The Travelling Man (30 page)

“Mrs. Fiorentino?” Cassie exclaimed in surprise. The old woman who ran the boarding house hadn’t been seen in town since the quake and Cassie had merely assumed that the woman had succumbed like so many others.

“Yes, dear.”

Cassie now saw that the woman was carrying a child’s backpack with a garish design slung over her shoulder. “Supplies?” she asked, nodding to the backpack as Mrs. Fiorentino turned around, not bothering to raise her arms.

“We all have to mend and make do,” the woman bristled as if being accused of something unlawful.

“I wasn’t passing judgment, Mrs. Fiorentino,” Cassie responded, tucking her gun back into its holster. Somehow she just couldn’t picture the landlady butchering small animals. “Are you still at the boarding house?”

“Yes; it’s a grand old building and it was meant to last.”

“Are you all alone out there?”

“I can assure you that I can look after myself, Sheriff. I have been doing so for a long time,”
Mrs. Fiorentino said, raising a caustic eyebrow.

“I don’t doubt it,” Cassie smiled. She indicated for Kevin to get Ellie, Jeanne, and Kravis from their secluded spot. “I’m afraid that it’s not safe in town at the minute,” Cassie said warningly.

“There are far too many disreputable people roaming the streets, Sheriff. I would have thought that was your department,” Mrs. Fiorentino said with a touch of accusatory malice. “Just because we’ve suffered a little hardship is no reason for the town to go to hell in a handcart. There needs to be order and people just need to find a little backbone. I’m sure that everything will be fine in a day or two.”

“Have you looked around?” Cassie asked incredulously, wondering if the landlady had suffered some sort of psychotic break. “Granton is in ruins,
Mrs. Fiorentino. Right now, there is a group of folks at the Town Hall on a rampaging crash course with another group from the church. Those that didn’t die in the quake have just about lost their freaking minds and now want to start butchering each other.” Cassie knew that she was losing her temper but she couldn’t help it; the elderly boarding house owner was shopping in the remains of Main Street but doing it somehow without seeing the destruction around her.

“Weak men, Sheriff, that’s all this is; weak men throwing tantrums because life isn’t going their way. No gumption, you see; no steel at their core to get the job done and press forwards.”

Cassie turned to the rest of her group as they crossed the wreckage-strewn street to join her. Mrs. Fiorentino had clearly suffered some sort of emotional breakdown and the woman was clearly in denial, but she had a house that was still standing and right now that outweighed any discomfort.

Cassie looked over at Ellie. Her daughter looked worse now and she was growing seriously concerned. There was no hospital, no doctors and no drugs of the sort that an 11 year old cancer sufferer desperately required. She didn’t know how much of Kravis’ story she could believe, but something was stopping them from leaving Granton or even contacting the outside world for help. She had to get Ellie out and quickly, and if Grange was responsible for preventing that then she would go over, she would go around, or she would go through the man standing in her way.

“I’ll tell you what, Mrs. Fiorentino,” Cassie said brightly “we’ll accompany you back home to make sure that you get there safely. We need shelter and you are the most logical choice to help us, if you have the room of course?”

“Very well,” the landlady sighed. “I have some vacancies at the minute. The boys from the mine didn’t…, that is they haven’t…” She trailed away as her face crumpled in confusion.

“Let me take that for you, Ma’am,” Kevin said, stepping forward to take the backpack.

Cassie was pleased to see that the rest of them had taken the time to collect some supplies from the surrounding stores that were still accessible.

Mrs. Fiorentino muttered away to herself before turning and heading back the way that she’d come from. Kravis raised a quizzical eyebrow at the woman’s puzzled state of mind but Cassie only shrugged; she needed to get them all somewhere safe and out of sight and her gut told her to do it quickly.

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Jim Lesnar watched the group from a safe distance as they talked. He could see the big bitch of a Sheriff, along with her muscle bound ox. There was another guy with them who didn’t look like much of a threat and a small girl. But it was the remaining member of the faction that drew his attention. His tongue flicked out between his lips and he felt a hunger in his soul as he saw Jeanne Rainwood’s tantalizing form standing there.

His instructions had been to return to Grange but the sight of his long lusted after high school love was too much of a coincidence to not be fate. This was surely his reward and he intended taking full advantage. His appetite had been whetted by the skinny bitch at the library and he had a dark mind full of delicious ideas for Jeanne’s subjugation and degradation.

He watched on as the group started to move away with the old woman. He recognised the Fiorentino woman, as a lot of his workers had boarded with her. She was a mouthy old cow, always quick with her rules and her complaints about his staff as if they were constantly his problem even after hours. He knew that her house was large and far away from prying eyes and ears.

He started to feel a buzzing noise in his head and he knew that it would be Grange calling him back, but he severed the connection as his hunger consumed him. It was an executive decision and he figured that if he was going to be taking over the operation then he was entitled to take a little initiative. He could feel Grange’s rage distantly in his head but it was all too easy to ignore now. The man’s power had wavered to dangerously low levels and Lesnar knew that Grange didn’t have much time left, and what time he did have he needed to end his game. The hold over Granton couldn’t possibly last much longer now and the outside world would soon see them once again and the men would come with their badges and guns and all of his fun would be brought to a shuddering halt. It was not a day that he was looking forward to and he had to make the most of this private time that was left.

Lesnar crept out from the shadows and into the light. He looked down in surprise at the red stains on his shirt and vaguely remembered finding the pet store and the fun that he’d had inside. A gnawing voice of horror and disgust tried to worm its way into his consciousness but he snapped it off at the knees. There was too much fun to be had with Jeanne and so many games to play.

