by Maxey, Phil
“Storm… hear me… Joan…”
He looked at Arlo. “She knows about Joan…”
“At least she’s on the same highway as us. What should we do?”
He grabbed the roadmap, unfolding it then examined the highway they were on. “She could be a long way behind. If we stop then Sam could get away from us… Keep going. I’ll keep trying to reach her on the radio.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
10: 54 p.m. Highway 70.
“Phew, this storms a doozy,” said the woman driving, while trying to see beyond the hardworking windshield wipers.
Sam leaned forward, towards the radio in the central column.
“It doesn’t work,” said Joan.
Sam looked at her. “None of it works? Not even the CD player?”
“Nope… I tried earlier. Real shame. I hoped we could listen to some music on our journey west.”
Sam sat back with a sigh. “Feels like a hundred years ago I heard music.”
“Oh, there’ll be music and bands again. One day, when all the creatures have gone there will be a new world. One made for us.” She turned and smiled at Sam before looking back at the road.
Sam continued looking out the window at the fury of snow they were driving through. “I just want to find my mom. Don’t care about any new world stuff.”
“Where do you think she is?”
“I’ve been thinking we try the place she used to work. It’s in southern Denver.”
“What if she’s being held…” said Lachlan. His first comment since they ran from the gas station.
“I don’t know.” Sam looked at Joan. “You were in the army—”
Joan smiled. “Marines.”
“— Yes, Marines. Could we find some guns somewhere?”
“We ain’t soldier’s, Sam,” said Lachlan. He caught Joan’s eyes in the rear mirror.
“The young man is right. Guns won’t help you. They have lots of soldiers. We would only be three. If your mom is at this Biochron, then we will need to think of another way to get her. Hey, maybe we just ask them?”
Joan smiled again, something which was beginning to get on Sam’s nerves. She looked away. “They said they need my mom for something. She’s important to them. That’s why they took her.”
“Don’t worry. Everything will work out fine.”
*****
10: 59 p.m. Highway 70.
Jess tried not to think about Josh waking up and realizing she had left. The alternative, she hadn’t been able to face. So she snuck out, hoping the sound of the storm would mask her leaving. Luckily the pickup had four-wheel-drive with good ground clearance, and despite the blizzard outside, she was making short work of the snow drifting across the highway.
So close… we were so close to being together…
She couldn’t decide if they had been incredibly lucky or unlucky, but just when it seemed there was a chance of finding each other, fate intervened and said otherwise.
It’s fine… She’s been given the vaccine and Landon will find her… and at least she’s not alone.
She tried to focus on the positives, but couldn’t shake the feeling of dread of maybe having to return to Denver.
The creatures are dying…
It was some solace. Maybe by time her daughter got to Denver the things would be gone. She let out a long breath. Perhaps this nightmare was coming to a conclusion.
Colm…
She had managed to push her strange encounter with the former mayor to the back of her mind despite the aches her body still felt, but couldn’t shake the questions. The chances of him finding her… even with the weird connection the creatures had…
She sighed. A phrase he said suddenly came to her…
“He wants you to come back with me. Wants to play with you!”
At the time she dismissed it as ramblings of a crazed mind. She knew all about how the change messed with your head, your emotions. She thought he had just latched on to her for some unknown reason, but what if…
“He wants you to come back…” she said under her breath. “Who is…” Her mouth opened as she jolted in her seat, her foot fumbling on the gas pedal, making her speed drop for a moment. “Rackham…”
‘Wants to play with you…’
A bad taste swelled in her mouth along with the idea of seeing the chief scientist again. Could Rackham have used Colm?
“Yeah… that was it… that’s why that crazed bastard was after me… Rackham sent him… Sam…” She let out a breath as she shook her head. Her daughter was heading straight into the dragon’s cave… If she could just contact her…
She picked up the radio, holding it to her mouth. “Sam? Can you hear this? Sam, I’m on—”
“Jess?”
“Landon?”
“Yes! Where are you? Over.”
She instinctively looked out into the white flake filled void, then chastised herself for it and grabbed at the roadmap, trying to open it with a few free fingers while holding the radio. “Ah,” she said to herself, then held the radio to her mouth again. “Hold on!”
“We’re going through Kansas…” His voice faded.
“Damnit,” she said, dropping the radio while pulling open the map. She scouted her proposed route then picked up the radio. “Landon? I’m on highway seventy, approaching… Sweet Springs… or maybe I passed it. I’m not sure, but near there! Where are you? Over.” Static came from the speaker. “Landon? Can you hear me? I’m near Sweet Springs. Over!” The static continued.
She cried out in frustration, taking her hand briefly off the steering wheel, then looked back at the map. “Kansas… city? Has to be that.” She held down the transmit button again. “Landon, if you can hear me. I’m an hour from there. Storms pretty bad. But I’m not far behind you. Over.”
She put the radio on the other seat and eased down on the gas.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
11: 12 p.m. Highway 70.
“No!”
Sam snapped her hand back from the buttons on the radio. “Jeeze… okay, I heard you. I just through maybe I could get it to work.”
