Veneer

by Daniel Verastiqui

Another slap on the cheek, followed by a closed fist against her forehead.

  “It is that bad.”

  The next shot caught her on the nose and made her cry out. The sound attracted Babushka and Ilya opened her eyes as footsteps climbed the stairs.

  “Ilyushenka!”

  Not so comforting this time.

  Blood covered Ilya’s hands and most of the floor, but she barely recognized it as her own. All she could think about was how she had been wrong. She didn’t want to suffer forever. If anything, she just wanted it to go away.

  The pain. Easton. Everything.

  Ilya recoiled when Babushka tried to help her up. She pushed past her and ran down the stairs, smearing blood on the handrail and the walls. Her fingers slipped on the doorknob, but she managed to lock her bedroom door behind her. She fought through the throbbing in her head to the dresser. There, she had wisely left the cap loose on the clear bottle. She turned it over and dumped the remaining Oxycodone pills into a small pile.

  “Be enough,” she prayed.

  Be enough water to down the pills, enough pills to drown the pain.

  Just be enough.

  70 - Deron

  Deron thought about the tunnel leading out of Easton.

  Down where the light couldn’t reach, he saw nothing, only an infinite blackness that had no shape yet crushed in on him from all sides. At the time, he had been more concerned with bugs and spiders hanging from the ceiling or crawling up his legs, but in the days after, he remembered only the silence, not of sound, but of light. The lack of stimulus did not make him feel empty; it felt more like stillness with no one pestering him to move. Nothing vied for his attention and nothing stood in the way of his imagination. The spiders he saw with his mind’s eye were more vibrant and alive than anything in the real world. As consolation prizes went, it wasn’t bad.

  It was that silence that Deron thought about as he writhed in the muddy waters of the football field. He had overwhelmed Russo with reconciliation and was seconds from putting an end to the nightmare. Then, his shoulder exploded and a jet of red liquid spewed into the space in front of him. The impact put him off balance, but it was the resulting pain that brought him to the ground. He watched Agent Ruiz approach, the gun still steaming in his hand. He realized Ruiz had never intended for him to win, that it was all some sick game that ended with Deron bludgeoned to death and Russo made into a full-blown killer.

  He tried to ignore Ruiz and focus on the storm roaring overhead. The rain fell in tiny explosions in the water around him. He heard the sound and tried to push it away. Closing his eyes, he thought of the tunnel, of an unstoppable darkness that could wash over Easton like a tsunami. Where everything had once been white, it would now be black. The field, the school, and even Russo who he could hear on the ground a few feet away crying out like a wounded dog; they would all be in shadow. Deron imagined it and pushed the command out with a guttural scream. In the resulting emptiness, he found a moment of silence.

  Then, a crack of thunder and a searing pain in his gut.

  Deron had been there before, had suffered through the interminable stage of thinking himself dead but knowing his brain still functioned. Death was the lack of all input, not an awareness that something was missing. This was not death. This was a gradual reinsertion into the world, a series of switches being thrown in the back of his brain. The voices came first, distant and muddled as if shouted from a moving vehicle. Later, the feeling in his body returned, a sensation that rivaled a warm bath but which quickly turned to pain. He tried to cry out, and for all he knew he did. The only feedback was a sting in his throat.

  How long it went on, he wasn’t sure. At one point the hospital room came into view, and he saw a nurse doping him with something wonderful. It quieted the pain for a while, but the crawl back to the light became more difficult. The line between dream and reality shimmered like a bad veneer. He kept seeing the ceiling, kept trying to shroud it in black, but it only disappeared when he closed his eyes. The ceiling didn’t respond to his commands and lacked any decoration.

  His ability to reconcile remotely was gone, but it didn’t matter. The veneer had gone with it.

  It was supposed to be over. Ruiz had offered him a way back. All that was left was for Rosalia to realize she still loved him. The fight would have taken care of all that—had he won. And yet here he was, back at the start, worse off than ever before.

