by G X Todd
He had no intention of sleeping, not for a while.
Because her story of the nameless Pied Piper worried you? Scared you might call out to him while you’re snoozing and he’ll creep in here and carry us away?
Pilgrim wanted to tell Voice to shut up, but he’d learned early on that engaging with him at times like this only made him worse. He’d get tired of talking soon. He always did.
And what’s the deal with these scientists she mentioned? What are they up to? Experimenting, I bet. That’s what they do. Experiment and cut people up and pretend like they know what they’re doing.
The scientists, if there even were any scientists, were far to the east. Nowhere they could pose a problem for Pilgrim. Rumour and gossip, that’s all this was; it’s what fuelled every channel of communication they had in the absence of the internet and cellphones and TV.
Voice eventually quietened down. He would do this most nights: talk himself into silence. Pilgrim just had to wait him out. Maybe he needed the rest, same as everyone else – Pilgrim didn’t know – but he welcomed the respite as a Bedouin tribesman would welcome shade after a hundred miles in relentless sun. It was the only time he felt truly alone. It was a blessed feeling – as if a pin could drop in the silent spaces of his mind, and nothing would answer.
A couple of times he stood and walked around the barn, stretching out his legs, appreciating the quiet. He stayed out of the moonlight, allowing the shadows to surround him. He rooted around in some of the rubble but found nothing of any use, and soon found himself entering the warm pool of light by the girls again, stooping to add more wood to the fire.
At one point he realised he was humming to himself under his breath. Some old tune, a song he remembered being popular in his youth, and he stopped mid-verse, the last note hanging awkwardly in the air with no place to go. He held his open palms over the fire, letting the heat burn through them, enjoying the feeling of being toasted all along his front while his back half was left cold. His night vision was being ruined, he knew, but he couldn’t help but stare into those flames, watch how they licked sinuously over the burning scraps of wood, the slight draught from the cracks in the doors making the flames twitch and bend. He remembered stealing matches from his father as a child and setting light to twisted rolls of newspaper. He would stand over the bathroom sink as the paper crumbled into ash, flaking the porcelain black. The longer he stared, the red-hot embers would shift in colour, hazing into blues and greens, a kaleidoscopic colour show that mesmerised. The smell of burning aroused him. Not in a sexual sense, but it seemed to ignite some dark corner of his brain until it glowed as hot as the paper’s sparking cinders.
The memory was an uncomfortable one – he didn’t like thinking about the past. It served no purpose to reminisce about such things, yet he knew the recollection would continue to play at the corners of his mind as long as the fire burned.
He employed a technique he sometimes used to suppress Voice, although it took a lot more effort to make it work on him and was successful only a fraction of the time. Pilgrim envisioned the memory as a scene painted on paper, then folded the painting up into neat squares and placed it inside a chest. Over that chest he ran thick iron chains, criss-crossing and wrapping them until the chest could not be reopened. Then he locked the chains with padlocks. He placed the chest that held his memories at the top of a white cliff, its ragged chalk sides so white they seemed to shine from a place deep inside the pale rock. And then he pushed the chest off the edge. In his mind’s eye he watched it fall to the ocean below, watched the huge splash it made when it entered the dark depths, watched as the chest sank and continued to sink for hundreds upon hundreds of fathoms, silently dropping through the dark layers of water until it disappeared into the gathering gloom. And, even once it had disappeared from sight, he knew the chest continued to sink and would continue to sink for ever, to a place he could no longer reach, a place that could no longer reach him.
One of the girls murmured something in her sleep. Lacey’s face held a frown, her mouth pulled down at the corners. She moved fretfully.
He wasn’t sure why, but Pilgrim started up his humming again, a little louder this time but still low, and soon the girl settled down, her frown melting away.
He let them sleep, planning on giving them another hour before waking them so he could take his turn to rest. Somewhere in the back of his head Voice began singing his own quiet tune, something about having to escape, dying to reach someone and driving all night. But Pilgrim stopped listening almost as soon as he began.
