by neetha Napew
There wasn't time to argue with her, not even a moment to ask why couldn't they turn around and drive quickly away in the opposite direction.
But Nanci answered the unspoken question as she eased on the brakes around thirty yards from the armed band. "They got gas and food and we don't, Jeff."
The folks behind the block hadn't seen anyone trying to pass through their community in several days. There had been the first rush after the full horror of Earthblood was revealed, followed by the brief period when the authorities attempted to prevent travel in order to minimize and localize the catastrophe. Then the torrent of refugees streamed from the towns and cities.
The fighting and killing had been desperate, and a number of their friends and relations had died defending their inalienable right to bear arms and use them to keep all outlanders from their doors.
Nowadays the torrent had fallen below a trickle. The four-by-four was only of minimal interest. They had the guns and they could see there were only a couple of strangers in the cab.
It wasn't likely to be a problem.
Nanci deliberately didn't try to hide the Port Royale machine pistol as she climbed slowly and painfully down. She held it loose, dangling down in her left hand, trying to make it appear no sort of threat.
"Hi, there. Name's Veronica Poole. Retired teacher from Fort Worth. This is my brother's boy, Jeff. We had hard times coming, friends."
They saw a stooped, frail, retired schoolmarm walking toward them and hardly noticed the powerful gun that dropped from her hand. Before any of them had really registered what she was doing, Nanci was less than five yards from them, smiling hesitantly.
"Wonder if we might beg a cup of water," she said.
Henry Harrison was in charge of the roadblock. A retired accountant, he had been one of the leading voices for withdrawing their patrols. He'd relied on critical-path analysis and flow charts to explain that the statistics showed they were no longer needed and that their isolated hamlet could now be protected in far more efficient ways, utilizing less time and manpower.
But the self-protection committee had decided by a small majority that they would maintain the patrol for another few days, until Christmas, then review the situation again before the New Year.
Henry watched the elegantly dressed old woman as she walked toward them, setting each foot carefully in front of the other as though she had some sort of crippling knee or hip condition. It crossed his mind that she might be a doctor. They didn't have anyone with real medical training and they'd agreed unanimously that if a doctor or even a nurse happened to turn up, they'd be invited to stay.
His mouth was already open to warn the stranger not to get close, when he realized with a start that she was already very close. Asking them something about letting her have some water.
"That's about—" began Henry, holding up his hand self-importantly.
"Far enough?" said Nanci Simms, her smile unchangingly bright and friendly.
It stayed friendly even as she squeezed the trigger on the Port Royale, on full-auto.
At the harsh, snarling cough of the machine pistol, Jeff Thomas rolled quickly out of the passenger's door, the unfamiliar .38 in his hand.
He managed a clumsy somersault and came up in something approximating the gunfighter's crouch that Nanci had managed to teach him.
Finger white on the spur trigger, he was looking for someone to shoot, but he saw only four men and one woman, all of them already in various stages of dying.
Henry Harrison got the first three rounds, each of the 9 mm rounds hitting him in less than a quarter of a second, all of them within an inch of his breastbone. The impact sent him staggering backward, almost running, before he tripped over his own feet.
Strangely his last coherent thought was disappointment that the elderly woman wasn't a doctor after all.
His friends to left and right were shot at close range, all between throat and stomach, each one taking a 3-round burst of lead.
Nanci was skilled enough to control the spitting machine pistol, making sure that she had a single round left if any of her victims needed it. And there was always the P-111 automatic in the back of her belt. But her ability was such that she didn't need to fire again.
"Judas on the tree!" exclaimed Jeff Thomas, rising cautiously from the crouch. He'd already dismissed as stillborn the tempting but transient idea that he should try to shoot Nanci in the back while he had a half chance, realizing that half a chance wasn't anywhere near to good enough.
"Gas and food, Jefferson," she said.
Within eighty seconds all of the five were finally still. One of them had carried on writhing and gurgling and bleeding longer than the others.
Jeff holstered his .38 and began the task of syphoning fuel from the two flatbed trucks into their own vehicle, while Nanci searched the corpses for anything worth the stealing. She found nothing beyond some extra ammunition for her two guns. Reloading the Port Royale, she waited for Jeff to finish refueling.
"Any spare cans, take them and fill them," she said. "I'll see what these friendly folk might have to offer us in the way of sustenance."
There was bread, only slightly stale, and enough jerked beef to last the two of them a week. Half a pecan pie, which she ate without even offering any to Jeff, and three cans of cling peaches in raspberry nectar.
"Better than nothing. How are we for gas?"
"Tank's full," he said, spitting in the dirt what he'd accidentally sucked into his mouth. "And there's about seven gallons spare in the back."
"Good. They got some decent Mexican bottled beer in the cab of one of their trucks. Help yourself. It'll get the taste of the gas away."
"Are we going in to their township?"
"Why?"
"Might be more food and gas."
"Why?"
"Well, we can't have too much. Can we, Nanci?"
"Yeah, we can. What we want is always to try and keep just that little more than we need. Now, have that beer and we'll get moving. Should reach Muir Woods easily tomorrow."
They camped overnight less than ten miles from their destination.
Jeff had wanted to press on, but Nanci pointed out there was no point in trying to drive after dark. Not with coiling mists coming ghosting in off the Pacific close by.
IT WAS a beautiful dawn, with the sun rising away to their right and behind them.
Jeff was at the wheel. The blacktop snaked around, occasionally allowing glimpses of it a mile or so ahead, and lower down. They were both surprised to see that the plant cancer didn't appear to have touched some of the big redwoods that they could now make out in the bright morning light.
"Too big," commented the woman. She was sitting with her feet on the dash, holding the Port Royale across her lap. Jeff had been allowed to make love to her the night before, and there was a friendly atmosphere between them, more like a contented and long-married couple.
The Pacific was visible to their left, over the rolling gullies, and Jeff pulled over and stopped, switching off the engine. "Now, that is really beautiful," he said.
Nanci leaned out of her window and took a deep breath. Her whole body suddenly stiffened. "What's that? Someone's coming, Jefferson. There! Just spotted it. Should make that plural, though. Big RV and a four-by-four towing a trailer. Now that's the way to travel."
"What're we going to do?"
She was outside, all action, like a hungry panther. "Park this a quarter-mile back where the road dips. I'll ambush whoever it is, and we'll be driving in comfort and style."
"Be careful."
She grinned and patted him on the cheek. "Don't worry, Jefferson. Be like candy from a baby."
Now he could hear the deep rumble of the large camper's engine as it drove up the switchback hills toward them in a low gear. Nanci put a finger and thumb together and grinned at him. She ran with an athletic ease that he envied toward a bunch of dead sycamores that fronted the road.
Jeff quickly swung the four-by-four around and
went to park it where she'd told him. He'd had only the barest glimpse of the lead vehicle in the distance, but he thought it was the model called a Phantasm. Some cousin of his father from up in New Hampshire had once come down to San Luis Obispo to visit in one of them. It had a microwave and freezer and cooker and all the conveniences money could buy. Including a big double bed.
Jeff liked the idea of that double bed.
He left the four-by-four, locking it carefully, and started to run along the blacktop back to rejoin Nanci, his .38 drawn and ready.
But the morning stillness was broken by the sound of the Port Royale being fired, the noise sending a flock of red-capped jays squawking into the cloudless sky.
"Shit," he said. "Too late again."
Chapter Thirty-Two
The lamb casserole was in a large lidded ovenproof dish that Miss Oliphaunt carried in to them, wearing pretty floral kitchen gloves. Her face was flushed, and steam was condensing on the thick lenses of her glasses.
She was panting a little as she rested the food on a mat at the center of the table. "There! Goodness, but I'm not getting any younger."
"None of us are," said Jim gallantly.
"I'll go and bring in the apple cobbler. But you folks make a start tucking into the main course. Take care not to burn your tongues."
She was gone before it registered on any of them just what she'd said. Kyle broke the silence. "Why's she bringing in dessert before we start the casserole?"
"Search me." Jim turned to look out through the door, but he couldn't see into the kitchen. "Best get started on this, I guess." He reached out for the lid of the casserole, then realized that it was likely to be scaldingly hot. He picked up his linen napkin to protect his fingers.
"Dad," Heather said, her voice sharp.
"What?"
"I saw what… something really weird."
"Tell me. Come on, quick. Before she comes back in with the apple cobbler."
Heather reached and laid her hand flat on top of the oven dish before anyone could stop her. Leaning forward, half-out of her seat, she looked around at the others. "See. That's it. Cold as a stone."
Carrie stood up. "Then what's inside… ?" She let the words trail off as she lifted the lid. "Oh, shit."
She tilted the casserole, showing it to everyone around the table.
It was lamb, all right.
The head of a lamb.
Eyes and wool and mud and teeth and all.
Raw and bloody, sinews and gristle showing where it had recently been hacked from a carcass, it was surrounded by uncooked, unwashed vegetables. Half a dozen slug-eaten carrots and some unshelled peas with a handful of green, moldy potatoes were all swilling about in several inches of pink, scummy, cold water.
"Horrid and ugly," said Sly Romero, his voice hardly even a whisper.
"Yeah," agreed Jim Hilton.
Lulled by the comfortable cottage and the chintzy cheeriness of Mercy Oliphaunt, he was slow to react to the revelation of the bizarre meal and was still sitting when the elderly lady came back into the room.
"Apples are still a'growing," she crowed in her high, quavery voice. Then something flashed in her hand, and she was trying to get close to Heather—close enough to hack her neck with a bone-handled, serrated carving knife.
The girl screamed and ducked away to her left, falling off her chair. Sly also screamed, thin and piercing, like a stallion at the gelding. He tried to stand up to go to Heather's aid, but slipped and fell over backward, banging his head on the polished wooden floor.
Both Carrie and Kyle had hung their coats out in the hall, her Smith & Wesson .22 and his .32-caliber Mondadori automatic in the pockets.
Jim was the only one armed, the powerful Ruger revolver on his right hip. But he was taken by surprise, stunned by the sudden violence of the attack on his daughter.
Mercy Oliphaunt was yelping with crazed laughter, with the terrifying echo of a rabid coyote, her staring eyes like glazed pinwheels, flailing with the knife at the young girl who'd managed to scramble her way out of reach beneath the table.
"Little piggies come to fucking supper!" Realizing that she couldn't get at the girl, the old woman turned toward her paralyzed father. "Cook the fattest piggy first," she whooped, her voice triumphant, and her whole body suddenly infused with a wild energy.
Finally the ice melted from Jim's brain and muscles, and he reacted. He reached up with a serving spoon in his left hand to parry the vicious knife in a flurry of sparks, simultaneously sliding out of his seat, right hand clawing for the heavy .44.
The neat little dining room was brimming over with panic, everyone trying to do what seemed best.
From under the table, Heather was watching for the button boots, aiming to keep the width of the table between herself and the homicidal crone.
Sly was kicking his feet in the air like an overturned beetle, great gobbets of tears coursing down his chubby cheeks as he struggled to regain his balance.
Carrie threw the casserole at Mercy Oliphaunt, and the severed head of the lamb hit the woman a glancing blow on the shoulder, the greasy, bloodied water staining her blouse.
Kyle Lynch had grabbed up a pair of knives from the table and was beginning to move cautiously around toward their attacker.
But Miss Oliphaunt seemed totally oblivious to any threat toward herself, laughing and sawing at the air with the glittering blade while Jim tried to fend her off and pull the stubborn Ruger from its holster.
"Fuck off," he snarled, feeling like someone trapped in the nightmare where a nameless, shapeless creature pursues you along an endless corridor. And your feet are snared in molasses as it comes closer and closer, until you run out of corridor.
"Join all my little children," she said, her voice now shockingly calm and reasonable.
The gun felt heavier than he remembered as it finally came free. Thirty-five ounces, six-inch barrel. Six rounds of .44 full metal jacket. Full-length ejector shroud, cushioned grips with walnut inserts.
Facts. Cold facts.
Not like a genteel schoolteacher with mad eyes, attacking you with a carving knife in the middle of her own dining room.
Think about that, and you found yourself wandering along the meandering path toward insanity.
Facts. Stick to facts.
Wide trigger. The smooth action and the deep-set, checkered hammer clicking back.
Mercy Oliphaunt made an instant change of tactics as she saw the blued-steel revolver in the hand of her intended victim, showing a moment of cunning sanity as she ducked away and lunged toward the helpless teenage boy.
Jim had a splinter of a second to alter his aim and snap off a shot at the moving target.
"Missed me, Beelzebub!" she giggled in delight as she disappeared behind the table.
"Stop her, Daddy!" Sly's voice almost unrecognizable in the depths of terror.
Jim dropped to his knees, but he snagged the tablecloth and pulled it half off the table, cutlery and china and glasses clattering and shattering on the floor, making it impossible to see clearly enough to try for a second shot.
There was a strange sound amid the chaos, a noise that managed to be both dull and sharp at the same time.
"You wicked slattern," said Mercy Oliphaunt, sounding just as if she'd caught one of her pupils writing obscenities on the outhouse wall.
"I stabbed her, Dad," Heather said, a tremble in her voice that mixed fear and exultation.
Now Jim could see what was going on.
Sly had his knees drawn up to his chin and was waving his hands in front of his staring eyes.
Heather, backing away toward the far side of the table, was crawling through the detritus of the nightmare meal toward Carrie and Kyle.
And there was Mercy Oliphaunt, face twisted in a rictus of grinning hatred, kneeling in the shadows. The steel carving blade was still gripped tightly in her right hand, twitching as though it had been connected to a high-voltage wire.
The hilt of a butter knife stu
ck out of her left eye, behind the distorting glasses, like some obscene piece of jewelry. Blood, mingled with clear, aqueous fluid, leaked from the blinded orb.
"Tried to take my little ones away. School comes first." She crawled very slowly toward Jim Hilton. "I stopped that nonsense for good and all."
"Shoot her, Dad."
Heather's voice broke the hypnotic spell that had gripped Jim, turning him into a helpless rabbit in front of the weaving coils of a rattler. The wide trigger came back once. His hand jerked upward, the roar deafening under the long table, with a blur of smoke from the explosion.
The .44 almost ripped the old woman's head clear off her scrawny shoulders. The bullet struck her through the bridge of her beaky nose, angling upward and exiting through the top of the table, smashing into the white-painted ceiling. It lifted the top of her cranium, splattering the floor with blood and brains and matted silvery hair.
Her glasses flew off, landing right by Jim's knee, the thick lenses slobbered with a gray-pink grue.
"It's all right, Sly," Jim said, trying to keep his voice steady and reassuring. "It's over."
When they had calmed down a little, they dragged the limp corpse outside and tidied up the dining room, restoring things to normal. Heather, Sly and Kyle went out into the tidy little kitchen to start cooking up something approximating a proper meal.
They'd agreed that it would be foolish to leave such a secure place, when there was warmth and shelter, but that they'd move on north first thing in the morning.
"At least we got some gas, and there's quite a cache of canned meat and fruit in the larder." Carrie was still pale from the effects of the horrific scene. "Won't be sorry to get out and back into the clean air. Got the feeling that she might rise up like one of the walking dead and come after me in the darkness."
She and Jim were alone together in the hall, with framed steel engravings of European mountains frowning grimly down from both the walls.
He put his arm around her. "Want to stay the night with me, Carrie?" he asked.
"Yeah. Think I would. Not for…you know. Just to get me some warm vibes from you."