Dorran paused in the open doorway as he searched the street. Daylight was gone, and the moon was weak. Clare hoped he could see better than her; she was struggling to parse the shadowed shapes. He kept scanning the environment, one hand holding the supplies onto his shoulder and the other clasping Clare’s. They half walked, half ran along the flagstone path and through the gate. Clare’s red car seemed to have gained a few new scratches on its paint while they were in the bunker, but she couldn’t see any signs that the exposed engine had been tampered with, at least.
Something wailed to their left. Clare turned and caught sight of the hollows gathered around the shrub—or what had once been the shrub. At least thirty of the creatures swarmed the area, clawing at the ground, clawing at the house, and clawing at each other. The shrub had been torn apart, branches stripped and discarded. They fought over the radio. Some of them had started digging a hole in the ground to get under the shrub’s roots.
Clare slipped through the passenger door as Dorran threw the supplies in the back seat and vaulted over the front to reach his side of the car. The hollows were starting to pay attention, but Dorran was efficient. He dropped into the driver’s seat and turned the key, and the creatures scattered as the headlight flickered on.
As the car pulled forward, Clare had time for a final glance back at Beth’s house. Its windows were cold and empty, just like every other building in the street. She hated seeing it like that; it had always been warm and inviting when Beth lived there. Now, it only looked abandoned.
Dorran took a sharp turn, and she had to brace herself against the dashboard to keep stable. This new cross street was narrower but quieter. She could feel Dorran watching her, his dark eyes careful and worried. “Tell me. Are you hurt?”
“No.” She couldn’t stop her eyes from burning, but at least her voice was steadier.
“Please, my Clare. I need to know you are telling the truth.”
“I am.” She stared down at her hands. One white, with grime under its fingernails. One smeared with red. “It’s not my blood.”
He exhaled deeply. “Thank heaven. What happened?”
Again, she saw the misery in Annie’s eyes. She couldn’t tell Dorran everything—not yet. It still hurt too much. “There was a hollow in the bathroom.”
He hissed between clenched teeth. “I am sorry. I should have searched the house before I left you alone in it. Why didn’t you call me?”
“It was already sick. It couldn’t move much.”
“I could have killed it for you, though. Protected you.”
She tried to smile. Her muscles seemed to have forgotten how to. “It’s okay. It was over fast.”
“My poor Clare.”
She couldn’t look away from her hand. The blood was slick. It stained her clothes, where she rested it in her lap. “I have to get used to it. I have to be stronger than this.”
Dorran turned another corner. Without the map, he was driving blind, but Clare still had a sense of their direction. They were getting close to the end of the suburbs. More hollows were creeping out of the houses as they passed, none yet eager enough to approach the car. Dorran was quiet for a moment, then he spoke, his voice low and careful. “Do not mistake hardheartedness for strength. To live in this world and to hold on to your humanity, your compassion, your joy—I believe that is strength. And more valuable than being callous enough that death never haunts you.”
She clenched her teeth, trying to keep her emotions inside, but they escaped as a whine. Dorran’s spare hand came over to stroke her hair as she cried. She leaned into the touch.
It only took a few minutes for Dorran to navigate out of the suburb. A marshy area, the ground glistening with water and ragged with weedy trees, separated them from the next town over. Dorran slowed the car to a crawl then turned to feel in the back seat. Their radio still spat static, so he turned it off. When he came back, he held one of the bottles of water, which he offered to Clare.
“Open your window and lean out to wash your hand.”
She rubbed her sleeve over her face to wipe away the dampness. “We shouldn’t waste water.”
“This isn’t a waste. Go ahead.”
She took it and wound down the window. It only made it halfway before becoming stuck, but it was far enough. She washed as much of the blood from her hand as she could manage. Flakes still stuck under her nails and stained her sleeves, but it was better.
“Thanks.” She smiled, and he smiled back. A distant howl echoed from the suburb behind them, and Dorran turned the car back on and pulled down the road. The headlight washed over the black, shrubby trees, and in the distance, more buildings blocked out the speckled stars. “We’ll need to stop for the night, won’t we?”
“Well—” He lifted one shoulder in an apologetic shrug. “I was hoping you would have an idea of somewhere nearby we could stop. Somewhere safe from the hollows. We could have spent the night in the bunker, but—”
“Yeah.” Clare thought of the decaying bodies and shook her head. “No.”
“Hah. That is how I felt, as well. Take a moment; breathe deeply, try to release some of the tension. I can continue circling as long as needed. When you are ready, see if you know of any locations nearby that we could secure well enough to sleep.”
Clare chewed on her lip, her mind working. There were endless houses around, but she didn’t trust any of them. Even if they found one with intact windows and enough material to barricade the glass, she couldn’t be sure it would be secure. The hollows had wormed their way inside Winterbourne through the roof; a locked door was relatively little disincentive.
The caravans
