Any Second

by Kevin Emerson

  Heard a light whine of brakes.

  A blue car had pulled up.

  Eli standing, opening the passenger door, getting in.

  Pulling away.

  Wait….

  Maya watched him go, fingers creeping to hair.

  The breeze died. Grass wilting. Blue sky leaching to gray.

  September 14

  He stood at the edge of the auditorium entrance. Dark inside, except for the red light from a lamp that curled over the control board, in the center of the rows of red-padded chairs. Rows that sloped down to a wood stage. A red curtain. Heavy and closed.

  A large room. The silence larger.

  Eli stepped in.

  You knew I wouldn’t stay away forever.

  Wound tight, palms drumming softly on his legs, the pain in his shoulder flaring.

  But the note.

  Let’s hang out!

  He moved toward the control board. Looked over his shoulder, pictured Gabriel’s silhouette, the door swinging shut behind him, plunging them into the red dark.

  Don’t give him more power than he has, Dr. Maria often said.

  Carpeted floor. His slow footsteps making round airy beats.

  The note had been friendly. Hadn’t it?

  Still, he should have told someone. Anyone.

  And yet, even just now in gym class: picked second to last for handball teams, standing against the red padded wall, just him and one other leftover. The other kid was scrawny. Eli’s time at the gym had given him some definition, muscles that might suggest muscular. But it didn’t change how he seemed.

  “That kid, I guess,” one of the captains had finally said, pointing at Eli.

  After that, he’d just drifted along the edges, never getting passed to. Handball was sort of like basketball? Ask someone how to play, any one of these boys brushing past him, but who was safe? And if he got it wrong, or if, when he tried, his voice decided to stay silent, then he’d really stand out. Ask the teacher. Except Mr. Niles, Coach to some of the boys, never looked at him, and really he liked those boys best, always joking with them, slapping their backs approvingly: Way to go after it. Get in there. Take that shot. Make a move. Those were the gym class affirmations. If you wanted to be passed to, to be noticed, you had to act.

  Like coming here to the auditorium. Make a move, go after it. A year spent standing still. Okay, here he was.

  Also, the note had asked him to, and doing what you were told was how you avoided the garden hose.

  Or how you almost got killed.

  It was confusing. It was both.

  Eli reached the middle of the auditorium. Slid between the seats and stood beside the control board. He looked at the hundreds of dials, wondering what they could all possibly do.

  Something banged behind him.

  “You made it!”

  Eli squinted up into the dark, above the steep rows of chairs along the rear of the auditorium. A door had opened. Someone coming down.

  Not Gabriel-sized.

  Another kid, dropping down the staircase two steps at a time and jogging over.

  Smiling. Familiar.

  “Hey,” he said, and laughed. “You’re looking at me like you have no idea who I am.”

  Eli’s pulse quickened. “From lunch,” he said. The boy at his table.

  The boy made a gun with his index finger and thumb and shot Eli. “Exactly.” Moved the same hand toward him, fingers now flat. “I’m Graham.”

  Eli looked at Graham’s hand. He wants to shake. He’d been part of handshakes with his friends, way back when, but since the red dark, people never really offered him anything as casual and friendly as that. Either they hugged him with a force like they were still afraid of losing him or they stood at a distance like he might still be strapped with explosives. Even people who didn’t know his past did this.

  Eli stuck out his hand. Would the shake be something complicated, with different grips or—but it went fine. Up and down a few times and then done. Graham’s skin sorta clammy.

  “Good to meet you, sir.”

  “You too,” said Eli.

  Graham had light green eyes and long, dark brown hair that he kept pushing out of his eyes. His hair had a glint to it, like he hadn’t washed it in a while, and there was one long red streak down the middle. He wore a black T-shirt with a smiling clown who was holding a chain saw and had just decapitated a unicorn. The scene held in a spotlight, blood everywhere.

  “Are you a Freak?”

  What?

  “The band.” Graham pointed to his shirt. “Guess you wouldn’t know about that. Freaks are fans of Sideshow Fantasy. They’re from Sacramento. Got big while you were…you know.” Graham moved past Eli to the control board. He started sliding faders and turning knobs. Lights illuminated the curtain, spots at different angles coming from the ceiling. “You’re probably wondering how I know who you are.”

  “Who do you think I am?”

  “You don’t have to whisper,” said Graham. “There’s nobody here. That’s the beauty of this place. Perfectly serene.” He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, puffing out his chest. “Hear that? None of the stupid conversations, the dumb chatter. It’s like everyone else in the world is gone. No more idiots. Just us.” He blinked and brushed the hair from his eyes again. “Anyway, yeah, I know you.” He smiled at Eli. “You’re the big bad wolf.”

  Oh.

  “No, come on, I’m kidding.” Graham reached over and shook Eli’s forearm. “Sorry, that’s probably not funny, now that I think about it.” He looked down at his feet, grin fading. “Sometimes what’s funny to me doesn’t really translate to everyone else. It is you, though, right? The kid from Cedar Gate Mall?”

  Eli looked at the door. But leaving would just confirm it. He could try to deny it…but then maybe he was sick of being a different person all the time. “Yeah, that was me. I mean, sort of.”

