The Night Parade(59)

He kept anticipating a second sonorous blast from the shotgun, or perhaps for his pursuers to appear around the next street corner. But neither of those things happened. He jammed the key in the ignition, revved the Oldsmobile’s engine, and sped out onto the vacant street. Tires squealed as he gunned it toward the town limit.

The only peculiar thing he saw—or imagined he saw—was the wooden Jesus from the Powell house, now liberated from His cross, standing in a narrow alleyway between two buildings, staring at David with those mad eyes . . .

*

He was still speeding fifteen minutes later when a police car turned on its rack lights behind him.

Shit.

He looked over at Ellie, who sat ramrod-straight in the passenger seat. The expression on her face—or lack thereof, for she looked to him like a zombie freshly dragged from the grave—terrified him.

He glanced up at the rearview mirror.

Maybe it’ll pass us.

But they were the only two cars on this desolate stretch of highway.

Shit. Shit.

The cruiser sped up until it was right on his bumper. David considered his options, which were practically nil, before clicking the directional and pulling over onto the shoulder.

Ellie turned around in her seat and stared through the rear windshield as the car came to a stop. “What are you doing?” There was panic in her voice.

“We have to stop,” he said.

“No!”

“It’s okay. Relax.”

Cooper’s gun lay on the console between their seats.

This is it, he thought. It’s showtime. What am I made of?

He picked up the gun. It was still warm. The interior of the car reeked of gunpowder. Or maybe that was just in his head. Either way, the gun felt like it was forged from iron; it was impossible to hold it steady. At the last second, he shoved it under his seat.

The officer approached the vehicle and made a roll-your-window-down gesture when he came up to the door.

“Daddy,” Ellie said.

“Shhh,” he told her. “It’ll be okay.”

He rolled down the window.

“License and registration,” the officer said automatically.

David leaned over onto one buttock and reached for his back pocket, only to find nothing there. He felt like he’d been kicked in the chest. But then he remembered his wallet was in his bag, which was piled up in the backseat. He said as much to the officer, who responded by taking several steps back from the window.

“Sir,” the officer said.

David looked at him. “What?”

“Sir. Sir.” It seemed all the officer was able to say.

“My wallet is in the back, in my bag,” David repeated. “If you want, I can get out and you can—”

“Are you sick, sir?”

He thought he’d misheard him. “What’s that?”

“Are you . . . are you sick?” The cop’s voice cracked. He took another step back from David’s window, his shiny black boots stomping over a tangle of kudzu. He had a pale, drawn face, with a fair complexion and eyelids rimmed with red.

David said, “Sick? What do you mean?”

The cop pointed at him. “You’re bleeding,” he said, then clapped a hand over his own mouth.

“I’m . . . ?” David glanced at his reflection in the rearview mirror. Indeed, his nose was still gushing blood. He probably broke it when he slammed into Cooper back at the house. Blood trickled down over his lips and had spilled onto his shirt—Turk’s shirt—too.

“Stay in the car.” The officer held up a hand like a crossing guard.

“I’m not—”

“Please,” said the cop. He peered in at Ellie, then took another step back. “Go. Just go.”

The cop returned to his car, got in, and pulled back onto the road. The rack lights went dead as the cruiser sped by, leaving a cloud of exhaust in its wake. The cop didn’t even glance at them as he drove away.

David stared at his bloodied reflection again, his heart thundering in his chest.

“Here,” Ellie said. She had dug a Kleenex out of the glove compartment and handed it to him.

He cleaned up as best he could, which wasn’t very good at all. When he pressed a finger to the tip of his nose, pain blossomed behind both his eyes, though he didn’t think it was broken.

Yet for some reason he couldn’t help but laugh.





28


They slept in the car that night, parked behind a row of Dumpsters in the parking lot of an abandoned bowling alley in southeastern Missouri. Ellie had already been asleep for some time when David parked the car. He was ravenous but he looked like shit and didn’t want to risk stopping anywhere. He reclined his seat and rolled down the window, letting in the cool autumn air. Crickets chorused in a nearby field and a cloud of gnats orbited the single lamppost at the far end of the parking lot. There would be no birds on the prowl tonight. Once again, David wondered if this was how the world ended—in disease among a plague of insects. It wasn’t just that the birds had disappeared; it was that the insects had begun to take over. Wasn’t there something in the Bible about that?

Before closing his eyes, he powered up his phone and checked his e-mail. He knew it was wishful thinking, hoping that Tim had gotten back to him so quickly. And he was right—there was no message from Tim.