Blood Cult (22 page)

We laboured
along the verge as we walked north. I held the black carryall in my right hand
and a selection of carriers filled with food in the other. Chrissie had her
pink school bag slung over her shoulder, but was struggling even beneath its
meagre weight, her legs leaden as she shuffled beside me. Thanks to her
weakened condition the pace was slow and even though we’d been travelling some
time, the Falcon was still visible in the distance behind us.

I paused as I let her catch up, briefly scratching my chin with the
collar of the pale waterproof I’d taken out of my case, wishing I’d thought to
pack some winter clothes thanks to the chill that was starting to make itself
known. Despite the fact that her head was bowed, I could see the strain in her
expression. It was her worsening condition that had stopped me heading back to
the gas station in order to give Bob the burial he deserved. She needed treatment
as soon as possible, but I hated leaving him on the roadside, the guilt-ridden image
of crows pecking at his corpse rising into my mind with haunting regularity.

‘How you doing?’ I asked as Chrissie drew alongside.

She gave a vague nod. ‘Could we rest?’

‘We haven’t gone far yet, Honey. Let’s try and get a little further
before we stop.’

I started of, measuring my steps so that she didn’t fall behind again. I
could feel the screwdriver and kitchen knife tucked into the top of my
sweatpants. They were the only weapons I’d been able find, but I knew they
would be of little use if we ran into trouble.

Hearing movement in the woods to our right, I stopped and stiffened with
tension. Slowly placing my bags on the ground, I withdrew the kitchen knife as
I stared into the shadows and tried to make out the source of the sounds,
Chrissie halting beside me.

A portly man with thinning brown hair came stumbling out of the trees.
His head was bowed and he wore a dark suit, the pale blue shirt beneath stained
with blood.

I stared at him as he moved past barely five yards before us, seemingly
not noticing our presence. Other people began to emerge behind him, all bruised
and battered, one young woman with her arm in a makeshift sling created from a
black jacket.

‘Hello?’ I said as she began to walk by, her white blouse ripped down the
side and pleated skirt muddied.

She turned as the staggered line of a dozen or so people made its way
across the interstate. Her eyes were hooded and she was ghostly pale.

‘Where are you going?’ I asked.

‘West,’ she replied as if dazed.

‘West?’

She shuffled to a halt. ‘Home. Our plane crashed and we’re heading home.’

I glanced along the line and then turned back to her. ‘Where’s home?’

‘We’d just taken off from Boston when…’ She couldn’t finish the sentence,
struggling with memories of what had happened.

‘Boston to Chicago,’ she stated simply after a few moments. ‘We’re headed
to Illinois.’

‘Are you the only survivors?’

‘There were more but…’ She took a wavering breath. ‘To begin with there
were more,’ she finished, again finding the words would not come.

‘Wasn’t Chicago hit?’

She looked at the ground and shrugged with great effort, her shoulders heavy
with weariness.

‘Montreal wasn’t and it’s much closer,’ I stated.

She shook her head. ‘We’re heading west.’

‘But that’ll take days, weeks even.’

The woman lifted her gaze to mine. ‘We’re going home,’ she stated with
weary doggedness.

She set off once again, moving to the back of the group, the suited man
having vanished into the trees on the far side of the highway. I stared after
them, reminded of the scene from
The Poseidon Adventure
when Gene Hackman’s
character encounters a group of survivors going the wrong way through the
darkened bowels of the ship, heading to their doom despite his attempts to persuade
them to turn around.

‘She was strange,’ commented Chrissie weakly as the last of the crash
survivors moved into the woods.

I turned to her while tucking the knife back in place. ‘We should get
going,’ I stated, feeling unsettled by the brief meeting and wanting to get
underway again.

I picked up the bags and set off, having to slow myself despite the wish
to be away from there. I heard Chrissie groan as she began to follow, her legs
aching and strength rapidly diminishing.

A pained cry arose from behind me after we’d been walking for a short
while. I turned to find Chrissie upon her knees on the grass.

I went to her, crouching at her side. ‘Did you hurt yourself?’

She shook her head as tears began to spill upon her cheeks. ‘I can’t keep
going,’ she sobbed.

The sound of an engine drifted along the highway and I looked to the
south briefly. ‘Can you make it to the trees?’ I asked urgently, suddenly
overcome by the thought that the approaching vehicle was the pickup that had
chased us during the night.

She shook her head again. ‘I don’t think so,’ she moaned. ‘I hurt all
over.’

