by Alexa Dare
Around them, like a dog ahold of an emptied-out feed gunnysack, the earth rumbled with a growl and a violent shake. Junior, teeth gritted, eased the shaking a bit, but stabs of pain sank deeper into his joints.
“You’re holding the tunnels in place somehow, aren’t you?”
“So far. Getting tired and real achy though.”
“Lead the way.” Nora eased her reining-in pull. “I’m grateful you’re keeping us safe down here.”
“What’s up there’s really bad.” So was what was building below. Down deep in the earth, layers of rock shifted against more big slabs of stone. Junior hunched and surged forward. As he crawled, his thumbs throbbed from using his power so badly they’d begun to draw in toward his hands. His aching toes curled tight.
Each inching crawl sent shards of pain up his legs.
The under-the-ground land around them thickened and became slippery as the floor dipped at a downward angle.
A yard or two later, the Nora lady squawked. Squelching, she slid close as she headed Junior’s way. Her body slammed into his thighs and rump.
The hit shoved him forward. He tipped face first and fell, planting his chin in oozing mud. To get away from the lady whose touch would kill, he lifted his head. His lower face sucked free of the soupy mud, and he pushed off. He pointed his chin along the slant of the muddy slope. In the slick space, he picked up speed as more water gathered.
When the chute dipped deeper into the earth, Junior barreled down the soppy slide until he rushed too fast. “Aaaaaahhhhhh.”
Nora yelled shrill.
“Gotta slow dddddooooowwwwwnnnn.” Junior pressed his feet against the mud. Hurt ramped from the blisters and scrapes, but he slid faster. Faster. Heading for a fall. “Some sort of drop-off cavern up ahead. Barn-sized. Can’t stop.” Mud pushed his toes and fingers apart and bulged to pile up beneath his neck. Heart banging in his throat, he pulled the energy of the mushy earth inward, as if the ground fit him like the finger of a glove.
Finally, he slowed, but not enough. He popped out the end of the shaft as if squirted from a squished peapod. Huddled into a ball, he fell through the darkness. He flipped head first, somersaulted , and his back hit the surface of water. Like a rock, he sank until his butt hit mud. Shoving upright, his feet squelched into the bottom of a tunnel, but his upper body burst out of the water.
With the bond of his feet bottoms to the ground, he closed off the chute.
Nora’s head popped out of the hole in the wall, which then closed around her, trapping her, so that only from her shoulders up stuck out into the main tunnel. When the hole tightened around her neck, her scream cut off. “What are you doing?”
“Besides keeping you from slamming headfirst into the muddy ground, I’ve holed you away where you can’t do any more harm.” Junior’s bond with the earth let him grasp that the mud-packed ground held her squeezed like toothpaste in a tube.
“Listen, you little ingrate.” The breath wheezed out of her.
“Don’t know what that means, but you sound mighty haughty for someone whose head’s sticking out of the wall like a trophy deer mount.” Junior grunted. “Besides, you ain’t gonna like what I got to say, so you’re fine where you can’t get close to me while I say my piece.”
“Say what you like. You’re a ten-year-old with powers that bring responsibility far beyond your years,” Nora said. “You need guidance, because I don’t think you realize what’s happening up there.”
“Bad things. The weather’s mucked up, and the earth’s all rumbly . Lots of people will get hurt. With the bad storms and what might happen after, folk’ll get sick and die off. I may be ten, but like Darcy Lynn says, ‘I’m not stupid.’”
“We caused this,” she said. “We have to correct the imbalance. I must reach Vincent before he gets out of hand.” Through the darkness, his night vision, maybe because of his power, sought out the woman as she wiggled her shoulders and bobbed her head up and down. “Free me, right now.”
“Why should I? You made us mess with the way things were.” Angry unshed tears burned Junior’s eyes. “You own son, Vincent, was locked away for a long time. Do you mean to shut him away again?”
“I didn’t lie, but merely tried to keep you safe. I want my son to have a normal life.”
“No. You. Don’t.” The words lodged like fist-sized granite stones in Junior’s throat. “You can’t use us or him if we’re all la-de-da safe or like regular kids. Either you’re lying or you’re as stupid as you think we kids are.”
