Todd (18 page)

He gets out to take a look, breath
smoking in the cold. The highway is a river of twisted metal and shattered
glass—a river he'd hoped to cross on a bridge. But just like the bridge they
crossed in the storm months ago, this one is a mess of crashed cars. There's no
way through in the Expedition. They could probably pick their way over it on
foot and jack another car on the other side, but it would mean either leaving
behind the generator and nearly everything else, or carrying everything over by
hand, probably losing a day in the process.

Todd gets out too, staring first
at the bridge, than at the ruins below. He kicks a chunk of torn rubber over
the edge. It bounces into the debris, which coughs up a puff of blue dust.

They get back in the Expedition
and pick their way east for 45 minutes to a choked-off underpass. Again,
impassable. There are no more good options to the east, unless they want to try
crossing the Mississippi.
That went pretty poorly before.

He knows of one more underpass,
west of the first bridge they checked. They make their slow way back, crunching
over the ruins of months-old car crashes, lurching tediously over yards and
parking lot curbs.

Less than a mile past the bridge,
though, the landscape shifts to black. The cars become scorched husks, the
yards a caustic mix of dirt and ash. Ruined trees jut toward the sky: the
charred finger bones of buried giants.

The windows are up, but an acrid
stink seeps in. "Here," he tells Todd, as he grabs a cloth from the
back seat. "Put this over your face." He has no idea how far the fire
damage extends, and while they're in it, food and shelter will be impossible to
find. But they're out of options. They can't go back.

A trip that used to take fifteen
minutes takes them nearly an hour and a half. At the end of it, the underpass
is gone.

The blackened skeleton of some
kind of tanker truck lies contorted in the street. The 694 bridge, above, is
shattered. Chunks of concrete as big as garbage cans litter the street.

The devastation is nearly total.
There are buildings with walls blown open, cars that are torn in half or
twisted around naked steel beams.

"Whoa," Todd breathes.

"Keep that cloth over your
face," Alan orders, pulling one to his own.

He rewinds the scene. The tanker
is passing overhead when its driver vanishes, maybe while completing a lane
change. It plows through the bridge's concrete barrier, thrashing in an instant
of freefall, before hurtling into the street. The tank tears open in a screech
of steel.

Boom.

He wants to scream, to pound the
steering wheel. They can't drive blindly into the fire zone. The wind was
blowing west that night, meaning the fire probably spread much farther that
direction; there's no saying how far. And heading west is pointless anyway.
They need to get
south.

Fuming, he turns around and heads
back to the Zane overpass. They'll have to walk.

"Dad!" Todd jerks up a
finger, pointing, and Alan sees it immediately: something drifting through the
sky, far to the north. He slams on the brakes and peers that direction,
squinting.

"Is it an airplane?"
Todd is contorting himself so much to get a good look, he has nearly climbed on
to the dashboard.

"I don't know." But even
as he says the words, a cold certainty forms like a clot in Alan's stomach. It
can't be an airplane. It's far too long and too slow. It has no lights.

And something is falling from it,
behind and below: a broad, dark curtain.

Todd leans over to the steering
wheel, lays into the horn. "Hey!" he screams. "Hey, we're over
here!"

Alan shoves him back. "Stop
it! Stop! It's not an airplane!"

"But what could—?"

"Look at it, Todd! It's not a
fucking airplane!" Todd again latches his eyes to the thing in the sky, and
the color slowly drains from his cheeks. Abruptly, he switches on his game
system and buries his face in it.

Alan leaves the rest of the
thought unsaid: that the thing in the sky must be something else, something the
Blurs have made. It briefly occurs to him that they could turn north and chase
it down to be sure.

The thought lights a fire in him.
He puts the Expedition in gear and takes off, more desperate than ever to find
a way south.

67

Nearly an hour later, Alan jerks
open the back cargo door and sees a load of items he considered essential that
morning. He has decided that bringing everything is madness—it will take all
day, and the next time they have to switch cars, it will cost them another
day—but staring at the jumble of supplies, his mind is paralyzed. It tries to
start the brutal process of choosing what to leave behind, and fails, over and
over.

