Unrelenting Tide: A Post-Apocalyptic/Dystopian Adventure (Children of the Elements Book 4)

by Alexa Dare

  He placed her hand on his arm and escorted her as if she were royalty walking the red carpet.

  Once he opened the locked door, Nora took in that the school gym contained hundreds of men and women in various stages of decomp.

  The foulness, like normal body odors for Nora, just was.

  While a half dozen or so living men held guns and guarded the exits.

  The fishy trace of her hunger gouged, yet she refrained nicely from chewing on her own tongue.

  The rest of the group was of Nora’s kind.

  Zombies able to think and reason.

  Her zombies.

  Lifting her chin, she stepped atop the stairwell that served as a stage to the sunken gym floor. The golden wood of bleachers was pushed to the sides and the basketball hoops cranked toward the ceiling.

  Upon her entry, the calling of her name halted.

  A mingling crowd broke into applause. Eager clapping sent more than a few fingers flying.

  Nora held up her hand.

  A hush fell over the gym.

  “Please. You’re causing your bodies harm. While you do not feel pain, your body will no longer heal and your cells won’t renew.”

  “You’ll save us. Make us whole again.”

  Farmers, business folk, and housewives, wearing tattered, gore-smeared clothes, made up the gathering. Adults from all walks of life. Yet they no longer were defined by their social or financial status.

  Zombies all, just like Nora.

  “Lead us,” a man with a torn overalls and a missing arm that left a jagged, white bone poking out of a red meaty stump below his shoulder, “into our new lives.”

  “Give us our purpose.” A woman missing one cheek and an ear held out stiff arms. Rusty and black streaks decorated her frumpy, pink cotton dress.

  A tug on her arm brought her attention back to Roderick. Yates’ cold pale blue-eyed gaze stared back at her. “Now’s your chance to bring in the brats that did this to us.”

  “One of those children is your son.” She shook her head, then stiffened, afraid the movement might slough off parts of her face or scalp. “Yates’ son.”

  “My son. As the world changes, we’ll need them all, along with their powers.

  A side gym door opened, and an armed man herded several more zombies inside.

  Outside a steam rose as rain hit concrete and asphalt sidewalks and parking lots.

  The door swung closed.

  “Wait,” Nora said. “Open the door.”

  “Rain’s getting in,” the man holding the shotgun said. “I’ll open it when the other, uh, followers get closer.”

  “Something’s going on with the weather.” Nora listened to the downpour on the roof.

  The zombies turned in place to face the doorway.

  Their zombie shuffle amused Nora, yet she feared smiling. What if the movement dislodged her teeth from their sockets?

  Roderick’s man shoved down the latch bar and pushed the metal door open with the barrel of his rifle. Streaks of light decorated the rain.

  “What…” Roderick said.

  “The heck?” The flunky, jerking back his gun barrel to let the door swoosh into place, edged farther into the gym.

  Sulfur-fumed, orange fire rained down.

  Several yards out, eight or nine zombies, making shuffling progress step-by-step closer to the building burst into flame. Fire rushed over their dead flesh as if the walking corpses were oil-soaked kindling.

  Their shrill shrieks muffled as the door closed.

  “Fire shall rain from the heavens and the end of the world will be upon us.” A zombie preacher held his arms skyward. “The dead shall walk the earth and will rejoice and be glad.”

  Oddly, the butchered scripture verses somehow made sense.

  Zombies shook their heads. Some raised their stiffened arms. Others lifted their faces, not toward the sky, but to lead with their noses.

  An awareness of odors eased into Nora’s nostrils.

  Another scent…

  Fresh and haunting and tempting, caused Nora’s jaws to tighten. She ground her lower teeth against her uppers before she recalled they might loosen. A loud extended growl blasted from her stomach and a cramp greater than any she’d ever known seized her belly.

  Nora bent at the waist and waited for the ache to pass. While the initial tummy grumble eased, the throb of hunger continued.

  Nora fought to set aside her sudden voracious hunger. She raised her arms. “The building is brick and concrete. We’re safe here.”

