The Mesmerized (16 page)

“Is that a threat?” Shooting a look at
Jesse, Arthur said, “Is she threatening me?”

“No,” the younger man said, “but I am. Sit
your ass down, or I will sedate you.” He pointed at the chair
Arthur had abandoned. “Take a seat, Arthur.”

“Why are you getting after me? She’s the one
who’s suspicious! She’s immune! How do we know she’s really from
Texas?”

“Sit down, Arthur!” Jesse ordered in a sharp
voice. “I mean it.”

Grudgingly, Arthur obeyed, but folded his
arms defiantly. “It’s just really suspicious that she’s
immune.”

“Why?” Simone asked. “Because she’s not
white?”

“Or because she has a tilt to her eyes?”
Jesse pointed to his own face. “Do I look suspicious? I got a bit
of a slant to my eyes, too.”

“Of course, you don’t look suspicious,
Jesse. You’re a true native of America. But with all the trouble
that’s been brewing in Korea and China, don’t you think it’s just a
little suspicious that the Asian is the only one not affected?”
Waving a hand toward Minji, he continued, “That’s the only thing
that sets her apart from us, you know. Her race! So that has to be
why she’s immune!”

“I saw a lot of Asians out in that crowd.”
Simone stepped next to Minji while gently bouncing Bailey on her
hip. “Why would China or Korea send a young, tattooed mother with
her children and husband to Las Vegas to start the end of the
world? How does that even make sense? Look at her babies, Arthur.
You’re a father. You have children. Take a look at her girls.
They’re both suffering through this, too. What kind of spy would
bring her children to something like this? Or her husband? Her
white husband?”

“So she wouldn’t come across as suspicious?”
Arthur sounded less sure of himself, his anger deflating like hot
air out of a leaking balloon. Brushing away tears with his
fingertips, he sniffled loudly. “What if she has the antidote? What
if...”

Minji kicked Arthur’s shin, but not as hard
as she wanted to. “Fuck you! If I had an antidote, I would give it
to my daughter!”

“Hey!”

“Stop being an asshole, Arthur!”

“You’re the one being violent!”

“Arthur, you’re being a dick.” Jesse rubbed
his hands over his thighs a few times, vigorously rubbing his
muscles, then attempted to stand. When he remained balanced, he
moved to Jake’s side.

Simone settled into the chair Jesse had
abandoned and cooed at Bailey, attempting to distract the
concerned-looking baby.

Grabbing Arthur’s hand, Minji forced it into
her hair. “Pull on my dreads. They’re real. Touch my tattoos.
They’re real. Hold my daughters. Look at my husband. Pull off his
wedding ring and see the indentation in his skin caused by never
taking it off. Look at me in my so-called slanted eyes and tell me
I’m not a victim of this horrible event! Tell me how I’m somehow
inhumane because I’m immune. Tell me!”

Arthur jerked his hand back, lowered his
face, and mumbled.

“What?”

Lifting his head, he screamed, “I’m sorry!
Okay? I’m sorry! I’m scared out of my mind! God, I wish you
were
a spy so you could give us the antidote and make this
stop. I just want this to be over! I don’t want this to be the end
of everything.”

The needle was in Arthur’s arm before his
words faded from the air. Jesse rested a hand heavily on the other
man’s chest to hold him steady. “I told you, Arthur, you need to
calm down.”

“You had no right,” Arthur protested, shock
planted firmly on his face. “You had no right!”

“It’s the end of the world, Arthur. I have
to do what’s right. And what’s right is you calming down and
resting.” Jesse withdrew the needle and discarded it in the bin
marked BIOHAZARD. Setting his hands on his narrow waist, he
observed Arthur as the drug began to take effect.

“It’sh schnot fair,” Arthur slurred. “Not
fair that she’s immune.”

“But she is, so deal with it,” Jesse
replied.

Arthur’s eyes fluttered, then closed.

“I can’t say I’m not grateful,” Simone said.
“He was getting on my last nerve, too.”

“He’s just scared,” Minji said, regaining
her composure. “He wants this to be easy. Like a movie. Find the
big bad, stop it, save the world.”