CHAPTER 15
It took a long time for Lacey to fall asleep. With her eyes closed, she listened to the crackling fire, heard the soft breaths of Alex lying near to her, close enough to reach out and touch if she wanted. She listened for the Boy Scout, too, but she might as well be listening for a ghost for all the noise he made. She knew he was there, though, sitting without stirring, arms crossed over his quietly moving chest, his brain ticking, ticking like a pocket watch.
Mostly, she listened to herself. Inside her head she asked questions, spoke to herself, to her grammy, left each question hanging and waiting for a response, but nothing alien answered her. No voices, only her own thoughts, ordinary and expected.
Her grandmother had been old and frail, and her sanity had been a tissue-thin piece of paper separating her rational mind from the scary things hiding beyond. Sometimes that veil dropped, and her grammy would scream and gibber and fight against what she saw on the other side. Maybe a voice had been waiting for her there, the same voices Alex and the Boy Scout had spoken about.
Lacey felt herself shy away from such thoughts, and her mind instantly shifted gear and turned to what waited at the periphery. The motel. She felt the pinch of wire biting at her wrists, the itch of the over-starched bed covers under her thighs, smelled the stench of her own fear in her sweat. The shadows of Room 8 lurked behind her eyelids, Alex’s sister hiding in them, lying motionless on the motel bed as if playing some cruel game of hide and seek. Inevitably, her exhausted brain transformed the body into Karey, and the image of her own sister lying dead made her heart jolt painfully.
Her fingers found an inch of skin on her underarm, and she pinched it viciously. Punishment for doubting, even for a second, that her sister was alive. Punishment, too, for her endlessly churning thoughts. She was so tired, yet they wouldn’t let her rest.
The nights were cold now – did Karey have somewhere warm to sleep, somewhere safe? Had she come across people like Russ and Nikki, cruel and hateful and wanting to hurt? Was she frightened for her daughter, a tiny baby when everything happened, and now just a kid less than half Lacey’s age? Addison, who was a part of Lacey because she was a part of Karey. They all had the same blood flowing through their veins, the same blood as Grammy, the same blood as Karey’s mother, who’d been sick for so long, her hair falling out in chunks and cheeks so painfully hollow her face appeared haunted by the ghost of her skull, and yet she proved all her doctors wrong by refusing to die when they said she would.
Strong blood.
All of Lacey’s family had it.
Two short years after her mom had passed, Lacey was five and had wandered out beyond the backyard fence to the bluebonnets. They had been so pretty, their blue heads gently bobbing as if inviting her closer (and blue was Grammy’s favourite colour). She was plucking the flowers, happily humming to herself and thinking about how pleased her grammy would be when she gave them to her, when a dart of movement struck so fast she’d been unable to snatch her hand away in time.
The rattlesnake’s fangs sank deep.
The pain was immediate.
Her scream must have dragged Karey away from whatever Mills & Boon she’d been reading because before Lacey knew it her sister was there, scooping her up and running with her through the backyard and around to the car. Karey stroked Lacey’s sweaty head in her lap as they sped into town and told her how silly she was to disturb such a grumpy snake, that she’d probab
ly given it a bigger fright than it had given her. (Lacey remembered tearfully arguing this point, saying the snake was stupid and mean and that she hoped all its teeth fell out.) The pain in her hand burned like fire. A million needles stabbed into it. Black dots swam in her eyes, but she bit her lip and tried not to cry; she hadn’t wanted to scare Karey.
She didn’t remember much after that. Karey later told her she went into anaphylactic shock and passed out. It took four lots of anti-venom to counteract the toxins that had been injected into her system. She was in intensive care for four days. When she woke, her hand and forearm had ballooned to twice their normal size, and she had cried upon seeing them, thinking they would always be that big and people would make fun of her. It took her grandmother almost an hour to calm her down and explain that her hand would return to its usual size in a few weeks. The doctor came in and said she was a very lucky girl, but by that point her tears had dried up and all she wanted was ice cream.