He followed the group, out of sight, moving carefully and cautiously as he trailed them with a hunter’s eye as they headed away slowly

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Will Daniels led the mob; all sense of reason had long since departed. His heart was a stony wasteland where a modest garden had once grown. He had been a fool to believe that the world was essentially a decent place. Sera’s brutal murder had put paid to any ideas he’d had of a community brought together by the quake. Granton was a cesspit like any other, filled with rodents clawing and biting for the last piece of cheese on the trap.

He looked down at his blood-splattered hands and the gleaming handgun still in his grasp. His mouth twisted into a bitter and cold smile at the thought of his first taste of retribution. The man that he had found bound to a chair in the small kitchen area of the Town Hall had stared up at him with a desperate pleading in his eyes, but Will’s mind was reptilian in nature and he’d had no mercy to give.

An icy calm had taken over his senses and he’d seen the way and the path with total clarity. The Believers up at the church were the ones that had taken God’s word and distorted it for their own ends, and now Will knew better. He had fallen into a strange sleep as his body had been overcome with fatigue. He’d slept fitfully as the voice had come to him, painting the truth in broad strokes over a blood red desert canvas. Will had listened intently to the words that flowed into his mind and took root way down deep in the very centre of his soul. When he’d awoken, he had known what he had to do. The instructions were crystal clear and he was charged with the most important task of any man before him. There were blasphemers in Granton of the highest order, men and woman who had brought about their ruination by their filthy ways and means. The land around their town had to be cleansed free before any of them could be saved; the ground had to be purified before the eyes of God and they had to beg for his forgiveness.

Will stood in front of his people as they turned to him for help and guidance. He had never been a leader before. He had never had the necessary natural aura that drew others in, but now they flocked.

“I have seen the light,” he announced to the upturned faces. “I have been shown the way and that way is in blood and sacrifice. We have been abandoned by the heavens, thanks to THEIR BLASPHEMOUS ACTIONS!” he roared, pointing over the gathering’s heads and up in the church’s general direction. “We must regain God’s love and beg for his mercy. We have to strike down those who have brought about our near destruction.” He could feel his body imbued with a power that coursed through his veins and filled him with a swelling confidence.

The crowd nodded up and down furiously, their eyes glazed and eager for bloodthirsty action. Will could feel the mob mentality taking over and fuelling them all with righteous anger and he embraced the emotion.

He looked around at the collection of firearms clasped with white knuckles. “
His
word is clear, my friends. We are to lay down such modern weapons and pick up those tools with which to shed blood by our own hands. Blood is purification and it must fall upon the ground, spilled in his name.”

He watched as rifles, shotguns and revolvers were cast down without argument. The firearms were replaced with broken chair legs, kitchen knives, a couple of fire axes and other sharp implements looted from nearby hardware stores on several of the Sheriff’s organised expeditions.

At the sudden thought of the Sheriff, he felt a nagging sensation that things were going badly wrong. He looked around for her on a whim but could see no sign of either Cassie or her deputy. He realised that they were alone and that he, apparently, was in charge. A stab of fear struck low down in his gut and he suddenly wanted no part of any of this. He was standing in the midst of a baying mob and for some reason he was leading them. His face fell in confusion as he tried to find his internal voice that would surely tell him that he’d gone mad at some point. He frantically searched his mind for some kind of sense to all of this, but all he found was the mental picture of Sera lying battered and violated. That single image was all it took to harden him again. So what if the Sheriff had abandoned them. It only meant that she was in league with those who had brought ruination upon the rest of them.

He reached out and snatched a baseball bat from the hands of Bernie Franz, a 60 something year old who had run a pool cleaning business before the world went mad. The old guy reluctantly let go of his prized weapon and Will took the bat. The long wooden slugger was hefty and felt solid in his hands and he grinned at the sight of several 6 inch nails hammered through the top of the bat.

He thrust his way through the crowd and kicked open the main doors. He stepped out into the humid air just as the first spots of rain fell upon his upturned face. He looked up at the sky and froze at the view. One by one, the rest of the crowd joined him and they all stood with upturned faces.

The sky above had turned from its usual unbroken blue to an ethereal glowing red. Flashes of lilac lightning crackled and tore open what looked like the very plains of existence as the atmosphere bubbled like lava. Will raised a finger to his face to wipe away the rain droplets that were now falling heavier by the second. He stared down at the wet tips and saw that the water was a deep dark red and he knew that they were blessed with a sign. Blood cleansed all and purification was what Granton required. It was what God demanded and it was what Will would deliver.

He marched forward towards the church with the baying mob moving in eagerly behind him. The air was thick with menace and sparked with electricity as the march became a jog that became a run that became a sprint as they spotted the blasphemers emerging from the church to greet them.

Will could see that the church crowd were equally armed with blades and blunt instruments hefted for war. Part of him wondered just how and why they were all meeting at exactly the right time, but part of him threw aside the rational part of his brain and he just ran with the nail studded baseball bat high above his head.

Thunder roared overhead so loud that it seemed like it would tear apart the red world around them. It was so loud that it drowned out the war cries of the charging horde as they ran full pelt with raised weapons and shrieks of bloody vengeance. The air was suddenly split with yells of anger and screams of pain as bodies clashed and blood was spilled as townsfolk were set against each other and battle commenced.

CHAPTER
20

civil war

Cassie was pleased to see that Mrs. Fiorentino’s boarding house was largely untouched by the quake. The old woman had been right when she’d said that the place had been built to last. The large building looked on the surface to offer sanctuary and that was all she cared about right now. Ellie’s face was drawn and dangerously pale and Cassie knew that her daughter was fading fast. She had to get the girl somewhere safe, away from the madness that was currently threatening to engulf what was left of their town.