Rise Of The Nephilim

THE SAME MORNING, 6:45 A.M.

“Max, you look awful,” Maybie said as Maxine entered the small kitchen, already dressed for school in black jeans and t-shirt, her eyes red and watery, long, black hair matted.

Maxine rolled her eyes, “Thanks, Mom,” she said, yawning.

“You had trouble sleeping again?”

Even after nearly eighteen years, guilt had still gnawed at Maybie, each day, especially whenever Maxine was in her presence. It was always there. Her past. Her indiscretions. She tried to get it out of her mind as she helped Shane secure his school backpack as the school bus neared their home.

She exhaled sharply, trying to calm the turmoil within her. I must tell her, she thought. I must tell her the truth, even if David is completely against it. But I’m so afraid of losing her. She tried to drown out the thoughts, constantly reminding her of the bad person she’d considered herself to be. The worst mother in the world. She feared the moment would come when she would have to face Maxine and tell her that David was not her real father.

“Bye, Mom,” Shane said, kissing Maybie on the cheek, before dashing out the door into the soft spring rain to meet the bus.

“Have a good day, sweetie. And cover your head,” yelled Maybie, standing on the threshold of the white aluminum door. “And eat everything in your lunch bag!”

“Okay, Mom!” Shane yelled back, with Dodge, the brown cocker spaniel stray, chasing after him, just as he does nearly every time that he or Maxine walked to meet the bus.

Maybie whistled at Dodge, urging him to come. She grabbed the small bowl of food she had set aside for him and placed it to the side, outside the door. Satisfied that Dodge was aware of his food, she turned her attention back to Maxine. “Well . . . was it another bad night?”

Maxine opened the white refrigerator, her back to Maybie, who was now standing over the kitchen sink. “No, not really,” she managed to say, yawning for the hundredth time.

But Maybie was unconvinced. She knew her daughter well. She knew that Maxine had been having the same dream over and over, for several weeks. Why? There were no answers, except that she knew it was not normal.

She looked at Maxine’s thin frame, reaching a few inches over six feet, and shook her head. “Why don’t I make you something to eat before you leave for school?” she offered, turning her attention back to Shane’s bus in time to see the doors close behind him.

She glanced at her watch—6:55 AM

“I have a few minutes before I have to leave for work,” she said, waving from the kitchen’s small window to Shane as the bus pulled away.

“No, I’m fine, Mom. I’ll eat later,” Maxine said, downing the last drop of orange juice left in the bottle.

“Are you sure? You really—”

“Mom, I’m fine. Besides, the bus will be here any minute.”

Maxine slammed the empty juice bottle down on the small dining table. “I gotta go. I think I hear it coming now.”

“Max—”

“See you later, Mom!” she said, halfway out the door.

Maybie sighed. She looked at her wristwatch again: 7:00 A.M. By the time, she’d raised her head, Maxine was already halfway down the concrete walk. She stuck her head out of the screened door. “Try to have a good day; honey. I love you.”

She looked down at her watch again. Oh, my goodness, it’s getting late. I’d better get going myself.

~

The yellow school bus pulled away slowly from Scarborough Lane, in Brewster, New York, leaving behind the small homes, most of which had been abandoned. Some with boarded-up windows and doors. Others, where there were no windows, had torn curtains flying in the wind and rain. Only a few, including Maxine’s, had any semblance of life or a sense of pride.

Maxine sat alone in a seat for two at the back of the bus. She ignored the chatter around her, even the low-pitched, taunting sounds of wolves’ howling, something she’d learned to do at a very early age. Besides, the feeling of getting nearly decapitated was still fresh in her mind. The part of her neck where she’d felt the sting of the sword had still felt strange as if something was resting there. Her skin tingled with a slight burning sensation. She’d even continued to feel the phantom wings on her back. All of it crowded her mind.

She slid on a pair of black sunglasses and then stuffed the small earplugs connected to the cellular phone that David had given to her on her seventeenth birthday into her ears.

She was just beginning to lose herself in the 2035 pop music as she looked out at the unguarded streets and sidewalks.

Whatever song had been playing distracted her from the mounds of garbage and overgrown grass, from the weeds protruding from cracked, neglected concrete. Even the loud jeering and pointing from some of the boys on the bus at the man who had been afflicted with leprosy—a leper—peeking out from the corner of a building might as well have been invisible and voiceless.

Next, to a disheveled bus stop, two teenage boys wrestled as a small crowd of people egged them on.

People, young and old, stood idly on the street corners. Some held bottles filled with spirits of all types; some smoked cigarettes or other mysterious herbs; others were just simply lewd.

This was her reality, her environment—all of it visible, yet invisible. She knew only chaos and cluttered streets. Order and cleanliness had only existed at home and somewhat at school.

She snapped her head back when objects hurled by Idle Goths toward the bus had hit the window she had been sitting next to. She watched them laugh and mouth, probably, what were obscene words. Though, she could not be sure if they were meant for her or the bus she was on.

The days of truant officers were long gone. Anarchy and misfortune ruled the town.

The bus curved the corner of the drive, guarded by century-old trees, to St. Augustine High, a centuries-old stone building that sat high upon a hill. It was like leaving one world and entering another as it climbed from the bottom of the town through the mist that rose from the ground.