Finally Todd pulls out his
suitcase, and it knocks something loose in his father's mind. Can't take the
generator, obviously. Take the siphon but leave the gas; take the can openers,
leave the cans.

Todd is rubbing his arms, his
cheeks blooming. It is early afternoon, and only 40 degrees.

"All right." Alan slams
the cargo door, weighed down like a beast of burden. They pick their way over
the bridge, find a little convenience store, and after a few minutes of
searching for the keys, help themselves to a Volkswagen. The afternoon is a
repeat of the morning—all stops and starts and detours—and the tank runs down
to an eighth of a gallon, but at least they don't need to switch vehicles
again. They are through Crystal and into Golden Valley, two cities
south, when the sun starts brushing the building tops.

Alan has been watching the
rearview all afternoon, but he hasn't seen the thing in the sky since that
morning. "Hey," he says, squeezing Todd's shoulder. The boy's 3DS
died hours ago, and he's now staring out the window. "That thing we saw is
gone. Okay? I haven't seen it for hours now. I think it went the other
way."

Todd glances at him. "Okay.
That's good." He shudders. "I don't like that thing."

"Me neither." It is yet
another change to their world that should leave them ruined, incapable of
anything but terror. Instead, Alan pushes its memory into a box in his head and
tries to soldier on. "Where do you want to sleep?" he asks. They were
only able to carry two electric lanterns, but if they can find a small enough
room, maybe they can keep the Blurs out of sight tonight.

"Don't care."

They're driving through a
residential neighborhood, all cozy streets with little congestion. Alan chooses
a house with no blue moss on it, and breaks a window. It's a nice two-story,
suffused with the kind of comfortable mess their house used to have. The pantry
has some canned green beans and corn, with stale, knock-off
Cap'n
Crunch for dessert. Dinner is served.

Todd jumps onto the bed in the one
of the upstairs bedrooms, and the mattress sloshes and rolls. "Whoa!"
he cries. "What is
this?
"

"Oh wow, a waterbed,
huh?" Alan's surprised. He didn't know these things even still existed. It
restores a little of Todd's natural exuberance; he can't resist crawling on it,
rolling on it. At one point he backs up into the hallway, takes a running
start, and hurls himself into a running leap. The mattress heaves, becoming a
caged wave that sends Todd sprawling and grinning.

It feels good to let the kid be
himself, to not have to reprimand him for everything. If he breaks the bed, so
what? They'll move to another bed for the night, and leave the house behind in
the morning.

While Todd plays on the bed, Alan
notices a telescope, sitting on a tripod by the window. Suddenly everything
clicks: the constellation map and the Curiosity poster, the Kim Stanley
Robinson on the bookshelf. "We got ourselves a stargazer," he says.

"What?"

"A stargazer lived here.
Look." He points at the telescope, and Todd scrambles over to it. This
time, Alan does intervene. "Careful. Here. Want to try it?"

The window faces east, so the sun
is behind them. No risk there. He helps Todd get aimed at an early evening star
and settles him in, peering into the eyepiece, but the boy is too squirrely to
enjoy it. "Cool," he says, a minute later, and returns to rolling
around on the bed.

Alan gets the pair of lanterns set
up well before dark. They don't throw as much light as the six he used to use
at home, but the room is smaller; he's hoping it'll be enough to keep the Blurs
invisible. As night falls, Todd's mood goes with it.

They read some books. Todd
snuggles against his dad's shoulder like he used to, and Alan feels the weight
of his head like a million bricks. Too precious to drop, too heavy to support.
Just when he thinks his son is asleep, the boy's voice cuts the silence.

"Do you think we'll ever go
home?"

I don't know, man,
Alan
thinks to say, or,
Maybe, one day.
But instead of throwing out a flip
answer, he lets himself really ponder the question. It opens a window on a dark
road, bleak and winding. What
is
going to happen to them? He has no end
game. He just wants to dodge the winter. That'll require going quite a ways
south—probably through Iowa, maybe even all
the way through Kansas.
And now, with that thing they saw in the sky behind them...

"No." He keeps the word
as gentle as possible. "Probably not. We just have too far to go." He
listens to the wind outside, to the creaking of the trees and the rustle of
falling leaves. Belatedly, he thinks to add: "I'm sorry. I wish there was
another way."

