Rabbits(133)

“What the fuck are you doing?” Emily asked.

I started walking along beside the cars parked outside the arcade, checking to see if any of them were unlocked.

“We need a car,” I said.

Emily shook her head and stepped out into the street.

I finally found a car that was unlocked and turned to Emily just as she flagged down a cab.

“You can’t hot-wire a fucking Prius, K,” Emily said. “Come on.”



* * *



—

We made it to Emily’s car in six minutes. There was almost no traffic. The cabbie smiled and thanked me for the generous tip. If the world was really ending, who gave a shit about an extra twenty bucks?

Emily put her car into gear and started to pull away from the curb when somebody knocked on the window.

It was Marianne Sanders, the detective with the scar across her face who’d taken our information at Fatman Neil’s.

Emily rolled down the window.

“Where are you two off to in such a hurry?” she asked.

“Visiting a friend for dinner,” Emily said.

Sanders smiled at Emily, then turned to me. “How do you know Easton Paruth?”

“Um…I don’t. I mean, not really,” I said.

“Then why do you suppose she was tracking you on her phone?”

“I have no idea. We went to see her, to ask her a couple of questions.”

“Questions about what?”

“About the game I told you about.”

“The same game that led you to speak with Neil Arroyo just before he was killed?”

“Yes.”

“When was the last time you saw Ms. Paruth?”

“Um…a couple of days ago I think. Why?”

“She’s been reported missing.”

I shook my head. Fuck. I hoped she was okay. Easton was kind of terrifying, but she’d been (mostly) nice to me.

“I’m afraid I’m going to need you two to come with me,” Sanders said, and moved to open Emily’s door.

“Sorry,” Emily said, “we’re in a hurry,” and floored it.

If the world was going to end, whatever Detective Sanders wanted to talk about really didn’t matter. If we somehow survived, we could deal with her then.



* * *



—

I loaded Google Maps and found the quickest route to the freeway.

I listened to the sound of the tires on the wet asphalt as Emily guided the Volvo through mostly deserted city streets. I wondered if the lack of traffic was due to the violent shaking, or if maybe it was something else—something connected to the way the gray sky above us no longer felt like a sky, but rather like a permanent stain on the world.

Whatever was going to happen, it wouldn’t be long now.





44


    THE NIGHT STATION


We made it safely out of the city and drove down I-5 in silence for twenty minutes. As we moved through the night, the chaos of the city gave way to the peaceful quiet of the suburbs, and I imagined the people who lived there feeling safe and warm behind their perfect lawns and creatively shaped mailboxes. They’d be getting ready for bed, reading stories to their kids while half-thinking about something else, signing forms for field trips, putting off sex to finish bingeing a show on HBO, and all the while, just outside their doors, the entire multiverse was most likely coming to an end.

I kept running back over everything that had happened—everything I’d learned about my parents, the Gatewick Institute, and Annie and Emily Connors. But if what Swan had said was true, did any of that stuff matter?

“We’re almost there,” Emily said.

I heard a slight tremor in her voice as we approached the road leading up to the Petermans’ house. As we made the turn, I felt something pass through my body.

The darkness was coming.

“Can you feel it?” I asked.

Emily turned and looked at me. She could definitely feel it.

At that point, the world started shaking so violently that Emily could no longer keep her car between the lines. She somehow made the turn onto the old logging road and pulled over.

The shaking stopped a few seconds later.

“We should get going,” I said.

“I’m sorry I was such a dick,” Emily said. “It’s not your fault you can’t remember how amazing I am.”

I nodded. “I’m pretty sure it’s okay to be a dick when you lose the most incredible human being you’ve ever met,” I said.

Emily smiled. “Even if you’re not fortunate enough to remember how much you fucking love me, you’re still the closest thing to family that I have left. We’re family, K.”

“You’re goddamn right we’re family,” I said. “Now, let’s do whatever the hell it is we’re going to do.”

“Are you sure?”

“Even if it means dying in an accident because we were stupid enough to drive in the dark with our headlights off,” I said. “I’m no longer capable of giving half a fuck.”

Emily laughed, and then she guided the car into the middle of the road and started driving up toward the Peterman house.

It was the exact same route we’d taken all those years ago.