The Night Parade Read Free

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.
    â€œDad,” 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.
    â€œI 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.”
    â€œI gotta go pee,” she said.
    â€œYeah, 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
    W hen 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.
    â€œStay 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.
    â€œHey.” 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