The Night Parade

by Ronald Malfi

  He reached out and used the leg of the nearest rabbit hutch to hoist himself to his feet. Behind the meshwork, large gray rabbits scampered about, panicked. One of them roared at him like a lion. On closer inspection, he saw that they weren’t rabbits at all, but alien creatures with slender, segmented legs and bodies comprised of thick, iridescent shells. Their heads were mainly a system of eyes of varying sizes, some of them mirrored so that David could see his own terrified reflection in them.

  He staggered back to the house, up the steps, in through the porch. It seemed to take a great effort, as if he was doing this simple exercise on a planet with a stronger gravitational pull and less oxygen.

  When he came in through the kitchen door, he saw Tim standing there, tugging on a lightweight jacket. Ellie stood beside him. At the sight of David, a shadow darkened her features.

  “Dad,” Ellie said, her voice low.

  “I was just coming out to look for you,” Tim said. He stood frozen in the middle of pulling on his jacket.

  “I think I’m sick,” David said.

  “Yeah,” Tim said, finally shrugging off his jacket and folding it over one of the kitchen chairs. “We know.”

  David shook his head. “How . . . ?”

  “I could tell the moment I laid eyes on you,” Tim said, “right when I came up and hugged you outside. Ellie told us when you guys got here. She knew.”

  Their secret conversation at the breakfast table, David thought, his mind racing. Their secret birds at the breakfast car. His head pounded and his thoughts were muddled.

  He looked at Ellie. “I’m sorry, baby. I’m so sorry.”

  “I didn’t want to believe it,” she said, “but I knew. I could feel it in you.” She was fighting off tears. He wanted to go to her, comfort her, lie and tell her it would be okay. But at that moment he didn’t trust himself to move.

  “Sit down, David.” Tim moved toward him, pulling out a kitchen chair.

  “No,” David said. He took a step in Ellie’s direction but the world seemed to cant, the floor sliding out from beneath him.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Tim said, and hurried to his side. He grabbed David beneath the armpits and helped lower him onto the kitchen chair. He went down like wet laundry.

  David’s gaze lowered to the table. Three perfect circles of blood, each one smaller than a dime, formed a constellation on the tabletop. He turned his hands over, examined his palms, and thought he saw the ghostly impressions of the wildflowers hidden there among the whorls and creases and crosshatches.

  Ellie took a single step toward him. She seemed hesitant to approach him, though he knew she wasn’t afraid of touching him, of getting sick. She was seeing him, and in perfect clarity, from where she stood, and she was reluctant to move from her vantage because she was digesting every bit of him.

  She’s a special one, Kathy said in his ear.

  “Yes,” he said aloud. “She is.”

  And then she was just Ellie again, Eleanor Elizabeth Arlen, his Little Spoon, the delicate spray of freckles across the saddle of her nose, her eyes impossibly filled with so much intuition and wisdom and understanding that she looked like an old soul in the body of a young child, and she came to him with economical footsteps, a firm expression of both compassion and sadness—

  (cold it’s so cold)

  —and when she reached out and hugged him about the shoulders, he found himself desperate to inhale her every scent, embrace every molecule of her, terrified at the prospect of his traitorous brain dismissing all his best memories of this wonderful, impossible, fierce, loving, inimitable girl, and their brief time together on this planet.

  “I want to save you,” she whispered in his ear.

  “It’s too late for me,” he said.

  Gently, Ellie pulled away from his embrace. He expected her to be crying, but she wasn’t. She was her mother again in that instant, so clearly Kathy that David had to wonder if he wasn’t suffering another hallucination.

  “How bad is it, David?” Tim asked.

  David looked at his brother but didn’t respond. Tim nodded; David’s look spoke volumes.

  “Could you give us a minute, Uncle Tim?”

  “Sure thing, El.” Tim smiled at them both, then left the room, his heavy footfalls receding down the hall until David heard the front door squeal open.

  Ellie turned back to him, not speaking right away. Her eyes scrutinized him. “Does it hurt?” she said.

