Lizzie moves Ellis’s wild, unkempt hair away from her eyes and tries to show her the doll. She recoils from her mother’s touch, desperately trying to pull away. Lizzie seems unfazed. I guess she must be used to this now. Ellis’s eyes show no recognition, no understanding.
“It would have been easier on everyone if she’d just stayed with you,” she admits, “but how was I to know after what you did?”
“I know.”
“I didn’t even realize she was like you until a couple of days after you’d gone. I didn’t expect it, didn’t even think it could happen. One minute she was sitting there with her brothers, the next… I was out of the room for less than five minutes. I came back in and saw her with Edward…”
She starts sobbing, tears dripping down onto Ellis, who wriggles and squirms as if they’re corrosive acid drops.
“Why did this have to happen, Danny?” she asks. She knows I can’t give her the answers she wants.
“It wasn’t because of anything you did or didn’t do. None of us could control it or predict it…”
She smiles and wipes her eyes. “Remember how hard we used to think we had it? How frustrated we used to get with the kids…?”
“How could I forget?”
“You hated your job, I couldn’t stand being with the children, Dad was sick of bailing us out all the time…”
“I know. I remember.”
“I’d do anything to have it all back how it was.”
She’s right. In spite of everything, sitting here with her and with Ellis lying between us, part of me knows she’s right.
“I wish I could be back there,” she continues, reaching down and resting her hand on Ellis’s shoulder. Ellis flinches and tries to roll away, but Lizzie ignores her violent reaction. “You, me, Ellis, and the boys in the kitchen of our shitty little apartment, fighting over the TV or who’d eaten whose candy or something stupid like that…”
“Me, too,” I say quietly, surprising myself with my admission. Another explosion reverberates around the garage, followed by the sound of dust and debris raining down on the roof of the van. This van is like a cocoon, temporarily isolating us from the chaos of the rest of the world, but I can hear the intensity of the fighting outside continuing to increase.
“We can’t stay here,” I tell her. “It’s not safe.”
“I know.”
“I have to go. I have to take her with me and get her away.”
Lizzie nods and wipes her eyes again. She looks down at Ellis and smiles, then crouches down next to her and picks up the knife she was carrying. Ellis tries to lunge at her, the chains still holding her back. For a split second I think Lizzie’s going to attack her, but I watch her face and I know that she won’t. She can’t. She removes the clothesline that has been wrapped around Ellis’s legs, then slides the long blade between her bare ankles and draws it up, cutting through the plastic ties that hold her tight. Ellis immediately reacts, kicking out at Lizzie with incredible, unrestrained fury and anger.
“What are you doing? Get out of here, Liz. Just go-”
“Hold her, Danny.”
I lift Ellis up, her legs still thrashing, and wrap my arms around her chest as Lizzie removes the padlock and chains that have kept her anchored to the floor of the van. Her ferocity and strength are remarkable, and I struggle to keep hold of her. Lizzie removes Ellis’s gag, and her head immediately lurches forward as she tries to take a bite out of her mother’s face. Lizzie ducks out of the way, then lowers the blade toward the ties binding Ellis’s wrists together.
“You should go,” I tell her. “Get back to Mark and the others. Try to get away from here while you still can.”
She shakes her head and starts to cut.
“Let her go, Danny. I just want to hold her before you take her.”
I relax my grip. The plastic ties pop open, and Ellis immediately lunges forward, her incredible strength taking me by surprise. She flies at Lizzie, landing in her arms and smashing her back against the side of the van with a sickening thump. For the briefest of moments they’re locked in an embrace, Lizzie burying Ellis’s face in her chest, not wanting to let her go. I watch the pair of them in the low light, huddled close together. They could be anywhere-saying good-bye in the school playground, sitting on the end of Ellis’s bed last thing at night, keeping her warm when she’s just come in from outside…
Then the expression on Lizzie’s face changes. Her eyes screw shut with pain, and she opens her mouth to scream but no sound comes out. Ellis pushes her away and glances back at me, blood covering the bottom part of her face. She spits out a chunk of Lizzie’s flesh, then turns back and attacks again.
I shuffle back into the corner and cover my head as she rips her mother’s body apart.
38
BLOOD-SOAKED AND PANTING HARD, Ellis sits in the diagonally opposite corner of the van and watches me. What has she become? Does she even remember who I am? She hasn’t tried to kill me. She’d have attacked if she thought I was a threat.
“We have to go, Ellis. We have to get away from here. It’s not safe. People are going to try to kill everyone here. Do you understand?”
No reaction. No time to wait for an answer. I take her rainbow-colored sweater out of my backpack and edge closer to her.
“Put this on. Keep you warm.”
I reach up to put it over her head. She swipes it out of my hands. I pick it up and try again, but she’s not having any of it, and I drop it. She hisses at me and pushes herself farther into the corner. Poor kid, it’s hard seeing her like this. I’d naively expected her not to have changed much. Maybe I’d just been trying to convince myself she wouldn’t be like the kids we found at her school. She’ll be better now that we’re together.
“Come on, we’re going,” I tell her, forcing myself to move. I grab the knife and flashlight in one hand and Ellis’s wrist with the other and drag her out of the back of the van. We hit the ground, and she immediately tries to pull away from me, but I won’t let go. I drop the flashlight, shove the knife into my belt, and lean back into the van again. With outstretched fingers I reach the long length of cord they’d used to tie her legs together. It’s wet with Lizzie’s blood. Ellis keeps pulling against me, her strength and persistence hard to control, but I manage to keep hold and pull her closer. I tie one end of the cord around my waist and the other around hers like a leash. Christ, there’s hardly any meat on her at all. The chubby puppy fat I remember around her belly has gone. She’s lean and sinewy now-just skin, muscle, and bone.
“In case we get separated, okay?”
Still no reaction.
“Ellis, can you hear me?”
She looks into my face but doesn’t respond. Now that she’s attached to me I let her go, and she immediately darts away, almost dragging me over when the cord pulls tight. I try to haul her back, but she’s fighting against me constantly.
“Stop! Ellis, sweetheart, it’s Daddy…”
I’m struggling to keep my footing. In the brief lightning flash of an explosion outside, I see that she’s trying to undo the cord. I run toward her and scoop her up into my arms again. She kicks and squirms to get free.
“Calm down,” I whisper, my mouth next to her ear. “Please, Ellis, just stop…”
My words have no effect. Got to get out of this garage. Maybe she’ll respond better if she can see me clearly and if she can see what’s happening around us. Disoriented, I head the wrong way and find myself trying to get through the rubble at the collapsed front of the building. I double back on myself, past the open van and Lizzie’s body, trying to retrace my steps back out. Someone shines a light in my face. I can’t cover my eyes, so I instinctively screw them shut. I almost drop Ellis but manage to tighten my grip before she falls.
“Let her go,” an immediately familiar voice orders.
