The Night Parade(122)

“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 motherf*cker. 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.