The Gatherer Series, Book 1

by Colleen Winter

  “They’ll believe me when they see you this time.”

  A terror deeper than anything she had ever felt froze over her. All her movements shut down except for her ability to follow his commands. He pushed her and spun her back towards the door.

  The door frame had more exposed wood than paint, the edge completely bare from a lifetime of hands. The handle was coarse and thick, the latch heavy under her thumb. As the latch stuck, her brain pushed through the terror, and she saw the whole scene before her as if she had drawn it in her notebook with the forces and reactions calculated to two decimal points.

  She turned, swinging at anything and everything behind her. Her forearm struck part of the barrel, and she ran her hand straight at his wind pipe. The retaliation was so fast as to be unseen, a vicious crack on her head and the pain spreading hot and fast through the shattered bits of her skull. She fell, meeting darkness before she hit the ground.

  * * * *

  Maria’s legs felt like lead as she kicked the boathouse door, the stubborn old wood requiring five kicks before the lock split away and the door swung inward. The bottom edge caught on the warped floor and, moving slowly, Maria leaned her shoulder into the sun-baked wood and pushed it open wide. The smell of decaying wood and gasoline lingered in the closed space. The sound of the river pushing against the moorings was louder inside. She ducked at the sound of scurrying feet in the rafters, claws scratching somewhere above her. Testing the sturdiness of the floorboards, she stepped into the darkness to let the light from the outside penetrate further into the interior. Something gleamed in the dusk and the square of light from the door reflected in a pane of glass. Relief eased the tension across her shoulders as a boat took shape, a chrome rail along its bow and its wide hull barely fitting into the narrow slip. Boards creaked as she inched further along the deck, the faint smell of leather and pipe smoke breaking through the rot and gasoline. With enough fuel it could carry them all the way to Rima.

  The faintest of sounds came from outside.

  She slid back to the door, her feet placed along the silent ends of the boards. The landscape was pressed flat by the clouds, no noise but the rush of water and the small rustling of grass in the growing wind. She strained to hear, a steep section of the river bank blocking her view of Storm. Had it been a voice? Or an echo of her footsteps?

  She stepped outside, on high alert, and had started up the hill when the wind slammed open one of the shutters on a neglected cabin. She felt a wash of relief and could breathe again. She turned her back on the looming hills and returned to the shelter of the boathouse.

  The outline of the boat was easier to see now that she knew it was there, and she stepped carefully along the deck, alert for any weakness in the old boards. The whole structure shifted with her movements, the light breaking through the cracks in the boards, betraying the slant of the walls, the entire structure leaning upstream against the current.

  The boat rocked beneath her as she stepped onto the stern and released the latch on the back door. The doors screeched, caught by the wind, and banged repeatedly against the sides, the wind determined to wake this place from its slumber.

  A blue heron, disturbed from the far side of the river, flew downstream with long powerful strokes of its wings.

  She turned carefully back to the boathouse, the water cold and black beyond the stern. A gleaming, one-hundred-and-fifty-horsepower motor was mounted on the flat boat’s transom. Her fear solidified at the pristine canvas stretched over the boat’s interior. The bow shone white and blue, the newly polished chrome rail gleaming in the dim light. She scrambled off the boat, nearly falling into the dark space between the boat and deck, her foot breaking through the wood when she landed so that she fell into the fishing nets and old rods propped against the side wall, the tackle clattering down in a cascading disaster. When the last pail lay still, the echoing silence felt alive, the place and the people she was now certain were there fully awake.

  She heard Havernal’s voice.

  Get out of there.

  She twisted her foot to free it from the wood and climbed to her feet, her brain cataloguing the clean windshield, the shine of the snaps that held the canvas tarp, and the absence of any watermarks where the hull touched the water.

  One step. Two. There had to be other signs that she had missed. A worn path. An open window. Something would have hinted that this was here.

  She had almost reached the door when a shadow fell across the opening. An older guy, overweight but strong and looking like he knew how to use the rifle in his hands. The walls pulled in closer, and the cold coming off the water deepened.

  “Caught two birds in the trap today.”

  He moved closer, the point of a really old gun trained on her. His clothes were loose and dirty, his body distended from years of abuse, and he had the classic redneck swagger boasting that they had got it right and everyone else had it wrong. But there was something wrong in the way he moved—perhaps the heightened aggression that was too much for the situation, or the fact that he didn’t really seem to see her. There had been guys like this in training. The ones she had tried to stay away from.

  “Is this your boat?”

  “Get out!”

  He waved the gun like he was some guy on a SWAT team, the ones you saw on TV, not the real ones. A wannabe who’d been isolated in the woods for too long. She doubted the thing even fired. She held up her hands at her sides. He was coming too close, but with a gun he probably figured he had the advantage.

  “How many others are there?”

  “Just me.”

  She was going to lie, hoping that Storm had gotten away until she remembered he had said two birds. Not one.

  “And my friend.”

  He stopped moving forward and glanced quickly at the boat, making sure she hadn’t touched anything.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize anyone lived here.”

