He got up and went to the restroom door. It was closed. He knocked but Ellie did not answer. He opened the door and found the restroom empty.
At the front of the store, the door was still closed and locked. The magazine cover was still taped over the hole in the glass and it didn’t appear as if the Night Parade of lighters and cans of Mace had been disturbed. No one had come into the store and no one had gone out.
“Eleanor!”
The only response was from the wind chimes above his head; they tinkled as they swayed in a soft breeze.
What breeze?
He thought simultaneously of the back door and the Glock wrapped up in his jeans, stuffed beneath his sleeping bag. He went quickly to their little campsite, fumbled the gun out onto the sleeping bag, then hastily climbed into his jeans. He headed straight to the back of the store toward the door. It was a fire exit, marked as such by a sign posted close to the ceiling, and it was propped open. A cone of daylight spilled across the scuffed linoleum floor.
David winced as he stepped outside. Aside from the Oldsmobile and a few trash cans strewn about, the parking lot was just as deserted as it had been the night before. Across the street, the storefronts looked empty. There was no movement anywhere. The only sounds came from the cicadas in the trees, emitting their mechanical buzzing.
Was this how the world was to end? Not with a bang and not even with a whimper, but with the slow deterioration of everything good and beautiful and kind? With a sky absent of birds, a world overrun by insects, of droning cicadas and kaiju spiders, and a daughter who simply vanished into thin air while he slept through a matinee of chilling nightmares?
He was losing it; that much was suddenly clear. Get a grip, get a grip. He realized that if he hadn’t had Ellie to take care of, he might have done something terrible to himself long ago. He would have done it right after Kathy had died.
It seems like a hundred years ago that she died, but it’s only been two days. Two goddamn days.
(get a grip get a grip) He hopped down the steps and crossed the parking lot to the sidewalk. He held the gun out in front of him, but it suddenly seemed impossibly cumbersome, as if it had grown heavier while he slept. He paused in the middle of the side street, flanked on both sides by crumbling brick buildings, and considered shouting his daughter’s name. But before he could make up his mind, he caught movement on the other side of the main street—a minute shift beneath the lee of a storefront awning.
He hurried across the street, his jog turning into a full sprint as he recognized Ellie’s slight form beneath the awning. She had her back to him and was peering into the darkened windows of a defunct bistro, hands bracketing her eyes.
“Ellie,” he said, rushing up to her and grabbing her by the wrist.
The girl spun around to face him . . . and for a moment, her face wasn’t hers, it wasn’t even a face at all, but a blank, featureless bulb of flesh, like unmolded putty. But then she was staring at him, perfectly normal, except for the terror in her eyes. His panic had distorted reality.
“What the hell are you doing out here?” he said.
“I thought I saw someone,” she said, tugging her wrist free of his grip. Her gaze focused on the gun, which he quickly tucked into the rear waistband of his jeans.
“There’s no one here,” he told her. “Let’s get back inside.”
“No.” She peered beyond him for a moment before meeting his eyes. “I saw someone. A man.”
David scanned the block. Discarded newspapers waved in the cool breeze, and a few bits of trash bounded along the sidewalk. Other than that, the world was silent and motionless.
“All the more reason to get back inside,” he said in the end, and reached out for Ellie’s wrist again.
“Shit,” Ellie said. She took a step back from him. Yet her eyes were no longer on him; they had refocused on something just over David’s shoulder.
David spun around to see a man quickly crossing the street. He was maybe twenty yards away and closing fast. He held a shotgun in both hands, the barrel pointed at David’s chest.
“Daddy,” Ellie moaned.
“Shhh,” he told her, and instinctively stepped in front of her. He raised both hands. “It’s okay,” he yelled to the approaching man; it was the first thing that came to his mind, and he hated the terrified, pleading quality of his voice. “We’re not doing anything.”
“You’ve got a gun,” the man said. It was not a question. The man stopped less than five yards away, wedging himself between two parked cars. The barrel of the shotgun shook. David couldn’t see the man’s face behind it.
“Yes. For protection. Same as you.”
“Put your hands on your head and turn around.”