“I…Anita we…” Diana’s speechless. There’s something like hot bile in her throat, burning the lie before she can spew it out.
“You’re one of the Faithful, right?” Anita asks.
Diana grabs Anita’s hand, gripping it as she speaks. “Of course I am, Anita. I’ve done some bad things, we all have, but I always had faith. When I was your age, I hated goin’ to Catholic school, mostly because of the nuns. And when I grew up, well, let’s just say that I realized that there were a lot of ugly things I didn’t like about the church, and there were a lot of things about me that they found even uglier. So I kind of threw that part of me away.”
Diana grabs Anita’s shoulder and looks into her eyes, not wavering, not looking away, not hiding. “I’m not goin’ to lie to you, when this all started I was as scared as everyone else. I didn’t even try prayin’ because there were millions of people doin’ it and it didn’t make a difference. I wanted to live, I didn’t want to burn out and die awake and wake up again in fire and brimstone and find out that all along, the church had been right about me. But when I heard about people like you…it gave me hope, gave me faith again. But I still felt like a fake. I was still doin’ the same things I was doin’ before. Then it all changed. You know why?”
Anita shakes her head lazily, as if she’s numbed by Diana’s words, by the sincerity behind them. This is a tough woman, the toughest she’s seen other than Lorena, spilling her guts out and revealing all of her weak points.
“Because I saw you sleep with my own eyes. You’re a miracle. A real miracle in a world full of people lyin’ and cheatin’ just to pretend they’re special.”
There are real tears now in Anita’s eyes, some that had been hiding, that she’d vanished in an effort to become stronger. “But you’re still leaving,” she says, looking away.
Diana places a finger under Anita’s chin and gently turns her head back toward her. “No I’m not.”
With that, Anita breaks. She hugs Diana, gripping her close like she would the mast of a ship during a storm.
THIRTEEN
Gloria’s parked next to a small Tuk Tuk motorcycle. The size difference is ridiculous, like a mountain next to an anthill.
The Tuk Tuk itself has been modified, reinforced for the arduous journey ahead. It’s something you’d only see in developing countries, the bastard child of a taxi and a motorcycle. This one looks like a war veteran. The red paint on its body is grayed after years of marinating in exhaust fumes. A collection of dents and scrapes snake through the body like mountain ranges, and there are several spiderweb cracks on the plastic windshield.
But the Faithful have been busy. The Tuk Tuk’s three motorcycle tires have been covered in the same way as Gloria’s, in wire mesh and tarp. Its body has been fitted with metal signs, most from the ice cream shop itself. There’s even an eclectic collection of scrap metal (pots, pans, the odd ice cream scoop) soldered onto the front bumper like an improvised battering ram. The roof’s still made of tarp, but it’s a weak point that’ll be hard to exploit.
Gabo and Edu stoop by one of Gloria’s tires. Gabo’s feeding Edu a spool of wire mesh. Edu winds it around the rubber, reinforcing it even further.
Gerardo walks up to them, fanning a wad of hundred-dollar bills in one hand like a high society lady. Edu laughs, rising to his feet and clapping Gerardo on the back. “Guess you didn’t need the bounty after all, huh?” he asks. Gabo gives Edu a confused look, then turns it on Gerardo. It’s slowly becoming a hurt look, like a wound he suspected might be there, but which has now been revealed as a bloody mess.
“How’d you know?” Gerardo asks.
“Come on, why else would we go to the Café? We all know what Armando specializes in.”
Diana charges up to them. There’s no hesitation, no room for explanation, she just crashes into Gerardo and pins him against Gloria’s grill, her elbow on his throat. “What the fuck, Gerardo?” she spits, “tell me what this fuck-up said isn’t true. You tell me you weren’t plannin’ on sellin’ Anita!”
“I wasn’t!” Gerardo croaks, giving Edu an angry look.
“Bullshit. I can see it on your fuckin’ face, Gerardo. God! Who are you? Huh? Were you always such a psychopath, or is it just now that you can’t sleep?”
She removes her elbow and Gerardo drops to the ground, taking in gaping mouthfuls of air only to cough it up almost immediately. “We all thought about it,” he says, massaging his throat. “You’d be lying if you told me you didn’t. It’d be for the cure, anyway.”
