Ten After Closing

by Jessica Bayliss

  “Right. And wait until he sees the café. It’s dead bodies galore in there.”

  Winny’s fresh giggles mix with a new flood of tears.

  “I think you’ve lost it, Win.”

  She sniffs. “Yeah. I’m totally gone.” After one more deep breath, she nods, smiles, and takes my hand.

  We push through the doors, ready to confront whatever awaits us out there.

  42

  SCOTT

  TEN HOURS AND SEVENTEEN MINUTES BEFORE CLOSING

  What is this all about, Scotty?” his mother asked.

  “Just come in and sit down, both of you,” he said.

  His dad was silent as he settled onto the sofa, stealing fast peeks across the room to the hallway and the entry to the kitchen, where the fridge stood in plain sight with his dad’s cavalry of aids atop it: Johnnie Walker, Smirnoff, and a bottle of premium Bulleit bourbon. Good old Dad was already itching for his morning pick-me-up.

  Scott needed to act fast, before the lure of the first shot of the day became too strong for his dad to resist.

  He’d rehearsed this plan when they’d both been asleep, and now he walked through the steps without a hitch. The TV flickered to life. He got the Blu Ray player going, purchased just before his dad’s company started the series of layoffs that kicked off this two years of hell, and opened the app that would let him stream the video from his phone to the screen.

  His friends had been bugging him for years to cave and get a new smartphone, but they were so damned expensive. So, when the starter phone his parents bought for him back when he was twelve finally died, Scott went without. Until things got really bad, and the idea came to him. This idea.

  “Here we go,” he mumbled. The image of a box of generic rice puffs filled the small flat screen. Scott hit play, and Dad’s slurred voice emanated from the outdated, but still functional, surround-sound speakers.

  “I told you I’d take care of the bills,” his on-screen dad said, while real-life Dad sat transfixed as he took in the drama from nearly two weeks ago. He turned to Scott, who stayed a safe distance away from the sofa. “What is this?”

  “But Jack,” his mom said on the screen. “I had to take care of it today, or else they would have shut off the lights.”

  No matter how many times his mother had denied how messed up his dad was, she gave herself away on the video. Scott had been struck the first time he watched it—one of many private screenings—how she always managed to keep at least a full arm’s-distance away from her husband, and she never turned her back on him, not once, during the whole exchange. Even if her conscious brain was in denial, her unconscious survival mechanism had kept her vigilant. So far, it had worked to keep her safe.

  Not so much with Scott.

  “What is this?” his dad asked again.

  His mother couldn’t tear her eyes away from the screen as she relived the scene of domestic terror.

  The confrontation, filmed ten days ago, had started over breakfast and continued as his mother had tried to clean up. It had lasted three-point-four minutes. No matter how many times Scott had watched this two hundred and four second replay of his life, it never failed to sweep up every dark and ugly feeling within him and mold it into a condensed ball of pain that lodged right where his heart should be.

  He’d suffered—hell, he’d suffered. Now it was their turn.

  On the screen, his dad’s temper jumped up a notch. Scott found himself mouthing the words as they rang through the sound system. On cue, Evie started to cry, and his mother rushed to the table to snatch her out of her highchair. The towel she’d been using to dry the dishes fell from her shoulder where she’d slung it. His dad grabbed the rag so he could first wave it in his wife’s face, making Evie cry harder. When that wasn’t enough, he smacked her with it, and caught Evie, too.

  That was the part that had kept Scott up, wrestling with indecision, for three straight nights. He kept replaying the way his nine-month-old sister flinched and blinked her tiny eyelids, with their fine fringe of baby-soft lashes, as that towel flapped in her face. It couldn’t have hurt much. It was just a towel, after all. But it scared her, and what would happen the day it wasn’t a towel, but the remote, or a bottle, or his dad’s fist?

  “You taped us?” the bastard asked, the cords of his throat strangling the words so they came out in a rasp. His face crumpled and his lip trembled.

  He was actually going to cry?

