by Platt, Sean
Ed had to laugh at the knots of confusion on her face, though he was pretty sure she thought he was laughing at her expense.
“The less I say, the better. Trust me. When the world returns to normal, people will be looking for me. They find out I was with you, they’ll haul you in, ask you more questions than a week’s worth of SAT’s, and make your life a living hell. The less you can honestly answer, and trust me when I say they can tell when you’re lying, the better off you are.”
Teagan stared at him for an uncomfortably long time as if she were still trying to figure out exactly what he was. She needed him to fit neatly into some preconceived notion of good or bad because that’s the way light spilled against the prism of her sheltered adolescent worldview. Few layers of gray existed in her world of blacks and whites.
“So, how did it feel the first time you killed someone?”
Ed moved his eyes from the road, let up slightly on the gas, then looked to his right. To his relief, her expression wasn’t that of a vulture searching the carcass for morbid details; it was the sparrow-like curiosity of an innocent child.
“What do you think it’s like?”
“I can’t even imagine it; it has to be awful.”
“Yeah, it is that. It’s also scary.”
“You’re scared?” she said, surprised. “But you shot those guys like you were picking up a carton of eggs and a gallon of milk.”
“It’s scariest the first time. But it’s never not scary. You’re always looking at two choices — run or act. With each choice comes a consequence. What happens if you run? Will those people continue to threaten you or those you’re protecting? If so, then you really don’t have a choice, do you? You must deal with it in the moment, unless you’re outnumbered or have too many variables to deal with. And when you kill, you must always be prepared for the fallout. And you have less than a millisecond to make the right choice.”
“Did you feel guilty about killing those men at the gas station? I mean, they might not even have meant us any harm. Maybe they were just like us; they had guns to protect themselves from the bad guys.”
“Maybe,” Ed said, “But I can’t think about that. I can’t cry into the rearview. If I ponder all the what-ifs, that leads to guilt and my instincts get dull. It makes it that much harder to act decisively the next time. Soon, I’m dead. Or worse, someone I’m protecting is dead.”
“So how do you deal with those things?” she asked, slowly drifting from curiosity to full-blown psychological exam. “How do you just … forget?”
“I disconnect from the situation. Remove all emotional residual, lingering doubts, and every ounce of guilt. I seal them all in a drum, fuse the lid, then drop it into the deepest ocean of my soul.”
Ed could feel her staring.
“I don’t believe you,” she said, “I don’t think you can just disconnect your humanity like that.”
“You’d be surprised what you can do, have to do, when it’s do or die.”
“I’d rather die than lose my humanity,” she said. It was her turn to stare out the window. Rain began to fall on the windows and roof of the SUV.
Ed flipped on the wipers. “That’s a rather noble idea, really it is. But I guarantee you one thing — once your baby is born, you will go anywhere and do anything to protect it, and believe me, you have no idea what that means.”
A sign ahead announced: Cape Hope: 50 Miles.
Ed hoped to find someone. He needed to lose the pregnant appendage. The sooner he was flying solo, the sooner he could quit the crap and get on with a solution to whatever happened last night.
“I know why you’re not in a rush to get to your daughter,” Teagan said, circling back to the original subject. “You’re afraid of what you’ll find, aren’t you? You don’t know what you’d do if she were gone?”
Ed kept driving.
* * * *
MARY OLSON
Mary and Desmond crossed the parking lot, passed the attendant’s booth at the far edge of the hotel, then stepped onto a narrow strip of State Street on their way to find Paola. Jimmy and John agreed to stay at the hotel, Jimmy downstairs with an eye peeled for Paola, while John swept the upper floors one more time for anything that might help them understand what happened to Mary’s daughter, or the world.
The group agreed to meet back in the lobby of the Drury in one hour, whether they found anything or not. “You look like you actually know where you’re going,” Desmond said, a half-step behind Mary.