“Don’t you try justifyin’ it. You don’t give a fuck about the cure and we all know it. She’d never want to go! You’d have sold her off against her will!”
“She’s not one of us, Diana!” Gerardo shouts, rising to his feet. “I have to look after you, alright? After us. We said we’d all do whatever it took to live through this, that we’d watch each other’s backs. Well that was me watching our fucking backs!”
“Diego was one of us too, wasn’t he? Did you watch his fuckin’ back? No! You see, I think, when it comes down to it, you’d sacrifice any of us just so you’d make it.”
“That’s not true,” Gerardo says, flinching away, muttering to himself. “That was a mistake.”
“I’m stayin’ with them,” Diana says.
“What? Diana!” Gabo says, rising to his feet and leaving the spool of wire in the dirt. “We’re just arguing, right? We can move past it and keep going, yeah?”
Diana gives Gabo a sad smile.
“Bitch made up her damn mind,” Edu says.
“Shut the fuck up!” Gerardo shouts, “Don’t talk about her like that. She’s one of us. She pulls her weight. More than you.”
Edu shakes his head, smiling at first, like he’s waiting for the punchline to this bad joke. Then that smile turns into a scowl, and he storms off.
“The Haven’s gonna work out for us, Diana…I would make it up to you for what happened…for what we lost," Gerardo says.
“That doesn’t matter anymore,” Diana says, smiling. “I found something real here, finally, in the middle of all this fuckin’ madness, I found somewhere I belong. I’m sick of killin’ just to buy myself one more day and prayin’ my guilt away at night. No. This was a long time comin’. I have to follow what I believe in. You can’t convince me otherwise,” she looks at Gabo now. “This is what I want.”
“Fine…” Gerardo says, sighing. “But you reach out to us, alright? You know our frequency. And keep your head down.”
Diana nods and walks back inside the shop. Gerardo collapses into the driver’s seat, like he’s been holding onto something incredibly heavy, and he’s just now let it go.
Gabo stutters, holding up his hands as if he’s waiting for an explanation to materialize in the air in front of him. When it doesn’t, he walks toward the trailer, toward his CD player, to deal with this the only way he knows how.
◆◆◆
Hours later, Gerardo’s still slumped over in the driver’s seat. He’s holding a smaller glass vial in his hand, as tenderly as one might hold the Holy Grail itself. Gerardo’s too smart to sell off all the morphine at once, especially at that price. They’re making a long trip too, after all. They might need it. He fills up a syringe with the clear, too-valuable liquid and then presses it against his forearm.
“What are you doing?” Gerardo jumps up, almost stabbing the needle into his arm. Anita’s standing in the hole where the driver’s side door used to be.
Gerardo throws the syringe back in the box. “Nothing. Go to sleep.”
“Are you really going to leave without Diana?”
“Yep. She drank your Kool-Aid.”
Anita sighs, rolling her eyes as if she’s trying to explain simple addition to an adult. “But the pills won’t work!”
“Yes they will. If I had any now, I’d be asleep.”
“Were you gonna stick yourself with that? Is that the morphine my grandma gave you? I thought you sold that to—”
&n
bsp; “It’s not morphine. Goodnight,” Gerardo says, closing his eyes.
“You’re just gonna sit there with your eyes closed?” Anita asks, then leans in, whispering in Gerardo’s ear. “Hey, genius, I’m gonna let you in on a little secret…we have cots inside.”
“What’s the point? I’d be awake anyway.”
“You’d be freakin’ comfortable.” Gerardo snores exaggeratedly in response. “Ugh! No wonder Diana's leaving. You're such a stubborn asshole!”
Gerardo watches her go, something like a little smile flashing across his features. It’s gone as soon as it pops up. He rubs the fatigue out of his face, the weight behind his eyes feeling like a million tons now.
In front of Gloria’s windshield, the Pale Man stands, looking at Gerardo unflinchingly. Gerardo fidgets in his seat, sliding down until, from his perspective, the dashboard covers the windshield. He can’t stand being under the Pale Man’s gaze, it’s as commanding and blistering as the Insomnia itself. He can’t see the man anymore, but he can still feel his stare coming through Gloria’s guts and the dashboard like a pair of laster blasts in a science fiction movie. He slides out of the driver’s side hole.