  What the hell was that? His dad buried his head in his hands and rocked back and forth on the sofa, and for the first time, that self-righteous burn that had become so familiar to Scott began to cool.

  Had this been a huge mistake?

  “I’m sorry. God. I’m sorry,” Scott’s dad mumbled from behind his hands.

  “Shh, Jack.” His mom rubbed her husband’s back while glaring at Scott. “It’s fine, Jack. No one got hurt.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Scott said, returning her glare. No, it wasn’t a mistake. He was done letting her hide in denial.

  The recorded image jostled. To catch this footage, Scott had propped the phone against a bowl of overripe bananas that never made it into the shot, and all the movement caused it to slide a bit. He’d tried this setup on several other occasions, but nothing had gone down. Instead, the fireworks had flared unexpectedly, at random moments when Scott wasn’t prepared. But he’d known that all he had to do was wait and keep trying and eventually he’d catch his dad in action. Scott’s reward continued to play across the wide-screen.

  Enter the hero of this show. Scott appeared on-screen, trying to wedge himself between his parents, but his dad responded by shoving him into the counter, causing the cell to topple onto its side. The camera kept recording.

  His TV mom shouted his name. His dad turned his attention back on her, shaking her by the shoulders and jostling the baby still in her arms.

  “No more,” Scott had bellowed, jerking his dad away by one elbow. That’s when his dad had hit him, a kidney shot, a bright explosion of agony. The memory of that pain still caused his skin to sheen with sweat, though the spot was now only a yellow ghost of the original bruise.

  “Who did you show this to?” his mom asked.

  “No one. Yet.”

  “What?” His dad lifted his tear-streaked face to take in his son, a familiar twitch seizing hold of one corner of his mouth. “What? You’re going to show someone? You mean . . . you’d blackmail me?” Rage was drying the tears on his cheeks. “Your own family?” Standing, he brushed away his wife’s hand and came at Scott. Instead of unleashing his fury, he slapped Scott’s new smartphone from his grip, sending it flying across the room. It ricocheted off a lamp and smashed to the tile laid out around the fireplace hearth.

  “I just got that,” Scott gritted out.

  “Jack, please, sit down.” Scott’s mom tried to pull her husband back to the sofa. She wrapped her arm around his shoulders while throwing a livid look at her son. “I think you’d better go somewhere else for a little while.”

  “Fine.” Scott snatched his phone from the floor and thundered out of the room.

  He had no idea what he’d expected from this stunt, but he imagined he’d feel better, maybe even have some kind of resolution. He didn’t feel better at all. If anything, he felt worse. “Well, I guess anything’s possible,” he muttered as he slammed his bedroom door to block out his parents’ shouting.

  As he stood there, back to the door, his gaze settled on the three sheets of paper on his desk. God, he had to get out of this place. But how could he go? No matter how angry he was at his parents right now, there was no way he’d leave his mother and baby sister alone to fend off that monster.

  He was just as stuck as ever.

  People at school liked to talk about the zombie apocalypse, almost wishing for it, as if a worldwide disaster would be preferable to whatever they didn’t like about their lives. That was the most ridiculous thing Scott had ever heard, but today, he’d almost welcome a disaster if it
meant he could get out of this hellhole for good.

  43

  SCOTT

  TWO HOURS AND FORTY-SIX MINUTES AFTER CLOSING

  When the paramedics finally leave me alone, I close my eyes and lean my head against the wall of the ambulance. I can’t believe it’s over and everything can go back to the nightmare it was before this new nightmare started.

  I check outside the rear doors, but everyone seems distracted, so I scoot farther inside and fish my phone out of my pocket. No one saw me snag it from the floor where Winny left it after she made her life-saving call. I need to get it to the cops. They’ve been looking for everyone’s devices, and they’ll want this one—the phone the 911 call came from, the one Ryan and Toto used to stay in touch with Twitch while they took Winny on a firearm shopping spree.

  But I need to hold onto it for a little longer. The battery is staying at seven percent. Scrolling through the apps, I find the photo gallery icon. The retrieved video is still there, safe and sound.