I dropping the bags, I gathered her up into my arms. Gritting my teeth, I
struggled to carry her to the concealment offered by the woods and worried that
the vehicle would come into sight at any moment.

Making it to the trees, I set her down and then crouched, staring
southward. A moment later a forest green SUV came into sight speeding towards
us.

‘Wait here,’ I stated firmly.

‘What are you going to do?’

‘See if they’re friendly.’

‘And if they’re not?’ She looked at me worriedly.

‘Just wait here, okay?’

She nodded.

I moved from the trees with my hands in the air, staring at the fast
approaching auto. It began to slow and I could see a woman behind the wheel who
was about my age, waves of long sandy hair falling about her shoulders. There
was a girl in the passenger seat, a good few years older than Chrissie and
clearly the daughter of the woman driving.

The old and slightly battered Range Rover came to a stop fifteen yards
away and the driver’s window slid down.

‘Is that your car back there?’ called the woman, leaning out of the open
window, her glasses reflecting the low clouds.

I nodded. ‘Yeah, we ran out of gas,’ I replied, not wishing to go into
detail about what had actually happened.

‘We?’

‘Me and my daughter?’

The woman scanned the tree-line. ‘She in there?’

I nodded again.

‘And she’s alone?’

‘Yes,’ I replied.

‘Call her out.’

I hesitated and then looked over my shoulder. ‘Chrissie.’

There was a moment of stillness and then she appeared, sheepish and
nervous as she weakly pushed passed a patch of undergrowth.

‘Where you headed?’ I asked.

‘North.’

‘I don’t suppose…’

‘Wait,’ interrupted the woman, turning to her daughter and the two of
them briefly exchanging a few words. ‘Are you armed?’ she called.

I pulled the screwdriver and knife from my sweatpants. ‘This is all,’ I
replied, holding them up.

‘Put them on the ground by your feet and walk to the bumper,’ she
instructed.

I did as she’d said, placing both of the weapons on the grass and then
making my way to the SUV.

‘Hands on the hood.’

I lay my palms to the deep green metal, feeling the warmth of the engine
and the vibrations as it idled beneath, noting patches of sun-faded paint that
hinted at the vehicle’s age. She slowly got out of the car, her daughter moving
over into the driver’s seat even though I was sure she couldn’t possibly know
how to operate the vehicle.

‘I taught her,’ said the woman, seeing the look on my face as she
approached me with care, dressed in hiking gear and her large walking boots
marking each step.

She moved behind and frisked me, patting my clothes and checking my
pockets. ‘Is the girl armed?’ she asked after stepping back.

‘No,’ I stated, turning to her and noting the silver hoop piercing the
middle of her bottom lip.

‘You wouldn’t believe the lengths some people will go to these days.’

‘Yes I would,’ I replied darkly.

She looked into my eyes and nodded to herself. ‘Okay, you can join us,
but you’re driving and your daughter is sitting behind you.’

‘Sounds just fine to me.’

‘I’m Stormy and that there is my daughter, Jasmine,’ she introduced with
a glance through the windshield.

‘Leah and Chrissie,’ I replied. ‘We’re from Burlington.’

‘Over to the east?’

‘Yeah. We tried heading up Interstate Eighty-Nine, but that…’ I paused as
I sought the right words. ‘…Didn’t work out.’

Stormy held my gaze, seeing the untold stories within my eyes. ‘We’ve just
come up from Saratoga Springs,’ she said, turning to look south down the
highway, her expression tightening.

‘Everything okay?’

She looked back to me. ‘We’d better get going,’ she stated simply.

‘I need to get our things.’ I began to walk towards the bags on the verge.

‘I’ll get them,’ said Stormy, clearly still a little suspicious. ‘You
stay right there where I can see you.’

‘Okay,’ I replied with a nod.

She stepped around me, staying at a safe distance. Moving over to the
bags, she gathered up their handles and lugged all our things around to the
back of her vehicle. The lid of the trunk slammed a few moments later and she
walked around to the passenger side, and opening the door.

‘Jasmine, you’re in the back behind me. Leah will drive and…’ She glanced
at me questioningly.

‘Chrissie,’ I stated.

‘…Chrissie will sit behind her mom.’

Jasmine nodded and then climbed out of the car, making her way around the
trunk and climbing in behind her mother.

‘Do you want any help, Chrissie?’ I asked as she continued to stand
before the trees.

She gave me a look that indicated she didn’t want to say what was on her
mind in front of the relative strangers. I walked over to her and crouched.

‘What is it, Honey?’

‘Are you sure it’s safe?’

