“Then it was gone,” Miller said. “Billet had pulled it clear, and Lu put a stake in it. But it was too late by then. Much too late. I jumped out of the Humvee and ran to Riker’s side. Nancy was still lying across his lap, and he was sitting back with his hand to his neck. He looked bad. He had lost so much blood, and he was ghostly pale. I pushed Lu and Billet aside and leaned in, trying to get my arms around him to pull him out. He whispered, ‘No,’ and then said, ‘Get going, there are more,’ and I didn’t understand what he was saying. I said, ‘You’re coming with us,’ and grabbed him again, but by then Billet was saying, ‘Holy shit, look at that,’ and I glanced behind me. There were at least five more. They were squatting in the darkest tangle of the tree, and their eyes were…glowing and…” She swallowed. “I leaned in again, I was just acting crazy, and started to pull Riker, and he said, ‘Stop, stop it and go, Kath, I’m already dead.’ His voice was almost gone. His eyes were closed, and his hand dropped away, and his neck was such a mess. Nothing could have fixed that. Then Lu was at my shoulder, and he said, ‘We have to go, Miller, we have to leave him,’ and I nodded…then we were in the Humvees, and the vampires were swaying, shifting around as though getting up their courage or something…Billet had already tossed the bags from our Humvee to Evans so we blasted out of there. Then we caught up with you two.” Her smile was brief and unhappy.
“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry that you lost him. He was a good person,” Promise said.
Miller nodded, but then straightened as if to show she needed no more consoling. “And now here we are,” Miller finished and wiped her eyes.
The three sat in brief silence as the lantern light danced on the capricious currents of air. Promise remembered how Ash had balked at the downed tree, and her guilt deepened. She wished she had done something.
“What do we do now?” Peter asked.
“Nothing has changed,” Miller said. “We go on, that’s all. We get you guys to the base in Jersey, and then we’re going home to Delaware. I don’t know what happens to us after that.”
“What about what happened at dinner?” Promise asked.
“What about it?” Miller asked, and there was a note of caution in her voice, a note of reserve. She would be honest with them up to a point, the tone said, but they were still just civilians, after all. They didn’t need to know everything.
“Evans was saying something about us…about leaving us behind,” Promise said.
Miller shook her head. “It doesn’t matter what he wants. I’m in charge. I let him talk it out of his system.”
Promise nodded. She had to take Miller at her word, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to be even warier of Evans. His animosity toward her and Peter was too apparent for her to let her guard down.
Miller stood. “Well, so, now you know, and I’m going to bed. We’re going to try for fifteen miles tomorrow.”
“We’re not staying here?” Peter asked. “Isn’t it the norm to stay at an outpost for a day at least?”
Miller shrugged, but her eyes were veiled. She didn’t tell them that she been argued into leaving sooner than normal…Evans wanted to get to Jersey as fast as possible and get the ‘babysitting’, as he put it, over with.
“Well, we’re not going to leave at first light so everyone gets to sleep in,” Miller said. “Fifteen or so miles puts us at 81, and that isn’t a bad trek for the horses, is it?”
Peter shrugged. “I guess not, but they could use a rest, same as us,” he said. “Today was rough.”
“Tomorrow will be better. The rain has moved off, so it might even be warmer. You’ll see…when we get to 81, it’ll be like getting a second wind. Two days south from there and we’ll be in Pennsylvania,” Miller said. “That’s a third of the way there.”
Peter nodded, but he didn’t look convinced.
Promise felt a small, not entirely pleasant thrill at Miller’s words. The distance seemed too great. Even though she was the one traveling, she had the oddest sensation that Wereburg–and everything she knew–was slipping away from her while she stood, unmoving and abandoned.
~ ~ ~
Warm light on Promise’s face woke her, and she rolled over to find she was alone in the classroom. Peter must have taken the horses outside to let them stretch and limber up. She felt she could use some limbering, too, after a night in a sleeping bag on the floor. She stretched and got up.
