Kick at the Darkness (33 page)

“Are you sure? We can find a place to rest. Wait until tomorrow.”

Parker sniffed loudly and swiped at his nose. “No, we’re close now. We can make it to Chatham tonight if we keep going. I need to do this.” He looked out at the ruin of Boston again. “I thought maybe it would be okay. I know that doesn’t make sense. But Boston’s survived so much. Somehow I never pictured it like this. Even after everything. Stupid, huh?”

“No,” Adam murmured, with another squeeze of his hand. “Hope is never stupid.”

Parker blew out a long breath and wrapped his arms around Adam’s waist. “Let’s finish this.”

With the lights off, Adam steered them through the trees, taking the long way around Boston’s sprawl to the coast and away from the creepers who jerked toward the fire illuminating the night sky.

When they drove down the Cape on Highway Six in the early hours, Parker could almost close his eyes and imagine it was Memorial Day or the Fourth of July, the cars packed bumper to bumper on the road.
Almost
.

It was nearly November now, and the night was cold, but Parker could still smell the familiar salt in the air. They drove on the wrong side of the road, which had far fewer empty vehicles clogging it. People had indeed tried to escape to the Cape, and now they roamed here with eyes bulging and red-stained mouths.

But Mariah was too fast for the outstretched hands and fingernails grown into their own kind of claws. Adam and Parker wove their way down the Six in a fine, cool mist that threatened to become rain. Parker had traveled this road too many times to count, and ticked off the landmarks one by one as he directed Adam off the highway to veer east to Chatham.

It had been mid-August when he was last here, and Jason and Jessica were visiting. They’d walked down Main Street to the restored Orpheum Theater to see
Jaws
on the big screen and spot the local filming locations. Naturally they’d also stopped at the candy store and made themselves awesomely sick by the end of the movie with Jujubes and chocolate almonds and sour keys, and what seemed like gallons of soda.

The Orpheum’s shiny front windows were shattered now, and in the pale sliver of moonlight, Parker could read the untouched marquee as they drove by, the black block letters spelling out the name of Tim Burton’s last movie.

“Which way?”

Parker blinked and realized Main Street was ending. “Left. No, wait. Right.”

Adam paused. “I can hear them that way.”

“Can we just look for a second?”

Adam made the turn, and they zigzagged around the abandoned cars dotting Shore Road. They crested the slope up to the lookout over the place where Parker had spent a million summer days, either on a towel with sand stuck to his skin, or sailing through the harbor, or out around the peninsula of Nauset Beach.

Adam braked and they jolted to a stop.

On the right, the Chatham lighthouse stood guard as it had for two hundred years, its Coastguard station near the base. Of course the beacon was dark now. Parker could imagine what it had been like when it was still running in the early days of the outbreak, creepers choking the station’s lawn, circled around the base of the lighthouse, gnawing and clawing at it, writhing and crushing each other in their desperation to get closer, closer, closer.

Some infected wandered the road and lookout, where in summer hundreds of people had once come to picnic and watch the expanse of the Atlantic. He noticed the creepers were getting thinner, and he wondered what would happen when they ran out of people to eat. He supposed they might find out, but not for a while yet.

“I went to the top once. Right up the ladder into the light,” Parker whispered. He swallowed hard. “We can go the other way now.”

Back down Shore Road, lonely creepers wandered over the lawn of the old Chatham Bars Inn, past Adirondack chairs and overturned side tables. The valet parking lot by the sea was empty, and Parker remembered the clambake buffet in July two years ago, when his father had insisted on driving his new Aston Martin DB9, even though the walk was barely ten minutes. But his mother had just laughed the way she always did about his new toys. After dinner they’d put the top down and cruised out to Pleasant Bay, just the four of them for the first time in forever, with Eric visiting from London.

Over the next rise, Parker pointed. “Right.”

They passed by the summer houses by the shore, standing dark and seemingly empty. Most of their neighbors had closed up after Labor Day, some of them only coming to the Cape once or twice a summer. When they approached number thirty-four, Parker said, “It’s that one. With the green door.”

The driveway sat empty, the blinds open on the bay windows that had a matching set on the other side of the house, affording a view all the way to the water and filling the house with light in the day.

“Will you close those damn blinds when you leave?” His father stood in the foyer, briefcase in hand, suitcase rolling behind him. “Anyone can look in. I don’t know why we paid a fortune for custom blinds when you never use them.”

“This is a house meant for sunshine.” Parker’s mother pressed a kiss to his father’s cheek and swiped at the lipstick mark with her thumb.

Shaking his head, Parker’s father couldn’t resist a smile. “I don’t know where you get these ideas. Don’t hang any goddamn crystals while I’m gone.” He looked up at Parker on the staircase. “A hundred good schools in Boston, and you insist on California. Have fun with the hippies, kiddo.” He turned to go, but paused at the threshold. “Call if you need anything. Anytime.”

Parker opened his mouth to say thank you, but the door was already closed.

Parker climbed off the bike, and somehow got his feet to move. He knew as he reached for the spare key in the hanging planter that the house was empty—that Adam would know if anyone was there; that his parents would have heard the motorcycle and come to the door already. But as he turned the key and stepped inside, he couldn’t tamp down the flicker of hope.

