Written in the Blood (19 page)

‘What,’ he asked her, ‘are we going to do about the unfailingly curious Miss Angel River?’

‘You won’t get away with—’

But already his hand was reaching for her, and when he touched her
OH GOD WHAT?
forehead she felt something
NO THAT’S
clutching at her brain
HE’S NOT EVEN
and curling around it, and suddenly she was screaming in agony, but it was a silent scream, and black wings were enfolding her, and then, and
then
 . . . Angel felt her thoughts fracture into a million jagged pieces.

It was night when she woke. The world bumped and swayed. She opened her eyes to a malignant yellow light, swirling and flickering. Abruptly she closed them again, nausea rising.

Somewhere a radio was playing. Her brain felt as if it had been sawn in two, her thoughts incomplete, unravelling as they attempted to bridge the gap between the halves. She tried to touch her face, and realised she was bound. With the shock of that discovery, her thoughts began to knit back together.

The woman imprisoned in the RV’s hold. The fingernails, once beautifully manicured, now split and caked with mud and grime.

And him. Ty. Reaching out and touching her forehead, shattering her mind into sharp glass shards.

Narrowing her eyes into slits, Angel tried to make sense of what she saw.

She was in the RV, that much was obvious. And they were moving; she could feel the highway flying by beneath her, rocking and bumping the vehicle on its springs. Yellow light bent the shadows. Black shapes slid through the RV’s living space. She heard the roar and hiss of cars passing and the occasional truck, flooding the cabin with light before fading away.

On the bench seat opposite sat her brother and sister. Elliot and Hope were awake, staring, eyes like poached eggs, faces sickly in the shadows. Like her, their arms were bound to their sides.

When Angel opened her mouth to speak, Hope shook her head. A single, urgent movement:
No. Don’t. Don’t say anything.

To her right, a new nightmare greeted her: Regan and Luke, slumped beside each other on the floor, both of them tied.

Luke’s cheek bore a dark bruise. His forehead was gashed, the wound crusted with dried blood. Eyes closed, he snored softly, head resting against his sister’s shoulder. Regan stared back at Angel. She wore the sort of look a girl might adopt after discovering that her dad was psychotic.

They didn’t know. We’re dead. If he tied his own children too, we’re all dead.

Unable to meet the hollow whites of Regan’s eyes for long, Angel squinted around at the RV’s front seats. Ty was hunched over the wheel, one side of his face lit by the greenish light glowing from the dash. He was muttering something, a constant stream of words. She heard only snatches, but it terrified her. ‘
Enough, five is enough, not long now, back we go, yes back we go, five, five is what we need . . .
’

Crazy talk. Insane. Angel felt her vision blurring from the horror of it.

Beside Ty sat Angel’s mom. She wasn’t tied like the others, but something was wrong there too. Shannon River stared straight ahead, no seatbelt to restrain her, head rocking gently with the motorhome’s movement. She looked so tiny, so fragile next to the green-lit monster they’d all expected to become her husband.

How long Angel sat in the back of the RV she couldn’t say. Once in a while she found her sister’s eyes or her brother’s, but it was too hard to look at them for long, too awful to see the terror in Elliot’s face, or in Hope’s. Too awful to consider what might happen to them. To all of them.

Perhaps ten minutes passed. Perhaps an hour. They travelled on quieter roads now, or maybe it had simply grown late and most Californians – the free people, at least – had retired to their beds.

Now, the engine sound changed and Angel realised the motorhome was slowing. The right-side indicator pulsed orange shapes inside the cab, drenching one side of Ty’s face in colour and giving him the appearance of a Halloween pumpkin.

They pulled off the highway into a rest area, gravel popping and sputtering beneath the RV’s tyres. Ty killed the engine.

Silence.

Followed by the tentative chirrups of cicadas; as if even they knew that something was amiss, and that evil had rolled to a stop nearby. The motorhome settled on its springs. It ticked and creaked.

Ty threw open his door and jumped down onto the gravel, slamming it shut behind him. Angel heard his feet crunching on stones as he walked around the vehicle.

This is where it happens. This is where he kills us. I wonder who’ll be first. Please not Elliot. I couldn’t bear to see that.

