by Alexa Dare
The door to the office swung open. Roderick strode into the small room. Stepping inside, he remained near the door. “The girls have left the grounds. You might could… Should you have a mind to—”
“Say what you need to say.”
Did the militiaman truly believe others lived in his mind? That the essence of two dead men existed and resided inside him?
“Well, if you were able to walk fast, you might sniff the girls out.” Hair singed by a lightning strike, Roderick gazed, one eye milky, at her. “We’ve got some rabbits to cook up so you can eat soon.” He cleared his throat. “Nora, ma’am, you don’t look so good.”
“Death usually doesn’t.”
“How long since the kids escaped?” His lanky form bent like a question mark, he gripped the back of the guest chair .
How much time had gone by? Due to her dead-on-arrival state, the passing of time eluded her.
Roderick cocked his head, quirking one side of his mouth the way Nora’s former suitor once had. “We need them for their powers.”
“For a brief time, they both used their gifts. They lost their powers again just as quickly.” She nodded. Then held her head erect, to not jar her ears, nose, or teeth. “More study...”
Roderick snorted just like the old country doctor. Made sense since he claimed the man lived inside him as well. “None of your fancy gear works anymore.”
“No.” There had to be a way to regain the power and control lost.
“What we need are others.” He copied old Doc’s voice. “We both are in need of vessels.”
“I know that you think—”
“You think I’m screw-loose nuts, don’t you?”
“You seem to believe the vessel story. Who wouldn’t want to live forever?” Nora laughed until her feet rose from the floor. In gentle sways, her dead body rocked in the seat. “Even if what you said was real, we’ve no gear for such a transfer.”
“Doc says you’ll figure out a way to harness the storm’s power.”
“I’m dead. Not a storm expert.” Her stomach gurgled. Even raw sushi might be yummy at this point.
“I’ll go collect more of them.”
“More?”
“Kids. To use as vessels.”
She should feel shock, instead of nothing, Nora blinked.
“Those that are not like you have turned on the children.” Roderick’s cheek cocked higher as he posed in Yates’ hip-leading way. His outdoorsy fragrance wrapped his ever-so-human aroma like bacon used for seasoning. “They blame the little kids for all the mess.”
“Why?”
His one good eye zeroed in on her face. “They ain’t right in the head. Somehow, they got the idea children were the cause. Even young folks up into their early twenties.”
“They are killing one another?”
“Militia and locals alike. Head crazy. Doc says the force of the storm warped their brains. If that’s going on here, who knows what’s going on outside the area.”
Ah, if only the entire world turned into a simpler place…
“Does Doc talk to you inside your head?” she asked.
“Doc and Yates are with me, always.”
“I will, before I rot, get you the help you need.”
“Thank you, but Yates and Doc will bolster me, when they see fit. I was only injured, but you, well, uh, were struck down. Beg pardon, ma’am. I hate to say it, but you are way past ripe and not so flowery.”
“How very kind of you, sir.” Nora set aside her pen. With quick pats, she fluffed the singed ends of her hair tufts.
“A dead woman with a sense of humor. Wish I’d known you better when you were alive and kicking.”
“Alive, I lived to kill. Ironic, don’t you think?”
“Will there be more dead walking?”
“I don’t know. If Vincent’s powers are ebbing and flowing, possibly. After all, Vincent’s ability to bring pestilence from the void isn’t always exact.
“No ma’am. Looking at you, I would say not.” He threw back and roared a guffaw.
Nora’s dry, wheezing laugh joined the man’s howls.
Her tongue bumped the back of her front teeth. The normal sturdy set of her teeth gave. With her tongue tip, she nudged. The bitter softness around the roots sent a shudder along her jaws. “I have no sense where they might be headed. With your outdoor skills, you can find them.”
“Might have to round up some help. Hate working with crazies, but they’ll serve a purpose.”
“Might you track Vincent as well?” asked Nora.
“You reckon he might undo what he’s done?” The out-there guy paced across in front of the desk.
The fresh aroma of being alive stirred around him.
“There’s no undoing dead. I want my son with me.”
