Eleven Twenty-Three (29 page)

I swallow, my eyes tearing up.

“I can’t sleep right now,” I tell them. “In
fact, I find it a little ridiculous that
you
can. But don’t
worry. I’ll ruminate over killing my own mother elsewhere, if it
troubles you.”

Mitsuko pushes herself up on her elbows in
bed, studying me.

“It’s almost amazing,” she says.

“What?” I ask. “The insult you’re about to
throw at me?”

“No, it’s just that it’s almost amazing to me
that you still have the capacity for melodrama, Layne. Almost
admirable, even.”

“Well thank you, Mitsu—”

“But then again not at all.”

05:28:24 AM

I escape the choked up snores, bedroom
whisperings, and secret speeches of the old yellow house and slip
out onto the porch as dawn approaches. Hajime is bundled up on the
balustrade and has his head rested against the wood frame. His
breath steams and the neighborhood is quiet in a way I didn’t know
existed anymore. I sit down on a rocking chair, light a cigarette,
and sip from a tepid can of Coke while staring at him. At how pale
he looks.

“Before that funeral yesterday this town was
a nursing home,” Hajime says. “Now look at it. Less than
twenty-four hours has passed and we’re the morgue next door.”

“Residents of the End have always been
obsessed with time tables,” I say. “Hair appointments, chats with
their neurologist, early bird specials, free parking after six,
Deal or No Deal
at eight, breakfast at five a.m., lunch at
eleven-thirty—”

“This thing’s going to wreak havoc on old
people’s lunch routine.”

“By tomorrow there won’t be any old people
left,” I say matter-of-factly. “They’ll be the first ones to go,
along with the kids.”

“The dead weight and the future hopefuls,”
Hajime chuckles. “Sickness loves slicing off the crusts.”

“It’s always been that way.”

“That’s because no one likes crusts.”

I imagine a class full of eleventh graders,
shifting in their desks and half-heartedly taking notes while I
explain the difference between the congressional and the judiciary.
A girl in the back traces the outline of her hand into her spiral
notebook. A boy named Kevin reads a comic book about the Civil War.
I see them, but they don’t see me. Instead they focus on their
papers, their books and the wall behind me and the curly-haired kid
who sits next to them who may or may not surf, depending on who you
ask. He doesn’t notice the first tile disappear from under his left
foot. His classmates don’t catch on either, even as the entire
floor begins disintegrating.

I imagine them suddenly erupting into screams
as the floor shatters like flimsy sugar glass and falls away
beneath them. The dark cavern presents itself under their dangling
feet, and then they’re falling, still in their desks, into the
abyss, their shrill pleas for help quickly drowned out by the next
wave of deaths—the kids in the hall, the kids over in the next
classroom, the ones down in the library, the stragglers from
lunch—until mine are forgotten.

Until all of mine, and soon the others too,
become ghosts.

“Are we going to try and escape?” I ask,
tears in my eyes.

He doesn’t answer. Instead, he takes another
drag off of his cigarette and looks past the yard to a static
street, and then past that as well. We both flinch when someone
fires a shotgun from somewhere close.

“Are we going to try and escape?” I ask
again.

“That seems like the logical thing to do
next, doesn’t it?” he says flatly.

“Damn it, Hajime, could you just, like, give
me a straight answer?”

“Yes, Layne, the thing to do would be to
escape.” Pause. “
However
…”

“However what? It’s too late for a
however—”

“Too early.”

“Piss off with the semantics,” I say, shaking
my head. “You and Tara both only do that when you’re trying to
avoid the subject. However what?”

Again, he doesn’t answer. Instead, he focuses
on the pale frightened rays of sun just beginning to peek through
the clouds and leafless tree branches. The moon wanes in the
gemlike morning sky, dying.

“However what, Hajime?” I repeat.

“However…I don’t like doing things that serve
no purpose. So obviously I’m torn.”

“How does escaping from certain death and
telling the truth about Lilly’s End to the entire
world
serve no purpose?” I ask, dropping the briefcase. It lands on the
floorboards of the porch with a thud and I cringe.

“Could you two fags keep it to a dull roar
out there,
please
?” Mark bellows from inside the house.

