by Alexa Dare
“Seems your smart little mouth got you what you deserve.” She slid the knife, as if slicing air, closer.
“Why do you want to hurt me?” Mouth breathing cut the odor. Which meant she sucked in the bad meat gag-worthy rot.
“Why would you toss me into the arms of hungry zombies?” asked Nora.
“Is that why you’re dead?” Hannah smirked.
“No thanks to you, the zombies didn’t get me.” The woman’s filmy dead eyes widened.
Hannah cringed. What if the eyeballs fell out? Onto her?
She whimpered and squirmed to get away.
Nora yanked Hannah’s hair, hard, only letting up when Hannah stilled. The milky gaze darted about. Her gaze zeroed in on Hannah’s face. Around a gurgling sigh, she said, “Vincent did this.”
As she stared not blinking, the dead woman scientist sniffed. Her skin strained with a sort of tight pull, yet loose sag, over her sunken face muscles. A black tuft of hair slid from her head, crawled down her cheek, and fell.
Hannah squealed and turned her head aside as if the tendril were a spider.
With a receded-gum grimace, Nora twisted her grip on Hannah’s ponytail. The woman placed the knife to the side on the floor. In frantic grabs, she touched her own frizzed hair with her other hand. Her fingers came away with brittle strands trapped between.
She wailed a witchy screech. “You and the others did this. Vincent would never have done this on his own. You turned my own son against me.”
“You taught him it was okay to kill people with disease. So you did this to yourself.” Hannah glared and aimed her chin at the thing. “You being trapped inside a stinky, rotting zombie body is pretty awesome.”
“Killing me, but leaving me aware is awe inspiring?”
The rainfall grew heavy.
“You expect rain to stop me?” Nora cackled.
The reveal of those yellow, too-big teeth sent a shudder down the middle of Hannah’s back.
“Hannah?” Darcy Lynn sat up and cupped her hands across her brow. Her wet blond hair soaked flat on her head. “Why are you raining?”
“Cover your head,” Hannah said.
The air chilled even more, and sleet stung.
“Did you forget that I’m dead?” Nora scowled, thankful her pressed lips hid her teeth.
Dime-sized ice pellets hit Nora, sliced her skin, and cut into her flesh. Slashes gaped open on her lower arms. Though no blood spilled, a slit opened along the curve of her cheek.
Hannah braced against the hail. From side to side, she rocked to free her arms. Sharp pain poked her wrists and elbows.
Darcy Lynn’s arms over her head muffled her shrill little girl shriek.
By her ponytail, Nora jerked Hannah’s head up.
Nora slashed the knife below Hannah’s hair. In quick jerks, she sawed the black strands.
“Stop.” Hannah kicked her feet. She was restrained at the ankles too.
The clamped hold on her hair kept her in place.
“Don’t.”
“What can you do to me, you little pest? I’m already dead.” Nora tossed the severed hair aside. She forced Hannah’s face toward her.
Hannah held her breath, shoving along the floor.
“Stop. Stop. Stop,” yelled Darcy Lynn.
Before the blade cut through all of Hannah’s hair, Nora ripped the next hunk of tresses away.
Scalp pain gushed, and Hannah screamed.
A wave of wind flooded between Nora and her.
The gust slid Hannah toward Darcy Lynn.
Whoosh, a harsh blast slammed the dead woman against the doorway wall. The limp body slid and pitched forward.
Thump, Nora plopped facedown and didn’t move.
Cold that came after her bond with water pimpled Hannah’s arms. Shivering, she scooted through tiny bits of ice to Darcy Lynn. Hands bound and wrists aching, she leaned against the little girl.
With deep sobs, Darcy Lynn buried her face against Hannah’s chest.
If only Hannah might truly shed a tear. Glad for the warmth, she rested her chin atop the crying girl’s head and inhaled sweaty fear.
A shower, with soap and shampoo, then the biggest glass of pulpy orange juice they could find. Then maybe a giant biscuit to make them and their tummies happy.
“Hush now.” Yanking at the binding on her wrists, she leaned close to Darcy Lynn.
Around sobs, the little girl mumbled and pressed tight to Hannah’s side. “I want Brody. He always fixes things.”
