Genesis. Volume 2

October 4, 1986. Detroit. The Motel. Late evening. Arthur slipped outside about ten minutes after they'd returned from the factory. The room had become suffocating—the air thick enough to cut, the walls pressing in as if they were slowly closing toward the center. Max still sat on the bed, staring at a single spot on the wallpaper—a brown stain that looked like a map of some nonexistent continent. Lisa had spread her drawings across the floor and crawled between them on her knees, checking each pencil stroke, each chalk arc—had they rubbed off, had the damp blurred them? Her fingers were white with chalk dust, and she kept wiping them on her jeans. Jenny sat on the creaky bed, clenching and unclenching her hand—the dried cut pulled at her skin, and every time her fist closed, a thin seep of blood welled at the edges of the wound. Emma smoked by the cracked-open window, blowing the smoke out into the damp October darkness; sometimes the wind blew a stream back in, and then the room would fill with a bitter, lingering smell. "I need to call my parents," Arthur said, scooping a handful of coins from the nightstand. "I have to." "Tell them we're at a museum," Max muttered without raising his head from the stain on the wallpaper. "I can't. Mom's not stupid." He pulled on his jacket—it still smelled of yesterday's soot, despite having shaken it out—stuffed the coins in his pocket, and stepped out. The phone booth stood on the corner by the gas station, under the only streetlight that wasn't burning. The bulb inside the booth was out too, and the cramped glass box was pitch black. Arthur felt for the cold slot of the coin receiver, pushed a coin in. It clinked and dropped somewhere inside. He dialed—the disc turned stiffly, with a metallic scrape. Long rings. One, two, three. Something clicked on the other end. "Hello?" His mother's voice hit him square in the chest. Arthur felt something tighten under his throat. "Mom, it's me." "Arthur." Sofia exhaled—loudly, long, as if she'd been holding her breath all this time and only now allowed herself to release it. "Thank God. Where are you?" "In Detroit. Everything's fine. We went to a museum today. Tomorrow we're going on a tour." "A museum," she repeated, and there wasn't a hint of belief in her voice. "At nine in the evening? You're in a museum?" Arthur squeezed his eyes shut. Idiot. Museums in Detroit closed at five. Any fool knew that. "We had a long drive back. We just had dinner." "Arthur, you're lying. I can hear it in your voice." She paused for a second, and in that pause he heard the quiet murmur of the television in the background—the one his father always forgot to turn off. "I called Max's mother. She said he didn't go to the psychologist. What are you really doing?" He gripped the receiver so hard his fingers went white. The metal was ice-cold, aching against his knuckles. Tell the truth? That they'd spent the whole day in the guts of an abandoned factory, that Jenny had lost the memory of her first kiss, that he himself was struggling and failing to recall the sound of his father's laughter when he watched stupid comedies? That tomorrow they'd go back, and there was a chance one of them would forget their own name? "We're… helping someone," he forced out. "He needs help. We just… we can't talk about it over the phone." "Dangerous help?" "I don't know. Maybe." Sofia was silent. So long that he looked at the receiver—had the connection cut out? But she was still there; he could hear her breathing—uneven, with a slight wheeze, like someone trying not to cry. "You promised me you'd be careful. You promised it was just a trip." "I know, Mom." "You're like your father." Her voice wavered, pitched a half-tone higher. "When he was young, he also went where he shouldn't. Thought he was invincible. Until he broke his arm on a construction site." "I'll be fine." "You can't know that." "I can." Arthur said it more firmly than he felt. "I'm responsible for them." "For Lisa too?" "For Lisa first of all." She fell silent again. Arthur heard her switch the receiver to her other ear, heard her exhale—calmer now, as if she'd made a decision. "Call again tomorrow. Any time. I'll be waiting." "Okay, Mom." "And, Arthur…" "Yeah?" "Take care of yourself. Please." A click, then a dial tone. He stood for a few more seconds, pressing the receiver to his ear, though it had long gone dead. Then he put it back on the hook—gently, almost tenderly. He stepped out of the booth into the cold air. Emma was standing three steps away, leaning her shoulder against the peeling wall of the motel. A cigarette glowed between her fingers, smoke rising into the damp air. The light from the distant gas station sign fell across half her face. "Eavesdropping?" Arthur asked. "Waiting my turn. One phone for all of us." He wanted to say something sharp—and stopped himself. Emma looked like she hadn't slept in days. Dark circles, pale lips, and the fingers holding the cigarette trembled slightly. He didn't look much better himself. "Give me a smoke." Emma shifted her gaze from the glowing tip to his face. "You don't smoke." "And you quit." "I didn't quit." She pulled a crumpled pack from her