He’d had this date marked on the calendar for over a month. Like any habitual loser, he was fully aware when the Day of Reckoning would be upon him.
This day. The day Shaw was shipping Stylish Greeting out of town for a stakes race back in Kentucky.
Trey had spent time in the backstretch cafeteria and between the barns scoping out the arrangements. Shaw was going to put the horse on a trailer headed to the airport a couple of hours after the races. The trainer would drive the trailer himself, not wanting to trust his precious cargo with any old driver. Shaw was going to walk the horse onto the plane and then crawl into the cargo hold, keeping him company all the way to the Bluegrass State.
Trey sat in his clunker Chevy near the stable gate, hunkered down behind the wheel with a Daily Racing Form in his lap. To any passerby he was another track lowlife trying to get an edge on the next day’s card, picking horses that were winners in his mind until the gate sprung open and all hopes were dashed. In truth, he was keeping an eye peeled on Shaw’s barn about a hundred yards away.
He was surprised to see that Stylish Greeting didn’t have the trailer to himself. Three other horses were led up the ramp before the champ. A couple of chestnuts and a gray mare. Trey figured Shaw was either loading up the plane with other horses to keep Stylish Greeting company, or using the opportunity to ship another string back east. Once they were secure inside the trailer, Shaw brought Stylish Greeting out of the barn and walked him across the parking lot.
Man, the horse even walked like a champion. His coat was a deep cherry red, glistening in the setting sun. He had a distinctive lightning-shaped blaze on his forehead, the focus of many pictures in the press. The horse snorted and kicked, full of vim and vigor. Confidence and a don’t-mess-with-me attitude poured off its two-ton frame. At first Stylish Greeting didn’t want to walk up the ramp, as if it had a premonition of Trey’s plan. He pulled at its trainer, tossing its head in the direction of the barn. But Shaw expertly soothed and reined in his charge, and within minutes he got the champ up the ramp and settled into the trailer.
Then, Shaw pulled out of the stable lot. Trey immediately tossed aside the Form and turned the ignition key. Panic swept through his entire body as the engine didn’t immediately turn over. Two more tries and it mercifully kicked in, Trey grousing to himself about his piece of shit car, but then taking satisfaction in knowing he would be soon driving a brand smacking new one courtesy of a four-time stake winner.
Shaw took the back road to the airport, just as Trey expected. There were height restrictions on the main highway, which the trailer would have trouble making. Trey counted on this and once he ascertained that Shaw was sticking to the frontage road, he hit the main street and gunned the Chevy for everything it was worth. He passed a few blocks and then turned on a side street that would lead him back to the frontage road.
Sure enough, he looked to his left and saw he was about half a block in front of the trailer. He slowed the Chevy just enough to wait for the trailer to get closer. Then, he stomped on the accelerator and darted into the middle of the road. Once there, he slammed on the brakes, brought the car to a complete stop, and hopped out.
As Trey raced away from the Chevy, he watched Shaw hit the trailer brakes—but it was impossible to bring the eighteen-wheeler to a halt. The trailer plowed into the Chevy, pancaking it big-time, and skidded to a stop with the Chevy hanging off its crushed grill. The trailer’s huge horn sounded as Shaw was thrown forward on impact and his head bounced off the steering wheel.
Trey raced to the trailer and threw open the driver’s side door. Shaw, his forehead bloodied, stared at Trey, trying to figure out what was what. Trey could tell the trainer hadn’t yet put together that this wasn’t an “accident.” But when Trey pulled the gun out of his jacket pocket, comprehension filled the old man’s eyes.
“You don’t want me using this, do ya?” asked Trey.
Shaw just shook his hurting head.
Good thing, thought Trey. He hadn’t had the heart or gumption to put actual bullets in the thing. Even as a kid, when he and his brothers played war and attacked a mysterious enemy, Trey had always insisted on using sticks for swords—not guns.
“Open the back of the trailer,” Trey ordered.
