They reach the road a minute later, sooner than Malorie thought they would. The service station that houses Ron Handy is two miles to their left. But they need to go right. The many roads they will take are east of here.

Still, Malorie turns a blind eye Ron’s way. She imagines him in his own darkness there. Does he think of his sister just as she thinks of hers? Is he steeling himself for a run, south, of his own?

She wants so badly for this to be the case. But she knows it’s not.

“Good luck,” she says quietly, as if this is goodbye. Forever.

As she turns to face the road again, her shoulder strikes something.

She freezes.

Whatever it was, it’s taller than the teens. She swipes at her arm, as if able to remove the touch of a creature.

“Guys!” she says.

But Olympia is beside her, guiding her, suddenly, around a tree.

“We have to move slow,” Olympia says. “Really slow. Lots of trees this way. Remember?”

Yes. And perhaps Malorie needed the reminder.

“You don’t hear anything else?” she asks.

“No,” Tom says. But Olympia remains silent a beat. Is it the hesitation of a lie? Is Olympia only being careful?

“Nothing,” she finally says.

“Did you lose track of the one you heard outside the cabin?”

Hesitation again.

“No.”

“Where did it go?”

“To the lake,” Olympia says.

Despite not being able to hear the water from this distance, Malorie listens.

“Tom?” she asks. “Did you hear the same thing?”

“I lost track of it,” Tom says.

“You what? You can’t do that out here. You cannot lose track of anything out here. Do you understand?”

“Mom…”

“Tom. Do you understand or not?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

“No yeah, no sure. This isn’t the time to daydream. I need you. Olympia needs you.”

“Okay. I’m sorry. Olympia said it’s in the lake. Then it’s in the lake.”

Malorie listens. She thinks she can hear the open road going in either direction.

“Fine,” she says. “Let’s go.”

She feels the road beneath her boots but she knows they won’t be on solid footing for long. The map in her bag includes paths through woods, over farmland, across rivers.

Sam and Mary Walsh.

It’s impossible not to imagine them on the couch in the home she grew up in. But now, rather than a view of the garden and the street, there are blankets over the windows.

And if they’re not at home, not in the only place Malorie can imagine them to be, what roads have they taken, and what did they hear along the way?

“Quiet,” Malorie says, though the teens aren’t talking. “Listen.”