Page 30 of Our Last Resort

I crossed this sea of sleeping boys. There was something tender there, a feeling that would find me again, years later, when I watched a horror movie about haunted dolls. The innocent protagonist walked into a warehouse filled with toys, unaware of their dark powers. That the dolls would wake up was a given. But what would they do, then? Exactly what were they capable of?

Gabriel had told me that his bed was a bottom bunk at the far end of the room, underneath a window. I eliminated one sleepy face after the other until I spotted his.

He was awake.

Barely.

Gabriel lifted his head when he saw me, just an inch off the pillow. Above his bed, a thin curtain let in the moonlight. The skin on Gabriel’s face was gray, filmy, his lips so dry they had started to crack.

Maybe hehaddied, then clumsily come back to life.

“What…doing here?” he muttered, his voice muffled by one of those scratchy blankets we all had.

“Are you okay?”

He shook his head. On the mattress, poking out from under the blanket, his hand was shaking.

Gabriel was in agony. Had been for hours.

And there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.

I sat on the floor, by his side.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”

If any other boys saw or heard me, they didn’t say anything. I stayed for what felt like a long time. Then, once I could convince myself that Gabriel had fallen asleep, I returned to my dorm.

The next morning, Gabriel resurfaced in the breakfast line. His eyelids were puffy, his movements rigid.

“But look,” he said, and rolled his neck.

He could stand. He could move.

That evening, while we were filling shipping boxes with Émile’s books, I told him.

“I think we should go.”

Gabriel looked up from a recalcitrant roll of packing tape.

“Go where?”

“Outside.”

His eyes widened. Before he could answer, there was a loud clatter. The two of us looked around, wild rabbits checking for dogs.

Just a window banging shut.

“For real?” he asked.

“For real.”

“I thought you said—”

“Forget what I said.”

I saw Émile’s warnings about the pharmaceutical industry in a new light: There were pills out there, and people who dispensed them.

“You need…medication or something,” I said. “For when it happens again.”

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