It was only then that Shaw began to resist. “I can’t.”
Trey could tell when a man was lying. He raised the gun and pointed it at the trainer. “I don’t believe you.”
Suddenly, the trailer began to rock and shake. For the first time since the crash, the horses had begun to act up, rattling, thumping, and whinnying. Trey glanced over his shoulder, fearing the horses were going to come through the metal partition behind the driver’s seat.
That was when Shaw made a move to grab the gun.
But Trey was thirty years younger and much quicker. He whipped the gun around and clobbered the trainer in the head with it. The old man crumpled in the driver’s seat, unconscious.
Okay, maybe guns did serve a purpose, thought Trey.
He reached past the comatose trainer’s body and grabbed the keys from the ignition. Trey ran around to the back of the trailer where he could hear the horses kicking and snorting away inside.
“Easy, easy. Coming, coming!”
He fumbled for the right key. He looked around and was thankful no one had stumbled on the accident scene—another advantage to being on the frontage road. Finally, he located the correct key and threw open the cargo door.
Stylish Greeting, the two chestnuts, and the gray mare were stomping up and down for all they were worth. Trey slowly approached Stylish Greeting, holding up a wary, but hopefully soothing, hand in front of him.
“It’s okay, boy. Really. I’m here to take you away from all this.”
The champ continued to stomp and snort.
Trey took another cautious step forward and reached to pat the distinctive lightning mark on its forehead.
“Sssssh.”
The moment Trey touched the blaze, purple light blasted through the horse trailer.
The snorting woke him up.
Trey had no idea how long he had been out. Might have been a few seconds, maybe minutes. Felt like forever.
All he knew was he was on the ground and Stylish Greeting was hovering directly above him.
At least he thought it was the champ.
The horse had the distinctive lightning blaze on its snout.
But since when was its coat jet-black?
More snorts made Trey sit up and hold his aching head.
He was on the floor of the horse trailer. And there were four, count ’em, four, horses in there with him.
But they were no longer two chestnuts and a gray.
It was as if, as the Stones had sung, someone had come in and painted them black.
Trey was trying to wrap his brain around how this could happen when he felt a blast of heat.
He looked up at the used-to-be-gray mare and saw red flames blast from its nostrils.
Trey barely got out of the way before he was burnt to a crisp.
He scrambled to his feet, his sanity starting to slip away.
Then, he threw open the trailer door and looked outside.
And totally lost it.
10
The fish was well received, which pleased Joad, much more for Laura’s sake than his own.
The horses were getting restless.
Not an uncommon occurrence, thought Primo. They were not the most docile of breeds—fractious, high-strung and testy pretty much described them. But these were the only ones Primo had ever encountered that could start a five-alarm blaze if they got upset enough.
He remembered the first time he’d seen them.
It had been ages since he’d been in touch with Trey. Primo wasn’t comfortable around the horse racing set. Too much brainpower used looking for an angle, and being a person who wasn’t trustworthy himself, Primo found it too difficult to hang around people whose sole purpose in life was to make a killing at another
person’s expense.
Besides, Primo’s hands were pretty full immediately after The Seventh Day. It started with trying to talk his brother Norman off a literal ledge, followed by combing a depleted city for a glass prosthetic to replace his damaged eye. That search had occupied a couple of weeks. It was a period in which Primo used his remaining eye to take in what The Strangers had left in their wake.
Eventually they found the necessary material in a blitzed-out LensCrafters. With a cutting tool that had slipped behind a cupboard along with a sheet of glass stowed away in a closet, he’d spent a couple of days nicking away to shape something that would fit into his torn socket. That’s when Norman ran inside, yelling for Primo at the top of his lungs.
“You gotta come outside!”
“Can’t,” grunted Primo. “I’m finally making headway.”
“It’s Trey.”
Primo stopped carving. “You’re shitting me.”
“No. You gotta see this!”
