Authors: Louise Voss
She led Kate up the bank, checking back over her shoulder every few seconds.
Kate heard voices. ‘Oh my God, they’re coming.’
Simone grabbed her hand. ‘Quick.’
She led Kate into a thick patch of trees, ducking and weaving in order to avoid the branches and keep as quiet as possible. Kate followed suit. She heard a cry of dismay from behind her and realised Angelica and Preeti had found Brandi. Simone paused and looked back.
‘Shit. I don’t know if we’re gonna be able to outrun them.’ She looked around, in search of inspiration. ‘OK, follow me, we’re gonna double back.’
‘What?’
‘Just do as I say. And keep moving.’
They took a turn to the left, struggled through more thick undergrowth before hitting a path. Simone broke into a run, Kate following, adrenaline giving her speed. She couldn’t hear Angelica or Preeti but expected them to burst out of the trees at any moment. They kept running until Kate’s lungs burned and her legs ached. Sweat soaked her back and dripped into her eyes. But she kept going.
Simone veered off to the left, leading them back in the general direction of the ranch. They crossed the stream at a point where it was only a foot wide, but Kate was so tired that she almost slipped in her wet shoes, and barely avoided falling in again.
‘I need to rest,’ she panted.
‘You want them to catch us? Come on, Kate. You got a son, yeah? You wanna see him again?’
Yes, yes, I do. More than anything, Kate thought, and sheer determination kept her going, back through the trees until, eventually, they were in the open again, on the lawn that ran down to the ranch.
‘Keep a lookout for the old guy,’ Simone said.
They jogged towards the house. There was no one in sight.
Kate didn’t understand why they were going back to the ranch – surely that was the least safe place of all. Maybe they were going to get weapons. Or call the police. But then she realised Simone was leading her to the stables. They stopped outside the stable door and Simone pulled it open, disappearing inside after saying, ‘Wait here.’
A long five minutes later – during which Kate pictured her own death at gunpoint many times – she reappeared, leading a beautiful chestnut horse with a white blaze on his nose, and white fetlocks. The horse eyed Kate dismissively.
‘This is Egypt,’ Simone said. ‘She was Cindy’s horse.’ A darkness crossed Simone’s face and Kate had a horrible feeling that Simone was about to change her mind and exact revenge for the awful death Kate had condemned Cindy to.
Instead, she said, ‘You know how to ride, don’t you?’
Heather opened her eyes and was hit by a wave of pain like an electric drill grinding into her skull. It was dark and it took her a moment to remember where she was; then it came back to her and she pushed herself on to all fours, the motion causing a lurch of sickness and a second blast of white-hot pain.
She wiped the vomit from her chin and let herself breathe for a few moments, feeling the pain, riding a third wave as it pulsed through her body. It was like surfing; you just had to take control, harness the power. Take the pain and make somebody else pay.
Those bitches.
The motherfuckers who had attacked her and stolen her car.
The whole damned world.
She pushed herself to her feet, staggered, closed her eyes and found her centre of gravity. After the attackers had left her for dead, she had lain unconscious for a long time – she didn’t know how long. At one point she had awoken and, like a wounded coyote, crawled into the nearest building, an abandoned warehouse.
Now it was dark outside, and she surveyed the spot where her SUV had stood. Long gone, along with the two bitches, the hot daughter and the once-hot mother. Had the gangbangers taken them, or had they got away? Hopefully they were already dead.
She wandered for a while, disoriented and hungry. She came across a locked up grocery store and smashed her way in, liberating a large bottle of Sprite and a pack of smokes, along with a couple of Snickers bars that she stuffed greedily into her face. There were flies buzzing around and she realised that the mom and pop who ran this place might not have deserted it. Curious, she checked upstairs and, sure enough, there they were – in bed together, stiff, cold and surrounded by used Kleenex.
In their tiny kitchen, she found a lovely new knife with a six-inch blade. She tested it on her forefinger and sucked the blood.
A thought struck her and, back downstairs, she checked under the counter. Yes. As she had hoped, there was a baseball bat, kept to deter robbers. The first weapon she’d ever used, back when she was eleven and her little sister’s cat had peed on her bed, the last time it had ever peed anywhere.
