Welcome to E. Mayberry

“What?” Lilly squealed from her seat. “Really?! Oh my God!”

Marco stepped out of the crowd and ran toward her.

“Wooohoooo! That’s my girl!” he yelled.

Her straps were released and Lilly stood up, so excited she leapt into Marco’s arms and kissed him on the lips. The crowd around me clapped. I wanted to but I knew that meant Bastian was stuck in the life of a pet now. Year after year he’d be a pet. My pet.

“Congratulations, Lilly,” Kendall said. “If anyone has given time and effort to this community it is you darlin. You deserve it.”

Kendall gave her a minute or two to celebrate before she moved on.

“Now for the part that is hard on all of us, but as I said before, it is necessary,” she said. “This is the hardest part of my job, but without it, I’d have no job. We’d have no neighborhood and no community. You’ve heard it all before so let’s get down to business.”

The crowd grew silent again. I watched Bastian who had his head lowered and his eyes closed.

Kendall reached into the barrel and pulled out a ball.

“Well shit,” she said. “Ain’t this interesting?”

She held up the ball and a camera somewhere focused in on it, projecting it onto the big screen behind her. She’d drawn ball number 76. My seat. Bastian’s seat. No, my seat. What had I done? What had he done?

&nb

sp; What has he done? What does that mean?!

My legs wobbled and I collapsed. I sat there on my knees in the grass, looking through people’s legs at Bastian sitting in my seat. He didn’t say a word. He didn’t complain. He didn’t try to take back his decision or try to convince everyone they were making a mistake. He believed wholeheartedly in the community and everything about it. He believed so much that he’d instantly forgiven me for what I’d done with Pasha.

This was his home. This was the life he chose and he’d been a part of this ceremony for many years. He’d watched as Suzanne sat in a chair just like mine and he hadn’t traded spots with her. He’d done that for me. He loved me. And I had no way to save him.

“Wait,” I said. “No. Please. He’s a good man!”

“He’s a very good man,” Kendall said. “One of the best. He will be a good sacrifice to the gods.”

“No, please,” I cried, slobber falling from my mouth onto the grass as I sobbed.

“Prepare him for the sacrifice,” Kendall said.

Someone walked up to Bastian and put a potato sack over his head to hide his face. Whatever they had planned, they didn’t want to look him in the eyes when they did it.

“Sunshine!” Bastian yelled through the sack. “It’s okay. I’m okay. It’ll be okay.”

Okay…okay…okay…that’s all I hear.

“This is a good place,” he assured me, his voice muffled through the covering. “Stay here. Do what needs to be done. It’s for the greater good. I love you.”

I don’t know where the dagger came from, but one of the spotlight’s flashed off the steel blade and then one of the owners, a big hairy man, walked up to Bastian and shoved the blade into his gut. The sound he made as his “I love you” to me was interrupted still haunts me to this day. He was almost through the word “you” when the blade punctured his lung I think, sounding like a sucker punch he’d never recover from.

My nose ran, tears poured down over my face, and I couldn’t control my breathing. I grabbed someone’s leg to try to keep myself up but it didn’t help. I was devastated. I couldn’t cope. My face hit the ground and I blacked out.

When I came to, Bastian was already dead, but the owners stood in line, passing the dagger off to each one so the next could stab him somewhere. His chair sat in a pool of blood. I couldn’t even lift my face up off the grass. I could only stare in horror as they continued to shove the dagger into his chest, arms, neck, stomach…wherever they could. But at least he was gone.

“Sweetie,” Kendall said after she took her turn with the dagger. “Sunshine, you’re an owner now.”

She handed the blade to Lilly who couldn’t look at me as she stuck the blade into Bastian’s side. She handed the dagger back to Kendall who held the handle out to me.

“You have to do this,” she said. “It’s part of the process. In order for the sacrifice to work, each owner has to provide blood to the field.”

I couldn’t. I couldn’t even stand. Then two men were at my arms again, lifting me up and carrying me to his body. Kendall was there waiting for me with the dagger.