  “Belly’s empty.” The earless housewife snarled and sniffed in loud whiffs.

  “Time to pass the feeding plate,” the former preacher man waved his single hand.

  “Hungry,” a one-eyed, camo-dressed man chomped. Teeth dribbled out of his mouth with his drool.

  As if biting into a juicy, barely seared—surely not raw—burger, Nora’s mouth opened. Her teeth clicked before she could stop from biting down.

  The crowd shifted in sections in the direction of the nearest living human.

  Roderick’s men raised their guns. The door to the outside banged closed.

  Five humans trapped inside by falling fiery rain.

  “Wait.” Nora sniffed Roderick’s sweet humanness. His humanity brought her hunger to the forefront.

  “They’re not interested in cooked meat. They feed on raw flesh. Sorry if this offends you, ma’am.” Roderick called out to his men, “Bring out the venison and pork.”

  From what might have been the sports equipment storage area, a man opened the door and released several white tail deer and wild pigs. The living man shooed three large doe and six pigs into the crowd.

  “Fire falling from the sky might destroy our food sources. We may be in for hard times ahead.” Roderick heaved a sigh. “Let me take you back to your room.”

  “No. I have to see.” Nora’s belly cramped. The clench of her molars tightened her lower jaws.

  Shots boomed in the high-ceilinged room. Blackened blood and brain matter shattered out of the back of the skulls of zombies more interested in humans than animals as a food source.

  After a few shots, the zombies seemed to possess enough intelligence to leave the living alone.

  Growls and the squeals of the animals shrilled. Ripping and tearing silenced the pigs and deer.

  Squelches and slurps joined the growls.

  Blood splattered and ropes of deer and pig intestines glistened as they were tugged and fought over by clawing, gripping hands.

  “I’ve seen what I will...what I have become.” Nora snuffled the mingled aromas.

  The fresh meat and blood smell hung heavy in the room.

  Might she lick the taste from the air?

  “Get me out of here,” she said.

  On the way back to the office, the stiffness in her joints and the canted, injured foot scrubbed her shoe along the concrete of the hallways.

  Feeding. Like animals. Worse than animals. Beasts.

  Yet hunger spasmed in her belly like some living thing demanding to be sated. Except, like most of the others, nothing about Nora lived. “Dead. I’m actually dead.”

  “Those that feed seem to, uh, keep longer.” Roderick slowed his walk as she supported her weight by holding on to his arm.

  “Keep? You mean, like…” Her stomach gurgled. “…cured meat.”

  “Close enough. You must feed. I saved something tender and tasty for you.” Roderick lowered and wagged his head.

  “I can document the experience. In the name of science.” Nora dared not ask what sort of meal awaited her. She shambled toward the principal’s office with Roderick’s gentlemanly support.

  Truly, for-real dead.

  Queen of the Dead, as Vincent called her.

  She held her head a little higher on her stiffened neck, as if a crown like the one Vincent had drawn in his sketch rested upon her skull.

  After all, even the risen dead could be quite regal.

  Chapter 10

 
The fire from the sky ended, yet the deluge of magnetically charged rain had not. Brody held off on going farther out of the old Mossy Gap mine. Instead, he stood, gripped a shovel handle, and faced the way the guys hiked earlier.

  Time slowly ticked by in his brain.

  Yards back, deep below ground, children piled together for warmth among what few safety blankets they found in a storage chest in the former work area of the mine. Rank with smoke, some coughed due to sore throats from the hours-ago barn fire.

  During the evening, the coughing sounded so like little Darcy Lynn and her struggle to breathe after she played with the wind, as she called it.

  As time passed, he and the guys had no idea where she or Hannah, might be.

  The grill-type smoke might have spurred his appetite, but instead reminded him way too much of over-grilled, then recooked, then reheated again, too-tough BBQ pork.

  Made not having food for who knew how long easier to swallow.

  The deep chill of under the ground, with only a faint glow from the powder-filled bottles several yards behind him, hid a network of timber-braced mining tunnels.

  Home not-so-sweet home.