She gathered what little they carried into a bag and shrugged into her coat. Then she went to find Peter.
~ ~ ~
By the end of that day, they’d reached Route 81. If they’d been intact, if they hadn’t lost two members of the group, then they might indeed have gotten the second wind Miller spoke of. But making camp in a small machine shop that afternoon was a desultory exercise, and very few words were exchanged.
During their sweep for vampires, Lu had discovered an interior metal staircase that went to the flat roof of the building. After settling the horses in, Peter and Promise went together to watch the sunset. It had become an uncommon sight.
The soldiers were already on the roof. When Evans saw Peter and Promise, he grumbled something they couldn’t hear.
“Go down, and keep an eye on the camp,” Miller said shortly, and Evans opened his mouth to protest. His eyes swept Billet and Lu, but they both stared back at him impassively. He finally left, cursing.
The five of them faced west, looking over the small town surrounded by woods. The sun was very orange, and the few clouds were painted heavily with reds and pinks and purples. “Tomorrow would be a nice day too,” Miller said and then admonished everyone not to stay on the roof too long, but Billet and Lu followed as she left.
The sun was almost gone behind the trees. To the east, the sky had become a deep, upside down, purple-blue ocean with stars glinting like phosphorescent sea creatures. With no ambient light from the town to block their glow, the stars were sharply white. The moon was surrounded by a yellowish corona.
Peter tilted his head back, eyes closed, and Promise was reminded of the days at the lake. It was just how people tilted their faces to the sun during a hot day, worshipful and glad of the heat. But Peter seemed relieved at the sun’s disappearance and strangely energized by the moon.
“Are you okay?” she asked, and it was a handful of nervous seconds before his eyes opened. He turned to her. The last rays of sun licked soft orange across his forehead and cheekbones, but his eyes were half-lidded and shadowed. A cold wind scuttled into her open coat and danced around her ribcage, making her shiver.
Peter’s head tilted, and he looked at her, vaguely bird-like. His stance was almost…she couldn’t quite bring herself to think it…almost predatory.
“Peter?” she asked, and her voiced squeaked, and that sound of weakness made her angry. “Peter!” she said, more sharply.
“Yes,” he said, not a question but an affirmation: yes, he was Peter. Yes, he was here. Yes. He opened his arms to her, and as the sun sank completely, she hesitated and checked his eyes, debating. Then she folded herself onto his chest.
She tilted her head up to see him better and instantly, his lips were on hers, hungry and demanding. He’d never kissed her like this. Never with such intensity, such desire. She felt herself heating up and melting, both at the same time, her body wanting to mold itself to his, supple and direct.
She tilted her head even further back as his lips traveled over her jaw. Each kiss was like a lick of wet fire, which cooled as his mouth traveled further down her neck. He paused at the pulse in her throat, and she felt the hard ridge of his teeth, skimming her skin lightly, and she gasped.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said, his mouth still at her neck. She both felt and heard the words he whispered. “I would never hurt you.”
His hands became more insistent, his kisses wilder, and she wanted the same thing he wanted. She wanted to let her knees buckle, to sink down with him. But then she stood back sharply, breaking contact. She didn’t want it like this, on a
gravelly roof too far from everything she knew with a man who seemed suddenly unknown…unknowable. She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself.
“I can’t,” she said. “I just…I can’t.” She was near tears.
He reached for her and turned her so her back was against his chest. He folded his arms around her, and they rocked slightly, as if dancing. “It’s okay,” he said. “I can wait.”
She nodded and swallowed her tears. Hot snaps of fear and desire still sizzled and popped along her nerve endings, and the confusing combination was almost dizzying.
They slept the same way through the night, lying near the horses, her back to his front. Her dreams were of water and swimming. The lake, the sun on her face, diving deeply to the colder depths…gasping back into the light and heat like something primordial. Empty beach, hot sand grinding against the delicate undersides of her feet as she ran and ran, looking for her family.