‘Safer than walking along the highway,’ I replied, ‘and much faster. Besides,
how much further until I’d have to carry you?’ I asked pointedly. ‘At least this
way you get to rest up a while.’

She frowned. ‘But we don’t know them.’

‘And they don’t know us, so I guess we’ll all have to trust each other,
now won’t we?’ I brushed her cheek. ‘Come on,’ I stated, standing up and
holding my hand out to her.

She took hold and we walked over to the waiting car as Stormy and Jasmine
watched, the former looking increasingly agitated as time dragged on.

I helped Chrissie into the back and then hurriedly got into the driver’s
seat. Shutting the door, I shifted into first and got us underway as quickly as
possible, Stormy glancing back over her shoulder.

‘Is there something I should know?’ I asked.

‘Later,’ she said under her breath as we began north and a murder of
crows passed overhead, their rasping calls audible above the sound of the
engine.

We travelled in
virtual silence, seeing no other vehicles on the highway as we made good time
towards Plattsburgh. Glancing in the mirror, I found that Chrissie had fallen
asleep behind me and was glad that she was able to find some rest.

‘What do you think?’ asked Stormy.

I turned to find her staring out of the windshield and followed her gaze.
I sign at the side of the road announced that the turn for Plattsburgh
international airport was drawing close.

‘I haven’t seen any planes flying since the… Since Friday,’ I stated. ‘I
thought maybe the blasts had fried their circuits or maybe most of the pilots
had been killed,’ I added, deciding there was no point mentioning the crash
survivors who’d recently crossed my path.

She thought for a moment. ‘You’re probably right,’ she conceded.
‘Besides, we’re making good time on the road.’

We fell into silence again as we continued along the interstate, which
was a series of long straights and gentle bends without much to look at beyond other
than trees and the low clouds. I considered asking about the absence of
Jasmine’s father, but chose to hold my silence, knowing that the enquiry would
lead to Stormy asking about Bob and not wishing to discuss it.

The road curved northeast and my eyes widened. Smoke filled the skyline
to the right in billowing shades of grey.

‘Plattsburgh?’ I asked.

‘The whole place must be alight,’ she commented, staring out of the
window at her shoulder.

I pulled over to the inside lane as a sign above announced the Plattsburgh
south turning. A bridge came into sight a few hundred yards ahead and I slowed
when I set eyes on what lay below. Vehicles had been sent through the barriers
and over the sides to crash upon the interstate, the wreckage blocking the way
through on both sides of the highway.

My stomach tightened when I spied figures upon the bridge set against the
backdrop of the cloudy sky. The unmistakable silhouettes of homemade fire bombs
were visible in their hands, rags hanging from the tops waiting to be ignited.

‘They’re kids!’ exclaimed Stormy in surprise.

I looked to their soot-smeared faces and saw that they were all in their early
teens, at most. There were around thirty of them, most armed with the missiles
and all beckoning us towards them with waves as they jeered and taunted.

‘What do we do?’ I asked as I brought the car to a stop sixty yards from
the bridge.

‘You ever driven an SUV off road before?’ she asked, looking over to the
long grass on the right and the embankment of the road that passed over the
interstate beyond. ‘I say we take a cross-country trip.’

She looked over her shoulder at the two girls. ‘Buckle up, Jasmine, and
make sure Chrissie’s secure too.’

I clicked my belt into place as Stormy put hers on, my palms feeling
clammy as I took hold of the wheel once again.

‘All set,’ she stated.

I shifted into first and put my foot down. We left the interstate and
headed through the field beside, the sound of grass brushing against the bumper
and the underside filling the vehicle as we bounced through hidden ruts.

‘What’s going on, Mommy?’ asked Chrissie from the back, a tone of panic
in her voice.

‘Just hold on tight, Honey,’ I replied as we rapidly approached the
embankment.

We were all jolted in out seats as the car lurched upwards, tyres spraying
dirt behind as they gripped on the brief slope. There was a smash of metal as
we hit the small roadside barrier at the top, suddenly bursting onto the
highway beyond.

‘Straight across to the off ramp,’ said Stormy, pointing ahead.

A burst of flame erupted ten yards to our left as the youths ran from the
bridge towards us and began to unleash their missiles. The Range Rover shot
across both sides of the highway, briefly passing over a patch of grass before
joining the curving off ramp and heading along it back to the interstate.

More explosions of flame bloomed in the mirrors as I fought to keep
control of the wheel, the car pulling to the right and my muscles straining to
keep us on the road.

