by Louise Voss
Paul opened his eyes, with no idea where he was. He could hardly breathe. But the phone was still ringing.
Harley said, ‘Are you going to answer it?’
Paul groped in his pocket and pulled out the iPhone. It had two per cent of charge left. He thumbed the screen and said, ‘Hello?’
A robotic voice said, ‘You are being called reverse charge by—’ and then Paul heard the sweet, sweet sound of Kate, saying her own name. ‘Do you accept the charges?’
‘Yes, yes, YES,’ Paul said, as loudly and clearly as his aching throat and fuzzy head would allow. Just hearing her name cut right through the fuzziness like a shot of pure adrenaline.
‘Oh, Paul, Paul … It’s so good to hear your voice.’
‘Kate, baby, my darling, how are you? Where are you?’
Beside him, Harley jerked to attention.
‘I’m in a place called Feverfew. I—’
She stopped talking and he thought she must have got cut off. But then he heard another voice, a woman’s voice. He couldn’t make out what she said.
‘Kate? Hello? Hello?’
She was gone. He threw the phone down into the footwell with frustration and anger. His body was rocked by a sneeze.
In the back seat, Diaz said, ‘Was that the famous Dr Maddox?’
Paul was too upset to reply.
Harley asked him gently, ‘Where did she say she is?’
‘Feverfew.’
Harley nodded excitedly. ‘Bingo.’ He floored the accelerator and they hit 100 mph on the empty road. ‘We’re almost there. Let’s go and get her.’
54
After twenty hours almost continuous driving, it was fair to say that the novelty of life on the road had worn off. Jack and Bradley sat in the back of the car throughout the night, alternately dozing, playing on Bradley’s DS, and randomly punching each other when the boredom became too overwhelming. An increasingly morose Riley sat hunched over the steering wheel, smoking out of the window and listening to vintage heavy metal CDs. By the time they reached Tucson, Bradley and Jack could sing most of the lyrics to ‘Bring Your Daughter to the Slaughter’.
‘Are we nearly there yet?’ Bradley enquired, not for
the first time, as they passed through Riverside with the Airstream rumbling along behind them.
‘I swear to God, if you ask me that one more time, I will make you eat that frickin’ DS,’ Riley growled over his shoulder. ‘Get some sleep – it’s like five a.m.’
‘But are we?’
Riley ignored him.
‘Are we, Riley? We must be nearly there now. I can’t wait to see Dad, can you, Riley? Do you think he’ll let me and Jack have a go on his motorbike? He’s got a Triumph,’ Bradley informed Jack.
‘Cool,’ Jack said. He too had been wondering when they would get there, or if this endless drive would somehow keep going, probably until he was an old man. If he’d known it would take this long, he never would have let Bradley talk him into it. It was only the thought of seeing his mum that stopped him from crying and demanding to be taken back to Dallas – although the worm of doubt twisting in his gut wouldn’t go away. What if Riley didn’t take him to the lab? What if he couldn’t find it?
‘Riley,’ he ventured. ‘Do you think your dad will know how to find my mum?’
‘Jeez, you kids with your endless QUESTIONS! Brad, we are totally nearly there – seriously, we’re about, like, one hour away. And Jack, yeah, I guess my dad will know. Kinda depends on whether or not he’s sick. He’s not answering his cellphone and he still hasn’t called me back, and I’ve left a bunch of messages. He might be out of town but I know where he keeps the spare keys, so if he ain’t there we can crash at his place till we figure out where your mom is.’
‘What’s he like?’ Jack was curious.
‘He’s awesome,’ said Bradley. ‘He’s got all this grey curly hair, and he’s really really tall—’
Riley laughed. ‘He’s, like, five ten. That’s not tall.’
‘He’s tall to me. And he plays guitar in a band, and he’s famous because he makes movies, and he won an Oscar once.’
‘What’s an Oscar?’
‘It’s a golden statue about this big, and you get to be on TV when you win one, and he keeps it on top of the cabinet in his bathroom. Oh, and he has a sausage dog called Martha. He’s nicer than your dad.’
Jack considered this. ‘My dad’s nice.’
‘Hmm. Sometimes, maybe. But he yells a lot.’
‘All dads yell.’
‘Mine doesn’t. Does he, Riley?’