Peter dreamed of running, too, but through a cold, nighttime forest bright with moon and stars. A dark passion whipped through him, filling him up and emptying him out at the same time.
Evans stirred and looked across the shop to the huddled bundle that was Promise and Peter. Resentment wound through him, and he shook his head. He wasn’t entirely sure why they made him so angry. He told himself it was their sense of entitlement, riding along on their horses like king and queen shit of turd mountain. But he’d seen how hard the riding was, and even though it took a toll on them both, they always took good care of the horses. He’d seen Promise go without the parts of her dinner that could be fed to Ash and Snow. So it couldn’t be that.
Why did he dislike them so much?
~ ~ ~
The next few days were spent on little besides travel. They all seemed in the grip of some powerful force pulling relentlessly from the southeast. They traveled 81 South, dropping into Pennsylvania, making it to the 380 junction in good time. From 380, they made it to 80 in a day, and then from there began the trek east toward New Jersey.
In Rayport, Pennsylvania, about fifteen miles from the New Jersey state line, there was another outpost. The citizens of Rayport were as enchanted by Ash and Snow as the people of Greenville had been, but Miller again decided against staying the extra day. None of the group wanted to waste any time, especially with Jersey so close.
Crossing into New Jersey the next morning, Promise was amazed to be in a third state within a handful of days. She was surprised that New Jersey looked much like Pennsylvania–wooded, rural, and pretty–when she’d expected smokestacks and city after city crowded into a dirty landscape.
She wondered if their route would put them anywhere near the ocean. Everyone back home had told her it was really not that different from Lake Ontario where they spent many summer weekends, but still…if they’d all been so wrong about Jersey itself, might they also be wrong about the ocean?
From 80, they would be looking for a much smaller road…Route 206. It would take them south all the way to the base. The biggest city they’d pass through would be Princeton, and Promise wanted to see that, too. She’d seen pictures of it, back when she was dreaming about colleges–back when such conventions still existed and everything had still been possible. It had looked old-fashioned but exciting. Urban but tidy, like an expanded–almost more grown-up–version of Wereburg’s own, quaint downtown.
The horses walked easily, and the sun was strong and warm on Promise’s face; it was probably close to fifty degrees. In front of her, the Humvees were pushing past another twist of cars. The horses could get by without difficulty, weaving serenely past the sometimes corpse-filled vehicles, but the tangled ruin was another reminder of why the Guard traveled so slowly. You never knew when you’d come upon a wreck.
Or a survivor.
Just like the little girl Nancy, Promise thought, although being rescued in her case had only prolonged her short life by a day or so.
Promise shivered despite the sun. The still-cold wind caressed tears from her eyes. She dug her scarf from the neckline of her coat and wrapped it halfway up her face, so only her eyes showed. She let her breath warm the knit and adjusted the pink scrunchie holding her hair in a ponytail. The sky was very blue, and only a few thin clouds drifted past high above. There were no airplane trails up there, not anymore. Promise wondered when she’d get used to it: the lack of airplanes floating silently by. Would she ever to get to fly in one?
At mid-morning, the first signs appeared for the Rt. 206 junction, indicating it was nineteen miles away. They would transition to 206 South at a town called Netcong. Most likely they’d camp in Netcong tonight.
The woods had opened up, and they were riding past a development of homes that looked a lot like Promise’s own Willow’s End development back in Wereburg. She assumed that as they went along, they’d come upon a grade school, a high school, a small town…she was instantly homesick. She wondered what Lea and Mark were doing and if Chance was okay. She wondered if he was still locked securely in their old house. She felt again the aching distress of not being able to get in touch. It had been so easy, once, to just pick up a phone and call. Now that seemed like some kind of futuristic, sci-fi dream. They were all so isolated. She shivered again and looked sideways at Peter.
A knit cap was pulled down low over his ears. He swayed to the rhythm of Snow’s quick walk, and his eyes were on the Humvee directly before them. His gloved hand came up, and he swiped at his nose, sniffing. It was such an unselfconscious, child-like gesture that she was reminded again of Chance. She smiled.