  “Not really. Just here.” He pointed to his heart.

  Ellie nodded. “Me, too,” she said. A tear rolled down the side of her nose. “I tried to make you better. While you slept, I tried to take it all out of you. I thought maybe . . . maybe the stronger I got, I might be able to do it. But I just couldn’t do it. I’m not strong enough. Not yet. I can’t get the sickness out of you.”

  “It’s okay, baby. It’s okay,” he said. “That power of yours is meant for something. Do good with it, Ellie, but be careful with it, too. Do you understand?”

  She lowered her gaze and nodded.

  Gently, she pulled away from him so that she could see his face. Then Ellie did a strange thing—she reached out and caressed the side of his face. It was something Kathy had done a million times in their marriage. “Daddy Spoon,” she said. Just as he closed his eyes, he heard Ellie say, “You’ve been a good dad. You’ve done your best. I love you.”

  “I love you, baby.”

  He tried to wrap her up in his arms, but his body refused to obey him all of a sudden. Perceptive as always, Ellie intuited his intention, lifted his arms for him, and wrapped them around her waist. He drew her into a hug.

  “I don’t want to keep running and hiding,” she said into his ear. “I want to help the good people, not hurt the bad ones. I want you to let me go. I want you to let me do it.”

  He managed to summon enough strength to squeeze her tightly. He could instruct Tim that she was to stay here in the farmhouse and remain hidden, and Tim had already agreed to do whatever David thought was best . . . but then what would happen if Tim got sick? Ellie would be left alone. He thought of those terrible bugs that had uprooted themselves from the molehills in the yard—and even now, he wondered if they had been real or merely a hallucination brought on by the Folly and his own deteriorating brain—and imagined the farmhouse surrounded by them, swarmed by them, and Ellie trapped inside. Alone.

  We have come to the end of the line, said the head-voice. Bright swirls capered behind his eyelids. This is it, David.

  When they separated, he kissed her on the forehead. Her eyes were planets, her eyelashes like butterfly wings.

  “All right,” he said. “You’re a big girl. You make your own decision. I trust you.”

  She squeezed his hand in hers.

  “I don’t want to go to those doctors who have been looking for us,” she said.

  “No?” This surprised him.

  “No,” she said. “I want us to go back to Goodwin. I want to find those people living in the firehouse, and the man who can heal the sick. Do you remember that story the man Turk told us about those people?”

  “Yes,” David said.

  “I don’t know why, but I think that story is true, and that there is a man there who has abilities like mine. Only he’s older and his powers are . . . stronger. I don’t know how I know this, but I do. I think I even saw him that morning in the street, and it was like he wanted me to follow him, to go find him. And I think maybe he can show me what I need to do to make my powers stronger, too, and use them the right way. There might even be other people out there like me and him, too.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “I don’t know. I just do. I feel like I might be part of a puzzle, one piece that needs to come together with other pieces to stop the world from dying.” She looked down at her hands and said, “Maybe it’s not the cure in my blood that’s supposed to save the world, but the mystery of my power.”

  “You’re such a smart and wonderful gi
rl,” he said.

  “And this man, whoever he is,” she said. “He can help you, Dad. I can’t cure you, but he can. I know he can.”

  He just smiled wanly at his daughter, taking both of her hands in his. He brought her hands to his mouth, kissed her knuckles.

  “What?” Ellie said. “What is it?”

  “Ellie, I’ll never make it back to Kentucky. I’m very sick.”

  Her face seemed to change in subtle increments before his eyes until she was crying again. She withdrew her hands from his. “No,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

  “It’s okay,” David said. “I’ll talk with Uncle Tim. He’ll take you. It’s a good plan, Ellie. You need to do it. And you need to get on the road right away.”

  She shook her head. “No. No, Dad.”

  “It’ll be okay.”

  “No,” she said.

  “I can’t make the trip, Ellie. I’m at the end here, sweetheart.”