“For your rebirth?”
Right. The poor man’s break on reality must delve deep.
“For what time I have left I will work to gather my family. Which includes Vincent, the children, and Brody.”
“Too bad there’s no more cold storage.” Roderick said, “The damp can’t be doing you any good.”
“That haughty girl started the rain. Now, it doesn’t seem as if it will ever end.” Nora placed one hand atop the other. Did her nail just shift on her thumb?
She held her fingers and toes stiff and immobile.
“The bad storm is part of it, I think.” His eyeballs rolled up and back into his skull. His gaze leveled, and the man’s brown eyes rested pale blue in their sockets.
“How?”
Perhaps if she were alive, Nora might have been fearful. Yet, in her current state, her logical dead self leaned forward. “Yates?”
“We should never have taken their powers or nature’s wrath so lightly.”
“Yates,” Nora rasped out. “Is that really you?”
Full of husky charm, the voice dropped low. “You don’t believe us, do you?”
“This whole thing about vessels is quite improbable.”
“Not any odder than a kid who rules wind, earth, water and fire and disease. A woman who kills with her touch, died, but still lives, doesn’t come along every day.” Yates strode close. The sides of his nostrils flared. “Just as the kids lost their power, you can’t kill now. Can you?”
“Our gifts seem to come and go.”
His gaze rolled to reveal the white of his eyes. When they came back, Doc’s hazel pupils looked out. “Then what good are they? Or you?”
Nora fisted the barrel of the pen. She braced her molars. To keep from… Biting him? More teeth wiggled, and she eased the tension in her jaws. “Get away from me.”
“What use are you to us dead?” the alleged Doc asked.
His eyelids closed and rose, and once again a blue gaze looked out. “I’ll miss you, my Nora Belle.”
“Think, Yates, or if Roderick’s in there with you, let him think for you and Doc.” Nora raked the fingers of her left hand across the notepad. “He’s a simple man, but he’s got more common sense than the two of you.” The nail of her finger popped off and cradled on the paper.
Her sigh held a rotten meat aftertaste. She tore her gaze away from the rocking nail to face pseudo Yates.
“That tongue of yours always was like a double-edged sword. I look forward of ridding you of it.”
“You need me.”
“Don’t think so.” The man, whoever he was at the moment, glared. His eyes shot skyward, showing the whites of his eyes. Rapid blinks showed a pair of hazel eyes.
“Before this is over,” he said in Doc’s slow drawl. “Nora Hicks, you’ll find there are many, many things far worse than death.”
With a shudder, his gaze shot upward.
Sniff, sniff, over the oil lamp wafts, she took in the aroma of his fresh flesh and wielded the pen, aimed at the man’s good eyeball. Her upper lips pulled back from her teeth and drips of tart drool plopped onto the green-tinged paper.
Once his lids popped closed and opened slowly, Roderick�
��s sad, brown gaze settled on her. His long fingers latched around her wrist. He pulled out a knife from a sheath on his belt.
A narrow, jagged ten-inch blade waved back and forth.
“I hate to do this, Nora, ma’am,” Roderick said, “but it’s really for the best.”
Chapter 7
After reading with no aid from his brain boost, Brody pinched the bridge of his nose. Eyes clamped shut, he hung his head.
In the bunker’s hay and horsey heaviness, it was possibly mid-afternoon, echoes of stark white pages jabbed the backs of his eyelids.
Hip to the edge, he held on to the bench. Lids poked by the lantern light glow, he expelled a huge sigh. His eyes ached from the hours he worked to fathom the pencil marks on the pages.
So far, what little he grasped was like too-thin banana pudding. Yet, as he read about the secret project, he figured out that they’d altered women and their babies. Later, little kids and even adults. Also, the doctor wove in info about a quest for eternal life.
Can’t live forever, bro, as Cantrell used to say.
Yet, with all the weird stuff going on, Brody did not doubt the gist of the notes. Seemed as if the project goons had an agenda, while the local country doctor worked his own.
And damned if he hadn’t.
