by Alexa Dare
From where he knelt, he frowned at the nurse’s unmoving legs. “I don’t know. The stuff on top will tumble.”
“Try to help the nurse first. See what does and doesn’t work. You’ll have to work fast, Darcy Lynn has only a few minutes.” Nora’s mouth lined firm. “Try on the woman, then the girl.”
“I don’t want to hurt Nurse Weems.” Junior worried his lower lip.
One of the white shoes shifted. A muffled moan rose from under the pile.
“She’s a nice lady, always good to me.” He licked dust bits from his lips. The grime stuffed his nose like the camphor salve his aunt used to cure a cold.
“Should you save her, you’ll know what to do to help Darcy Lynn.” Nora angled looks over her shoulder. “If you can’t free the nurse, you can better choose how to go about helping your friend.”
“I might not be able to get either out.” A knot balled like overcooked chicken livers in his throat.
Nora gripped his upper arms. Gloves not cushioning the dig of her fingers, she shook Junior hard enough to clack his teeth together. Her faced scrunched into an ugly mask. “Try to get them out and do it now.”
He blinked hard, and his breath chugged.
“You can do this.” No warmth shone in Nora’s gaze. If only she truly thought he could and cared about him. She moved aside, going to the doorway to check the hall.
Drips of sweat plopped near his fingers as Junior spread his palms on the floor.
The rocks on top of the trapped woman’s knee shifted. Her foot pawed at the ground.
A muffled shrill scream rose from the chamber.
“We’re coming. Try to stay calm. Breathe slowly.” Nora said nothing to the trapped nurse.
Closed in. Like in the cellar. Only worse. Buried. Junior’s chest hitched and shaky breaths burned his throat.
Nora came back to crouch beside him. She opened her mouth to scold, but he clamped his eyes closed.
Shut it all out.
With toes curled within grainy gravel, with his mind, he reached.
Down. Down.
The ground beneath him moaned under the weight of boulders, earth, and heaped rock. This level was a threat to crumple and spill into the next level of tunnels below. He mind-moved under the woman and the chamber. Floor cracks zagged out from under the rubble.
He pushed his flattened hands and feet and reached out to connect with the earth. The splits beneath them pressed shut. The screech of grinding rock jarred his ears. Dirt smashed between granite. Cracks closed in gritty puffs.
Except for right under Nurse Weems.
Closing the seams might pinch or hurt her more.
He searched the broken slabs of rock over her. Went back to the floor beneath the woman. Sought out weak spots and faults. Metal beams, sagging in shrieks under the added weight, held the giant slab.
“Nurse will get hurt worse, but I can help both of them. I think...” His jaw ached. Not from his using his ability, but from the clench of his molars.
Nora’s pacing steps stopped. “Do it!”
He didn’t open his eyes. Instead, he reached his mind upward to the thick natural ceiling layer.
“Now,” yelled Nora.
Junior flinched.
“There’s not much time left.” Nora’s boot steps crunched.
Junior took in energy. He drew strength from all sides of the cavern. His joints ached, but since the collar tingled hot, he felt no pain. Breath tugged at his lungs. He focused on the area just below the trapped woman. “Sorry.”
He saw in his mind the floor hard and strong, except under the nurse, where he took energy away.
The cracks in those few feet widened. The cement, gravel, and steel bars unbound from one another. The rifts spread until the part where the woman lay turned brittle and dissipated into pieces.
Crumbles cracked the concrete. A four by four hole gaped. From below, thump. Crash.
The nurse’s body dropped out of sight.
“The chamber,” Nora said. “Look out, you’ll—”
Junior sent out an energy surge within the cement. The ground out to his side swayed.
Nora swung her arms, yelped, and backpedaled out into the tunnel. Thank goodness, the door slammed closed to shut the woman out.
Nora banged on the slab. Yelled.
Her words said and meant nothing.
Junior pitched the bottom room’s floor, one end higher than the other, which should roll the fallen nurse far from the hole. In the medical bay, he lifted the ground under the chamber. One of its ends raised. Rocks and dirt dumped into the fresh-made gap. A hump in the floor in the room below lumped high enough to keep the rubble from burying Nurse Weems. With a wish of luck and a loud crash, the pile collapsed into the floor below.
