Eleven Twenty-Three (37 page)

Then there was my week-long indiscretion with
Mitsuko, a source of endless guilt and diarrhea thereafter, but
never the impetus for a confession.

Even before the Mitsuko debacle, in February
of this year, Tara and I had a twelve-hour argument one night that
erupted over nothing more than a disagreement about the difference
between bipolar disorder and manic-depression, and we almost broke
up. By sunrise the next morning, the alarm clock was smashed on the
bedroom floor, an empty milk jug had been tossed into the bathroom
sink, and I had asked her to move her things out.

She made it clear to me that the moment she
removed the last piece of her furniture from my home, we were
through. I held my ground and asked her not to forget the stuffed
animals.

It was not long after our epic-length
break-up session that Tara sat down with her old dorm-mate Julie
and a worrisome mutual friend from their bank named Miranda to
sketch out a plan to rent a cute little yellow house on 5813 Flint
Street. When Miranda asked if Layne would be around much if the
girls moved in together, Tara responded, “Not at all. Layne and I
will never see another December together again, I don’t think.”

“Oh no,” Julie said. “Really? I like
Layne.”

Miranda lifted her coffee mug to conceal the
fact that she was absolutely beaming.

“Then again,” Tara said, “what if we
did?”

And Tara never let go of a question once she
had asked it.

11:18:21 PM

At the house on Flint Street, things are
falling apart. As the next wave of hysteria spirals toward us, our
spirits are crushed, our tempers are flared, and I feel like
something terrible is approaching—something that has nothing to do
with time and yet everything to do with the past.

Tara’s still crying when she looks each of us
in the eye before lowering her head and saying, “I don’t even care.
I don’t care what happens. We can all just fucking die for all I
give a shit.”

“No, Tara. We can all just
escape
.
Remember? Nothing’s changed. We’re out of here before
Wednesday.”

“Hajime and Mitsuko were right all along,”
she sighs, shakily lighting a cigarette. “We’re not leaving here.
We’re already dead. In fact, if I turn—”

“If you turn then
what
, Tara?” I ask
sharply.

“Then just let me do whatever to myself. I
don’t care.”

She sinks into the couch and buries her head
in her hands, a strong girl entertaining thoughts she never would
have had, not in a thousand years, before that funeral Saturday
morning. Worse, this is Tara on two Xanax. Regardless, as I survey
the faces of my companions and listen to the shrieks and occasional
crack of gunfire outside this house, I think it’s safe to say that
the ones
not
conjuring up those kinds of ideations are in
the vast minority.

“We’re leaving before Wednesday,” I repeat
uselessly. “By Wednesday we’re gone. We’re starting over
again.”

“We probably won’t even
see
Wednesday,” Hajime interjects, leering at me pretentiously. “It’s
extremely optimistic for you to believe we’ll survive until then,
Layne. Might I remind you it’s only Sunday night?”

“It’s eleven eighteen, Hajime. Can we please
have this conversation later?”

“Well maybe, maybe
not
, Layne—”

Just then, three quick gunshots cut through
the night. My spine shudders and I clench tighter on the briefcase
handle. A moment later, the blast of a shotgun.

“This isn’t smallpox,” Julie says. “It’s
hopelessness personified. We’ve got to get out of here soon, or not
at all.”

I give Julie a grateful nod and look back at
Tara, her face still buried in her hands, and then at Hajime, who
lights a cigarette and clears his throat for the next rebuke.

“I’d rather throw a
party
Tuesday
night than die knee-deep in palmetto bushes and mangrove roots,
eaten by some ferocious god-damned dog or shot in the face by a
soldier my own tax money employs,” Hajime declares, glancing at his
watch, the stupid bastard.

“Either way, you’ll still be dead by
Wednesday afternoon, Hajime. But you know what? I’m done with
trying to convince you. It’s stupid. If you want to be rounded up
just like those other pieces of shit out there that you’ve always
shunned for their complacency, then go ahead. Do it. But just know
that on Wednesday morning, you’re just as pathetic and altogether
fucked as anyone else in this town. You know, I’ve always believed
you when you said that we were better than our surroundings here,
Hajime. You convinced me that we were somehow special, a little
brighter and a little more together than the other few thousand
people in Lilly’s End. But you know what?”

