by Louise Voss
Kate shivered. Simone had taken out her gun and was fiddling with it in her lap, the torch resting on the bed beside her.
‘I like this world, Dr Maddox. That’s the other thing. You ever been to LA?’
Kate said that she had.
‘Yeah. But I bet you never been to the part of LA I’m from. Compton. It’s got a bad rep, and a lot of it’s deserved, with all the gangs and drugs and shit. I was desperate to escape and … well, we ain’t got time for that story now, but it led me here, to Angelica. Only, it’s like you were saying earlier – I got people, people I care about …’
Kate couldn’t believe it. She had actually got through to Simone. She had thought Preeti was the soft target, but she had been wrong.
‘That ain’t right,’ Simone said in an almost inaudible, little-girl voice. ‘I did have people I cared about. Not any more. They’re all gone.’
Simone sniffed and Kate thought she might be crying, though it was too dark to tell. ‘It’s too late for my folks. But maybe it’s not too late for the rest of the world.’ She picked up the torch and said, ‘I’m getting you out of here. But you have to do exactly what I say. If they catch us, they’ll kill us both. I’m supposed to be on watch tonight so the others are in bed.’
‘Thank you,’ Kate whispered.
‘We ain’t out of here yet. Come on.’
They crept out of the room. Low lights were burning through the house. All was silent. Simone, with her torch tucked into the combats she was wearing – the Sisters wore a uniform of army pants and a black vest when they weren’t floating around in their robes – led Kate down a hallway lined with pre-Raphaelite paintings, mythical scenes featuring tragic, pale-skinned women languishing in boats, or languorous in beds.
The ranch’s corridors were long, with block parquet floors so highly polished that even in the dim light they were almost reflective. Simone hustled Kate through a reception area, where light flooded in through a huge glass atrium, and individual and beautiful pieces of furniture – a scrolled, engraved armchair, marble statues of female nudes, a mahogany table with ornate legs and a glass top – were arranged artfully around the walls. Kate looked longingly at the enormous rough-hewn timber front doors, which were secured shut by an intricately fastened iron bar. They looked as though they had been plundered from a medieval castle.
But there was no time to appreciate these fleeting impressions – Simone led her on, through a smaller corridor that continued into the other side of the house.
Suddenly, they froze. Someone had moved in one of the rooms above. It had sounded like a chair scraping.
‘Shit,’ Simone hissed. ‘Someone’s awake. We gotta hurry.’
Kate felt sick and cold, but filled with hope. She could taste freedom. If she could get away, she could find Paul and Harley, track down Mangold and make him tell them how to stop the virus.
She followed Simone into the dining area, a vast room with a solid oak table at its centre. Beyond this was the kitchen and the back door. Through the windows, all she could see was the black velvet sky, dotted with stars.
Simone pulled Kate through the room, treading softly, cat-like, holding on to Kate with one hand, gripping her gun in the other. Kate didn’t know how many of her colleagues at the lab Simone had murdered with that gun, but right now she had to put her faith in this woman. She was experiencing an intense form of what she later realised was Stockholm syndrome, a sudden rush of
gratitude towards her kidnapper. But what she mostly felt was terror beyond anything she had ever known.
If this went wrong, she would be dead. She prayed that Jack would be safe, that Vernon would look after him if she wasn’t around. Images flashed through her mind: Jack giggling uncontrollably as she tickled him, frowning as he coloured in a picture for her, rubbing his tummy as he ate cake … a kaleidoscope of memories that threatened to turn her inside-out with pain. She forced herself to push them away, to concentrate on the task at hand.
They finally entered the kitchen and Kate’s heart leapt into her mouth. There was somebody standing by the back door, disguised by shadows. Simone raised a stiff arm to stop Kate from walking any further. The figure by the door stepped unsteadily towards them.
It was an old man, wisps of white hair floating on his liver-spotted pate, his shoulders hunched with age, swamped by a huge pair of pyjamas.
