I sat in the passenger seat of the car, sobbing silently. Carmen drove into the night with a look of pain on her face. She knew what had happened to me, even though I didn’t fully understand.
“Ophelia,” she said at last. “In the glovebox, there are some vitamins. They’re herbs from my garden that I’ve crushed down and made into capsules. Please take two of them…for me…you’ll…understand someday.”
I looked over at her and slowly opened her glove box. There was one jar filled with handmade pills.
I took two, as instructed, but didn’t say a word. After I swallowed them, Carmen reached out and put a hand on my back.
“I’m so sorry,” she said quietly.
“What happened?” My voice was so quiet, I wasn’t sure if she heard me.
“Something that should never have happened.”
“Where are we going?”
“I’m going to get to someplace safe, alright?” She sighed. “But I can’t go far, so you’ll have to walk. Do you understand?”
I nodded with tears spilling down my cheeks.
“You have to be strong. The Watchmen were right about one thing: you’ll have to be an adult now,” she looked over at me. “You’ll have to be strong.”
“Why can’t you come with me?”
“My boy is still back at home. I can’t leave him,” she said sadly. “And I fear for us both if we were to leave with you. The Watchtower might let one person leave, but three of us?” She shook her head. “Now, do you remember what I told you?”
“Find a road, find a car, ask to go to the next town.”
Carmen nodded.
“Harper,” I was pulled back to the present moment by the sound of a man’s voice.
I turned to see Varo. His hands were tucked into his pockets, and there was a look of discomfort across his face. I realized that tears were staining my cheeks, my feet were bare, and my clothing was still dusty from the storm.
“Why did you bring me here?” My voice was hollow.
“Lu was called back,” was all he offered for an explanation. “I feared she was going to be…chosen, like you were.”
“What do I have to do with it?”
Varo looked down and took a deep breath. “I thought that I could trade you for my sister.”
I scoffed. “Trade? What the fuck? You knew I didn’t remember anything about this place, and you thought you could lure me back by asking me to solve your sister’s disappearance…you piece of shit!”
I was already walking up to him with my shoulders tense.
“I didn’t know you forgot…” He said slowly.
“Bullshit.”
“It’s the truth,” he raised his hands in defense. “I thought that maybe if I could find you…you’d know of a way to get Lu home without putting yourself in danger. But then I realized that you forgot…everything. I’m sorry.”
“You don’t get to be sorry for bringing me back to this place.”
Varo gave a short nod.
“Who’s Carmen?” I asked suddenly. The least he could do was fill me in on the missing pieces of my mind.
“My mother.”
I had figured as much, but I needed it confirmed. “How did you and Lu leave?”
“After you disappeared, the town was in chaos for a while, but eventually it settled down. My mom had Lu, and things were going alright for a while. Until…until they found out that she had helped you escape.” His words were tense as he spoke.
I felt my heart sink. I might have been angry with Varo, but never with Carmen. She had saved me.
“What did they do to her?” I couldn’t hide my anger.
“There’s no water truck,” he changed the topic suddenly. “There’s no delivery truck either. No one comes into this town and leaves.”
“Okay, but what happened to Carmen-”
“The Watchtower is strange; it keeps away aging and thirst, but nothing else.”
“I agree that’s strange, but you’re not answering my question.”
Varo nodded. “I’ll show you.”
I was beginning to grow tired of the whole ‘being shown but not told’ situation, but I followed Varo nevertheless. He walked towards the outer edge of town, further from The Watchtower than we had been. I walked beside him, silent.
Around us, the desert looked perfectly normal, as if The Watchtower didn’t exist at all. In the distance, the mountains looked a dull shade of purple. Tumbleweeds danced across the open areas and down the road.
“You never should have brought me here,” I said to Varo.
“I know,” his words were quiet but tinted with remorse.
Varo led me across town towards a large stone barn. It was old and weathered like the rest of the town. There were no windows and only one door. The roof was made of metal and was beginning to sag in the middle, as if it might collapse.
