The Night Parade

by Ronald Malfi

  David turned the corner and stood at the end of the aisle, looking down the rows of books that emptied out onto the lobby. There was no one there, but he saw a shadow retreating along the walkway on the other side of the mechanized doors. Above his head, one of the tubed lights hissed at him then blinked out. When he glanced up, he could see the Rorschach shapes of insects skittering behind the panel of pebbled plastic that covered the fluorescent lights.

  When he returned to the computer terminals, he found Ellie still seated in one of the plush armchairs with the large book opened on her lap, talking to a stout and frizzy-haired woman in her sixties. David recognized her as one of the librarians from behind the checkout desk. The librarian looked up at him and offered him a smile.

  “Such a polite young man,” the librarian said to David. He thought she was talking about him at first, but then realized Ellie’s disguise had done the trick.

  “You just caught him on a good day,” David said.

  “Most kids, they come in here and go straight for the DVDs. Not that we get many kids in here anymore. It’s nice to see a child interested in books. And such an adult book, too,” she added, peering over at the text. “From our reference library.”

  “He’s a reader, all right,” said David.

  “Is there anything you needed help with?”

  “No, ma’am. But thank you.”

  When the librarian left, David lowered his voice and said, “What did she say to you?”

  “Nothing,” said Ellie. “She just asked what I was reading.”

  He glanced at the large book in her lap. “What are you reading?”

  “It’s about bird eggs. All different kinds.” She turned the large book around for him and pointed to a photo of whitish eggs marbled with dark brown splotches. They looked like a Jackson Pollock painting. “These are oriole eggs. They look just like mine, don’t they?”

  “They do,” he said. “I guess that makes sense. It’s Maryland’s state bird, you know.”

  “Not anymore,” Ellie said, and closed the book.

  32

  He decided against driving straight to Kansas City, fearful that someone might recognize them in a big city, so they remained for a while longer in Harmony. He also wanted to check his e-mail at the Harmony library one more time before moving on. He was trying desperately to remain hopeful that he’d hear back from Tim.

  There was a small movie theater showing cheesy sci-fi films from the sixties, so David bought a couple of tickets and, for a few hours, he and Ellie sat in the mostly empty movie theater, cloaked in darkness. They shared a bucket of popcorn and a large cup of Sprite, and a few times Ellie laughed at the ridiculousness of what was on-screen. David laughed right along with her. Yet he couldn’t help but wonder if this was the last movie they would ever watch together. He felt jittery, sweaty, constantly paranoid that someone would come into the theater and try to pry him from his daughter.

  Halfway through the movie, he felt something tickling his upper lip. He touched it and, even in the darkness of the theater, he could see there was blood on his fingertips. A column of panic rose up in him.

  “I need to use the restroom,” he whispered in Ellie’s ear. He was covering his mouth and nose with his hand. “Stay here. Don’t leave the theater.”

  “Okay.”

  He hurried out into the lobby and, still covering his nose, made a beeline for the men’s room. Thankfully, the place was unoccupied. He went directly to the mirror just as a streamer of blood slipped from his right nostril, cascaded over his lips, and dripped off his chin onto the floor tiles.

  “Shit.”

  He grabbed a fistful of paper towels and pressed them to his face. He groped for the sink and turned on the water. It chugged out of the faucet in a noisy spray.

  He soaked through several paper towels before the bleeding let up. He held his head back, pinching his nostrils together, while he wet a fresh wad of paper towels under the faucet. He stuck this wad into his mouth, wedging it between his gums and his upper lip, just the way his mother had done on the few occasions he’d gotten a nosebleed as a child.

  Someone entered the bathroom, startling him. He glanced in the man’s direction—a guy in his late twenties in a white hoodie and oversized jeans hanging halfway down his ass. The guy froze in the doorway when he saw David. Without uttering a word, the guy turned and left.