  “Sort of?”

  You were operating under extreme duress, Dr. Maria had said. Your core self was locked away.

  “It was me, but not me like I am now.”

  Graham pulled a lever on the side of the board. A loud click echoed through the auditorium, followed by a heavy hum. The curtain began to part, the red fabric sweeping to either side and revealing the stage, empty except for some panels of half-painted scenery that depicted an old-time kitchen and living room.

  “You mean ’cause you were brainwashed,” he said. “I heard a bunch of experts talking about you on TV one time, about the tactics for training a child soldier.”

  Eli tugged at his backpack straps.

  “Sorry,” said Graham. “You probably don’t want to talk about it. And they haven’t found the guy yet, have they?”

  “No.”

  Graham began sliding a row of faders, one at a time. Lights bloomed, illuminating the stage, the back wall. “Well, when they do, they should tie him up and cut his dick off, then strap him with explosives.”

  Eli didn’t respond.

  “Would you want to do it?” Graham asked, still working. “There we go….Nice.”

  “What’s nice?” said Eli.

  Graham pointed to the stage. “Mr. McNaulty wanted me to swap out the front stage-left floodlight for a softer color. He’s the head of the AV department. I guess Ms. Mays—she’s theater—said the lights were too intense. What a bitch. And of course she doesn’t really get how the lighting actually works. Just likes to snap her dumb fat fingers.”

  Eli looked at the banks of lights hanging down from the high ceiling. “How did you get up there?” He pictured an enormous ladder, but that didn’t seem safe.

  Graham motioned toward that door he’d come down from. “There are catwalks in the ceiling. You’re supposed to wear a harness that hooks on to safety wires, but I’ve been doing this sin
ce freshman year. I can take you sometime. It’s pretty cool.”

  “Okay.”

  “Actually, once you’re up in the roof, you can kinda get anywhere in the school.” Graham’s eyes gleamed. “The field hockey locker room is particularly good.”

  Oh.

  Graham’s smile disappeared again. He pushed more faders up and down. The different lights grew brighter, then softer. Eli thought the board was sort of like a brain. Controls for thoughts and actions and feelings. Turn the knob for speaking. Press a button to release a chemical. Slide down the fader for a memory. He pictured wooden sets in his mind: one painted like the red dark, another painted like his bedroom, another like the DOL.

  “Curses.” Graham pulled a headlamp from his pocket and dropped to his knees. He slipped on the light and craned his neck under the board.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “One of the spots burned out. I just changed those fucking bulbs last month! Must be a loose fader connection.” Graham grunted, reaching up into the guts of the board. “So, would you want to?”

  “Want to what?”

  “I think I got it.” Graham stood. “You know, be the one to kill that sick bastard who kidnapped you.”

  “Oh.” Images tore through Eli’s head: hitting Gabriel with the bucket of waste, grabbing the end of the hose and pulling him over, pushing him down the escalator at the mall, and after each move, running for it. But then other times he imagined staying; instead of dropping the bucket, swinging again and again; instead of flinging the hose, wrapping it around Gabriel’s neck; pushing him not down the escalator but over the railing. The sound of choking, of a snapping neck, of a skull hitting the mall floor and splattering—his heart started to hammer.

  “Well, I’d do it for you,” said Graham, “if we ever had the chance.” He tried the faders again. “Shit. Will you do me a favor and move these five up and down, one at a time, when I tell you?”

  “Okay.”

  Graham ducked under the board. “Try the first one.”

  Eli slid the fader and the light glowed brighter, then softer. He felt his heart spiking, his mouth getting dry. How did you—“How did you find out about me?”

  “Next one,” said Graham. “Honestly, I just got lucky when you sat at my table. Though I have to admit, I was obsessed with that mall story last fall. I basically read everything there was to read. Did you know there were blogs that broke down all the available pictures from inside? There was even one that got stills from the DOL’s security cameras. Some bloggers thought they’d identified your kidnapper; others were trying to say that the bombing was actually a government conspiracy. There’s even one thread that thinks that girl who stopped you was actually your kidnapper’s daughter or something.”

  That girl. Flash of her hand out of nowhere. Of her terrified face. Maya. The way she sat there in the ambulance, staring into the floor, shivering, blood on her fingers.

  “Did you hear me?”

  “What?”

  “I said, she goes here, doesn’t she?”

  “Yeah.” Eli had only seen her a handful of times in the halls, always from a distance. Always wearing that hat. Most days it was easy to believe she existed in some parallel universe. He still hadn’t even seen the whole school yet. Heard there was a pool somewhere. And a garage where kids worked on cars. Parallel universes seemed likely.

  But she showed up in his dreams all the time. He’d be stumbling around the red dark, searching for his sister, running from Gabriel’s looming shadow, and Maya would appear, bloody and covered in dirt from doing God knows what. She’d show up as if their dream worlds overlapped, and she’d look at him and say, Come on or What the hell? like he was interrupting.

  But then she always took his hand.

  “I’m not allowed to talk to her.”

  “Well, from what I’ve seen of her, you don’t want to. Try fader three.”

  Eli did. “What do you mean?”

