The Dysasters

by P. C. Cast

  The parking lot, Tate’s stadium—those were nothing in comparison.

  The tidy neighborhood flanking the high school had been destroyed—a bomb exploding in the middle of nowhere America.

  And the people. The people crawling out of the wreckage and stumbling broken, bleeding and mute looked like zombies, more dead than alive.

  Foster turned away, rocked by a wave of sickness and pity. Her eyes found Tate’s bleeding leg. She glanced up at his achromatic features, his expression slack with shock and eyes glazed with horror. Slowly, as if moving through mud, Tate lifted his shaky, bloody hand, reaching for the door latch.

  She cleared her throat and threw the truck into first. “We’ll clean up that cut as soon as we get to the motel,” Foster said as the vehicle lurched forward, though she was barely able to press on the gas through the wild shaking of her legs.

  “No, we have to stop. We have to help these people,” Tate said hoarsely, leaving behind bloody fingerprints as he gripped the dashboard.

  “We would if we could, but we can’t.” To keep her hands from shaking as badly as her legs, Foster squeezed the steering wheel so hard her palms ached. “Listen. I can hear sirens. Help is coming. They’ll be fine,” she lied, averting her eyes from the survivors tripping over the wreckage like broken automatons.

  “But this is my town.” Tate’s voice was so raw with pain that it made Foster wince. “It’s all I’ve ever known.”

  Now they were both homeless.

  But she didn’t stop. She didn’t even pause. She just kept driving. One thing at a time. One thing at a time. Foster guided the truck down the road, barely able to breathe as toys and clothes and memories became nothing more than speed bumps beneath the heavy tires.

  “These are my people. I’ve known them my whole life.”

  Still unable to control her shaking, the truck nearly slammed to a complete stop as she pulled into the motel parking lot. “Yeah, I get it, but—”

  “Where did you grow up?”

  The truck rocked as she ran over a stray piece of debris and guided it into a space a few yards away from her room. “San Francisco originally, then Portland, but Cora and I have been a little bit of everywhere since…” she trailed off, her chest aching with grief. She didn’t want to talk about her past. Not with Tate. Not with anyone. All she could do was keep charging forward. If she stopped for too long and found that one moment of stillness, her heart might just break into so many pieces she’d never be able to pick them all up.

  “Then you don’t get it,” Tate continued. “I see these people almost every day. The same people. Every day. I couldn’t save my parents, but I can do something for them. They’re all I have left of my life with Mom and Dad.”

  Foster put the truck in park, and turned to face him. “Look, I really do get it. We both lost people, but—”

  “Stop saying that!” Tate shouted over the wind now nudging the pickup from side to side with harsh bursts. “You don’t get it at all!” Tate’s fist hit the dashboard with a loud thump. “That lady back on the field, she wasn’t your mom. My mom and dad are dead. You lost a road-trip buddy.”

  Foster stiffened, her spine straightening like an enraged cobra seconds before delivering a poisonous strike. “Look, Douchehawk, let’s get something straight right now. You do not know me. You do not know what I’ve been through. And you do not have the right to ever talk about my Cora.”

  “When I first met you I thought you were pretty. You know what I think about you now? I think—”

  Foster held up her hand. “I do not give one solitary shit about what you think. And besides that…” Her tirade trailed away as thunderous pounding broke through the torrential rain and her pissed-off-ness, pulling her attention from Tate. The wind calmed, gently whistling through the loose window seals as Foster peered at the motel in front of them where three horribly familiar men moved from one room to another, banging on the cheap, dingy doors.

  “Get down!” she hissed, nearly tackling Tate onto the bench seat.

  “Shit!” she whispered, her face way too close to his. “How in the hell did they know Cora and I were here?”

  Tate’s forehead crinkled in annoyance as his blue eyes met hers. “Probably because this is the only hotel in town.”

  “Seriously? God this town sucks.” Foster scowled. “And that is not a hotel. It’s a motel. Now keep your voice and your big head down.”

