The Night Parade(39)

“Stay here,” he said.

“Be careful.” She sounded like an adult.

He crossed over to a display of camping gear, a trio of mannequins seated in camping chairs outside a bright orange pup tent, camouflaged knapsacks at their feet. He was alerted to a ghostly moan that started out low, then ascended through the octaves. He froze in place, looking around. The store looked empty; there was no movement from the rear of the shop, where darkness encroached upon racks of clothing and shelves laden with camping gear.

“There,” Ellie said, pointing to a spot on the ceiling just above David’s head.

He looked up and saw a set of bamboo wind chimes swaying from an acoustical tile; a gentle breeze was issuing in through the hole he’d punched in the glass and causing the bamboo chimes to howl.

In no time he was able to locate a battery-powered lantern, which he used to check out the rest of the shop before inviting Ellie to join him. Briefly, he fretted over the idea that the lantern’s light would be visible to anyone who happened to stroll by the shop, but then he convinced himself he was being paranoid. Besides, it was important he execute a thorough check of the place, lest he come across any undesirable scenario at the end of one of the aisles or in one of the darkened corners of the shop. He’d seen some in the past, and he didn’t want Ellie stumbling across anything perverse.

But there were no horrible scenes lying in wait for them. The place hadn’t even been ransacked, as far as David could tell. He wondered if this was a good sign or a bad sign—why hadn’t the place been ransacked?—before convincing himself that if he continued to overthink everything, he’d eventually blow a gasket.

The only time he paused was when the lantern illuminated a bright orange extension cord coiled like a cobra on a shelf. The sight of it caused sweat to pop out on his forehead. The hand holding the lantern began to tremble. He turned quickly away from it.

“There’s snacks,” Ellie said, peering down into a glass display case. On the top shelf were boxes of protein bars.

“Grab a handful,” David told her. He snatched two sleeping bags from a shelf and carried them over to a second tent display set up in the center of the store. This tent was larger, with a zippered flap at the front. He set down the lantern, then unspooled each sleeping bag, tucking them partway into the tent so that only their legs would poke out.

“I got a bunch,” Ellie said, coming over with an armful of protein bars. She set them down beside her suitcase and shoe box, then examined David’s setup.

“It’ll be like camping,” he said.

“Okay.”

He took the baseball hat off her and rubbed a hand along her head. Her short hair felt strange to him. “Make yourself comfortable. I’ll be back in a sec.”

At the front of the store, there was a multitude of small items by the register—little cylinders of Mace, a display of plastic lighters, key chains, a rack of embroidered wallets, brightly colored whistles, and slender metal canisters whose labels suggested the product was made with actual deer urine. David stuffed several cans of Mace into his pockets, then grabbed two fistfuls of lighters. He returned to the door, where broken javelins of glass sparkled in the moonlight across the floor. Meticulously, he went about placing the canisters of Mace and the plastic lighters in tidy little rows in front of the door.

“What’s that for?” Ellie asked.

“In case someone comes in,” he said. “They’ll knock these over and we’ll hear them.”

“Like a trap?”

“More like an alarm system.”

“Who would come in?” She was gazing out the window at the darkened street beyond.

“No one,” he said. “It’s just to be safe.”

“Smart idea,” she said.

“Yeah? Well, I got the idea from you, you know.”

“From me? How?”

He stood up, his back aching. Wincing, he went over to a rack of hunting magazines and selected one. He nodded toward the counter and told Ellie to go back there and find him some tape or something. She returned with a spool of electrical tape.

“Perfect.” David took the spool and tucked it under one arm while he tore the cover off the hunting magazine. He proceeded to tape the cover over the hole he’d knocked in the glass. “When you were around three years old,” he said, “you used to set up some of your little toys in the front hall of the house, right by the front door. You did this every night before bed, without fail, for the longest time. One night I asked you why you did that, and you said it was in case someone ever tried to get in while we were asleep, they’d trip over the toys and we’d hear them and wake up. Do you remember?”

Ellie shook her head. Her eyes were huge in the semidarkness.

“Your mom and I called it the Night Parade—all those little toy figurines marching across the floor, keeping watch over us while we slept. Protecting us.”

“Did anyone ever break in?”

“No. But I nearly broke my neck over them a few times, stumbling around in the middle of the night for a glass of water or to go to the bathroom.”

“What was I so afraid of?”

“I never thought of it that way. You were just a smart kid,” he said. “You still are.”

“Were you there when Mom died?”