Vacation

43. Scooter’s Mill

Christie hit the first checkpoint well before dawn. She slowed the car and pulled the gun onto her lap.

The kids sat up in the back.

Neither had fallen asleep, but they had stopped asking her the same question, over and over.

Where’s Dad?

She slowed the car. While most of the townspeople at the fence stayed back, one older man walked up to her, a lean man with a weathered face and eyes that squinted as he walked into her headlights.

Looks okay, she thought.

He came beside her window and signaled for her to roll it down.

Another look at the other men watching the scene.

They looked… okay as well. But then again, so did everyone at Paterville. They had all looked just fine, too.

She hit a button and the window started down. She stopped it when it was only about a quarter open.

“Evening,” the man said. She saw him look at the windshield, a spidery net of thin cracks.

She nodded.

“Kinda late to be out. With your kids and all.”

“Yes.”

“Any problem?”

She tried to think: How would Jack handle this? What would he say?

“We’re coming from Paterville.”

The man nodded. Another look at the kids in the back. Then she saw him glance at the gun in her lap.

“And?”

“There was break-in. Their fence. It failed.”

The old man looked back at his companions.

“Can Heads got into the camp?”

She nodded.

“Lots of them. We— I… didn’t feel safe. So, I got them out.”

A pause. The man thinking this over.

“All by yourself?”

No. No questions like that.

“Yes. It wasn’t—” she tilted her head as if she was explaining something so strange, so unbelievable—“safe. It wasn’t safe there.”

“Where you headin’, ma’am?”

She looked at him. The eyes that looked back, though sunken in that lined and weathered face, so human. Can he see what we’ve been through? Is it that obvious?

“New York City. Home.”

The word caught in her throat, her hands still locked on either side of the wheel.

The man nodded.

What must I look like? she thought. The kids…

“Okay. You have a couple more towns you’ll have to stop at before you get to the highway. Guess you know that. I’ll call ahead.”

She raised her head.

“And let them know you’re coming.”

“Thanks.” She looked at him again. Then:

“Listen. Has there been anyone else? From the camp. Anyone else been through here?”

The question so pitiful. The thought so crazy.

The old man took his time shaking his head no.

Then the man turned to the backseat again and smiled.

“You kids take care of your mom, eh?”

The man pulled away from the car, and signaled to the others. They lifted the fence, opening the road. The sky had begun to lighten just a bit.

Before she pulled away, she turned back to Kate first, then to Simon.

“You guys get some sleep. Okay?”

Her two children nodded.

She pulled away from the Scooter’s Mill checkpoint.

We’re going home.

That’s what she told herself.

Over and over and over.

I’m taking my family home.