Joan’s smile returned. “It will drain the battery. And for what? It is just white noise, and there are no CD’s… I apologize, I did not mean to shout.”
Sam leaned back on the headrest, looking out into the night. “Whatever.”
Globs of snow hit the windshield while the wind rocked the SUV. It slowed but not before the tires started to lose traction.
“Grrrr,” growled Joan. “We have to get to Denver!”
“It’s okay,” said Sam, looking with concern to her. “Better we don’t crash. Just go—”
“I know how to drive!” Sam froze while Joan looked back to the wall of white, then accelerated.
“What are you doing?” said Lachlan, leaning forward.
“We need to make up time. We’re falling behind.”
“Uh?” said Sam.
Joan shook her head, or maybe it was a twitch Sam wasn’t sure. “I knew he would fail.”
Sam looked behind to Lachlan, both of them not understanding the point of the comment. “Are you okay?”
There was that smile again. But their speed was still increasing.
“Slow down!” said the young man in the back.
Sam looked between the woman and what was left of her view through the ice on the windshield. “We’re going to crash! Slow—”
She felt the lateral motion before Joan swung the steering wheel to try and compensate, but the older woman’s actions were too little, too late and the SUV lost all grip and slid violently to the left, then kept going, around and around, their world becoming a dizzying blur. Somewhere within the chaos there was yelling, but not from Sam, for she saw the whole thing in slow motion, until that motion abruptly came to a halt on a bank of snow.
A throbbing came from her head before she opened her eyes. She reached up to feel it then pulled back when the pain increased.
“Oh my, how badly does your
head hurt?” said Joan, leaning closer, her hand moving to the crimson mark on Sam’s forehead.
Sam pulled away. “I’m fine!” she shouted. A groan came from the backseats and she pushed through the gap, finding Lachlan laying on them.
He looked up at her. “Your heads bleeding.”
“Are you alright?” He nodded and she returned to her seat, then looked angrily at the driver. “What were you thinking? You could have killed us!”
Joan looked away. “I know, I’m sorry… I…” She looked back at her, then to Lachlan. “But we’re all okay. We’re fine.”
Sam rolled her eyes, which hurt. She looked at the snow covering the windshield, then tried to see out of the side window. With her improved vision she could see rectangular shapes not too far off. “I think there are trucks… trailers, over there.”
Joan leaned forward trying to see. She nodded. “It’s a truck—” She felt the rush of icy cold air before she could shout for Sam to stop getting out, but the young girl stood outside, shielding her eyes best she could. She ducked back in, grabbing her backpack. “There’s a building about a hundred feet away. I’m going to check it out.”
“No, wait! Sam!” shouted Joan, unfastening her seatbelt.
Lachlan was quicker though and was soon running alongside Sam, both of them stomping through two feet of snow, leaning forward into the winds, their heads down. The ground changed from soft to hard and they passed the trailers Sam had seen. She pointed at the shape of a building, Lachlan nodding and both pushed forward, doing their best to ignore the numbing pain growing in their limbs.
They both bundled through a set of glass double doors, thankful for the slightly warmer air and into a lobby of a truck-stop diner. The floor was covered in tourist leaflets but Lachlan wasn’t interested in those.
“She’s crazy!” he said to Sam.
She pulled the flashlight from her pack and switched it on, then tried again to touch her injury, coming away with pink-red fingers.
“What was all that, ‘he failed,’ stuff?” said Lachlan.
Sam saw the SUV’s headlights die. “She’s coming inside. Just chill for now. Let’s find some food.” She pushed open the interior doors to the eating hall. “There’s got to be something in here. I’m starving.” She honed in on a display of packets of nuts, pulling one open and emptying some into her mouth. Lachlan walked past the tables and chairs towards the counter. “No bad smells in here, I mean, not from the mutants at least. We should be okay here.”
The outside glass doors opened and quickly closed. Joan brushed off the ice that had accumulated then entered the main area. She looked around. “Maybe we stay here for a little bit. But it has to be a bit? Okay?”
Both of the youngsters frowned. Sam walked to the left, down a gloom laden narrow corridor as the winds howled outside. Framed photos of a man and woman her parents’ age adorned the walls, along with certificates. She pushed open the first door to a storage closet then closed it and walked further along, pushing open the final door. She swung the light around revealing a large room, one half office, the other half…
She walked inside, peered back the way she came, then on seeing no one, closed the door and immediately moved to the old-fashioned music system and the stack of CD’s next to it. They were mostly from the 80s and 90s, but it was something. After quickly shifting through the pile, placing the ones of interest in her pack, she focused her light on the large metal molded box behind the small desk. It was a radio set, similar to what Rufus had in his converted trailer. She figured this one was used to communicate with truck drivers as well.
She had no interest in talking to her father, but… maybe she should let him know she was okay. He wouldn’t convince her to turn around, but he deserved that much. She glanced back at the door. For some reason she felt Joan wouldn’t approve, but that was her problem. She quickly moved behind the desk and sat in the chair, then swung around to face the ham radio. Flicking the switch lit up the dials and needles started bouncing. Not being sure what to do, she pulled the microphone closer, clicked the transmit button and spoke.