Mary couldn't smell Paola, not exactly. But she did know which direction to go. She was following a feeling more than a scent — her daughter’s emotional bread crumbs. She’d first sensed them in the kitchen, and the trail seemed to be growing stronger with every step.
“Paola was here. She left the kitchen, crossed the parking lot, and then went that way.” Mary pointed to a small brick sandwich shop across the street on the corner of State and Trough.
“How do you know?”
“Because she went through the kitchen, I felt her there.” Mary paused to see if Desmond’s eyes gave question to her certainty or sanity, and was relieved to see they didn’t. “Earlier, when we were searching the hotel, I thought maybe she’d come outside for some fresh air or something before heading back inside the hotel. But now I’m positive she left and walked this way. I’m just trying to understand why she left in the first place. I can’t for the life of me see why she’d run off. That’s not like her at all. Paola always thinks she’s right and she loves to be the boss, but she’s a perfectly sensible girl.”
“Any chance she went off to find her dad?” Desmond asked.
“She wouldn’t do that without me. But once we get to the base, I ought to at least see if he’s still here, whether the rest of you want to go with me or not.”
“I can’t speak for the others, but I’ll take you anywhere you want to go,” Desmond said.
They crossed the street then turned onto Trough.
“Once we were back outside, I felt her immediately, like the wind was carrying her trace.” She looked back at Desmond again. His eyes were still receptive to her weird ramblings. “And I swear it’s getting stronger.”
“Is it possible you’re wrong?”
“Nope,” Mary walked faster. “Well, of course it’s possible. And I’m not claiming I can explain why, but I know she went this way.”
“What do you mean? How can you know?” Desmond asked.
Even walking at a half sprint, Mary had time to love the way Desmond asked, not skeptical, just curious.
“I just do. It’s like being hungry or remembering where you left your keys or getting turned on by a brush on your skin or a whisper in your ear. You just know — the feeling is there and as soon as it is, your body knows exactly how to respond and what to do next. Mostly animal, I suppose. Never noticed it before Paola, but I was so tuned into her patterns as an infant, I think I somehow learned to tune into the world around me. With Paola, tapping into the feelings and just knowing things has always been as easy as breathing. But now I find myself knowing other stuff too, and with an almost terrible certainty. It’s great when I’m lost without the GPS, terrible when it makes me know stuff like my husband is sleeping with Natalie Farmer.”
“It’s instinct. Everyone has it,” Desmond said. “Sounds like you listen better than most, though.”
An explanation so simple, Mary felt stupid. “Yeah,” she nodded. “Instinct, that’s exactly what it is. But it’s more than that, too. Especially lately. For the last year or so, I feel like I’m picking up on Paola’s actual thoughts every now and then, and before you call me crazy, I fully admit it might be my imagination. But I don’t think it is. Sometimes I feel like I can hear her thinking. And she’ll say stuff which confirms what I thought she was thinking.”
Desmond nodded, still interested.
“Things have been different since the divorce, obviously, but I think it hit us harder than most families. I know that sounds arrogant. Divor
ce sucks for everyone. But we were happy. Ryan was a good husband and a great dad. We were married for 15 years and best friends for five before that. What he did was really, really stupid, and it made me hate him...no,” Mary shook her head, “...not trust him, enough to end it, but that’s the only thing I can put on his list. Otherwise, he was a great guy. He even left the seat down 95% of the time. I have one unbreakable rule and he broke it. Since the divorce, things have been a lot rougher between Paola and me. She’s gone from my sweet little angel girl to my ultimate foe half the time. Her attitude is endless and most days, I wake up and fall to sleep feeling like I’m fighting a losing battle. She knows what her father did to me and to us, but still blames me for breaking up a happy family. Half the time I think she’s right.”