As Hannah calmed, the rainfall let up.
Indoor clouds sucked into the ceiling, and the haze inside the room retreated. With the end of the rainfall, her oneness with water had melted. In a blink, Hannah’s ability to rule water was gone.
Darcy Lynn whispered.
Hannah leaned down, strained to hear.
“The wind won’t play.” Darcy Lynn, her voice weak and far-off, asked, “Why won’t the wind play?”
With a rasping growl, the dead Nora raised her head.
Chapter 3
A glance down the length of the bridge of Nora’s nose showed the tip canted toward her jaw, rather than the middle of her chin. Snarling an irked growl, she placed her palms on each side of her outer nostrils. With a crack, the former head of a top-secret project, now zombie, snapped her nose back in place.
Sniff, sniff.
Fast-fading soap and shampoo. Singed hair. The sweet and sour of sweat. Aromas inhaled sharper, while the bland flavor in her mouth sat like cardboard soaked in salt.
A day after the storm overtook the heavens, in the tiny supply closet within drab, tannish gray walls, she faced two of the children to blame for her current, uh, state.
“Leave us alone,” said Darcy Lynn, the child capable of razing entire labs, as she had the R-19 facility in Oak Ridge, or whole towns, even massive swaths of forests. By moving her fingers and playing with the wind, the girl created ruin with massive tornadoes.
“I should have put a gag on you as well. Since I didn’t think of it, I must be brain dead.” Nora fought to capture her raucous laugh. ”Besides, you can’t harm me now.”
“Z-z-zombies don’t talk.” From beside the teen, the seven-year-old rounded her eyes and shook her head. “Zombies should never, ever, ever talk.”
“I speak. And think .” Her eyelids refused to blink, and an ache cramped Nora’s upper belly.
Hunger perhaps?
“The dampness will make you rot faster.” The raven-haired teen’s violet gaze glinted like shards of ice. “Besides, hail will cut you to shreds.”
Nora’s right leg, from the hit against the wall and fall to the floor, stuck out to the side so that the foot flopped and dragged rather than stepped. In an awkward gait, she approached the girls. “You think me hideous?”
Sniff, sniff.
Sweeter than burgers on a sesame seed roll, with swiss cheese and relish, the girl’s base odors wafted around her. “Bear in mind, snotty little miss, you could be looking in the mirror at your dead self?”
“She’s scaring me,” whined Darcy Lynn.
Their sour sweet aroma… A gurgle snaked through her intestines. A harsh wash of saliva swamped her tongue.
Quite odd.
The responses, when looked upon as a scientist—
“I am dead, yet I breathe.” Nora clumped her tilted leg and swung her body to take a step. “My body dies around me, yet I move. A virus…”
“Vincent did this to you. On purpose. And I don’t blame him.” The spiteful Hannah jutted out her chin and angled to shield Darcy Lynn behind her shoulder and back.
“My son loves me.”
“Of course he does. You’re his mama.” Darcy Lynn peered out from around the older girl’s arm.
“He said you called him a monster. If he is, that’s on you, and you’re the monster maker.” Hannah’s gaze showed a fierce anger, but no rain or hail fell. “He may love you, but how can he not hate you too?”
“I’ll make you pay.” Nora
ground her molars. Did her teeth wiggle a bit in their sockets? She inhaled a long breath. Burger. Cheese. Pickle. Relish. Ketchup? Mayo, too? What about mustard?
Nora gulped in a croaking swallow. How long since she’d eaten? Yet the change in her, um, appetite… “I would never.”
“Never what? Treat your son like a big, bad weapon?”
“Vincent tries to be good, but he scares me.” The girl’s blue-eyed gaze stared out from beneath Hannah’s blocking arm. “Real bad.”
Nora’s stomach squelched out a feed-me rumble. “The last time I ate was the melon that Junior grew in mere hours, rather than weeks. You children are special. You need guidance. Together, we can be great.”
Though she liked her burger cooked until all the pink faded away, a more natural version might be in order.
Pinkish red, juicy, bloody.
The metal shelves held no food.
Another growl erupted from her abdomen.
Both of the girls’ eyes widened.