Now all she needed was a car.
Leaving the store, with the bat held over her shoulder, she spotted a beautiful car across the street, a white Porsche Cayman, with the hood up. There was a woman sitting in the passenger seat and a man in his thirties bent over the engine, a look of blank incomprehension on his face. The woman in the car – a glossy, rich-looking bitch – kept sticking her head out the window and talking to the guy, which made his face contort with irritation. Heather strode over.
‘Problem?’ she said, as she reached the car.
The guy, who Heather vaguely recognised, looked her up and down – a dismissive look she had been on the receiving end of her whole life. ‘We’re good, thanks.’
Heather pulled a face and leaned under the hood, pressing her shoulder against the guy’s. ‘Doesn’t look too good to me.’
She could see the problem – a loose cable. Elementary stuff, but this guy was probably used to getting his ass wiped for him. She clucked her tongue. ‘Shit, looks pretty fucked to me.’
‘Really?’ He turned his face towards her. He was interested in what she had to say now.
A whining voice came from the car. ‘Ryan, what’s going on? I feel sick.’
‘Chill, babe,’ he said. ‘We’re trying to fix the goddamn car. Piece of shit. Should have stuck with the Lamborghini.’
Heather smiled to herself. This was going to feel good. She pointed to the cable. ‘Check this out.’
As Ryan scrutinised it blankly, she stood upright, swiftly pulled away the metal support arm and yanked down on the hood with all her considerable strength.
It smashed on the back of Ryan’s neck, breaking it. His body jerked like someone had shoved a thousand volts up his ass, then went still. Heather lifted the hood just enough to pull him out, his head flopping like a rag doll’s as she chucked him to the ground, then casually plugged the loose cable back in
‘What the hell?’ the woman in the passenger seat screeched. She pressed the button to wind up the window but the engine was off. Heather grabbed her by her perfect hair, pulled her head through the window and whipped her newly-procured knife out of her back pocket.
‘Please,’ whined the woman. ‘I have money. I can give you anything. I’m famous.’
Heather was not in a good mood. She had been left for dead by those gangbanger motherfuckers, she’d lost the bitches, Paul freaking Wilson was way ahead of her and someone had jacked her car. Forgetting her own role in the spread of the virus, she blamed Los Angeles. She had always hated this fucking city, with its New Age crap, its endless influx of pretty little things, the bullshit movies, even the fucking roads. And this whinging, rich, privileged princess – whoever the fuck she was, pop star, model, actress, what-the-fuck-ever – represented at this very moment the whole stinking city.
Saying ‘I’m famous’ was not the smartest move ever.
Heather opened the door and dragged the princess out by her blonde hair, throwing her to the ground. The bitch lay on her back, staring up at Heather, who stood astride her, thumping the baseball bat against her open palm.
‘Take off your clothes,’ Heather commanded.
‘What?’
‘Why do dumb sluts like you always do that? I tell them to do something and they say “What?”
Take off your clothes. All of them. Let me see those famous tits of yours.’
As this scene unfolded, both women became aware of a group of young men appear from round the corner, six of them, holding back, watching. Baseball caps, shades, menacing scowls. They didn’t look like they were on their way home from Sunday School.
Sobbing and sniffing, the blonde took off her clothes, hesitating before removing her bra, until Heather pointed the knife at her and said, ‘Do you want me to cut that thing off?’
Heather swallowed. Fake tits. Still hot, though, not as hot as Angelica.
‘Lie on your front,’ she said.
The woman obeyed.
Aware of the men watching from the corner, Heather crouched beside the princess and grabbed her by the calf, holding her down. Using her new knife, she sliced through her Achilles tendons, first the left, then the right.
The famous princess screamed.
Heather stepped over her and climbed into the Porsche. The keys were in the ignition. Good. She looked out at the blonde, rolling around in a pool of her own blood. The men were coming closer now, like hyenas waiting for the lion to leave the zebra for dead.
‘Have fun,’ Heather called out the window, and the roar of the engine drowned out the woman’s screams.
She drove through the city, feeling a little better.
