Josh Malerman - Bird Box

The housemates look at Malorie like she’s a stranger. For a moment, she feels embarrassed for asserting herself. But then, it works.

Gary quietly walks to the telephone. Cheryl goes to the cellar door.

You’re close , Tom said to her before he left.

She thinks of this, as the housemates busy themselves with their chores, as Malorie and Felix go to get their blindfolds, she thinks of the things Tom and Jules might return with. Is there anything they could bring, anything , that would lead to a better life for her baby?

Picking up a blindfold, Malorie hopes.

The river is going to split into four channels, the man told her. The one you want is the second one from the right. So you can’t hug the right bank and expect to make it. It’s tricky. And you’re going to have to open your eyes .

Malorie is rowing.

And this is how you’ll know when that time comes , the man told her. You’ll hear a recording. A voice. We can’t sit by the river all day. It’s just too dangerous. Instead, we’ve got a speaker there. The recording will be playing on a loop. You’ll hear it. It’s loud. Clear. And when you do, that’s when you’ll have to open your eyes .

The pain in her shoulder comes in waves. The children, hearing her groans, offer help.

In her first year alone with the children, Tom’s voice came to her all the time. So many of his ideas were only spoken, never achieved. Malorie, with nothing but time on her hands, tried out many of them.

We ought to mic the yard , he once said.

Tom’s idea of updating the alarm system from birds to amplifiers. Malorie, alone with two newborns, wanted those microphones.

But how? How would she get her hands on microphones, amplifiers, and cords?

We can drive somewhere , Tom once said.

That’s madness , Don answered.

No, it’s not. Drive slow. The streets are empty. What’s the worst that can happen?

Malorie, rowing, remembers a definitive moment at the bathroom mirror. She’d seen other faces in the glass. Olympia. Tom. Shannon. All of them were pleading, telling her to leave the house, to do something more for the further safety of these kids. She was going to have to take a risk on her own. Tom and Jules weren’t here to do it for her.

Tom’s voice back then. Always Tom’s voice. In her head. In the room. In the mirror.

Make a bumper around Cheryl’s Wagoneer. Paint the windows black. Don’t worry about what you run into. Just go. Drive five, six miles an hour. You have babies in the house now, Malorie. You have to know if something is out there. If something is near. The microphones will let you know that .

Leaving the bathroom, she went to the kitchen. There she studied the map Felix, Jules, and Tom once used to plan a route to Tom’s house on foot. Their notes were still on it. Felix’s calculations. Using the scale, she made her own.

She wanted Tom’s advanced alarm system. She needed it. Yet, despite her newfound determination, she still didn’t know where to go.

Late one evening, while the babies slept, she sat at the kitchen table and tried to remember her very first drive to the house. It had been less than a year ago. Back then, her mind was on the address from the ad. But what did she pass along the way?

She tried to remember.

A Laundromat .

That’s good. What else?

Storefronts were empty. It looked like a ghost town and you were worried the people who placed the ad might no longer be there. You thought they’d either gone mad or packed up the car and driven faraway .

Yes, all right. What else?

A bakery .

Good. What else?

What else?

Yes .

A bar .

Good. What did the marquee boast?

I don’t know. That’s a ridiculous question!

You don’t remember the sadness you felt at the name of… the name of …

Of what?

The name of the band?

The band?

You read the name of a band slated to perform on a date already two weeks past. What was it?

I’ll never remember the name of the band .

Right, but the feeling?

I don’t remember .

Yes, you do. The feeling .

I was sad. I was scared .

What’d they do there?

What?

At the bar. What’d they do there?

I don’t know. They drank. They ate .

Yes. What else?

They danced?

They danced .

Yes .

And?

And what?

How did they dance?

I don’t know .

What did they dance to?

They danced to music. They danced to the band .

Malorie brought a hand to her forehead and smiled.

Right. They danced to the band .

And the band needed microphones. The band needed amplifiers.

Tom’s ideas lingered in the house like ghosts.

Just like we did it , Tom might say. Just like the time Jules and I took a walk around the block. You weren’t able to partake in a lot of those activities, Malorie, but you can now. Jules and I rounded up dogs and later used them to walk to my house. Think about that, Malorie. It all kind of happened in a row, each step allowed the next step to happen. All because we weren’t stagnant. We took risks. Now you’ve got to do the same. Paint the windshield black .

Don had laughed when Tom suggested driving blind.

But it’s exactly what she did.

Victor, he would help her. Jules once refused to let him be used like that. But Malorie had two newborns in a room down the hall. The rules were different now. Her body still ached from the delivery. The muscles in her back were always tight. If she moved too quickly, it felt like her groin might snap. She got exhausted easily. She never had the rest a new mother deserves.

Victor , she thought then, hewill protect you .

She painted the windshield black with the paint from the cellar. She taped socks and sweaters to the inside of the glass. Using wood glue found in the garage, and duct tape from the cellar, she fastened blankets and mattresses to the bumpers. All this in the street. All this blindfolded. All this while enduring the pain of being a new mother, punished, it seemed, with every movement of her body.

She would have to leave them. She would go on her own.

She would drive a quarter of a mile in the opposite direction from which she arrived. She’d turn left and go four miles. Then a right, and another two and a half. She’d have to search for the bar from there. She’d bring food for Victor. He would guide her back to the car, back to the food, when she needed him to.

Five or six miles an hour sounded reasonable. Safe enough.

But the first time she tried it, she discovered just how hard it would be.

Despite the precautions, driving without seeing was horrifying. The Wagoneer bounced violently as she ran things over she’d never be able to identify. Twenty times she struck the curb. Twice she hit poles. Once, a parked car. It was pure, horrible suspense. With every click of the odometer, she expected a collision, an injury. Tragedy. By the time she returned home, her nerves were shattered. She was empty-handed and unconvinced she had the mettle to try it again.

But she did.

She found the Laundromat on the seventh try. And because she remembered it from her first drive to the house, it gave her the courage to try again. Blindfolded and scared, she entered a boot store, a coffee shop, an ice-cream parlor, and a theater. She’d heard her shoes echoing off the marble floor of an office lobby. She’d knocked a shelf of greeting cards to the floor. Still, she failed to find the bar. Then, on the ninth afternoon, Malorie entered an unlocked wooden door and immediately knew she had arrived.