This was not a refuge for her, though–not by any measure. In fact, for Maxine, the difference between the town and the fort-like school upon a hill was minuscule.

She’d always been different from the others, out of place, as if she’d belonged to some other, even in her own family. After all, no one else in her family had eyes like hers, not even close. Hers, on the other hand, was strangely mismatched:one green, the other gray, both cold like ice, and almost translucent, except the irises, which remained sharply black and piercing.

Some people called her a freak, especially at school. They called her an animal. A she-wolf.

Throughout her life, she’d often questioned who she was and had often imagined some other person living and breathing inside of her as if her body was just that:a body, playing host to someone else’s soul.

She’d often felt isolated, even in crowds. She’d practiced the art of withdrawal from the sounds and actions of others, because it was far better to be alone in a world, which she had created in her mind, a place where no one had the ability to punish her for something that was out of her control. A place where she belonged and felt safe to be who she was.

~

Maxine sat alone at a table for six eating lunch quietly, just like she’d always done, day after day, pretending not to notice the giggles and soft howling.

Phillip Jack, seventeen, red hair, and freckles, had decided to take the mocking to another level, all the way from across the room, where he was sitting with a group of other students. Without fear of being reprimanded or singled out, he rose from his chair and howled loudly, inciting some of the others to do the same.

They howled and banged on the tables.

She bit down on her lip, almost breaking the skin, trying to contain her anger. She really did try, especially since she’d promised Maybie that she would not get into any more trouble.

Spending three months at the Brewster Juvenile Facility for shoplifting should have been enough to curtail anything that would send her back there. Not to mention the fact that St. Augustine High had been the third school she’d attended within a period of three years.

Stay cool. He’s not worth it. He’s not worth it, she kept telling herself, her head down, biting hard into her dirt-dry burger with a mess of ketchup dripping away from it, staining her plate red.

Their continued mocking pierced through her like daggers. The nerve-splitting “Awoo . . . awoo,” followed by panting, followed by more “Awoo . . .” sent anger surging through her.

Only three more days before graduation, she thought. Three more days before I’m eighteen. Then I can get the hell out of this shit town, far away from these fucking cankers. She was not sure where she would go. She’d thought about moving to California to live with David for a while. But then, she thought about his wife—her stepmother, June—and how she could not stand to be in the same room with her.

“Awoo . . . awoo . . .”

Waves of fury crawled up her spine, snaking through her veins as her legs shook under the table, and her eyes began to burn. Her rage had reached its tipping point, exploding as adrenalin in her head.

With the half-eaten hamburger, still in her hand, she stood up, her blood hot and surging, her eyes wild and otherworldly. She pushed herself away from the table and walked toward Phillip Jack.

He stared at her with wide eyes as she approached him and laughed aloud.

“Oh . . . oh, we made it mad!”

Almost without hesitation, she grabbed the back of his hair with one hand, and with the other, she smashed the burger into his face, yelling, her eyes clouded with tears, “Since you like to make fun of people, how does this feel, meat face? Huh? How does it feel to look like a monster, to have people laugh at you?”

“You bitch!” He protested as he squirmed and twisted his body, trying to break free. It surprised him how strong she was, although she was at least five inches taller than he was. He, as well as the rest, figured her to be weak, fragile, wounded, and passive. However, it had been quite the opposite.

Her strength had far surpassed anyone of them. And they would have learned that much sooner had it not been for her ability to close herself off from the rest of the world, incubating her mind in that world she’d created for herself. But this time was different. She’d had enough. It could have been the dreams; they might have weakened her in some way, made her more sensitive to everything and everyone around her. Either way, something had changed, and she had been changing with it.

“You reek of dog!” he managed to spit out, along with pieces of meat and bread, ketchup smeared on his face.

The other students egged them on, “Fight . . . fight,” they yelled.

Phillip Jack forced himself to stand, his face flushed and breath short.

“Bitch!” he yelled, with tears in his eyes, before he swung at her in a wild punch, missing her face by only an inch.

She swung back at him, her eyes wild with madness, her fist landing squarely on his left eye.

Power rose in her, unrecognizable and out of her control. She wanted to hit him again and again, until he begged for mercy—for, at that moment, he had become the reason for her pain, the pain she’d suffered for most of her life. She wanted to hurt him, and hurt him badly, make him pay for all the times she’d sat alone at the lunch table; all the nights she’d laid crying with her head in her pillow, and all the times she’d considered taking her own life. And she would have hurt him, perhaps disfigured him for life, had it not been for Mr. Bags, the school security guard, who yanked her by the arm.

She had been overpowered with anger and self-pity. She tried to pull away, but Mr. Bags was determined to end this fight. Besides, he was twice her size in thickness and weight and posed more of a challenge. Besides, hitting him would have secured her number in the Brewster Juvenile Facility for at least a year, maybe even longer.

“Ms. Lauren, come with me,” he ordered, his voice raised.

She’d stopped gasping for air and, metaphorically, foaming at the mouth; the only thing that raced through her mind on the way to the principal’s office was the fact that she’d broken her promise to Maybie. She’d never wanted to be a disappointment to her, for she had been the only person Maxine had really trusted. And Maybie was the only person whom she felt had really loved her unconditionally. The look of disappointment in Maybie’s eyes was something she wanted to avoid at all cost. It made her want to dissolve into nothingness.