For the room he and Darcy Lynn were in, he shored up the ceiling to make it stronger. From overhead, the twist and press of stone groaned and shrieked. With a sigh, he let more of the room’s debris pour out the hole to the floor below.
The chamber holding Darcy Lynn tilted and slid toward the hole. The smudged glass kept him from seeing inside.
As he edged toward the rubble, his knees and elbows shook.
Rocks filled the opening near the machine. Stones and dirt sealed the space in a shaky rumble. The rim pulled into a jagged pucker around melded stone. The ground pressed tight, the machine tilted and bumped to a canted halt.
Breaths ramped toward sobs, he hung his head and freed the press of the frame against the room’s door.
It swung open, and Nora and four men and two other women rushed into the room.
None of them took notice of him.
Holding out her arms, Nora stopped. “The floor’s been shored up. Two of you go down to the level below to where Nurse Weems fell.”
The ones nearest the door went to check on the status of the nurse. Others hurried to Darcy Lynn’s chamber.
Hot shame at having to drop the woman through the floor burned Junior’s ears. If there had been any other way.
One of the men used his sleeve to swipe grime from the curved glass of the chamber.
Darcy Lynn, head lower than feet, slept in a slim bed. Only the flutter of her closed eyelids moved.
“Unconscious but alive,” said the soldier.
“Get it open.” Nora ordered them all around like the boss lady she was.
They pried the lid open, and Junior edged close. Once the lid opened with a shrill creak, Nora put an oxygen mask on Darcy Lynn. A swish of oxygen from the mask lifted her blond, red-stained curls. Together, the adults picked up the bed padding and placed her on the ground, close to where Junior had knelt.
Unsure of how to help or what to do, he backed away.
“I’ve got this,” Nora said. “Go help with the nurse. After a fall to the next floor, she may have broken bones or a head injury.” When the others left, Nora moved to the other side of Darcy Lynn.
Junior, barely letting out a breath, edged closer. “I didn’t mean to hurt them.”
“What you did to save your friend, you did well.”
“I just wanted to help.” By undoing what he hadn’t meant to do.
“Don’t blame yourself. The change in brainwave levels caused by the new collars isn’t smooth. If Brody were here, he might tweak them for us.”
“Is that why he wanted to take the collars off us?”
Nora’s eyes rounded to quarter size, and her brows rose.
“He never got a chance.” Junior went to his knees next to the unclean, blood-scented pallet. Easy like, he cupped Darcy Lynn’s petal-soft fingers. When her hand didn’t move, he croaked, “I couldn’t stop the bad men from taking her.”
The rattle of gravel on the floor matched the quiver in his belly and chest.
“Until you gain full control, you need to put on the protective suit. I know how much you hate it, but I can’t allow you to harm Darcy Lynn or the rest of us.” Nora’s face held the same hateful pinch that his Aunt’s used to.
“If I
have to, I will.” He clutched Darcy Lynn’s hand. “She’ll wake up, right?”
“I hope so, but I don’t know when.” Nora sighed.
The floor shifted. Nearby, the chamber’s broken lid jittered up and down.
“Junior, that’s enough. Put your boots on now. No contact with the ground means you won’t harm your friend by mistake.”
“I would never hurt her.” He dipped his chin.
“We’ll let you visit for a short time,” Nora’s smile didn’t show in her eyes, “should you wear the suit and not cause any more quakes. Here, hold the mask while I go get it.”
Junior bobbed his head. He leaned down and pressed the edges of the clear white cup to the little girl’s face. He snuffled but drew back at the feverish odor of her sickness. “You’ll wake up soon and will be just fine.”
Her lips stayed sort of pouty. Her lids twitched a little, but her eyes never opened.
“I got you a, uh, gift.” The dog was still tucked high up under his arm. “They said it might make us sick, but I’m fine. So...” He glanced at Nora, who pulled out the clear suit, hood, and boots from a cabinet. To Darcy Lynn, he whispered, “Brody’s brother meant for us to bring it to you.”
