The Night Parade(63)

He glanced at her. She looked on the verge of tears again. “I wonder if it’s good for you to do it,” he said. “It can’t be good, taking in all that . . . that poison.” There was no other word for it.

Ellie said nothing.

David thought of the way Cooper had screamed when she’d touched him, how his face had gone slack and terror had flooded his eyes. He wondered if he would suffer any permanent damage. But that wasn’t a question he wanted to ask his daughter. She was upset enough as it was.

“You saved our lives, you know,” he said.

She turned away from him and looked out the passenger window.

“Are you hungry?”

“Yes.”

“Good. We can stop somewhere.”

“A good place,” she said, leaning forward and popping the disc from the CD player. “Not like yesterday.”

“No,” he agreed. “Not like yesterday.” He ran a hand through her shortened hair. “I’m sorry. We don’t have to talk about it if it upsets you.”

“It doesn’t upset me.”

“Then why do you seem upset?”

“Because I don’t want it to upset you.”

He smiled at her. He felt tired, sad, depleted. He felt like sleeping for a week straight. “I just want to be sure whatever this thing is, it doesn’t hurt you to do it.”

“I guess there’s no way to know that,” she said.

After a time, he said, “I guess not.”

She unwrapped the Bananarama CD from its cellophane then poked it into the CD player. Blessedly, she kept the volume low.

“People are changing,” he told her. “Times like these, it brings out the worst in some folks. What happened back there—”

“The good, too, though. Right?”

“Well, yeah.” Though they hadn’t come across much good lately.

“Was that a real skull, Dad?”

“Probably.”

“Whose was it?”

“Couldn’t say.” He turned to her, cracking a smile. “Probably just someone who lost their head.”

“Oh God,” she groaned, rolling her eyes but returning his smile. There was some of the old Ellie still in there.

“What do you feel like eating?” he asked.

Without hesitation, she said, “Pizza.”

*

They continued across Missouri in the direction of Kansas City for much of the day. Sometimes they drove through residential neighborhoods or sleepy-looking towns, but for the most part they stuck to the highway. Twice they passed police cars waiting like crouching tigers beneath an underpass, and both times David held his breath. Neither car pursued them. He didn’t think they’d get lucky again, as they had yesterday. Besides, he’d cleaned the blood from his face and changed his shirt. He was too damned presentable now to scare anyone.

He decided they should wear the face masks he’d bought at the convenience store while they drove, in hopes that any cop who might deign to pull them over would think twice after seeing their faces covered. Ellie laughed at the idea, and David had to agree that he felt foolish driving around with a paper mask over his nose and mouth, but after a while they forgot they were wearing them.

It was a risk anytime they stopped in public, but they had to eat and gas up the Olds. Ellie saw a sign for a Pizza Hut off the highway. David took the exit, and less than five minutes later they were sharing a pie. Seated at the booth, David checked his phone again. Still no response from Tim.

“They used to have a buffet where you could get anything on your pizza,” Ellie said.

“Nobody’s doing buffets anymore.”

“Because people are afraid of getting sick?”

He smiled wanly at her. His head ached. “If you could get anything on your next slice of pizza, what would it be?”

“Noodles,” she said.

“Gross.”

“How’s that gross?”

“Very starchy.”

“It’s no different than macaroni and sauce.”

“On bread. But go ahead, suit yourself,” he said. “I gotta find the restroom. You wanna come with me?”

“Don’t have to,” she said.

He didn’t want to leave her sitting here alone, but he thought it might be more suspicious taking her into the men’s room with him.

“I’ll be right back,” he said, and got up. “You sit tight.”

Thankfully, the restroom was deserted. He clutched the tiny porcelain sink and steadied himself. He’d been feeling vertigo for the past several minutes now, ever since they pulled into the restaurant parking lot. Gazing up at his reflection in the narrow rectangular mirror above the sink, some pale, wax figure version of himself stared back. There was an abrasion along the upper part of his nose already beginning to scab. He tugged down one eyelid and saw that the flesh beneath looked darker than before. Irritated. The blood vessels there had also darkened so that they resembled miniscule black hairs veining the soft tissue. It was exhaustion. Or maybe that was just his imagination.

It was then that Dr. Kapoor’s voice ghosted back to him: You’re sick, David. Your last blood test. You’ve got it.

But it was a scare tactic, an underhanded attempt at getting him to go running back into their hands. With Ellie. He’d know if he was really sick.