◆◆◆
The sleeping bags covering the floor of the storage space are now all filled. Marco and Pilar lie next to each other. Marco mumbles, shifting from side to side uncomfortably. Pilar rocks back and forth. The sea of sleeping bags is wild, the fabric moving like choppy waves. Everyone’s awake. Several of the Faithful lie here and there, in similar states of unease. In a corner, a group of them stand over a white blanket draped over several small bodies. They sob and huddle close. Gerardo stares at them as he walks past, focusing on the tiny faces outlined under the thin fabric.
Gerardo walks over to Gabo, who’s sitting on a bundle of pillows, zoned out with his sunglasses and headphones on, toe-tapping to the beat of whatever he’s listening to. Gerardo pats him on the leg he’s jiggling.
“Huh?” Gabo asks, shocked at having been mercilessly pulled away from his music-wrapped daydreams.
“Let’s go for a drive,” Gerardo says.
◆◆◆
Gabo sits nervously in Gloria’s driver’s seat. He looks much smaller in the cavernous space of the empty cabin, but maybe that’s just because he feels that way, like a kid trying on his father’s suit. Gerardo’s sitting next to him. “Turn the ignition,” he says.
Gabo twists the key. Gloria grumbles, suddenly alive. Awake. Like them.
“Gloria’s a ten-speed,” Gerardo explains in a droning, bored voice. “That switch under the gear stick handle is how you change from low to high. Some of the positions are marked, others you’ll be able to find if you count them.”
“Okay,” Gabo says, clearly not comfortable with the idea of him counting anything in this cabin.
“Go low second,” Gerardo says. Gabo sticks the shifting lever where second would be on a normal car. “No. That’s first. Low second’s what would be third in a normal car.”
Gabo sighs. He lets go of the lever, letting it flop back into its neutral position.
“What?” Gerardo asks.
“Why are you making me drive?”
“Because when I can’t, you’ll have to.”
“Edu can drive. Diana too.”
“Diana’s leaving. Look kid, if Edu and I lose our shit...when we lose it, it’ll be up to you to get us there. You’re younger. You can hold it together for longer than we can. You just need to learn how to drive Gloria and you’re good.”
“I’m sorry to let you down, Gerry, but I can’t focus. I’m too tired. I’m sorry.”
“We're all fucking tired! But if you don't learn this now we might all be fucked! Do you want that? Huh? Do you want me and Edu to die because you didn’t want to learn how to drive because you were too tired?”
Gabo flinches, tears starting to stream from his eyes. He puts on a brave face, blinking the tears away before they can form again...trying to be a man when he’s still mostly just a kid. He grabs the lever with one hand, wiping his tears with the other. He goes low second, getting it right this time.
Gerardo puts his hand over Gabo’s. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you. You’re doing great, okay? I’m sorry. I’m just tired too. We’ll be alright. Go back inside.”
Gabo slips out of the hole on the driver’s side. As he goes, he turns to look at Gerardo, still wiping his tears away. “I’m sorry about Diego, Gerry,” he says. As Gabo walks back inside, Gerardo rests his head on the dashboard and sighs deeply, as if he’s letting something that burns his lungs out with his breath.
◆◆◆
Gerardo’s still in the driver’s seat when Diana opens the passenger’s side door and climbs inside. He jumps at the sound and the movement, the haze lifting slightly to reveal her face in the dark. “Shit!” Gerardo says, somewhere between a chuckle and a deep exhale, one of his hands has drifted to close around his handgun.
“Easy,” Diana says, smiling. “Don’t shoot.”
“What are you doing out here?” Gerardo asks, settling back into the seat and into his skin.
“I could ask you the same question. Aren’t you sick of that seat?”
“I like this seat,” Gerardo says, “it makes me feel like I’m in control, even when I’m not. But you should know why I’m really out here, if you were paying attention on our runs.”
“‘Never leave Gloria unmanned in enemy territory,’” Diana quotes, “just another bit of wisdom from our fearless leader. Still don’t trust them, do you?”