  I think about Ryan and Sylvie’s conversation at the end of all this mess, there in the hallway. Ryan’s sense of betrayal. Sylvie doing everything in her power to save him. I see so much of me and my family in their story. All the parts we play are clear. I’m Sylvie, the martyr. They call, and I jump. Saving my family, keeping us going, even though it means putting my life on pause, trying to save us hostages from the bad guys.

  So, if I’m Sylvie, that means Ryan is my dad. The person who blames everyone for his problems. The one who uses violence to vent his own pain. The monster.

  Or am I Ryan? I seem to recall playing the blame game myself. Laying fault in the lap of my mom for hiding behind me. For letting me take on a little more and a little more and a little more after that. There’s more blame to sling at Dad for turning into the villain he’s become. At the world, for being the kind of place where a loving father could mutate into someone so utterly unrecognizable.

  But the part of tonight’s drama I can’t get out of my head is how they were both sort of right—Ryan and Sylvie. Ryan, alone, was responsible for his choices, all the things he did to get himself wrapped up with Toto and the Chef, and all the things he did before that. And before that.

  The part I find hardest to face is that Ryan was right, too. He was just a kid when Sylvie left home. What would it have been like if the current version of my dad was the one around when I was seven? Who would I be today? What things might have I done?”

  Maybe Ryan would have been exactly the same if Sylvie had stayed home to keep him safe, but maybe not.

  That’s the problem. No one knows. No one can ever know.

  I look at my phone’s display, that little triangle that hovers over the image of a box of generic cereal, and I know that I don’t want to be any of them. Not Ryan. Not the Sylvie who could have stayed nor the one who ran away. Whatever happens, holding the pieces together by myself isn’t the answer. The status quo is over, but I can’t completely abandon my family, either. Not my mom or Evie. Or even my father.

  The truth is, I love them all.

  Tears well up in my eyes for the first time since Dad lost his job. Sobs tear from my chest, and I shove my fists into my eyes until it hurts and I see flashes of light.

  “You need anything in here?” The EMT pops her head in, and I scrub my face with my shirt.

  “No, I’m good.” I clear my throat and speak louder so I can hear myself over the ringing in my ears, the only wound I took from tonight’s gunfire. “Just give me a minute, okay?”

  “Sure. I’ll be right over there if you need anything.”

  I nod, the phone still clenched in my fist.

  What did Mrs. Sommervil say this morning? People talk, but don’t act. Well, I acted, and I got results, just not the ones I expected.

  My screen has timed out, so I tap it, bringing the video back up. Three options are highlighted at the bottom of the display: SHARE, EDIT, and DELETE.

  I’m not keeping quiet or letting him hurt us anymore, and I’m done putting my life on hold, but shaming him more is not going to help. His shame is what started this all in the first place. Sure, the video might be evidence to convince the cops what’s going on, but if I’m honest with myself, I was never worried they’d doubt my story. And yeah, I hoped things would change at home because of it, but my true motive for catching the drama on film was to make my parents suffer, plain and simple.

  I did it for my own satisfaction.

  Dad will either get better or he won’t. If he does, then he’ll know what he did, and he’ll feel it. If he doesn’t, then nothing I do or say will ever give me the satisfaction I’m seeking, and I’ll be stuck carrying this lava around, letting it burn me up—like it burned up Ryan—forever.

  Nothing good will come from this video.

  I hit DELETE.

  The cereal box vanishes, replaced by a new text message. From Becky.

  OMG, I heard there was a holdup at Flores! R u okay? Please let me know ASAP. I’m freaking out over here.

  I key in a quick reply as I hop down from the ambulance floor.

  “Oh, hey, officer.”

  The cop stops on her way to whatever she was about to do. “You okay? Can I get you anything?”

  “No, but I realized, I did have my phone after all. Everything got so confusing in there, I forgot I put it in my pocket.”

  “Thanks. You sure you’re okay? Maybe you should just sit and rest.”

  I shake my head and scan the street for the ambulance where the paramedics took Winny, and I spot her, highlighted by the light spilling from the rear doors. “I’m going to be fine.”