The smash of glass was followed by the roar of fire as one of the
missiles exploded on the back of the car. Flames streamed out behind as I
pressed my foot down, shoulders aching and neck stiff with tension.

‘We’re on fire!’ Chrissie’s words were filled with fear.

‘It’ll go out once the gasoline has burnt away,’ stated Stormy with
impressive calmness as we reached the interstate and rejoined it.

We continued for a couple of miles and then Stormy rested her hand on
mine after glancing out of the rear window, finding that we weren’t being
chased and the flames had diminished to a few pools of fading orange on the
rear. ‘Pull over,’ she said softly.

I turned to her and she smiled thinly.

‘We’re safe, but I should put out the last of the flames.’

I pulled the car to a stop beside the verge and found I was almost unable
to release the wheel, my knuckles aching and fingers temporarily like claws.
Stormy reached under her seat and pulled out a small fire extinguisher before
heading to the rear.

I undid my belt and got out, taking deep breaths and feeling the weakness
in my legs. I leant against the hood, the smell of gasoline from the tailgate
churning my stomach as I tried to undo the knots in my muscles and relaxed my
tongue after finding it pressed against the roof of my mouth. I wondered if I
should take some tablets to offset the chance of getting a migraine, but
decided against it, wanting to avoid using any of the remaining painkillers for
Chrissie’s sake.

‘You okay?’ asked Stormy as she appeared on the other side of the hood.

‘I’ll be fine,’ I replied.

‘Fire’s out and it’s only peeled the paint a little, not that you’d
notice on this old thing,’ she said, giving the front tyre a gentle kick. ‘This
is the second time since this all started that I’ve been grateful me and
Jasmine like to go hiking in the mountains some weekends. It meant we had the
kit and it’s also the reason I bought this beast.’

‘I can’t believe kids would do that,’ I commented, looking back down the
interstate.

She raised her eyebrows as she regarded me. ‘There’s always been juvenile
delinquents, now the world’s their oyster,’ she said, apparently unfazed by
what had just happened. ‘What’s left of it,’ she added as she glanced at the
smoke rising from Plattsburgh.

‘What’s behind us?’ I asked after a moment, looking at her meaningfully.

She glanced into the car, seeing that the girls were still seated in the
back and the windows were all up. Moving around the bumper, she came to a stop
a couple of yards away.

‘Some people came into Saratoga Springs and drove around the streets
saying they had a cure for the sickness. Jasmine’s been quite bad with
headaches, aching muscles and sickness.’

‘Same with Chrissie,’ I said with a nod.

‘They said we should go with them south on the interstate, that they had
a camp. Well, Jasmine was too sick at the time, kneeling in front of a bucket
and unable to find her feet, so we were late leaving.’ She took a breath and
shook her head.

‘What I saw when we got there was like something from a crazy horror
movie. They were having some kind of party, people strung up from fire truck
ladders having their heads sawn off, a huge pile of bodies by the road.

‘They were playing music from loud speakers and there was a preacher on a
float. It was like some kind of cult.’

‘Music?’

‘
Live and Let Die
,’ she replied.

I stared at her as I tried to comprehend the scenes she was describing,
scenes far removed from anything I’d ever seen.

‘They’d created a type of arena on the interstate using their vehicles. There
were hundreds of people packed into the place. If I hadn’t seen it with my own
eyes, I wouldn’t have believed it.’

‘What makes you think they’re heading this way?’

‘I could see a whole lotta vehicles parked beyond the arena and they were
all facing in this direction on the northbound. Besides, most of what was south
ain’t there anymore, so there wouldn’t be much point heading in that direction.’

I glanced back down the road. ‘They’ll have trouble getting by those
kids.’

‘I doubt it somehow,’ responded Stormy darkly. ‘Come on, let’s get going,
maybe we’ll reach Montreal before nightfall.’

I looked at her. It was the first time she’d revealed their destination.
‘You’re okay with us coming all the way?’

She walked back to the passenger door and gave a nod. ‘Until you prove
otherwise,’ she said with a grin.

I couldn’t help but smile and got back into the SUV. Looking to the back
seat, I found Chrissie staring back at me.

‘You okay, Honey?’

She nodded weakly.

‘It shouldn’t be too long now,’ I said, reaching back and giving her arm
a reassuring squeeze.

Turning my attention forward, I started the engine and shifted into
first, pulling back onto the highway as we began to head north once again. For
the first time in a while I was feeling hopeful. Montreal was only a couple of
hours away at most and with no other traffic on the roads the chances looked
good that we’d soon be at the border.