“I’m sure you’ll tell me.”

“You’re not any smarter, braver, or
enlightened than the other bumpkins that get buried in an unmarked
grave come the end of the week. You’re a lazy fucking hypocrite,
Hajime, and it’s finally going to catch up to you this time and get
you killed. You’ll be just another dead Asian kid that no one in
the real America knew or gave a shit about.”

“Layne—” Julie begins.

“So there it is?” he says, cutting her
off.

“Yes. There it is. You can’t join your own
revolution because you’re too busy looking it up on Google and
throwing out vague references to it at parties. You’re clever,
Hajime. Talented, too. But not in any kind of useful way. You’d
rather throw some paint on a canvas and
pretend
you’ve made
a difference than actually make one. God, you’re just like a high
school kid.”

“That doesn’t mean you’re going to have to
put your semen in me, does it?” he says, looking faux-worried. “I
know I’m not as impressive as Olivia, but that—”

I immediately lose it.

Before I even realize it, I’ve taken two
oversized steps forward and punched him in the chin. Hajime
stumbles backward on the blankets covering the floor. He lands in a
puddle of old blood and spends a long time rubbing his jaw, slowly
opening and closing his mouth. When he finally looks up at me,
there are half-tears under his eyelids.

“If I’m a lazy hypocrite, what does that make
you
, Layne?” he asks. “Tell me.”

“Guys, it’s eleven-twenty,” Julie tries to
tell us. “Again, may I suggest that maybe you two talk about this
later?”

“I don’t know
what
it makes me,
Hajime. I do know that if I die here, at least it will be on my own
terms. At least Tara and I are going to try and defy the
quarantine. We’re at least going to try, Hajime. You know the word
‘try,’ right? I’m sure you’ve heard it before, even if you’ve never
actually done it. Before all those corrupt governments you talk of
get overturned, how many people have to die for their cause
first?”

“There’s no cause here, Layne, and you know
it,” Tara says. “We’re at our still point.”

My stomach sinks and I feel lightheaded. When
I glance up at the ceiling, it’s dotted with stars.

“Stop trying to wear superhero-sized shoes,
Layne,” Hajime says. “It doesn’t become you. Besides, I can’t
recall a single time that Clark Kent fucked the married Asian girl
instead of Lois Lane. Can you?”

“You—are a bastard,” I manage, but am having
trouble breathing.

“What is he talking about, Layne?” Tara
croaks while massaging her throat. “What does that mean?”

“Nothing.”

“
Nothing
?” he repeats. “Well, if you
consider Layne cheating on you with my sister nothing, then by all
means, Tara. It’s nothing.”

“Eleven twenty-one, guys,” Julie reminds us,
focusing solely on her watch.

“What?” Tara says, simultaneously shocked and
close to passing out. “You did
what
, Layne?”

“He’s full of shit, Tara—”

“I’m full of
shit
? So that night last
summer after the beach and Dubliners didn’t happen, bro? Is that
right? Well, Mitsuko might have something to say about that, if we
ever see her again.”

“Please tell me didn’t,” Tara pleads, already
turning red and losing her ability to form coherent sentences.
“Please,
please
tell me never happen, Layne. Not with her.
Please tell me. Please.”

The room falls silent. I grind my teeth and
glare at Hajime, praying that he dies in two minutes. Tara and even
Julie now wait for me to say something.

“Tara, I—”

“Oh my god. You
did
.”

“I—”

“You son of a
bitch!”

“I’m sorry, Tara. I don’t know what to say.
It was a mistake—”

“Yeah, it must have been a huge mistake,”
Hajime scoffs, but quickly winces at a sharp pain in his stomach.
“That’s why you called her the day you got back from China, right?
To tell her how much of a mistake it was?”

“You’d better hope you don’t turn, Hajime,” I
warn him. “Because this time, it won’t be me who stops the
knife.”

“Then let it happen, Layne. Go ahead. Let
your best friend die because he exposed you for the liar and
asshole you most clearly are.
That
won’t haunt you for the
rest of your existence.”