Nora edged—sniff—closer. “You’re looking at me as if I might…” Drool slithered from between Nora’s lips. She mustn’t. A gasp rasped into her lungs. She clamped a hand over her mouth. Her teeth wobbled under the pressure of her lips.
She would not, could not, think it. Yet she had…
Mustn’t. Shouldn’t. Couldn’t.
She inhaled in quick sips. Like an animal staking prey.
What am I thinking?
Politely, she removed her hand from her lower face and smiled to reassure them. Her front teeth shifted inward just a bit, yet she grinned.
Hannah gasped and pressed Darcy Lynn so firmly to the wall the little one squirmed to get free.
“Zombies eat people.” Tears spilled from the young one’s eyes.
“They do, don’t they?” A cramp in her belly and so much spit she couldn’t swallow urged Nora forward in a lurch toward the girls in leg swinging thumps.
Hunger gnawed, gouged.
Must—have to—eat.
Darcy Lynn batted her hands and whined, “The wind won’t play.”
Nora staggered to an upper-body-swaying stop.
So, the girls no longer had their powers. Without their abilities, they were no longer the children of the elements and less than useless to her. “If you can’t do what I need for you to do, you are of no use to me.” A laugh, more like a witch’s cackle, burst out of her. Oddly, she didn’t mind. “Yet, you might serve a purpose.”
Oh, yes. Time to feed.
Stiffened arms outstretched, Nora stumbled forward.
The room’s only door burst open, and with a warrior yell, the reddish-blond, freckled teenage girl Nora had taken in and offered to protect swung a mop.
The mop head rammed Nora and knocked her aside.
Nora fell. The floor smashed her thin, easily tattered flesh, threatening to break her brittle bones.
“Help the little girl.” The new teenager waved to others behind her.
Two small boys, dark-skinned and brown-eyed, rushed in. Ages three or four, the twin boys from the forest earlier tugged, pulled, and pushed Darcy Lynn toward the door.
“You, uh, er.” Nora grasped for the right word or name or insult. Nothing fit.
“Name’s Peyton.” The taller teen yanked at the plastic zip tie on Hannah’s ankles. At fifteen or so, the girl’s tanned, freckled face was perfect for a fast food grill ad.
From the floor, Nora raised her face. Her nostrils quivered.
“Let’s go.” Peyton knelt to untie the younger teen. “She’s ready for lunch.”
“There’s no food in here.” Back to the scuffed wall, Darcy Lynn stood.
“For her there is,” said Peyton.
“Eww.” Darcy Lynn grabbed the little boy’s hands and the three of them ran out.
“No. Wait,” Nora said.
The three most tender choices … Gone.
Peyton pulled a pocket knife from her jeans. “You got a name?”
“Hannah,” the pest smirked at Nora where she lay on the floor. “She’s Darcy Lynn.”
“The little guys are Isaiah and Jeremiah.”
“Since we’re playing the hello game, I’m Nora the not so dead.” Nora stretched and cracked her stiff, twisted neck, and swayed upright. She shifted foot to foot in a tilted, but wide-spaced stance.
Peyton dove and grabbed for the mop handle.
With a swing of her crooked leg, Nora swept the mop across the room. The wooden handle slammed against the shelving unit.
The Peyton teen flipped open the knife blade. In quick jabs, she cut the tie from the younger girl’s ankle.
Hannah, short black hair sticking out in one-inch to three-inch spikes, jumped to her feet. Hands tied behind her back, the girl ran out with the older one.
The door slammed shut behind them. Banging footsteps echoed from the other side of the door.
“Come back.” Nora turned and jerked at the knob, clawed at the seam of the door. “Do you hear me? I am the adult. I’m Queen of the Dead. You must listen to me.”
Locked in.
The aroma of human flesh stayed, ever so inviting, long after they had escaped.
Her stomach ached while a lemony, persistent hunger, greater than any Nora had ever known, went on and on and on.
Chapter 4
Later that afternoon, below the ground, in the dank, earthy tunnel where Junior had taken them, Abe handed Brody a plastic bottle filled with water mixed with a glowing powder Junior ferreted out of the ground.
With a shake of the bottle, Brody added a bright white glow to the boys’ dirty faces.
