Malorie feels insane. The old way. Exhausted, sore, and like she’s chosen to put her teens in danger, hastily, without enough of a plan.

The hood covers her head and neck and the blindfold her eyes. She wears sleeves and gloves despite the heat and also despite the lack of any concrete proof that the creatures have ever destroyed someone’s mind through touch. She drinks from the water bottles they’ve refilled numerous times on their journey (using filters from the camp kitchen rather than the ones Tom invented himself, a thing Tom argued against). She reminds them they need to eat, and she continually asks the teens what they hear. More than once they’ve come to a complete stop and waited upwards of a half hour, as Olympia seemed certain one was near, even when Tom didn’t agree.

And no matter what they are enduring or when, Malorie thinks of Mom and Dad.

It’s not hard to pluck a good memory of the two of them, the way they were. Both effusive, both smart as hell. They were what her friends called “hippies,” though neither lived that exact lifestyle. It was their positivity her peers made light of, the way her parents had of constantly talking about expanding the mind.

Intelligence, Dad told the sisters, is being able to talk your way out of a fight.

This after Malorie had fought with them about bedtime. Oh, how she wishes she had those fights, those words, that time back.

And here…she might.

The thought is almost too big to acknowledge. Nobody is granted a reversal of grief.

Nobody.

They would love the teens, Malorie thinks. But she wonders if Tom’s progressive nature would frighten them. It’s an odd, sudden thought to have, and it feels wholly out of place. As if, for a moment, Malorie was nervous to introduce her son to her parents. She has nobody to tell her if this feeling is natural. No book to reference. No friends to ask. Sam and Mary Walsh would love both kids. She knows this. Yet thoughts of Tom are becoming cloudier by the hour.

She walks. She listens. She thinks.

It hurts, as if the creatures and the new world they’ve created are present in her memories of the old. She remembers sneaking into a movie with Shannon, a movie rated R for nudity, and how, despite the images, hard kissing they’d never witnessed before in any way, Shannon fell asleep. Malorie sees her sister’s eyes are closed and wonders, now, was there something Shannon was hiding from? A thing that could’ve driven her mad? How about when Mom and Dad lowered the blinds at night, as Mom (Mary, Mary Walsh, Sam and Mary Walsh) told the girls that moonlight induced nightmares, and oh how the sisters giggled at the idea. Was Mom actually taking the same precautions Malorie takes now?

Close the blinds. Close your eyes.