‘Beautiful night, isn’t it?’ he said, turning towards them. His eyes were glazed and his voice dreamy.
Simone’s eyes flicked up to the ceiling.
Kate was paralysed with fright and surprise. The sight of him was so utterly incongruous. He was clearly no physical threat – but what if he woke the others? She braced herself, expecting to hear more noises from above. But the house remained silent.
The man came closer to them. ‘How are you, my dears?’ He didn’t seem surprised to see either of them.
Kate tried to stay cool. ‘I’m … I’m fine, thank you. Simone here was just showing me the house.’
‘Ah. Grand place, isn’t it? It used to belong to my daughter, God rest her soul.’
‘Kate, we need to go,’ Simone hissed, agitatedly fiddling with her gun. For a moment, Kate thought Simone might shoot him, or use the handle of her pistol to knock him out. Instead, she said, ‘Sorry, sir, but we gotta go.’
She hurried a bewildered Kate out of the room, back the way they came.
‘We’re going to have to go out the front door,’ she whispered. ‘That means we gotta pass the main stairway, and it’s impossible to open that door quietly. It has two locks and three deadbolts. Actually …’
As they entered the front hall, from which a staircase snaked up to the floor above where Angelica, Brandi and Preeti were – hopefully – sleeping, Simone went over to a side window.
‘OK, we’re going to go out here.’ She turned the silver key that sat in the lock and pulled down the handle, pushing the window open. ‘Go on,’ she hissed.
Kate had to step on to the lower part of the window and pull herself out before jumping down. She stumbled as she hit the ground, and unwittingly let out a small cry, immediately putting her hand over her mouth and looking around.
Simone jumped through after her and grabbed her arm, pulling her along into the garden.
As they passed the kitchen, Kate looked up and saw the old man gazing out at them, his brow furrowed.
‘I shoulda knocked him out,’ Simone said. ‘He could go upstairs and wake Angelica at any moment, if he realises what’s going on. Maybe I should go back and …’
Kate opened her mouth to ask who the man was, when Simone whispered urgently, ‘Come on, quick.’
They ran silently, following the side of the house until they found themselves on the edge of a great expanse of lawn. The moon was full and illuminated the grounds. About one hundred metres away, a dark line of trees marked the edge of the woods.
‘You need to go into the woods. Keep heading in that direction and eventually you’ll reach the road. Follow the road – it will take you into town. But if you hear any cars coming along the road, you’ll need to hide, OK?’
Kate looked up at the house and, in that moment, a light came on in one of the rooms.
‘Shit.’ Simone saw it too and she swiftly grabbed Kate again and pulled her behind a high bush, concealing them from the house.
‘Go, now. I don’t want them to discover you’re missing till morning. But first, you need to hit me.’
‘What?’
‘We gotta make it look like you overpowered me.’ Kate realised Simone hadn’t really thought this through. ‘I’m gonna say I heard you cry out and went to your room, and as I came in you pretended to be sick. So I …’
‘You leaned over me to check my temperature and I grabbed your gun. Took your torch too.’
Simone unclipped the Maglite from her belt and handed it to Kate.
‘Then you pointed the gun at me and made me lead you out of the house.’
‘At which point I
hit you with it and knocked you out.’
Simone nodded. ‘OK, do it.’ She handed Kate her gun.
‘Now?’
‘Yes. Go on, quick. That old bastard might have already woken them up.’ They both looked up at the lighted window. There were no signs of life. Yet.
‘What about you? Are you going to stay?’
‘Don’t you worry about me. I need you to find a cure for the virus, OK?’ she said. ‘Don’t want them goddamn rats taking over the world, do we? Now, do it, please.’
Kate lifted the gun and Simone bowed her head.
But before she could strike the blow, Kate had to know something. ‘Who was the old man?’
‘Him? Oh, pay no attention to him. He’s crazy. Come on, what are you waiting for? Do it.’
Kate swung the gun as hard as she could. It connected with Simone’s skull, making a sickening hollow sound, and she dropped to the floor like a rock, landing face down on the grass.