The air was musty, and he could sense the layer of dust that covered everything, even if he couldn’t see it in the fading moonlight. He dropped the Broncos pack, and Adam stepped inside behind him and closed the door, hanging back as Parker made his way down the long hallway to the open kitchen.

The antique clock over the fireplace in the living room still ticked the minutes by loudly in the silence, although it tended to run slow, no matter how regularly it was wound.

In the kitchen, an island with a butcher block countertop sat in the middle of the black and white tiled floor. The counter surface was clear but for an upside-down mop bucket on the edge of the island sink, undoubtedly left there by the weekly cleaning woman on her last visit.

No pieces of paper sat on the island—the place where his family had always left their notes to each other for as long as Parker could remember. There were no messages or instructions. No neat script from his mother or messy scrawl from his father. Just the polished wood his mom would never actually dream of using as a cutting board. The notepad hanging by the phone on the wall stared back, blank.

Since that day in September, he hadn’t let himself think about them for more than a few moments at a time, pushing the memories and fear away so he could keep going. So he could keep hoping. Now, standing in the kitchen where he’d eaten ice cream from the carton and wrestled with his brother for the last popsicle, he took a shuddering breath.

“They didn’t make it.”

He ran his fingers over the smooth countertop, and heard Adam’s quiet footsteps near. Parker forced another breath into his lungs. “They probably didn’t even get out of Boston. I should have called my mom back right away. I should have—” A sob choked him. “I’m never going to see them again. Even if they’re alive somewhere, I’ll never find them.”

That truth hung in the musty air, and as Adam held him close, Parker cried for his family and friends, and for ice cream and popsicles, and everything that would never be again.

Sunlight fought through the clouds and filled his room, warming Parker’s skin as he woke. For a little while, he didn’t open his eyes, preferring to remain splayed on Adam’s chest, tangled with him on the twin bed.

Adam stroked his hand down Parker’s back. “Hey.”

“Hey.” He blinked at him. “What time is it?”

“Almost noon.”

He rubbed the grit from his puffy eyes. For a whole day, and night, and now a morning, he’d cried. Parker had retreated to his old bedroom, which didn’t have any Red Sox posters since his mother had insisted on tastefully rustic watercolors of Cape Cod scenes for every room. He’d curled up in his bed, and Adam had stayed with him for hours at a time before slipping out to check on the perimeter and bring Parker back food he wouldn’t eat, and water he’d grudgingly sip.

And he’d cried.

But now, it was enough. It had to be.

“So,” Parker said.

“So.” Adam brushed back Parker’s unruly hair. “Do you want to stay here?”

He didn’t even have to consider it. “No.” It made him queasy to think of staying idle any longer in this empty place where his family had once filled all the corners. They had to keep moving forward. It was the only way.

“What should we do?” Adam asked.

“I don’t know. But today I think we should watch the sunset from the dunes in Provincetown. You’ll like that.”

Adam pressed their lips together. “Okay.”

Parker drew circles on Adam’s chest. “Hey, did Ramon tell you more about transforming all the way? Into an actual wolf?”

“A little. I think he was trying to parcel out information so I’d want to stay and learn more.”

“Ugh. That guy was such a dick. Screw him. I’m sure you can figure it out on your own eventually. We can brainstorm and come up with some ideas to try.”

“Can we?” Adam caressed Parker’s back.

“It’ll be a project. A new goal. I like having goals.”

“Sounds good.” He kissed the top of Parker’s head. “Ready?”

“Yeah. I think I am.”

After restocking their supplies from the pantry, Parker neatly tore off a piece of paper from the notepad on the wall. A drawing of a cheery lobster smiled at him from the top. He clicked the tip of the pen and wrote six words before placing the note in the center of the island. He weighed it down with a glass from the cupboard. Just in case.

I was here. I love you
.

Parker brought Mariah to a stop by the crooked sign on Herring Cove Beach.

No vehicles beyond this point
.

They hadn’t been able to drive across the dunes without lowering the air pressure in the tires, so they’d stuck to the beach. Parker hopped off. “Guess we should follow the rules, huh? Anyone around?”

Eyes shut, Adam inhaled deeply. “There are some people in the dunes, but not close by. No creepers out here.”

Parker tugged off his sneakers and socks. He held out his hand. “Come on.”

Every time he’d visited Provincetown, Parker had insisted on coming to the dunes. Art’s Dune Tours had a fleet of SUVs with almost-flat tires that had permission to drive over the protected sandy hills, by cranberry bogs and wispy beach grass, and clumps of pines and plum trees.

With their bare feet sinking into the cold sand, they walked in the waning afternoon—a crisp breeze setting the grass swaying. They could see tracks in the sand; some animal, and some human.

“I always loved coming to P-town.” It felt good to talk, and Adam was a good listener. “I remember the first time, when I was a kid. I was eight, maybe. All the rainbow flags everywhere, and lesbian and gay couples holding hands. My dad had his arm glued around my mom as we walked down Commercial Street, as if guys were going to drag him into the bushes at any moment and have their wicked way with him. My mom always said if she wanted some affection, P-town was the best place in the world to come.”

“I bet you didn’t mind all the hot men.”

“Not one little bit. Even back then I had a feeling.”

“What’s that?” Adam pointed to a narrow tower in the distance. “Looks like a turret from a medieval castle or something.”