‘He might, when he realises that we’ve driven all this way when I should’ve taken you kids home,’ said Riley, flicking his cigarette butt out of the window. He had decided against topping up the credit on his cellphone, to avoid any more aggressive calls from Vernon, or pleading ones from his mom.
The next time he turned round, both boys were fast asleep again, leaning into each other with their small heads resting together. Riley shook his head. ‘Fucking kids,’ he said to himself.
Half an hour later Riley stuck an unlit cigarette behind his ear and whistled softly. ‘Shit, check it out.’
Bradley and Jack woke up and looked. ‘What’s that?’ Bradley asked.
‘County border. It sure wasn’t like this last time I went through.’ He scratched his head. Great rolls of barbed wire had been wrapped round fence poles on either side of the road, stretching into the distance, and increasingly large signs issued warnings: ‘LOS ANGELES COUNTY UNDER QUARANTINE – NO ENTRY’, ‘OBSERVE BASIC HYGIENE’, ‘STAY HOME AND DO NOT PANIC’ ‘IF YOU GET SICK, CALL MEDI-DOC AND DO NOT LEAVE YOUR HOME’.
‘No cars going the other way,’ Riley observed. ‘Means they ain’t letting people in or out. Shit.’
Bradley gripped the back of Riley’s seat. ‘We can’t get in?’ he asked, in a very high-pitched voice, his bottom lip already trembling. Jack’s heart sank into his sneakers. Surely they wouldn’t have to turn round and go home, after all these hours of driving?
‘Don’t worry, kids. I have a plan,’ Riley said, but he didn’t sound too confident. He slowed the car and trailer right down as they approached the roadblock. An armed guard stopped them, a machine gun held tightly against his chest. The boys could see, on the other side of the roadblock, a huge queue of stationary vehicles, some honking their horns, people in masks leaning out of open windows. ‘Don’t say nothing, guys, or I will hurt you. Got it?’
‘Got it,’ chorused the boys.
‘County’s closed,’ called the man with the gun, who was also wearing a mask. ‘Go home.’
‘Ah, sir?’ Riley said, in a more polite voice than either of the boys had ever heard him use. ‘Actually, we have to come in. My dad lives in, um, like a totally remote cabin in the Santa Monica Mountains and I have to get these here boys back to him. He’s expecting us. He’s stocked up on food and stuff. It’s safe out there – his nearest neighbour’s, like, forty miles away. Our mom wants us to go there so we don’t get the virus.’
The guard leaned down so he could see in the car’s rear windows. Bradley and Jack both smiled at him, but, even through the mask, they could see that he wasn’t smiling back. His black skin gleamed with sweat, and his biceps were bigger than Jack’s waist.
‘I can’t let you boys in,’ he said, speaking loudly to be heard over the thumping of helicopter blades overhead. ‘Got my orders.’
‘It’s not like we’re going to LA or anything,’ Riley protested. Bradley opened his mouth to correct him, but Jack pinched his leg hard, and he closed it again. ‘Could you just check with your superior, sir? I mean, surely we’ll all be safer in a cabin in the mountains than we would be anywhere else? These kids need to get someplace safe till this thing passes, and we’ve been driving for days now … Got no food left, and hardly any gas money neither. Could you consider making an exception for us? Please?’
The guard narrowed his eyes. He looked as though he was about to speak again,
when the sound of a gunshot exploded next to them. He swung round to see one of his colleagues lying on the ground, just as a flatbed truck full of young, smartly dressed men smashed through the barrier and accelerated away at high speed, one of them still shooting out of the passenger window. The guard raced over to his colleague, while four or five other guards opened fire on the truck. The helicopter swooped down low, executed a 360-degree turn, and took off after them.
‘Fuck,’ said Riley. ‘Frat boys gone mental. Get your heads down, and hold tight, now!’
In the commotion, nobody noticed as Riley put his foot on the gas and did exactly the same as the truck had done, only in the opposite direction, without firearms and considerably more slowly, as he was dragging the Airstream in his wake. The car broke through the barrier with a crack, and Riley drove as fast as he could into LA County, hunched down in his seat.
‘Riley!’ screeched Bradley. ‘They’ve got guns, they’re gonna kill us, what are you DOING?’
‘Shut up and keep down!’ Riley yelled back.
But there was no sound of further gunshots. No helicopter, no sirens, no police cars. Riley drove on, forcing the ancient car’s engine up to sixty miles per hour, as it strained and complained in a high-pitched whine that drowned out the sound of the boys’ fearful sobs.
