“It’s all very complicated,” he said. He grabbed the duffel bag and yanked it out. He motioned for her to follow, too.
She shook her head.
“Let’s go, Ellie. Now.”
She gathered up the shoe box, then slid along the seat and dropped down onto the driveway.
David slung the duffel bag over one shoulder, then grabbed hold of his daughter’s hand. “Come on,” he said, and dragged her back around to the rear of the house.
“Whose house is this?”
“A friend. He’s away. We’re taking his car.”
“Why?”
He pulled her in through the open door.
“We need a different car.”
“Why? Where are we going? Why can’t we go home?”
“Just give me a goddamn minute, will you?” he said, half-shouting. His voice cracked midway through and he struggled not to burst into tears.
He hauled her out to the garage. “Get in,” he said, going around to the open trunk of the Oldsmobile. He dumped the duffel bag inside. His hands were shaking and his nose was running.
When he slammed the trunk’s lid, he saw that Ellie hadn’t moved from the doorway.
“Get in the goddamn car, Eleanor,” he said.
She just stared at him.
His eyelids fluttered closed. In his head, he counted to ten, taking deep breaths. When he opened his eyes again, he said, more calmly, “Please, baby. I need you to get in the car.”
She pointed at him. “Your nose is bleeding.”
He touched two fingers to the divot above his upper lip. The fingers came away slick with blood. What the fuck? He looked up at her again and tried to smile. Said, “Baby, please.”
She carried her shoe box to the rear door of the Olds, opened it, climbed inside. The sound of the door slamming shut was like the report of a starter’s pistol.
It’s a nosebleed from overexertion, he told himself. That’s all it is. It’s a wonder I’m not having a heart attack right now.
Before leaving, he stowed the Bronco in the Langstroms’ garage and shut the door. When he reversed the Oldsmobile out onto the street, it took him a few moments fumbling with gauges and buttons and switches to find the headlights. And then another few seconds to turn the high beams off.
“Why can’t we go home?” she asked from the backseat.
“Because,” he said, his mind racing. “Because. Because we’re not allowed. Some doctors and police came and shut down our street. People were getting sick, and they had to come in and close it off.”
“Just like on the news,” Ellie said.
“Yes. Just like on the news.”
“It’s because of the sickness.”
“Yes.”
“Are we okay?”
“Yes, baby.”
“I mean, we aren’t sick, are we?”
“No.”
“Did everyone on our street get sick?”
“No, honey. It’s just a precaution.”
“So where are we going now?”
“Away.”
“Why?”
“Because, Ellie, we were not supposed to leave the house. But we did. So now we can’t go back.” His mind was reeling.
“That doesn’t sound like a good idea.”
“Just give me a few minutes to relax, okay? Why don’t you close your eyes and try to get some sleep? I’ll explain it all to you later.”
“We always call Mom before bedtime.”
He closed his eyes for a moment, imagining the roadway a hundred miles wide. “We can’t right now. So just get some rest.”
“Later?” she said.
“Yes. Later.”
“Promise?”
He promised.
Several seconds later, he felt her cold fingers touch the back of his neck.
They drove south.
63
When he opened his eyes, he found the sky cloudless, pure blue. There were no sounds except for the wind sighing in the trees and the bugs chattering away in the tall grass. He ran his palms overtop a fringe of wildflowers.
The headache claimed him the moment he sat up. It slammed around in the center of his brain, ricocheting like buckshot off the walls of his skull. Wincing, he pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. When he touched beneath his nose, he felt the warm slickness and saw the bright red blood on his fingertips. There were streamers of red running down the front of his shirt, too.
Before he could stand, he was alerted to a tickling sensation along his left arm. When he looked at the bandage Tim had applied, he could see specks of blood blossoming up to the surface. And then the bandage bulged, swelling momentarily before sinking back down. The tickling turned to a frantic itch. The bandage—or, more accurately, whatever was beneath the bandage—swelled like a balloon before deflating again.