Elysium (11 page)

“I stole this from an orderly weeks ago. He never missed it. He so stupid.”

The door opened to a stairwell that led downstairs. The noise from the hall cut off when the door behind them slammed shut. The faded red glow of the exit sign provided a little light. Antoine followed Hector down the stairs to the lower level, into a maze of dark corridors that smelled of floor cleaner, a sickly sweet scent of pine and ammonia.

“Over here,” Hector said.

Antoine hesitated, doubling his fists. It occurred to him that it might be dangerous to follow a mental patient into the dark when he had no idea where he was going. Then Hector stopped at a door and gently knocked.

“Adrian, it’s me.”

Hector pulled something else out of his purse and began working at the knob. “Give me a minute,” he said. It was silent enough for Antoine to hear the metal gears of the lock move, then snap into place.

“There,” Hector said and pushed the door slowly open. If it was dim in the hallway, it was like a void in that room. Hector went inside without hesitation. Antoine remained by the door and slowly opened it more until he could see what was inside. Squinting, he could just make out something lying in the corner. Hector was sitting next to it.

“Oh, Papi, what they do to you this time?” Hector said.

Antoine felt a pull. He didn’t want to believe it. He wanted this Hector guy to be a mental case that he could smack in the next two seconds. Antoine went inside and moved closer, then bent down. In the blackness he could barely make out the bearded man, lying semi-comatose, as Hector wiped drool from his mouth.

“I’ve been coming down here whenever I can to visit. Let him know that he wasn’t alone. The stuff they do to him here …” Hector pointed to his temple. “You’re lucky if there’s anyone left upstairs.”

Antoine felt a flush of gratitude. Hector had done what he himself should have done — taken care of his brother.

Antoine touched Adrian’s face and felt his coarse facial hair on his fingertips and the drool flowing from the corner of his mouth.
Dear God, what have they been doing to you?

“Helen,” Adrian whispered.

“Yeah, honey, it’s me,” Hector said. “This guy here says he’s your brother.”

“Antoine …”

“Yeah, it’s me, bro,” Antoine said and pulled Adrian into his arms. “I didn’t know they put you in a place like this. I would’ve never have let them do this to you. Damn, Adrian, I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry. …” He buried his face between Adrian’s neck and shoulder.

“This is beautiful and all, but don’t we gotta leave?” Hector said.

“Yeah,” Antoine said as he wiped his brother’s cheek with his thumb. He lifted him up and placed Adrian’s arm around his shoulder. Hector took Adrian’s other arm around his shoulder, and together they all stumbled out the door.

“What’s happening?” Adrian asked.

“I’m takin’ you away from here,” Antoine said.

They groped their way back down the empty hall. Muffled shouts and screams and the vibrations of the earth could be heard in the cinderblock hallway. They struggled up the stairwell with Adrian’s dead weight. His head bobbed back and forth. Antoine leaned against the doorframe with his brother in his arms and waited as Hector opened the door into a hallway chaotic with blaring horns and staffers ushering patients into rooms. The three were able to slip through it all, heading toward the glowing red exit sign that led to the lobby.

“Hey, you can’t go out there!”

They didn’t stop or turn around. They walked faster. The security guard slapped Antoine on the shoulder and pulled him around. Antoine shoved Adrian into Hector’s arms and punched the guard square in the face. The blare of horns, the murmur of confused voices, the scrambling of feet hid the sound of the smack. Blood squirted from the guard’s nose as he doubled over, then fell to his knees.

“Come on!” Antoine shouted to Hector and grabbed Adrian’s arm again. Hector moved quickly to keep up. An acrid smell of ash and smoke, of burning fuel or melting metal, had seeped into the lobby. The receptionist stood by her desk with her hand covering her mouth and nose. The ground still moved beneath their feet, but it now felt more like the vibrations from a large passing truck than an earthquake.

“Cover your face,” Antoine said as he pulled his shirt over his mouth and nose. He stopped to wrap his scarf around Adrian’s head, leaving only his eyes exposed.

“Maybe we shouldn’t go out there,” Hector said.

“We need to get out of here,” Antoine said. He opened the door. The sky above them remained a quiet clear blue.

“What’s that smell?”

Antoine didn’t answer. Adrian mumbled something incoherent as they hurried through a swirling mist that gathered around their feet that turned and moved almost as if it were alive. They ran to Antoine’s truck parked on the other side of the street. A miasma rose in the distance and the smell was danker. Antoine opened the passenger side door and together he and Hector put Adrian into the back seat. Antoine took a moment to examine Hector. He was about to shove this weird guy to the ground, but then he remembered the loving way Hector had touched his brother in that dark room. Antoine moved to let Hector climb into the passenger seat while he went to the driver’s side.

“Where we goin’?” Hector asked once they were on their way.

“Somewhere that’s not here.”

Ahead of them, a dense cloud was rising. Antoine depended on his memory of the road to drive. Hector mumbled to himself. Every so often Antoine heard him utter words that sounded like “Heh-zeuz,” “Chris-toh,” and “De-ohs.”

“Helen?” Adrian said in a dreamy voice from the back seat.

“Yes, Papi,” Hector called back.

“I dreamt I saw my brother again.”

“Go back to sleep, okay, honey.”

“You’ll be here when I wake up?”

“Don’t worry, Helen’s here, Papi. We be alright,” Hector calmly said as he crossed himself.