  44

  WINNY

  TWO HOURS AND THIRTY-TWO MINUTES AFTER CLOSING

  I want to get lost in blue and red swirling lights, but my brain keeps throwing me back inside Café Flores. Snippets of scenes from the last three hours flash through my mind, especially the final showdown with Ryan in the back hallway.

  My latest memory reel is cut short when fingers wrap around my hand, and the back of the ambulance bounces as Scott hops up to sit next to me with his feet dangling over the edge, like mine.

  “You okay?” he asks.

  I take a deep breath and give his hand a squeeze. “I guess. I mean, no. I’m not, but we made it, right? That’s all that matters.”

  “We made it, yeah.” Someone has bandaged his cheek. “But that’s not all that matters.”

  “Huh?”

  “It’s just, surviving can come at a cost.”

  “Like the things we saw?” I shiver. Once more, I’m in the back hallway of Café Flores staring down the barrel of Ryan’s gun. I still can’t believe I jumped in front of Scott like that. “And the things we did?”

  He nods, releasing my hand and scrubbing his palms up and down the legs of his jeans like he’s trying to wipe away something nasty. “Or the things we almost did.”

  That dark tone tells me not to ask, and I don’t expect him to say any more.

  “I was really going to do it, Win. Kill Twitch. There’s still a part of me that wishes I did, like that would make the shitty parts of my life better somehow.”

  “But it wouldn’t have, would it?”

  “No.” His answer comes down like a judge’s gavel. “I think my dad is still trying to figure that out.”

  “What?”

  He shakes his head. “It’s not important right now.” His hazel eyes are fixed on mine. “Why’d you do it, Win? Get in front of me like that?”

  The weight around my torso triples. “I’ll show you.” With fingers that aren’t trembling as much as they were five minutes ago, I undo the buttons of my cardigan, revealing the white bodice of my dress beneath.

  “You’re taking off your sweater. Why are you taking off your sweater?”

  “Wait for it.” Shedding the cardigan, I twist to give him a good view of the Kevlar poking out beneath the straps of my dress. “Bulletproof.”

  “Where’d you get that?”

  “Shell
y . . .” Unbidden, her last name surfaces in my mind, finally. “Shelly Olvarez.”

  “Now you’ve lost me.”

  “I’ll explain, but not right now. Okay?”

  “You were going to take a bullet for me? I can’t believe I just said that.”

  I shrug. “I figured I was protected.”

  “Yeah, your torso, but what about the rest of you? Even if it hit the vest, the bullet might not have killed you, but you probably would have ended up with broken ribs at the least.”

  “I wasn’t thinking about that then, but I am now. Believe me.” A crazed Ryan stares me down, and he raises his gun again . . . A lump of terror lodges in my throat.

  “Win?”

  “What? Yeah. Sorry. Zoned out there, didn’t I?”

  “A little. Did you mean what you said? About explaining the Shelly Olvarez incident later on?” He yawns and rubs his eyes. “Or maybe tomorrow, after we sleep? If we can sleep. I’ll be honest, I don’t want to let you out of my sight. Ever. Your parents probably wouldn’t let me come home with you though, huh?”

  “Definitely not.” Like sugar in a steaming mug of tea, the lump in my throat dissolves; warmth floods my body. He leans in closer, and I’m lost in him, heat rising to my cheeks. Without meaning to, I brush the bandage on his cheek with my fingers. “I see they decided to forgo the Saran Wrap on this dressing.”

  My nervous laugh is cut off when he takes my fingers and brings them to his lips. “Thank you, Winsome Sommervil, for standing up for me like no one else ever has.”

  My breath hitches, but for the first time tonight, it’s in a good way.

  An officer crosses the street, two figures at his heels. I blink back tears, tears that don’t come close to the flood streaming down my mother’s face.

  I’m up and running to her, not even knowing how I cover the distance between us. All I know is her arms and her scent and the petal-soft silk of her dress against my cheek. Her voice—the one that resounded in my head through the terrible hours since I left home.