“The broken doors will still be open.”
“Yeah,” said Nathan, reaching for the wheel. “And while I find it deeply odd that my life is now defined by a children’s book, it’s also reassuring. As long as Mom keeps treating that thing like the newest book of the damn Bible, she’s not going to shut us out. The whole point of going to where the monsters are is that the monsters will always let you in.”
“Yay, monsters,” I said, leaning back in my seat and closing my eyes again. I liked riding in cars at night a little bit more than I liked doing it during the day. As long as I couldn’t see anything around us, I could almost pretend that we were sitting safely still. But other cars had a tendency to break the illusion, and with Nathan driving the way he had to in order to get us to safety, it was better for me not to risk it.
I heard the engine rumble to life, and then the faint jouncing as Nathan rolled from the shoulder and back onto the road.
The sirens started a few seconds later.
The sound was coming from directly behind us. I opened my eyes, and the cab of the car was filled with flashing red and blue lights. “Nathan…”
“I know. Just be cool, okay? I can handle this.” He pulled over again, leaving his hands resting on the wheel, while I stayed frozen in my seat and tried not to look like an inhuman thing wearing a girl’s skin. What if the cop could tell somehow? What if we were both arrested, and I was thrown into whatever sort of cell they reserved for creatures who dared to pretend to be people, and I never saw Nathan or the dogs again?
Beverly, sensing my distress, shoved her nose into my ear. I left it there, not trying to push her away, as Nathan rolled down the window and a flashlight shined into the car, illuminating first my lap, and then moving to my face, where it seemed like the glare was going to blind me. I squinted, recoiling. Beverly pulled her nose out of my ear and gave an inquisitive yip.
“Are these your dogs, miss?” asked the officer. The voice was male, but I couldn’t make out a face, thanks to that flashlight in my eyes.
I was silent for a few seconds, trying to find an answer that was both honest and unlikely to get me into trouble. Finally, I settled for the safest option: “Y-yes,” I stammered. “The big one is Beverly, and the little one is Minnie. They’re both friendly, and we have leashes for them.” I wasn’t sure why I felt the need to add that last part, except that I’d heard horror stories before of cops shooting dogs for getting too close to them while appearing “vicious,” a designation that seemed to mean “the dog had teeth in its mouth and I saw them at some point.” Since happy, friendly dogs were apt to show off their teeth in the process of panting, that made me worry about my girls.
“Any reason they were just outside the car without a lead on?”
Now Nathan spoke up. “I’m sorry, Officer. They were whining, and my girlfriend was asleep, and I took them out so that she wouldn’t have to. I never even thought to grab their leashes.”
“This is state land. It’s against local ordinance for dogs to be in the fields without leads.” The flashlight beam switched to Nathan’s face, finally allowing me to see the officer on the other side. He was a big man of African-American descent, thick around the middle, with a face that seemed inclined to be gentle, even as he was interrogating Nathan about walking the dogs. “Did you see any wildlife while you were out there?”
It smacked of a question that had a right answer and a wrong answer. I bit my lip as I waited to see which one Nathan was going to offer.
“I think we startled a duck,” he said. “It flew away when Minnie got close to it, and the dogs did their business—urine only, I had bags in case they decided to poop—and we got back into the car. My girlfriend was awake by that point, I told her what I’d done, and we started to get back on the road. That’s when you pulled us over.”
The flashlight beam switched back to my face, making my eyes water. I squinted, resisting the urge to raise a hand against the glare. Looking inoffensive was important when dealing with the police, never more than right now. “Miss, is this true?”
“I can’t say about the duck, because I was in the car, but all the rest is true as far as I know,” I said meekly. “I’m really sorry. I would have told him to put the leashes on if I’d been awake.”
“Miss, why is there blood on your shirt?”
The question was asked in the same mild, almost innocuous tone as the questions about the dogs, and for a moment, I didn’t realize how dangerous it was. The moment passed quickly. I swallowed hard before holding up my injured arm, showing him the bandage wrapped around my wrist. “I was making dinner, and I slipped,” I said. “I cut myself pretty bad, and I didn’t have a clean shirt, so we’re heading back to my place to get me a change of clothes.” It seemed odd to avoid using Nathan’s name, but he hadn’t used mine, and I had to assume that there was a reason for that. Maybe he just didn’t want to risk the cop guessing who we were… but wouldn’t the officer have run Nathan’s plates before he got out of his squad car? Didn’t he already know?
There were too many variables. I was drowning in them.
“I see.” The flashlight moved away from my eyes to my bandaged wrist, and hovered there as the officer considered my words. Finally, he asked, “Are you being held against your will?”
“What? No!” I was so startled by the question that I forgot to moderate my response. I wound up half squawking at the cop, my eyes going wide and round with surprise.
Maybe that was the right way to react. The flashlight finally pointed upward at the ceiling of the cab, where it illuminated the car without blinding anyone. “I don’t know if you were aware, but I just got the call that we’re closing down the bridge,” said the officer. “It seems there’s been some sort of outbreak in San Francisco, and we’re trying to contain it before it can spread to the rest of the Bay Area. You kids wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
“No, Officer,” said Nathan.
I didn’t trust my voice, and so I just shook my head, hoping that the policeman would take my silence as a sign of fear, and not a sign of guilt.
“You look like good kids, but it’s not safe out here,” he said. “Wherever it is you’re going, you want to keep going until you get there, you hear me? Don’t stop again, no matter how bad your dogs need to pee.”
“Yes, sir,” said Nathan. “Thank you.”
“I’m letting you off with a warning this time. Get your girl home.” Then the flashlight was turned away, and the officer was walking back down the shoulder toward his car. Nathan and I raised our eyes to watch him go, tracking his reflection as it got smaller and smaller, until he finally climbed into his squad car. The lights flashed once as he restarted the engine, and then he pulled out onto the highway and was gone.
Nathan groaned, leaning forward to rest his forehead against the wheel for a moment. I blinked at him, alarmed.
“Nathan?”
“This is how everything falls apart, Sal,” he said, voice slightly muffled by his position. “This is where everything breaks down. That man should have hauled us in—between the blood and the bridge shutting down, we’re too suspicious to be allowed to roam free. But he didn’t, because we looked like ‘nice kids,’ and you’re a pretty girl with big, sad eyes, and he didn’t want to do that to us. We looked too innocent.”