Doc treated a select few with strong magnets. Lots of babies died in the name of their out-there project. Due to failed tests and drastic changes in DNA.
The five babies that lived made up the children of the elements. Darcy Lynn, wind. Junior, earth. Twins Hannah and Abe, water and fire. Then there was the bossy project head’s own son Vincent, who ruled the void.
“What the heck is the void anyway?” Brody sighed and opened his eyes. “The poor kid will never get beyond his raising.”
A teen that draws sketches to bring about plagues wasn’t to be ignored. Yet along with Uncle Merv and Irene, Vincent was missing.
The guy needed to be voided all right.
In the room below the barn, Brody huffed a grunt.
Cracks between the bare planks of the walls and ceiling revealed the packed dirt of the bunker.
Turning over a new page, he added the old one to the review stack. He’d read the pile when his brain smarts kicked in again. With a scrape of his thumb across his chin, he grinned at the sparse beard scruff along his jaw.
He might not be a manly man like his brother, but he was a man.
At sixteen, Vincent, only two years younger, had it rough. Still… Okay, if you looked at it like the void being the unknown, the plague thing sort of fit.
“Doesn’t mean I have to like him.”
“Like who?” Junior came out of the tunnel.
“Bet it’s a certain guy that draws bad stuff.” A shirtless Abe tagged along behind Junior.
Both boys had more smudged spots on them than clean areas.
No shower in sight. His own filthy tan pants and green shirt hung loose on his lanky frame. “You don’t know that it’s, uh, him.”
“I do, because every time his name comes up,” Abe said, “your upper lip lifts into a kind of half smirk.”
“Nah. I don’t think so.”
“Junior, watch.” Abe leaned in. “Vincent.”
Sure enough, Brody’s upper lip, just below one of his nostrils, twitched.
“Vincent. Vincent. Vincent,” taunted Abe.
The lip twitch sped up, until the upper curve of his lip shot toward Brody’s brows. He shoved the area below his nose flat on his teeth. With his fingers, he held his mouth in place. “Man.”
“You find any clues about where she might have taken the girls?” Junior asked.
“Not yet. Not only did Doc have a screw loose, he was long winded.”
“I’m glad one of the quakes got the doctor. Like my aunt, he was bad to the bone.” Junior crossed his arms.
Thumps bumped over planks above their heads.
Brody, along with the boys, ducked his head and darted glances at the closed hatch.
“Dang. I meant to tie some tin cans to the outer doors.” Junior braced his fists on his hips.
“That would be stupid.” Abe snorted. “That way they’d know someone was here.”
“Shh.” Brody waved for the guys to turn down the lanterns. In quiet squeaks, he dimmed the two on a wall shelf over the bench. From the glass globes, oil smoke wafted into his nose and mouth. Both burned bitter and watered.
Steps clumped on the barn floor.
“More than one.” Junior snuffed out the flames of the lamps near the door and shoved the light bottle under his shirttail.
“In search of food?” Abe doused the other three along the side wall.
“House would make more sense.” He turned the knob on both lanterns at once. Until only one barely glowed on the shelf of the far wall.
Above, the footsteps stopped.
Brody held his index finger before his lips. He motioned for them to hunker down. The bunker seemed to be closed in, but best they shut off the lights in case.
With one last creaky turn, Abe drew the wick back into its holder.
The last lamp went out. Darkness rushed in like a ramped CPU on the fast track. Clumsy in daylight was one thing.
Brody whistled inhales in through his nose.
More shuffles in what might be the rear of the barn, then wood thumped and lumber creaked.
“Loft?” Junior asked.
Brody shrugged. No way could they see him in the dark. “Shhh.”
The sound of their shaky breaths filled the bunker.
What would Cantrell do?
Brody’s older brother went off the deep end when he and the kids needed him most, so maybe the time had come for Brody to stand up on his hind legs and act on his own. More stuff on his plate than an open-faced roast beef sandwich with potatoes and gravy. Way more stuff than he knew how to juggle or handle. He had to step up for the boys, keep them safe, and rescue the girls.
