Any Second

by Kevin Emerson

  He was on the cold wooden floorboards again, with the thin blanket, the lumpy pillow. Heard the footsteps coming. The door creaking. He shot Gabriel in the crotch, found Maya in the bed upstairs, showed Graham where to hide in the walls of the red dark room. In the dream there were gaps in the boards, spaces you could slip into, to watch through the cracks when Gabriel came in and kicked at the blanket. There had been no real cracks. No one in that bed upstairs. No gun to stop Gabriel.

  Sometime around four, the wine having worn off, he was lying on his back watching a light rain fall against the window when it occurred to him:

  They’d all been wrong the whole time.

  For a year everyone had been telling him that Gabriel was most likely gone, that he’d fled, and they were wrong. How could he trust anything they said?

  Why would I stay here, if it wasn’t to finish the Purpose?

  He texted Maya, even though he knew she’d be asleep:

  You have to stay away from me.

  Added: I’m so scared. But deleted it.

  * * *

  ***

  He was on his way to lunch Wednesday, dizzy and cotton-mouthed and nerve-dead exhausted, when people started brushing by him. Eli hunched, trying to keep his backpack from being jostled.

  A whisper, passing through the crowd: fight, fight, fight…

  Eli let the tide flow around him as he headed for the lunch line entrance. Out of the corner of his eye—commotion over by his usual table. People swarming. He caught a glimpse of Mateo at the center, his long black locks whipping, his face red, his arm punching downward.

  “Yeah!”

  “Get him!”

  “I know it was you!” he heard Mateo shout.

  Eli slid along the windows and found a gap. There was Graham, hunched over the table, arms curled around his head to block Mateo’s blows.

  “Hey!” A teacher was shouting, wading in. “Break it up!”

  “Stay away from my house!” said Mateo, slapping his hair out of his eyes. “You got that?” He pushed away through the crowd in the opposite direction from the teacher.

  He’d taken a few steps before Graham was up, lunging, slashing at the back of his head.

  “Ah!” Mateo stumbled forward.

  The weapon splintered on impact, a white plastic spork, pieces sailing in all directions, Graham—face beet red, blood around his nose, his eyes like sparkling dynamite wicks—still wielding the broken white handle.

  Mateo grabbed at his neck, his fingers bloody. He spun around. “You’re a lunatic!”

  “Stop it!” the teacher yelled, pushing closer.

  “I’ll kill you!” said Graham, breathing through his nose in furious bellows. He lunged—

  The teacher wrapped her arms around him. “That’s enough—”

  Graham thrust his elbow backward. Smashed her chin. She staggered and clutched at her mouth. Graham lurched free but bounced off the side of a table and slammed into a girl who shouted and shoved him. Other kids scattered. Graham whirled, like a concussed fighter.

  Eyes found Eli.

  Please stop, Eli thought.

  Graham paused—Lucas slammed into him, his forearms clubbing Graham in the cheek and whipping his head back. They both went down, Graham’s head whacking against the built-in seats on the side of the table.

  “Who the fuck throws dog shit on someone’s house?” said Mateo, running over and kicking Graham in the ribs. Another one of their buddies grabbed Mateo and pulled him away.

  The teacher was back up, blood around her mouth. “That’s ENOUGH!”

  Eli saw Janice watching, eyes wide. Didn’t see Maya anywhere.

  Graham pushed up from the floor, wobbling on his feet. “Don’t look at me!” he spat at the crowd.

  A nearby girl snickered with her friends. Other kids started cracking up too.

  “Shut up!” Graham shouted.

  The school security officer pushed in. Eli saw Officer Dawes and his new colleague watching from the entrance.

  “Get them to the office,” the teacher said, dabbing at her mouth with a fistful of napkins.

  The security guard yanked Graham up, twisted his arm behind his back, pushed him out.

  Graham grinned, making eye contact with as many people as he could. “You’re all smiling now!” Blood-laced spit flew with his words. “Just you wait!”