Todd sighs, but doesn't argue.
Alan ruffles his hair and finds it sticky and matted. Neither of them has
bathed in far too long. Alan makes a note to keep an eye open for a water
source tomorrow—a creek, a river, a stack of water bottles, anything. He never
should have let Todd stay this dirty this long. If it had been Brenda—

"I'm really glad you're
feeling better now," Todd whispers. "I missed you really bad."

The cycle of self-recrimination
stutters.
Why?
he nearly asks, but the voice of his dad volunteers,
He
didn't really miss you, idiot. He's just got no one else.
It makes perfect
sense.

"I mean," Todd goes on,
"I know you were there, so I couldn't really miss you, but—"

"No, I wasn't there. Not
really."

Todd clutches him. "You
remember that time I found that flashlight?"

"Yeah. That was pretty
cool."

A heartbeat. Beneath his sticky
hair, Todd's scalp is warm. Vulnerable.

"And that time we made those
jokes at Fast Gas?"

Alan doesn't smile, but the memory
of laughing is like sunlight on his face. His son's phrasing amuses him:
The
time we made those jokes.

I didn't make any jokes,
he
thinks,
you just thought everything I said was hysterical, and then you made
a bunch of terrible jokes yourself.
But those are his dad's words, and he
keeps them inside. Todd saw that moment differently, and his version is the one
Alan prefers: father and son, hanging out at the gas station, cracking crude
jokes together.

Is it really that easy?
he
marvels. To make things work, to not be so distant, to spit in his own father's
face and take back his relationship with Todd?
If it's really that easy, why
did I ever let it go?

"What did you say?
'Kingdom'...?"

"'Blast your ass to kingdom
come,'" Alan quoted.

"Oh, yeah!" Todd giggles
like it was a fart joke. "Where did you even
hear
that?"

"Oh, God. I have no
idea."

"You know," Todd starts,
and he sounds like a bad voice actor, like someone who doesn't really
understand a line delivering it anyway, "we've had more fun than I
would've expected."

Alan's eyes are burning. He
remembers the baby boy, the innocence in that child's eyes, remembers the
moment he swore to be different than his own father. "What do you
mean?" he manages.

"I just..." Todd sighs,
resigned. "I know you don't really like me, and I thought—"

Alan's heart freezes.
"What?"

The boy flinches, scared he's said
too much.

"Don't like you? Why the hell
would you think that?"

Todd tries to recoil, but Alan
won't let him. The boy's face crumples inward, a mask of self-loathing.
"Sorry," he says, "sorry," and then, as if he's whipping
himself with the word: "
Stupid.
"

Alan is paralyzed. Aghast. Todd
whispers again. "
Stupid."
He is shaking his head, trembling.
"
Stupid!
"

Alan did the same thing, when he
was eight, and nine, and every age since. The constant berating, the self-hate.
Stupid.
He is looking through a time machine, watching himself. He is
watching the cycle—

He grabs his son. "Hey.
You're not stupid."

Todd slaps his mouth closed, but
starts to shake. He's no longer whispering, but the words are inside, building,
thrashing him.

"Why would you say that?
Hey."

He's quaking in Alan's arms,
breaking up. "Shhh. Listen to me."

"What?" he croaks.

"When you were a baby, you
would cry, and I was there with you. Did you know that?"

"No."

"And I would shush you, like
this: Shhh." Alan breathes it right in his ear, quiet and sustained.
"And I would hold you, like this"—he squeezes him again—"and
carry you up and down the stairs, because you liked going bump up and down. And
you're bigger now, but I'm still your dad, and I still love you." He feels
like a charlatan, throwing breathless promises; he feels like a sissy and a loser.

"Don't go away again."

"I won't."

"I thought you were gone
forever."

"I'm not. I'm here." He
flits through a quick mental count of his pills, wishing he was strong enough
or healthy enough to be a father without them. "And I hate that you think
I don't like you. That—that's my fault. That's not your fault. I do like you. I
love
you. You're my little boy. You've always been my little boy. It's
just—"