by Tom Larcombe
“I suggest you start running,” Rynn said.
“Wha... what?”
“Run. Not on the road though, you're not getting near any of those vehicles. I want to see you running across that field. You've got ten seconds before I see if your rifle has any stopping power.”
The man glanced around at his companions again, gulped and started off in a shambling run.
“Keep an eye on the others and get their guns, take them over to the car,” Rynn told Cindy.
She kept an eye on the runner until she was sure he was far enough away to not be a problem. Then she started checking on the kids.
Andi was off on the side of the road, throwing up. Cindy had taken the guns and put them on the front seat of the car. The younger boys had the car between them and their attackers, and Eugene was lying motionless in the road. She went over and checked him. He was breathing and his pulse was strong, but he was out cold.
“So, who was it that yelled and made them drop their weapons?” she asked.
Cindy shook her head. Randall came out from behind the car and pointed.
“It was Eugene. I saw him moving his mouth. The sound came from everywhere though.”
No wonder he's out cold if he did that.
“Are you sure?” Rynn asked.
“I didn't see anyone else talking right then, I'm sure it was him.”
Rynn looked at the man with his limbs encased in the asphalt. She was positive Andi had done that to him, but didn't know any way to release him without melting the asphalt and burning the man.
I guess he can wait until Andi's in good enough shape to release him.
She checked on the man whose gun had exploded next. He was still unconscious and his breathing was thready. There wasn't much she could do for him, even if she was willing.
Her eyes moved to the man-shaped charcoal briquette. She felt the gorge rising in her throat and rushed over to the side of the road near Andi.
Several minutes later she stood up. Andi was next to her, waiting. Her eyes were dull and she looked frightened.
“I killed him, didn't I?” she asked.
“No, he's just trapped in the asphalt. If you let him go I'll run him off like I did the other one, in the opposite direction this time.”
“Not him. The other one. He was going to shoot you so I grabbed a bunch of rocks and dirt with my power and jammed them in his rifle barrel. I didn't know it would explode like that.”
“Then thank you, that might have saved my life. He isn't dead though, or he wasn't a few minutes ago.”
Andi's eyes brightened and she sighed in relief.
“Well, should we get the other one out of the road then?” she asked.
“Not yet, I need to look at Eugene. I don't know what's wrong with him, unless he used too much power when he made them drop their guns.”
“That was Eugene?”
“According to Randall it was. I didn't see it happen, but I don't know why else he would have dropped like a puppet with its strings cut unless he used too much power. I didn't see him get hit or anything.”
Rynn went to Eugene, he was still breathing and had a strong pulse. He was also still unconscious.
“Cindy? Would you take a look at Eugene, see if you can find out why he's out cold?” she asked.
Cindy nodded. She screwed up her face, bit her lower lip, and her eyes took on a distant look.
A few moments later she verified Rynn's suspicions.
“He's fine physically, maybe a few scrapes from when he fell, but his energy level is... Well, let's just say if he had a fuel gauge like the car's, his needle might be even lower. He can probably sleep it off over a few days, he's just not going to wake up until he has a lot more energy than he does right now.”
“Well crap, anyone know if he can instinctively draw power from a crystal?” Rynn asked.
They other students looked confused.
“I'll take that as a no then. Cindy, can you channel some of my power to him? Like we did with Todd, just replace his power instead of physical healing?”
“I don't know, I can try. They didn't cover that in class.”
“Let's try then. Start out by trying to push the tiniest amount of power towards what he has left. We don't want to hurt him by hitting him with a large burst of it, in case he can't take it in,” Rynn said.
She sat down on the concrete next to Eugene. Cindy sat next to her and placed her hand on the exposed skin of Eugene's arm. Rynn waited until Cindy's eyes grew distant and then sent a tiny portion of her consciousness to join Cindy's.
Rynn felt a light drain on her power. It slowly grew until there was a sudden surge of power rushing out of her. She reached over with her arm and pulled Cindy away from Eugene before drawing her consciousness away from Cindy's.
Cindy sagged in her arms, panting. Her eyes were wide and dilated. They blinked as the bright sun struck them, but her pupils wouldn't contract as normal. Rynn shaded her from the sun until Cindy brought her arm up to block the sun.
“That was a rush... almost orgasmic,” Cindy said.
“Really now?” Rynn asked.
Cindy realized what she'd said and blushed, then turned her face away from Rynn.
“Hey, he's moving,” Cindy said.
Rynn released Cindy and stood up. She offered a hand to Eugene. The boy was shaking his head and looked as though he were trying to wake up after too little sleep. He took Rynn's hand and she pulled him to his feet.
“So,” she said, “is that why you don't normally talk?”
Eugene nodded his head, shamefaced.
“It's nothing to be ashamed of, that's an incredible talent.”
Eugene fumbled in his pocket and drew out his notebook. His writing was shaky but still legible.
'Not when I can't control it. I don't speak because it happens when I don't want it to, it just slips out. That's why I panicked when you asked me to do a siren back in the city. That's what they call people with this talent, a Siren. I thought you knew and just hadn't said anything about it.'
