What Blood Leaves Behind (The Poison Rose) (7 page)

I’m in a park and the world is ordinary. Cars drive slowly by, people stroll on the sidewalks and pathways. I’m sitting on a bench with Larkin, tossing breadcrumbs to a noisy flock of ducks gathered at the edge of a pond. He’s telling me about something that happened in school that day.

And then a steady, machine-like hum begins to fill the space around us. It grows loud enough to smother the sounds of the quacking ducks, the shouting children, the drone of traffic. No one but Larkin and I seem to notice. I ask Larkin to repeat what he was saying but he gets up and glances around in all directions. He runs a hand through his thick dark hair. He’s worried. “They’re coming,” he says.

Then I wake to the deep black shadows of the motel room. But that hum, a metallic buzz rising in the distance, follows me into the room from my dream. I realize that I’m sitting hunched over, my back to the door with some cushions wedged in behind me. I’ve fallen asleep although I swore to myself I wouldn’t.

It’s the sound of a motorcycle that wakes me, the stutter and grind of its engine ripping through the stillness. It’s been an eternity since I heard anything like it but the sound is instantly recognizable. The engine isn’t muffled and it soon splits into the noise of two or three engines, then into the roar of a large group of bikes fast approaching. The noise seems loud enough to make the walls of the room throb. I can feel vibrations beneath me that make my backside tingle.

They must be weaving through the wrecks on the highway. I hear them splutter as they slow, then a rippling cascade of pops like firework explosions as they thunder back to full throttle and pick up speed.

I jump to my feet. Getting up so suddenly makes my head swim and I let myself slip back against the door until it clears. For a moment it seems like I’m still dreaming. Then I feel CJ’s arms wrapped around my waist. “What is it, Gillian?” he says.

I hug him tight, take him with me to the room’s front window and pull back the curtains. In a heartbeat, Stace, Emily and Terry crowd in next to us. The noise fills the room but we see nothing outside. As my eyes adjust to the weak starlight, I can just make out where the highway is, a wide valley between us and the shadowy blur of the buildings opposite outlined against the night sky.

A long, narrow beam of white light suddenly streaks down the middle of the highway. The shock of it makes all of us jump back from the window. We wait a few moments, then creep forward again, cautiously peering out beyond the edge of the curtains. We see the beam rake across the cars and trucks in its way as the motorcycle rider swerves to avoid obstacles.

More splashes of light fan out across the interstate, spreading apart then clenching like the fingers of a grasping hand. Several hands. I catch a glimpse of one of the bikes as it pulls out in front of another and it looks enormous. Chrome pipes gleam like the blades of knives. The bike’s rider is only a dark blur.

The motorcycles slow, come to a stop all grouped together. The beams of light are like a web stretched across the highway. I can hear shouts above the rumble of the idling bikes, then a ricochet of explosive pops as they accelerate, weaving through the wrecks and continuing on past us.

For a moment I think that maybe they won’t come back. They’re heading south down the highway with some other goal in mind. But the faces of Jendra and William tell me I’m wrong. Whoever is out there is not going to leave us alone.

The organization, the knowhow these people must have to be able to travel in a motorized pack like this amazes me. I didn’t think anything like this was possible, not on such a scale.

“What are we going to do?” It’s Emily, whispering in my ear. She’s clutching my arm, the long nails of her fingers digging into my skin.

I jerk my arm away. “You’re hurting me.” I try to make out her face in the darkness. I want to believe that I can rely on her. “I don’t think there’s anything we can do.”

She turns away from me, to the others. “We can run. Let’s get out of here. Hide somewhere.” I hear her stumble against the bed, making her way to where she keeps her few possessions.

I want to tell her,
Maybe they’re your friends, Emmy.
But I can’t carp at her when she’s so scared. Instead, I say, “Emmy, where are we going to go? If they come back they’ll be on us before we make it past the parking lot.” Although I didn’t intend them to, my words sound cruel and I immediately wish I hadn’t said them.

“Maybe they won’t come back.” It’s Stace’s small voice, nearly swallowed by the dark of the room.

“Maybe.”