“What was your hometown like?” she asked, and some of her sadness dissolved in her curiosity.
He looked at her and smiled, eyebrows raised. “I was just thinking about that. Must be the area, huh?” They were on an overpass, and the road below led to a small cluster of stores with homemade names like Ophelia’s Fine Cuts, Bowl-A-Rama, and Jackson Brothers’ Hardware. A long, low brick structure identified itself as an elementary school, with its large, colorful playground and now-ragged baseball diamond behind it. Further down, just peeking out of the trees, was the beginning of another development.
“Believe it or not, our town was actually a little more rural than this one. More rural than Wereburg, even,” he said and smiled again. “Trisha and I had a little house, but it had a big yard…three acres. Snow had her own barn, and we’d talked about getting another horse. Trish and I talked about it, I mean, not me and Snow.” He patted Snow’s neck. His eyes drifted over the town again, but he wasn’t seeing it; he was seeing the past. “She loved animals. All of them. Snow was her baby, but we also had five cats and a dog, plus she fed everything. Birds, squirrels, raccoons, possums, chipmunks, deer…she put out corn and suet, seed, peanuts. I used to tell her that her entire paycheck from Woolworth’s went to animal food. She didn’t care, though. She’d go without to make up for it. She never bought anything for herself. My mom always said that Trisha had the best mothering instincts; that she’d be…” He stopped abruptly and shook his head as if denying a thought. He continued, but the pitch of his voice had changed, become slightly higher. “That she’d be a good mother with her feeding nature and selflessness.”
Promise found herself torn at Peter’s words, feeling sorry for him, but also somehow jealous of his young, dead wife; jealous of how perfect she’d been, at least to Peter. At eighteen and as yet innocent of any serious relationships, she was too young to understand that death had a way of perfecting the one who’d passed on, at least in the eyes of those who grieved. Especially in the case of a young and untested marriage, as Peter’s had been.
He continued on, oblivious to Promise’s emotional turmoil. “We always said we’d have two kids once she was finished school, and I had been at my job long enough to establish myself. My parents kept saying that if we waited for the exact right time then we’d never have them, because there is no exact right time. I was just starting to understand what they meant, because even after she finished school, then she’d want to start working,
and then we’d have put it off even longer. So we had decided to–they’re stopping.”
Promise, who’d been raking her fingers through Ash’s mane, untangling the small snarls, turned to Peter in confusion. Then her eyes followed the direction of his gaze: the Humvees had stopped ahead of them. She checked the sun. Almost mid-day. They must be stopping for lunch. Then she checked their surroundings. As she’d listened to Peter and fussed distractedly with Ash’s mane, the town that had made her homesick had slipped away behind them, but a few businesses had popped up, indicating another town was soon to come.
A car lot filled with the past sat sad and forlorn, its formerly snapping pennants long since pulled to tatters and in parts blown away completely. The cars were dusty and worn, some with tires flattened and windshields broken. Next to it was a McDonald’s…one of the ones with a bright, plastic playground extending from the back of the building. Promise felt as though she could almost hear Chance yelling catch me! catch me! as he barreled down a slide. She saw herself sitting across from him at a red picnic table as he crammed a messy handful of fries into his toddler’s mouth, the ketchup leaving an exclamation point smear on his little chin, his eyes avid on the other children. The fast food at McDonald’s was not the draw for him; it was the kids. His only sibling was Promise, and she and Chance were so far apart in years that when he was three and four and she was twelve and thirteen, she’d often been mistaken for his babysitter rather than his sister.
Evans stood at the side of the second Humvee, arms crossed, looking across the car lot. His face was a hard mask. Lu had placed a box of rations on the hood. “Come and get it,” he said and smiled at Promise and Peter as they rode up. Evans did not acknowledge Lu or the riders.
Miller and Billet exited the lead Humvee.
Blood Run – The Complete Trilogy – First Promise, Two Riders, Last Chance Page 20