Vacation полностью

She didn’t know. The feelings overwhelmed her. She felt Jack put his arm around her. Somehow that brought no sense of comfort.

Finally, she brought her hands away from her face. She felt wet trails on her cheeks, drying now. She had been sobbing as quietly as possible. But that was done.

“God, Jack.” Her voice a whisper.

She looked in the direction of the bedroom, the kids. “Jack. What are we going to do?”

Thinking all the time, he has to have some idea. He was her rock. He was someone who faces fear and death and madness every night. Surely he had to have a plan here.

His voice low. “We have to get out of here.”

“Now? Right now?”

He shook his head.

“No. You’ve seen the guards out there. And I can only guess what the roads outside are like at night. No, it’ll have to be in the daytime.”

She looked right at him.

“W-will they let us?”

He took one of her hands. “I wasn’t seen. I got into their cookhouse, whatever the hell that place is, and no one saw me.”

“And the car? The Blairs’ car?”

“No one saw me get the keys. The parking lot was dark.” He took a breath. “I wasn’t seen.”

Which Christie took to mean, I hope I wasn’t seen.

After all, hadn’t Jack shown her all the cameras?

Then the details.

“How will we do it?”

And those details rolled out, showing that Jack had indeed thought about it.

“Leave everything. We split up and—”

“No. We can’t—”

A squeeze to her hand.

“Listen.”

“We can’t split—”

“Christie, please. We have to split up. If we march to the car together, then they’ll know something’s up.”

He didn’t add the obvious.

Then we would never get out of here.

“I’ll take Simon. You, Kate. Maybe you go by the lake. I’ll go near the game room. Then we go right to the car.”

“I’m scared.”

“We get in. We drive toward the gate. If they don’t suspect anything, they won’t have a plan to stop us. We’ll get out.”

She shook her head. “It sounds crazy.”

A harder squeeze. “Listen, Christie. It’s what we have to do. There are things we have to do over the next few hours. Do you understand?”

More words not said.

If we want to get out of here.

If we want our kids to get out of here.

If we want them to stay alive.

Quiet for a few minutes. An old-fashioned wall clock with a luminous dial showed a little after four. Dawn wasn’t far away. Everything that Jack talked about would be happening in the next few hours.

“What do we tell the kids?”

Already she was imagining walking with Kate to the car. Her questions. Her reluctance to go all the way to the parking lot. For … what?

Then getting them both into the car, fast, when every second might count.

He said, “We have to tell them.”

“No.” She shook her head. Almost moaned. “We can’t.”

“We have to. Who knows what they’ll see. What we might face.”

“They’ll be so scared.”

“Yes. But, listen. We get them to the car. We leave.”

She nodded at Jack’s words. Then, as if she had to be part of this plan: “Right. No discussion, no debate. You and I tell them we need to get into the car now. That this is a bad place. And we have to leave now.”

Jack looked right at her, realizing the bridge she had crossed.

Christie thought of her daughter, more obstinate and self-absorbed each week that she got older.

But she also knew that Kate still had one foot in the world of a little girl.

“I know Kate will understand. And Simon will follow her. We just have to do this fast.”

“Yes.” Jack took another deep breath. “We can do this.”

She didn’t say anything. Then:

“Do we wake them early?” she said.

“First light.”

She saw Jack look at the door, the front windows of the cabin.

“Right. First bit of light.” She choked on the words, feeling this close to sobbing.

Instead, she raised a hand to his face. “You’re badly cut.”

“Scratches. A bush.”

She felt the thin lines of dried blood.

“You should wash them.”

“And you should sleep.”

She curled her legs up and rested against him.

“I don’t think I can do that.”

Neither moved as the black night sky outside slowly began to lighten.

escape

35

6:07 A.M.

Morning. Jack tried to force himself to stop pacing.

Christie led the kids out in their PJs, Simon’s with the Avengers battling a bad guy, Kate in a purple T with matching pajama bottoms.

He wanted to tell them before they got dressed. Give it a few minutes to sink in.

Get dressed, because we have something to do.

Simon flipped the pages of one of his comics while he sat down by his sister.

“Why are we up so early?” Kate said. “Some vacation.”

Christie didn’t say anything but sat down beside her daughter.

Jack would give every dime he had for the mindless sound of a TV in the living room, blaring cartoons, news, infomercials—any goddamn thing.

And as he waited, walking from the living room to the bedroom for absolutely nothing, he checked the windows.

The guards had gone.

That was good.

No daytime guards watching over all the Paterville campers.

Things getting back to normal.