Blood Storm: Deadrise II

by Brandt, Siara

  She realized that she had seen him in Willow Grove, too. He had seemed familiar from the moment he had approached her. But until now she couldn’t place him. Small towns were like that. Everyone knew everyone else. Even if it was just by sight and not by name. A connection, any connection, was good, wasn’t it? He’d be less likely to kill her if he actually knew her by name. At least that’s what she’d heard. But that couldn’t always be true, she rationalized. Plenty of people killed their own family members.

  She glanced at the man out of the corner of her eye. He didn’t look like a killer or even a bank robber. He looked like a business man. His striped white shirt was buttoned up to the collar. He wore a tie that had been loosened. His shirt sleeves were rolled back to reveal tanned forearms and he wore an expensive-looking watch. He was middle aged and clean cut, but she had watched enough TV shows to know that even serial killers could be charming. And often they were the last person you expected.

  “When we get back to Willow Grove,” he said, his tone softening a bit. “I’ll let you go there.”

  She bit her lower lip. If she could just keep him talking- “Did you- ”

  Her high-heeled foot jammed on the brake. The car swerved dangerously amidst a prolonged squeal of tires.

  When the car finally came to a stop, they both stared straight ahead, saying nothing but straining their eyes into the dense shadows on both sides of the road. The woods were thick here. They came right up to the edge of the road and something, or someone, had run right across the dense web of shadows in front of the car. It hadn’t been a deer, but it had been almost as big. It had been a blur that just disappeared into the trees and kept going. It hadn’t helped that she’d glanced in the rearview mirror at precisely the same instant.

  “What was that?” she asked in a shaky voice. She realized that her hands were trembling on the steering wheel.

  He didn’t answer as he continued to watch the woods. Whatever it was, it was already gone. She knew she hadn’t hit anything. Still, she wasn’t sure it wasn’t going to run out in the road again. If there was one deer, there were usually more . . .

  “I don’t know what it was,” he finally answered her in a strained voice. “But it’s gone. Let’s go.”

  She didn’t immediately obey him, so he waved the gun again. But it was a half-hearted gesture. He looked almost as shaken up as she was.

  “Go,” he repeated, as if he was in a hurry to leave that place.

  After driving a few more miles, she stopped at a temporary red light set up at the east edge of the bridge leading into Willow Grove. They had been doing construction work on the bridge for the past week or so and it was down to only one lane.

  He pointed the gun towards the bridge. “Don’t stop. Go across.”

  “Are you insane? The light is red.”

  “I said get going.” He shifted the gun in his hand. Right now his expression was so focused and intent that he looked like he could be a killer.

  Another car pulled up behind her, so fast that it appeared suddenly in her rearview mirror out of nowhere. The driver of the car immediately started sounding the horn.

  Apparently the people in the car behind them were in a hurry, too. “All right. All right,” she said even though they couldn’t hear her. Pressured from both the man and the car behind them, she stepped on the gas.

  Luckily nothing was coming from the opposite direction. If she hurried, they should make it safely across the single lane of the bridge. If not, if they ran into another car, they could go over the side of the bridge into the river far below. She gripped the steering wheel with both hands and pressed harder on the gas, and prayed that another car wasn’t thinking of doing the same thing. The car behind her stayed right on her tail, even revving up its engine to try to get her to go faster.

  “I hate aggressive drivers like that,” she muttered between her teeth. “Two bad things have already happened,” she said, needing to talk as she kept her eyes glued to the long span of the bridge. “I just hope it’s not going to become three- ”

  “Those two bad things might have saved your life,” the man said beside her.

  “I don’t understand what you’re talking about. If you’ll just tell me what is going on- ”

  “Later,” he interrupted. “We’re not out of the woods yet.”

  Or off the bridge.

  When they had finally gotten to the end of the bridge, the car behind them immediately floored it and passed them by. “Look at those crazy people,” Ailin breathed as she watched the car churn up twin clouds of dust. “They’re going to cause an accident.”

  After they continued on, she asked her kidnapper, “Am I missing something?” She glanced over at the man beside her because he hadn’t answered her question. She turned back to the road.

  “Ohmygod!”

  Once again there was a shrill squeal of tires as the car came to a sudden, bone-jarring stop. After flying forward, they both jerked back against their seats. When her heart had stopped slamming against her ribs, and when she could actually speak again, Ailin exclaimed in a breathless voice, “Did you see that? That semi almost hit that little dog. Obviously that truck wasn’t doing the speed limit, either.”

  Obviously, there were a lot of impatient people on the roads today.

  “You’re kidding me,” she heard. “You stopped because of a dog?”

  Yes, she had. They were parked next to the Willow Grove cemetery and she was watching the dog right now. “He looks lost, like he’s looking for a car. Probably his owners,” she murmured sympathetically as she tried to reason out an imaginary sequence of events. The tiny dog was running from tombstone to tombstone, obviously terrified, and possibly abandoned. There was a freshly-dug grave. Maybe some mourner, overcome with grief, could have left their dog behind by accident . . .

  “Let’s go,” Ailin heard impatiently.

  “He’ll be hit by the next vehicle that comes along if I don’t do something.”

