Page 69 of The Last Stars in the Sky
She throws her arms around me, pressing into me. “It was my fault,” she whispers, so only I can hear.
My arms close around her automatically, hold her close. “What…?”
“My fault. We were arguing. It was sostupid. She was saying the greenhouse was hers, and I said it belonged to both of us.” She sniffs, the sound close to a sob. “I pushed her, and she fell through the glass. It’s all my fault.” As Mattie sobs into me, I pat her back, murmuring soothing words, my mind whirling. I don’t have time to assuage her guilt; I need to get going.
“It’s okay, Mattie,” I tell her, giving her one last hug. “It’s okay, I promise.”
She steps back, sniffing. “Are you mad at me?”
“No, sweetheart. Of course not. It was an accident.” Besides, I don’t have it in me to think about anything other than getting Ruby what she needs. “I’m not mad, I promise. But we need to go.”
A minute later, we are on the four-wheeler, plowing through the heavy, wet snow, Kerry clinging to my back. The wind is cutting, making my eyes water and my cheeks sting, even though I’m wearing a pair of old ski goggles and a woolen hat—another of my mother’s knitted creations—pulled down as low as it can go. The temperature is hovering around ten degrees. It’s about fifteen miles to Eagle Rapids, and the four-wheeler doesn’t go much above thirty miles an hour, and that’s in decent conditions—not on a cold, snowy night. That’s a long time to be freezing more than half to death.
I don’t want to die out here. Kerry doesn’t either, based on the way she’s burrowing into me.
“Damn, but it’s cold,” she says, her voice whipped away by the wind.
As I pull out onto the main road, my heart gives a little lurch. I haven’t left the property since that terrible trip to Corville, over two months ago now. I have no idea what the world is like anymore; I don’twantto know. And I don’t really find out, as we head west, toward Flintville. The fields are covered in snow and the sky is stretched out above like an endless black canvas, glittering with the first few stars. The scattered farmhouses along the road between here and Flintville look dark, maybe even empty, an abandoned feel to just about everything. It could be any peaceful night in winter, except I’m driving a four-wheeler in the freezing dark, and my daughter might be dying.
We make it to Flintville without seeing a soul but, at its one intersection, a truck on monster wheels roars up to the shuttered gas station and Kerry leans over me to jerk the handlebars hard, so we run right into a ditch.
A startled groan escapes me as we plow straight into the snow, flipping the quad over and landing flat on our backs. I stare up at the sky, completely winded, as the four-wheeler’s engine sputters and dies, plunging the world into sudden stillness.
“Don’t move,” Kerry whispers. “Don’t say a word.”
I’m still too winded to do either; it all happened so suddenly, I can’t believe I haven’t broken my neck. Kerry slithers on her stomach to the top of the ditch, peeking out over its edge. I manage to rise onto my elbows.
“What…” I whisper, barely a breath of sound.
“Ssh.” She turns to give me a fierce glare. I fall silent.
The night is perfectly still, with that eerie, wintry silence that only comes from a heavy blanket of snow, like the Earth itself is holding its breath. But itisn’tsilent, I realize; in the distance, I hear the crunch of boots on snow, low voices, a sudden, harsh-sounding laugh. My whole body tenses.
Our one rifle is strapped to my chest, and I’ve become a better shot over the last two months, but I know without even looking at them that I’m no match for those guys out there.
I peek over the top of the ditch to survey the scene and a startled gasp escapes me. Kerry presses hard on my shoulder, and I slither back down.
“The truck,” I whisper. “It’s my dad’s.”
She stares at me for a long, tense moment. “The same guys?” she whispers.
“I don’t know. They’ve changed the wheels, but it’s my dad’s truck. I saw the bumper sticker on the back.”Honk if you love Jesus. My stomach feels as if it is shriveling inside me, everything curling up in despair. How are we going to get past them? And why on earth are they out here?
What if they’re already looking for us?
And yet we have to keep moving; wehaveto get to this nurse, if she’s even where Kerry thinks she is. Maybe she’s moved on; maybe she’s dead. Maybe she’s there, but she doesn’t have any antibiotics. The sheer futility of everything swamps me, again, and I decide I’m not taking it lying down, which is what I’m literally doing.
“Let’s go,” I say, rising back up onto my elbows.
Kerry gives me an incredulous look. “Are you insane?”
“No, but my daughter is septic, and she will most likely die in a couple of hours. I don’tcareabout these guys.”
She shakes her head. “Alex, remember when I said about getting raped and killed by some backwoods guys?”
“Yeah,” I hiss back, “extras fromDeliverance.I remember.”
She leans toward me. “That isthissituation. Remember what almost happened in Corville? You go out on there on your four-wheeler, you might as well be riding a tricycle. They’ll mow you down inseconds. And I hate to think what they’ll do to you then.”
