The Night Parade (21 page)

T
hey were back on the road the following morning by the time Ellie woke up. She yawned, stretched, gazed momentarily out the passenger window at the autumn trees shuttling by, then looked at him.

“Was it a bad dream?” she said.

He didn't need her to elaborate. What happened back in Goodwin felt like a nightmare to him, too. He shook his head. Said, “I wish it was. Are you okay?”

“I guess so.”

He stared at her for several heartbeats before turning back to the road.

“What?” she said.

“What you did to him,” he said. “That guy Cooper. With the gun.” He wanted to ask a million questions but he couldn't formulate a single one.

“It just happened,” she said.

“Was it like when you were angry and you shocked me?” he asked.

“Sort of,” she said. “But different, too. It was an accident with you.”

“I know. But it . . . I mean, you were able to do it this time. To control it.”

“I was angry,” she said. “I was scared.”

“Is that how it works?”

“I don't know how it works.” There was a noticeable tremor in her voice now. Her face became instantly red. She looked on the verge of tears.

“I'm sorry,” he said, his voice lowered. “Does it upset you to talk about it?”

“I don't know.”

“I'm just curious. I'm trying to wrap my head around it.”

“I don't know how to explain it,” she said. “Just like I can take the bad stuff out of you,” she said, “I can put it inside someone, too. That's what I did to that man. I gave him all the bad stuff.”

“You were able to will it this time,” he said.

“I think so,” she said. “Yeah.”

“Where does it come from? The bad stuff you . . . you gave him . . .”

“I don't know. Sometimes I think maybe that's what I take out of people when they're scared or nervous or angry—all that bad stuff. I don't put anything in there to make you calm, Dad. I just take all that bad stuff away.”

David's mind was racing. “So it's . . . it's like you just suck out the fear, the anxiety?”

“Yeah.”

“And then where does it go?”

She seemed to consider this. “Inside me, I guess. I hadn't really thought about it until recently.”

“That doesn't sound good.”

Ellie didn't respond.

“How come it doesn't make you feel all those things? All the bad stuff?”

“It just doesn't,” she said simply enough.

“What other people have you done this to?” he asked. “Take the bad stuff away, I mean.”

She looked down at her hands twisting in her lap. It was a question he could tell that she did not want to answer.

“How many others, Ellie?”

“I don't know.” It came out almost in a whisper.

“Can you think of someone else that you've . . . you've calmed down . . . other than Mom and me?”

“Mrs. Blanche,” she said. Mrs. Blanche was the elderly widow who lived in their neighborhood who sometimes watched Ellie after school. Ellie had been with her the day Kathy died.

“Why Mrs. Blanche?” he asked.

“Because sometimes she gets lonely and sad and I feel bad for her.”

“Did she say anything to you about it?”

“No,” Ellie said. “She never noticed I was doing it.”

“Who else?”

“Some kids at school. The day that girl died on the playground, everyone was so
upset
, Dad. We went inside and were watching the people who came in the ambulance from the windows, but we all knew the girl was dead. Some of the kids were very scared. I went around and touched each of them.”

This can't be real,
he thought.
This can't be happening. It's impossible.

“But none of them knew I was doing it,” she added quickly. “Just like Mrs. Blanche, no one noticed.”

“How could they
not
notice, Ellie? It's like . . .” He tried to think about what it was like, how to describe it, having all your sorrow and fear and grief and anger siphoned from you in one fell swoop, and how it could be possible for someone not to realize something out of the ordinary was occurring . . .

“Because it's different now,” she said. “It's getting stronger. Before, no one would notice. You and Mom never noticed. But now it's different.”

He glanced at her. She looked on the verge of tears again. “I wonder if it's good for you to do it,” he said. “It can't be good, taking in all that . . . that poison.” There was no other word for it.

Ellie said nothing.

David thought of the way Cooper had screamed when she'd touched him, how his face had gone slack and terror had flooded his eyes. He wondered if he would suffer any permanent damage. But that wasn't a question he wanted to ask his daughter. She was upset enough as it was.

“You saved our lives, you know,” he said.

She turned away from him and looked out the passenger window.

“Are you hungry?”

“Yes.”

“Good. We can stop somewhere.”

“A good place,” she said, leaning forward and popping the disc from the CD player. “Not like yesterday.”

“No,” he agreed. “Not like yesterday.” He ran a hand through her shortened hair. “I'm sorry. We don't have to talk about it if it upsets you.”

“It doesn't upset me.”

“Then why do you seem upset?”

“Because I don't want it to upset
you.
”

He smiled at her. He felt tired, sad, depleted. He felt like sleeping for a week straight. “I just want to be sure whatever this thing is, it doesn't hurt you to do it.”

“I guess there's no way to know that,” she said.

After a time, he said, “I guess not.”

She unwrapped the Bananarama CD from its cellophane then poked it into the CD player. Blessedly, she kept the volume low.

“People are changing,” he told her. “Times like these, it brings out the worst in some folks. What happened back there—”

“The good, too, though. Right?”

“Well, yeah.” Though they hadn't come across much good lately.

“Was that a real skull, Dad?”

“Probably.”

“Whose was it?”

“Couldn't say.” He turned to her, cracking a smile. “Probably just someone who lost their head.”

“Oh
God,”
she groaned, rolling her eyes but returning his smile. There was some of the old Ellie still in there.