After fifteen minutes of anxiously looking in the wing mirrors, Riley finally slowed down. ‘Shit. We only friggin’ made it,’ he crowed, slapping the steering wheel. ‘Come out, boys, we’re in!’
‘We’re in!’ echoed the boys weakly, as they scrambled back up to their seat, white with shock and tension. ‘Nobody shot at us!’ said Bradley, sounding almost disappointed. ‘Wow, Riley, that was COOL!’
‘Hell, yeah,’ said Riley, cackling with relief. ‘Hollywood here we come!’
In the dirty house by the freeway, Lucy slept sporadically throughout the night, aware, even in her sleep, that she was starving and her arms numb and aching. Finally, as the sun shed its dawn filter and began its cruel blaze through the dirty window, she knew she had no chance of any more rest. She rolled over and looked at her mother, who was flushed, sweating and muttering to herself. At first Lucy thought it was the effects of the sun’s rays – but then she realised her mom was burning up with fever.
‘Oh no,’ she whimpered. ‘Mom. Wake up!’ She crawled over to Rosie and tapped her mother’s shoulder with her chin. ‘Wake up, please!’
Rosie moaned and opened her eyes. They were glazed, the pupils massively dilated.
‘We need to get out of here,’ said Lucy. ‘You have to get to a hospital, now. Get up.’
Lucy and Rosie left the house and weaved back to the freeway. Rosie had not thought it possible that she could walk a step further, with her numb hands still tied, feeling the way she did – but Lucy had dragged her, clamping her teeth on the sleeve of her dress and physically pulling her along.
The freeway was even emptier than it had been the day before, and the morning sun beat down on their bare heads. Sweat was dripping off Rosie, and the pair of them walked in grim silence.
Finally, a car came over the brow of the hill behind them, a lone vehicle pulling a battered silver trailer. Lucy suddenly ran out into the freeway and stood in the middle of the lane, planting her legs wide.
‘Lucy!’ Rosie shouted, but only inside her head – the words wouldn’t come out. The car was coming fast, too fast – Rosie had a brief flash of the student in Tiananmen Square standing in front of the moving tanks – she tried to run after Lucy, but fell. She couldn’t get up, and she couldn’t look. She turned her face away in defeat and waited for the impact. ‘Better than getting the flu,’ she muttered to herself. ‘Better than that …’
‘SHIT!’ Riley shouted, stamping on the brake so hard that the car and the Airstream almost jackknifed. The boys in the back woke up and screamed as they slewed across two – mercifully empty – lanes to avoid the young girl who was standing in the middle of the freeway.
They skidded to a halt in the slow lane, and Riley gaped in astonishment at the girl. She was totally cute. About his age, denim mini over long legs, ripped T-shirt with an authentic-looking bloodstain image on it, and awesome messy auburn curls. ‘Cool,’ he muttered. She wasn’t even waving – but then she turned slightly to show him that her hands had been tied behind her back.
‘Whoa,’ he said. Her lips were moving but he couldn’t hear anything.
‘She’s saying “help”,’ said Jack.
‘Go help her, Riley,’ said Bradley. Both boys were gripping the back of the driver’s seat.
Riley scratched his head. ‘I dunno,’ he said uneasily. ‘We’re nearly there. I can’t pick up no hitchhikers. It’s dangerous.’
‘She’s crying,’ Jack pointed out.
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ Riley capitulated. She was a total fox, though, it was clear even through the shock and tears on her face. Perhaps if he helped her, she’d let him have her number. ‘Stay there, you two. Do NOT open the doors or windows, OK?’
He got out of the car and gingerly approached the girl.
‘Hey.’
‘Hey,’ she replied, now sobbing. ‘Please, help us.’
‘Us?’ He looked around.
‘My mom’s over there. We got attacked. This crazy woman tied us up. She cut me, look.’
Shit, thought Riley. Those were actual bloodstains on her shirt.
‘We need to get to a hospital. Please could you give us a ride? Please?’ She looked imploringly at him. They were still standing in the middle of the empty freeway.
‘We better get off of the road,’ Riley said uneasily. ‘My kid brother’s in the car, something might come.’
‘What’s your name? I’m Lucy. We won’t bother you, I swear,’ she said. ‘We could just ride in your trailer, if that’s OK? You won’t even know we’re there. My mom really needs to rest, she’s – ah – she hit her head when we got attacked. All we need is for you to cut this tape off my wrists, and drop us near a hospital. Please?’