The sky was streaked with pink as the orange sun dipped into the breast of the earth. A green speck shimmered near the horizon. As they drove they saw more and more cars speeding past them, all going in the other direction. The cloud. The mist. The nothing was spreading. It ate everything it encountered. And yet they were driving right into it.

“Shouldn’t we be going the other way?” Hector begged.

“No, it’s safer to go into the center.”

“Wha, you crazy?”

“Don’t distract me right now,” Antoine said through gritted teeth. It had been a long day, and there was no end in sight. Adrian was all that mattered, and he was lying in the back seat. Antoine had to take him someplace safe. He wasn’t quite sure where that place was.

Antoine pulled over into the breakdown lane and parked. He covered his face with his shirt again and got out of the truck. He stood outside the driver’s side door, staring beyond the sparse trees along the highway, into a clear view of a skyline of tall skyscrapers. The squawks of birds echoed overhead as they flew to escape to places unknown. Antoine slammed the truck door shut and went into the trees to relieve himself. Mist descended into the foliage around him. He felt as if he had entered a dream world. He finished and zipped his pants. Antoine turned around to see an elk among the trees. They stared at each other for a long moment, then the elk wandered into the mist and disappeared.

He returned to the truck and found Hector talking over the seat to a more awake Adrian.

“See, I told you he was here,” Hector said.

“Antoine?” Adrian said. Then his eyes rolled back into his head, and he leaned sideways. Hector struggled to make sure he landed safely on the seat cushion.

“I don’t think he’s ready to see you yet,” Hector said. “Where you been anyway? This poor kid thought you were dead.”

“I nearly was —”

Out of the blue, blue sky a ship flew. It was too fast to be a plane. Then there were more of them. They raced as though piloted by madmen. Their exhaust lines streaked the air in their wake like sheet music. Silver and shiny and soundless, the ships soared directly into the city and slammed into the two highest buildings. Orange plumes mixed with black smoke blossoming into the air.

*DELETING FILES*

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** BREAK **

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>> abort

*ABORT IGNORED*

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“Day-um!” Hector yelled with a shaking pointer finger.

The tallest buildings collapsed, falling down like playing cards. The whole skyline seemed to disappear as smoke billowed upwards, the city dissolving into a sea of dust.

“What is going on?!” Hector cried.

Antoine said, “It’s the war come home.”

He had seen it when he was over there. They were spreading the dust before they slammed into the buildings. And the dust would change things. It would change people. It would spread outwards to cover everything with its nothingness. He’d be damned if he’d let that happen to his brother. Antoine got back into the truck and started the engine.

“Where we going?”

“To the city.”

“Nah uh! Oh no, honey! Not me!”

Hector was reaching to open his door when Antoine grabbed his hand. He was gentle but his eyes were intense.

“We can stay in the truck until some of the smoke clears, but then we have to go into the city. They’ll be building a safe place there. They’ve been doing the same thing in all the major cities overseas. Trust me, I know. We’ll be safer in the city.”

Hector looked around at the nothingness outside and then at Adrian sleeping in the back seat. He swallowed hard, then nodded.

8.

A city can be silent only when something is not right. The wrongness of the world seeped into the truck along with the bad smell. They had spent three days sleeping on the road, and now they were going into the center of the metropolis. Smoke hovered over the water, making the city appear as though it floated on a cloud. Its crumbling buildings jutted into the air like broken teeth. The lights that once glittered in the night were gone, making the skyline seem draped in shadow.

They crossed over the gothic bridge that rose high above the river. Its cables strained under the weight of all the cars, trucks, and people on it. They drove slowly past those who walked with their faces covered with makeshift masks of ripped clothes or handkerchiefs or bandanas, a parade of the confused covered in dust and the debris of fallen buildings. These were the survivors trying to get home, if home was still there. There was nothing anyone could do. Night was coming, and soon it would be hard to see. God help them if it started to rain.

Before Antoine, Adrian, and Hector was a city in chaos. Buildings were missing and so were people. An eerie scene lay before them of emptiness where things used to be and quiet where the noise of a million voices once filled the air. Adrian was jostled and felt every bump and curve of the road they traveled. He lifted his head, feeling its enormous weight, and it throbbed in time with his pulse. In front of him, he could see that Antoine’s shoulders were tense. His fingers gripped the steering wheel as if he could pull it out of its base. Adrian had for so long believed his brother dead that seeing him again was like a wild unbelievable dream. The presence of the beautiful boy who swooped down as if on eagle’s wings to pluck him out of the depths filled him with a simultaneous sense of joy and foreboding. He had so many things he wanted to say to his brother. So many words that had formed in his mind. But he held back from speaking.

“I’m hungry,” Hector said.

“Yeah, me too,” Antoine said and pulled the truck over in front of a small supermarket. Its sign shined a hazy light through the settling dust. A gray shutter-gate was pulled down over the storefront’s window, padlocks clamped on either side. Antoine went to the back of the truck and pulled out a crowbar. Hector watched him, shaking his head.

“Papi, I think your brother will make trouble for us.”

Adrian sat up and watched as Antoine banged at the locks to the gate. He eventually broke them open and threw the gate up with a loud slam. When he returned to the truck he tossed the crowbar into the back.

“You know, you shouldn’t break into other people’s shit.”

“There’s no one here.”