  “If you don’t do what?” the man demanded beside her.

  She ignored him and opened her door.

  He snarled behind her, “Get back in the damned car.”

  He was probably waving his gun around right now, but she didn’t care. At the last second she snatched the keys from the ignition so he couldn’t drive off without her. Five minutes later, Ailin was driving down the highway with the little dog shaking in her lap, while the man beside her sat silently shaking his head.

  When they reached the outskirts of Willow Grove, Ailin saw that there were road blocks up. Other cars were already stopped ahead of them, including the car that had passed them in such a hurry. No one was going anywhere. In the distance, they could see people on the streets of Willow Grove. A lot of people.

  “What’s going on?” Ailin asked, turning to her kidnapper in alarm. “You know something about this, don’t you?”

  “What’s going on is that they’re already here,” he said grimly.

  The pieces were coming together for her, though slowly, and they still didn’t make a complete picture. “Does this have something to do with the TV and the internet going out?” she asked.

  And the police cars earlier that morning. And the sirens.

  “There’s something that you’re not telling me, isn’t there?”

  He still didn’t answer her. Frustrated by his silence, she pressed her lips tightly together, and glared at him for a moment before she looked back toward the town.

  He might not feel the need to talk, but she did. “We’re so close. I don’t see why they’re keeping us out of town. Unless something dangerous has happened down there. It has to

  be- ”

  “More than you can imagine.” His answer, given so soberly and so deliberately, chilled her blood.

  Some of the people in front of them had gotten out of their cars for a better view of whatever it was that was going on down below. “What should we do now?” Ailin asked the man beside her.

  “Now?” the man echoe
d without looking at her. “This is where we part company.” He opened his door and then, as if he was having second thoughts, he hesitated for a moment to say, “Take my advice and stay out of town if you can. Go somewhere safe and isolated.”

  “Wh- ” Ailin stuck her head out of the window and tried to call out to him after he had gotten out of the car. He wasn’t even taking his own advice. He was heading straight for Willow Grove, leaving Ailin sitting there alone with the dog.

  Ailin started to do what most of the other people were already doing. She got out of her vehicle and began to walk the short distance towards the town. She didn’t know what else to do. Someone down there had to know what was going on. And she had to find Edmina and Bevanne. The hotel wasn’t that far out of town, but it was in the opposite direction.

  The road blocks didn’t keep anyone from walking into town. But what she saw when she reached Wetherly’s Grocery Store and turned the first corner stopped her dead in her tracks. There were military vehicles and soldiers everywhere.

  The dog’s ears went up. He whimpered in her arms and licked her chin, then looked back at the same thing she was looking at. The soldiers.

  Chapter 4

  _______________

  There were nice, decent, men. And then there were men like Penndle Selwyk.

  He raised his voice, purposely looking for support among the handful of strangers in the hotel lobby around him. Most people looked away uncomfortably, trying to ignore his bombastic tirade. Others gave him a critical once-over before dismissing him as the bully-wannabe that he was.

  Penndle was always looking for an excuse for a confrontation. It didn’t have to be much. An imagined slight. An inconsequential mistake. It didn’t matter to Penndle. Any subject, any victim would do, as long as it caused the desired effect. He was more than ready to turn a molehill into a mountain on the scale of Mount Everest. He was more than willing to escalate a skirmish into a full-scale war. And he was able to do it all without a shred of self-analysis whatsoever. As a consequence, he lived his life in blissful ignorance, perfectly content with being the pariah that he was. He didn’t even notice that people tended to avoid him whenever possible. Once they got to know him. Because it didn’t take long for anyone to figure out that Penndle Selwyk was focused on his own existence at the exclusion of all else. He thought only of his own needs, his own comforts, his own pleasures.

  The people that knew him best wouldn’t tell him to his face why they went out of their way to avoid him. In any case it wouldn’t have done any good. The truth was that Penndle liked being the way that he was. He had adapted the ability to thrive on his weaknesses. What other people saw as flaws, the most glaring ones being selfishness and arrogance, Penndle saw as his strengths. He even congratulated himself on his inflated sense of self-importance. His ego was truly monumental.

  But it caused his wife no end of embarrassment and suffering. At the moment she was mentally cringing as she stared through the big glass windows that led to the indoor pool area. Of course, making a scene wasn’t new for Penndle. He spent most of his life complaining to anyone who would listen. Penndle was good at making an ass out of himself because he had so much practice at it. Unfortunately, it spilled over onto her life. She had been humiliated by him mercilessly all eighteen years of their marriage.

  Nilah Selwyk pulled a tissue from her purse and dabbed at the perspiration on her neck and forehead. Why, she asked herself, couldn’t they just enjoy the nice free breakfast that the hotel provided, like all the other hotel guests were doing? She sighed, knowing there wasn’t a chance that was going to happen. Not when Penndle worked hard at turning everything, absolutely everything, they did into a living nightmare. Not that it came as any surprise to her. She hadn’t been deluded enough to think that this trip was going to be different from any other one. The bickering had started before they had even left home. The sniping had lasted throughout the four-hour drive and the complaining had progressed during their two-day stay at the hotel until it had reached its peak half an hour ago.