  Tate frowned. “My head isn’t big. Or at least not that big,” he whispered back. “Who are we hiding from?”

  Foster grimaced. “Them,” she peeked above the dash. “Matthew, Mark, and Luke.”

  4

  MARK

  “Father isn’t going to like this.” Mark muttered the words more to himself than to the two men striding at his side. But, as usual, Matthew, who always seemed to hear every damn thing, answered—even though Mark hadn’t asked a question.

  “It’ll be fine. The girl has to be here. Eve said she saw her drive away in a red truck with the boy after Cora died. This is the only place she and Cora could’ve been staying. We’ll just knock on all the doors until we find them, and then we’ll grab ’em,” Matthew said.

  “It’s not fine,” Luke ran his hands nervously through his strange white hair, causing sparks to sizzle and crack dangerously in the air surrounding him. “Those fucking kids screwed up everything. We should’ve moved the second we spotted Cora and Foster, and since we didn’t every damned news station in the Midwest is going to be reporting this newest disaster.”

  “Calm down, Luke. Lighting shit on fire isn’t a smart idea right now,” Mark told his brother as he took a step back, out of range of Luke’s sparks. “Drink this and cool down.” Automatically he reached into the travel pack he carried slung across his shoulders and pulled out a bottle of Gatorade, tossing it to Luke. He brushed his long, dark hair back from his face, enjoying the slick, damp feel of it. Water—anything that’s flooded with water feels good. Then he shook himself mentally and took in both men with one gaze. “What happened couldn’t be helped,” Mark said sternly.

  “That’s bullshit! We should’ve grabbed Foster right away and taken Tate after the game,” Luke insisted before he upended the Gatorade and chugged it in one long gulp.

  “No. Like Eve said. And Father told us. Wait until Tate and Foster meet. To see what happened. Then take them if they manifest their element.” As usual, Matthew’s speech got choppy as he became emotional. “I called the tornado like Father said. I didn’t know those two kids would mess it up. Be so powerful!” The air around him swirled, lifting his shaggy, nondescript hair, and his arms begin to flicker in and out of sight, like he was part of a cheap cartoon that had only been half drawn.

  Mark stopped and faced the two men he called brothers. He drew a deep breath, aware that he was standing in a pool of water that had nothing to do with the storm that raged behind them. God, I hate it when Eve leaves me in charge of these two. I swear, someday I’m going to fucking leave. Just walk away. Disappear. Be by myself. Live a normal life. Just the thought of it calmed him, and his footprints immediately dried. “Settle down. Both of you. Control your elements.” He skewered Matthew with his dark gaze. “Air has already screwed enough up today.”

  “But I didn’t—”

  “We know.” Mark silenced him. “It was the kids. But now this is all you.” Mark gestured around them at the wailing wind.

  “Okay, okay. You’re right. I’ve got this. I can do this.” Matthew closed his eyes, obviously concentrating, and rubbed his arms as if he was cold. Slowly, the roiling clouds and the gusting wind began to dissipate—in time with the color reappearing in his arms.

  “And you get a handle on your temper,” he told Luke. “The last thing we need is a fire to draw attention away from that mess,” Mark jerked his chin in the direction of the distant stadium. “To this mess. Plus, we don’t have time to hook you up to an IV. So, handle yourself, Fire.”

  Luke grunted at him, but he also dr
ew several deep, calming breaths and the sparks that shimmered around his every movement faded into nothingness.

  “All right. Let’s start knocking on doors,” Mark said.

  “What are we gonna do when we find them?” Matthew asked.

  Mark blew out a long, frustrated breath. “What we were sent here to do. We’re going to tell them they have to come with us.” He raised his fist and pounded on the first door.

  “Who are you and what do you want?” came a reedy old woman’s voice from inside the room.

  “Sorry, ma’am. I’m just looking for my daughter. She’s only fourteen, but she looks twenty-one, if you know what I mean. I think she’s here with some scumbag boy.”