But as I breathe out that one word I can hear the mechanical hum growing louder again. It had nearly died away but now the bikes are clearly circling back to us. They must have gone on to the next exit and are now weaving their way up the frontage road.

I reach out in the dark, trying to grab the children, pull them to me. We fumble against each other, hugging and clutching.

“I’m so scared,” Terry says. I can hear CJ crying. I wish with all my heart that there was something we could do besides wait helplessly. We could try to find another room to hide in but the motel’s not large and we would just be delaying the inevitable.

The thrum and roar of the bikes grows, pounding through the cold night air, filling our senses. Soon we see the long white fingers of the single beam headlights reaching out across the dark road. The beams slice inward as the bikes turn toward us and wind their way through the debris cluttering the motel’s parking lot.

They shudder to a stop, grouped together right below our room. Their riders leave the engines running, the lights on. I can’t make out any of them and I can’t see the bikes themselves. The heavy throb of so many engines blurs in my ears, muddling my thoughts, my frantic attempts to figure out what I can do. I count seven headlights, seven bikes. It’s like a pack of wild dogs circling below us, waiting.

I shove the kids away from me.

“You stay in the room. All of you. Don’t come out.”

I feel my way around the space where I was sleeping, find the rifle. I know it’s loaded. I always keep it loaded at night. I slip outside, pulling the door shut behind me. Leaning against the door, breathing heavily, I look down but can’t make out anything beyond the glare of light from the motorcycles.

I’m sure they can see me. There are a few shouts, some laughter but I can’t understand what they’re saying.

There’s no point in hiding. I step to the railing and try to call out above the noise. “What do you want?” My words are chopped into pieces by the stuttering
chunka-chunka
of the bikes as they idle below me.

“We want you.” It’s the voice of a young man, high and confident. There’s more laughter.

“Get out of here. We’re not hurting you. Just leave us alone.”

“Come on now. You’re here looking for help, right? Well, help has arrived.” More laughter. The voice reminds me of William’s, so self-assured and theatrical, like the man behind it is performing on stage. But it’s the voice of someone older, someone more mature.

Another voice says, “Just cut the crap and get down here.”

I hear a woman’s laugh. “Or we’ll come up and get you.”

I’ve been cradling the rifle, holding it to my chest, one hand on the stock, one hand on the barrel. I bring it into position, lock the stock against my shoulder. I can’t see anything through the site, just a blur of light, so I look past it. “Did your friends tell you I have a gun? Try me and I’ll take out as many of you as I can.”

There’s still more laughter and words I can’t make out above the noise. I fire into the open air directly in front of me, above their heads. There’s not much of a reaction. “We don’t scare so easily, little girl,” the first voice I heard says.

I jerk the bolt back, jam it into place. This time I aim for a spot right above the headlight of one of the motorcycles. I can’t see what I’m shooting at. I’m not sure if I deliberately want to hit one of them or just come close enough to scare them off.

The sound of the bikes as they idle drops for a few seconds, just long enough that I think I can hear the clatter of footsteps somewhere to the left of me, in the direction of the staircase. Then one of the riders guns his engine and the sound makes me flinch, lose my focus. I try to pick out a target again, searching the space somewhere above the bright glare of the headlights.

I pull the trigger.

My shot cuts through the noise. I hear a scream and one of the bikes tumbles to its side. A mirror smashes. There’s shouting, confusion. “God damn, she shot him!” I hear. I feel the hot breath of one of the children against the back of my neck. I look over my shoulder and it’s Emily. I snap at her, “Get back in the room!”

There’s a swirl of movement directly below me. Most of the bikes have fallen silent and the headlights have been extinguished. Although I still can’t see them, I imagine the riders have dismounted to fan out across the area.

I take a deep breath and holler out over the relative silence. “I’ll give you one more chance.” My voice is high-pitched and screechy. I take another breath and try hard to fill my words with authority. “Clear out or I’ll kill you all.” I’m sure I sound like a child, not frightening in the least.

I can’t see them. I don’t know where they are. Although I hold a weapon I’m almost helpless.

“Look out!”