  Deron spent the morning drifting in and out of the drug haze. He listened to the panic in the hallways and the shouting of doctors that grew worse as the day wore on. There was a window to the left and he could hear disorder outside. Breaking glass and gunshots broke up what was otherwise a continuous rumble of discontent. It was the shooting that made his heart race, that caused his shoulder and stomach to throb in remembrance. He could think of nothing but the memory, even when a man named Detective Pierce came into the room, even when he revealed that Russo was in the next bed.

  Then Pierce had gone and for a long time, no noise in the room competed with the crowd outside.

  “Hey, asshole.” It was Russo’s voice, less muffled than before.

  Since kindergarten, Deron’s body had developed an automatic response to Russo’s presence that included increased heart rate and the release of life-saving adrenaline. He had become accustomed to the feeling, but not so much that he couldn’t recognize its absence. Deron imagined Russo and tried to make him a shadow. His mind answered with a fifty-fifty split, as if someone had dialed the brightness down.

  “Answer me, faggot.”

  The fear was gone, Deron realized. There was just nothing left for Russo to threaten short of death. With the drugs in his system, it wouldn’t even hurt that much. He would lose the war, but at least the battles would end.

  “What do you want?”

  “I want to strangle you.”

  “Why?” Deron couldn’t see Russo’s face, but the pause told him his question was one rarely, if ever, considered.

  Russo groaned. “I...”

  “Do you even know why you want to kill me?”

  “I know why.” Russo spoke slowly, steadying his voice. “Do you?”

  Deron opened his eyes and saw the dim ceiling staring back at him. His ears perked up and caught the sound of the metal guardrail on Russo’s bed collapsing into its folded position. He resisted the urge to look, though there was no mistaking the movement of the bed and the scraping of tubes across the sheets. The monitor that had been belting out the tempo of Russo’s supposed heart increased to a frantic pace and then plummeted to a dull monotone. Bare feet hit the floor and Deron’s own monitor took up the second verse.

  “Does not get along well with others. Do you remember that? When they pulled me out of Bowie? They told my mom I was bad for the other kids.” Footsteps brought his voice closer. “They made me wait outside. They thought I couldn’t hear them. That bitch teacher told them I was tormenting a boy named Deron.” His voice took on a high, mocking pitch. “It would be in Deron’s best interest if Russo was transferred.” He groaned again, breathed in sharply. “Do you know what they do to little boys at Glenmore? Do you have any fucking idea?”

  Unable to fight it anymore, Deron turned and looked at Russo. The sight of blood still caked on his face made him happy, but the moment was lost as he looked into his enemy’s eyes. On Halloween, it would have made a decent costume. But today, out of context, Russo’s eyes made him look supernatural. The whites were completely gone, replaced by blood that had stagnated into black.

  Russo shook his head; blood dripped from his nose onto his gown. He wiped it away and examined his finger. “I bet you thought you were going to win, didn’t you?”

  “I did win. You cheated.”

  “No. I just had the better backup plan.”

  “I guess Jalay should have planned better too.”

  He sniffled and tried to rub his nose. “You heard that, huh? I can’t believe all this time I’ve wanted to end you and I never realized how easy
it would be. All I have to do is reach out and put my hand on your throat. Then I get to watch you die. Very slowly. And if it’s anything like throwing that fat fucker off a building, then I’m really going to enjoy it.”

  Deron felt pressure on his neck as Russo’s fingers dug into place. At first, he thought he could still breathe, but as the residual oxygen ran out, his lungs panicked. He felt the contractions in this throat, but Russo’s grip was too tight. The gray ceiling faded down even further.

  “I would hate to suffocate to death,” said Russo. “It’s even worse than drowning. All I have to do is let go and you’d be saved.”

  The pressure relented and Deron gulped down air.

  A gunshot echoed outside, closer than the others.

  “Sounds bad out there. The pigs have their hands full. No one to save little Deron Bishop.”

  “Fuck you, Russo. You getting sent to Glenmore was the best thing that ever happened.”