Primo put down the glass and knife, and exited the dilapidated one-hour-glasses store. Trey was crossing the mall parking lot atop the most majestic jet-black horse Primo had ever seen. Even more incredibly, he had a rope tied around his waist and was leading three more horses that were the spitting image of the first.
By the time Trey had shown off his fire-snorting charges and brought his brothers up to speed with his escapades, Primo’s head was spinning with possibilities for them in this new world.
“Only one thing missing,” said Trey that evening over canned vegetables, beans, and stew in the mall parking lot.
Primo nodded. “We have no idea if he even survived.”
“I bet he did,” Trey said with the utmost of confidence.
“How can you possibly know that?”
“You seen many people since that light filled the sky?”
Primo shook his head.
“Me either,” said Trey. “And I’ve spent the past couple weeks travelling a few hundred miles getting here. If I saw more than five or six folks a day, it was rare. Now, I find the two of you. Three of four brothers—alive. Don’t you find that a teensy-weensy bit coincidental? With everyone else wiped off the planet?”
Primo exchanged looks with Norman.
“He makes a good point,” the youngest brother said.
“We can’t leave Secundo behind,” said Trey.
Primo, who hadn’t heard that name in a couple of dozen years, scoffed. “Secundo?”
“Primo, Secundo, Trey, and Quattro. You remember?”
“That game we played as kids?” asked Primo (who wasn’t going by that name back then), in a mall parking lot under a rainbow-colored sky and a sign promising glasses that would never be delivered.
“All for one and one for all,” said Norman. Primo knew Norman hated his given name, and would relish a different moniker. “The Four Horse Guys.”
“That was The Four Musketeers, you idiot,” Primo snapped.
Trey looked over at the four horses, which were drinking out of garbage cans filled with water. “We ran around on broomsticks pretending we were those dead riders.”
“The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,” said Primo.
“Right. Those guys,” Trey turned his gaze from his jet-black charges to his two brothers. “And here we are, together again.”
So, they set out looking for their missing brother—and by the time they found him, their new names had stuck.
Now, having buried the youngest and most eager horseman the night before, Primo stared at the burned-out remnants of the pirate ship that had taken them this far. There was no trace of Quattro’s body or the funeral pyre. A mist hung over the river and as dawn rose in the east, it gleamed off the pieces of ornamental brass that hadn’t gone up in flames with the vessel they had adorned. The glint caused Primo to gaze up at the sun, which was ascending over the gargantuan mountains that contained The Fields—and the men he was searching for.
As he thought about Fixer, the incompetent doctor, and the Rider who had taken them under his wing, Primo’s countenance darkened. Thunder rumbled, causing the four horses to whinny in the background. Trey had trouble getting them to settle down, despite having been their master for years.
“It’s all right,” Trey soothed as he gathered up their reins and approached his oldest brother. He passed Secundo, who seemed worried, seeing the dark clouds gather above Primo’s head.
“What do we do with Quattro’s mount?” Trey asked.
“Bring him along.”
“Could slow us down.”
“We’re not stopping till we catch up with them to avenge your brother.” Primo gritted his teeth. The cloud above him grew in size and the thunder rumbled louder.
Fire blasted from the horse’s snouts. “You’re spooking ’em,” warned Trey.
“Can’t help it.”
Trey tried to use the same soothing method on his seething sibling as the jet-black steeds. “Primo. . . .”
But it was pointless. Primo shoved Trey away and crossed to Secundo, who was saddling his horse. Before Secundo could react, Trey grabbed the knife off his brother’s hip.
“Hey!”
Primo used the knife to slash his own palm. The moment it slit his flesh, rain poured from the thundercloud above his head.
“Let them know. . . .” murmured Primo.
A bolt of lightning lit up the sky.
“Let them know we’re coming.”
He held his palm to the heavens, now completely clouded over. Blood began to spurt from the wound as the rain came down. Water and blood commingled until his fingers dripped in scarlet.
