Mrs. Parsall sat up against the headboard, staring into the dark. Her right hand was slack around her cell phone. She slept with it, even though the charge was dead. It was her last tie to her husband and children. I slid out of bed and reached beneath it for the bag from the drugstore. Wordlessly, I padded across the floor and put it in her lap.
She reached inside, the plastic crinkling. Her glass-blue eyes widened as she pulled out the batteries and charger.
“Where did you get these?” she rasped.
“You can’t tell anyone.”
Her hands grasped my elbows, and she drew me down to the bed. “Did you go Outside?” Her gaze was fever-bright.
I swallowed and nodded.
“What did you see?”
I remained mute.
She squeezed my arm. “What did you see?”
My lip trembled, but I couldn’t shape my voice around horror that I’d witnessed.
“Were there people?” Her fingernails dug into my arms like claws. “Did you see people?”
I shook my head. “No. Not people. Monsters.”
I could see the whites of Mrs. Parsall’s eyes widening in the dark. “What do you mean, monsters?”
A tear trickled down my face. “Ravenous. Bloodthirsty. Inhuman.”
Her hand flew to my cheek, smearing the tear. Her brow wrinkled, in shadow. “I don’t understand.”
“They are like . . . like vampires.” I told her, haltingly, of the terror I’d seen at the Laundromat, keeping my voice to a whisper so Sarah wouldn’t hear.
When I’d finished, Mrs. Parsall threw her arms around me in a hug while I sobbed into her shoulder. She stroked my hair and muttered soothingly. “It’s okay. Shhh. You’re okay.”
Spent, I drew back and pressed the heels of my hands to my eyes, as if the pressure could drive away what I’d seen. “You can’t tell them,” I whispered fiercely. “If they knew, they’d shun me.”
Mrs. Parsall brushed a soggy strand of hair off of my face. “I won’t.”
Her gaze crept to the phone batteries, and I saw the twitch in her fingers.
“Call your family,” I said, hiccupping back tears.
Behind me, I heard Sarah stir and mutter: “Katie?”
I went to her bedside, pulled the blankets up to her chin. “It’s okay. Go back to sleep.”
Her sleepy eyes watched me, though, watched me until the weight of her lashes pulled her eyelids down.
I looked back to Mrs. Parsall, laid my finger on my lips.
She nodded, gathering up the phone and batteries, and tiptoed from the room.
I followed her, creeping past my parents’ door, down the steps to the kitchen. All the lamps had been doused, and the only light in the room came from the moonlight streaming in and the pilot light in the stove. It was all cold, blue light, and I shivered in spite of the warmth.
Mrs. Parsall reached for the doorknob of the back door. I grabbed the sleeve of her nightdress. “Don’t,” I whispered. “They love the dark.”
Her mouth was set in a grim line. “I have to talk to my family.”
I knew that there was no stopping her; I had just given her hope wrapped up in a plastic bag.
She pulled away from me, opened the door to the night, and slipped out the back step.
I paused on the threshold, listening. I heard the sounds of crickets chirping, bullfrogs in the pond. In the distance, I could make out the sketchy figures of deer in the fields. A larger, lighter shape grazed among them: a white horse. My heart fell when I saw him. The white horse wasn’t leaving. He was still in danger. But at least he had the sense to graze at night, with the deer. Maybe he could evade discovery until this whole mess was over. I dared hope that much for him.
My gaze swept the darkness for threats. I spied a light burning in the window of the Miller house. Elijah’s room. My chest tightened. I wondered if, behind that light, he was reading his Bible. Brooding. Maybe masturbating for the last time. It was hard to tell.
I turned away from the light. Reaching for the knife block on the kitchen counter, I pulled out my mother’s serrated bread knife. I put my bare foot on the cold stone of the step, hissing at the chill, and followed Mrs. Parsall out to the yard. The dew of the grass was cold on my feet, dampening the edge of my nightgown. I found her, sitting on the bumper of her car, out of sight and earshot of the house. They wouldn’t be able to hear our conversation.
Maybe not even hear us scream.
I sat beside her on the bumper, watching as she removed the old battery and fitted the new one in with shaking hands.
The phone lit up when she hit the power button.
“It has a signal,” she said.
“Does that mean there’s still someone at the cell phone company?” I asked.
She shook her head. “It just means that the satellites haven’t fallen out of the sky.” She punched numbers into the phone, and I could hear it ringing against her cheek.
I stared out at the horizon, my hand sweating on the wooden grip of the knife. I knew that those creatures of darkness were out there . . . but I hoped that God had mercy on Mrs. Parsall’s husband and children, even if they were English. I hoped that he showed them even a fraction of the mercy he’d shown us.
The phone stopped ringing when Mrs. Parsall hit the disconnect button. She tried another number that rang forever into silence. She sat huddled on the bumper, curled over the phone.
I looked up at the stars. I knew that we were never to ask God for anything, but at this moment, I thought at him:
Please have mercy. Please save her family.
And the horse.
And the man in the barn.
And my family.
And take Seth and Joseph to Heaven . . .
I cut off my thoughts that tumbled over one another. It was a slippery slope. I was beginning to treat God as a vending machine.
“Dan?” Mrs. Parsall cried into the receiver, cupping her hands around it. My heart lifted to hear her sob: “Yes, yes, I’m okay. I’m with the Amish. What about the kids?”
I could hear a voice at the other end of the line, going on for several minutes. Mrs. Parsall pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead and sobbed. I put my arm around her, the arm without the knife.
“Can’t they search?” Her voice lifted in pitch. “Can’t they do anything?”
I held her shoulders tighter. The voice in the background buzzed against her ear.
“Okay.” Her eyes were squeezed shut. “I love you.”
The voice rumbled something more, then fell silent.
Mrs. Parsall turned the phone off. She cradled her head in her hands.
“Dan’s all right?” I asked.
She nodded. “He’s on a battleship off the coast of North Carolina.”
I didn’t ask about her children. I was afraid to.
“The kids . . .” Her voice broke, and she tried again. “He found Julia. She’s okay, okay for the moment. She’s at a kibbutz, of all places.”
“What’s a kibbutz?”
“It’s a Jewish community, usually an agricultural thing. Her roommate grew up at one in California and took Julia back with her. Dan spoke with her this morning.” Her voice lowered to nearly a whisper. “He hasn’t been able to find Tom.”
I hugged her hard, kissed her cheek. “He will be all right.”
Mrs. Parsall rubbed a string of snot and tears from her nose. “I don’t know. Dan said that the contagion creates . . . monsters. Like what you saw.”
“The military is working on it?”