Free Blood Cult by Edwin Page Page B

Chrissie humming to herself in her room along the landing.
She was happily packing her Barbie pink case and hadn’t asked for my advice or
assistance even once. If only I could have been so decisive.
    Bob came up the stairs with a candle held before him, his left hand
cupped around it to shelter the flame as he moved. He stopped in the doorway
and looked down at the emptiness within my case. ‘Is this as far as you’ve
got?’ he asked as the candles I’d placed around the room stirred gently upon
his arrival.
    I nodded. ‘I haven’t any idea what to take.’
    ‘Whatever’s comfortable and warm.’
    ‘What about my dresses?’
    ‘We’re not going to a garden party, we’re heading into the mountains in
the hope of surviving this mess,’ he said with a touch of irritation.
    ‘“In the hope of”?’ I repeated, picking up on his turn of phrase.
    ‘Look, you really need to get this done. The longer we linger the more
chance there is of hitting trouble,’ he said, choosing to ignore my question.
‘It’s already dark out there and I want to leave for the dealership knowing
that when I get back we can simply load up and hit the road.’
    ‘What about your things?’
    He raised an eyebrow. ‘You know how long it takes me to pack,’ he stated.
    He was right. Whenever we went on holiday I’d spend hours trying to
choose what to take, selecting and then deselecting clothes as I pondered every
single choice. Bob, on the other hand, seemed to simply grab whatever came to
hand and throw it in his case with no rhyme or reason and was ready within
minutes.
    He stepped into the room and made his way to the other side of the bed.
Placing his candle next to one already position on the cabinet there, he
crouched and slid his black case from beneath. Throwing it onto the bed, he
opened it and then looked at me, a grin softly curling his lips. ‘How about a
race?’
    ‘You’ve got to be kidding. You’ll beat me hands down.’
    ‘You’re not even willing to give it your best shot? What happened to the
woman who used to race me to the spreading oak most every time we drove out to
Shelburne Bay, the same woman who would arm wrestle me for the last Big Cat?’
    ‘You mean the woman who beat you to the oak every time,’ I corrected with
a smile, remembering that Chrissie had been conceived beneath its wide
branches.
    ‘True,’ he conceded with a nod. ‘I should of known better than to
challenge the high school cross-country champion,’ grinned Bob. ‘Still, I made
up for it with the arm wrestling.’
    ‘Most of the time,’ I said with a chuckle, ‘though you always shared when
you won.’
    He nodded, his smile fading a little. ‘They were good times,’ he stated
with a melancholy tone.
    ‘Do you think we’ll have anymore?’ I asked softly.
    ‘Good times?’ he replied, looking at me over the bed.
    I nodded.
    The hesitation before he gave his answer said it all.
    ‘Of course,’ he stated, forcing a smile. ‘We should pack,’ he added,
wanting to move the subject on and unable to hold my gaze.
    Bob moved to the chest of drawers by the door and took his underwear from
the lowest. I watched him step back over to the bed and place them into his
case. My thoughts turned to Chrissie. What glory days would she have to talk
about when she reached our age? Would she even reach our age?
    ‘Come on, Leah, we really need to get ready,’ he said with a nod to my
case.
    I blinked and shook my head, pushing away the dark thoughts, though they
remained on the horizon of my mind, lingering there like the clouds that had
gathered above the house.
    Within ten minutes Bob was shutting his case. ‘There,’ he stated. ‘I’ll
go down and check the car.’
    ‘Okay,’ I replied, my case half-full.
    He glanced at the wardrobe and then walked around the foot of the bed.
Reaching up, he took down the black carryall that was stowed on the shelf above
the hanging rails. ‘This’ll come in handy. We can put a few vital