Cruel World (30 page)

“I’m into this car. Look at how sexy she is.”

“Mom,” Ty said from the other side of the garage.

“Sorry, honey, but this is one fine piece of craftsmanship.”

“What is this kind of car doing in a place like this?” Quinn asked, moving around the vehicle.

“I’m guessing whoever lived here was a mechanic. You’d be surprised how many of them have side projects like this.”

“But how could he afford it? You saw the inside of the house.”

“Not all of us can live on private estates in mansions, dear.”

“That’s not what I meant. I—”

“Priorities, that’s how he afforded it. He ate macaroni so he could buy the perfect carburetor.”

“Seems strange,” Quinn said, eyeing the Challenger.

“Everyone sacrifices something for what they love.” She glanced at him and then leaned into the driver’s seat. “Keys are here. Should we see if she runs?”

“Do it, mom,” Ty said. Denver woofed.

Alice twisted the key. The starter engaged, and the engine turned over with a throaty groan before catching. It chugged to life, idling loud in erratic pulses like an irregular heartbeat. Alice stood from the seat and smiled.

“It sounds like it’s running rough,” Quinn said over the throbbing engine.

“It’s supposed to. It’s been tinkered with for racing. It barely idles because it wants to fly.” She grinned. In that moment, with exhaust flowing into the close space of the garage, blood matting her hair to the side of her head, she had never looked more beautiful. That smile.

He blinked, coming back to himself. “Don’t you think it’s a little loud?”

“Some of the trucks we’ve driven have been almost as loud,” she said, stooping to turn the vehicle off. “At least with this, we’re riding in style.” She turned to Ty. “What do you think, buddy? Should we take this car or look for another one?”

“This one,” Ty said, a smile spreading across his face. “I like how it sounds.”

After checking the engine to make sure it was full of coolant and oil, they put the wheels on with a socket wrench. The interior was in rough shape, the dark leather cracked with stuffing poking through in yellow clumps. The floorboards were dirty and little strippings of wire were scattered every few inches. With nothing to put in the trunk, Quinn moved to the garage door and opened it, glancing in all directions before coming back to the car. When he got there, Alice was already in the driver’s seat.

“Nuh-uh, not today, bud. You’re riding shotgun,” she said, jerking a thumb to the seat beside her. Once he was in, she backed out and lined the car up with the open highway. The sun was apexing in the sky, the shadows nearly extinct. “I really shouldn’t do this, but what the hell,” she said.

Alice slid the shifter back. Her feet twitched beneath the dashboard, and Quinn was sucked back in his seat as the engine roared and the wide tires shrieked. They rocketed forward, and Ty let out a high peal of laughter as Alice accelerated through the gears. The landscape beside the car fled past, trees and brush only blurs, a wooden bridge there and gone. When Quinn glanced over at her, one end of her mouth was turned up in a grin.

Eventually the road lost its straight line and began to snake through several rough hills that spilled down to the highway. Alice slowed and eased the Challenger around the curves as if she had grown up driving the car. She rolled her window down, and her seat was far enough forward for Denver to poke his head into the open air. His tongue lolled, eyes taking in the speeding scenery.

They drove into the golden afternoon without hindrance, filling the car up with gas at a large, silent farm that appeared to the north. The hills gave way to fields again that wouldn’t be planted, last year’s crops withering away in stolid silos. Quinn watched the land coast past. So much to see and take in. He drank the scenery with his eyes, opened his hand to catch the passing air in his palm like a harried creature that couldn’t stay, each mile the furthest he’d ever been from home.

It was closing in on dusk when they passed the sign welcoming them to Illinois. They hadn’t seen a single stilt the entire day, not even a glimpse of a thin moving line on the horizon or striding across any of the miles of open fields. As they crested a rise, a shallow valley opened below them, cupping a small town in its bowl. Several buildings and houses were lit, glowing warm in the failing day. On the far side of the valley, a line of wind turbines cranked steadily, their white blades chasing one another like an endless game of tag. Above them a large house was a stark cutout against the sky, lights blazing, its bulk resting on a rise overlooking the burg below.

“Turn here,” Quinn said, pointing to the right at a gated driveway. Alice idled up to the wrought iron and stopped. Quinn climbed out and walked to the gate. It swung open with a push. They trundled up the curved drive, the house staying hidden until they reached the peak. It was a sprawling single story, its roof lined by filigreed railings. Long black tire marks lay in several rows before the attached garage doors. The inside of the garage was empty save for untouched camping equipment stacked against one wall and over a dozen folding lawn chairs. Quinn searched the house and found only scattered papers in an office along with a mixture of twenty and fifty-dollar bills. Everything else was in its place.

He raised the garage door with the touch of a button, and Alice backed the car inside. Denver brought Ty into the spacious living room lined with three enormous picture windows looking down upon the town. Alice began to check for weapons while Quinn searched the kitchen. He opened a pantry door, and a smell wafted out that instantly transported him home. He closed his eyes and inhaled, smiling.

When Alice returned to the kitchen, the coffee was already brewing. It drizzled into the pot in strong, brown streams, steam rising in delicious, scented tendrils.

“Oh, my, God. You found coffee,” she said, coming to his side.

“You mentioned you could use some. Sit down and I’ll pour you a cup.”

She sat at the breakfast bar that halved the kitchen, watching him fill a mug full of the brew. He set it down before her, and she brought her nose so close to the liquid he was sure she would scald its tip.

“That’s better than cocaine,” she said, bringing the cup to her lips.

“You’ve tried cocaine?”

She sipped and swallowed, smiling as she closed her eyes.

“No, but I’d bet anything I’m right.”