Nora growled and wiggled in the squishy ooze. On its own, the edges of the gap pulled open, and her body shot out. With a lunge to the side, Junior dove out of the way. Splash, Nora dove into water that reached Junior’s mid-chest.
As he clung to a slippery rock wall, water sprayed, and Nora sputtered upright.
Something brushed Junior’s shirt back. The woman’s fingers?
Junior clutched the wall with throbbing knuckles. “You touch me, and I’ll bring it all down. There are tunnels beneath this one. I’ll open the floor, and we’ll fall until the zigzag of tunnels runs out, then the top’ll come down on top of us. Mess with me, and the whole hillside will collapse on top of you.”
“You are ungrateful and disrespectful,” Nora said. “Can’t you understand that what I did, I did for you?”
“No, ma’am. My Aunt Pearl taught me respect the hard way. She handed out punishment like a runaway crop of string beans. You ain’t earned my respect, and you’ve done nothing to grow, or even sow the seeds of, my admiration.”
The ground shook in tiny bursts. The water swished.
In the gloom, Nora’s harsh breathing echoed off the walls.
“What’s it going to be?” Junior faced toward where the earth shared that the woman stood.
“You can’t stop the quakes?”
“Part, maybe, but not all.” His belly ached… The break down below in the earth, so far out of reach, and far too severe for his powers to fix. A queasy dip settled in his belly.
“And the rest?” Nora’s voice pitched ear-jabbing high. “The wind, the rain and hail, the flash fires and burning? Can the others bring nature back into balance?”
“No, ma’am. We all tried. Nature’s greater than us kids.”
“What’s going on isn’t natural. There’s a disruption—” As if to agree , the wall quivered and more water smacked the walls, and Nora staggered to stay on her feet.
“Wasn’t me,” said Junior.
“Junior, we’re not safe here.”
“Nowhere is safe. Not anymore. Because of what you did.”
Water splashed. Not from the shaking of the earth, but from the woman easing toward him.
Junior plastered his front to the mud wall and dropped to his knees. Sloosh, he sank below the water’s surface. From the floor, he grabbed handfuls of soil. In a desperate spin, he whirled about and plunged upward. His outstretched hands shot up from the water. He smacked the cupped mud in Nora’s face.
She reared away and fell backwards in a loud splash.
“You gonna try to kill me?” Junior tugged in quick muddy sucks through his nose. The walls rocked, and waves rippled along them. The water sloshed from one side of the tunnel to the other as the earth raged. “Is that what you are? A mother that kills little kids?”
“Hunh.” Nora sputtered. “Junior, you’re right. That was stupid of me. Look, I need to find Vincent. With things going so wrong, I’m not thinking clearly.”
“You’re not fooling me anymore than you fool Vincent or that bad guy Yates.” Junior’s eyesight finally adjusted, as if being in the lightless place gave him sharp, clear night vision. Even better than before Nora entered the widened area of the tunnel.
In the dimness, Nora raked packed mud from her eye sockets. She stood dripping and mud-covered. Tossing handfuls aside, she snarled. The hate in her eyes scared him more than the whiteness of her exposed teeth.
Could she see as well as he was able to in the dark? B
ecause if she could, she’d see how wide his eyelids peeled open. “The Yates guy knew you lied about not telling him about his son.”
“You’re only ten. You know less than nothing.”
“This ten-year-old figured out Yates and Doc were in cahoots all those years ago. Stands to reason that he realized you kept Vincent a secret from him, or that he knew about him all along.”
“Shut up.”
“Vincent’s smart.” Junior swallowed mud-tinged spit and said, “So he gets that you would have had no use for him if he were a normal kid.”
“It wasn’t about using my son.”
“I reckon it was. Like you used Darcy Lynn to hurt your boss man and to tear down that big old place in Oak Ridge.”
“Don’t.”
“You’re not going to help Vincent. You’re going to get him to do what you want him to do.” Junior shoved his back to the wall and curled the tips of his fingers into the muck. “Aunt Pearl ill-used me awful bad at times, so I didn’t mind when your men took me. You promised better. The hope you fed me gave me a bellyache and made things a whole lot worse.”