  “So you thought you’d just break in. I heard you kicking at the door. Just another thief with no respect for people’s property. Well, you got more than you bargained for this time.”

  There was an excitement to his energy that was rising the longer he kept the gun trained on her. His words were threatening, yet he sounded happy. He stepped back onto the deck that ran along the front of the boathouse. He waved the gun at her, towards the door.

  The gun had to be fifty years old. But he had taken care of it and at this range it would be more than enough to do the job.

  He prodded her up a faint path that was barely used but that she should have noticed earlier. They passed the row of overgrown cabins, shingles caught in the grass at their base. Every curtain in the large cabin was closed and the grasses grew above the railing of the veranda.

  “Is this your place?”

  The stacks of pizza boxes and the dank reek of the cabin ratcheted up her alarm. Her mind raced through the thousand ways this could unfold. She could slam the door back in his face, turn with an arm and a foot directed at his throat and crotch. She almost didn’t hear him when he directed her around the side of the cabin.

  “In there.”

  The smell of decay rose from the opening to the cellar, the two wood doors flung back from the entrance. A new padlock shone on the door. Fear surged through her and she turned, her leg swinging out and up with full force. He ducked and came at her with the butt of his gun, too fast for his age and fitness. She blocked the gun and the butt glanced off her forehead. He used the momentum of the redirected blow and swung the back of his elbow into the side of her head. She was dazed, backing away from him, but he kept coming after her with a rawness that made him stronger than he should have been, like he had practiced this particular fight a thousand times and knew what she would do before she did. In an instant, he had her arms bent behind her back and pushed her headfirst into the black rot of the cellar. She twisted and struggled, the pain in her ar
ms fuelling the rage at her helplessness and her weakness. He released her and she flew, landing on all fours on the sticky dampness of the cellar floor. The doors slammed, and the padlock clicked with the satisfaction of a plan well carried out.

  She pushed against the doors above her head. They were heavy and solid and didn’t move no matter how hard she pushed. She slammed her fists, feeling for a latch or an edge to get a grip on amidst the overpowering smell of rotting vegetables and her ragged, panicked breathing. She stepped back and silence swarmed out from the dark corners of the places she couldn’t see, like it too had been waiting for her with its well laid plans. She closed her eyes, calmed her breathing, blocked out the terror, and listened. No sound of retreating footsteps, or of any movements above ground. She could never know if he was still out there.

  There was a scuff of dirt out of the darkness. Someone was down there with her.

  She had a sudden revulsion that there would be others down there, captives in this horrible, decaying place.

  She remained still, listening and feeling for any signs of attack. She heard a sigh and the faintest of moans.

  “Storm?”

  Her voice was sucked into the walls, the syllables barely heard before they were gone. She edged towards Storm’s voice. She found a foot first, bare, the toes cold. She got no response when she shook it, and she felt further up the calf, recognizing the length and thinness as Storm’s. She shook harder, not knowing whether Storm had been knocked out or had passed out from her own demons. She no longer wore her coat. Maria felt her cheekbones protruding beneath her skin and the large welt swelling on the side of her head.

  There was a deep, more irritated moan and Maria sat back, knowing that if Storm had the strength to be annoyed, she would be all right.

  A strip of light around the door saved them from complete darkness, and as Maria’s eyes adjusted, other shapes took form. Wooden crates were crammed next to old barrels and a large stash of empty bottles. The dirt walls formed a three metre square cave, the ceiling sloping away from the door to the back wall at waist height. She stooped to avoid the ceiling as she explored the cell.

  An old lawnmower was crammed beneath the far wall, missing all its wheels, the handle attached on only one side. Buckets and containers of unidentifiable liquids and decayed solids and a spool of sharp-edged chicken wire lay along the base of the wall.

  She pushed on the door again, tried to kick it out, and landed hard on the dirt. An engine started, a muffled rattling that vibrated through the ceiling. It pitched higher, slowed, and surged before fading. The silence it left behind mocked her. The maniac who had locked them in felt so secure in his prison he didn’t need to stand guard.

  She circled the room again. There had been extensive travel in and out of the house. The gravel drive was worn and packed from long usage and there had been the traffic leading either to the drive or down a path that led over a rock cut down to a place she couldn’t see. They had come in on the unused side of the camp, the place untouched but for that damn boat in the collapsing boathouse.

  She had been too focused, determined to find another way to travel that didn’t involve carrying Storm.

  Another moan came from Storm, sounding awake this time. She sat up, her hand held over the welt on her head.

  “Shit.”

  Maria crouched down next to her.

  “Are you okay?”

  Storm’s forehead creased, her eyes squinting against the pain.

  “My head hurts like hell.”

  At Storm’s words, the throbbing from the blow to Maria’s skull pushed into the forefront.

  “You should lie down.”

  Storm waved her off, gently touching her fingers to the wound. She pulled her feet under her and rose. She stooped beneath the low roof.

