The Night Parade

  Prior to tonight, and if he’d ever given the matter any serious consideration, he would have said that there were certain things you did when you were on the run: You headed out at night, avoided large cities while sticking to secondary roads, and, to paraphrase Chuck Berry, simply kept on motorvatin’ over the hill. But now that he was in the thick of it, he second-guessed each move, finding the flaws in every single decision, the weaknesses in every plan. It was all cracks in a dam. Heading out at night meant you had the cover of darkness beneath which you could travel . . . but it also meant there were less people on the roads, and fewer souls among which you could hide. You attracted eyes; those eyes watched you. That held true for the secondary roads, too; it unnerved him that he hadn’t seen any other vehicles for the past fifteen or twenty minutes or so. The odds that he would get pulled over out here were greatly increased. A bored cop might decide to pull him over for lack of anything better to do. For all he knew, the goddamn Olds might even have a taillight out. Had he cut through all the major cities, he could lose himself among the crowd.

  “Dad,” she said from the backseat. There was no pleading quality to her voice, no whining about it. She simply said it and let it hang in the air between them, as if to remind him that she was still there, and to remind him of who he was.

  “I know. Gimme a sec, hon.”

  He noticed that, according to the gas gauge, the tank was nearly three-quarters empty. How had he not noticed this before? It was careless. But it made up his mind for him.

  When they passed a sign that read REST STOP 1 MILE, David said, “We’ll stop there. I’ll park and get the food out of the trunk. You stay in the car.”

  “I gotta go pee,” she said.

  “Yeah, okay.”

  He glanced down and noticed a stringy dark smear on his left shirtsleeve. Even in the dark he recognized it as blood. He absently cuffed the sleeve past the elbow.

  Jesus, he thought.

  2

  When they came upon the lights of the rest stop, David took the exit. His nerves vibrated; his hands shook. It wasn’t a busy rest stop, probably due to the ungodly hour, with only a few scattered cars in the parking lot. Eighteen-wheelers were parked at the far end of the tarmac, their lights off, as motionless as great slumbering beasts. He and Ellie could get lost here, stay anonymous.

  David parked the car but left the engine running. He popped the trunk with a button on the dash, then turned around to face Ellie in the backseat.

  She was only a week shy of her ninth birthday, but at that moment, tucked into a darkened corner of the Oldsmobile’s backseat, her knees pulled up to her chest, her eyes large and frightened, her clothes rumpled, she looked to David like the small child she’d once been. Helpless, with a face full of wonder and fear. The first few weeks after her birth, he’d paced the floorboards of the house in Arnold cradling her in his arms. She never slept, only stared at him with those wide, intelligent eyes, so wise and thoughtful for a thing that had been alive for such a brief time. Often, she would furrow her brow in some mimicry of contemplation, those murky seawater eyes focusing in on him like camera lenses, and David would wonder what thoughts could possibly be passing through her beautiful infant brain.

  He shook the thought from his mind.

  “Stay here,” he told her. Then he got out of the car.

  It was early September and the air was cool. He could smell gasoline and could hear the buzzing cadence of insects in the surrounding trees. A group of kids in their late teens stood huddled around a nearby trash can, smoking cigarettes and talking loudly. They had plastic dime-store Halloween masks propped on their heads, a trend that had become increasingly popular since the first reports of the outbreak. They shifted their gaze over to David and, somewhat distrustfully, pulled the masks down over their faces.

  In the trunk, David popped open the plastic pink suitcase and dug through some clothes until he retrieved a handful of Nature Valley granola bars. There were a few warm cans of Coke in the suitcase, as well—the only thing he’d been able to get his hands on at the time—and so he grabbed one of those, too.

  When he shut the trunk, he was startled to find Ellie standing beside the car’s rear bumper. She was watching the smoking teenagers in the cheap Halloween masks, her hands limp at her sides. Her hair, sleek auburn strands that had been a carroty red when she was just a toddler, billowed gently in the breeze.

