The Night Parade(66)

“Most kids, they come in here and go straight for the DVDs. Not that we get many kids in here anymore. It’s nice to see a child interested in books. And such an adult book, too,” she added, peering over at the text. “From our reference library.”

“He’s a reader, all right,” said David.

“Is there anything you needed help with?”

“No, ma’am. But thank you.”

When the librarian left, David lowered his voice and said, “What did she say to you?”

“Nothing,” said Ellie. “She just asked what I was reading.”

He glanced at the large book in her lap. “What are you reading?”

“It’s about bird eggs. All different kinds.” She turned the large book around for him and pointed to a photo of whitish eggs marbled with dark brown splotches. They looked like a Jackson Pollock painting. “These are oriole eggs. They look just like mine, don’t they?”

“They do,” he said. “I guess that makes sense. It’s Maryland’s state bird, you know.”

“Not anymore,” Ellie said, and closed the book.





32


He decided against driving straight to Kansas City, fearful that someone might recognize them in a big city, so they remained for a while longer in Harmony. He also wanted to check his e-mail at the Harmony library one more time before moving on. He was trying desperately to remain hopeful that he’d hear back from Tim.

There was a small movie theater showing cheesy sci-fi films from the sixties, so David bought a couple of tickets and, for a few hours, he and Ellie sat in the mostly empty movie theater, cloaked in darkness. They shared a bucket of popcorn and a large cup of Sprite, and a few times Ellie laughed at the ridiculousness of what was on-screen. David laughed right along with her. Yet he couldn’t help but wonder if this was the last movie they would ever watch together. He felt jittery, sweaty, constantly paranoid that someone would come into the theater and try to pry him from his daughter.

Halfway through the movie, he felt something tickling his upper lip. He touched it and, even in the darkness of the theater, he could see there was blood on his fingertips. A column of panic rose up in him.

“I need to use the restroom,” he whispered in Ellie’s ear. He was covering his mouth and nose with his hand. “Stay here. Don’t leave the theater.”

“Okay.”

He hurried out into the lobby and, still covering his nose, made a beeline for the men’s room. Thankfully, the place was unoccupied. He went directly to the mirror just as a streamer of blood slipped from his right nostril, cascaded over his lips, and dripped off his chin onto the floor tiles.

“Shit.”

He grabbed a fistful of paper towels and pressed them to his face. He groped for the sink and turned on the water. It chugged out of the faucet in a noisy spray.

He soaked through several paper towels before the bleeding let up. He held his head back, pinching his nostrils together, while he wet a fresh wad of paper towels under the faucet. He stuck this wad into his mouth, wedging it between his gums and his upper lip, just the way his mother had done on the few occasions he’d gotten a nosebleed as a child.

Someone entered the bathroom, startling him. He glanced in the man’s direction—a guy in his late twenties in a white hoodie and oversized jeans hanging halfway down his ass. The guy froze in the doorway when he saw David. Without uttering a word, the guy turned and left.

Shit shit shit shit shit— The reflection in the mirror was now that of a vampire, a pale-faced night creature who subsisted on blood and would crumble to ash in the sunlight. The bloodied nose, he convinced himself, was from his collision with Cooper back in Goodwin, which had been the thing that had set it bleeding initially. He must have done something to rupture it all over again and— His cell phone trilled.

He fumbled it out of his pocket and examined the screen before answering. The caller ID was blocked, which gave David pause, but in the end he decided to answer it in hopes that it might be Tim. “Hello? Hello?” His voice was panicked and throaty, and his mouth tasted like blood.

“David? You okay?” It was Tim.

“Jesus Christ,” he uttered into the phone. Relief coursed through him like a narcotic. “Oh, Jesus Christ, Tim. I was starting to worry that you were . . .” He trailed off.

“I’m here. I’m here. What’s wrong? Your e-mail scared me.”

There was no getting around it, so he cut right to it. “Tim, Kathy’s dead.” And just saying the words aloud caused a sob to lurch up from his throat. His hands wouldn’t stop shaking, and his vision began throbbing in sync with his pulse.

“Fuck,” Tim said. “No. No, David. Ah, Jesus. How? When? What . . . what happened?”

“It was a few days ago. Tim, it’s a long goddamn story and it’s gonna sound crazy. I’m terrified to go into it over the phone. I’m worried someone might be tracking my cell phone.”

“What the hell is going on, man?”

“Some people are after Ellie and me. Government people.”

“Because of Kathy?”

“Not exactly,” he said. “Kathy was in the hospital. She volunteered. Doctors, they were studying her. They thought she might be immune to what’s been going on, this f*cking Wanderer’s Folly, but they pushed her too hard. They killed her. Now they want to take Ellie away from me and do the same thing to her.”