Firm steps, not the zombie shuffle, so with any luck, not the flesh eaters. Besides, if they’d been zombies, they would have sniffed the three of them out of their hiding place for a people snack.
Had Cantrell known about the dead walking when he wrote Chaos Wins in blood and mud right before he died?
Brody, glad the worm and bug were stored in jars on the over-the-bench shelf, crept toward the boys. He nudged each of them and headed for the tunnel.
Retreat and wait. Best plan ever.
A roar came from the tin barn roof as rain poured down in sudden gushes. Those in the barn loft would sleep well with the rainfall on tin.
High-pitched screams joined the boom of the downpour.
From in front, one of the boys tugged the arm of Brody’s t-shirt. The other shoved his thigh the tunnel’s way.
“Kids. They sound like a bunch of kids.” Brody halted.
“Oomph.” Junior rammed into Brody’s upper thigh.
“We can’t leave them.” Brody’s heart ramped like a laptop motor clogged with dust.
“What if they’re smart zombies?” asked Abe.
A tingle banded Brody’s temple. “We’ve not seen any children turn to zombies.”
“Maybe we just haven’t seen them.” Junior pushed Brody’s leg and heaved. “Yet.”
“We gotta help.” Like a cow weary of chewing cud, he lowered his head and sighed.
“Okay.” A wet slosh lit a glow, and Junior handed over the light bottle.
“We’ll just take a look, okay?”
Both boys grunted.
From overhead, muffled yelling echoed.
Up three ladder rungs, Brody shoved the hatch open and stepped into a raging inferno.
Through the main opened barn door, streaks of liquid fire fell from the sky. Fiery rain? No way. From both outside and inside the barn, shadows fought the lashing light of flames. Smoke churned as if from a coal fire stove. Fire crackled and hissed as hay in the loft burned.
Children, all ages and sizes, a dozen or more, shrieked. They coughed and edg
ed closer to the loft’s edge.
“Stay put. I’ll come get you.” Brody bolted upward into the fiery barn.
Smoke as black as the strange storm clouds sucked toward his face like a hawk after a fleeing rabbit. Except the smoke shoved into his mouth, eyes, and nose, until charcoal sting filled his head.
All around the edges of the ceiling, wooden planks near the barn roof burned.
“Abe, if you got any wiles and ways with fire right now, you’d better help out.” Elbow over his nose in the thick acridness, he yelled down into the no longer hidden room. “It’s raining fire outside. For real. No kidding. Hot, barn-burning, blazing streaks.”
He lurched for the ladder. “This way. Climb down.”
At the ladder’s top, a doe-eyed, dark-haired six- or seven-year-old held out her arms. She quoted, “And the fire shall rain down upon the earth.”
A hot, wet lump swelled in Brody’s chest. He edged to the side of the rungs. “Come on.”
“Over here. Hurry,” Abe called out.
Through thick smoke clouds, a white fan of light waved from the hole in the floor.
“They’re after us. Want to hurt us.” A preteen boy handed off a toddler. “Worse than hurt.”
“They took my sissy.” A little boy lunged to wrap his arms around Brody’s neck.
Brody clung to the rung. Wind milling the other arm, he, with the toddler and the boy, tumbled. He danced an awkward jig to stay on his feet. “Easy there, buddy. Pony ride my back and hang on tight.”
Whooshing flames and crackling hay shot hot.
The boy's little arms grasped hard enough to cut off Brody’s breath. Luckily, he reached the trapdoor with windpipe intact and handed off the little one. “Go to my friends down there. We’re going under the ground.”
“A cave, really?” the boy asked.
“A real live cave. Now hurry.” Brody returned to the ladder. “Send those that can climb down.” He grabbed child after child as they came into reach and set them out into the floor as far as possible.
More kids scurried for the trapdoor.
Smoke churned from the loft. The older boy, nine or ten at the most, stood on the loft’s edge, fire blazing hot and hungry behind him.
A girl about Darcy Lynn’s size and age clung to his waist, while another toddler wrapped himself around his leg. The guy held a baby in his arms.