  “Hey.” He reached out and grabbed her shoulder. Firmly. “What’d I say? Stay in the car until I came and got you, remember?”

  She turned and looked up at him. Her face was pale, her mouth drawn and nearly lipless. A spray of light brown freckles peppered the saddle of her nose. There was some strange determination in her eyes, and David suddenly felt weakened in the presence of her. It wasn’t the first time she had made him feel this way.

  David took a breath and caressed the side of her face with his knuckles. “Go back in the car, Little Spoon,” he told her.

  “But I gotta go to the bathroom, remember?”

  No, he hadn’t remembered. His brain felt like a rusted hamster wheel clacking around in his skull. He glanced around until he saw a brick outhouse with the word WOMEN on one door, MEN on the other.

  “Okay,” he said, and went back around to the driver’s side of the Oldsmobile. He tossed the granola bars and the Coke on the seat, then pulled the key from the ignition. The Oldsmobile shuddered and died. Abruptly, he wondered what he would do if the car wouldn’t start again. Steal another car? Would he even know how to do it? People in movies always seemed to know how to hot-wire a car—it was like tying your shoes, apparently—but he had no clue.

  He placed a hand against the small of Ellie’s back and ushered her forward. “Go on,” he told her. “Be quick. And don’t talk to anyone. I’ll wait right out here for you.”

  He thought he heard her sob, so he stopped her, crouched down, and looked her in the eyes. They were glassy, but she still wasn’t crying. She didn’t even look all that frightened. In fact, it looked like she was studying him. Scrutinizing him.

  “Don’t cry, hon,” he told her anyway. It sounded like the right thing to say, and it was certainly important. “Okay?”

  “I don’t understand this,” she told him.

  “Little Spoon,” he said, squeezing her shoulder more tightly. He didn’t want attention drawn to them, and an eight-year-old girl becoming upset in the parking lot of a rest stop at this hour would surely do the trick.

  “I’m worried about Mom,” she said. “When can I see her?”

  “Hon,” he said . . . and he wanted to hug her, but the last thing he wanted to do was make a scene, even if it was only in front of the masked teenagers smoking by the trash can. He could risk doing nothing that would cause someone to remember them at a later date. Of course, Ellie didn’t know the truth of it, so he couldn’t expect her to act accordingly.

  That will have to change very soon, he thought. If we’re going to survive this, she’ll need to know the score. If not the whole truth, she’ll need to know something very close to it.

  Now wasn’t the time, however.

  In the end, Ellie turned away from him, his hand dropping from her shoulder. She wended around the group of teenagers with her head down and vanished into the women’s restroom.

  I’ll tell her later, he promised himself, while simultaneously wondering if there would be a later.

  When he found himself gnawing at his lower lip, he realized that he craved a cigarette. He’d smoked his last one . . . how many hours ago? It had still been daylight. There was a full carton of Marlboros on the top shelf of his bedroom closet, but they could have been on the moon for all their accessibility now. He glanced around, spotted a vending machine beyond the brick outhouse, but saw only columns of potato chips, chocolate bars, pretzels, and the like. Vaguely, he wondered if they still sold cigarettes in vending machines anymore.

  In the quiet, his mind slipped back to earlier that evening and to the inexplicable th
ing that had happened in the car as they left their hometown in Maryland. He had been a rattled mess, his heart slamming in his chest, his mind spinning uncontrollably. . . until Ellie had reached over to him, her hand cool against his burning flesh . . .

  He shook the notion from his mind. It was impossible.

  After another minute passed and Ellie didn’t come out of the restroom, David began to panic. His arms still crossed, he began pacing back and forth in front of the door to the women’s room like a warden. The concrete walkway was covered in beetles; they crunched beneath his feet like potato chips. If she didn’t come out in the next thirty seconds—and he was now counting silently to himself—he would go in after her.

  But what if she’s gone in there and started crying? he thought. What if some woman is already in there, and she stops her and asks her what’s wrong, and Ellie tells her that her father tucked her into the backseat of a strange car and spirited her away like a thief in the night? Isn’t that a possibility?