The eerie light revealed old grayed timber and newly hewn logs propping up the passages in the old mining tunnel. As if the local preppers, or militia, or whatever they called their group, made ready the tunnels for possible spying or escape. The carved rocks and earth squared off about a foot above Brody’s head. Three arm-lengths wide the tunnel closed in.
The blackish stones and brown soil spread around them like a giant tube.
Inside, Brody cringed at the sad fear on Abe’s and Junior’s faces and in their gazes. Outwardly, he looked upward as if he peered through layers of earth and rock to the surface to his brother’s grave. “I hope my brother’s misery is done. I couldn’t bear him rising from the dead again.”
“He won’t be getting up.” The older one looked too old and sad for any kid. “Sorry I had to burn him.”
“I hated to ask you to.” Regret tasted like dirt. Or was that from the dirt sifting down from tunnel ceiling?
“Thought the zombie stuff was done.” Abe shrugged.
“I forget, at times, you are only thirteen and ten.” Brody shrugged. “I’ve piled a lot on both of you guys. I’m sorry.”
“The storm brought them back?” asked Junior.
“The blasts sort of reanimated them. But the smarts of the newer ones... I’m not sure. All of a sudden, I can’t seem to think.” Getting a thought out of his brain was like digging a slippery lump of sugar out of a bowl of gloppy oatmeal.
“I think I like it better when you talk where I understand what you are saying.” Junior’s hair went blonder, while the light turned the ends of Abe’s raven strands pale blue.
“Lost my reach into the earth just as we got here. Was gonna try again to see if I could find Darcy Lynn and Hannah, but...” Junior sighed. “It’s like I worked the ground, then all at once I couldn’t again.”
“We’ll find them soon, I know we will.” Though his words said yes, Abe scowled. “Glad your power didn’t cut out during our slide.”
“Me too.” Junior bobbed his head up and down.
“No more powers?” Brody asked.
Abe stared ahead, squinted past the stark light. A long sigh filled the closed space. “No fire for now.”
“So Hannah can’t make any waterspouts or Darcy Lynn can’t play with the wind to show us where they are.” Junior’s head lowered.
“Not if theirs is coming and going like ours.” The t
hreat of the unknown banded Brody’s chest. “I know you’re worried about them. I wish I could promise we’d find them, but—”
“At least, my broken leg’s better,” said Junior as he shook the bottle to make the dimming glow bright again. “And you’re not all hurt and banged up anymore.”
“My burns are healed too.” Abe held out his hands and arms once blistered from using a burning powder to scare away the bad folks. “Your chest, foot, and shoulder feel okay.”
“Yeah.” Brody stood on tiptoe in his clunky boots. “Also, my heart’s fine. Thanks to Uncle Merv and then the shift in EMFs healing me. Wish we’d found him and Irene.”
“We searched as much as we could and called out…” Abe finger-combed his hair.
“What about the creep Vincent?” Junior scowled. “What rock did he crawl under?”
“I can’t sense the others anymore at all.” Abe turned in a tight circle. “Those poor zombie folks. Being able to know they’re dead must be awful.”
“If it came down to you or one of us,” Junior said, “you’d better burn, baby, burn them.”
Abe grunted. “I should’ve fried them while we were up top. They just seemed so, um, er, real and alive.”
“They’re real all right,” Junior held his nose. “And smelly.”
“Realer than real.” Abe grinned and nodded.
Junior held the bottle beneath his chin. Shadows cast on his cheeks. Hollows stood around his eyes. The rest of his face paled ghostly white. “Deader than dead.”
“Guys, chill.” How had Cantrell put up with Brody at their ages? “Our powers are on and off again. What’s up with that? All the smart stuff’s easing from my brain like my ideas took a leak.”
The boys elbow jabbed each other and giggled like girls.
Brody snorted. “I meant to say like they leaked out of my skull.”
“That’s our Brody. When you put them down, they ought to stay down.” Junior giggled and popped a hand over his mouth. After a few blinks, he took his hand from his muddy lower jaws.
“We’ll have to make do. Even without our special powers. We need more glow powder. I have an idea for your new bag of tricks.” Yet, was moving on doable? Really? Without cyber gear, what options did Brody have? No more covert nanny-cam devices. No internet. Not even a working laptop.