Just as the remnants of sun faded, Morgan spotted something in the trees near one of the other houses. He and Callista heard a scratching sound, then familiar laughter. After a while, they realized the scratching and laughing was coming from Nox Jaborosa.
He was covered in mud and crusted blood. Only the whites of his eyes shone. Nox was dragging his bloody hand along the stucco on one of the mansions, spelling something out in red. Scrawling in his own blood, Nox kept laughing to himself.
When he saw Morgan and Callista, he got excited and shouted, “Woo hoo! It’s my friends. Friends of Strix are always friends of mine. If only Lucas Mucus were here too!”
Nox approached but kept a few feet away from them.
“Did you see what I’m making?” He asked them, pointing to his bloody handprints. “Come and see. Come and see. Don’t worry. You’re my friends. We’re together. We’re part of the same thing. Come and see.”
Callista recognized Nox’s drawing right away. It looked like the map from her father’s office and same one from the Bastion dome. The layout of the city was there as well as the three bright spots. All around the drawing, Nox had rubbed the word, “LaCrone” in blood.
Callista asked him, “Nox, what does LaCrone mean? It’s a man, isn’t it?”
“He’s a man sometimes,” said Nox.
Morgan asked, “What the hell is he the rest of the time?”
Nox didn’t answer. Instead he just stared at them.
Callista asked, “Nox, you know that picture you’re drawing, the map, where did you see that?”
“I’m seeing it right now,” Nox said. “I see it all the time. It’s in my head.”
“What is it?”
“The plan,” said Nox. “It’s the plan.”
“Whose plan is it?”
Nox smiled, saying, “Mister LaCrone’s plan. It’s master’s plan. It’s a master plan. It’s my favorite plan.”
Morgan asked him, “Where is this LaCrone man? Where can we find him?”
Nox turned and pointed to the top of the Bastion. “You can only see Mister LaCrone sometimes,” he said.
“Who is he?” Callista asked.
Nox’s face went blank. The whites of his eyes beamed out from beyond the mud covering his face. Then he whispered, “He’s no one. That’s how he does what he does. He isn’t really here.”
“Well that clears that up then,” said Morgan, smirking to Callista. “I don’t know how I was ever confused.”
Callista asked Nox, “I know something happened to you. Can you talk about it? Can you tell us what Strix did to you?”
Nox’s smile flowered across his face. He whispered, “Strix helped me. They made me see. Now I have them in my head too. We’re connected. Me, you, Morgan and Lucas Mucus, we’re together now. We’re part of the same thing. Strix says you’ll be able to see their mind soon, like me. He says it happened too fast for me. Strix says my brain couldn’t handle it. He’s talking to me right now.”
Morgan and Callista looked at the mechanical owls they had with them. Both sets of eyes were pulsing red, pointed at Nox, like they were hooked into the boy’s soul.
All of a sudden, Nox froze and his eyes scanned the Bastion. For a moment, he stopped breathing. Then, a flash in the sky sent a lightning bolt colliding with one of the electrical rods on top. The crack sent Nox running like a frightened alley cat.
…
The following morning, Lucas woke up with his mother standing over his bed. Her mouth was bent into a smile but her eyes were wide with what seemed like anger. In her hand, she held a ceramic cup full of something steamy that smelled like mildew.
“Good morning, baby,” She said. “I was watching you sleep.” Holding out the cup to him, she said, “You haven’t looked so good lately. I thought this would help.”
Lucas sniffed the air, taking in the pungent, earthy smell of her concoction. “What is it?” He asked.
“It’s a mixture of roots,” she said. “It gets rid of toxins. Go ahead. Be a good boy and drink it.”
Lucas held out his hand, then hesitated.
“What’s wrong with you?” She asked. “Go ahead and drink it. It will make you feel better.”
“I don’t think I want it.”
She laughed but her face formed a scowl. “You don’t want to feel better?”
“No. I do. I just…”
“You’re all I have in this world,” She said. “The only man in my life. I don’t want you to get sick and die. If you won’t get healthy for yourself, at least, please, do it for me.”
Lucas looked over to Strix on his nightstand. Even though he appeared to be in computer hibernation, the owl was somehow telling him not to drink.
“What’s wrong?” His mother asked him. “It’s getting cold. It’s less effective when it’s cold.”
Lucas took the cup and swallowed the bitter liquid. Immediately, a hot, nauseous feeling started to fill his abdomen. The steam coming from the liquid stung his eyes. He nearly choked on the last drops of the tea.
“See,” said his mother, “all better.” She went on, saying, “I notice that you haven’t been looking too well lately. I’ve been worried. You don’t look right to me.”
Lucas got out of bed and his mother helped him get dressed. Just the effort of lifting his arms to slide on his shirt seemed like too much. His forehead broke out into a hot sweat before she slid his shoes on for him.
Just before she left the room, his mother told him, “Be careful with the fog today. Visibility is bad. Make sure you wait for the signal at the crosswalk.”
He put Strix in his backpack and headed for school.
Fog had taken over the streets outside. The sea smoke, as some people called it, poured over the top of the Bastion like an overflowing bathtub. The cloud slowly rolled thousands of feet down until it filled the entire basin underneath. Lucas could only see a few feet ahead of him and had to use the sidewalks and pavement to navigate.
