Over a firepit in the backyard, Diana and Cathy cooked a big pot of oats with blueberries that the kids had picked along the way mixed in. It was served with day-old bread. Not exactly restaurant fare, but no one left a crumb on their plates.
Diana called curfew about an hour after sunset. No one grumbled. Not even the older kids. Most bedded down for the night in the big living room and front hallway.
“Do you want the last bed, Luke?” Diana asked.
Three of the four beds in the house had been loaded with the smallest children and their mothers and there was one left. A single in the only downstairs bedroom.
“No, you and Samuel take it,” he said.
“You sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. I’ll sleep by the front door.”
A few minutes later after checking the locks on all the doors, Luke went to the front door and lowered himself onto the floor. He took off his leather jacket and used it as a pillow. He was willing to sacrifice warmth for a tiny bit of comfort.
They ate the last of the bread, cooked oats and some more berries for breakfast. Luke was anxious to get back on the road and hurried everybody out of the house while some were still eating.
He knew every minute counted now. The chances were high that the Brotherhood would catch them, the only question was, would it be before or after Isaac and the rest found them? He didn’t allow himself to consider that Jacob might fail in his mission.
That didn’t bear thinking about.
They rejoined the Carl Brogg Highway 202 and began the next leg of their journey. The 202 would take them to Rochester, New Hampshire well before midday if they made good time.
Luke’s anxious mood matched the day. A floating blanket of mist covered the tops of the fall-colored trees that lined the highway, lending the morning a foreboding feel.
“Let’s pick it up,” he called, and tugged the reins of the horse he was leading a little harder.
31
“It’s just over that hill,” said Senior Brother Jarryd, leaning forward.
He sat next to the passenger side window in the cab of the Mac truck. Next to him was Senior Brother Rex and in the driver’s seat, a younger member of their order, Brother Michael.
“Very good, hit the music Brother Michael. Let them know we’re coming for them.”
“Yes, Sir,” said Michael, a solid young man of 22. He reached up and flicked a small switch on the ceiling of the cab.
The first bars of Flight of the Valkyrie always made the hairs on Jarryd’s neck stand up. This occasion was no different. The music blared from the purpose-built bullhorn speakers welded to the top of the prime mover.
“There!” Jarryd called as the sign to Willatan Green came into view.
Michael slowed, then turned the semi-trailer onto the small road. Now on the straight, he pressed the gas hard and the Mac picked up speed. They barreled down the hill and through the small copse of trees that grew thick on either side of the road and burst out the other side in a whirlwind of leaves.
The rig was quite a sight. The cab was all white, with Gold crosses embossed on the doors and a golden crucifix 12 inches high on the hood where the famous Mac bulldog should have been. The curtain sides of the trailer were also white with CHRIST’S CHARIOT painted in big, red letters down the side.
Jarryd’s fingers gripped the dashboard as the walls of the town came into view.
Time to make these bastards pay.
“Stop the truck,” ordered Rex over the loud Wagner composition.
Brother Michael, who was already slowing the vehicle, brought it to complete stop, fifty feet from the open gates, and switched the engine off. There was no movement beyond the gates, but for now, their attention was taken by the four bodies strewn on either side of the opening anyway.
Rex’s mouth tightened as he silently weighed up what he was seeing.
“We’ll get out here.”
“We need to be careful of a trap,” said Jarryd.
“If you’d taken more care on your earlier visit perhaps we wouldn’t need to,” said Rex.
This time it was Jarryd’s mouth that tightened. He swallowed his anger and climbed out of the cab. Rex followed him and when he was on the ground, turned back to Brother Michael.
“Stay behind the wheel. And turn that infernal music off! They’re clearly not here.”
The music ceased, and Rex stalked to the back of the truck. Jarryd followed.
“We can’t be sure…” he said.
“No, we can’t,’ interrupted Rex as he turned the lever of the roller door and pulled it up with a clatter. The 20 men sitting on the long benches inside blinked in the sudden light. “So, we’ll send in the gunmen to confirm while the rest of us start digging graves.”
The brothers piled out and Rex instructed the four armed with assault rifles to carefully scour the town. Almost certainly the people of Willatan Green had fled, it was the only sensible thing to do. Best to be sure, though.
An hour later, four freshly dug graves were filled in, each plot of turned soil marked with a plain white cross of wood.
“Would you like to do the honors?” Rex asked Jarryd, his tone hard to read.
Jarryd nodded and stepped forward. He said a short prayer over each of the four graves as the Brothers echoed him. He turned to Rex when he was done.
The other man nodded, his face expressionless.