“Well then, once we're safe we'll just have to teach you to control that talent. You know, if that's the only reason you don't speak I can think of at least one way around it.”
'What?' he wrote.
“You have quite the skill with audible illusions; the alarms, the police sirens. Have you ever tried to make one of a voice speaking the words you want to say? You won't be having any long conversations since it would be too tiring, but you could speak that way, after a fashion.”
He blinked at her several times, then broke into a grin. He wrote quickly.
'No, I haven't, but I will. I'm sure I can do that.'
“Rynn, is he okay?” Andi asked.
“I think so, he's just going to be low on energy for a bit. He nearly drained himself.”
Andi turned to Eugene.
“Why'd you do that? You could've hurt yourself, even killed yourself.”
The reply came from mid-air. The voice sounded like a gentler version of the one that had boomed out the commands in the fight.
“Andi...”
Andi blinked, twice.
“Eugene, is that you?”
He nodded.
“Eugene, try to get the sound to originate near your mouth, maybe move your lips as though you were saying the words,” Rynn said
“Why did you do it? I don't want you to hurt yourself,” Andi said.
Eugene's lips moved and this time, the sound came from near his face.
“Couldn't let him...”
Eugene's hand went to his stomach and then slid up.
Andi took a sharp breath.
“Because he was trying to grope me?” she said.
Eugene nodded and dropped his gaze to the asphalt. Andi boldly stepped in front of him so he was looking at her lower body. Her hand went out and drew his face back up. She leaned in and kissed him, hard. Rynn could see one of Eugene's eyes and it looked as though he'd been poleaxed.
And
i drew back.
“Thank you,” she said.
Eugene stood there staring at her, dumbfounded.
Rynn stepped in.
“Let's go release our other conscious prisoner, shall we Andi?”
She drew Andi over to where the man was still trapped in the asphalt.
“What did you do to him anyhow? I could only have done that by melting the asphalt, but he doesn't look burned at all.”
“Part of what they make road asphalt out of is a liquid. It's called bitumen. I just kind of reminded it of that and concentrated the liquid portion beneath him. Then after he sank in I reminded it that it was supposed to be asphalt. I don't really know how else to explain it,” Andi said.
“Well however you did it, I'm impressed. Can you let him out?”
“Sure, give me a minute.”
Rynn hefted the rifle again and pointed it at the man. She waited a minute and then saw the asphalt turn into a thick, black liquid that pulled back, leaving the man's hands and legs free. He was slow to move so Rynn pushed him over with her foot. The man stared, entranced, as the asphalt flowed back into the hole and solidified.
Andi took in a deep breath. Rynn made sure she was steady on her feet, then turned back to the would be raider.
“You, on your feet,” Rynn said.
The man looked up, fear written on his face.
“Get up. See the field across the road? If you aren't in it and moving away from the road by the count of ten I'm going to test this rifle out on you. One... Two...”
The man staggered to his feet and started moving across the road.
His legs might be asleep from being trapped in that position, Rynn thought. I'll count slowly.
By the time she reached ten, the man was in the field and breaking into stumbling run. She watched until he was well out in the field before lowering the rifle.
* * *
Rynn looked around, trying to find all her charges. Cindy was sitting on the ground, leaning against the car. Eugene sat beside her, a gobsmacked look still on his face. His face was also split by the widest grin she'd ever seen him with.
Andi stood beside her still, breathing deeply, in and out.
“Are you okay?” Rynn asked.
“Just a little tired.”
Rynn continued to look, searching for Randall and Sean. She found Randall rummaging through the pockets of the man whose gun had exploded. She didn't see Sean anywhere.
She walked towards the back of the car to see if he was still behind it, but on the way her ears caught the sound of quiet sobs. She followed them to the back seat and found Sean, curled up in a ball on the back seat, crying.
“Oh Sean, are you okay?” she asked.
Sean turned his head to look at her and then tucked himself back in a ball. His sobs grew louder.
Rynn slid onto the seat and looked him over. He didn't appear to be hurt at all. She shifted over so she was in contact with him. Sean re-positioned himself so his head was in her lap. He spoke through his sobs.
“I... I couldn't do anything and I don't... don't want to look at what's out there.”
“It's okay,” Rynn said, stroking his hair. She half-twisted and put her other arm around him.
“I don't like to look at what's out there either. I hate doing things like that. But they would've done worse to us.”
Sean's sobs grew even louder.
“I don't want things to be this way. I just want things to be normal,” he said.
“Well, if we get where we're trying to go, then things will be closer to normal,” she said.
Then she added in a softer voice, intended only for her own ears, “I hope.”
Rynn sat there holding him while he cried himself out. It took a while and Andi and Cindy stopped by to see what was going on. They turned around when they saw what was going on and Rynn was sure that Sean would be able to finish undisturbed.
Sean cried himself to sleep. Rynn extricated herself from underneath him, positioning him so he would be comfortable. Then she went outside again.
Randall was bouncing a plastic tube in his hand.
