“Sure. I just need a minute,” Quinn said, stowing his bag in the open hatch before crossing the sunlit yard.
He stopped beneath the tree at the foot of the three graves, one so much longer than the other two. He closed his eyes for a time and wavered there, an urge to return to the house and stay almost overpowering. But the invisible ties slowly broke as he knelt and put his hands in turn on the exposed dirt.
“I’ll be okay,” he whispered.
The sound of Alice backing the Tahoe from the garage pulled him to his feet. The three crosses stood silent in the shade of the tree. He slowly turned from his family, eyes not wanting to look away, and walked to the garage, shutting the door before rounding the house and turning off the generator. When he climbed inside the SUV, Alice gazed at him for a time before putting the vehicle into drive. Quinn watched the yard coast away and the house slide from view in his mirror.
They paused at Graham’s drive and picked up the gas cans before stopping at the broken gates. Quinn climbed out and opened one side, a strange sensation running through him as he walked on ground he never had before. The road was quiet beyond in either direction, and the air was cool, full of the scent of growing things. Alice pulled through the gate and waited for him to close it behind the Tahoe. When he climbed inside, she watched him again.
“Ready?” she asked.
“Ready!” Ty called from the back seat.
Quinn let out an unsteady breath. “Ready.”
Alice guided the SUV onto the open road, and he inhaled deeply as his home fell away behind them.
Chapter 11
Portland
The sun beat against the blacktop as they cruised between the blanketing forest on either side of the turnpike.
Quinn watched out the window, taking in each tree, each shadow, every animal that flitted between branches or rushed into dry grass. Ahead, the turnpike ran on in an unending line broken only by hills and the occasional curve. A few cars dotted its broad back, pulled neatly to one side or simply stalled in the center of one lane. After the first three they passed, Quinn quit trying to make out the occupants, the interiors of the cars blurred by the reflecting sun and the speed by which Alice drove. He was about to suggest stopping at the next stilled vehicle when Alice spoke.
“It’s better not to look.”
Ty sang to himself in the back seat, his voice a high falsetto that came out surprisingly beautiful. After a time, Quinn turned to Alice, tipping his head toward the melody that poured quietly out of the little boy.
“He’s singing OneRepublic.”
Alice nodded, her eyes never leaving the road. “He sings whatever I listen to or what’s on the radio. He’s got an unbelievable memory.”
“He’s got an unbelievable voice.”
“I can hear you talking about me up there. I’m blind, not deaf,” Ty said, as he paused between lyrics.
Quinn laughed and put a hand over his mouth while Alice’s eyebrows came up and she glanced in the rearview mirror.
“You watch that sassiness, mister.”
Ty giggled and began to sing again.
A stilt burst from the right-hand tree line and ran up the embankment toward the Tahoe.
“Shit!” Alice yelled, swerving hard to the left.
The stilt flew toward them. Its long, bony limbs pumping, broken teeth bared in its oblong face. Its eyes stared into Quinn’s, locking there with hunger. The driver’s side tires cut into the grass and gravel beside the turnpike as the stilt reached for the SUV.
They hit its outstretched arm at sixty miles per hour.
The appendage ripped off at the creature’s shoulder with a wet thump, spraying Quinn’s window with crimson and fleshy shrapnel. It spun once in the center of the highway and fell to its knees, a gout of arterial blood jetting out and coating the road. It stared after them, unmoving, until they crested the next hill and dropped down the opposite side.
Alice and Quinn let out a held, collected breath.
“Where the fuck did that come from?” she asked.
“From the woods. It was just there all of a sudden.”