The Stars Never Rise

“You go home.” That was the only part of the plan I had worked out so far. I waved one hand at the utility sink in the corner. “Wash your face, and don’t cry anymore or you’ll attract attention. Go out through the admin building so you won’t have to climb the fence, but do not get caught in here. Follow the tracks home so no one will see you on the street either. I’ll tell Anabelle you’re sick—that you ran out so you wouldn’t throw up on the floor—and see if she can buy us some time by scheduling a makeup physical. But they’re going to find out, Melanie.”


We’d just have to make sure they found out on our terms.

My sister and I parted ways in the hall, where I watched her sneak around a corner, and then I headed in the other direction, letting my wet shoes squeak on the tile floor in an attempt to cover the sound of hers. If I got caught, I could say I was looking for her. If she got caught…

She couldn’t get caught.

When I got to the quad again, the rain had almost stopped, but poor Matthew Mercer was still soaked, and this time he didn’t look up when I passed him or when a neat line of second graders filed past us both on the way to the worship center.

Back in the gym, I pulled Anabelle aside and told her that Melanie was sick, and that I’d told her to go home and rest. When I asked if she could schedule a makeup physical, she looked suspicious but promised to try.

I wanted to sneak out and follow my sister home, where I could consider our options without the distraction of teachers and classes and other students whispering—some outright asking—about Melanie’s breakdown. But if I snuck out, my absence would be just as obvious as my sister’s.

During third period, the front office sent a note for me to deliver to her after school. It was a formal notice for her to present herself for discipline first thing in the morning.

After school, I stuffed the discipline notice into my satchel along with my books and walked home the long way, which led me past the Grab-n-Go. I stood across the street for several minutes, watching through the window for Dale, the assistant manager, to take his afternoon break. That would leave Ruth at the register, and Ruth never looked up from her crossword puzzle long enough to notice that I’d paid for the gum on the counter but not the food in my satchel.

I hadn’t come for food this time, and that fact made me even more determined to avoid Dale.

When he disappeared into the back room, I jogged across the street and into the store, wishing for the millionth time that there was no bell to announce my presence. Ruth looked up, focused on me for half a second while I perused the selection of candy, then went back to her puzzle.

As usual, I hesitated in front of the locked display case of cola, where a single bottle had been gathering dust for most of the last year because no one in the neighborhood could afford it. Then I drifted silently toward the half aisle of toiletries and over-the-counter medications while the screen mounted at the front of the store played the news.

“The badly mutilated corpse of April Walden, the teen who went missing from Solace two days ago, was discovered in the badlands south of New Temperance yesterday, less than a month after her seventeenth birthday. Church officials believe she was killed by a degenerate.”

“No shit…,” I mumbled, wandering slowly down the aisle, listening for any mention of the degenerate killed fifty feet from where I stood.

“Still no word on why Walden left the safety of Solace’s walls, but one high-ranking Church official ventured to conjecture that she was, in fact, possessed before she ever left the town.”

After that, the reporter transitioned to the latest death toll from the front lines in Asia, where brave soldiers and elite teams of exorcists were steadfastly beating back the last of the Unclean in the name of the Unified Church. As they’d been doing all my life. The location sometimes changed as one area was pronounced cleared and troops moved to cleanse another region, but the battles themselves were always the same.

We always won, but it was never easy. Losses were inevitable. Sacrifices would be honored and remembered.

I’d taken three more steps toward a narrow white box on the top shelf when a familiar six-note melody signaled the switch to the local news, which played on the hour, every hour, to keep citizens informed about the happenings close to home. The happenings the Church wanted us to know about, anyway.

I’d sold our television almost two years before, when I realized I’d rather have a functioning microwave than hear the same pointless recitation of “news” over and over, night after night.

But this time I listened closely. A degenerate inside the town walls would definitely make the local news, and with any luck, the report would tell me how close the police were to identifying the mystery boy and girl who had fled the scene that morning.