After Vic had told Lucy why and how it was his fault, she’d surprised him by softening a little. He could not be sure how either of them could guarantee it, but their spoken determination to stay together had inspired a measure of strength in him that had been lacking before. Instinct had driven him up and out of Coldbrook, but Lucy’s love went some way to driving his guilt back down. He had much to make amends for, but she knew why he had done what he’d done. In her eyes he saw that she understood.
Lucy drove some of the way, but Vic always felt more comfortable driving. And besides, for every mile of their three-hundred-mile journey he was considering roadblocks, state border controls, martial law, public panic, and the rule of chaos. In his pocket he carried his identification card, and in the car door beside his left thigh sat the M1911. If they came across trouble, he wanted to be behind the wheel.
Lucy had spent the first hour of the journey trying to call friends in Danton Rock on her iPhone. Her first couple of calls were answered, and Vic cringed as he heard her telling those at the other end that they should pack and leave immediately. ‘Forget the damn school fayre!’ she said to one of them and to another she whispered, ‘Something’s gone wrong down there and you shouldn’t hang around.’ But then her third call was cut off unexpectedly, and after that the whole cellphone network seemed to go down. She’d tried a dozen more numbers ten times each, including those of her parents and her brother. It was only as the last call connected and a heavy, loaded silence was the only answer to her desperate pleading that she put the phone down.
She’s beginning to understand. This is my fault, Vic thought. But Lucy said nothing more, and she did not try to call Danton Rock again. She said she wanted to save her phone’s battery.
They kept the radio on, turned down low so that Olivia couldn’t hear it. She was happy playing her Nintendo DS, and the chirpy jingles of the Keep a Puppy game provided a surreal theme to the stories they were hearing. As the day wore on and they drew closer to Cincinnati, Lucy moved over in her seat so that she could touch Vic. A hand on his thigh, arm around his shoulders, something that involved physical contact – he took as much comfort from it as she did.
‘You can’t blame yourself,’ she told him as they listened to a report about a huge fire in central Knoxville.
‘I can,’ he said. Lucy squeezed the back of his neck, and from the back seat Olivia started singing.
The radio reports grew in severity, until one channel said they were suspending their Sunday music programming to bring all the updates on the developing situation.
‘What’s a zombie?’ Olivia asked.
Lucy flicked the radio off and glanced at Vic.
‘Just a silly monster from the movies,’ Vic said.
‘No such things as monsters, honey,’ Lucy said.
They exited the freeway and pulled up outside a rest stop. Olivia whooped and hollered, delighted that they’d reached their holiday destination, and Vic looked at the trucks and motorbikes and dusty cars lining the parking lot, wondering at his child’s sense of imagination. Outside the car, stretching the several-hour journey from their limbs, Lucy stood close to Vic and entwined her fingers with his.
‘They’ll have the TV on in there.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Olivia will see.’
He bit his lip and watched his beautiful daughter skipping beside the car’s hood, singing softly to herself, so vulnerable and dependent.
‘It’s spreading quickly,’ he said.
‘Moving as fast as people can run,’ Lucy said.
‘Faster.’ Vic brushed a strand of her hair behind her ear, and she gave him a strained smile. He’d treasure any smile from his wife now as a gift.
‘Jonah hasn’t called,’ she said.
‘He’ll be busy.’ Lucy nodded slowly, rubbing an ache in the back of her neck. ‘Holly Wright went through,’ Vic said, not sure why he’d blurted that now. Perhaps she had been on his mind, beneath the fear for his family and what was to come. Perhaps leaving her behind was just another facet of his guilt.
‘Through the breach?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Where the thing that started this came from?’