It’s Emily, not as close now but still behind me. I turn and see the shadowy outline of her body framed by the motel room’s door. I take a few steps toward her, intending to push her back into the room and take a position in the doorway myself, when I see her put her hand to her mouth and her whole body tense as if she’s about to be struck.

But I’m the one who feels the explosion of blinding pain, senses something blunt and heavy cracking down on the roof of my skull. There is another burst of bright light but this time inside my head. I sink to my knees, the rifle clattering on the cement of the landing and I follow it down.

Welcome to Raintree

“Is Gideon dead?”

“He wasn’t moving. I didn’t think one of them could hurt us like that but she got him right in the head. That’s why we don’t let them play with guns.”

The voices are dream-like, creamy and thick and slow. I can’t tell if they’re coming from inside or outside my head. But I must be awake now. I can feel damp steel pressed against my cheek, the vibration of a vehicle in motion thrumming through my body. I reach out a hand, groping blindly. I feel the cold toe of a leather shoe or boot and it’s instantly yanked back from my touch.

“She’s waking up.”

“You hit her hard.”

“Why not? After what she did? She’s lucky we didn’t kill her there.”

I try to sit up, push my body away from the floor. I’m in a dark enclosed space which I soon recognize as the back of a van. It’s a well of shadows where I am, two indistinct shapes crouching over me. I crane my neck and can see the head and shoulders of someone driving illuminated by the weak glow of dashboard lights.

Moving my head like that brings on an agonizing wave of pain. I let out a gasp and try to take some deep breaths. It feels like giant hands are crushing my skull. I’m on all fours, swaying back and forth with the motion of the van. I want to sit up, I want to get a clear view of where I am and who these people are but every time I try to move the pain squeezes me like a vice.

Finally the pain recedes enough so that I’m able to look up at the dark shapes above me. “Where are the kids?” My voice is cracked, the ghost of a voice. “What did you do with them?”

One of them snorts derisively. “She’s worried about her kids.” I can’t tell if it’s a man or woman speaking. The voice still sounds strange, like it’s disembodied, floating through the space around me.

“Down,” a harsher, more masculine voice says. The sole of a boot presses me back to the floor of the van. I’m too weak to resist the pressure and I collapse on the cold metal.

The higher voice, closer to that of a woman’s, says, “Don’t you worry your pretty little head. We haven’t left them behind. But you—we have to watch you. You’re a murderess.”

That last word fills the space around us, an enormous, earth-shaking word.
I killed someone.
All the reasons why I had to fire that last shot burst into my mind—that I had to defend us, that these Black Riders refused to make their intentions known.

Why didn’t they show up in the daytime when we could see them? But Jendra and William came and I scared them away. If I didn’t trust the two of them, how could I have trusted these people, the way they surrounded us in the middle of the night? But then I think, maybe I was wrong. What if these
are
the people we’ve been looking for all along?

I notice an odd smell that permeates the space around us. The throbbing in my head has subsided enough to enable me to pay more attention to what’s around me. It’s a coppery smell mingled with a slight hint of decay.

I try to speak again. “Where… Where are you taking me…?”

There’s no answer. The damp of the exposed metal I lay on starts to work its way into my body. I feel so cold I grab my knees and pull them in tight. I’m not so much frightened as dazed and hurting.

Then the van jerks to a stop and I’m thrown against one of the front seats. My forehead smacks hard against a metal strut at the base of the seat. The razor-sharp pain I feel comes in an intense burst like a flashbulb that lasts a few seconds, then the ache in my head I felt before floods back. I reach a finger up to my forehead and can feel a wet trickle of blood.

“What the hell, Bodie? What do you think you’re doing?” the more masculine voice says. I can just make out a shape looming over me, one of the two in the back of the van getting to his feet.

A voice from the seat above me says defensively, “I can’t help it. We’re at that bad part where you almost can’t get through. I have to work my way around the wrecks.”

“You’re going to make us puke. Next time, I’m driving.”

“You can’t drive,” the driver says.

“Bodie’s right,” the female in the back says. She’s also standing close to me now. “You can’t drive, Milo.”