Page 60 of The Midnight Hour
“Is everyone okay?” he shouts, and for a split second I’m reminded of when we had a fender bender that resulted in our rear window being shattered and Mattie getting a bruise on her leg from being flung forward in her seat. It’s the same hoarse and authoritative demand of a father who is determined to take care of his family.
And he’s doing it still, I tell myself.We’re going to get out of this.
“Yeah, Dad,” Mattie whispers. “We’re okay.”
We drive in silence for another minute, maybe two; no one speaks and there are no more gunshots. I finally dare to raise my head from the dash. “Did we lose them?” I ask, risking a look behind us. All I see is empty, darkened road.
“I think so,” Daniel replies, “unless they know where we’re going and plan to cut us off.”
“Butwedon’t know where we’re going,” Mattie points out. “So how could they?”
‘They’ll figure we’re going north,” Daniel tells her. “And the only way north from here is Route11.”
“So…” I prompt, trusting he has a plan. “What are we going to do?”
“Go south,” Daniel replies with a quick, small grin. “And then head north. We’ve got half a tank of gas, so we should be okay.”
“And when we go north,” Nicole interjects, “where are we actually going?”
“I looked in the atlas earlier,” Daniel says, passing a hand over his forehead, which I notice is beaded with sweat, and his skin possesses a grayish cast. “There’s a fishing camp about fifty miles northwest of North Bay. Red Cedars, it’s called. I don’t know much about it, but it will have cabins of some kind and it will be on a lake with fishing.” He glances at Kyle. “Have you ever gone ice fishing, Kyle, back in Corville?”
Mutely Kyle shakes his head.
“Well,” Daniel replies cheerfully, “there’s a first time for everything.”
We drive south, seeing no one and nothing; Daniel drives without headlights to avoid detection, so it feels as if there’s nothing but darkness—dense evergreens lining the road, which snakes like a dark ribbon through the trees. High above us a handful of stars glitter from behind banks of clouds, the only faint light.
Fifteen minutes and ten miles later, Daniel takes an exitoff the road and then gets back on it, heading north. Was it long enough? Will they have set up a roadblock or, worse, some kind of trap I can’t bear to think about, so our escape is over just as it has begun?
Tension tautens the closed confines of the car as we silently count off the miles, no one saying a word. We pass the exit for North Bay, the old sign for 22 Wing barely visible in the darkness, and then we keep driving. Two, three, four miles. After ten, I begin to breathe easier. Surely there’s no blockade, no trap. We’re on our way.
In the darkness, Daniel turns and gives me a quick smile. Silently I reach out and twine my fingers with his, giving them a brief squeeze before letting go.
Then I turn my face to the window and the moonless night as Daniel keeps driving.
TWENTY-THREE
I open my eyes to wintry sunlight and a dark-eyed, dark-haired child standing about six inches from my face, staring at me silently. For a confused few seconds, I think it’s Phoebe, but then I realize it’s an older child—maybe five or six—and a boy.
I sit up, blinking the sleep from my eyes. I’m in a bed in one of the dozen cabins at Red Cedars Fishing Camp, on Red Cedar Lake, fifty miles northwest of North Bay. And there’s someone else here.
I look around the bedroom of the cabin and see that Daniel is still asleep next to me, breathing deeply. Last night, we pulled into the darkened camp, half-afraid of what we might stumble across, only to find it looking empty and abandoned. We bypassed the main building and drove to the two cabins farthest from the road; the doors were unlocked, the beds made up, if smelling a little musty. The whole place felt as if it were completely untouched since before the bombs, which was both unsettling and reassuring. I was reminded of Goldilocks, creeping in and trying out all the furniture, and here I was, the next morning, woken by someone who might belong here more than I do.
I prop myself up on my elbow and manage a smile. I tell myself I don’t need to be frightened of a child. “Hello,” I greet him.
The boy blinks at me. He has dark, silky hair and thick, spiky lashes. His face is an impassive oval. I wait for him to speak, wondering who he belongs to. Who else is here, and are they friendly?
“What’s your name?” he finally asks, and I almost laugh at the surreal normality of his question.
“Alex. What’s yours?”
“Jason.”
“Hi, Jason.”
He nods his own greeting, then gestures to Daniel, who is still asleep. “What’s his name?”
“Daniel.” I pause. “Where do you live, Jason?” I ask tentatively.