“I’m sorry,” Desmond said, not seeming to know what else to say. So he improved the subject without changing it. “I believe you about hearing Paola’s thoughts if it makes you feel any better. Makes perfect sense. Other species communicate with one another through psychic transmission. Makes sense that we would to. It’s no different than instinct. I imagine we must have relied on something like that in earlier incarnations of our species. Before the Internet, before TV, before radio, hell, before the written word.”
It was Desmond’s turn to look at Mary. Mary suddenly turned her attention from Desmond to a tire depot on the next corner across the street and pointed.
“She’s down that way.”
Down that way was a narrow road that dipped below a billboard advertising: MAC - DADDY’S –– > “The BIGGEST Burgers In TOWN!!”
They walked faster and Desmond continued. “Let’s say brain waves left a signature? Who would know how to recognize and read Paola’s signature better than you?”
A cold shock rattled inside Mary.
Ryan.
Suddenly she was certain that he did have something to do with this. The feeling was as strong as the others which led her this far. He was the only person, or thing, who could’ve possibly pulled Paola from the hotel. As certain as she felt, though, something was off.
No, it wasn’t Ryan, but rather the thought of him.
Or a dream.
And then she remembered the dreams that Paola had of her dad, frequent ones she’d had since she was in preschool. Then Mary remembered one time when Paola was six, and Mary couldn’t find her anywhere in the house. Just as she was in full freakout mode, Paola came out of the closet yawning. Asking what was wrong. She had sleepwalked in one of her hiding dreams.
Maybe she had done the same thing again. But out here, so far from home, there was no telling where she might be. Or what might find her if they didn’t.
“Shit, Desmond. I’m scared.” Mary’s voice wound its way to a higher note.
“It’s okay.” Desmond took her hand, walked beneath the billboard and onto McFadden, a narrow road of cracked concrete with a trail of sprouts leading to a small service station.
Mary tried to swallow her whimper but it fell out anyway.
And then a horrible thought came into her head.
She’s in pain. Terrible, terrible pain. And Ryan was there. He did this to her. Now she’s on the concrete — cold, alone, stripped of memory, and dying.
Mary pointed to the gas station and her heart sank into her gut. “She’s there!”
Desmond squeezed her hand and pulled her across the street, running.
Paola lay on the ground, under flickering canopy lights cutting through the morning fog. She looked mostly dead. Mary lost herself in a primal cry, fell to her knees and cradled Paola holding her close to her chest. Her daughter looked like a corpse, white as a sheet and altogether hollow. Paola felt the girl’s neck, and for a moment, couldn’t feel a pulse.
No! No, no, no.
She moved her fingers around, desperately searching for movement. And finally, it came, and Mary closed her eyes, thanking God.
Paola’s arms moved, twitched, like that creature on the side of the road and the one she left with a crumbling face just 20 minutes before on the third floor of the Drury Inn.
Desmond kneeled, cupped Mary’s chin, and pulled her eyes toward him. “We’ve got this, okay. Everything will be fine, but we have to go right now.”
Mary nodded.
Desmond tried two locked cars at the pumps before hitting a jackpot with the third parked behind the station. He was in the driver’s seat for three minutes before whatever he was doing got the engine to turn. He pulled the car beside them, stepped from the car, opened the back door, kneeled down, scooped Paola’s withered body into his arms and placed her gingerly into the back seat.
“We’re going to the Drury now. Everything will be fine.”
Mary got in the back seat with Paola and placed her daughter’s head in her lap.
“Everything will be okay,” he repeated.
Mary echoed her vacant nod as she felt her world circling the drain. If Paola died, Mary would follow her into the darkness.
* * * *
EDWARD KEENAN
Cape Hope was named in irony, at least the way Ed saw it.
The coastal community had seen better days, probably by at least a couple of decades, judging from the aged infrastructure, beaten homes, and general civic decay. Ed had seen hundreds of towns like this. Typically, they went one of two directions — slum, or a yuppie “renovation” that transformed the community into thriving strips of overpriced commerce and exclusive gated communities. Given its proximity to the ocean, Ed would’ve bet his every dollar on the latter.