  “She’s just kind of a mess. Is it really true that she stopped you from setting off the bomb?”

  “Well, it malfunctioned first.”

  “Ah, that makes more sense.”

  But then she stopped me.

  More than that, actually. At one point, standing there in the DOL, surrounded by chaos, he’d been shaking so hard, his muscles ready to quit, that he’d nearly given up.

  Maya had gripped his hands tighter and said, “I got you.”

  It was the first time he’d really believed in something since sometime before, since he couldn’t even remember when. She still said it now and then in his dreams, when she took his hand: I got you.

  “Hello up there. Fader four.”

  Eli pushed it up.

  “Bang, that’s the one.” Graham emerged from beneath the board. “So, it wasn’t, was it?”

  “Wasn’t what?”

  “A conspiracy. Like you weren’t actually trained by the federal government or something, were you? I guess you couldn’t tell me if you were.”

  Eli felt cold trickles of sweat on the insides of his arms. “It was just him.” And me, he immediately thought, but Dr. Maria had been firm: not you. Only Gabriel. Eli had been just a tool. An instrument.

  “A lone wolf,” said Graham, nodding. “That always seems like the best way, if you want to get something done. No one to rat on you, no one to get cold feet.”

  Dampness on the inside of the mask. “Maybe.”

  “Except it didn’t work.” Graham tucked his headlamp away. “So maybe a duo is better. Strength in numbers, you know? Each one keeps the other from wussing out.”

  “Did you know someone who was there?” Eli asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  Just that you know so much about it.

  “Oh, the mall,” Graham continued. “Nah, I just find stuff like that fascinating. I think about it, you know? When you have that feeling like you’d want to kill yourself.” He slid a fader, a green light igniting and darkening. “But to take people with you, to make a statement like that, one people would actually notice. It seems like the only way to get the world’s attention these days.” He paused and looked at Eli, then shrugged. “But it sounds like you didn’t really know what you were doing.”

  I was trying to escape. I was saving my sister.

  “Sorry,” said Graham, “it’s probably not cool for me to be talking to you about this.”

  “I don’t know,” said Eli. He felt on edge, and yet also it was maybe nice to have someone to talk to.

  “Anyway,” said Graham, “I wasn’t completely sure that you were, you know, you, until you showed up just now. I didn’t want to say anything at lunch, with so many people around. By the way, thanks for not handing over my note to the cops or anything.”

  “Who says I didn’t?” The second the comment left his lips, Eli wanted to take it back. Sarcasm. A smart tongue gets the belt. Where had that even come from?

  Graham looked at him sideways, and then burst into laughter. “Holy crap, you just scared me.”

  Eli smiled too. “Sorry.”

  “No, it’s a good thing. Damn, Eli, you have a real poker face. Stone-cold killer.”

  Eli’s smile faded.

  “Aw, don’t take it like that. Man, sorry.” Graham hit his palm to his forehead. “I’m a moron. That’s just an expression, but I meant it as a compliment. Most kids are such wimps. So scared all the time. That’s why they act all the shitty ways they do. But you’re pretty tough.”

  “Thanks.” Tough? He’d been weak, a captive. Powerless. How had he been tough? Just by surviving?

  Graham ran each of the faders up and down one more time. “Nice. All set.” He looked at his wrist, where he was wearing a big, retro-looking watch. “We’ve still got time to get lunch if we hurry. Want to come with me?”

  “Sure. Do we
need a pass?”

  Graham slapped his pocket. “Got one. Tech Squad gets you all kinds of privileges.” Graham looked around the auditorium and sighed. “There’s definitely a reason for you being here, Eli. I don’t think it’s an accident. It feels like fate.”

  Eli tensed. The Purpose led me to you. Hands grabbing him…

  “I don’t mean like God did it or anything,” Graham went on. “But you ending up at this school, at this time. We were definitely meant to meet.” He grabbed his backpack from a chair behind them and started for the door.

  Eli didn’t move. His heart pounding.

  “Coming?” said Graham over his shoulder.

  Eli caught up. “You won’t tell anyone, will you?”

  “Promise. You can trust me.” Graham held out his hand again. The shake was easier this time. “There’s no one worth telling in this stupid place anyway.”

  They left the auditorium together.

  “Are you free this weekend?” Graham asked as they walked up the hall.

  “I don’t know.”

  “ ’Cause there’s this video game trade show at Seattle Center. We should go. Think you could?”

  “I mean, maybe.” Eli felt a nervous flutter inside. “I’ll have to ask.”

  “Cool. There are all these stations where you can demo new games and VR, and food stands too.”

  Eli half listened. He’d begun to notice eyes turning toward him in a way they hadn’t before. A girl glancing at them and whispering to her friend with a hand over her mouth. A guy slapping his buddy’s arm and then both of them chuckling.

  As they passed through one of the main intersections, Graham got bumped hard in the shoulder, spinning him halfway around. Eli saw the culprit, a guy with floppy curly hair, wearing a puffy vest, walking with another guy and a girl. All skinny, all dressed in blacks and grays, the girl with peacock-colored hair. The boy with the curly hair put a hand over his mouth and said something in a weird voice, almost like an animal call.