Cruel World(95)

“I’m a little old for piggyback, and you’re not carrying me like a sack of potatoes,” she said, muscling past him with a limp. Instead, they circumvented the thicket, traveling east along its edge. Quinn kept shifting his gaze to the underbrush, sure that every so often he spotted a dark patch of fur or the flash of a collar out of the corner of his eye.

The day passed into afternoon and then into evening. Shadows slanted from the trees and grew long, covering twice their physical forms. The constant breeze died and with it came the renewed smells of woodland in spring: the heady scent of blooming flowers, pine sap running, the whiff of decomposing leaves.

The air grew heavy as night crept closer, and in the distance, it sounded as if a huge rockslide had given way.

“Storm’s coming,” Alice said. “That’s gonna suck.”

“I’ll try to figure something out,” Quinn replied.

“Yeah, if you can magic us a four-star bed and breakfast, that would be great. Oh, and a bottle of that nice vodka we had at your house.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Quinn said, smiling. He was about to suggest stopping beneath the bows of a tall balsam nearby when he caught the shine of something through the trees straight ahead.

“Wait here,” he said, raising the AR-15 to his shoulder. He moved away, keeping low to the ground, ignoring Alice’s whispered questions. He crept from tree to tree, taking cover behind each one and waiting a beat before crossing another open distance. When he had no more trees to hide behind, he eased out, bringing the rifle up at the same time.

A rusted Studebaker sat in the middle of a cleared area, the last rays of sun reflecting off a tarnished, chrome mirror. Yellowed grass reached up past its corroded fenders. Flecks of baby-blue paint shone amidst the cancerous steel. Its headlights were empty holes staring straight ahead, but when he approached its side, he saw that all of its glass was intact.

Quinn looked around the clearing, barely wide enough to house the car itself, and spotted an overgrown path stretching away into the darkening forest. A peal of thunder, this one closer, echoed in the sky. He tried the rear driver’s door handle, and it opened with a shriek of protest. A musty plume of air wafted past him. The ancient upholstery cracked and split when he placed his hand on it and pressed down. Other than a gathering of dried moss on the floorboards, the interior was devoid of moisture.

When he returned to where Alice and Ty waited, the half-smile on his face silenced Alice’s questions.

“I think we found our campsite,” he said.

They ate the remainder of the fish inside the car as the first raindrops fell against the windshield. The woods around them settled beneath a blanket of darkness, and the sky became a mass of folded clouds.

“How far do you think we walked today?” Quinn asked, as the rain began to drum harder against the roof. Alice reclined in the passenger seat and propped her injured leg on the dash.

“My leg says three hundred miles, but I’m guessing it was closer to ten.”

“That’s what I was thinking.”

Ty began to sing lilting tones that drifted up to them from the backseat where he’d lain down. Something folksy and sad.

“What song is that?” he asked as the storm increased and lightning splintered the darkness.

“The Biplane, Evermore.”

“It sounds familiar.”

“The Irish Rovers sang it. My dad loved them.”

“Was he Irish?”

“Half, and half English. He said that was why he could never make a decision.” The beginnings of a smile fell from her face, and she turned her head toward the window. The rain came down harder, turning the interior of the old car into a pounding cacophony.

“What happened to him?” Quinn said. He held his breath, sure that she wouldn’t answer. She kept her face turned away from him, and after a long time, he knew she’d fallen asleep. He glanced into the backseat and saw Ty had laced his hands together over his chest and was breathing slow and deep. He looked like a miniature old man taking a nap. Quinn gave Alice a final look, her outline a darker shadow against the window, and readjusted the rifle beside him, settling in for the night. He was at the boundaries of sleep when Alice spoke, her voice barely carrying to him over the rain.

“He was in the Navy for fourteen years. That’s why I know how to handle guns and probably why I curse so much. He had quite a few guns of his own and brought me out shooting when I was little. He was the kind of guy that never gave an inch when he thought he was right, and my mom was the same way. It made for some hard days, but they loved each other.