“I didn’t intend—”
“No matter what you mean to do, I don’t intend to let you kill me. Or hurt me or the others. Ever again.”
“Junior, you are a child. There’s a great deal you don’t grasp.”
“I get that this has got to end.”
“Don’t you dare threaten me.”
“No threat, ma’am.” Junior pulled the earth’s power into him.
In groans, the ceiling sagged. The walls slumped inward. Sucking sounds squished through the wide passage space. Rotted and cracked tunnel-shoring timber creaked. Within the tunnel’s ceiling, stone scraped and scrubbed loud against other rock.
“Stop this. Please,” Nora, her voice thick, said. “We need to go back up top. My son and your friends are up there.”
With his mind, Junior reached toward the surface, through silt, rock, and ore.
“Don’t,” yelled Nora. Wrapped in gloom, Nora’s drawn face twisted into a creepy trick-or-treat mask.
The earth fought him, then released a massive force. “At times it just be’s that way.” Junior worked the earth as he promised. The ceiling and walls fell just as the floor beneath them ripped open. Water rushed downward like a waterfall in a gush that sucked Nora away. The ground beneath Junior’s feet split, and he plunged a long way down. His feet hit first. A pop jarred his lower right leg, and his ankle gave way. Agony exploded from foot to knee. “Ahhh.” Junior clenched his teeth. He huffed a sigh out his mouth and wiped mud from his lips. He clawed, then rubbed mud from his eyes. In big blinks, he cast a blurry glance through the black.
“Junior?” Nora called his name from two tunnel levels above.
He sucked in a mud-hazed breath and held it. No way would she get to him down here. Not breathing, he waited, and silent tears that washed more of the mud from his eyes.
The woman hadn’t fallen as far as him. She was farther below ground than when they started, but not as deep. After a short while, her calling out and yelling faded. With any luck, she would never find her way to the surface.
Junior let a slow breath out his nose, but he couldn’t breathe right because of clogged snot and mud. Open-mouthed, he cried in quiet sobs. His breath sputtered and chased flecks of mud out of his nostrils and more from inside his lips.
Tangy, chalky gunk stuck to the front of his teeth. Pain worse than any he’d known jolted through his lower leg.
Closed in. Trapped.
From above, water, then more mud, dumped over him. In no time at all, the earth overtook him.
Chapter 33
Unable to see, sometime during the night on Tuesday, Nora felt her way along the walls of the abandoned mining tunnel. The tug of the mud on her hands, the wet, slippery texture, closed in with a smothering quaking of the underground. The earthy tang nesting in her mouth rolled her stomach.
For a moment, she paused and rubbed the slightly gritty smoothness beneath her fingertips. The power of raw fragrant earth combined with the deadliness of her touch presented an unbeatable combo.
As the Children of the Elements’ powers spiked, so did hers.
On her way toward the surface, her lack of gloves gave her a welcome newfound freedom. A shiver chilled her spine as she, too much like a roach hiding within in the dark, rushed to get out of the tunnels. Under the panting of her breaths and the slosh of water, a sound echoed.
In waist-high water, Nora stood in place. She tilted her head to the side. Listened carefully. Nothing, and then…
Thrum, thrum. From far below, the faint beat of a heart.
Oh, yes, the boy’s heart pulsed in a gentle steady rhythm. Rather than going back toward the sound, Nora slogged onward, giving up on reaching the lower level where Junior fell. Her only choice was to wade in rising water in search of a way out so she might find her son.
To be able to hear the sound of the boy’s heart at such a distance… Ah, her power spiked far beyond what she might have ever hoped. Since the children weren’t the only ones to gain from the upgraded EMF collars, she did not doubt that soon, her ability would grow until nothing or no one could stop her.
Nora held her breath and strained to listen. Even as she left the child behind, the primal beat called to her.
The tingle along the tips of her fingers urged her to go back, to reach out. To feel the boy’s steady pulse. Upon her touch, the tremor of his heart, like the wings of a moth writhing to escape a cocoon, would flutter. Except the insect, due to her touch, would never leave its birth womb.