  “Then I’ll stay with you until the end. I’ll make it better for you in the end.”

  “No. I don’t want you to see me like that. I don’t want your last memory of me to be . . . to be whatever is going to happen.”

  “I can make it better for you,” she sobbed. “Like I did with the girl on the highway.”

  “I don’t want you to do that,” he said. He leaned toward her so that their foreheads touched. “Now, you go and save the world. You hear me? You go and save the world, Eleanor Arlen.”

  She closed her eyes and nodded, her forehead still against his.

  “That’s my girl,” he said, closing his eyes and smiling to himself.

  His head was full of locusts.

  64

  David watched as Ellie and Tim loaded the Tahoe with some snacks, fresh clothes, and a few jugs of water. Tim also packed the two shotguns and the pistol in the back of the Tahoe, along with several boxes of ammunition. Tim estimated they could make it back to Kentucky in two days, unless they ran into trouble on the road. He had been apprised of Ellie’s plan and had agreed to see it through. “I’ll take care of her like she’s my own daughter,” Tim assured him. “Don’t you worry about that, David.”

  David hugged his brother and kissed the scruffy side of his face.

  He managed to make it out into the yard as they finished packing the Tahoe. Ellie stood beside the Tahoe’s open rear door, hands in her pockets, her face emotionless. She stared at him as he crossed the yard. And she hugged him when he reached her.

  He knelt down so that they were eye to eye.

  “I’ve been meaning to give this to you for a few days now,” he said. “It was Mom’s.” He twisted Kathy’s wedding band off his pinkie and held it out to his daughter. “It’s too big for you now, but you’ll grow into it.”

  Ellie took it between two fingers, holding it up so that the sunlight caused it to sparkle.

  “Happy birthday,” David said.

  She hugged him around the neck. Cried against him.

  “I love you,” he said, and kissed the burning hot side of her face. He braced her head in both hands and pressed the tip of his nose against hers. “Listen to me. Listen to me.”

  She nodded.

  “I’m so proud of you. Your mom and I, we’ve always been so proud of you.”

  “I don’t want to leave you.”

  “It’ll be okay.”

  He kissed her forehead, the side of her face. Said, “Shhh, shhh,” over and over to her until her sobs tapered off, leaving only the sharp hitching of her chest in their place.

  “Okay,” she told him, once she’d gotten herself under control. “I’ll be brave. I’m okay.”

  “That’s my girl.”

  “Little Spoon,” she managed.

  David smiled. “That’s right,” he said. “My Little Spoon. Don’t you forget it.”

  His brain must have shut down for a few seconds then, for when he regained consciousness, he was watching the Tahoe drive away, Ellie’s small silhouette framed in the rear window. She had one palm pressed against the glass, Kathy’s wedding band shining on her finger. She was crying.

  65

  It took him several attempts before he made it up the front porch. Beneath him, the steps seemed to melt and grow soft, and he kept losing his footing. At one point, the handrail turned into a large millipede, its countless legs thrashing, its body undulating beneath his hand, causing him to scream, lose his balance, and tumble down the stairs. Several times he nearly gave up, and curled up on the ground. But the sound of the bugs in the grass began to drive him mad.

  When he finally made it inside, he found that the sky outside the windows was a hellish black, even though he knew it was still midday. He progressed down the hallway, one hand on the wall for support. When he passed the open bathroom door, he saw Burt Langstrom standing there, his face half gone, a fireworks display of blood sprayed along the bathroom mirror. When David blinked again, Burt was no longer there.

  In the kitchen, Dr. Kapoor was seated in a chair, his face as expressionless as a cadaver’s. The charred remains of Deke Carmody appeared beside David at that moment, not even startling him. David could smell Deke’s burned flesh, and when Deke grinned, it was the grin of a skull covered in flaking black chips.

  Go on, Deke said, acknowledging Kapoor propped up in the chair. Grab some of that moonshine, a match, and burn the motherfucker. In fact, go ahead and burn down the whole house. Hell, that’s what I did.