As if nestling a tiny robin egg, he placed the toy beneath her hand. No need to tell her that Cantrell got sick from trying to check on her folks when he went into the house.
“Like I said, you’re gonna get better,” he promised, “real soon.”
Chapter 8
Early evening, Nora flexed her fingers within soft brown leather. The ache to touch, to kill, burned as deep as Junior’s need to link to the earth. She shook her head and tried not to breath in the sweaty fumes that permeated the metal room. “I can’t believe the boy could be that stupid.”
“He is but ten years old, a mere child.” At his desk, Vincent sat in his office chair, facing her. Knuckles white, he gripped a side-flip sketchpad. “You are aware that what you are asking me to do has never been done.”
“Which disease did you draw for the people in the old house?” Nora stood just inside the doorway. The gaping door behind her edged against her back like no locked metal slab ever could.
“One much worse than the pox.” From around the sides of the pad, her son held four orange No. 2 pencils in one hand, three in the other.
Bound in a long-sleeved khaki shirt, in the muggy heat clung to her arms like two-sided tape. Air no longer circulated through the tunnels and underground rooms from the surface due to the cave-ins. “Don’t make me ask twenty questions. Tell me.” She held out an offering of a leftover banana-nut muffin. “The cook sent you this. She’s having to cook in time blocks because of the power issues.”
The sickly-sweet banana aroma of the unwrapped treat turned Nora’s stomach.
The sketches taped to the walls of the room taunted her with black and white gore, along with some bearing hints of red.
“The doctor took me out into the hills. We drove to a little house and parked along a graveled road. I drew the portrait by the light of the moon.”
Nora blew out a breath. “The virus?”
“Patience is not part of your nature.”
“Please, no more games.”
Vincent held out the hand that clutched a bunch of pencils. When he opened his hand, he clasped a pencil between the thumb and index finger of his right hand. The other six dropped. With foot high bounces, the pencils clacked, then rolled, on the metal floor.
He flapped the cover of the pad open and stabbed the page. “Their virus was one of boils and sores and fever and blood.”
“Those elderly people’s agony...” Nora let out a wavering sigh.
“I draw.” Her son angled the pencil, scowled, and sliced the point at a slant. The taunting glint of his eyes dulled. “It is what I do. Drawing is who I am.”
“No, Vincent, you are so much more.” Something inside her broke.
“People die because of my sketches.” He jabbed the pad and scribbled. The pencil tip popped, snapped off, and spun as if tossed. Paper ripped. “I am not more. I am merely death.”
“Such dramatic flair doesn’t suit you.” Nora tried not to wrinkle her nose at smell of graphite.
“Drama so adds an edge of fun.” Vincent tore away the top page. The sheet of paper floated down in looping swings. “Are the young boy and girl ill?”
“They’ve shown no signs yet. We’ve put the two of them apart from the staff. As well as the nurse, who remains in a coma. To create an anti-virus serum would take days.”
“The sketch of the house and the elders set the illness in motion.” He sighed and half-smiled.
Always, with her son, came regrets.
“Come with me, Vincent” she said. “You need to meet them.”
“You do not fear me when I leave my room?” He blinked heavy lids. “So many do.”
“You will turn the pencil and pad over to me.” How much danger did Nora bring to the others? A slither slinked up her spine. She glanced at the empty doorway. If only her son’s access to freedom didn’t haunt her.
“What has been set in motion cannot be undone. Hence, I shall have no need to draw.” His smile crooked to one side. “Meeting them may be quite pleasing.”
“Once you meet them...”
“Never have I undone a plague or swarm.” He shrugged. “Perhaps it isn’t possible.” He crossed his arms and jutted his chin in a stubborn lift toward the door.
“Meet them. That’s all I ask.” A clamp in her chest fixed Nora’s feet to the spot.
Finally, he stood and passed her his drawing tools. His bulk swayed from foot to foot. The hunch of his upper body and the dart of his gaze...
“You’ll be fine.” If only she believed her words.