“Let them know!!”
Secundo and Trey stared at the gathering storm.
Their faces were pelted with huge splats of rain.
But it wasn’t water that doused them and covered them from head to toe.
It was crimson blood.
11
The girl’s screaming woke him up.
For a moment, it had worked its way into Joad’s dream, the way things do when you’re half asleep but convinced the bizarre things happening are absolutely real. Joad dreamed that someone was attacking Rebecca and he was helpless because her screams were coming over his cell phone. Just as Joad realized this was impossible, because phones had disappeared with The Strangers, the cry sounded again, and this time Joad bolted up.
Daylight was trying to work its way through the murkiness of a storm. Laura was on her knees, practically keening, and Joad wondered why it looked like she had been rolling around in dark sticky grime and air that smelled like a metal shop.
Only when the cobwebs cleared in his head did he realize that Laura wasn’t drenched in mud—it was blood.
It was streaming down from the sky, and covering her from head to toe.
Like a battlefield of corpses had been hovering overhead in a crimson cloud until their mortal wounds opened up en masse and descended upon the unsuspecting quartet below. It was thick and sticky, and filled the air with a metallic odor.
Sayers rushed over to try and calm his stepdaughter, who quaked in his blood-soaked arms. The doctor glared at Joad. “What the hell is this?”
“Damned if I know,” replied Joad.
Fixer was on his feet, wiping blood from his face. “I knew it was a bad idea coming up here.”
The clouds above them rumbled, let loose one more torrent of scarlet, and then the downpour began to subside. Joad held out a hand and noticed the blood was no longer as thick, the liquid beginning to take on the consistency of ordinary rainwater.
“Freakish storm, huh?” asked Sayers.
“Do I look like a meteorologist?”
Sayers got defensive, his annoyance obvious as the storm abated. “Just asking a question.”
Joad saw no reason to offer up an answer.
“It’s them.”
All eyes turned to Laura. She no longer screamed; in fact, her voice was barely audible. Fixer was the first to ask. “What’s them?”
But Joad could tell by the worried look in his eyes that Fixer knew the answer before had asked the question. All of them did; Laura had just been the one to say it aloud.
“Those men. They’re coming after us.”
Joad knew it to be the truth. Fixer echoed the sentiment. “It’s that freaky brother. Primo, the oldest one. Just the kind of thing he’d cook up with that crazy Gift of his.”
“Like the storm in the trailer,” Sayers pointed out.
“Exactly.” The wiry man walked away from the campfire.
Sayers turned again to Joad. “Why the blood?”
“I’ve no idea. They’re your friends.”
“Hardly,” said Sayers.
It was still raining; the blood soaked into the earth and vanished as quickly as it had suddenly appeared. Laura was no longer openly sobbing, though a small whimper crossed her lips every now and then.
Joad gathered up his bedroll. “We should get moving. They must have started up at dawn. We need to get some distance between us again.”
Sayers helped Laura to her feet, as Fixer emerged from the morning mist. His expression was grim; he couldn’t mask the worry in his eyes.
“We got a problem.”
“You saw them?” asked Sayers, his voice laced with panic.
“Not yet.” His gaze went to Joad and in that moment, he knew Fixer was going to tell him something he really wouldn’t like.
“Spit it out,” Joad demanded.
Fixer looked at Laura; almost apologetic. “Your horse.”
“Macy? What’s wrong with her?”
“She’s gone.”
Laura had been right when she said her horse had a tendency to wander off. Usually Macy wouldn’t go far, and return after a few hours. Unfortunately, they no longer had a home, and time was another luxury they didn’t possess. Not with three men pursuing them with revenge on their mind.
It didn’t help that the cloud cover was one huge cotton blanket that prevented them from seeing more than a few feet. A trail of horse hooves led them into marshy terrain. Joad let Laura and Sayers sit atop his horse as he trudged through the muck on foot with Fixer.
The Seventh Day Page 8