Nothing happened, not even static came from the speakers. She swore on realizing there weren’t any, just a large pair of headphones. She placed them on and instantly heard static. She glanced back at the office door, the outside world now being silent to her, then leaned forward and changed the frequency.
She tried to remember the setting Rufus used, turning the dial left then—
“I am Jessica Keller. I’m looking for my children Sam and Josh—”
“Mom!”
“— And my husband, Landon. Are you out there?”
Sam felt as she was back in the SUV, spinning out of control.
“Can you hear this? I’m broadcasting from the radio station in Rockston. Sam, Josh, Landon if you hear this I’m at a school in southern Rockston, on a hill, it’s called… Heavercroft. I am Jessica Keller…”
As the message repeated she missed the sound of the office door opening, but felt the presence of someone else in the room. She turned to Joan, pulling the headphones off. The older woman looked angry, but that wasn’t important. “Joan! My mom! It’s my mom! She’s in Rockston! Or… somewhere near! At a school! We… can… go… back… What’s wrong? Why are not happy?”
The older woman quivered, Sam hearing her heart racing. “We… we’re not going back.”
“What? Of course we’re going back! My mom’s…” Joan’s eye slid… as if it was being pushed by some internal force, a few inches to the side of her head before turning to its normal position. It happened so quickly that Sam was about to dismiss the horrific sight as an adrenaline rush due to what she had discovered, but then realized the woman in front of her was growing in size.
“I’m sorry, Sam… you will not be going—” Joan’s mouth was wider, impossibly wide while above, her nose and eyes were shrinking. A distortion Sam couldn’t quite believe was happening.
It’s… it’s a dream… this is not…
She saw Lachlan creeping up behind the abomination expanding in front of her, but was too shocked to react to him bringing the fire extinguisher down on the back of it. It hit with a thud as if it had impacted soft mud. The creature’s head coiled around to a young face of terror. Lachlan stumbled backwards as words creeped out from somewhere deep within the creature moving towards him.
“Not needed… you will forever be… here…”
“Run, Sam! Run!”
The young girl looked at the only possible escape route, a wide window covered in blinds. She leaped from the chair, her pack on her shoulder, lifted the blinds and pulled the handle down only being partially aware of what was moving towards her. In one movement she pushed the glass frame away from her, snow flakes rushing the other way and dived through the gap, not knowing what was on the other side. Rather than falling into the void she hung, suspended between freedom and…
“Sam…” The word was coarse and struggled to form. She turned slowly towards a head which contained a myriad of faces. Features which belonged to Joan and other people Sam had never seen. They moved and squirmed, floating around the surface of the thing’s face.
She screamed, blind panic overtaking her and pulled away, leaving a claw grasping her pack then fell onto a soft icy cold surface. Her hands dug into the ice, forcing her back to her feet and she stumbled into the dark. Shapes came and went, gales buffeting her but she drove forward, desperate to find refuge as growling mingled with the shrieks and booms from the storm.
Her hands then shoulder hit up against a wall, which rattled slightly.
A trailer…
She felt along the icy rim, finding the corner, then kept on going, finding a latch, then pulled the door open and climbed up inside, pulling it closed.
The winds continued to scream outside, but this new space felt safe, secure and—
“Sam…”
The voice was behind her, in the trailer. She screamed, falling backwards against the door which pushed
open, making her tumble out of it onto the hard ground. Her mind was a sea of fear and pain was now emanating from the back of her head as well. She pivoted on the ground, trying to get her footing to launch herself forward, again into the dark, but instead something solid slammed into the side of her skull and with it came silence.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
11: 45 p.m. Highway 70.
Arlo drove them slowly around a semi-truck on its side, then weaved between a series of abandoned cars, the wheels on the old car frequently losing grip on the slippery road surface. The horizon ahead though was lacking in the silhouettes of tall buildings, heralding the western edge of the city.
“We made it…” he said, letting out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding.
“I told you. The things don’t like the cold.”
He looked at his passenger with a smile. “And maybe they really are dying…”
Landon nodded. “We can hope.”
“You don’t want us to wait for Jess? She’s not that far behind.”
“No, we keep going.” Landon clicked on his radio again. “Sam, can you hear this? Where are—”
A rasping sound came between the static.
He sat up. “Sam? Sam? Is that—”
“She…” It was a young male voice. “It…”
“Who is this? Over.”
“Lach…” There was a deep strained breath. “Lachlan.”
“Where is Sam?”
“Gone… it… took…”
He exchanged a look with Arlo. “Where are—”
“Truck… Truck stop… after… It took… Sam…”
While he was talking Landon was scanning the stops visible on the roadmap. “We’re close… hold on… we’re close. Okay?” Static came from his speaker. “Lachlan? Are you there?”
More static…
Arlo shook his head. “The storms pretty bad, we can’t go any faster, we’re just about staying on the road as it is.”
