treated like a queen.”
“But she’ll die,” Lu pressed on.
“Yes.”
“Has anyone ever successfully left?” I struggled to find my voice as I spoke.
“No.”
“Does The Watchtower have any weaknesses?” Varo finally spoke up, and I was thankful for his question. My mind felt fuzzy, and all I could hear clearly was my own heartbeat.
Coyote hesitated.
“Coyote,” Lu said sharply.
“Yes,” he said at last. “It’s taken me a long time to determine what it was but I think The Watchtower has an aversion to water.”
“That’s it? Water?”
He nodded. “When it granted us freedom from thirst, we were…confused. While we might be in the desert, there is water in the ground. We were planning on getting a well drilled for the city when The Watchtower took away our thirst.”
“So, there’s no water here…at all?”
Coyote nodded.
I considered the information for a moment. “Is there any access to water here?”
“No,” he said. “We’re completely cut off from water. There isn’t so much as a creek nearby.”
Lu and Varo were as silent as I was, clearly thinking of how to get water to such an isolated location.
“Alma, at the motel, told me that a water truck came to fill up tanks for the people here. Is that-”
“We have all been briefed on what to say when someone new comes to town and realizes there’s no water. It’s rare nowadays that anyone comes out here, but Alma was just reciting what she had been told to say.” Coyote let out a sigh.
I said nothing.
“If we are able to destroy it, what happens to Judgment–to the people here?” Lu asked.
“I can’t be sure,” he replied.
Silence filled the room.
“Don’t think I haven’t thought this through because I have,” he continued. “While I can’t say I want to die, I’ll admit that I know what is happening here is wrong. Something has to be done.”
That night, Coyote let us stay in his living room. He retired to his bedroom, shutting the door long after nightfall. I moved to the chair he had been sitting in and gazed at the two siblings in front of me.
In another life, I had known Varo. He had been a child when I left, only a few years younger than me. Lu hadn’t been born by the time I left Judgment. Even if I had stayed, I likely never would have met her. I wouldn’t have survived that long. The thought curled around my chest like a serpent.
“We can’t leave here without destroying The Watchtower,” Lu was the first to speak up. “If we don’t, we’ll all end up dead or coming back here somehow.”
I couldn’t help but nod in agreement.
“The only way to destroy it is with water, right? Where the hell are we going to get water? And how much would we need?” Lu ran her fingers through her dark hair and collapsed backwards onto the couch.
Varo grabbed his pack of cigarettes from off the table, stood, and walked out the front door. Apparently, he was done with the conversation. I leaned back in my chair and let out a long sigh. I listened as Varo stepped outside into the night, and the door shut quietly behind him.
“Varo said you were one of the…offerings,” Lu’s voice was low as she spoke.
“I was.”
“What was it like…on the inside of The Watchtower?”
“I don’t remember. I barely remembered anything until I got here and now,” I sighed. “I only remember going in and then coming out. I know what happened, but I don’t remember it.”
“I’m so sorry,” she offered. There was genuine sadness in her voice.
“I couldn’t remember most of this until I was driving here with Varo,” I said. “I used to think I wanted to know my past, but now…I don’t know if it’s better to know or not.”
“So, you were living a normal life before he found you?”
I shrugged and smiled. “As normal as it could be, yeah.”
“I’m sorry you got pulled back into all this,” she apologized again.
“It’s not your fault,” I said. “Varo said you were called back…what did he mean by that?”
Lu took a moment to gather her thoughts before speaking. “We lived in an apartment together in Las Cruces. Life was normal until one night when I felt this…sensation. I don’t know what sparked it, but I knew I needed to find out if what I remembered from my childhood was real.”
“So you left? Just like that?”
She nodded. “It was dumb, I know that now. But you know how you hear stories about things, and you remember some of it, but…I needed to see for myself if Judgment was as terrible as Varo made it out to be.”
I nodded. There was something to be said for knowing the truth—seeing it for yourself. “So, it was just you and Varo?”
“Yeah, it’s always just been the two of us.”
I had assumed as much when I first realized Varo’s lies. His tale about Lu and their ‘mother’ getting in a fight was a lie. It was a way to get me to go along with him.
“When I got here, I knew I made a mistake,” Lu let out a shaky sigh. “Coyote’s been the only one who’s given me real answers. Everyone else acts like I’m crazy for asking about the past. They want to erase Carmen and everyone else who’s caused a problem.”
“How did you leave Judgment the first time? You said you were young.”
Lu sat up a little straighter. Her dark eyes glanced up at the ceiling, and I saw that tears had begun to form in her eyes.
“I was eleven,” she sighed. “There was talk of me being chosen for the next offering.”
I stared at her, waiting for her to continue.
“I don’t know if I was chosen or not, but Varo told The Watchmen that they couldn’t make me their offering,” she blinked back some tears. “Then he was taken just like my mom was.”