“I look forward to meeting others like myself.” He eyed the pencil and pad. His arms lifted, then slumped to his sides. He took the banana-nut muffin from her to eat, and, no doubt, drop breadcrumbs along the way.
***
In a shadowy storage area, three beds lined one wall of an area sealed by clear plastic sheets. The stale warmth jolted Nora’s unease about the usefulness of the protective masks.
From over a stark white medical mask, her son scanned the sparse room and the patients. His intense, light blue eyes appeared to see everything and nothing at the same time. He tilted his head as if he studied some sort of specimens at a zoo.
Never had he been allowed to enjoy such simple activities.
Her skin pale, the seven-year-old slept as she lay in a bed near the rear wall. Junior sat with her. The second bed closer to the door, placed there for the boy, stood empty, while the third bore the unconscious nurse. White gauze wraps hid the woman’s red hair. Splints braced her lower right leg and left arm.
“Junior, this is my son. Vincent, this is Junior. As you can see, Darcy Lynn is resting.” Nora, barely inhaling, edged away from the beds.
“Why are you folks wearing masks? The toy dog didn’t make us sick.” A frown skewed the boy’s face. “All that’s wrong with Darcy Lynn is that she’s got mosquito bites on her forehead. She must be itching pretty badly, because she’s crying in her sleep.”
Nora’s breath faltered under the thick cover over her nose and mouth. She put up her hand to insist that her son stay on the far side of the room. He was too close to the bed as it was, a knot shifted under her ribs.
Purple smudges under the little girl’s eyes meant that her oxygen levels were still in the low range. While yellow-filled cystic acne covered one side of her forehead and reddish spots dotted her face and arms, bloody tears slid from under her closed lids. Her recently washed and dried hair, so flowery and clean, at the rim of her face and ears tinged pink.
As Nora edged closer, through the filter of the mask, an unclean whiff of sickness rose. “Stay back.”
In two long strides, Vincent loped farther into the room.
Nora stepped in front of her son. “You mustn’t get too close.”
“She lies so fragil
e.” The mask he wore rasped and amplified his exhales. His gaze held curiosity and a glint of out-right excitement as he rolled up onto his toes, then back onto the heels of his sneakers.
“She’s seven years old.” Junior hopped off the bed with a squeak of his suit. Chin raised, he stood between them and the young child.
“Junior came back to Briar Patch on his own to help his friend.” Nora moved closer to her son. As if she alone might save him from a virus. Ah, a mother’s love... “He got us inside to get her the help she needed.”
Junior toed his boot.
Vincent’s brows dipped. “He passed on the—”
“Toy.” Nora shot a look toward the beds. “Junior gave the furry stuffed dog to her.”
The toy rested under the girl’s hand. “He would not allow us to take it from her, and I didn’t want to risk more quakes.” Nora glanced at the too-real skin rash that spread along the little girl’s flesh.
Vincent’s eerie light blue eyes met Nora’s in a long, cryptic gaze. With a sigh, he sank native-style to the floor. Head tilted to one side, he eyed the kids as if they were bugs on a wall.
Unease glided down the nape of Nora’s neck.
“You caused the ground to shake?” Vincent asked Junior.
Junior said. “I didn’t mean to hurt nobody.”
“Cause and effect.” Her son zeroed his sad gaze on the boy.
“Huh?” Junior’s fisted gloves propped on his hips and widened his stance. Even the slightest movement squeaked the clear plastic of his protective suit that resembled a thick raincoat top and pants set that included see-through mittens and boots. “What is it you do?”
“I draw.” The sixteen-year-old held out his hands for the pad and pencil.
“Careful.” As if in slow motion, Nora gave him the tools of his trade. In a tight grip, she attempted to steady the unsteadiness of her hand.
Vincent placed the pad on one knee and held the pencil on the hand propped upon the other. Pale blue eyes set in a pallid face, he stared far away.
“You seem more yourself today,” Nora said, “but you know how you suffer after you sketch.”
“Not as of late.” He stretched his neck beneath an updated control collar of his own, slouched, and drew.