  Every time Brody closed his eyes, even to blink, a vision of the preteen boy engulfed in flames in the long-gone barn loft seared the back of his eyelids. He jerked his lids apart and stared without blinking at the tunnel entryway as he slid his grip along the smooth wood of the shovel handle.

  Up top, the storm just as it had razed the barn from which they’d barely escaped only a few hours ago, must have crisped zombies by the dozens.

  How many dead—and living—perished to the heat and flames?

  Several yards inside the shaft, guarding the children, his eyeballs burned, and he fought the urge to blink.

  Right now, zombies might be looking for shelter, but he figured their numbers had to have suffered. For the moment, one filled with doubt and irony, Brody didn’t concern himself about the no-longer dead.

  A squeak sounded from the passage leading from the outside.

  Lemony spit gathered and stuck in his throat. He raised and fisted the wood like a baseball bat.

  “Just me,” Abe said through the darkness. “The bottom of my boot melted, and the sole flaps and makes noise. You got to get some rest.”

  “I can’t. Critters will seek refuge from the heat of the storm.”

  “Bugs and insects and such?” Abe didn’t shake up a light bottle, so he didn’t blow what little night vision Brody had.

  “You guys found the mutated roach and worm at the mine entrance, right?”

  “Bet Junior can help us with some sort of plant we can dry and scatter to keep them away.”

  “If there are any trees or plants left.” Brody shrugged.

  An unclean odor smacked his nostrils.

  If only he could lean away from his own armpits.

  Phew.

  The three of them brought a sweat and smoke heaviness that oddly made Brody yearn for a bar of soap and regular, hour-long shower.

  A shuffling slither sounded, a few yards out, along the ground.

  Brody strained to listen. “Did you hear that?”

  “Just me, trying to get my shoe sole in place.”

  “Might’ve been me.” In the blackness, Junior sidled in from the outside as well. “We can look for buried roots from below.”

  “Like what?” Abe asked.

  Through the impenetrable dimness, Brody squinted. The shadows settled around so deeply he couldn’t even make out the guys’ silhouettes within the inky murk. He leaned forward and tried to tune out their voices. “Shh. I’m telling you, I hear something.”

  “You’ve barely closed your eyes since, well, you know.” Abe nudged his ribs. “Why don’t you let me and Junior stand guard?”

  Something shifted in the tunnel way.

  Junior and Abe, either scared or shocked silent, shifted closer to Brody. One of them tugged at his lower arm and dragged him stumbling backwards toward the eerie white glow.

  Moving into the light, he and the guys were sitting ducks. In total gloom, no way to see mutated bugs or vermin scurrying toward them to flee from the weird weather. A prickle crept over the flesh of his arms. Images of bugs crawling all over them, eating them alive…

  He shuddered and shrugged off the boys’ grip. Shovel held aloft and over his shoulder, he crept to the cavern wall to the side of the thick blocks of shoring timber. He worked his uneasy grip on the handle.

  From behind, children coughed and some released moans in their restless sleep.

  A scuffling noise emerged from the hollow of the tunnel up ahead.

  The sanded smoothness of the wood slickened from the sweat of Brody’s palms. The tightness of his grasp sent a throbbing ache through his knuckles. Despite his shaking arms and the quaking of his elbows from the weight and positioning, he held the shovel’s metal spade above his head.

  Something snuffled and chuffed.

  His heart ramped in his chest. He gulped and squared his shoulders. He’d go down fighting, but, dang, if these kids didn’t need him.

  A growl echoed from along the tunnel floor.

  What? Could be mutant mice. Deformed snakes. Low flying man-eating bats.

  A blur of white burst out of the shadows.

  Giant albino rat?

  Brody yelped and swung.

  “No,” Abe and Junior yelled in unison.

  Shortening his swing, Brody pulled upwards.

  A bread loaf-sized white streak darted past Brody’s boot.

  The wide whooshing arc unbalanced Brody farther to the left. The metal spade hit the twelve-by-twelve wooden bolster with a clunk and twang.

