Page 7 of The Midnight Hour
“They shoot us on sight,” I answer promptly. “Or they don’t let us in because they don’t like the look of us.”
He cocks his head. “If they were going to make us slaves, that second option might be no bad thing.”
“True.”
We smile at each other, barely a flicker, before we both lapse into silence as the reality of what we’re facing, the utter unknowability of it, hits us all over again. We can joke about it, and sometimes that feels like the only thingtodo, but it’s real and it’s serious. We don’t know what’s out there. We don’t know how bad it is going to be.
“I don’t know what else to do,” Daniel says after a moment. “Where to go to be safe.”
“We’ve got to try,” I reply, an agreement. “Maybe everything will be better than we think.” Daniel does not bother to reply to this, and I explain a little doggedly, “I mean, I wasn’t expecting the drive here to be so quiet. We saw hardly anyone. And this park…if we had amnesia, we could be on vacation.”
He lets out a huff thatalmostpasses for laughter. “Except we’re in a monster truck. Even with amnesia, we wouldn’t own a vehicle like that.”
Which brings us right back to what I can’t bear to think about, the two men we killed. Daniel must see something of this on my face, for he lays a hand on my arm. “Alex,” he says quietly, and his voice is almost tender. “I was the one who shot first.”
I’m pretty sure he’s just trying to make me feel better, but I nod in acceptance like I’m buying it. He squeezes my arm. “We should all get some sleep.”
I nod again, and then rise from where we were both hunkered down, casting my gaze over the flickering shadows of our campsite. Ruby, Mattie, and Sam are all still seated around the campfire, and I give them a smile that no one seems to acknowledge before I go to check on the others. Kyle is stretched out in the front of the truck, sleeping soundly; I rest the back of my hand against his forehead and, while it’s not cool, it’s not burning hot, either. With a few days’ rest, he’ll hopefully be well enough to travel. Phoebe is curled up in the back, her thumb tucked firmly into her mouth. I wonder how much she can understand; does she realize her mother is not coming back?
Justine.Kerry. My mother, too, dying in her sleep only last night. I can’t think of them yet, can’t open the floodgates to that tidal wave of grief, and so I turn back to the campfire, and my own children, knowing I can’t put off some sort of reckoning with them any longer.
“Hey,” I say softly as I sit down next to Ruby. “How is everyone doing?”
Ruby gives me a fleeting smile but doesn’t speak, Mattie shrugs, and Sam gets up and walks away. It feels as deliberate as a slap. I glance at Mattie, who raises her eyebrows.
“He’sprocessing,” she explains in a tone that suggests I should understand this already, and for a second, fleeting and precious, I can picture her on the sofa back in our old house, legs stretched out as she glances up from the phone that was practically surgically attached to her hand and tells me some pithy, dismissive thing, awell-duhmoment for a middle-aged mom. I would takethatMattie, with all her aggravating eye-rolls and hair-flicks, over this one any day, I realize, as much as I admire how strong and resilient my daughter has become. I want those petty problems back so much it hurts. Cannabis in her locker? A deadbeat boyfriend I don’t like? Fine.Fine. Bring them on. I’d welcome them compared to this.
“Right,” I say, because how else can I respond? We’re all processing, to one degree or another. “Well…we should get ready for bed,” I tell my girls. Daniel and Sam have set up two makeshift tents with the tarps; Ruby and I will sleep in one, Sam and Daniel in the other, while Mattie stays with Phoebe and Kyle in the truck. It’s not ideal, but it will work.
“Yeah, okay,” Mattie says, but she doesn’t move. The fire casts dancing shadows over her face, her dark eyes serious, her arms wrapped around her knees.
I turn to Ruby, who is so still, so silent. Ruby has gone through phases of selective mutism for most of her life, but she’d started to come out of herself, once we’d settled into this strange new life. She had her home-made greenhouse and her books, and I think she was happy, or as much as anyone could be, all things considered. Tentatively, I put my arm around her, and am relieved when she doesn’t shake it off.
“Okay, Rubes?” I ask softly, and she leans her head against my shoulder and closes her eyes. I squeeze her shoulder, grateful for this moment. At the edge of the camp, I can see Sam moving away, into the darkness, and I wonder what tomorrow will bring—for the world, but also for this ragtag group of survivors that we are going to have to form into a family. No matter what my children think of me now, I’m determined to keep us all together and safe, even if I already know it’s a promise I don’t have the power to make, never mind keep.
FOUR
DANIEL
December, six months earlier
“Dad!”
Sam breaks into a run, a huge smile splitting his face, as he catches sight of Daniel sitting in the SUV he stole from some teenaged boys twenty minutes before. For a second, Daniel can hardly believe this is real, that he’s actually made it here, to his son. It took him three weeks to get from rural Ontario to this part of upstate New York, between Utica and Syracuse—he’s been threatened, shot at, has both starved and nearly frozen to death. He feels like a jumble of broken parts, rusted and useless. His lips tremble as he tries for a smile.
“Sam…”
Sam jogs to the passenger side and throws open the door. He’s got a backpack over his shoulder and he’s carrying a duffel bag in one hand. Daniel could be picking him up for an impromptu father–son weekend in the city—catch a football game, steaks for dinner—save for the unsmiling Marine holding an assault rifle and standing next to the car.
“I knew you’d come,” Sam says, and hesounds jubilant. Daniel can’t make sense of it. He’s glad,soglad, to see his son, but who can be happy in this brave new world of desolation and destruction? How can Sam be smiling? Daniel realizes he is not; he’s just sitting there, gaping.
Abruptly, he lurches over and embraces his son as tears crowd his eyes. “Sam,” he says again, like a blessing, hugging him tightly. “Sam.”
“Sir, you need to move on now.” The Marine waves his rifle meaningfully.
Daniel nods his understanding. When he arrived here, he thought the Marine might shoot him just because he could. But then he explained about Sam, and the soldier’s weathered face softened with understanding as he gave a brusque nod. He sent someone to get Sam, warning Daniel that they would not be accepting anyone back into the guarded community if they left. Daniel glanced at the tree-filled campus, the limestone buildings, the low stone walls, and nodded his understanding. They would not be coming back.
Now he reverses the car as Sam throws his bags in the back and puts on his seatbelt. Daniel can’t believe hownormalthis feels. Nothing has been normal for over a month, since he first saw the nuclear attacks on the TV—no more than an orange blaze, clouds of billowing smoke. Three days later, he’d left to find Sam. He can still picture Alex’s face, thehardnessin it, as she’d told him to go. Of course, he would have gone anyway, but the unyielding look in her eyes, the hint of blame or even threat in her voice, well…that had stung.