Quinn found the access to the roof in a hallway off of the living room. A wide stairway led up and out a pair of storm doors to a patio and outdoor kitchen, complete with brick oven and bar. The sun was setting, and it bathed the valley in tepid red light that receded across the land like bloodletting in reverse. He gazed at the beauty of it for a time before checking for other routes onto the roof. There was an extendible access ladder attached to one sidewall. In less than a second, they could have a way off the roof and back to the garage. They would sleep on the roof tonight.

He carried up a stack of blankets from the ground floor, lining the reclining lawn chairs with them before leading Alice and Ty up. Denver patrolled the entire roof and then settled on the patio stone beside Ty’s chair before drifting off to sleep. As darkness crept closer, Quinn started the gas grill in the outdoor kitchen, ignoring Alice’s questioning look before going to the main floor and returning with three frozen packages.

“You’re kidding,” Alice said as he dropped the porterhouse steaks onto the table and began unwrapping them.

“Guess that penny really was lucky.”

“You keep giving me things like coffee and steak and you’re going to get lucky.”

Quinn dropped the fork he was using to pry the steaks from their containers and banged his head on the grill as he bent to pick it up. Alice giggled and walked away to circle the perimeter. He couldn’t help but watch her, the graceful way she moved.

They ate beneath a twilight sky filled with purple clouds. The steak was phenomenal, and Quinn even managed to find a dusty bottle of wine in the basement cupboard that tasted like smoke from a campfire mixed with cherries.

The wind spun the turbines until they could no longer make out their bright fins. There was no sound from the town below, only the lights in homes that people had left on before dying or trying to run from the wave of sickness that they had no chance of outdistancing. Frogs took up a chorus somewhere down the side of the hill, their throaty voices filling the night.

Ty sang them a quiet song while petting Denver’s broad head, the dog’s eyes never leaving the boy. They watched the clouds soar past while wrapped in blankets, their stomachs full for the first time in days. When Ty finished singing, they golf-clapped, and he stood taking a small bow.

“I think I’m going to lie down now,” Ty said, cuddling in the blankets on his chair. “Can Denver sleep with me tonight?”

“Honey, he’s too big,” Alice said, tucking him in. Ty drew his legs up leaving a long space at the bottom of his chair.

“There, now there’s room.”

“Ty…”

“Pleeeeaase?” The boy let the word draw out as he clasped his hands before him. Alice sighed. Ty smiled and snapped his fingers. “Denver, up.”

The dog rose from his place beside him and climbed onto the chair, curling into as small a shape as he could manage. His tail thumped as Alice surveyed them both.

“Unbelievable. It’s like I’ve got two kids now.”

“Thanks, mom!” Ty called before burrowing deeper in his covers. “Goodnight, Quinn.”

“Goodnight, buddy. We’ll get to Iowa tomorrow.”

“Think so?”

“I know so.”

Ty grinned and lay back on his pillow.

“Will we?” Alice said, coming back to the table. She refilled her glass of wine, taking a long drink from it.

“If tomorrow goes as good as today did.”

“Ha, now you jinxed it for us.”

“Hope not. You can really drive that car, by the way.”

“What, you think women can’t drive?”

“No, but you really seem to enjoy that one.”

“I do.” She paused, running a fingertip around the rim of her glass. “I thought about my dad a lot today.”

“I bet.”

“He would’ve loved cruising like that.”

The frogs became sporadic and finally quieted after a time. The clouds washed away from the moon, its light draping everything in silver.

“You ever thought about ending it all?” Alice asked, not looking at him. She gazed down into her wine glass, swirling it with one hand.

“Yeah, I have. More than once,” Quinn said. He’d only had one glass of wine, but his head buzzed with its presence. “But I only was serious after all this happened. I was going to jump off the cliff behind our house. I had nothing left. Everyone I’d ever really known was dead.”

“What stopped you?”

“Teresa’s…” he paused. “My mother’s words. She was the only mother I ever knew. I remembered something she said.”

“What was it?”

“To not let fear win.”

Alice turned her glass again and then stood, moving to the edge of the roof. Quinn followed and leaned against the rail beside her.

“How about you?” he asked.

“Every day,” she said staring straight ahead. “Ever since the night of the fire. I was basically an orphan from that day forward. I didn’t think I could be more alone, even in death.” She tipped her glass, slugging her wine in a few gulps. “I don’t believe in God. I think that beyond this life there’s just darkness.” She snapped her fingers, and he was reminded of his father saying how cruel the world could be. “We wink out, and there’s nothing left of us, just memories.”

He waited awhile, letting the breeze slip past them. Again, he was aware of her scent and how close she was, her arm brushing his at times.

“Can’t memories be enough?” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“My father and friends are all gone, but I remember them every day. They haven’t faded.”

She smiled sadly and tossed her wine glass into the darkness. It shattered on something hard below the house.

“Ty’s the only reason I keep going. Other than that...” She started to turn away, but he put a hand on her arm. She stopped, staring up at him.

“I’ve lost everything too, but I didn’t die along with everyone else and you didn’t either and neither did your son. You’re special,” he said, letting her arm go. “for more reasons than you know.”

He expected her to scoff or walk away, but she did neither. Her hand came up to his cheek and touched it, her fingers softer than he’d expected. He steeled himself, trying not to jerk away, as she ran her fingertips over the jutting bones and slanted chin, trailing her hand down to his neck. Goosebumps spread out from the contact, running in sheets down his back and chest. He started to lean in, closing the distance between them that was a thousand miles, and less than inches, but stopped. She was watching him again, studying him with searching eyes that cut to his center. She was seeing him, even with the low light. Seeing the imperfections, the incongruities, the ugliness.

Quinn stepped away, and only then realized he was gripping her shoulder with one hand.

“I’m sorry. I…” he shot a look at her, her face impassive, giving him nothing. He brought his gaze to the floor. “Would you mind taking first watch?”