“We’re sorry,” said Strix from his backpack.
“What do you mean? Sorry for what?”
“Sorry we couldn’t help you this morning.”
“What do you mean? I’m fine,” said Lucas.
The moment the words came out of his mouth, Lucas stopped in the middle of a stride. He could feel his heart thumping hard in his chest. Beads of sweat tickled down his back. It was hard to stand up. Lucas fell to one knee and tried to catch his breath. No matter how much air he could slurp up, he still felt like he was suffocating.
“What’s wrong with me?” He asked Strix. “I’m having trouble breathing.”
“You know what’s wrong,” said Strix. “You drank your mother’s tea.”
“That’s supposed to help me.”
“Is it?”
Lucas’s face started to turn red. He told Strix, “She’s my mom. She’s trying to help me. Maybe something else is wrong? Maybe she made the tea wrong?”
“Or perhaps,” said Strix, “she made it precisely right.”
“Stop it,” Lucas said. “Just stop.”
While Lucas fought to stand up, the air became nearly opaque with salty fog. It was disorienting and it made him feel like the world consisted of only him and the voice of Strix.
“You’re going to stand up,” said the owl. “After you stand up, you’re going to walk.”
“I can’t see anything. I don’t know the way.”
“We know the way, Lucas,” said Strix. “We’ll guide you.”
Strix’s eyes beamed out two bright red spotlights. The odd crimson color somehow split the fog in two, creating two crystal clear spots in the haze. It was as though the fog had cleared where the light touched.
“I know you feel all alone,” Strix went on. “That feeling will make you stronger.”
“I’m not all alone,” Lucas argued. “I have my mom.”
“Lucas, that’s worse than being alone. It’s time you let yourself see the truth that’s plainly obvious. Your mother is poisoning you.�
��
“No she’s not!” Lucas yelled before a cough took his voice over. “She’s trying to make me better. She’s trying to take care of me.”
“She won’t stop until you’re dead,” said Strix. “It happened the same way with your father.”
“Stop it!” Lucas shouted, coughing so hard that he nearly vomited. “That’s not how my father died! Why are you doing this to me? I thought you were here to help me!”
“We are, Lucas.”
“Then why are you telling me I’m alone and the only person I have on Earth is trying to kill me?”
“We’re sorry,” said Strix. “We wish things were different. However, we need you to go on. It’s very important. You can’t give up, Lucas.”
…
When Morgan arrived at school that foggy morning, a crowd was gathering in front of the entrance. The police were already there and their red and white lights danced like ghosts in the fog. It wasn’t until Morgan got close that he saw what was creating the commotion.
One of Nox’s friends was laying in front of the school dead. The boy’s body appeared to be ransacked, blood, tissues and organs scattered everywhere. Trails of his blood led away from the body to the walls of the school, where someone had painted more graffiti.
This time, the painted blood made up both owl faces as well as something perhaps more terrifying. Giant waves, sketched in Nox’s friend’s blood, had been drawn everywhere. The graffiti showed the wave collapsing over the Bastion and covering the city. School officials were trying to keep the students away.
The police were looking for Nox, asking everyone at school where they could find the troubled boy. The school administrators even sent everyone home to make room for the investigation.
When Morgan got home, his father was half-asleep on the couch. He had the war on television and the volume turned to the maximum. His eyelids drooped to slits from what had to have been a heavy dose of anxiety medication. Empty cans of beer covered the coffee table.
“Pull up a chair,” He told Morgan, somehow looking simultaneously friendly and menacing. “I don’t get to spend much time with my son.” He asked Morgan to watch the war with him. Apparently he, along with everyone he worked with, had been given the day off of work with pay.
“It’s damn strange,” he said to Morgan. “In twenty years, I’ve never gotten a day off with pay. I tell you something is weird at that place. Been hearing all kinds of stories. One guy I know said his two boys didn’t come home from school, just disappeared without a word. I gotta tell you I was a bit jealous.”
On TV, a stack of missiles took flight, each waiting for its turn to lift off. Moody music played underneath while a reporter described the day’s casualties. Morgan and his father sat for a while taking in the TV’s pageantry.
After a while, something in his father’s expression changed and Morgan was hit in the pit of his stomach. Perhaps the anxiety pills were wearing off or the war was getting to him as it sometimes did. Either way, he started looking at Morgan the same way he did to some of the immigrants in the neighborhood, like his son was the last person he wanted to see.
“You know,” Killian said, scowling. “I’ve spoken to one of the hospices down the street about getting your brother in.”
“You didn’t!” said Morgan, standing up from his chair. “Why would you do something like that?”
“I don’t know,” he said with a trace of a smile. “Or maybe I do.”
“We’re supposed to manage his condition,” said Morgan. “We’re not throwing him out of his home.”
His father stood up and looked at him like a boxing opponent. “His home?” he asked. “I thought this was MY home. After all, I’m the one busting my hump to pay the rent. I don’t see you or your brother contributing anything.”
“I’ll get a job. I’ll make money.”