pocket and held it out. "Just trying to cut back." Arthur pulled out a cigarette, lit it from her lighter. The flame flickered in the wind; he inhaled—and immediately doubled over, coughing. The smoke tore at his throat, burning his chest. "Idiot," Emma said, but without malice—almost gently. They stood side by side in silence. Somewhere in the distance, behind the closed gas station, a dog barked, choked on its own bark, and fell silent. The phone booth behind them blinked its bulb once, and went dark, this time for good. The air was thick with damp, smelled of wet asphalt and rotting leaves, and from somewhere far off came the acrid tang of factory smoke. "How is she?" Emma asked without looking at Arthur. "Scared." "She's right to be scared." She took a long drag, let the smoke curl from the corner of her mouth. "We should be scared too. We're kids. We should be taken on field trips, fed hot meals, and put to bed by nine. And here we are… hunting monsters." "Do you regret it?" "No." She looked at the cigarette, at the trembling ember. "But sometimes I wish some adult would show up and say, 'Step aside, I'll handle it.'" "No one's coming." "I know." Emma stubbed out her cigarette against the wall, a sharp motion that left a gray smear on the plaster, and tossed the butt into the trash. "It's weakness," she said. "Smoking. Hiding behind smoke so you don't have to see what's happening." "Then quit." "I quit every day." She smiled with just her lips. "But now's not the time." They went back inside. The room was quiet, except for the water humming in the pipes somewhere deep in the building. Lisa was asleep, curled up in a ball, her sketchbook pressed to her chest—she still hadn't let go of it, and a pencil was stuck between the pages. She smelled of pastel and a little like damp. Jenny sat on a chair, staring at the wall, and didn't even turn at the sound of the door. Max lay under his blanket, covered head to toe, only the toes of his sneakers poking out. "Sleep," Arthur said. "Early start tomorrow." "Can't sleep," came a muffled voice from under the blanket. "Try." He lay down on his bed without undressing. The mattress springs pressed unevenly under his back—one dug into his shoulder blade. Arthur stared at the ceiling. Cracks, yellow damp stains, an old lamp without its shade—a moth's mummy hung from it. Somewhere behind the wall, a child coughed—harsh, wheezing, and the cough wouldn't stop. "Arthur," Max called quietly. "Yeah?" "Do you believe we can do this? Tomorrow?" "We have to." "That's not an answer." "There's no other." Max fell silent. A minute later, his breathing evened out, deep and steady. He'd fallen asleep, despite everything. Arthur envied him—sleep wouldn't come for him, even though his eyes burned with exhaustion. He lay there, listening to the ticking of the clock on the nightstand. Old, rusty, with bent hands—they showed half past seven, though he definitely hadn't wound them and didn't remember them running at all. But now they ticked—steadily, insistently, and the sound echoed somewhere under his skull. Arthur picked up the clock, brought it to his face. The glass was cracked, the face faded. The hands had stopped. But the ticking didn't stop—it seemed to come from everywhere at once. He put the clock back. Closed his eyes. Before his mind's eye rose the factory. Gray walls, rusted machines, a shadow that breathed heat, and within that heat—strangers' faces, like masks melting like wax. And Jenny, frozen for a moment when the memory was pulled from her. He'd seen her face in that instant—empty, defenseless, like someone who'd forgotten why they walked into a room, only a thousand times worse. "What if tomorrow she loses more than a kiss?" Arthur thought. "What if she wakes up and doesn't recognize any of us?" He pushed the thought away. It didn't leave—just crouched low, hiding under his ribs like an animal. In the next room, Emma wasn't sleeping. She sat on the windowsill, arms wrapped around her knees, staring into the black glass. Detroit lay under a low sky—tired, dreamless. The streetlights were off, only a weak yellow glow flickered in one window across the road. On the corner, under the one living streetlight, stood a man in a gray coat, smoking. He stood motionless, only his hand with the cigarette rose and fell. Emma watched him. He watched her. Neither looked away. After ten minutes, the man dropped his cigarette butt into a puddle, turned, and walked into the darkness, merging with it as if he'd never been there. Emma only exhaled when his figure had completely dissolved. She lay down, pulled the scratchy blanket over herself. Beside her, Lisa breathed softly—quiet, even, smacking her lips in her sleep like a child. "Tomorrow," Emma thought. "Tomorrow we either win, or we lose someone." She clenched the empty cigarette pack in her fist—the cardboard cracked and crumpled. "Not today," she whispered into the darkness. "Not tomorrow. Never." And she closed her eyes. Something hummed in the pipes and fell silent. The building sank into that peculiar silence that exists only in cheap motels just before dawn—when even the cockroaches sleep, and only the walls remember everything they've seen.