Excitement rushed her breath in ragged gasps. Oh, yes, to hold on to him until his last beat of life eased away.
Yet, instead of heading back, she forced herself to journey toward what she hoped was the surface, thus the farther she walked, the more Junior’s life force muted, until she no longer heard his drumming heartbeat.
The little pest delayed her. She skidded and slipped as she reeled to a halt.
Waylaid or saved?
Might she have endured the turmoil above? More than likely, she would have risked golf ball-sized hail, flash fires, or the wind ripping her to pieces.
What of her son and the crude drawing he made in blood on his palm?
Tired and thirsty, Nora let the water around her settle and cupped her hands. She sipped. A metallic tinge tainted the drink, yet the liquid helped her to go on. In the damp chill, she once again slid one hand along the tunnel side and swept her other arm before her.
A few more yards, and the strong rhythm of human hearts chased in and out of the range of her hearing. The steady beat, like jungle drums, guided her closer to the outside and to the chance to locate her son. With her ability to regulate hearts, it made sense that she might hear them with clarity at this point.
Dare she hope that her ability might manifest, rather than via touch, from a distance? As in hearts truly affected by the whim of her will alone?
The level of the passageway dipped as she angled upward, until the water tugged like iron chains at her ankles. Shivers jarred her head and jaw to click her teeth. A slight breeze chafed her cheeks. Rather than freshness, however, the whipping air carried the reek of charred flesh and coppery blood.
Face toward the airflow, several feet ahead, she squinted in a faint light. Its glow bared mud-brown and gray walls, and shoring timber.
Not looking back, Nora tripped over several feet of earthen mounds. Finally, she came to a partly blocked opening. With gasping pants, she scaled lumber and rocks. Turned aside from the outside glare, she climbed to the surface.
Up top, what used to have been Yates’s camp was gone. Sunken holes took in the remains of the cabins. Razed trunks stood where trees once stood whole. Wood twisted and ripped, and splintered shards covered the ground. Fist-sized chunks of hail filled some of the cracks in the earth. Water gushed from others. Mud slid down the slope in lava-like flows.
Awed by the sight, Nora stumbled in a
weak-kneed circle.
Smoke belched from slits in the ground. Debris burned in a spread of flash fires. Singed earth burned and fumed. The too-warm earth heated the soles of her boots. The forest shot hot and cold in short erratic spans.
Along the next ridge, three roaring funnels cut down all in their paths.
The mud from the slope gushed into the valley and gushed into a stream to seep out of the creek bank. Boulders filled the camp road.
Like a fox after prey, Nora faced the rubble. None of the dozens of failing beats she sensed around her was her son. She turned toward the thick of a still-standing forest and retraced her earlier path over the rugged ground where Junior had pulled her under.
It wasn’t long before she sensed two strong hearts drumming not far from her. A third beat, also strong, seemed to reach out.
“Vincent.” Like a sip of a fruity mint julep, a thrill jittered in Nora’s belly as she hiked into the woods.
A yard in front of her, a man’s lower arm and hand stuck out from the mud. Shriveled and singed black, the limb smoked, as if baked then flash-frozen.
She skirted around the gruesome appendage.
Clouds banked, thick. The gray hung lower and more menacing than before Junior pulled her below ground. A tremor gyrated beneath her feet, jolting toward the distant ridges. No doubt, delayed shocks or warning tremors of more to come. The slope filled with the smell of ozone and rain.
Although future storms brewed, the effects of the out-of-kilter nature eased.
In the lull, Nora homed in on Vincent’s steady slow pulse. Heading out, she either stepped over or circled past the fleshy gore of mangled body parts. A torso appeared, speared by the branch of a tree. Yards farther out, a head was staked to the ground by a limb through an eye socket.
Red smeared the forest floor.
She tuned out the squelch beneath her boots and focused on the even drum of her son’s pulse. Strangely, the thought of him lying lifeless in her arms calmed her. Their anguish, his and hers, would soon be over.
Finally.
Reality brought her to her knees. Her kneecaps banged the hardened scorched crust. Dampness soaked the lower legs of her khakis against the ground. Water? Blood?