Riley later wondered if he would have been so accommodating had the girl not been so beautiful. But at that moment he knew he couldn’t leave her there.
‘I’m Riley. You go get your mom, I’ll get some scissors for your wrists. You can ride in the trailer.’
Lucy broke into a fresh storm of tears, and Riley blushed to the roots of his hair. She stumbled off the freeway and Riley watched her for a moment, her long legs as wobbly as a colt’s, her wrists tied tightly behind her back. He felt a surge of protectiveness that for one second made him feel more manly than he’d ever felt before – and then made him want to jump back in the car, lock the doors, and drive away as fast as he could.
But instead he ran to the Airstream, opened the door and found a pair of scissors in the drawer. When he came out again, a woman was standing with Lucy. He could tell that she was Lucy’s mother – same colour hair, same pretty face. She would have been a bit of a MILF, if she hadn’t been in such a state. Sick dribbled down her front, and she had a black eye.
‘We need to get her to a hospital,’ Lucy repeated. She turned her back to Riley and stretched out her arms. He carefully cut the tape binding her wrists, and was rewarded with a faint but still dazzling smile. Lucy rolled her elbows round and round, stretched out her arms above her then rubbed her wrists. She held out her hand for the scissors.
‘I’ll do Mom’s in the trailer. You need to get going before you get in trouble for stopping on the freeway,’ she said.
Riley snorted, suddenly shy. ‘I reckon the Highway Patrol got other things on their mind,’ he said. ‘But yeah. We should hit the road again.’
‘Thanks, Riley,’ she said, smiling that smile again. ‘I’d kiss you, but I’d better not in case you got the Indian flu.’
Riley saw her glance at her mother, and it occurred to him how red her mom’s eyes were, and how much sweat beaded her forehead. He stared for a moment. But he couldn’t leave them, not now … Anyways, they were almost at his dad’s.
And Lucy and her mom would be out of the way in the trailer …
‘Jump in, then,’ he said.
55
Kate was leaning down into the telephone kiosk, clamping her thighs tightly across Eygpt’s broad back so that she didn’t slide off. She didn’t notice anything at all until she felt the cold muzzle of a pistol stuck into her side, and a heavily muscled woman ripped the phone receiver away from her, leaving it dangling.
The woman stroked the horse’s mane and murmured in his ear, ‘Easy, Egypt. You don’t have to worry about this bitch lady no more. Heather’s here to take you home.’
She pointed the gun at Kate’s face. ‘Dr Maddox, I assume? Well, well, well. My day just got a whole lot better.’
Five minutes later, Kate sat in silence in the passenger seat of the low-slung Porsche. The woman had handcuffed her arms behind her body, so she couldn’t lunge for the door handle and try and jump out. She had no option but to sit back and await whatever fate they had in store for her back at the ranch.
There was no way she’d ever escape a second time. She felt like crying – she’d been so close to freedom! Paul had sounded really sick on the phone. What if he had the virus? What if she never saw him or Jack again? I couldn’t bear it, she thought desperately.
She took a deep breath, collected herself, and decided to try something. ‘Om Shanti, Sister,’ she said to the woman. ‘I’m on your side, you know. What is your name?’
The woman turned and looked at her through narrowed eyes. ‘Sister Heather. Nice try, Maddox, but don’t think for a moment I’m gonna buy that bullshit. I’ve already talked to Angelica.’ After shoving Kate in the car, Heather had stood outside for a moment and made a phone call. ‘And I gotta tell ya, she’s pissed. Angelica doesn’t get angry very often, but when she does …’ She grinned and drew her finger across her throat.
Kate slumped down in the leather bucket seat, watching the trees flash past in a blur of dark green. She was out of ideas.
‘Ah, the faithless “Sister” Kate. Back so soon?’ said Angelica, unsmiling. It didn’t surprise her that Maddox hadn’t got far – the Englishwoman looked as though she’d spent her life in the lab, and never even set foot in a gym. She looked pale and defeated and Angelica curled her lip scornfully. To think she’d believed that this might have been the seventh Sister! It was a fluke that she’d maimed Cindy in the lab, and a downright miracle that she’d managed to kill Brandi, a seasoned fighter, in the woods. Although something was bothering her about Brandi’s death … She couldn’t put her finger on it yet, but she would, given more meditation.
