Clare tilted her head back. Her vision swam, and it took her a moment to see the racks above the seats. The bundles of clothes and blankets were still in their place. But the jugs of water and food were gone, leaving row upon row of empty shelf space.
Oh. She closed her eyes and dropped her head back. That woman. This is why she invites people into her compound. With hollows in the fields, her family can no longer farm… so they lure people to them with the smoke and the sign, drug them until they can’t resist, kill them, and take their stores.
The hand on her shoulder squeezed, then Dorran spoke, his voice hoarse. “I will find you water. Just rest, my darling.”
Chapter Eight
Clare drifted through a surreal series of dreams. She felt cold despite the blanket and the bus’s heater, and a chilled sweat coated her. A thick, pounding headache began in the base of her skull and spread across her head. Every bump in the road or tap of the brakes intensified it, until she couldn’t even escape it in her dreams.
When she woke, she looked to Dorran. His back was straight, and his expression was kept carefully blank, but his knuckles were white as they gripped the wheel. He had the map book open on the dashboard. Clare let her eyes drift closed again. She knew the maps well. There were no rivers in that part of the country. And there wouldn’t be any for a long while.
She was desperately thirsty. Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth, a sick tacky flavour across it. The sweat had dried, and she could feel the fever continuing to burn at the end of her nerves. She needed something to drink. Even just a teaspoon… an ice cube to suck… anything. The request hung on her tongue, wanting to be asked, but she wouldn’t let it out. Dorran was doing as much as possible, and hounding him wouldn’t change their situation.
The dreams began to encroach on wakefulness. When she looked into the rear-view mirror, she thought she could see Beth walking along the length of the bus, blood dripping over her jaw. Clare blinked, and the aisle was empty again. A knuckle rapped on the window, and Clare turned to see Mother Gum standing at the door, her white wig askew and her smile wide as she knocked to be let in.
“Go away,” Clare mumbled.
Dorran stroked her hair back from her forehead. “Shh.”
She lost track of time. They could have been driving for twenty minutes or for days. The headache was so much worse. Every small jostle and movement sent it beating behind her eyes like a war drum. She thought she might be sick again, except there was nothing left to bring up.
The bus slowed. Clare cracked her eyes open, but her vision was blurred. They were passing something incredibly bright. It made her head worse, and she wished it would go away. After a moment, it did. The bus sped up again. She could sense Dorran fidgeting, fingers picking at the wheel as his anxiety broke through the carefully cultivated poise.
The next time she woke, they had parked. The bus was dark and quiet, the door closed. The engine was off, and Dorran was gone.
Clare tried to sit up. Her arm slipped out from under the blankets, but she had no energy for anything else. The need for water was excruciating. She thought she could still hear Mother Gum tapping on the window, this time a long way away, whispering, “They’re all my children… They’re all my children.”
She tried to speak Dorran’s name, but only a dry rush of air made it past her lips. Don’t leave me. I don’t want to be alone.
It was night. Through the front window, she saw trees in the distance, cutting across the haze-blurred stars. They didn’t seem to be forested trees, though. They were spaced too far apart. The word landscaping ran through her mind without making much sense.
He didn’t leave me. He wouldn’t.
She was alone, though. And she didn’t know how long she had been lying there, in a dead bus, surrounded by the stillness of night. She was more afraid than she had felt in a very long time. The sensation felt different, though; the hollows inspired a sharp, angry fear that beat at her heart. But this was sluggish and cold, drawing over her like a damp blanket. The fear of being forgotten. The fear of dying alone.
She counted her heartbeats. They were easy to keep track of, each one pounding at her skull, little stabs of pain that ran into her eyes and jaw. She got to fifty before she lost the number and had to begin again.
Then she heard a noise. At first, it might have been the rustle of wind through branches, but as it grew louder, she heard the steady rhythm, almost matching her pulse. Footsteps, crunching through something that might have been gravel or dead leaves, too regular and steady to be a hollow.
Dorran.
The door’s lock clicked as he unsealed it. Then he stepped into the bus, quietly shutting the door behind himself. It was too dark to make out much of his expression, but the familiar silhouette seemed incredibly tense. He looked towards her, but glanced away quickly. She tried to reach towards him. He didn’t respond or even meet her eyes. Instead, he turned away and paced the bus’s length in eight long, quick steps.
Doesn’t he want to be near me? He had never been short in his affection before. The rejection burned in tandem with the lingering fever.
Dorran stopped at the other end of the bus, where Clare couldn’t see him. She could still hear him, though. His breaths came quickly. They were too rough and uneven to have come from exertion. He was on the edge of hyperventilating.
Dorran took a stuttered inhale and held it. In eight more quick steps, he was back at the bus’s front. He still wouldn’t look at Clare as he took the driver’s seat. This new angle let her see his features better, though. They were tight, his eyebrows heavy, his lips pressed together, a muscle leaping in his jaw. The creases around his eyes were painful to see.
Guilt. He wouldn’t look at her because he was ashamed. Clare tried to lift her hand, but couldn’t move it. She wanted to tell him it was all right, that she didn’t blame him. His eyes were fixed resolutely ahead, though. The key turned in the ignition. The bus’s lights flicked on. He was bathed in the backwash of the headlamps.
Blood ran from his shoulder and arm, saturating the fabric of his shirt. He hadn’t tried to bandage them. Instead, he used the injured arm to put the bus into drive and pulled back onto the road.
“Dorran?” It came out as a rasping breath.
His eyes met hers then were averted again in a flash. “I am sorry, my darling.”
They had to be driving along a well-maintained road; it was too smooth to be anything rural. Through the windshield, Clare saw more of the trees she’d glimpsed before, as well as infrequent peaked rooves.
Houses. He was trying to find bottled water in houses. She ran her eyes across the bloody marks again. He’d tried to go in alone and with no light besides what the moon could provide.
I’m so sorry.
He needed her badly. She was supposed to help him, care for him, and love him. That was what she’d promised. Now, her very presence was crushing him into desperation.
If she’d just been more wary… If she’d just asked to pass by Mother Gum’s Nest… If she’d just tipped the tea out like he had…
His fingers shook, clenched around the wheel. He glanced at the dashboard, towards the fuel gauge. Some awful resolution seemed to form inside of him. His eyebrows flinched down further, then he turned the wheel sharply, the bus’s tyres scraping as he made a U-turn. Then their speed picked up, a racing, rattling pace that couldn’t have been safe. Dorran had a plan, and he didn’t seem to like it.