The Smaller Evil Page 9

  Beau arched an eyebrow. “What gave you the impression you let me down last night?”

  “I didn’t?”

  “That’s not what I said.”

  “Then I don’t understand.”

  “Tell me,” Beau said. “Not doing something wrong, that’s important to you?”

  “Yeah. Sure. Of course it is. I mean, when we’re talking about actually hurting people or whatever. Then I always want to do the right thing. Morally speaking.”

  At this, Beau nodded but slumped back in his chair. His river-rock eyes looked sad. Troubled.

  “Are you okay?” Arman asked.

  Beau waved a hand. “I’ve got a lot on my mind these days. What I’ve been trying to do, what I want people to know, it isn’t easy. The work is constant. I’m not young anymore. I don’t have the luxury of thinking about right or wrong.”

  “What do you think about?”

  “I think about beginnings. And the inevitable end.”

  “Oh.”

  Beau dropped his cigarette. Ground it out with his shoe. “Tell me where you’re going, Arman. I want to know what the future has in store for you. Bright things, I’m sure. Wondrous things.”

  Arman squared his shoulders. “I don’t know about bright or wondrous. But I’m not going home. I’m not going back to my mom and stepdad. Or any of my family. The rest is a mystery, I guess. I’m walking to the highway. Gonna try and catch ride. Maybe head down south. We’ll see.”

  Something clicked in Beau’s eyes then. They grew stronger. Clearer. “The highway? Why I’ll give you a ride. That’s too far for you to walk.”

  “You’d do that?” Relief washed over Arman. “Really?”

  “Of course. I told you that you reminded me of myself when I was your age. It’s important to me that your journey is paved with kindness.”

  “Thank you. That’s awesome.”

  “It’s nothing. Give me your bag. I’ll throw it in the back. And here”—Beau pulled a twenty from his wallet—“why don’t you grab something to eat before we go.”

  “Oh, I can’t take your money.”

  Beau set the bill on the table. Reached for Arman’s messenger bag. “I insist. Get some food. When you’re ready, we’ll hit the road. Van’s right there.”

  Arman glanced over at the parking lot. Sure enough, one of the white passenger vans sat in the shade, collecting dust.

  “Okay,” he said slowly, picking up the twenty because not picking it up felt rude. He planned to return it, though. Just as soon as he could. “Well, thank you. I’ll be right back.”

  • • •

  Arman headed first to the bathroom to put the Band-Aids he’d stuffed in his pocket on his feet. Some things were more important than food. Once inside, he locked the door and sat on the toilet lid. Then he yanked his shoes and socks off.

  And winced.

  Ugh. The blisters were worse than he thought. Way worse. They dotted his toes and the bottoms of his feet. The ugliest one sat on the bone jutting out from under his big toe. It bulged from his foot like a frog’s eye. Arman gritted his teeth and spent a good five minutes working up the nerve to pop it. When he finally did, all he could think was how unsanitary everything was. No doubt, he was going to get sepsis and die.

  After bandaging his feet and getting his shoes back on, Arman scrubbed his hands and face at the sink before he left. He even stuck his head under the faucet and let the cold water run for a while, relishing the chill that ran down his spine and into the small of his back when he finally stood up again. Exhaustion had set in, burrowing into his bones, and he stared at his dripping reflection in the scratched-up mirror. His face was distorted, all stretched and milky. It made his dull features appear more tragic than usual. He yawned at himself.

  Then he yawned again.

  There was a knock on the door. This was followed by pounding.

  Arman turned to fumble with the lock. He had trouble moving his muscles, but he finally got the door open only to find the boy with the blue apron waiting for him in the hallway. The boy’s arms were folded, and he didn’t look happy. To say the least.

  “Oh, hey.” Arman stifled another yawn with his hand.

  The boy scowled. “I thought you were leaving.”

  “I am.”

  “You’d better.”

  “I just said I was.”

  “Then move your ass already.”

  “What’s your problem?” Arman asked. “What’d I do?”

  “Don’t play dumb with me,” the boy snapped. “I know what you were doing in there. It’s disgusting. That guy told me all about you.”

  Arman’s brain felt thick, the gears churning slowly. “Wait. What are you talking about? What did he tell you?”

  “You’re real lucky, you know that? If my dad were working, you wouldn’t be getting off like this. He’d—”

  “He’d what?”

  The boy’s eyes flashed dangerously. “Forget it. Just get the hell out already. And don’t let me see your junkie face around here again. Otherwise I’ll call him down here. I swear to God I will.”

  Arman got the hell out. He had no idea what was going on or why, but he knew better than to ask more questions. He knew better than to do anything but turn and go.

  Once outside, he hobbled toward the white van. Bolts of pain shot up his calves with each step, and Arman balled his hands into fists. He hated confrontation, but he hated the way that kid had looked at him even more. Like he was worse than nothing. Heat flared within him, a generative rage, and when he reached the passenger side door, Arman yanked it open with a growl. Glared at the driver’s seat.

  Only no one was there.

  Arman stepped back. That was strange. Maybe Beau was smoking again, although, since when did Beau smoke? Arman spun around, holding his hand above his brow. He looked in every direction. Saw nothing but grass. Trees.

