The Anchorites: Chapter 4
Hello, readers! Thanks for your interest in this story. I want to both encourage and warn you that things are about to ramp up in the next couple of weeks. I’ve kept the chapters short on purpose because I know how hard it can be to read via email.
That said, I encourage you to catch up on all the previous chapters now, because the story is about to get more mysterious and dangerous—and the chapters will be getting longer. I don’t want to leave anyone behind!
Last week, Havel and Abraheem lost one of their flock. This week, we spend time with Sergeant Marius Langford as he interrogates the stranger and finds Havel’s missing goat.
4
Marius
“Instead, the thorn will come up the cypress tree,
And instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree:
And it shall be to the Lord for a name,
For an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.”
Sergeant Marius Langford didn't always approve of the way the commune operated. Dangerous fools, like the stranger, should be left to their own devices. He believed they should have to stay out in the wild, where their snake oil minds would shrivel up like the paper-thin skin of a rattler. Good riddance.
Seven years had passed since he and Jema came down from Cairo. When he accepted the position, it seemed like a pretty sweet gig. A cluster of UN health care specialists, an Egyptian scientist, and a mechanic, approached him and offered him a securities contract. The scientist had family and some land in Al-Fashn, and they needed someone with military experience to round out the team.
A job was a job, he thought, just a way to keep food on the table. Marius had worn many hats and accepted many a dubious opportunity since the satellites crashed, not giving much thought to the quality, legality, or longevity of the gig. If he was honest with himself, this job had been the best so far, because it had structure. He didn't know what he would do without order – some semblance of a chain of command. He hadn't realized it until he left, but the chaos of those other jobs just about broke him. It was a gamble to pack up and move away from a major city, but he needed time away from all the slap-dash, insecure, and mercenary jobs. This post gave him time for his brain to become strong again. Plus, it made him feel like a soldier again. Next thing Marius knew he had been at the commune for five years. Jema had been only sixteen.
Together, they built something close to idyllic. A place that was safe. A place with enough food and power. They dealt peaceably with outside threats. They maintained an ever-improving crop yield, and they could even synthesize some rudimentary medicines. But now, as of just recently, he had been daydreaming of spreading his wings.
Marius glanced back to make sure his charge was still following. The two men were walking a gravel trail bordering the commune.
“It’s been put to me to assess your communal values, needs, and overall aptitude. If we are to hold you here till the next caravan passes through, you’ll need to work to earn the rations we give you and the resources we used to stabilize you. After that, the caravan will take you to the closest major city, and you will receive the mental care you need to thrive in society.”
“Mental care?” asked the stranger.
“Sure, things like therapy and antidepressants.” Marius hiked up his pants. “We prefer to think that we have evolved past resorting to lobotomizing folks who have episodes like yours. The point is, stranger, we don't have those kinds of resources here, and we ain't fixin’ to in the future.” The large army man’s boots crunched the gravel. He walked straight ahead with his chest out and his hands clasped behind his back. Turning to look at the stranger out of the corner of his eye, he caught the old man’s sneer.
“I suppose I’m on the hook for the arrow that broke when I fell? How much do I owe for that?” The stranger stopped walking, forcing the larger man to square up.
Marius’s keen eyes scrutinized the old-timer. He estimated that he must be around sixty. The stranger’s hawkish profile and rangy bearing reminded Marius of a scarecrow.
This guy is going to be a pain in my ass, thought Marius, running his blunt black fingers over his sweaty, balding pate.
“What skills do you have?” asked Marius, turning away and continuing to walk the border trail. After a quiet moment, he heard the stranger's footsteps fall into stride; it gave him no small amount of pleasure, knowing that he was in control.
“I was a pilot in the Italian Air Force,” the stranger answered.
“Yeah?” Marius stopped and turned around with genuine interest. “A military man?” The stranger passed Marius, looking straight ahead.
“It sounds more impressive than it is. By the end, we went from five hundred fighter planes to one hundred. It was all the dust, broke down our rotors quicker than we had time to repair them.”
Marius was suspicious of this — not the Italian bit; he could hear the characteristic lilting purr typical of old Romance languages. No, it was the pilot part that piqued his credulity. The old man clearly had eye issues; Marius could tell by the milky, semi-reflective sheen of the man's iris, indicative of cataracts.
Marius was supposed to be asking questions, but he was the kind of man to let silence tell him all he needed to hear. As they walked the circuit, sweat ran down his bulldog face and was lost somewhere in his rough, spongy beard. The stranger, likewise, seemed perfectly comfortable with the lack of candor. Stubborn old-timer. Eventually, after half an hour of silence, the stranger broke it.
“Listen, I’m willing to admit that I was too dramatic the other night, and I’m truly grateful that you fixed what you broke in me,” pointing to the hole in his denim shirt. “But I’m not waiting around for some Satan-worshiping communists to psychovaluate m—.”
The stranger was interrupted by a sound of distress. They stopped, both of them dropping to one knee. After a moment, listening to the birds and shifting leaves, they heard the unmistakable bleating of an animal. Goat? Sheep? Marius and the older man slowly made their way toward the noise, using their ears more than their eyes. They ventured off the path and were suddenly faced with an unexplainable sight.
A large animal, covered in thick, matted hair, was caught in a thicket and suspended in midair. The creature was massive, resembling a bear but with an elongated snout. Its head was the size of a horse's. The face of this monster was frozen in a rictus grin, its skin pulled back to expose a lipless row of crooked teeth.
Suspended between heaven and earth, the beast was ensnared by tough, gray-green boughs that reminded Marius of saguaro cacti. The limbs, like tentacles, pierced its hide and wrapped around its bulk—pulling, twisting, and bunching its flesh. The boughs seemed to be orchestrating some torturous procedure, like a medieval rack. What they had first assumed was its back was, in truth, its stomach, the body contorted into an impossible backbend.
The bear's face was accented with two large flowers. Fuzzy green buds had bloomed from its eye cavities, their petals—pink and cream—bursting from their shells.
“Holy hell,” whispered Sergeant Marius Langford.
Hanging in the bear's bloody maw was an unharmed but terrified goat.