“Are you having fun with your new toy over
there, bro?” Hajime asks.

“Why does escaping have no point?”

“It’s not escaping that has no point, Layne.
Escaping would be ideal. Surviving this and exposing the
conspirators would be
unfathomable
in its importance. It’s
just that I’m not so sure this is one of those situations where
escape is even remotely possible, let alone blowing the whistle on
the ones behind it. In a cluster-fuck
this
bizarre and dire,
my natural inclination would actually be to just give up and watch
things play out. I’d rather get back in touch with my spiritual
self and be certain of where my soul is going once my body dies
than get too quickly acquainted with a gunshot to the back of the
head or saltwater filling my lungs. You know what I mean?”

“Yeah, I know exactly what you mean,” I
manage, stunned and suddenly exhausted. “But that doesn’t mean it’s
not a complete
pussy
move, Hajime. You’re just going to sit
back and watch the death of Lilly’s End unfold around you?”

“And what’s wrong with that, Layne? Are
you
really going to cut whatever life you have left in half
when you string together some half-assed escape plan in a couple of
days? And are you okay with bringing Tara and the others into this
suicide mission with you? Is that really what you want?”

“I must say, this doesn’t sound like the
Hajime I’ve known for the past eleven years.”

“Yeah, well…these times call for pragmatics,
Layne. Not our typical small town antics and misled
proselytizing.”

“Well, it’s still worlds better than just
pretending it’s the year 1945 and you’re back on Iwo Jima waiting
for your own grenade to go off in your hand, Hajime.”

“Oh, how absolutely
vicious
, Layne,”
he sighs.

“I was simply making a point, Hajime.”

He watches the sunlight creep up the lawn and
onto to the porch, along the floorboards, and then his legs emerge
from the shadows. I strain my eyes to see him better, but the image
doesn’t change. I suddenly realize I am shivering.

“What’s interesting about your point though,”
he says, “is that you’re comparing us attempting to be thankful and
taking stock of what life we have left to pulling the pin on our
own grenade, while I think that what
you
are describing
better fits that historical analogy. We’re so fucked here it’s
funny, and you want to pull some kind of escape worthy of an old
Steve McQueen movie?
That’s
suicide, my friend.”

“Why weren’t you back here at seven like you
were supposed to be?” I say, changing the subject to avoid an
argument I’m too tired to have. “I have to admit, I was pretty much
frantic. What happened?”

“Is it that difficult to imagine a scenario?”
he murmurs, taking a final drag of his cigarette before flicking it
into the yard. “And yes, I’m touched that you were so worried.
Don’t think your loyalty to this friendship goes unnoticed,
Layne.”

“I just wanted to know the exact reason. You
could just tell me, you know.”

“So I’ll tell you then. I couldn’t find
Mitsuko and Mark back at their townhouse, so I had to go looking
for them. Mark ended up at her travel agency not long after it
happened and they just stayed holed up there.”

“And you stayed with them at the agency?” I
ask. “All that time?”

“Mitsuko and I needed some brother-sister
time, you know? I’m sure you understand.”

“Not really. I’m an only child.”

“Well, apparently you
can’t
understand, but we needed it regardless.”

“Mark wasn’t invited?”

“It was a private conversation.”

“I don’t suppose you’ll fill me in?” I
attempt.

“I don’t think Mitsuko would like that very
much.”

“Because it concerns me?” I say, recoiling in
horror when the sunlight finally wraps itself around Hajime’s face
and brings him into focus.

“It’s funny that you and her both went under
the last time it was eleven twenty-three,” he says cryptically.

“Why is that?”

“It just is,” he says. There’s a long pause.
“You know, I think I’m going to try and get some sleep after all.
I’m pretty tired. Besides, it just dawned on me that in a few
hours, one of us may be dead. I need to sleep on that. It’s too big
a thought for sunrise.”

Hajime climbs off the banister and wipes
ashes from his pant legs. He inches toward the front door. I cough
and look away from him.

“And by the way, it’s okay that you lied to
me,” he says.

“About what?”

“You
know
about what, Layne.
Goodnight. Morning. Whatever. Goodbye.”

