the next... he was staring at a line of
ants making their slow way though the grass as he gasped for breath. The sound
of loud brays of laughter rang in his pounding ears. Then a female voice
screaming unintelligible words. Josiah caught his breath and tried to use his
arms to push himself to a sitting position. Agony wracked him and he screamed.
"Josiah?" Annie’s
soft sweet voice sounded in his ear. "What’s wrong?"
He couldn’t answer, could only
moan. Then he screamed again as she rolled him to his side.
"You asshole!" she shrieked.
"Look what you did! His arm is broken!"
Josiah got a hazy image of Peter
shrugging nonchalantly. "He fell on it. He broke his own arm."
"You tripped him!"
"He charged. If he
hasn’t learned to fight better than that by now, there’s no hope
for him." The bully strolled away.
As Peter’s bulky frame
withdrew from his field of vision, he saw a crowd of adult women headed his
direction. In the lead was Pearl, Annie’s mother and head nurse. They
would fix him. Josiah waved his good hand in front of his face, trying to
dispel a cloud of black gnats which seemed to have come out of nowhere. He
could hear them buzzing.
"Josiah, why didn’t you
use your techniques?"
"Had to be man to man,"
he choked.
"Fool. Bullies don’t
fight like men."
"I’m better than he
is."
"Maybe so, but you’re
still a fool."
He wanted to say more, to argue with
her, to ask how she’d managed to speak inside his head, but the gnats
crowded closer until they became flies, and then bees. Their buzzing drowned
out his words and total blackness fell.
***
In some ways, Annie mused to
herself, the six weeks Josiah had spent in a cast had been good for him. Being
forced to use his non-dominant hand had strengthened him overall. His
handwriting was worse than ever, but his aim with a handgun had improved, as
had his accuracy with throwing stars. Once the cast came off, he’d have
to retrain his left hand. She grinned. Left handed in Latin was sinistra. If
only Josiah could act sinister, his size would be less of a detriment.
But alas, the boy was open-hearted and sensitive. That made him a great friend.
Maybe even a boyfriend someday, if he’d ever grow. But as the warrior all
young men wanted to be, he came up short.
"Hannah, are you
listening?"
Sorry, Grandfather," Annie
said, her cheeks tingling with heat. "But please call me Annie."
"I did. Three times. Are you
finally paying attention?"
"Yes, Grandfather," she
replied, making a show of meekness.
"Good. Tell me the origin of
the nephilim."
Annie opened the Bible on her desk
and turned to Genesis. She found the passage and began to read.
Chapter 11
"Medic! Medic!" Mr.
Smith raced into the compound, clutching a bundle of limp, dangling limbs close
to his chest. One foot hung at a strange angle and little drops of blood
sprinkled the hallway floor behind him.
Lucien, who had just been meandering
past the front door, nearly got bowled over by the rushing cleric. He jumped
out of the way.
"Smith, what happened,"
he shouted. Then his mind pieced together what he was seeing. Frizzy brown
hair. Long denim skirt. "What happened to Annie?"
Mr. Smith didn’t even slow
down. Lucien trailed him to the clinic. Smith set the girl gently on the bed.
Lucien was no medic, but he could
see the girl had been through something. Her right ankle was clearly broken.
There was a deep gash across her belly, another at her hairline. Blood flowed
freely from the two wounds.
"What happened?" he
asked again.
"Medic! Nurse! Someone, come
on!"
At the sound of Smith’s
shouting, two women and a man rushed into the room. They took in the sight of
the battered girl ,whose blood stained the white sheets redder with every
passing moment.
"What happened?" the
medic asked, hurrying to the sink embedded along the exterior wall of the white
cinder block room. Beside him, the nurses pulled on gloves and scooped up
cloths. One raced to Annie and pressed down hard on the
Lexy Timms
J.L. Hendricks
Carrie Bebris
Lisa Lang Blakeney
Anna Godbersen
Yezall Strongheart
Michael Kotcher
Rita Bradshaw
Kimberly Ivey
Tillie Cole