I blinked. I had seen where they took Carmen. No one walked away from a slaughter. Lu had to be confused.
“I didn’t know at the time what happened to people who were taken away,” the tears had broken free and were now beginning to spill down her face.
“How did he survive?”
Lu blinked back her tears and looked into my eyes. “I don’t know. He never told me.” She let out a long sigh. “He made it back to our house somehow and pulled me into the car. I was…we made it out that night. I guess maybe we would have made it out for good if I hadn’t…”
I considered what she was saying for a long moment. Varo knew about the slaughterhouse because he had been there before.
“If you could remember what happened to you in those tunnels, do you think you would be able to know how to stop them?” Lu’s eyes were rimmed with red, but her tears had mostly dried.
“What?”
“I mean, you’re the only person I can ask about what it’s like inside The Watchtower. I know you can’t remember, but…what if you could?”
I hadn’t wanted to remember what happened to me in The Watchtower. However, I couldn’t ignore the fact that Lu had a point. There might be vital information deep in my mind somewhere.
“What did Coyote call the…beings in The Watchtower?”
“Primores,” Lu said.
“You think that if I could get myself to remember my encounter with the Primores, I could find a way to destroy The Watchtower?”
“I think it might be the best chance we have,” Lu said tiredly.
“Water may be one of their weaknesses, but…we don’t know enough about them to use that to our advantage,” I said.
Lu nodded. She looked as exhausted as I felt.
“I think you might be onto something,” I said. “But it’s late, we should both rest.”
“It seems wrong to sleep when–”
“It won’t help either of us to stay awake all night. You take the couch,” I offered. “I’m going to talk to Varo about our plan.”
Lu nodded.
Outside, the air was cold. Wind whipped across the desert sands, blowing dust and debris through town.
Varo stood on the porch, leaning on the railing of the deck. A cigarette was held carelessly in one hand, nearly forgotten about as he stared at the horizon. The Watchtower commanded attention, and he was obeying. I felt as though the great monolith was watching us just as much as we were watching it.
“I’m going to try to remember what happened to me in there,” I nodded to the giant structure.
Varo glanced over at me, letting out a cloud of blue smoke as he exhaled. “Some things are better not to know.”
“I agree,” I walked up beside him and continued to watch The Watchtower. “But I think it’s what I have to do. Knowing more about The Watchtower might be our key to destroying it.”
“How do you plan to remember?”
“I don’t know yet, but this place has a way of helping me. The longer I’m here, the more my past makes sense. I remember…most of it now.”
Varo nodded. “I don’t think it’ll be pleasant to remember what happened.”
“I know it won’t be.”
I tried not to let my mind run away with itself. Anything could have happened inside The Watchtower, but I couldn’t let myself spiral into fear. Our only way out of this mess was to learn what weaknesses the Primores had.
“I’ve spent years trying to forget this place,” he said.
“Were you successful?” I glanced over at him.
“No.”
Varo stood still with his arms resting on the rail. The cigarette had nearly gone out.
I couldn’t help but think about what Lu had told me. If she was right, Varo had nearly been killed by this place just like me. It didn’t excuse his lies, but somehow it made me feel closer to him. We shared a dark past—one that very few people could understand.
“Why didn’t you just tell me the truth?”
His eyes met mine. “What truth? That I needed you to come to a town to help my sister from being impregnated by primordial beings?”
I couldn’t help but smirk, realizing what a strange situation I found myself in.
“A day after Lu disappeared, I got a call from an unknown number. I was dumb enough to answer it,” he began. “It was one of The Watchmen—maybe even Leon, I don’t know.”
“What did he say?”
“He told me Lu had ‘gone home’. I knew what it meant—what he would do. I begged him not to hurt her…”
“And?” I prompted.
“He explained that he’d return Lu to me if I found someone for him. They already knew where you were, Harper. I think they’ve always known,” his dark eyes met hers.
They knew where she was. The sentiment was anything but comforting.
“Why lie? Why not tell me what really happened?”
He raised an eyebrow. “And you’d believe that? All of this?” He gestured to The Watchtower that sat on the close horizon.
“You tricked me into returning to this…hellhole,” I raised my chin. “As much as I want to hate you for that, there are others who are more deserving of the hate.”
“I’m sorry,” he offered.
“I don’t want your apology. I want your assistance. I’m going to take that thing down, but I can’t do it alone.”
Varo gave a slow nod and said, “If we do this, we have to finish it. If we fail, we’ll only make everything worse.”
“That’s why I need to remember. I need to know everything I possibly can about The Watchtower before we try and destroy it.”
Sounds a lovely place. They should send out tourist brochures.
Enjoying this thank you.
The plot thickens and secrets are revealed! Looking forward to Eight!