  But when he turned to respond, Deke was gone. So was Kapoor. The house was empty.

  Yet when he turned back to the wall of windows, he saw that a figure stood outside, peering in at him. It was a dark-skinned little boy with rosary beads around his neck. As David stared at him, the boy’s mouth unhinged and a catlike hiss ratcheted up his throat.

  David turned away, his heart thumping. The periphery of his vision was breaking apart, leaving a border of blackness around everything. It was like looking through binoculars.

  Ellie stood in the doorway.

  “Are . . . are you real?” David managed.

  “I couldn’t leave you like this,” she said, crossing the kitchen and coming over to him. He knelt down, wrapped her in his arms, and indeed she felt solid. Real.

  “They don’t have to be bad,” Ellie said into his ear. “Some of them are beautiful. Some of them are the most beautiful things you can imagine. I think that if you hold on to beautiful things when the end comes, then that’s what you’ll see. It’ll be like walking into a wonderful dream.”

  From over Ellie’s shoulder, David could see the shoe box sitting on the kitchen table. The lid was open, the three eggs, impossibly delicate yet somehow quite formidable, corralled together in that skilled construction of twigs and leaves and bits of paper.

  He smiled, his vision growing blurry with tears.

  One of the eggs rolled onto its side. A second egg rocked. A third jumped. One shell appeared to bulge just the slightest bit . . . and then it cracked, a section of it falling away, a dark triangle left in its wake. One of the other eggs cracked down the middle, splitting open. The thing inside the shell was fully feathered, alive, wide-eyed, chirping.

  David laughed. The tears were coming freely now. So was the trickle of blood from his nose. Ellie’s arms grew tighter around him.

  (it’s like flying you can fly now you can fly)

  The birds zigzagged around the room, frantic and beautiful, their birdsong soothing the throb of his headache.

  “Let me take you there,” Ellie whispered to him.

  Just a little while, he told himself, closing his eyes and inhaling the scent of his daughter. Just rest here a little while . . .

  The pressure in his head grew. Blurry smears of dazzling lights projected against his eyelids. Still, he heard the birdsong.

  It’ll be like walking into a wonderful dream.

  Let me take you there.

  66

  And he woke up on a patch of green grass, staring at the sky. The air smelled fresh and
clouds chugged lazily across the bright blue heavens. As he watched, a single bird darted across the sky, small and sharp and fast, like an arrow fired from a bow. Two more birds followed it . . . and then three, five, nine, twenty more . . .

  A moment later, the whole sky was infused with birds—small ones, large ones, countless varieties, shapes, colors—their birdsong a radiant cacophony that seemed to impart wisdom, grant wishes, make dreams come true, the flutter of their wings a chorus of rustling velvet drapes.

  David stood up. He found he was home, standing on his own front lawn. He turned and hurried up the walkway to the front door. He gripped the knob, cool to the touch, and turned it. When he eased the door open, he heard a sound like falling typewriter keys or distant tap dancing—toys lined up on the other side of the door, little plastic figurines, a Night Parade in broad daylight announcing his presence.

  He entered the house, crossed down the hall, and froze when he came through the kitchen doorway.

  Kathy and Ellie were seated at the kitchen table. There was a birthday cake with a waxy number 9 candle on it. Ellie’s stuffed elephant was propped up beside the cake, a pointed party hat fastened to its head. There was also an empty seat waiting for him.

  Kathy waved him over. Laughed beautifully.

  Ellie brightened, just as she used to when she was a little girl. “Daddy,” she said.

  “Little Spoon,” he said.

  And he went to them.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  It’s romantic to think of a story as a found thing, a relic unearthed. Some say stories have always existed, and it’s the author’s job to bring them out into the light of day, much like some sculptors believe their artwork is hidden within the confines of a block of stone. Others believe that you trip over a story, much like you’d trip over a rock half-buried in the earth, and all that is required is for the author to dig it out. And maybe sometimes all of that is true. Other times, it takes the input and counsel of a great many people.