The side door opened and suddenly Ty was moving among them, a carrion-stench clinging to his silhouette, his breath urgent and rancid. He brushed past Angel’s legs and she recoiled, thinking she might gag from the stink of him.

Is this what madness does? Is this what it smells like? How quickly he’s falling apart. Mind first. Then body.

She heard the sound of a cabinet door opening and shutting, its magnets snicking together. A drawer rolled out on its runners. Cutlery and cooking implements jangled and crashed.

Ty plucked something from the drawer and held it up. Moonlight glinted off a wedge of sharp steel. As if sensing that Angel watched him, he turned to face her. There was just enough light inside the motorhome to see his eyes.

She felt her skin contract on her flesh, her heart thump against her ribs.

Don’t look at Elliot. Don’t jinx him.

Ty grunted, an animal sound of hunger or excitement. Then he turned in the tiny space and vanished, the vehicle’s side door banging shut in his wake.

Angel realised she’d been holding her breath. She blew it out, finally allowing herself to look at Elliot, at his pale, terrified face.
It’s OK
, she mouthed.
Don’t cry. It’ll be OK.

Ty threw open the RV’s passenger door. He grabbed a handful of Shannon River’s hair and Angel acknowledged that her silent words to her brother had been lies. It wasn’t going to be OK. Far from it.

Her mom didn’t scream as Ty yanked her out of the seat. When her body hit the ground she made a
Nuh
sound as the breath was knocked from her lungs. Ty pulled her to her feet. Still clutching the knife, he slipped one hand around Shannon’s arm and led her into the woods. She accompanied him without complaint, as if half asleep.

‘Ty, no!’ Angel screamed. ‘Don’t do this! Don’t!’

Within moments, she lost sight of them. All that remained was a slip of moon, the chirrups of the cicadas and four haunted faces that reflected her own terror and magnified it.

Ty returned a few minutes later, and he came alone. No knife. Angel felt her chin thunk against her chest, no strength left to keep her head aloft.

Gone. Just like that. Her mom was gone.

Ty climbed up into the driver’s seat and started the engine, the green lights of the dash once more washing over him. He hauled the RV back onto the road and accelerated.

Through the window, Angel watched the patch of forest where they had left her mom recede, dwindle and finally disappear.

They ate up road. It flashed beneath them, ferried them along in darkness. She could still hear Ty’s muttering, a monotone drawl of half-formed words, sometimes in English and sometimes in a language she could not understand. Perhaps it was no language at all.

Hours passed until finally, many miles from whatever remained of Shannon River, they pulled onto a narrower road, this one a simple dirt track among stunted trees and parched grass.

They bumped over potholes and through weed-choked ditches. A cupboard door banged open and a ceramic mug fell out, rolling along the isle. Ty turned his head and Angel saw him in profile, a silhouette face she barely recognised.

The road twisted and began to rise, and now they were curving around the front of a big old clapboard house, its steep gables black against the night sky. No light seeped from its mullioned windows; no hint of life within. A veranda ran along the front of the building, bowed in the centre like a toothless grin. On one side hung an ancient porch swing, and when Ty killed the RV’s engine Angel heard the creak of its chains as it shifted in the breeze.

She shivered. Wanted to throw up. This was not the kind of place that promised a happy ending for any of them.

Ty threw open his door and jumped out onto the driveway. Again, he disappeared around the side of the vehicle and she heard the sound of a key, followed by a metallic groan as the luggage bay hatch popped open.

The woman. Locked in the hold.

Angel strained her ears. She heard a slipping, a sliding. The motorhome rocked beneath her. Outside, something thumped.

A moan. And then a cry.

‘What’s happening?’ Elliot whispered.

‘I don’t know. I don’t know.’

Now a scraping. A second thump, this one louder than the first. A female voice. Breathless, jubilant.

The RV’s side door shot open and the woman with the seaweed eyes and sunlight hair leaped inside, gasping huge lungfuls of air.

Georgia, Angel remembered. Her name was Georgia.

Georgia flicked a switch and light flooded the interior. Her face was scratched and torn. Blood seeped from one side of her mouth. But she’d lost the confused vulnerability Angel had seen clinging to her inside the vehicle’s cargo hold.