Lacey got the nickname Snake Girl. But she never forgot it was Karey who did all the saving. Lacey had almost died, and surely would have if her sister hadn’t acted so quickly. And that was why she knew Karey and Addison were OK. Karey wouldn’t let anything bad happen to her daughter, just like she hadn’t let anything bad happen to her. Lacey held on to that belief as tightly as her five-year-old self had held on to her big sister as Karey ran with her to the car.
She was almost asleep when she heard the soft rustle of the Boy Scout’s clothing, the tiniest scratch of his boot across the grit of the floor. She sensed him rising, standing over them, his gaze dark and somehow safe, and then his footfalls quietly padded away.
Lacey opened her eyes and lifted her head, searching for him, but there was only darkness beyond the light of the fire. She listened for the tell-tale sh-sh-shh of rattlesnakes but heard nothing. She even listened for the creeping sounds of a stranger sneaking into the barn, come to snatch them away. Or, failing that, burn them to death. Inhaling through her nose, she tried to smell any hint of smoke beyond that of the campfire, but it was impossible to detect anything. She stayed in that position until her neck ached too much for her to hold it up any longer.
Lying down, she tried to stay awake, but the warmth of the fire was its own blanket, the heat a weight that settled like warm hands over her eyes and head.
Wakefulness and dreaming – there was no defining line between the two. She slept, but she didn’t know it. The hands remained, except they weren’t warm and lulling any more but rough and groping, shoving into her pants, up her shirt, grabbing at her, pawing her. She struggled and moaned, and her breaths became thicker, like they did before tears came, that horrible syrupy feeling in the back of her throat. She tried to push the violating hands away, but they were slippery as eels, evading her attempts.
And then, music. A soft, basic-note melody that slipped around those hands and up into her ears. Gentle fingers of melodies drifted over her, getting louder, solidifying, offering comfort. The hands retreated, slipped from her clothes, her body, and she slept.
CHAPTER 16
A car!
Pilgrim shot to his feet at Voice’s words and pressed his face to the nearest crack in the barn’s wall. The fire had died down to cinders, so his night vision quickly picked out the light-coloured compact car racing towards them, coming from the east. The sky there was already lighting with dawn, a slightly paler band of blue in comparison to the rest of the night sky.
The car weaved across the blacktop, passing through both lanes. It changed direction so abruptly the wheels shrieked and the car shuddered. Pilgrim thought it would skid out of control, but the driver somehow fought it back into line. In fact, the driver managed to hold it for another hundred yards before the car slewed right, the brakes squealed, the hood dipped down and the vehicle flipped. It rolled on to its roof, then to its side, metal crumping loudly and glass shattering, bouncing on to four wheels again before it went right on rolling.
Four times it rolled before the compact screeched to a stop on its roof. Pilgrim figured any occupants must be gobs of meat and bone splinters after being turned around in that metal cabin-cum-food-blender close to half a dozen times.
The noise of the crash had brought Lacey and Alex scrambling out of their bedrolls and to the wall next to him, their eyes finding their own spyholes. The silence after the crash filled his ears as if they’d been stuffed with cotton. Not even the insects buzzed.
One headlight had blown, but the other shone an insipid yellow. It illuminated a urine glow in front of the bent-up hood. Smoke seeped out from the engine compartment. A black lead trailed from inside the car, out through the smashed back window, and snaked a few yards behind the vehicle, tapering into a long, silver aerial, glinting like a rapier on the road.
A radio, Voice whispered.
Was this part of the convoy they’d spotted? If so, what was it doing back here?
Maybe it has something to do with Alex’s nameless man, Voice said craftily. Maybe he sends out emissaries to gather his flock.
‘Stay,’ Pilgrim said when he felt Lacey shift.
‘But they might be—’
‘Stay.’
He watched the vehicle closely; it had ended up not far from the dirt track leading up to the barn, maybe no more than thirty feet. He could see the passenger side, but the interior was in shadow. There was no movement.
‘Maybe we should go see if they need help,’ Alex said.
Pilgrim could feel her eyes on him, but he didn’t look away from the wreckage. He didn’t answer her, either.
What’re you thinking? Voice asked him.
‘Thinking we should wait.’
‘Wait for what?’ Alex said.