  Christ, yes.

  His hand was already clutching the door handle to the women’s room when the door shushed open and Ellie came out. She looked up at him with an expression of consternation on her face. David glanced into the restroom and saw that the remaining stalls were empty. The single bulb at the center of the ceiling flickered.

  “Come on,” he said, rubbing the back of her head as he led her back to the car. He was reminded of the gas tank when he turned the ignition over, so he pulled around to the farthest set of pumps. A few tractor trailers stood like gathered cattle at the far end of the lot. David climbed out of the car, discovered that the gas tank was on the other side of the vehicle, swore under his breath, then got back in and repositioned the car. In the backseat, Ellie sat motionless and wide-eyed, staring at him and not touching any of the snacks he’d tossed back there for her. He could feel the heaviness of her eyes on him. “Go on,” he told her. “Eat something. It’s okay.” The smile he offered her felt as false as a stick-on moustache.

  At the pump, he pulled his wallet from his pants and had already slid his credit card through the slot when he realized what he had done. It seemed every muscle in his body tensed at once. Even his teeth clenched. Nearly in disbelief, he stared at the tiny digital screen as it processed his credit card, then stared down at the card itself, as if skeptical of its very existence.

  “Shit, shit,” he hissed through his teeth.

  The screen prompted him to enter his zip code before processing the card. It also gave him the option to cancel the sale. Which he did immediately.

  There was the cash in the trunk, but he also had a wad of tens and fives in his wallet. He held up one finger to Ellie, who watched him, emotionless, from the backseat, then he went to the attendant’s booth, where he forked over thirty bucks to the ancient dark-skinned woman seated behind a sheet of bulletproof glass.

  Three minutes later, they were back on the highway. When he saw a white van in the far right lane, David felt a cool sweat prickle his scalp. It looked identical to the one that had been parked across the street from their house on Columbus Court for the past few weeks. David couldn’t decide if he should slow down or speed up. Finally, he decided to take an exit that dumped them onto a secondary roadway.

  Despite her proclamation of hunger, Ellie never touched the granola bars, never cracked open the Coke. He could use the caffeine himself, but he didn’t ask her to pass the soda up to him. She had been quiet since leaving the gas station, and he presumed she had fallen back asleep. So when she spoke up and asked him to turn on the radio, he nearly launched out of his skin.

  And the radio was nothing but static.

  3

  After some careful deliberation, he decided to stop at a roadside motel for the night. Prior to this, he had considered parking behind a billboard off the main highway or something like that, catching some z’s behind the wheel of the Olds like he’d done in his old road-tripping days during breaks from college, but he thought there would be time for that soon enough. Moreover, sleeping in the car would only prompt additional questions from Ellie, questions he wasn’t yet prepared to answer. He was amazed she’d been so compliant thus far, but he wasn’t willing to push his luck. Besides, he could use a hot shower. In fact, that sounded like heaven to him.

  It was one of those motor lodges where all the rooms had doors that opened onto the parking lot. He counted only two other vehicles in the front lot and, after driving around the building, two more in the rear. He told Ellie to wait in the car while he went in and got them a room.

  The lobby was dressed in outdated wallpaper and threadbare aquamarine carpeting. The lights in the ceiling seemed impossibly bright and were orbited by a cloud of gnats. The guy behind the counter, grizzled and rheumy-eyed, looked no more lifelike than the half-dozen taxidermy animals adorning the wooden shelves behind him. Pressing a handkerchief to his mouth, he looked up as David approached.

  “I’d like a room please,” David said to the fellow.

  “Last name?” the guy asked through the handkerchief, swiveling on a stool so that he could tap out a few keys on an old PC.

  “Arlen.” It was out of his mouth before he knew what he was saying. Just like back at the gas station with the credit card. How long did he really expect to last being this careless?

  “Ireland?” the old man said.

  David went with it. “Yes.”

  The man tapped a few more keys on the computer.