  She could see a reflection of the hotel lobby behind her in the glass doors. She could see Penndle standing at the desk. They might not be doing it openly, but she was more than aware of the fact that everyone was looking at him. Part of her survival in the past eighteen years had been the fantasy world that she had created for herself. The one where she could escape from Penndle whenever she wished to. At least in her mind.

  No, I’m not with him. He’s merely a stranger who asked me for directions. I’m only being courteous by listening to him. I’ll take just a moment to politely respond, and then I’ll be on my way. You don’t really think I would be with a man like that.

  They should have been able to enjoy this trip. The Willow Grove Inn was beautifully and tastefully decorated, and surprisingly luxurious for a hotel in a small town. The indoor pool was sparkling clear and inviting with tropical plants and striped deck chairs arranged around it. Not that Penndle would actually agree to go swimming, of course. He abhorred physical exertion of any kind, which explained, in part, why he was on the portly side.

  There was even a sauna for the guests in the pool room. Along with vending machines and a juice bar where they served breakfast every morning. It was nice. More than nice, actually. But Penndle, as usual, wasn’t satisfied. Probably because he put so much effort into focusing on what he didn’t have.

  What Penndle didn’t know was that she had come to the end of her sentence. She could not imagine prolonging their travesty of a marriage any longer. She was going to tell him she wanted a divorce. But that particular newsflash was going to have to wait until they got home. She could not imagine enduring a four hour drive with him after he knew.

  She had changed over the past year. He wasn’t aware of that, either. She had been evolving. She had recently discovered that she wanted a strange thing, someone to hear and to answer her heart. Which she found peculiar, because she had thought that such longings were dead inside her. Parts of her had been numb for so long that she couldn’t even feel them anymore. It had been part of her survival. But she didn’t want to live like that anymore. Something was tugging at old strings and she found that it was not such a bad thing to feel long-lost sentiments stirred to life once again. What would she do with her new life? She wasn’t completely sure yet. She only knew that she yearned for something real. For something honest. A life of her own that didn’t include Penndle.

  Once she had made her decision, she felt strangely relieved, as if a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She was actually looking forward to a future where she didn’t have to navigate through the minefield of her husband’s temper tantrums on a daily basis. Where she didn’t have to be shadowed by the dark cloud that was called Penndle hovering over her.

  Their two children had told her for years that she deserved better. They had left home early and she could thank Penndle for that, too. He hadn’t made the slightest effort to be the kind of father he should have been. His children had been an inconvenience to him, something to be brushed out of the way in the way that one might shoo an annoying mosquito away.

  Those cute baby and child things that had sustained her through all those years? They had been an embarrassment to Penndle. He had never understood, nor had he been able to tolerate, his children. He had expected tiny adults who would mindlessly spend their lives catering to his needs.

  She saw Penndle’s reflection turn and walk towards her. She wheeled stiffly towards the elaborate glass entranceway, waiting for him with a vacant look in her eyes.

  “Did you hear that idiot?” Penndle gave an audible snort that was pure sarcasm. He glowered over his shoulder at the man behind the desk. “He couldn’t even give me an answer. Like I’ve got all day,” he growled irritably. “Did you hear what he just tried to tell me?”

  “Not much of it,” she admitted, anticipating the shot he would surely direct at her now, counting the days until she could walk away from this prison of a marriage.

&n
bsp; “Of course I can’t rely on you to back me up,” Penndle said irascibly. He started to rehash the whole thing for her. And for everyone else that was left in the lobby.

  “I told him I expected a full refund. I paid for a room with a TV and the internet. And I didn’t get either one of those. And now the air conditioning doesn’t work, either.”

  “It wouldn’t work with the power out,” Nilah said vaguely, glancing up at the ceiling when she heard muffled shouting from upstairs and the heavy thump of footsteps above her.

  The lights had been flickering all morning. And then they had stopped working altogether. Along with everything else that ran on electricity. Maybe another guest was angry, too, about the inconvenience.

  Nilah gazed around the lobby, then re-focused and brought herself back to the here and now. In general, Penndle was rude, irritable and impatient. The heat wasn’t going to make things any better. But she knew by now that her husband didn’t need the heat as an excuse for his short temper.

  He looked more closely at her and tried to hide a small smile. Something sly gleamed in his eyes. “What?”

  He couldn’t fool her anymore. She saw right through his pretense and knew that he was enjoying the look of embarrassment reddening her face. For some perverse reason, shaming her gave him some kind of sick satisfaction.

  “You know we’re going to have to cut our trip short because of this, don’t you?” His gaze narrowed as he continued to watch her face. He’d enjoy disappointing her about that, too.

  “It’s not their fault that the TV and the internet are out,” Nilah said. “I’ve heard people come in and say that the power is out all over town. I think the phones might be out, too. I tried to call the kids- ”

  “That’s another thing,” he cut her off, not hearing a word she had to say, but going off in his own direction. “What kind of a half-assed town is this anyway? They should at least be able to give us some idea when things will be fixed. Couldn’t you at least have booked us into a modern hotel?”