The Porsche was exactly like the car Cindy had driven, the one that Heather had coveted for so long. Angelica had favoured Cindy, even though Heather had been her best friend back when they were kids. When the playground bullies picked on Angelica, it had been Heather who came to her rescue. All through her long recovery after the illness that killed her parents, Heather had been there for her. She’d have gone on being there for her, but after school Angelica left town to start a new, secret, Heather-free life. Unable to face being in Sagebrush without her, Heather had joined the Marine Corps Women’s Reserves. And she’d almost succeeded in forgetting her best friend, until two years ago, when Angelica showed up again. With plans. Plans that involved Heather, in a starring role, and the love she had felt all those years ago, that had been hiding dormant somewhere inside of her, bloomed like blood on a white sheet.
Angelica had first mentioned Sekhmet after the sickness that almost killed her. That was when the visions had begun. Heather would listen, enjoying the stories – thinking that was all they were. And, although she would never admit it, she still thought they were only stories. But what stories! And look what they had done, causing all this – she gazed out across the great city of deserted streets, smouldering embers, fires and sirens and the dead and dying. All this was real. Very real.
Now Cindy was dead. She had been weak, unlike Heather, who was a survivor. Soon, when there was nobody left, when all the men and all the beautiful women were gone, she would take her place beside Angelica. Then finally Angelica would see what she had been missing all these years.
She took out her phone, which had both a sliver of juice left and a sliver of signal, and called Angelica. The phone rang a dozen times, and Heather – who had lost all track of time – realised Angelica was probably asleep. She was about to hang up when she heard that honey-and-barbed-wire voice:
‘Hello?’
Angelica sounded so upset that Heather wanted to reach through the phone and embrace her. ‘What’s the matter?’
The answer came in a torrent that Heather struggled to make sense of: ‘It’s a test, Sister, that’s all. Sekhmet is testing me one final time before the End Times finish, to make sure I – we – are all worthy of her. We have to prove ourselves worthy of her. This is the last hurdle, I’m sure of it. She couldn’t just hand us the Golden Age on a plate, no, no, that wouldn’t be right, would it? The future of the entire civilisation of the world is at stake here, of course she’s going to push us to the brink, isn’t she?’
‘Yes, of course,’ Heather agreed, a frown deepening in her forehead. ‘What’s happened?’
‘Maddox has escaped.’
‘How the fuck did she get out?’
‘I’ve been asking the Goddess for answers, but she won’t answer. Maddox killed Brandi – knifed her in the back and left her dead in a ditch.’
For all that she had liked Brandi, Heather felt no emotion whatsoever at the news of her death. ‘Don’t worry,’ she soothed. ‘I’ll be back at the ranch by morning, and I’ll help you find Maddox – she won’t have got far. Stay calm, Dadi. Like you say, this is just a test. Everything’s going to plan.
Om Shanti
.’
‘
Om Shanti
, Sister Heather. Thank you. May the Goddess go with you.’
An hour later, Heather arrived at the prison gates.
‘Camilo Diaz? Well, ain’t he just the most popular guy on the block,’ said the voice on the intercom at the gate. ‘You’ve missed him. He got let out. Guess they need scientists at the moment.’
‘Did he go with a man called Paul?’ Heather asked, inwardly cursing the fucking gangbangers who’d screwed it all up for her.
‘I’m sorry, who are you?’ the crackly voice enquired.
‘Never mind,’ said Heather, crashing the car into reverse and executing a furious three-point turn.
She parked outside a deserted McDonald’s Drive-Thru and thought about what to do next. With no way of knowing where Diaz had been taken, her best course of action would be to head back to the ranch. At least there she could help Angelica and the others hunt down Maddox.
Then she would scalp her, gut her and leave what was left of her out for the birds. Make the bitch pay for this wasted trip. A few hours of torture would make her feel so much better.
The horse was huge. It was chestnut-coloured, with a distinctive white flash on its face, and stood around sixteen hands high. Kate had no chance of getting her foot anywhere near the stirrup that bumped against its fat middle. She’d nodded when Simone asked if she could ride, but she hadn’t been on a horse for twenty-five years at least. She remembered trotting around a paddock on a compliant piebald pony at the age of about ten rising up and down obediently in the saddle on the command of the instructor, calling ‘Walk on!’ in a shrill voice.