The Night Parade by Ronald Malfi
For Maddie and Hayden.
Big smiles, Little Spoons.
“Five seconds; and what’s happened in the wide world?”
—GEORGE SEFERIS, “Slowly You Spoke”
1
David Arlen’s daughter woke up ten miles outside Fredericksburg. She had begun to stir just as the lights of the city receded in the Oldsmobile’s rearview mirror, intermittently whining and sobbing in her sleep from the backseat. But now she sat up, almost too abruptly, and the image of her eclipsing the distant city lights in the rearview mirror caused David’s heart to jump. It was as if he’d forgotten she was back there.
“Where are we?” She sounded hoarse.
He raked a set of fingers down the left side of his face and neck, feeling the fresh stubble there. He wondered if he should grow a beard. Maybe dye his hair. “I’m not sure. Heading south right now.”
“I want my mom.”
He had no response for that. He wanted her, too.
“Where are we?” she insisted.
“Please,” he said, shaking his head and briefly closing his eyes.
“I want to sit up front with you,” she said.
“Not just yet.”
“Why?”
“Just sit back. Please. Try to go back to sleep.”
“I’m not tired anymore.”
“Please, Ellie,” he said.
She sat back, her silhouette sinking below the rearview mirror. The lights of Fredericksburg were gone now, obscured by black trees along the sloping road and the heavy drapery of night.
David glanced at the Oldsmobile’s dashboard clock. It was just after midnight. He tried to do the math and figure out how long he’d been awake, but found even the simplest brain work next to impossible. Two days? Longer? In his exhaustion, even his vision threatened mutiny: The sodium lamps that flanked the shoulder of the highway occasionally blurred into smeary arcs of colorless light.
For what seemed like the millionth time since they’d hit the road, he took mental inventory of the items he’d managed to squirrel away in the trunk: extra clothes, some food, approximately six hundred dollars in cash, some books and board games to keep Ellie’s mind off the whole thing. There was a handgun and two boxes of ammo back there, too, in a stolen pink suitcase. He’d never fired a gun in his life. When he had come across it in Burt Langstrom’s bedroom, he’d felt the world tilt slightly and time seemed to freeze. The weapon had seemed unreal. Until that moment, it had never occurred to him that he might need a weapon, a firearm. But there it had been, like a sign from God, and its mere presence was enough to drive home the gravity of their situation. He’d picked it up, surprised to find that much of it was made of plastic—he had always just assumed handguns were cast from iron or steel or something—and for some reason that made it seem all the more deadly. Quiet and unassuming, like a sleek black snake weaving through a flower bed. And for the first time he had wondered, Could I kill a person? If it comes down to it, could I do it? Could I point this thing at someone, pull the trigger, bring them down?
Now, gripping the steering wheel of the Olds with both hands, he thought of what was at stake and imagined that he could.
When he motored past a police cruiser tucked along a dirt passage between the trees just beyond the shoulder, he swore under his breath, then stared at the speedometer. He was cruising at just below seventy miles per hour. What was the speed limit on this particular stretch of highway? He racked his brain but couldn’t remember the last time he’d spotted a speed limit sign. Goddamn careless. His eyes flicked back up to the rearview mirror. Holding his breath, he waited to see if the cruiser would pull out onto the highway in pursuit. Any second, those headlights would blink on, growing in size as the cruiser drew closer until the rack lights came alive and doused the world in alternating blue and red flashers.
But the cop car never slid out onto the highway.
It wasn’t until a good ten minutes later that he allowed himself to relax. With any luck, they weren’t even looking for him yet.
“I’m hungry.”
Her voice startled him. He had assumed she had fallen back asleep. But she sounded clear, lucid.
“Can’t it wait?” he asked her.
“Wait for what?”
That was a good question. He had no answer for her. No plan. Not yet, anyway.
“Listen,” he said. “I’ve got some food in the trunk. Let me pull over and I’ll get some out for you.”