  It was colder in the cellar than Maria had first realized, the cold beginning to make itself known in the chill across her shoulders and a tightening of her skin.

  “Take my coat.”

  Maria unzipped her coat and started to remove the sleeves.

  Storm pushed up against the bottom of the door, the same way Maria had, her thin white arms no match for its solid thickness.

  “You need it more than I do.”

  Storm turned away, leaving Maria holding the coat between them, touring their small cell, spending longer looking into the decaying matter and peering deeper into the corners.

  “Would you just take it?”

  But Storm wasn’t listening, her face pinched in concentration as she poked at one of the bins of unidentifiable liquid.

  “I don’t think he knew who I was.”

  Maria put the coat back on. At least one of them would be warm.

  “I heard him leave. Got the impression there was someone he was going to tell. That he wanted to show us to someone.”

  Storm had finished her tour and returned to her original spot on the floor. She brushed some of the larger debris from the ground and sat back against the wall.

  Maria didn’t want to sit, the close walls making her skin itch, the dank air thick in her throat. They couldn’t just sit here and wait for him to return. She found a flat stone the size of her palm and scraped at the dirt beside the door. It was packed hard, almost as solid as the wood after years of compression. She threw the rock back where she had found it.

  Storm had her face lifted, the light glinting on the goose egg the welt had become.

  Maria pushed against the solidity of the door again. There was no noise from above, not even the wind penetrating into their cell.

  “How long have we been down here?”

  Maria stepped past the vile stench rising from one of the buckets, coughing as it stuck in her throat.

  “Half an hour. Maybe more.”

  Already time had begun to attenuate, and it was difficult to gauge how much had passed.

  Maria scavenged a thin piece of metal the length of her forearm and tried to jam it in between the door and its frame. The fit was too tight, the metal doing nothing other than tearing skin off her palm. It made a muffled thud when she tossed it to the ground.

  Storm retrieved it and used the sharp edge to draw in the dirt. Tiny incomprehensible symbols that barely stayed in the packed surface.

  “Can I get some help over here?”

  Sick or not the woman could do something other than make hopscotch squares in the dirt.

  Storm’s gaze was unfocused, most of her mind concentrated on some problem they would never get to if they didn’t get out of there.

  “Hold on a second.”

  Storm held up a finger. Her concentration so intense that it made Maria want to shake her. They didn’t need her fancy formulas now.

  Maria considered one of the barrels, gauging its height against the height of the door. If they wedged two on top of each other it might apply enough pressure to the door to loosen the hinges. And then ten years from now they’d be free when the hinges finally popped off. The passage of every second vibrated along her nerves, the return of the man only a matter of time.

  Storm rose to her feet and began circling the outer edge of the room. She unscrewed the cap on the lawn mower, sniffed and screwed it back on. She tore lids off of crates, sniffed half full buckets and muttered to herself. It reminded Maria of seeing her when they had first tried to limit the production of the Gatherer, the final tightening of that freedom focusing Storm’s entire intellect on making it go away.

  “There aren’t any tools, I already looked.”

  Storm pulled buckets away from the wall, sticking her face into open pails.

  “Ah!”

  With a cry of triumph, Storm pulled a crate towards the door, moving it no more than an inch at a time.

  “What are you thinking?”

  Storm waved Maria towards the crate.

  “This needs to be un
der the door.”

  “The door won’t budge.”

  Storm moved below it, indicating exactly where she wanted Maria to put it.

  “So that the flat side is parallel to the wall.”

  The low roof forced Storm to stoop as she stepped out of the way, the typical mad scientist muttering to herself.

  Without a better idea, Maria put her shoulder against the crate and shoved.

  “Okay. That’s far enough. We need to put this one in that corner.”

  Storm had her hand on a second crate and pointed to the corner farthest from the door and where she had woken up.

  “But put the contents in this one before you do.”

  She touched the crate below the door.

  Maria gagged at the reek of rotting vegetation as she stood over the open crate. At least four patches of darker material formed a splotched pattern on the straw. She wiped her palms on her thighs. The stench was so thick she doubted she would smell anything else ever again.

  “We don’t have all day.”

  Storm sounded like she had when she would direct her team, confident in what she was doing. Maria felt the intoxicating desire to follow someone who knew where they were going.

  Maria plunged her hands into the first sticky blackness, releasing a powerful, dizzying stench as she scooped handfuls of the dripping mess into the crate below the door. Storm came over and sniffed.

  “Perfect. We’ll need all of it.”

  Storm poured the contents of a bag into the crate with Maria’s pungent slop. It smelled of dust, chemicals and manicured lawns in the spring. Maria didn’t think about what she was digging into, happy for the dim light.

  Storm added more bits and pieces to her soup, and Maria began to understand what she was creating, annoyed with herself that she hadn’t recognized it sooner.

  When Maria’s crate was empty, Storm pointed to another reeking bucket and Maria transferred its contents into the central crate.

  “We’ll need to pack whatever we can around it. To force the explosion upwards.”

  Storm frowned at the crate for several seconds before she nodded.