The Nightworld - Jack Blaine [44]
Lara and I follow them out to the stairwell door. Lara takes the golf club out of the handle and holds the door open. “We’ll listen every five minutes.” After Zeke and Kath go through, Lara closes the door and shoves the golf club back through the door handle, snugging it into place with the rag. She checks a watch on her wrist that I haven’t noticed before. “Batteries,” she says when she sees me looking. “So far they still work. Yours is the windup kind, though, right?” She points to the watch Gus gave me. “Are you keeping it wound?”
I nod. “Yeah. The guy who gave it to me told me it might come in handy.” I wonder where Gus is now. Is he still in the house next door to Charlie’s, waiting for his son to come home? Is he even alive? I hope so. I keep seeing his grizzled face and hearing him give me advice. I wish he was here right now. He’d know exactly what to do.
Chapter 24
Thinking about Gus makes me think about my dad for some reason. Maybe it’s the part about knowing what to do. I bet if my dad were here, he’d know what we should be doing. I bet he wouldn’t be telling us to do laundry. That thought makes me smile. My dad would say something like, “Clean clothes are nice, but it seems to me like we may be in a crisis here.” And then he’d waggle his fingers in front of his face like he was holding a big old stogie. Some comedian used to do that—Groucho Marx, I think. Or maybe it was Charlie Chaplin? Whoever it was, Dad used to piss my mom off sometimes, doing that.
“It seems like we may be experiencing a slight problem,” he said when we blew a tire on our way to the second-grade school play. I remember I was in a lobster costume, and Mom was freaking out because I came on in the first act. “They may have to do without a crustacean tonight,” Dad said. “They’ll survive.” But he got the tire changed, and I got to the stage on time.
Thinking about Dad alive makes me think about him dead. I don’t think I’ll ever get the image of him out of my mind. I still can’t quite believe it’s actually true. I follow Lara back into the apartment and try to act like nothing’s wrong, but I think she can tell.
“Want to look at the sky?” She looks at her watch and walks over to the balcony door. “We’ve got four minutes until the next door check.”
“What are we looking for?” We step out onto the balcony.
“Light.” Lara sounds wistful. She scans the sky. “Just light.”
Of course there is none. The sky is a dark gray, like there is a heavy cloud cover, the kind where there’s going to be a bad storm. I can’t see any change in it at all. I scan the city streets. It looks like a war happened down there. The way the city is now, I have a hard time believing it will ever be normal again.
“It sucks.” Lara is looking down there too.
“We probably can’t stay here forever.” I wonder how she feels about leaving.
“I know.” Lara doesn’t seem upset. “I just . . . I hope my parents can find me if they come back.”
I don’t say anything for a minute. The last newscast I saw that mentioned Europe made it sound like they were just as bad off as the States are. I wonder if Lara’s parents are even alive. When I do speak, I’m careful to change the subject. “Probably time for us to check the door, right?”
She nods and we go back inside. There’s no sound at the stairwell door, though. We spend most of the next hour just talking, laughing about things we remember from school. Sometimes she gets quiet and I think maybe we’re talking about someone she knows is dead, but I’m afraid to ask.
“What about your friend Charlie? Is he okay?”
“I think he is, but I’m not sure. His parents took him out of town when it got dark. He texted me right before he left, but he didn’t have time to say much.” At the sound of Charlie’s name, Tank raises his head. He’s been lying on the couch, and I thought he was asleep.
“Oh—he misses him,” says Lara.
“Maybe,” I say. In fact, I’m sure Tank does miss Charlie. I think he’s wondering where his friend went,