  “I’ll go, it’s cool,” said Mateo as the teacher motioned to him.

  Eli faded toward the wall as the crowd dispersed. He looked at the lunch line, at his table, at the rest of the busy cafeteria. Got a pass to the library instead.

  Did you see that? Maya messaged. Is everything all right with him?

  We haven’t talked, he wrote to her.

  He texted Graham:

  Are you okay? Want to meet up after school?

  No reply.

  He heard kids talking in math class about the swimmer kid and the Tech Squad nerd, how they’d both been suspended for fighting. That one was going to press charges against the other for assault and vandalism.

  Halfway through class, his phone buzzed. Finally, a reply from Graham.

  I’m better than ever. Things are perfectly clear to me now.

  What do you mean? Eli asked. Graham didn’t respond.

  Graham?

  * * *

  ***

  His house was nearly silent that night. Melissa had skipped her evening lecture, all of them sitting on the couch watching the baseball playoffs even though none of them cared about baseball. Mom on her tablet, Melissa and Eli sharing a bowl of popcorn.

  During a commercial break, the local news station previewed their top story:

  “Cedar Gate, one year later. Interviews with eyewitnesses, the killer still at large. Tonight at eleven.”

  Mom turned off the TV.

  “Xbox?” said Melissa.

  Eli got out the controllers. At one point while he was waiting to respawn, he found a message from Maya on his phone:

  Two days to go. We’re going to make it. :)

  He almost smiled. Almost believed her.

  Later, an alert sounded on Mom’s phone, and Eli noticed that her eyes stayed on the text for a long time.

  What is it? Eli breathed deep. “What is it?”

  She wiped her eyes. “Pearson says they traced that fake ID and found a storage unit up in Lynnwood. It had a cache of guns. Rifles, handguns, some kind of assault weapon. None of them have permits, no identification. They also found a hard drive full of photos of street corners and crosswalks. All near schools. Most from the past year. But also from before: there is a set of locations from the time when”—her voice quavered—“when he took you.”

  A set of locations. Not just one.

  “So he was scouting places?” said Melissa. “Maybe he wants to grab another victim. Like on the anniversary.”

  “Maybe,” said Mom. “They’re posting officers at all the locations. But why would he have all those guns? Unless he was planning something else?”

  To protect himself, Eli thought to say. In case they came for him.

  We’re so alike.

  We’re nothing alike. Eli realized Mom and Melissa were looking at him.

  “Did you hear me?” said Mom. Eli shook his head. “Did he…?” She looked away as she spoke. “Did he ever say anything about a shooting attack?”

  “No.” I was his weapon. But not anymore. He hadn’t been special. Could have been another kid at another spot.

  You were my son.

  I was just an instrument. A tool.

  “Maybe it’s good news,” said Melissa. “At least they know where he might be now.”

  “I knew it,” said Mom. She smiled through tears. “He was still looking for his next victim. I knew it.”

  E
li watched her nodding to herself. “What were you going to do?” he asked.

  “Hmm?”

  “If you’d found him yourself.”

  Mom sipped her wine. “I thought I’d try to get him to show up somewhere…and…I have a crowbar in the back of the car. I thought about buying a gun, but then your uncle Julio told me he would come along. He has a rifle with a good scope.”

  “Jesus, Mom…,” said Melissa. “What if Gabriel had a gun too? You never thought of that, did you?”

  Mom sniffled. “I had to do something. For what he did to Eli, what he took from us. The thought that he might do that to someone else…”

  Eli stood. “I’m going to bed.”

  Mom touched his arm as he walked by. “They’re going to catch him with this. Hopefully we can all sleep a little better.”

  But he lay awake again, the clock blinking past one, two—when he heard Mom go to her room, he crept down to get more wine—past three. In the dark, the ceiling a blur.

  I hope you’re hanging in there tonight, Maya wrote.

