Malorie(17)

“How far is it?” she asks again.

“It’s about thirty miles. But of course that’s something you’d want to be sure of before setting out on foot.”

Malorie senses the world sinking. The hope she feels, the hope she cannot deny, partially turns to dust. She almost stands up. Ron sits down.

“Thirty miles,” she says. “There’s just…just no way.”

Ron nods. “It’s a tall order. Your stories of twenty miles on a river are mind-boggling enough.”

“Fuck.”

When she looks at Ron, he’s staring back at her. He looks inquisitive, almost like he’s observing her making a decision. Like he’s wondering what it takes to do something brave.

“In the old world,” Ron says, “thirty miles on foot would take about eight hours. That’s at fifteen minutes a mile.”

“With sight,” Malorie says. “And walking a straight line.”

“So double it. Triple it. Even more. I’d say it could take three days.”

Malorie thinks.

“I don’t mean to be the bearer of worse news,” Ron says, “but there’s no guarantee the train is still there. Or how often it runs. Or what the people are like, the sort of people who would consider running such a thing.”

The dread he’s espousing is palpable, as if Ron has just tossed her a black hole to catch.

He leans forward, causing the lounger to creak. “Imagine the type of person who feels confident enough, in this world, to engineer a train. Sound inviolable to you?”

Malorie sees madness. Annette in that engineer’s seat. Gary strutting car to car, taking tickets.

“No,” she says. She tries to give the word finality, but it’s simply not there. Not in her voice. Not in her heart.

“But hang on,” Ron says. “Let’s read some more, talk some more, before we give up. Yes?”

Malorie stands. She paces as Ron continues to scan the pages. Her thoughts ping-pong, fast, images of Mom and Dad gardening under the sun. Still. Alive. No idea their daughter is breathing and sane and thinking about them right now.

Oh, what she could do for them by showing up at their home with grandkids in tow.

She sits back down. Then she stands. Then she sits again. Dad was good with chopping wood. Both were good cooks. Both could live off the land. Why would they go near the bridge?

Did someone take them there? Force them there? And even if Malorie did go, how can she be sure she’d find them?

The census man found them.

The thought is a good one. It’s clear, and it means something.

“Safer Room,” Ron says. When Malorie looks to him, she sees he’s deeper into the stack of pages. “Did you read about these? What fancies…”

“Safer Room?” Malorie asks.

Ron smiles, but there’s heaviness to him now. Malorie doesn’t imagine he’ll be joking anymore during this visit.

“His words: Twelve-by-eight-foot holes in the ground. Bunkers for safety. If ever the creatures take over. Well, I don’t like the sound of that.”

Malorie wants to tell Ron not to worry. He’s survived ten years in this service station. He doesn’t have to think about Safer Rooms. He doesn’t have to think about the outside world at all. She can see the paranoia expanding in his eyes. The way he looks at her over his glass as he takes another sip. Like he’s suddenly angry she’s here.

“Sounds like a grave,” she says. Because she knows Ron Handy is smart. He’ll know it if she placates him.

“Indeed. No underground bunkers for me,” he says. “I like to keep mine aloft.”

So another joke after all. Good. Ron reads. Malorie, having seen some of what’s in there, thinks to warn him. But she’s too late.

“Oh, no,” Ron says. “Oh, no.”

He tosses the stack to the oil-stained floor. He wipes his hands on his sport coat. The look in his eyes is a fear Malorie hasn’t seen in a long time. Even the housemates didn’t look quite as scared as Ron does now.

“Did you see?” he asks her, his voice an octave higher.

“See what?” Malorie asks. She tries not to imagine a drawing. A photo. What did she miss in the stack?

But that’s not what Ron means.

“Someone says they…caught one?”

“Just rumor,” Malorie says quickly. “That’s impossible.”

“But to even think to try?”

Ron sets his drink on a stack of paint cans. He wipes his hands on his coat again, as if, by doing so, he might erase the fact that he’s touched papers suggesting a creature could be caught.

“Oh, Malorie,” Ron says. “It’s too much. All of this. It’s overwhelming me.”

“I’m sorry, Ron,” Malorie says. She should go. She should get up and leave this place. Why did she come here?

“My sister’s name is in there, too,” Ron suddenly says.

“What?”

He rises and turns his back to her.

“My sister’s name, Malorie.” He’s almost shouting now.

“On the survivor list?” Malorie asks. She looks to the pages he’s discarded.

“Yes. My sister is on the list, too. What don’t you understand about that? My sister is on the list!”