The Recusants

I wished the streets would just swallow me whole, but this city had teeth, and it had dug deep into my skin and stripped me down to the bone. My whole life flayed open, my identity ripped from me, all the joy devoured in one bite. All that remained was the rain pouring into the dark, muddy alleyways, and the shelter of shadows beneath boarded up windows. 

My hand dripped blood into the puddles at my feet as I limped through the alleyway, pressing close to the concrete walls when red and blue lights flashed through the damp night. All I had was the clothes I wore, the raincoat I had grabbed, and whatever contents remained in my partially unpacked backpack. 

The Enforcers had come in the night, as they always did. But I didn’t sleep anymore. Not for months. Not since I had come home from a late night of studying in the library to find my home a crime scene. 

I should have known. I should have questioned why my uncle had been there that night. Just standing in front of our house, just beyond the reach of the emergency lights. He had grabbed me by my shoulders and pulled me away. At the time I thought it was to protect me both from the Enforcers and from the sight of my parents’ blood soaking into our living room carpet. 

How had he known to be there? That was the question I should have asked. 

I stepped into a patch of mud and felt it squish beneath my foot. The sensation sent a shudder all the way up my spine. Another reminder. I had snuck back into my house, after they took the bodies out–my mother, my father, my sister–all gone. But the blood still soaked the carpet. I didn’t dare turn the lights on, so I didn’t see the stain. I just felt the squish of it between my toes, the sticky squelch of carpet wet by blood. 

The sick feeling of that moment swept over me all over again. I reached out a hand and pressed it against the slick wall beside me. Tried to steady my breathing, but I couldn’t draw in enough air. Every breath felt shallower and shallower. My head began to feel too light, almost weightless. 

It was the sweep of light around the corner of a nearby building and the angry buzz that yanked me out of the past. Drones. I had made myself a wanted woman by fighting back this time. They weren’t going to give up looking for me easily.

I stumbled into a run, trying not to splash in any puddles or step out under any street lights. The moment light fell upon my face, or some camera picked up any of my features, a nearby drone or Enforcer would gun me down where I stood. Or likely worse. 

The alleyway was narrow, but dark. Good for the moment, but as soon as a drone passed over, it would be game over for me. I needed to find a place to hide. 

The building to my right seemed to be abandoned. It gaped eyeless at me, rows of broken or boarded up windows. Some kind of old apartment complex, waiting to be torn down or revitalized. My instincts screamed at me to scamper inside this building, burrow down beneath its falling timbers and rebar, the drywall sloughing off like the old skin of a serpent. But the Enforcers were good at catching people. 

“They’re like rats,” my uncle had said. “They’ll crawl into whatever abandoned hole is the closest. The Enforcers hardly have to do any work, when the Recusants trap themselves all nice and neat.”

And sure enough, as I watched, a drone entered in the top level through a broken window. I could hear the sound of its propellers echoing in the empty hallways, like a hive of angry bees had been unleashed inside. I inched past, almost holding my breath, rain dripping into my eyes, almost blinding me. The next building was not abandoned. Some apartments still had lights on, the curtains drawn tight so any movement was only silhouettes. 

The alleyway opened up into a street full of neon lights. Was anything even actually open at this hour? I hesitated, pressed up against the corner of the building, feeling the slime on the concrete against the base of my neck. My shirt was plastered to me, completely saturated with rain. 

I heard the buzz, then, of another drone. Glancing back, I saw that one had turned into the alleyway, the lights shining from it in wide, sweeping beams. I dashed into the street. 

Immediately I knew I had made a mistake. The glowing yellow light of a sign that read “Hot Chicken Here” illuminated my entire face. Even in my panic, I caught sight of at least two CCTV cameras, like fat, satisfied birds perched atop poles. I heard shouts from the other end of the street, and, although it may have just been my imagination, the buzz of the drones seemed to grow louder, faster. 

I tucked my thumbs under the straps of my backpack, gripped them tight, and sprinted down the street. An alleyway, like a little sliver of shadow, peeked between a laundromat and a nail salon. I veered towards it, but a flash of gray made me shy away. A bot, the whir of its tread so quiet I had almost missed it. 

It didn’t miss me, however. A siren, triggered by my movement or perhaps even my face, began to blare, red and blue lights flashing. At the end of the alleyway, lights lit up. Enforcers. I could already hear the heavy tread of their boots as they rushed towards me, even though with the noise of the siren and the rain and the distance it would have been impossible to hear. 

I ran the other direction, my lungs already burning, and my calf muscles screaming. My hair stuck to the sides of my face, falling in my eyes. I almost tripped over my own feet, trying to scramble away and head the other direction. 

The silhouette of a man blocked the opposite alleyway. I didn’t know if it was an Enforcer or just a curious or concerned civilian. But it didn’t matter. 

I glanced behind me. The beam of the drone reached almost halfway down the street. A little farther and it would overtake me. 

A car squealed into place at the end of the street, lights flashing. I skidded to a halt. There was no time to think. I couldn’t get caught. I’d rather let a drone gun me down then get taken into custody alive. I had heard the stories. 

From my uncle, mostly. I should have wondered how he knew these things. I had thought it was some kind of morbid curiosity that made him seek out such stories. I hadn’t known he had been collecting them like trophies. That turning people over to the Enforcers–innocent people, who had done nothing wrong–had become a business to him. If he was an Informer, they didn’t look too closely at his activities. And there was a reward too. 

But secretly, I think he liked it. I think he got a rush from seeing good people, people he knew had done nothing wrong, get dragged away to be tortured by the Enforcers. I think he got pleasure from thinking up new ways to frame the innocent. 

I stood in the middle of the street, waiting for a bullet through my heart. The drone had almost reached me. I prayed it would, before the Enforcers did. 

Then a body slammed into me, knocking me to the ground. The drone shot past, the light streaming over us in a blinding ray. Then a hand wrapped around my forearm and began to drag me across the street. Asphalt and pebbles bit into my skin, the rough surface scraped the skin from my other elbow. I kicked against the ground, trying to yank my arm free. 

“No! I won’t go!” I screamed.

The person pulled me to my feet and then slapped a hand over my mouth.

“Shut up!” he hissed. “Do you want to bring the Enforcers down on all of us? We have to get out of here.”

“All of us?” I tried to say, my words smothered by his hand. 

I almost fell again as he sprinted across the street, pulling me with him. We dashed under a neon flashing pink and then red, and through a door I thought should’ve been locked. It gave a little jingle.

The interior was brightly lit, but all the chairs were placed upside down on the tables, and no one was inside. 

“What are we doing here?”

He didn’t respond, only dragged me all the way to the back of the shop where there was a counter for making what looked like pizza dough. He pressed his thumb to a spot on the underside of the counter. A panel slid open.

“Go, quickly,” he ordered. 

I crawled inside, enveloped by shadow. He followed me, and the panel slid shut again with a click. It was pitch black. But then I heard the creak of metal and a thin light emanated from some hidden light source to reveal a set of steps. 

The man didn’t have to say a word. I knew what was expected. Crawling on my hands and knees, I reached the steps. Ducking, I eased my way down them. I heard the click of another panel. 

Then another panel slid out of the way to reveal a narrow doorway. This led to a long, extremely narrow corridor. 

“Quick. And quiet,” the man whispered. “It’s a long walk.”

It was a long and tense walk, cramped between two walls and a low ceiling that required me to duck. We must have gone the length of thirty blocks before we finally reached another doorway. This time a warehouse room lay beyond the threshold.

“Welcome to the Recusants,” the man said. “You’re one of us now.”