“It used to be a nice place,” Teagan said, as if reading his mind.
“Hard times all around,” Ed said, noting that they wouldn’t have long before the violet sky gave way to darkness. Fortunately, the clouds had parted and the full moon hung fat in the sky, casting the world in a milky blue haze.
“I’m in here,” she said, pointing to the trailer park community yards from the beach.
“Well, location, location, location, location, right? You got that,” When Ed first found Teagan, he pictured her living in the suburbs somewhere, not a trailer park. Not that she looked like she came from money. But in his experience, kids who grew up in trailer parks looked tougher. They had to deal with a lot of shit from their peers blessed enough to live in nicer homes. But Teagan didn’t have that raw exterior. She was soft, perhaps from a lifetime of paternal oppression. Despite her similarities to Jade, they could not be more different in this area.
As they climbed out of the SUV, Ed realized the trailer park wasn’t nearly as bad as he initially guessed. The property was well-maintained, and the quality of the campers above average.
“That’s mine,” Teagan said, pointing to a sky blue double wide with a vibrant flower bed around the porch. A small, tasteful cross was affixed to the door, just above a plain knocker.
She realized too late that she’d left the keys in her mom’s purse in the SUV.
“I got it,” Ed said. He pulled out the wallet he lifted from the home he’d broken into, retrieved a credit card, then slid it in between the door and the frame. “You coming?” He held the door open for Teagan and smiled.
“Wow, it’s that easy to break into someone’s home?”
“If you don’t lock your top lock,” he said. “Though I normally have tools for those.”
Ed handed her one of his two lit flashlights as he held the door open for her.
“Hello? Mom? Dad?”
No answer.
Shit.
Ed stepped back outside, scanning the trailer park for signs of anybody else being home, but the place felt as empty as the rest of the world. He went back inside, looking around Teagan’s home. It was small, but immaculately neat. Ed wondered what kind of taskmaster her father was, lording over his womenfolk to keep the place so tidy.
“I’m sorry they’re not here,” he said.
“I knew it, already,” she said, “I saw them vanish.”
“Yeah,” Ed said, not sure what else to say, his mind
trying to accept the new reality of caring full-time for another person. Maybe two people, if Jade were still alive.
Alive? Maybe everyone’s gone, but that doesn’t mean they’re dead, does it?
Come on, Ed. What else would it mean?
“This is my room,” Teagan said, opening the door to a pink bedroom that looked like it belonged to a girl far younger than her.
What kind of job did your dad do on you?
Ed checked himself, before allowing his judgmental side to run rampant. He’d not even met her father. And the man obviously had issues with his eldest daughter who killed herself, so a lot of things were in play other than him being a control freak and religious nut job.
Two other rooms were in the trailer. One was the master bedroom. The other, Ed assumed, was Teagan’s sister’s. The doorknob had been replaced by a deadbolt. Though he couldn’t see the other side to determine if it had a thumb turn, he would bet money the deadbolt was a double cylinder.
What the hell?
Ed had to swallow hard to keep from asking Teagan about the deadbolt.
“Want a drink?” she asked, opening the door to a warm fridge.
“Thanks,” he said, as she passed him a bottled water.
They both drank, neither saying a word about the elephant in the room — what to do with Teagan.
Though he’d been driving to North Carolina under the illusion he had a choice, truth was, he didn’t. He was her guardian, like it or not.
“You can come with me; we’ll drive to my daughter’s.”
“Are you sure?” she asked; a child afraid to piss off a parent.
He hid his disappointment behind a smile and casual wave of his hand. “Yeah, you two will get along great.”
Neither highlighted the growing certainty that Jade would be gone, like everyone else. But still, if the two yokels at the gas station had survived, there had to be others. Maybe whatever happened hadn’t affected Georgia or Florida.
“Go ahead and get whatever you want to bring and we’ll head out in a few minutes.”