“Let us have a quick look at this town before we track these heathens.”
The town was empty. The horses and carts brought by Jarryd and his men gone. Their tracker, Brother Simon, dug around the ashes with his right hand, then stood up.
“Cold. I’d say they have close to twenty-four hours start on us.”
He walked along the dust-covered roadway to the gates and spent five minutes examining the footprints and marks.
“At least thirty, along with two horses, and these marks here are the tire marks of the trailers.”
Brother Simon followed the trail out through the gates and Jarryd turned to tail him but was pulled to a stop when Rex grabbed his wrist in a claw like grip.
“A word, Brother Jarryd?”
Jarryd secretly seethed at Rex’s dropping of ‘Senior’, but looked at him coolly.
“Yes?”
“I wonder why there were only four bodies?”
Jarryd’s stomach did a somersault.
“I was wondering that myself,” he said with a confused look.
“Where on Earth could Brother Taylor’s body be?”
“I don’t know, Senior Brother,” he said, holding Rex’s hawk-like gaze. “All I know is I saw the big man open his throat with that damned hook of his. From the amount of blood, there’s no way he could have survived.”
Jarryd shook his head and looked heavenward, apparently overcome with emotion. One hand held his staff, while the other slipped unnoticed into his pocket and gripped his knife.
Senior Brother Rex watched him for a few seconds more, his face inscrutable, then turned and began walking.
“Yes, it certainly is a mystery. Perhaps we’ll solve it together, hey?”
Jarryd followed him, sorely tempted to show the fat bastard exactly what had happened to Brother Taylor.
Brother Simon was walking up the hill and through the copse by the time they reached the truck. The men were already back in the trailer and the two Senior Brothers climbed into the cab beside Brother Michael.
Michael started the truck and turned it in a wide circle before following Brother Simon all the way back to the 202. Simon paused for a moment, looking at the ground and dust beside the road before pointing west as they pulled up beside him.
“They’ve gone this way,” he said.
“Brother Michael, I’ll take over the driving. You take Brother Simon’s place in the rear. I need him up here.”
Two minutes later they were headed along the 202 at twenty miles an hour, Brother Simon running his finger along the map he’d brought along.
“Alm
ost certainly they’re headed to Rochester. I’ll keep an eye out for signs of them along the way.”
Twenty minutes later, Brother Simon leaned forward abruptly.
“Pull over here please!” he said, pointing at a corner where a lane led off the 202. The lane was lined with a few homes, each on about a half-acre of land.
He jumped out as soon as the truck had pulled over and began examining the dirt and gravel at the edges of the road.
“They were here,” he called over his shoulder, before pointing at the ground on one side of the road. “See, they turned this way and went down the lane.” He ran to the other side. “Then they came back the same way and turned west again.”
“Why did they go down the lane?” asked Jarryd, from the cab.
Simon didn’t answer, just headed confidently down the shady lane towards the houses on the right.
“Let’s follow him,” said Rex, jumping out.
Jarryd got out and walked with him. They followed Simon to the second house along. Simon did a cursory look around the house and then went into the backyard.
“Firepit!” He made a beeline to the pit where the oats had been cooked that morning and used his fingers to rummage in the ashes. “Some warmth. They left this morning, sometime after dawn I’d say.”
“Excellent,” said Rex. “Let’s get this finished, I’d like to sleep in my own bed tonight.”
***
Many miles away, Jacob was pedaling through a town called Epping on the Calef Highway. It was a long straight road and he was going at a good clip. The sun had climbed high in the sky and had nearly burned off the remains of the morning mist. He thought it was somewhere around 10 in the morning.
He left the ghost town of Epping behind and within a few minutes reached the turn onto the 101. It was marked by an old McDonalds restaurant.
“Home stretch baby!” he said, taking a drink from the water bottle he’d refilled from a pond that morning. He took a few extra mouthfuls of the cloudy liquid as a reward. What was left would get him all the way through to Manchester.
He got moving again.
Jacob cruised on the 101. It was a great road and he only had to veer around the occasional abandoned vehicle. He avoided looking into them. While he hadn’t seen any dead people along the way, he knew it would creep him out if he did.
The sixteen-year-old only had the vaguest memories of the before times. He still remembered his mom and dad though. He thought about them now. He was so lost in thought he wasn’t aware of the sound of a motor approaching behind him until it was too late.
It wouldn’t really have mattered if he had noticed. He was crossing long overpass and there was nowhere to hide even if he’d had warning. He pulled to a stop and turned to face whoever was coming. Maybe this close to Manchester, it was Isaac’s people? He left his bow slung over his shoulder but stayed on his bike.