  The baking sun.

  Something felt wrong again. Very wrong. Arman yawned once more as his hands grew clammy. Suddenly the only thing he could think about was what was in the messenger bag he no longer had. All that money.

  Why, oh why, had he let Beau take it?

  Fuck.

  Arman shoved his head back in the van, noticing for the first time that the key was in the ignition. Cool air was blowing and the radio was on. It was playing something country, real moany and sad sounding. He paused and listened for a moment, trying to pick out the words, to see if he knew them.

  Something tickled the back of his knuckles just then, the lightest touch. Arman jumped, blinked, then looked down. What the hell? It took a moment to register what he was seeing. He was leaning against the passenger seat, but his hands were no longer locked into fists. They were open, relaxed, and he watched, confused, as a brown spider scurried out from under his thumb, bolting straight for the seat cushions. There was also a different song playing on the radio, he realized. No longer moany, it was now something upbeat and catchy.

  Arman felt ill. Seriously ill. Something really was wrong with him. With his brain. That’s what it felt like. It was almost as if he’d fallen asleep—he even had drool on his chin—but he was still standing, so that couldn’t be it. He shook his head. Well, whatever had happened or how, a piece of time had apparently just skipped away from him—a loss he had no way of finding because he couldn’t remember anything other than tipping his face into the cool air, wondering where the hell Beau was. Arman rubbed his eyes. Maybe he needed to lie down in the back of the van for a minute. Maybe he needed to—

  Arman froze.

  In the back of the van.

  He jerked his head out of the cab. Stood upright. The sun blinded him, stoking his resentment and dumping more sweat down his neck. Arman wobbled a bit, his legs unsteady, but managed to walk back to the van’s side door. With a grunt and a heave, he used both hands to
pry it open.

  What he saw inside made him go cold.

  Oh God. No. Oh no. This can’t be happening.

  It can’t.

  But it was. Horribly. And what was it Beau had said to him earlier?

  I think about beginnings.

  And the inevitable end.

  NOTHING MORE.

  Every system has a purpose. But purpose is not the same as having a plan.

  When the heart pumps blood or the atom splits or the last train out of the city departs five minutes late, there’s a reason these actions occur. But reason has nothing to do with wants. Or needs. Or strategy.

  Or even fate.

  Like the unraveling of the most twisted lie, meaning works backward. The end can explain the means, but nothing is ever justified. Systems are not in the business of morality. They exist to serve themselves. This is the reason inequity breeds cruelty, shame fosters compliance, and hypocrisy creates denial.

  These are systems that work.

  There are other systems, too. Everywhere, all around us. Ones we operate within, ones we choose to chafe against, and ones we don’t even know how to see. They exist nonetheless. They assert their will upon every aspect of our lives—from the smallest parts of our world to the fever-dream depths of our humanity to the ragged edges of the universe. And beyond.

  Death is a system, too, of course. But that’s an easy one.

  Don’t you see?

  With death comes the end of life.

  That’s all.

  There’s nothing more.

  15

  OH, BEAU.

  Why’d you do it? Why?

  This isn’t kindness.

  This isn’t the road either of us should be on.

  Blood poured down Arman’s forehead. It dripped into his line of vision, mixing with his tears and his snot, but he didn’t bother wiping any of it away. He just kept driving as best he could, racing the white van back up the mountain toward the compound. He had the gas pedal pressed to the floor. He had his arms locked tight. Arman wasn’t used to handling a vehicle of this size—hell, he wasn’t used to driving, period—and that meant he took the curves too wide and the hills too fast. Tires screeched and the vehicle swayed, but he didn’t slow down. He kept going. And going.

  He had to.

  The iron gate was open when he got there. With a sob of relief, Arman cut the wheel to make the turn. The van lurched, then skidded before regaining traction. It chewed up the drive like a beast.

  Arman didn’t bother parking in the designated lot or anywhere he was meant to. He flew past all the other vans and headed up the hillside straight for the domed building, leaning on the horn the whole way. But the road soon grew steep and narrow, and when the wheels spun helplessly in the gravel, he had no choice but to slam on the brake, throw the van into park, and jump out.

  Staggering on legs weak and shaky, he cupped his hands. Managed to shout, “Hey! I need help! Please! Someone!”

  There was no response. The only sound was the faint rustling of the long grass as a gust of ocean wind fluttered up the mountainside, cool as a promise in the late-day heat.

  Arman took off running. Adrenaline coursed through him as he bounded up the path and sprinted for the dome on winged feet. His legs burned with each stride and his lungs strained like bellows as he breathed in the heady scent of licorice and eucalyptus. The wood smoke puffing from the towering chimney.

  It all filled him with the oddest sense of déjà vu.

  He kept running. The doors to the meeting hall were shut. Arman grabbed the handle of the first one he came to and pulled. It opened, thankfully, and he flew inside with a tingle of relief. His world went from light to dark.

  “Hey!” he called out, gasping for air. “Is anyone here? I need help. I need someone. It’s an emergency!”

  • • •

  The unexpected happened: A pair of strong arms reached from the shadows to grab on to Arman. They caught him like a trip wire, wrapping around his chest, his shoulders, and stopping him in his tracks.