  Shit shit shit shit shit—

  The reflection in the mirror was now that of a vampire, a pale-faced night creature who subsisted on blood and would crumble to ash in the sunlight. The bloodied nose, he convinced himself, was from his collision with Cooper back in Goodwin, which had been the thing that had set it bleeding initially. He must have done something to rupture it all over again and—

  His cell phone trilled.

  He fumbled it out of his pocket and examined the screen before answering. The caller ID was blocked, which gave David pause, but in the end he decided to answer it in hopes that it might be Tim. “Hello? Hello?” His voice was panicked and throaty, and his mouth tasted like blood.

  “David? You okay?” It was Tim.

  “Jesus Christ,” he uttered into the phone. Relief coursed through him like a narcotic. “Oh, Jesus Christ, Tim. I was starting to worry that you were . . .” He trailed off.

  “I’m here. I’m here. What’s wrong? Your e-mail scared me.”

  There was no getting around it, so he cut right to it. “Tim, Kathy’s dead.” And just saying the words aloud caused a sob to lurch up from his throat. His hands wouldn’t stop shaking, and his vision began throbbing in sync with his pulse.

  “Fuck,” Tim said. “No. No, David. Ah, Jesus. How? When? What . . . what happened?”

  “It was a few days ago. Tim, it’s a long goddamn story and it’s gonna sound crazy. I’m terrified to go into it over the phone. I’m worried someone might be tracking my cell phone.”

  “What the hell is going on, man?”

  “Some people are after Ellie and me. Government people.”

  “Because of Kathy?”

  “Not exactly,” he said. “Kathy was in the hospital. She volunteered. Doctors, they were studying her. They thought she might be immune to what’s been going on, this fucking Wanderer’s Folly, but they pushed her too hard. They killed her. Now they want to take Ellie away from me and do the same thing to her.”

  “Where’s Eleanor now?”

  “She’s okay. She’s with me.” He closed his eyes, forced himself under control. “Tim, I need your help.”

  “Where are you?”

  For a moment, he had no clue—his brain was fuzzy, his thoughts jumbled and nonsensical. But then the confusion dissipated, revealing a sharp gleam of clarity, and he said, “I’m about an hour or so from Kansas City. I came all this way hoping I could see you, that we could talk in person—”

  “Shit, David, I split KC over a year ago. I’m off the grid now. I’m in Wyoming.”

  David felt the floor drop out from under his feet.

  “Oh,” he said into the phone, but it was someone else’s voice now. The ceramic tiles that formed the backsplash behind the restroom sink appeared to rearrange themselves. David squeezed his eyes shut. He braced himself against the wall with one hand so that he wouldn’t topple over. “Okay. Shit. Well, how far is that?”

  “From KC? Maybe ten hours. Twelve, if you’re cautious about speeding and cops.”

  Twelve hours, David thought. A whole day. Jesus Christ. Can we make it that far?

  “Listen,” David said. “I’m going to try to get there.”

  “Sure, sure,” Tim said, “but just hold on a sec, okay? Let me think.”

  David leaned against the restroom door and glanced out into the theater lobby. Two teenagers chatted behind a glass counter, a guy and a girl. They had plastic Halloween masks perched on their heads, but they didn’t seem too concerned about germs, judging by the proximity of their faces. It made David think of the guy in the paper plate mask back in the library, and
how he’d been staring at him from between two bookshelves.

  “Okay,” Tim said. “I think I’ve got an idea that will help you out, but I need to make a phone call first. I’m not sure how long it will take. Are you able to stay there in the city overnight? Do you have money?”

  “I’ve got enough for a motel.”

  “If not, I can maybe wire you some—”

  “No, I don’t want to get into all that. I’m trying to lay low. I can find a motel off the highway, but I don’t want to go traipsing around the city looking for a Western fucking Union or whatever. I’ve got enough cash on me.”

  “Okay, good. Meantime, I’ll get things rolling on my end. You’ll hear back from me as soon as possible. Just sit tight.”

  “Okay. And thank you.”

  “Stay safe.”

  Tim hung up.

