Blood Fugue (28 page)

‘What are you doing?’ hissed Carla. ‘That’s the way he went.’

‘We have to bind him or destroy him. Otherwise he’ll stalk us all night. Chances are he’ll win if we fight him after the sun goes down. I’m sorry. We have to go forward.’

They moved down the track until they were level with the place where the sallow man had leapt into the brush.

Despite his increased size, he’d hardly disturbed the foliage at all. Kerrigan couldn’t see where he’d gone and he sensed a gloom settling over the trail that he recognised all to well. He pressed on for the arbour. As they passed the place where the binders had impacted he dug his fingers deep into the soft earth and retrieved them. He knew he was going to need every one of them.

Wanting only to catch up to his wife and son as quickly as he could, José removed the tent and other non-essential items from his pack and left them in the arbour. What he still carried was heavy enough, but he did his best to set a fast pace, interspersing a forced march with jogging to make up the ground. He didn’t want to exhaust himself and was conscious of his limits, but every time he thought about the tree and the woman who had become the tree’s ‘pet’, he broke into a run.

He reached the Eastern path in better time than he’d anticipated and the going became a little easier. Still, he did not relax the pace. Thoughts of the dangers his family might face without him goaded him on and he used his fear for them as a whip to his conscience when his legs felt like giving way.

Eventually, he had to rest. He cursed his body for its weakness and his mind for lacking the toughness to continue, but there was no use in being totally spent when he caught them up; the journey would be far from over even then. He dropped his backpack and sat on the ground with his back against it. He planned to take half an hour rest; ten minutes spent drinking water and massaging his calf muscles and twenty minutes sleeping. He’d always been able to program himself to wake up from his afternoon siestas at exactly the right time.

When he snapped into wakefulness there was a chill in the air that had penetrated to his bones. When he tried to move, his muscles were stiff and slow to respond. He looked at his watch and saw that almost an hour had gone by.

‘Mierda,’ he said and struggled to his feet.

A veil of lilac shadow had turned the Eastern Path into a twilight corridor. Looking up he saw that the sky was overcast. There were still a couple of hours before sunset. Perhaps he could catch up to them that same night if he pushed the pace.

Now the light was failing, seeing them again was all he could think about. He considered the weight of the pack and decided to leave it behind; it was sapping too much of his strength. From it he took a flashlight and some energy bars and water, stuffing everything into the pockets of his jacket. Lighter now, he ran on, westward on the Eastern path.

Even without the pack his legs hurt but he no longer allowed himself to march. He would run until he found them.

Chapter 31

Luis stayed close to his mother. It was becoming too dark to see the way ahead easily. Twice Luis’s mother stumbled, putting out her hand to him to steady herself.

‘This is where we make camp for tonight, Luis.’

‘But I can still see. Can’t we go just a little farther?’

‘You may be able to see, but my eyes aren’t as young as yours. If one of us sprains an ankle . . .’ He heard the tension in her voice. ‘This is far enough.’

Luis walked to the edge of the path and slung his pack to the ground.

‘You think we should make camp off the trail like before?’ he asked.

‘No. What if your father comes looking for us? He could walk right by.’

‘We’d hear him wouldn’t we?’

Maria sighed.

‘I don’t want to take the chance that we might sleep right through his arrival,’ she said.

Luis pulled out his sleeping bag, wishing it was waterproof, and laid it alongside the trees so his feet wouldn’t stick out into the trail. He knew he’d be damp all over with dew come the dawn.

‘Is there anything to eat?’

‘There are some cereal bars but control yourself otherwise we’ll be starving by the time we reach the car.’

‘I can’t wait to go for a burger at that place we passed on the way in.’

‘When we get there you can eat all you want.’

‘Really?’

‘Really.’

The darkness was complete as Luis crunched through two cereal bars, savouring them as best he could. He could hear his mother making her own arrangements with her sleeping bag and he took the opportunity to wander a little further along the track and relieve himself before he turned in for the night.

‘Don’t go far,’he heard her call softly after him.

As he stood aiming his pee into the trees and trying to make as quiet a splash as possible, he heard a branch snap some distance away. The stream he was making dried up. Even though he still had a good way to go before he was finished, he zipped up and listened into the darkness.

Somewhere farther up the trail in the direction they’d been heading, there was movement. Stealthy steps advanced towards him in the darkness, the caress of clothing-covered legs brushing against each other made a gentle sound like breathing. In just a few seconds his body went into overdrive. His breathing was rapid and high in his chest and he was certain the noise of it would give him away.

Attempting to make no sound, he crept back to his mother.

He felt the springy fabric of his sleeping bag beneath the sole of his boot and crouched down to be as near as he could to his mother before he spoke. In less than a whisper he said:

‘Mama, someone is coming.’

‘Luis, I can hear someone on this side too.’

Blind, he reached out his hand towards her and was relieved to find her reaching for him. Her grip on him was fierce and clinging. Every muscle in his body clenched as they waited; praying whoever it was would either stop and help them or pass by into the night forever.

Luis heard nothing from the direction in which they’d come and he wondered if his mother’s hearing was as unreliable as her eyesight. From the place where he had started to pee he heard the noises approaching.

When the quiet footsteps were right beside them they stopped. Luis held his breath. Further away, all noise ceased. For an excruciating moment, there was utter silence in the forest. And yet the darkness around them was thick with intelligence and threat. Luis could sense it and so could his mother. Luis lost control of his bladder releasing what he’d retained only moments before. He thanked god it didn’t make any noise. The warm, shameful wetness spread from his underwear into his trousers, along his thighs and downward towards his bottom. He bit his lip to stop himself from crying but he knew that in a few more seconds he would whimper and give himself away.