  Russo grabbed his neck again. “Not for me! The kids they send there...”

  His voice trailed off in time to the dimming of the world. Deron prayed it would keep going so the true black could take over, but it didn’t.

  “Poor... little... Russo,” sputtered Deron.

  “Yeah, poor little me.” Russo let go and straightened up. His black eyes surveyed the room, coming to rest on the IV bag hanging on a metal stand. “I saw this in a movie once. You pull this line here and drain the fluid.”

  Deron couldn’t see if he was actually doing it, but the dripping on the floor backed up his narration.

  “Then you plug it back in and squeeze.” He came back into view. “Once the air hits your heart, you die instantly.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “We’ll see. For now...” Russo didn’t finish his sentence, though maybe his hand returning to Deron’s neck was intended as punctuation. “We’re going deep on this one. Your lungs will be so deprived that they’ll start working against you. And when you wake up, it’ll be in the worst pain of your pathetic life.”

  Darkness rose like the surf in Rosalia’s dream. Each wave brought a measure of release. Deron felt himself sinking beneath them, felt the world retreating.

  A scream rang out in the hallway, followed by deep voices shouting. Somebody came into the room and tackled Russo, ripping his hand away from Deron’s neck. It was the man from before, Detective Pierce.

  “Hold him!”

  “I’m trying!” The other voice sounded younger. He grunted as he wrestled with Russo.

  A woman’s voice shouted, “You can’t go in there!”

  “Keep her back,” said Pierce.

  There was so much activity that Deron didn’t notice the darkness persisting. He felt his eyes blink, but the voices never grew bodies.

  “Cuffs are on.”

  “You can’t do that,” said the woman, possibly a nurse. “This boy is a patient!”

  “Fuck that,” said Pierce. “He’s a murderer and a danger to society. I’m taking him back to HQ. Help me get him downstairs, Aguilar.”

  “Dr. Blake won’t allow that.”

  “Dr. Blake isn’t the law around here.”

  “Now just relax,” said Aguilar. “Nurse, can you check him?”

  “I have to tell Dr. Blake...”

  “I can’t see!” Deron tried to bring his hands to his face, but he was tucked in tight.

  “Stand that piece of shit up. We’re outta here.”

  “You can’t take him out there,” said the nurse. Her voice shifted as she came closer and soon Deron felt her thin fingers on his face. Seeing the tears in his eyes must have made her abandon her argument. “Don’t worry, I’m here. Now, I want you to follow my finger.”

  “What finger?”

  He had been wrong. He thought it couldn’t get any worse. Being blind to the veneer was one thing, but going all the way down to nothing...

  “Deron?”

  That voice.

  Even in the darkness, he could see her. Deron imagined her standing just outside the room, half-hidden by the doorjamb, concern on her face. The last time, they wouldn’t let her come into the room because they weren’t married or related. If only she had come a few minutes earlier, he could have glimpsed her face before the world shut off for good.

  “Rosie?”

  It was enough of an invitation; footsteps hurried across the room.

  Something dug at the blanket around his arm and then Rosalia was holding his hand. “I’m here,” she said.

  Deron turned his head to the sound of her voice. “I can’t see you.”

  “It’s okay. You’re gonna be okay.”

  “I need to find Dr. Blake. You’ll stay with him?”

  “I will.” She squeezed his hand. “I’ll stay.”

  Deron felt his lips reposition into a smile. Somewhere in the unending gloom, he imagined Rosalia smiling back at him.

  71 - Sebo

  Parker Avenue was shut down, but that didn’t stop people from milling around in front of the shuttered businesses, using their outdoor seating as a place to congregate and discuss the latest happenings. Stories from downtown were trickling out with each public servant that managed to escape the chaos. They told of riots and unrest, of cops shooting people dead just for getting too close. For those that lived in the neighborhoods surrounding Parker, such talk of violence was enticing and they drank it down like a strawberry-banana smoothie.