“But this isn’t a movie,” Jesse replied.
“And he needs to accept that we’re all lost. None of us have any
idea what’s going on.” He cocked his head to look at the window,
his long braid falling over one of his shoulders. Jesse solemnly
regarded the panorama of the smoke-filled sky and distant fires.
“This morning, the world was normal, and now it’s dying. But the
end of the world is no reason to be an asshole.”

“Amen.” Simone crossed her legs and cuddled
Bailey in her arms. “Besides, for the first time in his life, he’s
the minority. It probably has him at a disadvantage.”

Remembering Arthur’s earlier phone call,
Minji had to disagree with that assessment. In all the years of
tattooing, she had learned a lot from listening to her customers.
Sometimes people were inked just for fun, but others came in with
designs that reflected their life struggles and victories. All
those stories had given her insight into the human spirit and
helped her understand Arthur.

“No,” she said. “It’s not that. He’s just
tired of feeling helpless. Loss of job, home, marriage and his
ability to take care of his family...and now this.” The rage that
had surged through her veins with his racist accusations
dissipated, leaving her feeling even more tired than before.

“You’re giving him too much credit.” Jesse
leaned against the window and watched Arthur’s chin slowly bobbing
toward his chest.

Minji lifted Ava onto her hip. Staring into
her daughter’s eyes, she said, “Well, he’s wrong anyway. This isn’t
being done by a country like North Korea or China. This is
something more, something...”

“Supernatural?” Simone raised one
eyebrow.

Meeting Ava’s empty-eyed stare, Minji
nodded. She wasn’t too sure how much she should say out of fear of
frightening the others.

“Why do you say that?” Jesse directed his
attention toward her instead of the devastating view.

“The visions we all had. That sound. Those
colors. That wasn’t like anything I’ve ever seen or heard. Have
you?”

Immediately, Jesse and Simone averted their
eyes. Their discomfort was clear. Minji was now certain she
shouldn’t share what she’d heard earlier during the attack.

“It was probably some sort of
hallucination,” Jesse remarked.

“Or a vision of the next world,” Simone
suggested. “Heaven.”

“It seemed more like hell to me,” Jesse
said, his dark eyes wary. “Not that we’re seeing the same thing.
It’s probably just a hallucination, like I said.”

Minji knew differently. Not only were they
all seeing the same thing, they had spoken the same word.

As Ava continued to stare at her mother,
Minji was convinced that she was correct in her suspicion.
Something was speaking through the mesmerized. Even now, gazing
into Ava’s eyes, she suspected something was watching her.
Something was calling out for help.

But what was it?

Dinner was a quiet affair. Even Bailey was
silent on her mother’s lap, surveying her surroundings with a
pensive expression stamped on her delicate face. Simone had been
kind enough to prepare dinner from the items stocked in the medical
center’s kitchen, and though the food smelled wonderful, Minji
barely tasted it. Her dark eyes downcast and her expression
pensive, Simone picked at her meal. The efforts at small talk
between the two women faded as they receded into their own gloomy
contemplations.

Simone had attempted multiple times to call
her family, but Arthur’s phone no longer had service. The computers
were offline and the television was filled with static. Though no
one spoke the words aloud, Minji knew they were all fairly certain
that both Simone and Arthur’s families had been swallowed by the
event after the last attack.

Jesse was busy moving bodies, cleaning the
blood off the floor and walls, tending to the patients, and
attempting to get reception on Arthur’s phone by walking through
the building looking for a hot spot. He had also scrounged up two
sets of clean scrubs for Simone and Minji and a nightgown for Ava
to wear so they could wash their dirty, soot-covered clothing.
Minji’s feet were tucked into soft socks, allowing her boots to dry
out, and her toes were finally warm.

Jesse’s determination to keep busy reminded
Minji of her husband. If Jake hadn’t fallen victim to the event, he
would’ve been trying to find a way to reach the outside world to
find help. While her husband’s physical body was safely in a
patient room, she missed his voice, his touch, and his essence. She
wasn’t alone in her predicament, but without Jake she still felt
lonely. Since they decided to create a life together, Jake and
Minji had faced everything as a team, and though both were
strong-willed and successful in their own right, Minji now realized
how much they’d come to depend on one another. There were a
millions things she wanted to discuss with her husband so they
could plan the next step together. Instead, she was amongst
strangers.