  You’re still special, Gabriel said, breath hot in his ear. You know what the mask meant. I wanted those photos to be found. Let them spread out far and wide, looking for me. You know where I’ll really be.

  Eli pictured Gabriel’s silhouette, in the red dark, in the auditorium entrance, in the school halls, this time holding a rifle. Maybe he wasn’t coming back to get Eli, maybe he was coming back to finish the job Eli couldn’t, only this time it would be bullets, not a bomb, his classmates, people he knew, someone he cared about….

  Eli gripped the gun, aimed it at the trapezoids of streetlight on the wall. Come on, he thought. I’ll be ready.

  * * *

  ***

  Early Thursday he saw Dr. Maria. Tried to answer her questions—how it felt, what he worried about—but there was so little he could say, and her suggestions just slipped by, his brain like a glass ball full of fog. “I know this is difficult,” said Dr. Maria, “but try to stay connected to other people. They keep us grounded. They keep our fantasies in line.”

  “But I’m a danger to them.”

  “That’s not true. You’ve never been the danger, Eli.”

  You don’t know.

  He tried texting Graham again, on the way to school. I want to be your friend again.

  No response until he was sitting at lunch:

  Don’t come to school tomorrow.

  Eli wrote back: Why not?

  Graham didn’t reply.

  Because I’m coming.

  Shut up. Graham. Not Gabriel. A warning. But why?

  Because he’s serious, Eli thought. What if he really, really was serious about everything he said as the Alpha?

  Graham wouldn’t— But was that really true? Or just what he wanted to be true?

  Eli slid his phone beneath the table. Got out his headphones. He searched and found the Alpha_Ascendant videos. The newest one from yesterday, titled: Your Time Has Come. Eli checked to make sure no one was watching him. All week he’d been alone at this table, worried that it would make him a target, but it seemed like everyone’s radar had turned off. They were all wrapped up in the relationships and dramas that had begun in the last month.

  Eli hit play. The video was like the prior ones. There was the blurry silhouette Graham created with the mirror and the lights, the distorted voice through the toy microphone:

  “Greetings, jocks and sluts, the meek and mundane. It’s your judge, jury, and executioner again. I know you want it more than ever: not just my cock, but the great relief of death. Life is loneliness, isn’t it? Every smile a lie. Deceit is the law, disappointment the norm, betrayal the currency. We only ever have ourselves. No one else can be trusted. You see, the Alpha knows. The Alpha has always known. I feel all your pain. I hear you crying out in your silence, in your low-cut shirts, in your laughter. You are all begging me, Please, Alpha, make it stop. I hear you even though you turn away. A thousand less views on my last post? That just tells me that your grief is getting deeper. And so the time has come: this will be my final word. It’s all been said. All that’s left now is to DO. I will decree a peaceful everlasting silence upon your miserable lives. Congratulations, graduates! You’ll all be getting your acceptance letters to STFU University.

  “Like I said before, the date of salvation has been chosen. This is it. The final preparations are being made. You’ll see the Purpose behind it in the end. I’ve watched you from above for so long, lorded over you without you even knowing it. My judgment will rain down upon you, very soon now. Very soon…

  A pause. The camera jiggling for a second.

  “Don’t be sad, Elliott friends. I’m just easing your burden. You see, I used to have a friend. Someone I thought really understood me. Just when I thought there was no one left. One more try at opening my mouth, one more try at fitting into the lie. But it was just another trick. There is no one. And there never will be. Goodbye.”

  The video ended.

  Eli’s heart raced. Look what you did. But he could hear Dr. Maria: It’s not you. Graham had started making videos before they’d even met. Just like Gabriel had started scoping out places to abduct kids before he took Eli.

  But it was him. He’d hung out with Graham, told him about things like the Purpose, listened to his stories, even watched him make his videos, never speaking up. Thought he’d been acting like a friend…

  I have to stop him.

