Vacation

10

Outside the Fence

Christie saw Jack look back at the kids as the gate started to roll open and they prepared to leave their fenced-in development.

“Okay. Who can tell me the rules when we’re outside the fence?”

“Jack, I don’t think—”

“The rules are there for a purpose. So, Simon, Kate, what are they?”

“Window up!” Simon said. Christie had to smile. This is such a big adventure for him. She looked at Kate, who rolled her eyes and added, “Doors locked.”

“And stay in the car.”

“Right—as if I’d ever want to go walking around outside here.”

“Good,” Jack added.

Such a cop, Christie thought.

Only then did Jack ease the car outside. And despite everything—the beautiful early-morning sun, the safety of their car, all those rules—Christie had to admit that it felt different.

It always did.

Whenever they were outside things looked different. Grass overgrown, the road pockmarked with potholes. Buildings and stores abandoned. No Can Heads here—at least that’s what the local police had told Jack.

But could they really know, really be sure? As they pulled away, Christie turned around to smile again at the kids.

The big adventure begins!

She looked back to the tall fence with the razor ribbon running along its top as it receded into the distance.

Leaving its protection.

“We’re off,” Jack said.

He almost sounded happy about it.

Christie had to doubt herself. She had pushed this dream of getting away. Was it a good idea? Would it really be giving something to the kids, something that had vanished in this new world?

Did she need it even more than they did?

Once upon a time she had taught high school English in a school not far from Jack’s precinct. But when that sector went red, the school was shuttered. Suddenly there were too many teachers, and not enough students.

Now, like nearly everyone, she homeschooled her kids, and tutored a few neighbor kids in the development. But the neighbors couldn’t pay much, and it never had the excitement, the electric feel of a class of kids engaged in a discussion of Macbeth or Slaughterhouse Five.

Life had contracted.

But she had kept those thoughts to herself.

She reached down and turned on the radio.

*   *   *

Christie kept looking at the streets, so desolate, and thinking that she wanted to get on the highway fast.

It felt exposed here, out in the open. Even though she spotted a few people walking the streets and a scattering of open stores, it didn’t feel safe.

I’ve become so used to where we live, she thought. To … how we live.

The song ended, replaced with news.

Jack raised the radio volume.

“Police Commissioner Edwards again denied reports that some precincts have begun using poison traps against the Can Heads. ‘My office has found no evidence of any use of these so-called poison traps.’”

Christie turned and looked back at the kids. Kate read a book. Simon played with some plastic soldiers, making them climb up his seat belt like it was a mountainside.

Christie lowered the volume.

“Is that true?”

Jack looked at her.

“You mean about the poison traps? Leaving bodies of … whatever around, laced with poison for the Can Heads?”

“I mean, in your precinct, do you—”

Jack laughed. “And where are we supposed to get these poisoned bodies from?”

“I don’t know. You’re the police. There are morgues.”

Jack hesitated. She didn’t talk to him about his work much. She could feel him tighten whenever she asked questions, as if the very act of asking the question could take him back there.

He took a breath, and she regretted asking the question.

“Okay. I’ve heard of it. You find someone dead. Some homeless guy, some … nobody. And so they put the body out. Laced with enough deadly zinc phosphate to take out an army of Can Heads.”

He took a glance at the back, the kids tuned out. Then to Christie.

“But I never saw it. Never did it. So, far as I’m concerned, it’s a rumor.”

He stopped at a light.

Christie looked away.

Lights. Stopping at a light could be dangerous.

Lots of people just sailed right through them.

Now they waited at this quiet intersection for the red light to give way to green.

All the while, Christie wishing Jack would just go.

She chewed her lip. The street felt so empty, so quiet.

Did the buildings hide dark, hollow eyes looking out at her?

Did Jack feel it, too … or was that just her imagination?

Even Kate looked up from her book.

The light turned green.

“Almost to the Thruway entrance,” Jack said. “Won’t be long.”

Maybe he had felt it. That fear, waiting at the light.

Somehow that made her feel safer.

He turned the radio volume back up.

“—Latest reports show leading government scientists remain divided. The senate’s panel will continue its hearings for at least two more weeks. The president’s press secretary said the administration remains committed to having a new plan to deal with the decade-long Great Drought as well as reversing the so far unexplained blight that has decimated world-wide food production…”

Jack said, “They still have no damn answers.”