He could see it now. It was a big green truck. There was no doubt they’d seen him. There was driver and a passenger, their faces white blobs behind the dirty windshield. The truck slowed as it approached.
Jacob crossed his arms in a show of confidence that belied his rampaging heartbeat. The truck pulled up 15 feet away and just sat there with the motor running for a minute. He could see they were talking. Finally, the passenger side door swung open.
A man stepped out. He smiled.
He had bad teeth. He also had a gun in his hand.
“Son, what in hell are you doing out here all on your own?”
32
They’d managed to make pretty good time, but Luke was becoming more anxious with each mile. They’d passed Rochester an hour and a half before and it was already well past midday. As near as he could tell from the map, they were still only halfway to Epping where they would turn onto the 101.
“We should let them rest soon,” said Diana.
Samuel had been complaining of sore feet for the last 10 minutes.
Luke was about to say no when a half mile ahead, he spotted a big tree down on the road. A really big tree. From a distance, the trunk looked at least five feet thick. And it was tall enough that it covered most of both lanes, leaving only a small gap between the brushy top and a large boulder on the verge of the road.
“How big was the truck the Brothers brought when they smashed down your gates?”
“Oh, it’s big – a semi-trailer, isn’t that what they called them?”
“Yep. So do you think they’d be able to get it through that gap?”
“Maybe, but it would be a tight squeeze.”
Luke picked up his pace, a thin smile on his face.
“I think it would fit too, just. Maybe we can fix that and slow them down a little though.”
“How?” Diana asked.
“I have an idea. We’ll rest when we get past the tree.”
As the people of Willatan Green sat and rested on the south side of the tree, Luke found what he was looking for in an overgrown driveway a hundred yards or so further on. It was an old red two-door Toyota pickup, only its faded tailboard visible under the ivy that had grown over it in the years since it had last been used.
“I need help Diana!” he called. “Bring helpers with you!”
He pulled ivy away to clear a path down either side of the pickup. It was covered in bird shit and the detritus of the after days, but it was the most beautiful thing he’d seen that day.
He tried the door. It was locked. He smashed the driver’s window with his elbow and reached in. The door fought him with rusty might but finally gave way with a screech. Diana arrived with four helpers. It was Cathy and three of the other mothers.
“Your chariot awaits, Madam,” he said to Diana and gestured at the driver’s seat with a flourish.
“Idiot,” she laughed, coming down the side. Her nose wrinkled when she peered inside.
“What’s the plan?”
“We’re going to push this old beast back to the tree and block that gap,” he said. “You sit behind the wheel and steer and the rest of us will push.”
Luke went to the front and waved for them to join him.
“You sure we can do this?” Cathy asked, putting her hands on the hood next to his.
“Positive!” he said, giving her a grin, before giving Diana the thumbs up. “Just pull the automatic down to neutral, then take off the handbrake.”
“Thank you, Captain Obvious,” she said.
Surprisingly, the old beast moved easily and of course, once they were out of the driveway, the flat road helped. About halfway they stopped.
“I’ll take over,” he said. “I want you to push me as hard as you can all the way to the tree. At the last second, I’ll turn and go nose first into that rock. I’ll yell out when to stop pushing.”
He unslung his axe and gestured for Samuel to come and get it.
“Are you sure?” Diana asked.
“Sure, I’ll be okay. It won’t be fast enough to hurt. Hold that for me Sammy, I’ll need it in a second.”
Samuel carried the axe back over to the rest of the Willatan Green people, who watched with interest. Luke waved, and the women heaved. The truck started slowly and a few of the boys came to help. They soon built enough momentum and it was going pretty fast by the time it got to the gap.
“Stop pushing,” called Luke at the last possible moment and swung the wheel as hard as he could. The Toyota crunched into the rock, its tail swinging fractionally so it was hard against the top branches of the tree. Luke got out and surveyed his handiwork.
Not perfect, but it would do with a few finishing touches.
Luke punctured both tires on his side with a knife before climbing over the top and doing the same on the passenger side.
“Pass me my axe please, Sam.”
Luke opened the passenger door and pulled the hand brake on as hard as he could, then started hacking at it with the axe, not satisfied until it was completely smashed. The steering wheel followed.
“Do you think it will slow them down?�
� Diana asked, as they started walking again.
“Well,” he said. “We spent twenty minutes blocking it. If it takes them a half hour to clear it, I reckon that’s worth it.”
Luke's Trek (America Falls Book 5) Page 15
