“That’s nice to know,” she said, staring out the window into the rain. At least for the moment, she seemed far away and out of touch.
“You better decide quick, bro, because this isn’t a big town. And once I get to the highway I can’t guarantee I won’t change my mind about this pitstop idea of yours.”
“Just pick a house.”
“You want to just randomly pick a house? Shouldn’t we pick the biggest one?”
“No. The biggest doesn’t necessarily mean the most food. What I’m thinking is we look for the most rundown one we can find and check that one.”
“See? He’s a nutcase.”
“Food stamps,” Taylor said.
“What about them?”
“We look for a below average house. You figure whoever lives there is poor. Or at least struggling. Go a step further, and you figure they’re poor, maybe they’re on food stamps. If you got free money what would you do with it? You’d spend it. So they’re the most likely to have a well-stocked fridge.”
Carl slowed the car, squinting to discern the condition of the houses through the rain. “That’s some fucked up reasoning, but you might be right.”
Tina turned in her seat so that she could see both of them. “Or maybe there is another option.”
“What’s that?” Taylor asked.
“We go to my house. Well, the house I grew up in anyway. Now only my dad lives there. He keeps the fridge stocked for when I visit him some weekends. Nothing fancy, but I’m sure we could find some stuff to take with us.”
“That’s even better,” Taylor said.
“Does he have any guns at the house?”
“Not that I know of,” Tina said. “I don’t think he kept any guns in the house when I was growing up. He might have since then. I wouldn’t know where he would keep it if he did though.”
“So how do we get there?”
She leaned closer to the windshield, scrunching up her face. “The rain makes it tough. Okay. See this street coming up? Take a right when you get to it.”
Carl slowed and turned right. Two blocks down, she instructed him to take another right.
“My dad’s house is on the opposite side of town from where we are now. Just keep heading straight until you get to the stoplight. It’s one of only two that we have in town. Pretty pathetic, huh?”
“We don’t have any back home,” Carl said. “We’re still on dial-up Internet.”
“I’m sorry for you.”
“I’m sorry for myself. It’s like a tiny black hole in America. Our town got sucked into it. Just sits there going nowhere and nothing can escape.”
Tina pointed ahead. “The stoplight is right up there. It’s not working, so it’s hard to see. You’re going to want to take a left there. It’s kind of a roundabout way, but it will keep us farther from downtown where those things are.”
Taylor said, “Who knows where they are. They might have kept on following after us.”
Carl took a left at the dead stoplight and then another right for three blocks until Tina pointed out her house. There wasn’t a driveway so he parked alongside the curb and killed the engine. Taylor and Carl opened their doors to get out. Tina stayed in her seat, unmoving.
“What’s the matter?”
“I’m afraid to go in,” she said. “My hopeful little vision is that my father made it out of town. That he’s somewhere safe. That’s what I hope. But my imagination can come up with a whole lot more less appealing possibilities. Like he could be lying dead on the kitchen floor. Or turned into one of those…things.”
“You can’t think like that,” Taylor said, feeling as close to a piece of shit as he had ever felt. His conscious prodded him to just come out and let her have it; give her the plain old truth of the situation, which was that her father was indeed one of those things, but that they didn’t have to worry about running into him inside the house.
If you had told her in the first place, you wouldn’t be standing here trying to convince her to come in, he thought.
But he ignored his conscience for now. Deep down, he knew he was taking the coward’s route and it didn’t sit well with any part of him.
“How do you know?”
“I tell you what,” Taylor said. “I’ll have Carl wait here with you for a minute while I go check the house. If it’s safe, I’ll motion for you guys to come in. Sound good?”
Reluctantly, she nodded.
“Sure you want to go in there by yourself?”
“It’ll only take me a minute.”
“Seems like you’re the one taking all the chances,” Carl said.
“Calculated risks.”
“You’re an asshole.”
“Big brothers are supposed to be assholes.”
Carl watched as Taylor unfolded a corner of the canvas drop cloth and dug around until he found one of the flashlights.
“Be careful.”
Taylor nodded and trudged off toward the house.
“Wait,” Tina said.
“What?”
“The house key is on there,” she said, pointing to the key ring dangling from the Escort’s ignition.
Carl fumbled around with the keys. “Which one?”
“Let me see.”
After Carl had handed her the key ring, she went through them until she found the right one. “This is it,” she said. “I remember because it’s the one with the little fake ruby glued in the big end.”
Taylor bent down and thrust his head through the lowered car window. “Is there a door in the back?”
“Yes. Why?”
“I’m going around back. Don’t ask me why. I don’t have a good reason. Seems safer. Keep the key in the ignition. Leave the engine off because it’ll make too much noise, but be ready just in case those things show up.”
“What about you?”
“Honk the horn. I’ll know that means you had to take off. Drive around to the other side of the block. I can cut through the backyard, fences…whatever, to get to the street behind this one.”
There was only the pitter-patter of rain, and the sound of his shoes squishing as they plodded through the soggy grass.
The urge to start smoking again hit him; this nagging feeling that came out of nowhere. When he had first quit, the urge hadn’t been so haphazard. It had come as naturally as any other routine act or emotion. Something as simple as the phone ringing could trigger it. Over time, those attacks had subsided, but once in a while, during particularly stressful situations, he would feel the need. And he felt the need now in a bad way. He found himself hoping that Tina’s father had smoked. Maybe he would find a pack in the house. Taylor thought he might cave to temptation if that happened.
By the time he reached the rear of the house, the moisture had penetrated his sneakers and was soaking into his socks. He climbed the three cement steps, opened the screen door, and twisted the knob of the inner door. Locked. He took the key Tina had given him (there was indeed a small artificial ruby set into the metal), inserted it into the lock, and it turned smoothly.
He switched on the flashlight and pointed the beam into the house. He was in the kitchen. A square table with four chairs sat in the center of the room, a stack of folded newspapers on top of it, and several unopened letters resting on top of the papers. There was a pile of dishes in the sink. Bet Daddy’s little girl does those for him when she comes home on the weekends, he thought.
A cordless phone hung on the wall to the left of the entrance to the living room. Taylor picked it up and pushed the TALK button. There was no dial tone.