  “Not in this room she ain’t! Go on—get!” the old woman shouted. “And take better care of your home business. Women only go bad when men act like fools!”

  Mark ignored her as he and his brothers moved to the next door.

  “What if they won’t?” Luke said.

  “Won’t what?” Mark knocked on the next door.

  Luke shot him an annoyed look. “Won’t go with us.”

  The door opened, but only as wide as the cheap chain would allow. “What?” a man’s deep voice bellowed from the crack.

  “Sorry, sir. I’m looking for my daughter. She’s a runaway,” Mark said.

  The man slammed the door in Mark’s face. Maintaining a tenuous hold on his temper, he moved on to the next room, saying, “They’re kids. Barely eighteen. We’re adults—older and smarter than them. We do what Eve said, tell Foster her adoptive father is alive, needs her, and sent us to get her. She’ll come with us. And Tate’s a teenage boy. He’ll chase along after Foster. It’s just not that damn difficult.” Mark spoke grimly, moving to the next crappy-looking door.

  “Yeah, I would’ve said the same thing before they caused a town to be leveled,” Luke said. “I’m thinking it might not be so easy to get them to do what we want them to do now.”

  Mark shook his head. “They don’t know how to do any of that. Not really. What happened back there was an accident—an accident we set into motion for them. Period.” He knocked and waited. Nothing. He knocked again. Still nothing. “Okay, room twelve is empty. Remember that. We mighta beat her here. That storm’s a lot to drive through, especially for a kid.” They moved to the next door. “And we have to remember they’re scared. They have no real idea about what’s happening. As far as we know they think those tornadoes were after them. And that’s good for us. They need us to teach them how to control their powers. Until then they’re a danger to themselves as well as others.”

  “Yeah, but air would never hurt them. I can feel how tied to the element they are already.” Matthew’s voice was annoyingly whiney for a man of thirty-six.

  “Like they know that, genius?” Luke said sarcastically.

  As Mark lifted his hand to bang on the next door, Luke grabbed his shoulder, halting him.

  “What color did Eve say that pickup was?”

  Mark followed Luke’s gaze to the parking lot where it rested on a red Chevy pickup, empty, but idling in what had, just moments before, been a vacant space.

  “Red.”

  Matthew spoke at the same moment a girl’s head peeked up just over the dash of the truck. Mark felt a rush of relief as he immediately recognized Foster’s mop of bright auburn hair.

  “That’s her. Follow me, but smile. Let me do the talking.” Mark glanced surreptitiously around. No one else was in the parking lot. Everyone seemed to either be rushing toward the stadium or hiding inside, but he didn’t want to take any more chances. He concentrated for a moment, gathering himself, listening to the wet, wonderful sound of the blood pumping through his body. He followed that sound—that exquisite feeling—and drew his element to him. “Make it rain,” Mark whispered.

  The familiar thrill washed through him. It didn’t matter how often it happened. Calling the power of his element always filled him with a heady rush of pleasure. Rain began to fall from the gray sky. Mark loved it. Loved how it slid seductively against his skin, caressing him, completing him. It didn’t matter that immediately the darkness just beyond the edges of his vision quivered and throbbed, shivered and writhed with the murky things that haunted his power, his life, his waking dreams. The Frill. The creatures that came whenever he called his element, water. The Frill waited at the edge of his eyesight, always present, always lurking.

  If Eve were here she would remind him sternly that they were hallucinations—that the only way they could hurt him was if he allowed them to drive him completely mad.

  But Eve didn’t know everything, and one of the things she didn’t know was a fact that had lodged itself deep within Mark’s troubled mind.

  Someday the Frill, with their fluid, bendable bodies and their impossibly large mouths and flat, serrated razor teeth, would swarm and he wouldn’t be able to stop them.

  Someday the Frill would devour him alive.

  “They aren’t real.” The heat of Luke’s hand on his shoulder brought Mark back to himself.

  Someday the Frill would engulf him, swarm him, destroy him, but that day was not today.

