"Spit and Vomit" by Rhonda J. Jezek

She knew them when she saw them. It wasn’t just that their eyes were like smoldering coals, or that their bodies were like puppets; limp and dead or strung and tense. It was that they bore a mark. Not one you saw with your eyes, but one you felt. A shiver from the tips of your toes to the hairs on your head, a darkness.

            It’s like drowning through molasses to be around them..

Edlan sat on the bench with a music box song going through her head, working at the loose string in her sweater with an unconscious ferocity. She trembled, watching the people pass by her on the street. Each had vacant faces, eyes that seemed to be glazed over in the day-to-day passé routine of life.

Another plane with a banner crossed over her head. Her eyes flickered up, and she flinched at seeing the slogan the streamed behind it. STRENGTH TO GREGAN’S CITIZEN ARMY! The Citizen’s Army was an organization of all the patriotic citizens in her country. They rallied every night over their causes, igniting fires of passion and rage. Only four years ago Medgan had been a beautiful city to live in. Now, many of its windows were broken, glass spilling out onto the street. People were routinely dragged, screaming, out of tired-looking homes. A daily shipment of these ‘fugitives’ were stuffed into trains, if not beaten to death on the spot, and not heard from again. Maichel Gregan didn’t target any particular ethnic group, though the people of her religion tended to have hair of dark purple and eyes the same. They were pagan, practitioners of magyck, and they had been welcomed in Medgan for centuries before Gregan decided to blame the country’s woes on them. They were an easy target; secretive and powerful, inflicting ‘curses’ on the masses. It started slowly, laws restricting their freedoms, speeches speaking against them, being forced to close their shops. Then it went swiftly from badges worn in public to being forced into trains. Many of the victims didn’t even practice magyck, they only prayed to the ‘wrong’ deity.

Edlan noticed her shaking hands and unraveled sweater, and worked a calming spell to relax her. It was a simple spell, and quite inconspicuous. She was more at risk if people noticed her open fear and tension. She was waiting on the park bench for her father, he’d come to pick her up from school. He told her that morning that his business associates may have found out he’d once married a magyck-practicer, and it was no longer safe for them in Medgan. Edlan had gone to school as usual, but at their house two bags were waiting, one for him and one for her. He’d pick her up and they’d be gone.

Very few people knew that she was very powerful in magyck, and those that did practiced it themselves. Her father had taken her to her grandmother when she’d complained that certain people frightened her, that they stood out to her and she didn’t know why. Her grandmother explained to her that Edlan had sight for the Marked.

            People who had taken the life of another bore a destroyer’s Mark. Some were haunted and tired, others were dark and tense. Edlan hadn’t seen a third type until a year ago. They were tall and proud. They didn’t know they were Marked, but they bore it with celebration anyhow. These were the ones in the Citizen’s Army that took her people and slung them from trees, beat them with clubs, strew their bodies with glass then stomped on them. The Citizen’s Army was getting more and more creative.

            And more and more people bore the Mark.

            That’s what frightened Edlan. The city of Medgan had turned into a city of murderers. Not quiet, sorrowful murderers, or secretive, morbid ones. But laughing, giddy torturers. People light-hearted and happy. People who made killing part of their routine with a smile or, almost worse, dull acceptance. Maichel Gregan’s politics had taken a sweet and simple country and corrupted it in four short years to one of wickedness.

            And there were so many people that bore the Mark.

            Edlan began to tremble again as two man, sharing a story sexual in nature, passed by her. They were both Marked. A woman pushing a baby carriage lined in lace stopped to pick a dandelion. She bore it. Edlan stared into her lap, hugging herself. If she didn’t look up, after all, she wouldn’t see them.

            Her eyes itched. She wanted to take out the green contacts that covered her purple eyes, but she knew that was a death sentence to do in public. She could only sit and wait with the company of the music box. Sit, wait, and pretend her father wasn’t late. Very late. Pretend the sun wasn’t going down.

            She heard a window shatter, and looked up. A bookstore was being vandalized. A shelf of books had been pushed out the display window. As she watched, Marked people began streaming through the crowd, running to the newest bit of violence. The bookkeeper was taken outside. Edlan heard calling and shouting but she couldn’t understand what the crime was. A man picked up a book, set it on fire, then threw it back in the store. A tiny lick of it went up an old, dry bookcase. Edlan looked away, gritting her teeth. She longed to help, but there wasn’t anything she could do. Her fingernails dug into her shoulders until one drew blood, and Edlan played the music box in her head.

            Someone began to cry and she looked back up. She could see a woman, perhaps the bookkeeper’s wife, being made to dance over the broken glass. She whimpered at the pain, openly sobbing, and the crowd jeered at her. Her feet left footprints of blood, and she was cast in red by the setting sun and flames. Edlan watched grimly, taking note as a man reached out and tore at her skirt. Then another. And another. Till her clothes were in shreds. People flocked at her and began ripping at her clothing. Edlan could stand it no more, the shrieks of the woman broke her music box rhythm and Edlan began to chant. There was a confused cry from the mob as they all milled about, looking for their victims. Edlan could see two young boys worm their way from the crowd, tired and frightened. They caught sight of each other and flew into one another’s arms. Edlan watched as they cooed and stroked each other’s hair, then raced down the street. Before they were out of sight the spell wore off, but no one saw. The store was enveloped in flames, now, and the people in the apartments above it began to carry their more prized possessions down into the street. Someone shouted out “Mag! A Mag! She chanted, that Mag over there chanted!” Edlan realized that she was the one who the crowd was turning to face, and jumped off the bench. She got no further than a few feet before the crowd caught her. She played the music box in her head, and closed her eyes.

            Even when they took out their knives, she didn’t feel it.