Now Pilgrim could feel them both looking at him. Voice was doing his own version of watching, poised for more questions, Pilgrim could sense it, but he was holding off for the moment.
‘For that,’ Pilgrim said, seeing the shadowy movement a second before the tinkle of glass passed through the night air and reached their ears.
A single figure dragged itself out of the busted passenger window. And dragging was all it could do, judging by the slow, laborious way it was doing it.
Pilgrim looked up and down the road, staring hard – there were no signs of any other vehicles. Still, he counted to a slow twenty-one in his head, that extra one after the twenty a useful addition because, in that extra second, a car could have appeared. It didn’t, so it had done its job. He straightened and motioned for the girls to step back. He pushed open one of the barn doors, only wide enough for him to slip through, and stood in the gap for a minute, studying the overturned car. The figure had stopped dragging itself, its hips and legs still inside. Now it lay still, the broken glass twinkling like scattered jewels around its bare arms.
Pilgrim felt Lacey insert herself into the gap in the door behind him, but he didn’t move to allow her space to step outside.
‘Hey,’ she whined, bumping up against his back.
He spared her a glance, saw she had her rifle, and finally moved aside, letting her out.
‘Stay behind me,’ he told her.
Alex remained inside the barn, hovering awkwardly by the doors. The sight of her bruises jarred Pilgrim. The muted light from the campfire had softened them, camouflaging them in shadows and the flattering licks of firelight, but now the natural light showed them in painfully vivid detail. He needed to remember that she had better reason than most to be untrusting of strangers.
He nodded at her to stay where she was and strode away without waiting for her to speak, drawing his gun and thumbing off the safety, walking quickly but carefully, eyes skimming over the car, up and down the road, all around at the straggly bushes, and back to the car. The person hadn’t moved since it had half dragged itself out into the open.
As he neared the wrecked car, Lacey having to jog to keep up with his long strides, Pilgrim lifted the gun’s muzzle and aimed.
I think it’s dead.
‘You always
think that,’ Pilgrim murmured, and then, more loudly, ‘I have a gun pointed at your head. Unless you want it blown off, don’t make any sudden moves.’
Voice sniggered. The dead don’t move.
Pilgrim’s pace had slowed, and he ducked lower, peering into the interior of the car. It appeared empty. Closer now, he could see that the person was a boy, lying face down, skinny, his vest darkly stained with old blood. The boy’s bare arms were deeply lacerated, black-ruby strings adorning the diamantes of shattered glass.
When he was no more than a car’s length away, Pilgrim stopped and looked back at the girl. Her eyes were big and she was chewing on the underside of her lip, but the butt of her rifle was snugged up tight against her shoulder, and she held the gun with easy familiarity.
‘Keep me covered,’ he told her.
She nodded, tucking her chin in and lifting the barrel, sighting along it at the boy lying in the dirt. Pilgrim eased forward, glass crunching underfoot, his right hand keeping the gun levelled at the boy’s head, his left reaching cautiously for the kid’s neck. His fingers slid over warm, moist skin, pressing in at the throat, feeling for a pulse. There was a flutter.
Checking over his shoulder, making sure the girl was staying alert, he holstered his gun and leaned down to grip the kid under the arms, lifting and heaving him the rest of the way out of the car. The boy’s feet dragged as Pilgrim hauled him over to a clear piece of ground, the trailing legs bent at unnatural angles, like snapped pencils. The kid had looked skinny and, lifting him up, Pilgrim discovered he weighed only a fraction more than a sack of stolen potatoes. He laid the boy down and stayed kneeling as he gripped the bloody shoulder and pulled the kid on to his back.
Lacey moaned.
Holy crap.
The boy wasn’t a boy. The boy was a girl, a woman; it was hard to tell her age, but she was older than Lacey by at least a handful of years. Her hair had been hacked short, her cheeks sunken into hollows, but it was her mouth Pilgrim stared at. Raw, pulpy holes lined her gums where her teeth had been, and the dry, crusty streaks of blood over her chin and neck – in contrast to the new, shiny additions courtesy of the car crash – suggested that an amateurish tooth extraction had been performed not too long ago.