“Hey Rynn, that guy over there had a bunch of quarters in his pocket. Why would he do that?”
Rynn held her hand out and Randall gave her the tube. She opened it up and looked at the top quarter. It took her a moment to figure out what was different about it. When she did, she slid all of them into her hand and looked at their edges.
“They're silver,” she said. “Quarters made in the US before 1965 were made of 90 percent silver. Look at the edges, see how they're all silver colored? Newer ones show a copper color in there also.”
“That's cool,why did he have them?”
“Well, I guess he thought silver might still be worth something. The dollar sure isn't anymore. My dad gave me some of these also, they're in my pack, so he must have thought so too. You might want to hang onto them, in case they were both right. We should talk about you going through his pockets though.”
She put the quarters back in the tube and returned it to him.
“I was just checking to see if he had any more weapons. I saw that other guy pull a pistol on you after he dropped his rifle. Didn't want this one to wake up and do something like that. I didn't know what this was so I pulled it out of his pocket.”
“Oh, that was probably a good idea, but you shouldn't go through people's pockets.”
“Why not? They would've if it was us like that.”
“Yeah, but do you want to be like them?”
Randall stopped for a moment and thought.
“Should I put these back then?” he asked, tossing the tube into the air again.
Rynn was struck by a thought.
“No,” she said, “in general going through people's stuff is a bad idea, although in this case I think we probably should. If he has anything he might be able to trade for another gun I think we should remove it. I wish I had thought of that before I sent the other two running. I'd hate to think that they might get another gun and come back after us. We should probably get moving again.”
“Should I go check all of his pockets?” Randall asked.
Rynn sighed.
“Yes, go ahead, just this once.”
She looked around for the older students. They were all sitting against the front of the car with Eugene in the middle. He was holding hands with Andi and his grin was, if anything, even larger than before.
“I hate to break this up, but I need your help,” Rynn said.
Eugene and Andi dropped each others hands.
“What do you need?” Cindy asked.
“We need to get these cars and trucks out of the road. So we can keep moving and so anyone else that comes through doesn't run into them.”
“Wait,” Eugene said.
Rynn did a double take. It would take her a while to get used to Eugene talking.
“What?” she asked.
Eugene held up a single finger and darted towards the back of the car. He pulled out his pack and rummaged through it. He drew out what looked like a piece of aquarium hose and came back.
“Don't push them off yet, pull...”
He stopped and panted for a moment then pulled out his notebook.
'pull the car up alongside them. I might be able to get us more gas by siphoning,' he wrote.
“That's a good plan, do you know how to siphon?”
He gave her a thumbs up.
“I'm not going to ask where you learned that,” Rynn said. “Andi, start the car and drive it to whatever vehicle Eugene wants to siphon from.”
Rynn looked at Cindy and decided that she probably wasn't up to the next task. She walked over to the burnt corpse herself and, swallowing her bile, rolled it out of the road using her feet. Then she walked over to the man whose rifle had exploded. Randall was already done with him and there was a pile of stuff on the ground beside him. Wallet, keys, penknife, a lighter, and a bunch of other items. She rolled him over and over until he was off the r
oad. The keys she took, in case the truck key was on that ring, the rest of the stuff she kicked out of the road. When she looked up, Andi had the car near the pickup trucks. She walked down there to find Eugene siphoning gasoline into a gas can.
“Where'd you get the gas can?” she asked.
He jerked a thumb towards the bed of the truck. Andi leaned her head out the window.
“He told me that it would quicker siphoning into a container on the ground than trying to go from truck to car.”
Eugene nodded.
He managed to siphon several gallons out of each of the pickup trucks, but couldn't get his hose into the gas tanks on the police cars. The keys were in each of the vehicles. After a moment's thought Rynn decided that they probably did that in case they needed to make a quick getaway for some reason.
There was enough gas left in the trucks that they could start them and drive them off the road. The police cars were moved just as easily and in a matter of minutes after Eugene was done siphoning they were driving down the road again.
Rynn was hungry. It was past lunch time, but she wanted to give the kids some more time before they ate.
The farther away we get from what happened, the more likely they'll be able to eat, she thought.
* * *
Chapter 14
“Get in the Jeep,” Michael said, tossing the garage key to Jeff. “I'll lock the house up real quick and we'll go down and take a look.”
Michael locked the doors and closed the windows, then he grabbed his rifle and a couple of charged crystals. By the time he made it into the garage, Jeff was in the Jeep and buckled up. Michael jumped in and started the car.
He made record time down to Jeff's house. He saw Anne out in the field and heard her calling Liz so he ran out into the field.
“Any sign of her Anne?” he asked.
She shook her head worriedly.
“You want me to report it to the police? I can be over there in just a few minutes.”
“Would you?” she asked.
“Of course,” Michael replied. “I'll go report it and then come back and help look for her. Jeff said she normally doesn't go far, is there anything around here she might have gotten stuck in? Deep holes, culverts, that type of thing?”
“No, the field has lots of prairie dog holes, but I'd hear her if she hurt herself and called out. I've been all over the field already and there's no sign of her.”