  Graham wouldn’t answer his texts, and Eli had heard he’d been suspended for the fight. But he knew what Graham was planning, didn’t he? Graham had told him; Eli had just been too stupid, too distracted, to realize it.

  He threw out his food and got a pass to the library.

  Headed to the auditorium instead.

  The stage was dark. He ducked beneath the control boards, using his phone’s light to find the spare tech keys that Graham kept hidden there. Climbed the back stairs, to the catwalks. He crawled through the door, all the way out to Olympus.

  As he swung his legs over the edge, Eli noticed an X scribbled with a black marker on the catwalk, just beside one of the support beams that was bolted into a thick steel girder that ran across the ceiling.

  Can you imagine that? This whole roof? Like BAM. That would shut them up.

  Eli dug into his backpack, past the gun. Pulled out a composition notebook. Stared at the blank page for a moment, then wrote:

  Dear Graham,

  I’m still sorry about missing the show on Friday. I wish you weren’t so mad about it. I think it’s okay that Maya is my friend, but I want you to know you were my FIRST friend, the first real one I’ve had. It means a lot to me that you wanted to be my friend even when I’m so messed up. It shows how kind a person you are. But I don’t think I’ve been a good friend back to you. I think that you have been going through some hard feelings, and I should have asked you about them. Also, I don’t think I’ve told you enough that I’m sorry things are hard for you, and that I care about you and I don’t want to see you or anyone else get hurt.

  You are:

  Really creative

  Funny

  Super-smart

  Awesome at tech stuff

  But I don’t think you are really the Alpha. People are scared of him, and if you’re serious about doing something that would hurt people, I think you should talk to someone. I mean, someone who can really help.

  It’s not me. I can’t help anyone. I think I only made things worse for you with all the Gabriel stuff. I don’t know.

  But I do know that nobody needs to die. You don’t need to die. I think you feel a lot of sadness and loneliness and I know I don’t totally understand it but I do know that you are strong and good. And you are not alone.

  Text me after you read this. Or come over. Just be in touch. Please.

 
Your friend,

  Eli

  He read it to himself and thought Maya would say that it was good. Would it be enough? Graham had to listen. He couldn’t be a hundred percent serious.

  Eli got out his phone and snapped a picture of the letter. He put it in an email and sent it to Graham, then folded up the paper and left it on the catwalk.

  He started to crawl out. Noticed a second X up closer to the end of the catwalk, also by a support beam.

  Please don’t.

  Eli reached the trapdoor and climbed out.

  “Hey.”

  Maya was standing at the top of the steps. “We need to talk.”

  October 24

  She ran a finger over the smooth black finish of the bass drum, a black scale of dust forming on her fingertip. Wiped it on her jeans, picked up her sticks. Ready to play—

  Winced at a stinging pain from her finger. Ate the slice of skin and sucked the welling bead of blood. Checked the clock: five minutes had passed. All week had been like this. One frozen pause after another, one drift to the next.

  All week: the officers parked outside her house.

  All week: a man out there somewhere and she was maybe a target.

  All week: a friend out there feeling more and more lost to her. You have to stay away from me. She didn’t want to push him. Kept reaching out. The distance growing.

  It had gotten to the point where Maya had asked her mom just to take her to Eli’s, but of course she’d said no. Mom had been mental all week. Focusing all of her crazy on Maya’s safety. Kept suggesting Maya just play sick Friday, to the point that Maya wanted nothing more than to go to school, even while the idea terrified her. How much worse could Gabriel be than this? Okay, a lot worse. But still…

  Renee had reminded her on Monday that she had all the skills she needed to make it through this week. Reminded her that compared to two months ago, she’d made tremendous progress. But now it was Wednesday and that was starting to ring hollow. Yesterday, she’d had her biggest flashback episode in a while—the clicking of a Bunsen burner lighter in bio lab; Janice and Marni quietly snickering at her when she came out of it. The blood-dotted hair wrapped around fingertips-turned-white. All the old thoughts returning: