Funny name for a painting. Even funnier that she should remember it.
The giant sequoias laid an additional texture over the dream-like nature of her day – one filled with tree-legged creatures stalking ancient groves, of smiling monstrosities disguised as middle-aged geeks, of beautiful women sealed in motorhome coffins.
Although, occasionally, she felt Ty’s eyes upon her, he didn’t seem to pay her that much attention. He joked with her mom, pointed out the various trees to Elliot, grinned and goofed and wandered about.
There’s a woman locked inside our RV. She’s alive, although who knows for how long. You have to do something.
Angel studied Regan and Luke, wondered whether it was possible that they knew. But of course it wasn’t. She knew enough about serial killers to know that generally they didn’t have kids. And even if they did, they didn’t collaborate with them, forming some kind of Addams Family-style hunting party. It just didn’t happen.
That woman might be dying. And you’re walking through Mariposa Grove thinking about Dali’s elephants and psychotic stepfamilies.
Up ahead, Ty peeled off to chase Elliot around the base of a particularly huge sequoia. Taking her opportunity, Angel went to her mother’s side. ‘Mom, can I grab the RV keys a minute?’
‘What’s up?’
‘Nothing. Just need to use the bathroom.’
‘They have bathrooms here.’
Ty was still on the other side of the sequoia.
‘Mom, please.’
‘OK. OK, honey.’ She pulled open her bag, rifling through its contents. ‘I wish I knew what’s up with you today.’
Ty was still out of sight. He wouldn’t remain hidden for long. Finally her mom pulled out the bunch of keys. ‘Here you go. Make sure you lock it.’
‘Sure.’ Angel stuffed them into her bag. Turning away as Ty emerged on the path ahead, she tried to look casual. She took a circuitous route back to the RV, glancing over her shoulder every few yards to make sure he wasn’t following.
Up ahead, the motorhome waited in a line of dusty vehicles. Ty had reversed their RV into its bay so that the rear faced into the trees. Its windows were dark mirrors, reflecting the sun. For a moment Angel thought she saw it shift on its springs, a subtle tilting. But she knew she imagined it. Thought she did . . . perhaps.
Moving quickly, she ducked along the side of the motorhome to the back. She stared up at its curving metal body, at the chrome ladder reaching all the way to the roof, its racks of running lights. The vehicle seemed to exude a cool malevolence. An awareness.
Angel shivered. Reaching out, she placed a hand against the metal. She thought she could feel a vibration, a humming; a heartbeat. But of course it was probably the refrigeration unit, or the plumbing, or something simple like that. Even when stationary, she knew these beasts only slumbered; they never truly died.
Then Angel heard the scratching. Faint. Oh-so-faint. It stopped, and she took her hand away. Stepped closer. Inclined her head.
There. It was back. A ticking, or a scraping.
She glanced around. The RV was parked further into the undergrowth than its neighbouring vehicles; it screened her from curious eyes. No one lurked nearby.
The luggage bay lay behind a flip-down hatch low to the right, beside the licence plate. She had seen Ty opening it when they’d picked up the vehicle from the rental depot, revealing a crawlspace deep enough to stow a couple of king-size mattresses. They’d left it empty. Even with the seven of them on board, the RV was simply so huge they hadn’t needed the extra space.
Angel forced herself to move. She fumbled in her bag and pulled out the keys. The smaller one opened the luggage bay. She slid it into the lock, twisted it, paused. Took a breath, held it.
Removing the key, she flipped down the hatch.
Darkness inside. Shadows.
A smell that was a mixture of sweat, urine and fear. And there, towards the very back of the crawlspace, two spots of seaweed-green light. Angel stooped, resting her hands on her knees, tilting her head to give herself a better view.
Eyes. That’s what those two green spots were. The woman’s beautiful green eyes, blinking out at her from deep within the motorhome’s belly. Angel heard her own breath echoing inside the chamber. Felt her heart beating in her chest.
It’s true. It’s all true. He put her here. He put her here last night and then he lay down beside Mom and went to sleep. And then he got up this morning, as fresh and carefree as a choirboy, made us all breakfast and drove us down here to see the giant sequoias, like it was the most natural thing in the world. Like we were all a big happy fucking family and there wasn’t some stranger locked up in the trunk.
THAT’S WHAT I’M TOLKIEN ABOUT.
Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ.
‘Are you hurt?’ Angel whispered, straining to see the woman’s features. ‘Can you hear me?’
‘Yuhhh . . .’ the RV’s prisoner stammered.
Something scraped inside the chamber. The eyes flickered. Grew larger. Now Angel saw an arm, clad in a black cardigan sleeve. A hand, slim and graceful, fingers caked in mud.
Cracked nails. And blood.
‘You’re OK,’ Angel told her. ‘I’m going to get help. What’s your name? Tell me your name.’
‘Geor . . .’ the woman rasped. ‘Georgia.’
‘OK, Georgia. You hold on, all right? You hold on.’
Angel’s hands were shaking. Her knees, too. Her whole body. She fumbled with her bag, nearly dropped it, yanked it open. Searched around inside. Found her phone. Activated the screen. Brought up the keypad. Typed 9 . . . 1 . . . 1.
The voice came from behind her. ‘Curious little pooch, aren’t you? I knew you’d seen me last night.’
Angel screamed. She spun around. Saw at once the lettering on the T-shirt right in front of her: THAT’S WHAT I’M TOLKIEN ABOUT.
Ty reached out and plucked the phone from her fingers. He stared at the screen, shook his head, and tucked it into his shirt pocket.
The woman inside the luggage bay moaned and scrabbled backwards, seeking the sanctuary of darkness.
Ty grinned and, even in her terror, Angel thought: You’re older. You’ve aged. Since this morning. How can that be?
‘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. Li
ke 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.
Written in the Blood Page 19