Within a few minutes of watching the dim light flick from page to page across the room, he was fast asleep. Shadow curled up next to him, making sure he stayed safe through the night.
DAY 5
KAITLYN
Dave repeated his explanation over and over—both as a comfort for his daughter and for himself, Kaitlyn thought.
“I have to, Boo. I have to.” He picked her up from the floor where she sat, clinging to his pant legs after he had put on his boots. “I’ll be back. I’m only going for one hour.”
That was the plan they had made together. Dave would look through houses on the way to Kaitlyn’s house, coming back every hour to check in. If there was food at the first house, it would just be the one trip. Or maybe they would move to the new place. Maybe they would find more people, or a more secure location. All options were better than sitting and waiting with no food. Dave and Joanne even allowed Kaitlyn and Hannah to be involved in the discussion in the hopes that it would calm them down and let them see that it really was for the best. Now that the plan was in motion, it seemed a wasted effort.
“No!” Hannah screamed through tears. “You said outside was bad! You can’t go! You said!”
Kaitlyn watched the younger girl have a fit. Hannah was a different person from the day before. The clever girl who beat her at chess; the happy girl who was excited to share her room; the reasonable girl who told them frankly that her mother had died when she was born—they were all gone, replaced by a small, scared child worried that her whole world was disappearing through the front door.
Dave held his daughter, rocking back and forth. “It’ll be okay, baby. You’ll see.” Kaitlyn saw tears stream down his face, too. He was leaving his whole world behind, even if it was just for an hour. “I promise,” he said, rubbing the back of Hannah’s head.
He had opened the front door, leaving the screen door closed, both to get started and to get a better view of what he was walking into. Though Kaitlyn shivered just at the idea of what she had seen out there and wouldn’t go too close to the window, she couldn’t stop herself from glancing out.
None of those things are out there, she thought. That helps.
Her gaze snapped back to Hannah and her father when the younger girl yelled. “There’s a dog out there!”
“What?” Dave said, confused. “A dog?” he looked out the door, eyes darting back and forth. “Where?”
“I don’t know,” Hannah said. Her words were muffled as she spoke into his legs.
“Then what are—”
“There!” she yelled again.
“Where?” he said, standing, taking a better look.
Still no dog.
“Boo, you’re just hearing things. You have to—”
“There,” Kaitlyn said, taking a step toward the door. “I just heard it, too!”
Dave raised his finger to his mouth to silence the girls. The only sound they could hear was the muffled sound of Hannah breathing heavily into denim. Then, the distant sound of a dog howling.
It sounded like a big dog. A frantic one.
Would those people go after a dog? Kaitlyn wondered. Not meaning to, she pictured the thing tearing at the person’s arm in the crashed car. Would they do the same thing to a dog if they got a hold of one? Why would they—
“It’s okay, baby,” Dave said, kneeling in front of Hannah. “That dog sounds far away. I don’t think it will bother me.”
“Just don’t go near it, okay?” she said through choked breaths.
“Don’t worry,” he said, wiping her tears away from her dark eyes. “I won’t go near it. I’ll go in the opposite direction, okay?”
Kaitlyn looked to her mother, who watched, wringing her hands. She couldn’t remember seeing her mother cry since her father moved out two years prior. Now, watching the parting between father and daughter, they were both nearly brought to tears. She caught Kaitlyn’s eye, looked at her long and hard, nodded, as a tear formed in her eye, and then gave a brief smile.
That smile is for me, Kaitlyn thought. She made her decision.
Joanne motioned toward the kitchen and Kaitlyn quietly followed her.
Neither Dave or Hannah noticed. They just hugged each other in silence.
When Kaitlyn came back to the front door just a few minutes later, nothing about the situation had changed.
Almost nothing. But, at the same time, everything.
Dave still knelt on the floor, hugging his daughter; Hannah stood, arms wrapped around her father’s neck, sobbing lightly.
“Okay,” he said as he stood. “I’ll be back in one hour.” He checked his watch. “That’s 9:13 exactly. Okay?”
Hannah nodded, clearly drained. There was no fight left in her even if she had wanted to try.
“You stay here and take care of Kaitlyn and Joanne, okay?”
She nodded again.
“Maybe you can let Kaitlyn win a game of chess? Huh? Make her feel better?”
She tried to hide the smile that appeared despite her tears.
That was the sign he had been waiting for. He smiled back at her. “Joanne?” he called. “Kaitlyn, I’m heading out now. I’ll be back in one hour!”
He looked up to Kaitlyn’s face. His mind must have been on a thousand different topics, otherwise he would have noticed that something was wrong.
“One hour, okay?” he repeated. When she didn’t respond, he finally noticed the strange, blank look on her face. “Kaitlyn?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”
“You can’t go, Mr. Moore.”
“Now, Kaitlyn, don’t worry. Your mother will— Joanne? Your mother will be here, and I’ll be back in one—”
“You can’t go.” She looked up at him, a tear trickling down her face. “Mom already went.”
ALEX
“Oh my God, that’s gross!”
The shout, followed by surprised barks from Shadow, jolted Alex awake. Squinting his eyes against the light pouring through the