When the women finished eating, Simone
cleared the dishes and left Minji alone with her daughters. Bailey
played on a blanket spread on the floor while Minji struggled to
coax Ava into drinking a protein shake. It took many attempts and a
lot of mishaps before Minji managed to get Ava to consume a fourth
of the bottle. The entire time, Ava’s eyes never wavered from her
mother’s face.

“I just finished sedating the mesmerized
patients,” Jesse said, joining her in the small employee break
room.

Minji finished wiping the dribbles off of
Ava’s chin and went to work on the little girl’s neck. “How’s
Arthur?”

“Still sleeping.”

“Are you going to sedate him again?”

“Hopefully, he’ll have figured out not to be
a jerk.”

“He’s just stressed,” Minji said,
sighing.

“We’re all stressed.” Jesse sat in the chair
at her side and uncovered the dish Simone had left for him. He set
a syringe on the table near his plate.

“Who’s that for?”

Jesse’s gaze flicked to Ava.

Minji finished dabbing at Ava’s t-shirt and
studied her daughter’s face. Ava’s eyes remained steadfastly on her
mother. The thought of Ava being sedated and strapped to a bed made
her queasy. It was a strange comfort to have both of her daughters
near her, even in Ava’s condition.

“She drank some water and part of the
protein shake,” Minji said.

“Which is impressive considering the state
of the other mesmerized, but she’s going to be in danger of
dehydrating if she doesn’t get more fluids into her system,” Jesse
said, shoveling food into his mouth, chewing rapidly.

Minji pondered his words.

“It won’t hurt her, Minji.”

“I know that. I do.” Minji glanced at Ava
again thoughtfully. Why was she so reluctant to sedate her
daughter?

“I moved a rollaway bed into the room where
I placed your husband. We can keep her there, close to her
father.”

Ava’s eyes shifted to Jesse and back to her
mother so rapidly Minji almost missed the movement.

“No, no. I’ll keep her with me. If she stops
cooperating with me, I’ll reconsider.”

Jesse picked up the syringe. “Are you
sure?”

Ava took a sharp step toward Minji,
appearing to take refuge behind her.

“Whoa.” Jesse pinched the syringe between
his fingers and waggled it at Ava. “Look at that.”

The little girl’s eyes were now firmly on
Jesse, not Minji.

“Put it down,” Minji said, trying to infuse
her words with a warning.

Jesse continued to wag the syringe at Ava.
“She’s paying attention to me. Actually looking at me!”

Minji wanted to scream that it was not Ava
watching him, but something
other
, something dangerous, but
her instincts compelled her to be cautious. “Stop it. I’m not going
to allow you to drug her.”

Maybe the nurse practitioner caught the
implication of her tone, or maybe he became unnerved by Ava’s
stare, but he set the syringe aside. “Maybe she’s waking up if
she’s afraid of needles.”

“Just don’t do that.”

“Seriously, Minji, maybe it’s a good sign,”
Jesse suggested, then dug into his meal once again.

Minji knew otherwise. Something was watching
through Ava’s eyes and it did not want to be sedated. Sedation
meant blindness. Whatever was observing them wouldn’t abide
that.

Minji kept her theory to herself, but was
certain she was right.

Leaving Jesse to his meal, she collected
Bailey, took Ava’s hand, and hurried to the patient room where Jake
slept. Bailey was already close to dozing off, so Minji laid her
next to Jake. Her heart broke just a little when the baby girl
lovingly touched her father’s shoulder and snuggled into him.

Settling into the chair next to the bed, she
held Ava on her lap. She combed trembling fingers through Ava’s red
curls while staring into her daughter’s glassy eyes.

“Ava, if you can hear me, I love you. I love
you so very much. I’m going to try very, very hard to free you. I
promise.” She took a deep breath. “And to the
other
inside
of Ava, I know you’re there. I know you’re watching me. Not only
through Ava, but the others. You need to tell me what you want from
me. Tell me what you are and what I can do so you’ll let Ava and
the others go.”

The little girl’s eyes did not waver from
Minji’s face.

With tears running down her cheeks and
dripping from her chin, Minji pleaded with the nameless being to
release her daughter and the rest of the world. Frustration, anger,
and despair spurred her rambling appeal. The entire time, Ava’s
eyes stared into Minji’s, mouth twitching as strange sounds
emanated from her throat.