  David wasn’t sure if it was possible to get a room anymore without a credit card or an ID, but he took his chances. “My cards are all maxed out,” he said. “Do you take cash?”

  “It’s still legal tender, ain’t it?” said the old-timer. Then something akin to suspicion glinted in his reptilian eyes, and he made no attempt at subtlety when he leaned forward and peered out the glass door toward the parking lot. He kept the handkerchief firmly in place against his mouth and nose. “It’s just you?” the man said.

  “Just me.”

  “No lady friend with you?”

  “No, sir.”

  “’Cause this ain’t no brothel. Won’t put up with no hanky-panky. Just ’cause the world’s goin’ to shit don’t mean I surrender my morals. You catch what I’m saying?”

  “Of course. It’s just me. No worries.”

  Apparently contented, the old man retracted back behind the counter and completed the transaction. Blessedly, he did not ask to see David’s ID. David forked over sixty bucks for the room and another hundred for a security deposit since he wasn’t using a credit card.

  “Kinda steep for a security deposit,” David said.

  “What’s it to you, so long as you don’t burn the place down,” said the old man through his handkerchief.

  David handed over the money. First night on the road and he’d already made a sizable dent in their meager account.

  The man gave him a plastic key card with the number 118 printed on it in permanent marker. Back in the parking lot, David drove around to the rear of the motel and parked right outside the door to their room. Ellie was still wide awake in the backseat, glaring at him.

  “Come on,” he told her, leaving the car running as he got out. “I’ll let you in, then I’m going to park the car somewhere else.”

  “Why?”

  “Because this place looks shady and I don’t want someone breaking in to the car,” he lied.

  “It isn’t ours, anyway,” she said as she climbed out of the Oldsmobile’s backseat.

  He was quick opening the motel room door and ushering Ellie inside. Glancing around, he took inventory: a single twin-size bed with a paisley coverlet; a wooden dresser on which sat an old tubed television set plugged in to a digital converter; a closet whose door stood open to reveal a horizontal wooden post from which a few metal coat hangers hung; brownish water stains on the ceiling and walls; a telephone and an alarm clock atop a gouge-ridden nightstand. There was a single window beside the front door, the drapes already pulled closed. David went t
o a lamp on a rickety-looking table, switched it on, then went back to the door, leaving Ellie to stand in the middle of the room, looking around in silence.

  “I’ll be right back,” he told her.

  She sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the TV. In her lap was the cardboard shoe box with the Nike logo on its lid. Over the past several weeks the shoe box—or, rather, the items inside the shoe box—had become something of a security blanket for the girl.

  Outside, David got back in the car and parked it behind two enormous Dumpsters at the far corner of the lot. From the trunk, he gathered up his duffel bag, as well as the small pink suitcase he’d packed with clothes for Ellie, along with some board games to keep her occupied. The only item that actually belonged to Ellie was the stuffed elephant, and he had that now only because Ellie had given it to Kathy. It had been Ellie’s favorite toy when she was no more than two, a gray plush pachyderm she’d named, in her pragmatic way, simply Elephant. He debated whether or not he should leave in it the trunk—his fear was that it might spark more questions about Kathy if he brought it into the motel—but in the end he shoved that into the duffel bag, as well.

  Back in the room, he set the bags down on the bed, then stretched so that the tendons in his back popped. Ellie hadn’t moved from her perch at the edge of the bed, her eyes still glued to the television set that she hadn’t turned on. She was gripping the shoe box so tightly that her fingertips were white.

  “You can watch something, if you want,” he told her.

  “The TV looks funny,” she said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, look at it.”

  “It’s just old.”

  “Why’s it so big?”

  “This is how TVs looked before they were flat.”

  “Does it work the same?”

  “Sure.” He found the remote Velcro’d to the top of the set. “Here,” he said, switching it on. The TV hummed, crackled, then came to life with a bleary image. Some sitcom with canned laughter. The color looked a bit off, the actors’ skin a sour yellow.