She glanced at each of them in turn. ‘Rope, anything,’ she panted, the words merging together in her urgency. ‘Something to tie him with. Quick. We don’t have long.’

So huge was Angel’s relief that it burst from her pores like steam. She thrust her chin towards the bedroom. ‘Top drawer. Use his belts.’

Georgia’s eyes locked with Angel’s.

Survivors.

The woman nodded. Still beautiful, even with all her injuries. ‘Good girl.’

‘Untie us.’

‘Soon.’

Georgia disappeared into the bedroom and Angel heard her pulling out drawers. A moment later she dashed through the main living area, clutching a handful of Ty’s belts. She darted back outside.

From the rear of the motorhome, a scuffling. Angel heard a crash as something of meat and bone hit a metal body panel. She tensed. Had Georgia been overcome? Was that the sound of her head being mashed against the motorhome’s bumper? She wanted to cry out. But what help would that be?

Footsteps pounded around the side of the RV. Someone jumped back in amongst them.

It was Georgia.

Angel sagged. Felt tears hot against her cheeks. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘Untie us.’

Her rescuer nodded. Examined the ropes that bound them.

‘My bag,’ Angel said. ‘Down there on the floor. There’s a knife inside.’

Seconds later Georgia was sawing through their bonds, forehead creased with concentration. She freed Elliot first. Hope was next, then Regan and Luke. The boy slumped to the floor, still unconscious.

‘Outside,’ the woman said. ‘All of you.
Go
.’

Unsteadily, Regan climbed to her feet. She shepherded Hope and Elliot in front of her. ‘My brother . . .’ she began.

‘I’ll carry him.’

They didn’t need further encouragement. Faces paper-white, they shuffled to the door and dropped down onto the driveway.

Georgia bent to Angel, attacking the rope that bound her.

‘Is he still out there?’

‘He can’t get you,’ the woman replied. ‘You’re safe. But we have to hurry.’

‘Our phones. We should call the police.’

Georgia shook her head. ‘He smashed them. We’re on our own for now. Do exactly as I say and we can survive this. But we don’t have long.’

When the rope fell away, Angel dragged herself to her feet. Blood rushed into her legs and she nearly stumbled. Reaching out her hand to steady herself, she hobbled to the RV’s door.

Behind her Georgia crouched in front of Luke. She threw his arms over her shoulders and heaved him up.

Outside, the moon hid behind racing clouds. The cicadas were back, cheering them on.
Hurry
, their voices chorused.

Hurry hurry hurry hurry.

‘Go,’ Georgia urged. ‘Don’t look back. Don’t look at what’s behind you.’

Regan ran up the veranda’s front steps. The others followed. She opened the screen door. Tested the handle of the door behind it. It swung wide, revealing a wedge of darkness.

‘Inside,’ Georgia told her.

Behind them, back on the drive, Angel heard something. A stirring. A muttering.

Regan heard it too. She flinched, as if expecting someone to grab her, and threw herself forward into the house. Elliot crashed after her, then Hope.

Angel was next. She hesitated on the threshold. Something felt wrong.

Of course it feels wrong. You’re in a nightmare. Move!

She stumbled through the doorway, hearing Georgia bringing up the rear. The woman used her elbow to flick on a wall switch. Above them, in a cobweb-infested chandelier, a single bulb winked on, painting the hall with a dirty yellow light.

Dust everywhere. On the floor, a tattered rug, its colour faded to grey. A steep wooden staircase ascending into gloom. A grandfather clock against one wall, the hands of its face frozen at twenty minutes to midnight. A cracked mirror on another, liver-spotted with age. In one corner, a rotting heap of clothing. The floorboards groaned as they crossed them.

‘Try through there,’ Georgia whispered to Regan, nodding towards a closed door. ‘Search for a phone.’

Regan, her eyes huge, looked like she was going to refuse, and then she saw her brother in the woman’s arms. The sight seemed to rally her. She hurried to the door. Threw it open. Stepped inside.

Angel followed, mouth so dry she could barely take a breath without gagging.

Only then, as she moved into darkness so heavy it seemed to drag her towards the floor, did she catch the smell – that same meat stench – of something dying, and she flung herself around, knowing that she had to get out, that all of them had to get out of this house right now.