It was a dining room with a large oak table at the room’s center, set with what looked like good china for several people. But the meal would never come. David counted six bodies of varying sizes hanging from ropes tied to the exposed ceiling rafters. The smallest one looked like that of a child maybe no older than four or five. The air was black with flies, and the smell, which struck David instantaneously, was as thick and meaty as an abattoir’s—so much so that both he and Ellie began to gag.
David cradled Ellie’s head against his chest. He tried the front doorknob, found this one was locked, then fumbled through the key ring for the house key. He jabbed two different keys into the lock before finding the correct one. It turned, and David shoved open the door and dragged Ellie out onto the porch.
“Let’s go, let’s go!” he shouted, pulling Ellie toward the car. He unlocked the door, yanked it open, and shoved Ellie inside. He climbed in after her, and in his panic, it took him three or four attempts to jab the key into the ignition. When he finally got it, he had a moment to wonder what he would do if the goddamn car wouldn’t start before he cranked it. The engine roared to life.
He reversed down the driveway and hit the road hard enough to rock the car on its shocks. Ellie cried out, “Too fast!”
He slowed down once he was cruising in a straight line toward the highway, the houses with those red X’s on their doors streaming by in a blur. They drove by the field of scarecrows again, and in David’s periphery, they appeared to be shambling down off their posts. David forced himself not to look.
It seemed to take forever to reach the highway. He took the exit, merged with what little traffic there was, and tried to make this shiny red car look less conspicuous by sheer force of will.
They were only on the highway for less than thirty seconds when David heard a distant drumming sound.
“Do you hear that, too?” he asked Ellie.
Ellie was hyperventilating and didn’t answer. David glanced at her, gripped her knee. She just stared blankly out the windshield, her chest heaving, her respiration disconcertingly labored.
David looked due north and saw three helicopters descending in the direction of the town he and Ellie had just left. The helicopters passed directly over the highway. David could feel the choppers’ rotating blades vibrating through his bones. He kept waiting for them to change course in midair. He kept waiting for them to pursue.
But they didn’t.
That man at the milk shake place—Ninety-nine Cutlass, am I right?—had seen the Maryland tags, had seen the young “boy” coming out of the women’s restroom, and he had called the police. Or maybe he had been a cop himself. A detective like Watermere.
“You’re bleeding,” Ellie said. She had gotten herself under control and was staring at him now with concern in her eyes.
He touched his nose but his fingers came away clean. He looked at his face in the rearview mirror.
“No,” Ellie said. “There.”
He glanced down. There was a swath of blood across the front of his shirt and more smeared along his left arm. His palm was sticky with it, and he had gotten some on the steering wheel. He turned his arm over and saw a gash in the flesh just above the left elbow. It must have happened when he elbowed the glass while breaking in to the house.
“I’ve got towels and shirts and stuff in my bag,” he said.
She just stared at him.
“In the back!” he shouted.
Ellie shook her head.
“What?” he said. “What?”
“You’re thinking of the wrong car,” she said.
42
There were napkins in the Monte Carlo’s glove compartment, which David used to staunch the bleeding. The owner’s manual was in there, as well, wrapped in a plastic folder bound with a large rubber band. David used the rubber band to bind the napkins to his injured arm. The band was tight enough to slow much of the bleeding, which was good; the wound was deep enough to require stitches, but he couldn’t stop and worry about something like that right now.
He repaired his arm while driving, and when he finished, the steering wheel was tacky with drying blood. He’d gotten more blood down the side of his shirt and on the inside of the door, too. When he began to feel a little light-headed, he fought to keep his gaze steady on the road ahead.
He took mental inventory of all the things they’d left behind in the Olds. At least I’ve still got the gun, he thought. Also, the money. How much was left? He was burning through it too quickly, and he had splurged on unnecessary purchases in an attempt to keep Ellie in a state of complacency as best he could. Milk shakes had soothed her, much as the pizza lunch. As had the motels. Had he been alone, he would have risked sleeping in the car and been frugal with every dime, but he was also trying to keep some semblance of normalcy in his daughter’s life. It was a delicate balance.
Not to mention I wouldn’t even be doing this if I was alone . . .