As his piss turned cold against his skin a male voice, so close it seemed to be in his head, said:

‘That’s a waste of fluid. What’s wrong with you, boy?’ Then the voice took on a shrill, offended tone. ‘They’re protected, sheriff. What do we do?’

Footsteps, no longer stealthy approached. Luis felt the chill of blunt steel against the centre of his forehead and a loud metallic click.

‘Take those goddamned dream-catchers off right now or I give this kid a third eye. He’ll be able to see God right through the hole.’

Luis didn’t need any more encouragement. He used his free hand to remove the necklace. Maria did the same.

‘Toss them into the trees behind you.’

They did as the voice said and heard the gentle release as the man with the pistol let the hammer rest gently back against the firing pin.

Luis was half way through breathing a sigh of relief when a cold hand closed around his throat and lifted him to his feet. The hand then lifted him off the ground, the force pulling Maria upright too.

‘Sure is a bonus to find some extras,’ said the first voice.

‘Put him down you filthy son of a diseased whore,’ Maria said into the darkness.

Luis, unable to breathe, let alone speak, through his clamped windpipe was proud of his mother’s fierceness and amazed at her use of English curses. Tears pricked his eyes at her bravery. Still she clung to him. He felt more bodies close in. Hands reached for her, dragging her away, and Luis held on for as long as he could.

From the blackness a beam of yellow brightness split the night, illuminating the grotesque band of stalkers. Luis had had no idea there could be so many of them. As he ran out of air he thought he counted ten or more. The light settled on the face of a man in a sheriff’s uniform, appearing to blind him.

Luis assumed the sound he heard next was that of the angels singing as they came to collect him, so mellifluous was its tone. An instant later there was a flash of purple lightning beside him and the hand holding him released. He and his captor fell to the ground, Luis into a starry half-awareness.

‘All of you back away,’ said the holder of the flashlight, the one who had thrown the binder.

‘Father?’

‘Yes. Come to me. Both of you.’

José stepped forward so that he blocked them from the sheriff’s line of fire. If the sheriff was the only one with a gun, he had to incapacitate him before he began firing into the light. He crouched to make a smaller target of himself and loosed another binder.

Its melody was the most heartening sound he’d ever heard, their sword and shield against the creatures of the valley. The sheriff heard it coming and ducked. The binder’s song finished in the brush between the trees. He only had two left and the one he was wearing. He aimed his flashlight right at the sheriff’s body and pulled his arm back to try again. A startled cry came from behind him before he let it fly and he turned to see a man he half recognised dragging Maria away from him.

‘Let her go!’ he screamed at the man who had taken her. The man didn’t listen. José snapped the binder at him but his aim was way off. The binder whistled briefly and connected with a tree somewhere out of sight. José watched Maria’s eyes widen with terror as she tried to tear the man’s grip from her. A moment later, something encircled Luis’s neck and dragged him too into the darkness. José flung his last binder in the direction of the thing that had taken his son. There was no contact. Figures closed in from every side and José Jimenez collapsed to his knees with his hands reaching into the darkness.

‘
GIVE
THEM
BACK
TO
ME
.’

The arbour was as silent as when Kerrigan had left it in search of Carla. He planned to skirt the edge of it and head out towards the Eastern path the way they’d all come in. There was no breeze there in the thick of the forest but, as he and Carla ran along the border of the arbour, a rustling began again in the leaves of the tree.

Kerrigan stopped to listen and the sound became louder. It was like a crowd of people whispering in expectation. The whispers conspired around them and the volume increased steadily. The leaves sounded excited, full of anticipation. He checked for movement in the trees behind and prepared for an attack.

It never came. At least, not then. Instead he saw two figures step from another hidden run on the other side of the arbour.

‘Get down,’ he said to Carla and they both crouched, backing themselves into the thick tangle of brush and weed surrounding the arbour.

The figures stopped when they were clear of the woods and stared for a long time at the tree.

They began a relaxed promenade below the elephantine boughs and as they came a little closer, he saw that they were holding hands; two elderly ladies walking together like two schoolgirls. Above them the branches began to sway and twist and the tree reached its branches down towards the two women.

It was then that Kerrigan realised he knew them. He hadn’t placed them at first because they were so removed from their usual contexts. Maggie Fredericks never went anywhere except in her car and Kath, his adopted mother — the only mother he’d ever known — could hardly walk around the block. It was impossible that they were here, so deep within the woods. But their footsteps were light and they walked without limps or stumbles or any apparent discomfort at all. They acted as if they were in the prime of their lives.

He raced forward from his position, screaming to get their attention.

‘Kath,’ he shouted, ‘Get away from the tree.’ He waved his arms at her, motioning for her to go back into the forest. ‘Please, Kath. Run now.’

He saw her look at him then, such a confused and twisted expression in her eyes that it broke his heart. She recognised him, that was plain, and a smile bubbled up with that recognition. But there were new feelings inside her that surfaced too. She looked at him with a thirst and that thirst was tinged with her love for him — a love as genuine as it had always been, now polluted with Fugue. He saw that she wanted to embrace him and feed on him all at once. There was another desire behind it all too, a stronger one suggesting she could not fulfil any of those needs. There was a duty she had to perform more pressing than any of her own desires.