by Ronald Malfi
“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 sai
d, 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.”
“Well,” he said, “that’s very honorable of you. But let me ask you something.”
“What?”
“Do you love me?”
She blinked at him. “Of course.”
“Do you realize that if anything ever happened to you, I’d just die?”
Her lips parted but she didn’t speak.
“I couldn’t go on if something happened to you, Ellie,” he said. “I would hurt so much that I wouldn’t be able to take it. Is that something that you’d want to happen to me?”
Slowly, she shook her head. Her eyes had become glassy, filling with tears.
“I would die, Ellie. If something bad happened to you, I would die. Do you understand?”
She nodded, knocking a tear loose and sending it down her cheek.
“So if you love me,” he said, “please, please stay with me on this. Please. Will you? Will you trust that I’m doing the best thing and stay with me on this?”
“I will,” she whispered. “I love you, Dad.”
“I love you, too, Ellie.” He handed her a napkin. “Now dry your face before someone notices.”
31
David continued to check his e-mail on his cell phone as they drew closer to Kansas City, but somewhere along the way he stopped receiving an Internet signal. His e-mail wouldn’t refresh, and he could no longer pull up any web pages. Panic seated itself firmly at the back of his head. He began to consider the worst—that the government had zeroed in on them and were currently jamming his phone.
They crossed into a town called Harmony, which David hoped wasn’t one of those ironic names. The town looked normal for the most part, much as their own hometown of Arnold, Maryland, had been up until they left. The same sign hung in a number of shop windows, large red letters on a white banner—FOLLY FREE, COME AND SEE! This sentiment struck him as both morbid and hopeful. The country had changed so goddamn quickly in the wake of this epidemic.
David negotiated the streets until he found what he was looking for: the Harmony Public Library. It looked deserted, and that was more than okay by him.
“Put your hat back on,” he said, circling the block, then pulling into the library’s parking lot. There were only two other cars here—a metallic red Prius and a white van whose quarter panels were speckled with mud. The windows on the van’s rear doors were obscured by dark curtains. This gave David pause. He’d maintained an aversion to windowless, nondescript vans ever since he’d noticed one showing up in his neighborhood, parked across the street from their house.
Overreacting, said the head-voice. There was no way they could anticipate you coming here.
Yet this logic didn’t make him feel any better.
“What do you think?” David said. He patted Ellie’s knee. “I need to use the computer. Maybe you can read some books or something for a while.”
She shrugged. “Okay.”
He realized what he was doing: seeing if she’d suggest they skip the library and keep going. It was her intuition he would put his trust in, much as he should have done back in Goodwin. Perhaps her intuition was somehow related to her newly discovered ability, much as he believed the ability itself
was somehow related to her immunity to the Folly. Ellie seemed okay with the suggestion, which brought him some peace of mind. God, how he needed some peace of mind . . .
He parked around back. The library was a squat brick saltbox with narrow windows of tinted glass. The mechanized doors swished open and they crossed into an air-conditioned lobby decorated with a contradictory assortment of inspirational posters and antitheft mirrors. The main floor of the library was quiet, drab, sedate. The sections were marked clearly with large signs above the aisles—ADULT FICTION; CHILDREN’S BOOKS; NONFICTION; PERIODICALS—and there was a rank of computer terminals near the DVD and CD displays. A few plush chairs had been arranged on a woven carpet on the other side of the computer terminals.
David pointed to the computers and said, “That’s where I’ll be. Go find a book, then sit in one of those chairs, okay?”
She nodded, then wandered toward the nonfiction aisle.
David went to one of the computers. The screen saver was on, some sort of cartoon animal in sunglasses and buckteeth bouncing around the screen. He jiggled the mouse and the screen saver vanished. Glancing over his shoulder at the two women talking behind the checkout counter—they hadn’t done more than glance in his direction since he and Ellie had come in—he was satisfied that he’d be left alone, at least for a little while.
He opened the Internet browser and pulled up his e-mail account. His flesh prickled with hope. But when he saw Tim hadn’t responded to his e-mail, he felt a lead weight pulling down on him, weakening his knees. It wasn’t just that they had nowhere else to go; he was beginning to worry that maybe Tim was sick. Or worse.
Behind him, Ellie climbed up into one of the plush chairs with a hardcover book roughly the size of a dictionary. David turned and winked at her. He hoped he looked somewhat sane. She smiled back at him. Beyond Ellie, halfway across the library, a figure stood watching him between two bookshelves. It was a man, broad-shouldered and tall, in faded khakis and a blue chambray shirt. He wore a paper plate mask over his face. As David stared at him, the masked figure turned and disappeared behind one of the bookshelves.
Sweat wrung from David’s pores.
“I’ll be right back,” he said, getting up from the computer terminal. He walked down the aisle in time to see the man turn behind another bookshelf, his large shape moving across the spaces between the books on the shelf.