Varo paused as he put his hand on the door. For the briefest moment, he hesitated. Something like fear painted his face with a look of anxiety. He ignored whatever feelings he was experiencing and opened the door. I followed him inside.
Inside the building, I was met by the scent of rotten meat and rubbing alcohol. I struggled to breathe upon entering. The room was cleaner than I expected, made entirely of stone and cement. Rows of large hooks hung from pulleys in the center of the room; beneath them was a drain.
I was in a slaughterhouse. I knew that much, but as to why I was brought here, I couldn’t be sure.
“Varo, I need some of my questions answered. I’m tired of figuring everything out by-”
“Did you see any cattle outside? Or pigs?”
He turned to face me. In the dim light, his face looked angrier than I had ever seen him look.
“No,” I said.
There were no animals in Judgment.
“As I said, The Watchtower might have been able to take away aging and thirst, but it couldn’t take away everything,” his voice was laced with an anger I couldn’t quite understand.
“What do they eat, then?”
“The population of Judgment has stayed about the same since its beginning in 1962, but the birthrates have been the same as anywhere else in the country.”
Suddenly, I didn’t want to hear more. I took an unstable step backwards.
“No,” I said. “They don’t…eat people?”
The silence that followed spoke volumes. The wind howled outside, and I was left with the realization that I was standing in the space where countless people had been killed.
“No,” I said again. “That’s not…they can’t be doing that. Missing people are reported to the police. There’s no way…”
“Laws don’t apply to the people of this town,” he stared down at the drain.
“You can’t be serious. They don’t eat people. They can’t…I…”
“Only the ones who begin to cause problems for the town.”
Like Carmen, I thought. No one can leave Judgment.
Suddenly, the air seemed sickly thick. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to think. My world was a blur.
I raced out of the slaughterhouse and collapsed onto my knees. My stomach churned, and I vomited until I had nothing left in my gut. My hand clenched the side of the building as my body purged itself.
When reality returned to me, I didn’t bother to pull myself to my feet. Instead, I chose to sit on the dusty ground in front of whatever used to be in my stomach. I stared at the distant horizon and wondered how many people had been marched through that door, bled, and hanged. How many people had been butchered like cattle?
Behind me, Varo approached slowly.
“How did you find me in Arizona?” I asked him.
Only days ago, I was living an entirely different life. I had no memory of my childhood, only thoughts of the future. I worried about rent and what I would make for dinner–not cannibals in the desert and otherworldly monoliths.
“The Watchmen–the leaders–knew where you were. When Lu arrived in Judgment, they sent me a message with your whereabouts. It was clear they wanted you back,” he explained. “I thought it was the only way to get her back.”
I felt hollow inside. They had always known where I was. They were waiting for me to return.
“Why me?” I asked him.
“You insulted The Watchtower. You destroyed its gift.”
I thought about the memory of myself running to the road, blood spilling down my legs. I kept a steady hand on the wall beside me.
“Do I have family here?” I looked up at him.
“Not anymore. Your parents…protested your sacrifice to The Watchtower. I was…young then, but I remember them dragging them away.”
He didn’t need to explain any further. I already understood the way this twisted place worked. My parents were slaughtered and eaten, as was Carmen. I was ‘sacrificed’ to The Watchtower and escaped only because of a woman’s kindness. A kindness she had been killed for.
“They’re going to kill me, aren’t they?”
“I don’t know,” Varo sat down with me. He didn’t look over at me; instead, he looked at The Watchtower.
“And if I try to leave, it’ll stop me.”
He nodded.
For a moment, we were both silent. I stared into the desert. The weight of the truth was beginning to rest heavily on my shoulders. I wanted to scream. Instead, I found myself staring at The Watchtower, enchanted.
“We need to destroy it,” I said quietly. I felt its heartbeat in the ground beneath my knees.
Varo looked over at me at last. “It can’t be destroyed.”
“Everything can be destroyed,” I said.
Will there be a Seven?
You could be really mean and leave it right there. :)
Truly finding it’s stride, getting darker and more ominous. Looking forward to seven, keep up the good work!