“I’m already haunted, Hajime—”

“Eleven twenty-two…”

“My parents are dead,” Tara sobs. “My sister
Chloe is dead. Everyone is
dead
, Layne. They’re all dead. We
should never have come back here in the first place, because now
we
might be dead soon too. And to top it all off, you did
this
? Did I wrong you or something in a past life? Is that
it, Layne? Because I certainly didn’t do anything to deserve having
you fuck
that
conniving little bitch.”

“Hold on,” Hajime says. “That’s still my
sister you’re blasting, sweetie.”

“Tara, I didn’t know we’d be in this
predicament someday when it happened,” I say. “I’m sorry. It was a
mistake, okay? Everything that happened with Mitsuko was a big
mistake. Hajime’s blowing the entire ordeal way out of proportion.
I fucked up, okay? I admit it. But we can’t worry about that
now.”

“Please don’t let anything happen to me,”
Julie pleads with us. “I realize there’s…some
drama…but…please…don’t let…”

Julie doubles over, clenching her stomach.
Tara rubs her temples but then lets both her arms fall to her
sides. She breathes shallowly through her nose and Hajime spits out
something pink onto the floor.

“Layne?” my girlfriend says, barely
audible.

“Yes, Tara?”

“If we do somehow survive this…you and I are
through. Once we’re out of the End, we go our separate ways. You
understand?”

I say nothing and instead focus on a random
spot of blood on the white wall behind Tara’s head. I try to
maintain my balance.

“Do you
understand?”
she repeats.

“Yes, Tara. I understand.”

“You’re not a hero, Layne,” Tara says.
“You’re just another asshole looking for redemption. You’re a
goddamn cliché. And newsflash: you’re never going to prove yourself
to
anyone
. Your past can’t just be edited out of existence.
You of all people should know that.”

But the true past is never written down in
the first place
,
the tiny evil voice tells me.
It’s
really not that difficult.

And by the time the thought is complete, it’s
eleven twenty-three.

Both girls stampede toward me.

Tara tackles me first, launching me back
several feet onto the couch. She’s snarling and foaming at the
mouth already, screaming at the top of her lungs while she
maniacally grabs at my chest. Julie scampers toward us and falls to
her knees, surveying my exposed thigh for only a moment before
sinking her teeth into the fabric of my jeans. I wail in agony,
frantically shaking my leg and trying to kick her off.

Hajime just stands there several feet away,
watching the attack.

“Hajime, for God’s sake,
help
me!”

The saliva and foul-smelling acids slithering
out of Tara’s mouth cascade down my forehead, my cheek, and onto my
lips, inside my throat. I cough and try to overpower her, but Julie
holds down my legs and bites into the denim again. This time I see
the faint outline of red go through the fabric, and the panic sets
in.

“Hajime,
please!”

He just stands there, folding his arms,
watching me struggle with Tara in my lap and Julie at my feet, both
girls floundering like rabid dogs.

“Hajime—”

I manage to swing my arm widely, taking the
briefcase with it and striking Julie in the jaw. She topples over
for only a moment before collecting her bearings and coming back
for another round.

“Didn’t you just say you were going to let me
die if I turned, Layne?” Hajime asks. “Oh, how us pretentious kids
live and die under the flag of irony, huh?”

Tara’s eyes are completely vacant, her pupils
dilated, all humanity and even the faintest hints of ever having
been a member of an evolved species now gone. She digs her nails
into my arm. She kicks into my groin. I lose my ability to breathe
and realize that I’m exhausting my scant strength fast.

“That briefcase sure did you a lot of good,”
he says. “It’s pretty much incapacitated your right arm, but
supposedly it’s keeping you from going crazy. Is it a fair trade
right now?”

I kick Julie away with my left foot. She
sails backward and lands on her ass, still snarling. It only takes
her a moment to clamber to her feet again. This time she approaches
me deliberately, methodically, almost smiling. Tara sees her coming
and tries to pin my arms back, leaving my chest and head completely
exposed. They’re working together. Whatever is inside them is
legion.

“Hajime, please—
please
—do something,”
I whisper, tears running down my cheeks, a collage of my life’s
disappointments and failings flashing before my eyes at such speed
that I can’t even begin to learn anything from them.