Kate hesitated for a second then, still holding the gun, turned and ran across the lawn towards the wood.
When she was halfway across, she heard a woman’s voice cry out, ‘Hey.’
Kate didn’t dare turn and look. She kept running, expecting to feel a bullet between her shoulder blades at any moment.
48
Kate ran the last thirty metres across the lawn in a panic, waiting for a bullet that never came. She didn’t hear any more cries or voices, but that might have been because of the roaring sound in her head, like a seashell turned up to eleven. Simone’s gun was heavy in her hand. Kate hoped Simone would be OK, that the Sisters wouldn’t see through her story and punish her.
When she reached the edge of the wood she stopped running and stood bent over, hands on thighs, catching her breath. Nausea bubbled inside her. Her knees ached and she had a stabbing pain in her left foot. I’m too old for this, she thought. Thank God she had taken up running last year to stay fit. But this was very different from her morning jogs along the banks of the Isis, iPod plugged in, looking forward to a well-earned breakfast when she got home. She had never had to run for her life before.
As soon as she stepped between the trees, the moonlight that had illuminated her way lost its power and she found herself in darkness. She hesitated between two tall trees, the ground soft beneath her feet, and looked back towards the house. No signs of life, apart from the lights that burned in the downstairs rooms and an upstairs bedroom. Kate had never seen the exterior of the house before and she was shocked by its grandeur and scale. It must be worth millions. To the far left of the house, Kate could make out stable buildings. There were several sports cars and a Jeep parked by the front gate, which stood as high as a double-decker bus. Kate wished Simone had given her the keys to one of the vehicles rather than sending her into the woods, but she guessed that opening the gate would have been too noisy and risky.
OK, she told herself. You need to keep moving. They could start coming after you at any moment. They might even be in there, preparing, now. Zipping up their boots. Loading their guns.
She took a deep breath and entered the wood, deliberately avoiding the path. Feeling confident now that the light wouldn’t be visible from the house, she flicked on the Maglite she had taken from Simone and stuck the pistol into her front pocket. On her first day as a prisoner at the house, the Sisters had given her a pair of loose-fitting trousers and a beige long-sleeved T-shirt to wear; the same clothes she was wearing now. It was cool in the woods and goosebumps rippled across her arms, the fine hairs there standing erect.
Stay calm, Kate. You can do this.
She headed into the trees, with no idea of the best direction to take. But she decided to try to go in a straight line, to get as far away from the house as possible. She didn’t know how deep the woods were. Were there animals living here? Were there bears in California? She remembered asking Tosca McCarthy that question, on the car journey to the lab, but she couldn’t remember the answer. It seemed like a lifetime ago already. All she could recall was him hamming it up, singing ‘Lions and tigers and bears – oh my!’ Poor Tosca. What a waste of a life. A twig cracked behind her, and she jumped – but it was only a squirrel, flying up a tree so fast its feet seemed to barely touch the bark.
Don’t be frightened of animals, she said under her breath. It’s the Sisters you need to be afraid of. She had a horrible sense of danger lurking close by. Hearing rustling in the trees somewhere to her right, she stopped dead, breathing hard. She tried to tell herself it was only squirrels, or birds, but her legs felt like jelly. The woods were so dark and in the torchlight the twisted branches of trees seemed to be reaching towards her, trying to grab hold of her; faces appeared out of nowhere, shapes on tree trunks morphed into mouths frozen mid-scream.
Kate leaned against a tree, taking deep breaths and counting to ten. She felt utterly paralysed by something deep inside her, a primitive fear of this dark, forbidding place, even though she had barely gone any distance into the wood. Telling herself to get a grip, she tried to picture what this place would look like in the daytime with sunlight streaming through the pretty trees, casting its rays upon half-concealed woodland flowers, maybe a deer stopping to nibble at a patch of grass. The image made her feel better.