“What do you feel like eating?” he asked.

Without hesitation, she said, “Pizza.”

* * *

They continued across Missouri in the direction of Kansas City for much of the day. Sometimes they drove through residential neighborhoods or sleepy-looking towns, but for the most part they stuck to the highway. Twice they passed police cars waiting like crouching tigers beneath an underpass, and both times David held his breath. Neither car pursued them. He didn't think they'd get lucky again, as they had yesterday. Besides, he'd cleaned the blood from his face and changed his shirt. He was too damned presentable now to scare anyone.

He decided they should wear the face masks he'd bought at the convenience store while they drove, in hopes that any cop who might deign to pull them over would think twice after seeing their faces covered. Ellie laughed at the idea, and David had to agree that he felt foolish driving around with a paper mask over his nose and mouth, but after a while they forgot they were wearing them.

It was a risk anytime they stopped in public, but they had to eat and gas up the Olds. Ellie saw a sign for a Pizza Hut off the highway. David took the exit, and less than five minutes later they were sharing a pie. Seated at the booth, David checked his phone again. Still no response from Tim.

“They used to have a buffet where you could get anything on your pizza,” Ellie said.

“Nobody's doing buffets anymore.”

“Because people are afraid of getting sick?”

He smiled wanly at her. His head ached. “If you could get anything on your next slice of pizza, what would it be?”

“Noodles,” she said.

“Gross.”

“How's that gross?”

“Very starchy.”

“It's no different than macaroni and sauce.”

“On bread. But go ahead, suit yourself,” he said. “I gotta find the restroom. You wanna come with me?”

“Don't have to,” she said.

He didn't want to leave her sitting here alone, but he thought it might be more suspicious taking her into the men's room with him.

“I'll be right back,” he said, and got up. “You sit tight.”

Thankfully, the restroom was deserted. He clutched the tiny porcelain sink and steadied himself. He'd been feeling vertigo for the past several minutes now, ever since they pulled into the restaurant parking lot. Gazing up at his reflection in the narrow rectangular mirror above the sink, some pale, wax figure version of himself stared back. There was an abrasion along the upper part of his nose already beginning to scab. He tugged down one eyelid and saw that the flesh beneath looked darker than before. Irritated. The blood vessels there had also darkened so that they resembled miniscule black hairs veining the soft tissue. It was exhaustion. Or maybe that was just his imagination.

It was then that Dr. Kapoor's voice ghosted back to him:
You're sick, David. Your last blood test. You've got it.

But it was a scare tactic, an underhanded attempt at getting him to go running back into their hands. With Ellie. He'd know if he was really sick.

He took a few deep breaths, washed his face and hands, then returned to their table.

“Are you okay, Dad?” Ellie asked upon his return. She was scrutinizing him.

“Sure thing.” He tried to sound upbeat.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

She spit a wad of food into her napkin then said, “Those people. The family back in Kentucky.”

“What about them?”

“Were they bad?”

“They were confused. They were sick.”

“With the Folly?”

“No, honey. They were sick with something else.”

“With what?” she asked.

Sick with madness,
he thought.
Which, in the end, really, is just the same thing as the Folly after all.

“They lost touch with reality. With humanity.”

“But what they wanted to do to us,” she said. “Was that wrong?”

He frowned at her. “Of course.”

“But they were just trying to help the boy,” she said. “The boy who was sick.”

“They were going to hurt us.”

“You shot that man.”

“Yes. To save our hides. To get us out of there.” He folded his hands atop the table. “What's with all the questions?”

“I guess I just don't see the difference,” she said.

“The difference in what?”

“In what they're doing from what we're doing,” she said.

David shook his head. “What are you talking about?”

“They were just trying to help their kid,” said Ellie. “Isn't that what you're doing for me?”

“It's different.”

“How?”

“Because we're not hurting anyone. We're not killing people.”

“But we sort of are,” she said. Her voice was steady and her gaze stuck to him, unwavering. Almost accusatory. “We're sort of killing the whole world.”

He reached across the table and touched her hand. “Hey,” he said. “Listen to me. It's different.”

“Tell me how.”

“It just is.”

“But that's not an answer. And it's really not different. It's selfish for us to watch everyone else die if I can save them.”

“There's no guarantee you can save anyone.”

“But there's a chance,” she said.

“Ellie, I don't know if there is or not.”

“Of course there is,” she said. “They wouldn't be looking for us if there wasn't. You wouldn't be so scared that they'll find us and take me away if there wasn't a chance.”

“The rest of the world isn't our responsibility,” he said.

Her eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly. “Then how does that make us the good guys?”

He reached out, touched the top of her hand. “Can I tell you something I learned almost nine years ago? On the day you were born?”

“What's that?”

“I learned that when you become a parent, you become a secondary character in the story of your own life.”

“I don't know what that means.”

“It means that above all else, I'm your father. And that means my ultimate responsibility is for your well-being. That is most important above all else. You take a silent oath when you become a parent, and you pledge that, no matter what, you'll never let anything bad ever happen to your kid. Ever. Do you understand?”

“But what about all the
other
people's kids?”

“It's unfortunate, but I won't allow something bad to happen to you.”

“Maybe it doesn't have to
be
bad.”

He slid his hand away from hers. “Where is this going?” he said. “You want to turn yourself in? Go back to Maryland?”

“I'm not scared of going back,” she said. “Not if I can help people.”