  Arman gave a yelp of pain. He was yanked backward and his feet skidded, nearly upending him. He thrashed wildly against whoever was holding him. “Fuck. Fucking let go of me!”

  “Shut up,” snarled the person who’d grabbed him, gripping him tighter and pinning his arms to his body like a straitjacket.

  Arman kept up his thrashing. “What?”

  “I said shut up. You can’t come in here. Where the hell did you come from anyway?”

  “What do you mean?” Squirming sideways, Arman caught a glimpse of his accoster. The sunlight spilling down from the cribbed rafters in the center of the dome didn’t reach here, the edges of the hall, but as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he was able to make out the shape of the man holding on to him. He was big, brutish, and he wore those strange gauzy clothes. Arman thought he could feel something beneath the fabric, like a holster, running across his chest. Panic filled him. Maybe Dale wasn’t kidding about guns.

  “This is private property, kid,” the man growled.

  “But—”

  “Is something going on, Brian?” a woman’s voice called out.

  They both turned. Arman’s heart surged with hope. It was Mari. She was standing on some sort of stage that had been set up in the center of the domed space, built against the crackling stone fireplace. Not only that, but she was surrounded by rows and rows of people who were seated in folding chairs, filling the entire room.

  She was surrounded, Arman realized with a stab of terror, by everyone.

  “Mari!” he cried. “It’s me, Arman. I need your help!”

  “What is it, Arman?” she asked. Then: “Brian, let go of him, for God’s sake. He’s one of ours.”

  Brian released Arman but made sure to knee him in the back as he shoved him away. Arman stumbled, then squared his shoulders. Longed for the nerve to punch him. Instead he limped forward into the sunlight.

  He felt all the eyes in the room land on him.

  He heard the gasps when they saw the blood on his face and clothes.

  Stomach lodged in his throat like a cork, Arman willed himself not to fall apart. Not yet. Not before he’d done what he’d come to do. He locked eyes with Mari because seeing her calmed him. Because even though he’d burst in and caused this big scene, she still looked at him with kindness.

  And trust.

  “It’s Beau,” he said, his voice finally cracking. “I think—I think he’s dead.”

  A swell of shock rippled through the meeting hall. Followed by fear. Then disbelief. Arman didn’t know what to do, so he simply stood and waited. He felt twitchy. And more than a little queasy. He hadn’t realized how hot it was in here. All these bodies packed in tight with limited air circulation. The smell wasn’t very good either.

  Finally Mari raised her hand, quieting the room with the gesture. Arman watched with awe. Despite her age and gentle demeanor, she was far more commanding than he would’ve guessed. Or perhaps those qualities weren’t the exception, but the rule.

  “I’m sure Beau is fine,” she told her audience. “As you know, he was called away from us this morning on an emergency in San Francisco and won’t be returning until tomorrow. However, seeing as young Arman here is one of our newer guests, the three of us are going to go with him now to help clarify what’s happened and see how we can best help him. While we’re gone, I’d like you all to remain seated and in a state of quiet self-reflection. Inoculation will resume momentarily.”

  Three of us? Arman’s heart sank as two people stood and followed Mari as she stepped off the stage and walked toward him. He recognized them both, of course. He should’ve known: It was the short man and the dark-haired woman who’d scolded Mari for asking where he’d come from.

  Beau’s not fine, Arman wanted to tell them as they headed outside and back onto
the dirt path, with him leading the way like the world’s most unlikely Pied Piper. But the words wouldn’t come. He was too tight with emotion.

  Too sick with guilt.

  Making him feel even sicker was the way his heart gummed up upon reaching the crest of the road that dipped down toward where he’d left the van. His grief was kicking in at last, he thought. Finally overriding the numbness and shock.

  “Come on,” he called, waving to those behind him. “He’s right here.”

  Mari and the other two hurried to catch up, as best they could, although for Mari, moving quickly clearly wasn’t something in her aging body’s current skill set. Arman turned to start down the steep-pitched hillside. Only he took one step and he stopped. And blinked.

  Because it wasn’t there.

  The van wasn’t there.

  It was gone.

  16

  ARMAN STUMBLED DOWN THE PATH in a state of utter confusion. He knew he’d parked the van here. He knew it. Yet there was no sign of it at all. No sign that it had even been here in the first place. He scoured the ground for clues. After a moment of squinting, he thought he could make out faint tire tracks in the dirt.

  But maybe not.

  It was too hard to tell.

  He straightened up again. The van’s brakes could have gone out, he realized. That would explain things. The hill behind him was angled sharply. It would’ve gone right over the side of the road.

  Arman rushed to look. The trajectory of the runaway van would’ve sent it down the embankment and straight into a patch of manzanita and scrub brush. Only it wasn’t there. And it wasn’t in the parking lot, either. Well, there were plenty of white vans in the lot, of course, a whole row of them, but when Arman ran past and placed a hand on each of their hoods, all their engines were cool. None was the vehicle he’d just driven up here in a wild panic, no more than fifteen minutes ago. That van was gone.

  Poof.

  Arman stood, frozen. He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know where else to look.