  Sebo glanced at the front windows of Perrault’s and wondered how long the pristine plate glass would last before someone put a chair through it. He listened to the rumors too, but where a commoner would abhor the tragedy, Sebo could only focus on the hysteria, the driving force that would ultimately cause the most damage. A few decorations had come off, yet people were behaving as if the heavens were crashing to the ground. Even the other men and women sitting at the tables around him looked agitated, as if at any moment they might stand up and start murdering each other.

  “I hear busses are lined up at South Gate to take people to Paramel. North Gate too.”

  It was a common rumor that people were not just leaving Easton, but fleeing in droves, intent on waiting out the crisis in a city that still had television and computers. A few days in Paramel didn’t sound so bad, but the people waiting at North Gate would be heading to Sonora. Sebo couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to go there.

  “The hotels are gonna double their rates, you watch.”

  Yeah, thought Sebo. Someone was always waiting to profit from a disaster, severe or not. If anything, the lack of veneer was only a minor inconvenience. There were still basic services: food, water, and electricity. The worst thing that had happened so far was that everyone got a day off from school. He smirked and wondered what the hell was wrong with people.

  “They make you sign a contract. On paper.”

  “Who does?”

  “The bus people. You have to sign an I.O.U. saying you’ll pay them back when the veneer is back up. Don’t know how much they’re charging though.”

  “Shit... I’d expect that from Paramel types, but it doesn’t seem right to do that to your own people.

  The man sighed. “Those people aren’t from here. Those busses are with a Sonora company. You ever notice those agency mini-tanks following you on the way to Paramel?”

  “I just thought agents were nosy.”

  “They’re psychotic assholes,” said Sebo, under his breath. They were cheats and rogues, but they didn’t take an interest in anything without reason. Whoever ran the busses controlled the flow of people from one city to the next. Sebo had heard stories of ambushes in the outland, so hiring muscle that could travel freely between cities made sense.

  “You know it’s not just the veneer thing,” said one of the men. “If those riots spread out here, I’m taking Rebecca and the kids and getting out of here.”

  Sebo nodded his head thoughtfully. What did it take for neighbors who had lived together in peace for years to suddenly look upon each other with distr
ust?

  “What gets me is the lack of a plan. Did no one ever think this might happen?”

  “They had a plan,” said Sebo, turning in his chair. “Cut and run.”

  The men looked at him with curiosity.

  “The veneer is too big to fail.” He conjured up the appropriate maxims. “We put all of our eggs in one basket. And then the basket disappeared right out from under us and all the eggs fell on the floor.” He pointed to the ground and the men followed his gaze. “They’re all broken now, see? Social services, communications, the fucking network; all gone.”

  “I don’t see anything,” said one of the men.

  “They’re not real,” said the other. “He’s just saying.”

  “Oh.”

  “But that doesn’t mean we have to freak out,” Sebo continued. “I don’t think the agents abandoned Easton because of a little thing like the veneer. And I don’t think they’re going to let it stay down permanently.”

  A couple at a nearby table looked at Sebo, as did a few other interested people. He smiled at the attention.

  “If anything, they left because of that.” He gestured to downtown and was surprised to see half a dozen heads turn at his instruction. “They knew some of us wouldn’t be able to handle even twelve hours without TV or e-mail. But they’ll be back. You can’t keep agents out of Easton forever. Once the veneer is back up, they’ll come riding into town like fucking heroes. And we’ll love them for it.”

  That got a few nods.

  “We should be fortifying the walls,” he concluded. When one of the men scoffed, Sebo went after him. “Would you rather see the city burn? You really want your family to get caught up in that?” He pointed to downtown again, only this time, he didn’t see the smoke. What it was, he couldn’t put his finger on. It reminded him of a shadow cast by a high cloud moving quickly overhead. It flowed out from downtown and passed over in a flash. No one else seemed to notice it.

  Could it have been a veneer?

  Sebo put his hand down on the table; it shimmered at his touch. Multiple theories came hurtling out of the darkness. He had just seen an artifact of reconciliation, which meant...