  David washed his face and hands again before hustling back out into the lobby. The place was dead, but he noticed a white van parked in a loading zone outside the theater, and the sight of it caused his bowels to clench.

  No, please . . .

  He hurried back inside the theater, staggering blindly down the aisle looking for the silhouette of Ellie’s small head above the seats. When he found her, he leaned over and told her they had to leave.

  “The movie’s not over yet,” she protested.

  “Now,” he said. The few other people in attendance turned and looked in their direction.

  Ellie joined him in the aisle, and he ushered her quickly out into the lobby. The white van was still there. Scanning the parking lot through the wall of windows, he could see a black sedan parked in a spot beneath a lamppost. A second black car was pulling off the highway and coming up the paved roadway that led toward the theater.

  “Come on,” he said, and grabbed her hand. They hurried toward the fire exit. David leaned against the arm bar, expecting an alarm to sound, but nothing happened. They shoved out into the side parking lot.

  “What’s going on?” Ellie said.

  “There’re people out front.”

  “Cops?”

  “I don’t know exactly who they are.”

  Still clutching her hand, he dragged her around the side of the building. At the corner, he peered into the front lot. The van was still parked out front. There was someone behind the wheel talking into a cell phone. The sedan parked in the lot looked empty, though it was difficult to tell because the windows were tinted. The second black vehicle turned right toward a shopping center instead of left toward the movie theater. It could have been a ploy to disarm him or it could have been their tactic, circling around the opposite end of the shopping center only to come at him from the rear.

  The guy climbed out of the van, stuffing his cell phone in the rear pocket of a pair of faded jeans. He looked young and blue collar, with a ball cap tugged down low over his eyes. He had a ponytail. When he entered the theater, David tightened his grip on Ellie’s hand and said, “Let’s go.”

  They ran across the parking lot and made it to their car without anyone jumping out of the shadows and grabbing them. The engine growled to life. It was all David could do not to slam down on the accelerator and peel out of the parking lot. But he didn’t want to draw any attention to their escape. He pulled out slowly while Ellie whipped her head around, looking for signs of danger. The white van didn’t move. The parked sedan remained parked. The second black vehicle did not reappear from the other side of the theater.

  They pulled back out onto the highway and drove.

  33

  Turned out the motel room back in Virginia that first night had been a fluke. David tried two motels in the vicinity of Harmony, but neither would let him pay cash without also showing his driver’s license. He might have risked it had he been in a less populated part of the country, but things in Harmony, Missouri, seemed pretty much on the ball, what with all the FOLLY FREE, COME AND SEE! signs in the shop windows. Nowadays, good, healthy places were also xenophobic places, suspicious of strangers snaking into their midst and spreading their poison. He didn’t want to risk someone recognizing his name or the picture on his driver’s license and putting two and two together. Instead, he drove out of the city, thinking he’d find better luck along the highway. But every place he passed was a Marriott, a Motel 6, a Residence Inn, or some similar chain where he knew he’d run into the same problem. Probably, those places wouldn’t even take cash. In the end, he settled on a seedy one-story cinder-block establishment that looked like it catered to prostitutes and had probably seen its fair share of homicides within its walls. The haggard female desk jockey did not disappoint, and brandished him with a metal key dangling from a plastic fob without so much as a glance in his direction.

  While Ellie slept in the small bed beside him, her shoe box of oriole eggs on the fiberboard nightstand, David sat propped up on a stack of pillows flipping through muted TV channels. His heart hadn’t regained its normal rhythm since their escape from the theater.

  After a time, he set the remote down on the nightstand and went into the bathroom. His hands were shaking, and his entire body ached. He still looked like death in the mirror, but he was thankful that his nose hadn’t gushed any more blood since the theater restroom. Leaning close to the mirror, he examined his pupils. His eyes looked okay.

  You’re sick, David. Your last blood test. You’ve got it.