  “Like I said, follow me.” Striding through the rain he’d summoned, Mark headed to the truck. He grinned and waved his arm as the girl’s head disappeared beneath the dash again. “Lacy Ann! It’s Daddy! Girl, your uncles and me, we’ve been worried sick ’bout you!” Mark added a country twang to his voice. “That dang tornado was a doozy, weren’t it?”

  He was only a few feet from the truck when Foster’s head popped up again—along with the boy, Tate, beside her in the passenger’s seat. Mark was in the middle of another big wave, pretending to have to wipe away the rain from his face, as if he couldn’t see her clearly, when Foster ground the truck into reverse. The girl spun it backward and around—like the damn kid was a professional stunt driver—throwing gravel all over them, she roared the Chevy onto the road.

  “Goddamnit!” Mark swore and sprinted for the Range Rover they’d parked on the other side of the lot—with Matthew and Luke running after him.

  5

  FOSTER

  “What the hell was that about?” Tate chided. “Those guys might’ve needed our help.”

  “What makes you think that? The way they were beating on every motel-room door and didn’t stop until they saw me? Or maybe the way they’re chasing after us?”

  “They could’ve been looking for survivors or … I don’t know…” Tate scrubbed his hand down his cheek, adding blood to the streaks of dirt. “Didn’t that guy think you were his daughter? He’s probably just a dad worried because of the tornadoes. Why are you going so fast? If Sheriff Jamison—”

  “Jesus! Shut up! That guy you think is a sweet, innocent dad and the two creeps with him are following us. I recognize them. They aren’t good guys. That’s why I’m going so fast.”

  Tate groaned and grabbed his leg as he turned to look out the back window. Foster made a mental note: Remember, Douchehawk is hurt. Sadly, she was going to have to stop and get some bandages and something to clean the wound with. God, Cora, he’s a pain in the ass already.

  “Hey, you’re right. That’s them in the black Range Rover, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “They’re getting closer. You know that thing can outrun this old Chevy, don’t you?”

  The Chevy’s tires squealed as Foster dodged around a fallen tree blocking part of the road.

  “Whoa! Careful! You’re gonna get us killed!” Tate told her as he hastily rebuckled his seat belt.

  “Just shut up and let me drive,” Foster snapped at him as her mind whirred. She glanced in her rearview mirror in time to see the Ranger Rover easily navigate around the tree.

  “I’ll shut up if you tell me your plan and who those men are,” Tate said.

  “I don’t have a plan, and all I know about those men is that they’re bad. Cora knows everything else.” Sweat slicked Foster’s palms as she gripped the steering wheel. H
er leg ached from keeping the gas pedal pressed against the floor—and still the Range Rover gained on them.

  “Cora’s dead.”

  “I’m aware of that.” Foster ground her teeth together and didn’t take her eyes off the road. This guy is why I hate people. They’re just plain stupid.

  “So, since she’s dead, how are you going to know what those guys want and—”

  “Tate! Shut. The. Fuck. Up! I only know they want us, they’re dangerous, and Cora told me we needed to run from them. And that’s what we’re doing—running. God! I wish one of those tornadoes would fall down from the sky and blow them away from us!”

  Except for the rattling of the windows and the sound of the overtaxed engine, uncomfortable silence once again unfurled within the cab of the truck. But she could feel Tate staring at her. Feel it almost as if he was touching her … running a hand along her skin … making her breath deepen and her blood sizzle through her veins as warmth flushed across her body.

  “Do you feel that?”

  Tate’s voice made her jump. “Feel what?” she asked.

  Tate shivered like a horse knocking off flies. “That sensation all over my skin. It started as soon as you said you wished a tornado would—”

  The roar of a descending funnel cloud cut off Tate’s words. Foster’s eyes felt cemented to the scene unfolding in her rearview mirror. A stone gray tornado touched down behind them—neatly cutting off the path of the Range Rover, and anyone else who had the bad luck to be following.

  “Thank you,” Foster whispered automatically, immediately feeling foolish for doing so.