Gerardo massages his head, caught in a particularly rough wave on the choppy ocean of his migraine. “Have you seen the way they look at us? It's somewhere between jealousy and hunger, toward Gloria especially, which means they’re as desperate as the Lazies dying on their backs. You sure you wanna switch teams?”
Diana smiles sadly, running her hands over the semi’s dashboard. “You don’t get it. It’s not just about havin’ the right tools or the most firepower. I’d rather walk if it means I’m doin’ it for the right reason.”
“What you mean is that you’d rather die a martyr than live as a killer,” Gerardo looks Diana in the eyes. There are tears in his own, but he doesn’t know why and he wants them even less.
“That’s what you think of us, right?" he asks, his voice growing louder with each word, "you think I tainted all of you, that I damned you and forced you to kill to stay alive. But I never did. I went where we had to go to survive, and all of you followed me without so much as a fucking word. You didn’t stop me. Not once,” Gerardo says, “not when I asked you for your savings to build Gloria, not when Diego and I bought drugs and guns from the gang, not when we hit the pharmacies when most people were still holding out hope and trying to sleep…and when they started putting up a fight, I didn’t even have to ask anyone to pull the trigger. You did that yourself. Sure, you cried afterwards and told me off and blamed me. But it was you!”
Tears stream down Gerardo’s face. He turns away, looking at the windshield as he composes himself.
Diana puts her hand Gerardo’s shoulder. She’s gentle, patient. “I don’t blame you, Gerardo. I never have. I blame myself. I was weak and I was scared and I followed you because I knew you wouldn’t ever let us die. You saved us. If you hadn’t been crazy enough to believe that we’d have a sleepless night like the other side of the world…we’d be dead if it weren’t for what you did. Thank you, Gerry. Thank you for keepin’ me alive.”
Gerardo wipes his eyes, placing a hand over Diana’s. “But we are damned,” Diana says, “not because of you but because of ourselves. So I’m gonna make it right. I’m gonna put my money where my mouth is and I’m gonna take Anita up to the Sleepin’ Place, and if I die tryin’, I’ll die a better person than dyin’ on the road to the Pill Haven with you.”
Diana lets go of Gerardo’s hand and opens the passenger’s side door, slinking out of the seat. “You should lie down on a cot for a few hours,” she says, “straighten your back.”
Gerardo shakes his head, sputters something like a laugh, and rests his head on the dash again. Before she leaves, Diana takes a folded piece of paper from her pocket and slips it into Gerardo’s shirt pocket, then she smiles and walks off. He’s too tired, far too gone, to even notice.
FOURTEEN
Lorena stoops over the Tuk-Tuk, prodding and pulling at the sheets of metal soldered onto it. There are a thousand silent questions suggested by every movement of her hands: how many shots will it take before a bullet flies into the cabin? How many arrows until the wheels are nothing but deflated knots around metal frames? They needed Gerardo’s truck, and she feels that by failing to convince him to take them, they’ve already failed their mission.
Lorena's seen what the Red Eyes do to ordinary ‘sleep traitors,’ people who take sleeping pills. What they do to the Faithful is much, much worse. It’s so bad part of her wants to go back inside and just wait to die of exhaustion. But they need to do this. This is Anita’s purpose and Lorena’s promised her she’s going to help her fulfill it.
They’re the test subjects, the first expedition to what will hopefully become the world’s first sleep colony. Well, the first they know of. Soon, probably in less than a year, the only people alive will be those that followed Sleepers to holy sites like the Sleeping Place.
Anita sits inside the Tuk Tuk’s tiny cabin, watching as Gerardo and the others climb inside Gloria. She’s suddenly very aware of the difference between them. It’s not just the size of their respective vehicles, or how many weapons they have, it’s how prepared Gerardo and his crew are. How efficient. How deadly. The Faithful are a ragtag group in comparison, like Somalian pirates on a tiny speedboat next to a cargo ship that’s over a thousand feet long. Anita’s young, but she knows that this is the way of the world. Those that are truly good, truly faithful, will always be fewer and have less than those who are only out for themselves.
Awake Page 13