“No you won’t. You’re a damn kid. You’re useless and don’t know squat. No job is going to pay you anything.”
“I’ll get money somehow,” said Morgan. “I’ll get a job at the Bastion like you if I have to.”
His father laughed, telling him, “You wouldn’t last an hour at that place. Kids don’t know how to work anymore. You’re all lazy and useless.”
“Brian’s not going anywhere,” growled Morgan, who was wearing the most serious expression his father had even seen on him. “I’m not going to let it happen. If I were you, I wouldn’t even try.”
His father took a step toward him. However, now the man was not laughing. His face took on a shade of red and his eyebrows angled to his nose.
“Be careful,” he told Morgan. “The man you’re raising your voice to is not above knocking you across the room. In fact, I bet it’ll do you some good.”
“Brian is staying. I’m going to take care of him and there isn’t a damn thing you’re going to do about it!”
Morgan felt the sting of a slap across his face. His father had wound up and cracked him so hard that his cheek felt numb. For a few moments, they both just stood there. It was as though some grand announcement had been made and now the entire world was different.
“That should smarten you up some,” said his father softly.
Morgan stood there, holding back angry tears with his hand on his sore cheek. He wanted to say something, to bellow out the worst barrage of insults ever constructed, but nothing came out except for whimpers.
“Don’t ever shout at someone unless you’re ready to take a punch,” said his father. He looked at Morgan’s face, which was full of rage, and smirked at him. Then he sat back down on the couch like nothing happened. “Can you get me another beer?” He asked his son.
Morgan appeared almost like a zombie when he went to the fridge to get him a bottle. The boy’s eyes were so wide, he looked like a soldier in the middle of a firefight. With a kind of shellshock in his face, Morgan brought it over and handed him the beer. He looked his father in the eyes but somehow the stare went right through him.
“Don’t be such a baby,” his father told him. “It’ll make me want to slap you again.”
Morgan didn’t even look at him before he left and went upstairs. In order not to wake Brian, he grabbed Strix and went into the bathroom.
“Can I talk to you?” He asked the owl as he lowered himself to the bathroom floor. “I don’t know what to do.”
“The answer,” said Strix, “your path, will become clear soon.”
“How soon?” Morgan cried. “I don’t know how much longer… Please just tell me what to do. I’ll do anything. Please, Strix.”
The owl turned his face rounder and more pleasant. “We’re going to take care of you,” said Strix. “When the time is right, we’ll make sure you’re safe, Morgan. We promise.”
“What about Brian?”
“We promise, Morgan.”
…
Late that night, Morgan was lying awake. He was restless and the slap from his father was still fresh on his cheek.
“She’s awake too,” said Strix from the nightstand.
Morgan immediately sat up in bed.
“You should go see her,” Strix went on. “She misses you.”
“She does?”
“Go to her. Your father will be unconscious for some time. Go to her, Morgan.”
It didn’t take another word before Morgan got out of bed to put on his pants and shoes. He ran his fingers through his hair in front of the small mirror across the room. Then he checked his breath against the palm of his hand before he slipped out the front door.
When he arrived at Callista’s house, two windows were aglow, the one in her bedroom and the one in her father’s office. Apparently, he hadn’t been out of the room much. He had even been falling asleep at his desk for the past several days.
Carrying her Strix under her arm, she slid out of the back door of the house. The moment she got a good look at him, she whispered, “What happened? You look upset.”
Morgan explained that he had been in a rather serious argument
with his father. When she asked him what the fight was about, he started to lose control.
“It’s about my brother,” he said. “He’s sick and my dad doesn’t want to take care of him.”
Callista struggled to understand, saying, “I can’t imagine. That’s so horrible.”
“It gets worse,” Morgan went on. “My dad has always suspected Brian wasn’t his kid, but now he knows for sure.” He hesitated before admitting, “I know how sick he is but that’s not what worries me. I’m worried about my dad… I’m worried he’ll…”
“He’ll what…?”
Morgan couldn’t answer. His stomach was pushing into his throat. He felt his heart race and tears nucleate in the corners of his eyes. After a moment, he stood up and turned away from her.
“I think he’s going to kill him,” Morgan said. “I know how crazy that sounds but I think about it all the time. I worry about it all the time.” At this point, he was crying.
Callista wrapped her arms around him. The sweet smell of her hair, like some undiscovered new orchid, immediately calmed his shaking. She held him, putting her lips softly on his neck and sending her warm breath tickling his ear.
…
The following evening, Lucas was by himself in his room, reading a book that Strix had recommended to him. The college textbook, about the basics of medical pharmacology, was definitely above his reading level but Strix provided explanations and guidance as he read.
Suddenly, Strix became as dark and rigid as a mailbox. Lucas’s mother was standing in the doorway.
“Pretty advanced reading,” She told him without smiling. “Where did you get that book?”
“In the library,” he said. “Was just curious.”
“Curious about what?”
“I want to understand what’s making me sick.”
“What’s making you sick is your stubbornness. If you had listened more carefully to your mother, then your illness wouldn’t be so advanced.” She came over and slipped the book out of his hands. “It’s late,” she said. “You need your sleep.”
Break the Bastion Page 17