  A thought occurred to him then—one worse than him dropping dead while on the road and leaving Ellie to fend for herself. He thought of Sandy Udell, the kid who had jumped out of the window of his classroom while shrieking about monsters, and of Deke Carmody’s madness, which had resulted in the man setting his whole house on fire while he was inside. He thought, too, of the countless horror stories he had heard on the news and read in newspapers since the beginning of the outbreak. All those terrible things people did to themselves. . . and to others.

  What if it wasn’t a ruse, and that he really was sick?

  What if he hurt his daughter?

  Terror flooded through him at the notion of it. What if he awoke with his hands wrapped around his daughter’s throat? What if he . . . Jesus Christ, what if he did something to her with the fucking handgun?

  No. I’ll keep it together. I won’t let that happen.

  Which was probably what everyone in the world thought . . . until it happened to them and proved them wrong.

  Please don’t let that happen. Please let me hand her off to Tim without a problem. After that, if I’m really, truly sick, and it wasn’t just that fucking doctor messing with my head, then I’ll give up the ghost. Just a little while longer . . .

  As if summoned by his prayer, his cell phone vibrated in his pocket. He dug it out and saw the blocked caller ID.

  “Thank God,” David breathed shakily into the phone.

  “You guys okay?” Tim said. “You hanging in there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, good. Listen, here’s the deal. Remember the road trip from hell? The one we all took when we were kids?”

  “You mean the cross-country trip in that camper?” David said. Tim’s father had rented a camper and the four of them had piled inside and toured the country for five weeks. They’d visited national parks, campgrounds, various cities, and other banal landmarks of interest only to David’s stepfather.

  “Best left forgotten, I know,” said Tim, “but do you remember the Great Vomit Fest and Mystery Fire? The one at the campsite?”

  “Jesus Christ. Of course I do.” To his own amazement, he felt a smile break out across his face.

  “Perfect. Meet me there tomorrow night around nine. You should have plenty of time to get there if you leave early enough in the morning.”

  “Tim, it’s not necessary for you to drive all that—”

  “Quiet. Don’t talk about it. You just get your butt out there.”

  “I will. Christ, Tim, thank you. You have no idea.”

  “Not a problem. You sure you don’t need money?”

  “I�
��m good.”

  “And how are you feeling? You holding up? Are you able to drive?”

  “Yes.”

  “And Ellie?”

  “She’s amazingly okay. She’s tough.”

  “Okay, okay. Look, we’ll take care of it. In the meantime, stay off the cell phone. Those things are like hauling around a tracking device. Don’t use a GPS, either. Stick to old-fashioned road maps. And try to get some sleep.”

  “I will. I can’t thank you enough.”

  “Don’t thank me yet, bubba,” Tim said.

  “Good night,” David said into the phone before realizing that his stepbrother had already hung up.

  Fatigue crashed down on him. Suddenly, it was all he could do to keep his eyes open. He crawled back onto the bed and switched off the lamp. He thought he could sleep for a thousand years, and imagined he was already dead. His eyelids stuttered closed. He yawned. Somewhere in the street, a car alarm blared then went silent, as though garroted. He wondered if it was real or if he was just imagining things.

  After a time, he got up and gathered the Glock up from beneath the bed, where he’d wrapped it in his T-shirt. He released the magazine and racked the slide so the chambered round popped out. He stuck the gun back under the bed but hid the magazine on the shelf in the closet. In the event something terrible took hold of him in the night—in the event that Dr. Kapoor hadn’t been lying to him after all—he might not retain the memory of where he’d hidden the mag, the gun, or both. He hoped so, anyway.

  That night, his sleep was restless and plagued by demons.

  34

  Six months earlier

  The day after Sandy Udell launched himself from a second-story window of the humanities building, both David and Burt Langstrom were interviewed by a police detective named Watermere. They were interviewed separately, taking turns occupying the cramped, book-laden office adjacent to the teachers’ lounge, where the cloying, antiseptic smell of Watermere’s aftershave was more intimidating than the police detective himself. Watermere’s questions were benign and shallow little probes, and he appeared fatigued and overwhelmed by the details of it all. David described what had happened, up until the paramedics arrived on the scene.