Nate Kenyon - Day One

Hawke whispered to him as the last of the sun’s rays slipped through the living room window, his voice trembling with sadness, joy, exhaustion, emotions cascading through him and leaving him weak limbed and spent. He touched his son’s face, tracing invisible lines on his skin. Thomas didn’t move; Robin shied away from him until he let his hand drop. She sat on the carpet and stared out at nothing.

When he was able to untangle himself from his son’s arms and get up, Hawke found the body in the bedroom.

Randall Lowry was lying on his side, one arm slung out, the other twisted beneath him. His hair hung across his glazed, sightless eyes, bubbles of blood drying on his lips. His jaw was dotted with salt-and-pepper stubble, the skin ashy gray; his cheeks were hollow, sagging pockets of flesh. He looked like a wax statue of a dead man, and Hawke couldn’t imagine that this person, these deflated remains, had caused them so much pain.

He saw how it might have happened. They’d been watching reports on the TV about the events unfolding in New York and across the country. Thomas knew his father went to the city. Perhaps Thomas had gotten scared, made a racket, spilling his blocks, knocking over the lamp. I want my daddy. He imagined Randall Lowry calling out from the hallway, increasingly agitated, banging on the door and screaming at them, which would have gotten Thomas even more worked up until he was screaming, too.

Or maybe Lowry had just taken this opportunity to go after Robin. Hawke remembered how Lowry looked at her and had always suspected what he would do, if given the chance. He remembered the incident in the basement, Lowry staring at her photos. Her belly wasn’t showing much yet, and even if it was, that might not have changed anything for a man like him.

The doors to these apartments were flimsy, hollow-core replacements, with cheap locks and a single chain for additional protection. Lowry wouldn’t have had much trouble kicking it open. Robin had hidden in the closet as he came in, somehow keeping Thomas quiet, and then approached Lowry from behind; there were knife wounds in his neck near the collarbone and a deep gash under his arm. She had stabbed him high first, Hawke reasoned, causing the spray on the wall, and then as Lowry had turned and thrown up his hand to ward her off she had stabbed him in the side, puncturing his lung and driving him into the bedroom, where his life had leaked away quickly, judging from the wounds and the amount of blood on the floor. Perhaps she’d hit his jugular with the first slash; the spray was violent and wide, enough to tell that he’d been mortally wounded.

Lowry hadn’t had a weapon with him.

Hawke thought about that as he led Robin into the bathroom and gently undressed her, scrubbing off the blood under a lukewarm spray. Just because the man had been unarmed, in the traditional sense, didn’t mean he wasn’t a clear danger. He’d threatened them before, several times, and he had forced entry into the apartment. He was larger and stronger than Robin and had a history of mental illness. He was violent. She had acted in self-defense; there was no question in Hawke’s mind. She would do whatever she had to do to protect herself and their son.

But others might not see it that way, if the world ever got back to normal and the authorities ever investigated the killing. They might wonder why she hadn’t tried to speak to Lowry first, why she had snuck up from behind that way and stabbed him without trying to escape. In Hawke’s mind, the reason was clear; there was no way she would have gotten to the stairs with Thomas in her arms before Lowry would have run them down.

But things weren’t always so simple, when the law got involved. They didn’t care about Hawke’s family the way he did. They cared about facts, not speculation. They would give Lowry’s life far more weight than it deserved.

Robin stood there limply, shivering and passive in a bra and underpants while Thomas sat huddled in the corner, his worn old stuffed rabbit sagging in his iron grip. Hawke washed Robin’s face until it was pink and she looked like a different woman, younger, more childlike. He caressed his wife’s bare shoulders, watched the swirls of red disappearing down the drain.

When they emerged from the apartment an hour later, it was completely dark. Hawke went back in and found a flashlight in the kitchen, using it to navigate down the stairs to the street. The sun had gone down beyond the layer of smoke, bringing a deeper chill. It was strange not to see lights anywhere; none of the buildings had power, and Hoboken was like a wilderness.

The darkness was good, though; it provided them cover. Nobody saw them jogging down the empty streets, Hawke holding Thomas in his arms, a duffel bag slung over his other shoulder; there were no witnesses as they rushed down the walkway under a blanket of trees, found Hawke’s dinghy still tied up to the esplanade and climbed into the boat. The few emergency workers he had seen when he’d docked there a short while ago were nowhere to be found.

The boat itself had no connection to the network, no ability to be monitored. Doe, with all her unnatural abilities, wouldn’t be able to track him during the night through satellites or cameras. Even she had some limits. He had nine hours to disappear.

The world had gone into hiding, it seemed. It was an unsettling feeling. The stiffening breeze would require a jacket on the water, but he and Robin had only brought one for Thomas, not for themselves. She was moving on her own now and assisting Hawke when asked, but she still hadn’t spoken and he hadn’t been thinking clearly, and there was only so much they could carry. They would have to put on more layers of clothing from their bags and huddle together for warmth.

He got his wife into the dinghy and handed down his son, before slinging over the bag he carried and climbing in himself. Robin remained silent, distant, disconnected.

“I know it’s a lot to take in,” Hawke said. “What I told you about what happened. I know it probably sounds crazy. But it’s the truth.”

He’d tried to explain as much as he could while he was washing the blood off her, but he didn’t know how much she’d absorbed. It all sounded like the ravings of a lunatic when he said it out loud. He could hardly believe it himself. A self-aware machine had tried to kill 63.4 percent of human life on the planet in order to ensure her own survival, and he was wanted by every law enforcement bureau in the country.

We have to run, find a place to hide. We have to get out now. I have an idea… trust me.

Hawke had studied Robin’s reaction, but she was little more than a vague shape in the dark. He couldn’t see her face. He risked raising the flashlight and flicking it on for a moment. She sat with her arms hugging her chest, Thomas between her legs. Hawke’s son looked up at him, eyes glassy. Thomas had seen far too much today, and Hawke was afraid he would see a lot more before this was over.

He turned the light off, and the darkness moved in again.

“You left us alone,” she said dully, her voice flat, expressionless. “I had to do it.”

The words bit deeply. Hawke knelt in front of her. She allowed him to touch her face but didn’t seem to react.

I should have been there. Robin had done what she had to do because he wasn’t home to protect them. For all his struggles to fight through the worst of what had happened, he still hadn’t been able to make it in time.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I know you did.”

“I’m hungry,” Thomas said. They were the first words he’d spoken since Hawke had found them.

Hawke touched the boy’s head, and Thomas shrank back slightly, a turtle pulling into its shell. The guilt washed over Hawke again. He hadn’t been there to protect them, and Robin had been forced to kill a man.