He opens the front door and slips inside,
closing it behind him.

“Why does your skin look gray, Hajime?” I ask
the empty space.

09:48:02 AM

“Layne,
wake up
,” Tara bellows into my
ear, and I plummet from the nightmare I was having and jump to my
feet, knocking my girlfriend back.

The metal coil rises with me, and the
briefcase bursts out from underneath the pillow and launches into
the air. It bangs against the wall and falls again. When the coil
catches it in mid-plummet, the handcuff burrows into my wrist and I
wince in pain.

“Jesus Christ, Layne, what the hell was
that
?” Tara asks me, rubbing at her forearm. “Why’d you
attack me like that?”

“I—I didn’t mean to, Sunshine,” I say,
looking around the bedroom. “I was having a bad dream. About my
mom, I think. I’m sorry.”

“Well, everyone is in the kitchen, if you
want to join in and help figure out what we’re going to do. The
power is still on, thank god.”

I look at the alarm clock: 9:48.

“Yeah,” I mutter, distracted. “Yeah. That’s
good about the power. Um, I’ll be there with you guys in a few
minutes. I want to peel these burnt clothes off and take a shower
first.”

“Are you going to take your new friend with
you?” she asks, grinning slightly.

“New friend?”

She points down at the briefcase dangling
just above the floor, suspended from my right arm.

Hot water slides down my body, which is
bruised and swollen in several places. I scrub with my left hand,
allowing the right to hang limply by my side. The case stands on
the bathtub floor near the drain, deflecting water. As I bathe, I
attempt not to think about the nightmare I had. I try not to relive
the image of my mother disappearing in the fire, or Mitsuko’s cruel
grin as she sputtered out her addictive lies.

I can hear Mitsuko’s voice in the kitchen
even with the shower running, and I turn the hot water up higher
and concentrate on the mysterious contents of the briefcase. It’s
not that heavy to pick up, which indicates there is either nothing
inside it, or whatever its contents are, they’re very lightweight.
I lean toward the latter, though I have no idea why. For all I
know, the briefcase is just a red herring, the waving hand that
distracts us from the magic trick.

The fact is, Tara was right: I’m just as
liable to turn at 11:23 as any of the rest of them.

After I am clean, I wipe away the fog from
the mirror over the sink and shave, remembering something my father
once told me: “Disaster is actually when you want to look your
best, son.” Then I go into Tara’s room and sort through my
suitcases, looking for clothes. I throw on some jeans that still
smell like the East and grab a sweater. But just before I throw it
over my head, I realize that because of the metal coil running away
from the handcuff on my wrist and the eighteen-and-three quarter
inch bulk of the case, I won’t be able to get my right arm through
the sleeve.

“You have got…to be…
kidding
me,” I
sigh, and call for Tara.

She meets me in the doorway, trying to hide
her smile.

“Let me guess: you can’t put your clothes
on,” she says. “Nice one, dummy.”

“Why didn’t you say something last night when
I attached the damn thing to my wrist?” I ask, furious.

“Hajime and I were both trying to reason with
you before you put it on. We told you that it was a bad idea. We
told you that that guy Mr. Scott was worse than the
cigarette-smoking man from
X-Files
, didn’t we?”

“Yeah, yeah, but you didn’t remind me about
not being able to change
clothes
, Tara. That might have been
enough to tip the scale the other way, you know.”

“I see,” she muses, lighting a cigarette.
“The threat of playing an integral role in what may be the greatest
conspiracy in history wasn’t enough to persuade you, but tamper
with Layne Prescott’s fashion sense and it’s a horse of a different
color, right?”

I snatch her cigarette away and take a drag
from it.

“Okay, I get it,” I say. “I can be kind of
caustic when I’m dead-set on something, right?”

“Make that borderline retarded and you’ve got
it, Sunshine.”

Memories of the fire, of the black amorphous
carcass roasting in the flames, come flooding back again. I wince
and try to say something to keep from crying.

“Look, I just…I just didn’t want to have to
go through what happened again. I didn’t want to lose anyone else.
I mean, I may have killed her, Tara—”