Regaining her strength, drawing on that kernel of determination at her core, she carried on, shining the torch on the ground, using it to pick out a safe path over gnarled tree roots. She thought about Jack, pictured his happy face. He was such a good boy, even if he had inherited his father’s habit of whining if things didn’t go his way. Over the last year, she’d developed a sense that he was growing up fast, that he wasn’t her baby any more. If I don’t get through this, she thought, I will never see him again. He will grow up without a mum.
If Watoto doesn’t get him first, a voice whispered in her ear.
She shook away the thought. But she had no idea what had been going on in the outside world since she’d left the lab. How far and fast had the virus spread? How long did she have to find a cure?
Just concentrate on getting out, Kate.
She put her head down and carried on, accustomed to the chill now, her heartbeat slowing to a steady pace. Her senses were heightened, like those of an animal. Every sound around her, every brush of a leaf or branch on her face made her flinch.
After a while, she became aware that her back was aching from being so tense and that the sky was getting lighter. She could now make out shapes without the torch. Dawn was breaking. Right on cue, the woodland birds began to wake up, and the sound of their chirruping and cawing warmed her, gave her hope.
Until she realised how much easier it would be for the Sisters to find her in daylight. She still hadn’t heard any sign of them pursuing her. Perhaps they were still in their beds. The shout she’d heard must have been a false alarm. Perhaps Simone had come to and, deciding on a change of plan, shot them all in their beds – just as Angelica had told her they’d done to the people at the lab.
More likely, though, they were waiting for first light to look for her, assuming she wouldn’t have got far in the dark. And now the woods were springing to life before her eyes, emerging from beneath the cloak of darkness like a Polaroid picture developing before her eyes.
She felt very scared again.
Ahead of her was a clearing, about six metres in diameter; Kate entered it and paused. How far into the woods had she come? It was impossible to tell, neither could she judge how far it was to the road Simone had told her about, or what direction it was. She was reasonably confident she’d been heading in a straight line, but it was equally possible she’d been walking in a circle. Maybe she could climb a tree, try to get a better look, although it would take ages and …
She heard a voice.
A female voice, somewhere behind her. Perhaps two voices, one of them issuing orders.
Oh … fuck.
Trying not to panic, she started to jog, heading out of the clearing into the thicker trees, away from the voices. It was mu
ch lighter now, and she dropped the torch, needing her hands to push aside thick undergrowth as she forged her way deeper into the woods. A few minutes later she cursed herself for dropping the torch: if the women found it, it would tell them where she’d been.
I’m going to die, she thought, and was almost overwhelmed by an urge to lie down and give in. But she forced herself to take more deep breaths, squeezed her eyes shut and counted to five, found that inner strength and kept going.
She heard a woman’s voice again, swearing, like she had caught herself on something sharp. Kate hoped it was something really sharp. She jogged faster, sensing that the trees were thinning ahead of her. Hope flared violently inside her. Please let it be the road, she prayed.
But it was only another clearing, with a thin stream running through it, filled with muddy water. A steep bank angled down towards the stream, with a matching bank on the other side. She was going to have to descend the bank and jump across, or follow the stream left or right, hoping she could cross it at an easier point. She heard movement not far behind her. Oh God … She couldn’t risk being this exposed. She had to cross.
Tentatively, she began to descend, placing her feet sideways, using her arms for balance. One step, two steps, three. Then, without warning, the mud beneath her feet crumbled and she lurched forward, windmilling her arms before landing flat on her face in the water. She immediately pulled herself out – no real harm done – but she was soaking wet now. There was water in her shoes, her trousers, her underwear, dripping off the ends of her hair. She spat muddy water and began to climb up the other bank.
Until she heard a voice.
‘Where is that bitch? Those footsteps sounded close.’
Kate froze. She couldn’t see her but she identified the voice, mainly through a process of elimination as she knew the other women’s voices better. It was Brandi. Kate hopped back over the stream in an ungainly crouching position and flattened herself against the bank she had just descended.