  The jolt vibrated up the handle and through Brody’s arms to explode in jarring pain in his elbows and shoulders. Numb fingers released their hold. Yanked from his hands, the shovel traveled the line of the cut in the timber. The handle spun away, and the tool-turned-weapon disappeared with a clang.

  Brody spun and crouched.

  Even Abe, along with Junior, dropped to their knees, petting a ball of fur.

  “Puppy. You found us!” One of the little girls held a glow bottle and held out her arms.

  The puppy, wrapped in wet-dog fluff, bounded over to her and licked her face.

  More kids, roused by the noise, entered the tunnel to join in the canine lovefest of pounces and pets and licks and hugs.

  For a second Brody giggled along with them, then, like apple cider vinegar poured on cooked spinach, an aftertaste spread sharp over his tonsils.

  If the pup came here…

  “He followed you?” Brody asked the girl.

  “He must’ve come all the way from the farm looking for me.” She laughed and scrubbed behind the dog’s floppy ears. “Good, pup.”

  “You think someone might have followed him?” Abe nudged the kids, one by one, farther back and into the school bus-length wide area where they bedded down.

  “If he can get in, then—” Junior, one by one, shook bottles to ramp up the light.

  “We’ve got work to do.” Brody tallied a list in his head.

  Bug repellant or poison. Same for rodents. A way to hide the entrance. Warning signals if someone breached the tunnels. Zombie traps. Weapons. Ways to steer runoff away from the cave. Hand tools. Gadgets. More blankets. Food.

  Did any gasoline-powered equipment work now?

  The tunnel must have been an equipment staging area because the fuel leavings hung like a backdrop in the dampness.

  What method might treat water for drinking?

  Even the loss of their only loaf of stale bread and going-to-sugar apple butter sat heavy on his stomach. Brody repeated one of his brother’s sayings, “Lots of work and no guarantees.”

  “Though the rock at the entry shaft was still hot,” Abe said, “the fire part of the rain had ended.”

  What good was a gadget guy without his electronic gear? A No. 2 pencil and a plank would have been welcome. Brody scratched out, with a jagged edg
ed stone, a design for an arrow throwing catapult on the tunnel wall.

  “Wind’s blowing hard enough that a hard rain’s aimed sideways instead of down.” Junior said. “We need to scout the tunnels, see where other hideouts might be. When I’m able to tap the earth like I used to, I’ll tell you the wheres and whats.”

  “The barn floor crashed onto the bunker. Nothing but burned rubble there.” Abe tossed a few more mildewed blankets over piles of kids. “Time’s gone when I might’ve controlled the fire so that everybody got away and our stuff would have stayed safe.”

  “That’s a lot on anybody’s shoulders, let alone you young kids.”

  “I’m no kid,” Abe said.

  “I still am.” Junior scuffed his bare feet in the dirt. “And I’m a good one.”

  Heart sunk to his knees, at only seventeen, Brody was too young to sense that his own childhood was long ago and out of reach or to watch these kids be robbed of theirs.

  Yet, what more could he do, in a hostile world where childhood might be never more?

  Chapter 11

  Breathless and tearless, during what must be close to midnight, Hannah watched as fire rained down.

  Three stories overhead, gigantic steel beams and the thick panes of glass of the planetarium ceiling protected them from the falling streaks of fire. Inside the stargazing area, the three of them stood and watched the pouring fire smack into, spark and splatter, then streak along the glass roof to fall away.

  Blue seats, like those in a movie theater—except, of course, no popcorn or soft drinks—stair-stepped up in three pie-slice directions, with a huge two-story movie screen covering the front wall.

  Their little group , plus the witchy Peyton, stood on moldy, navy blue carpet that covered the open stage area in front of the screen.

  “Pretty.” Darcy Lynn grinned up at nature’s unnatural show.

  “The rain clouds are peeing fire.” Jeremiah popped his hand over his mouth and giggled.

  “You don’t pee fire.” Isaiah crossed his arms. “You poop fire.”

  “Don’t say pee and poop.” Jeremiah pouted.

  “Either way, the fire’s deadly.” Peyton studied the rows of seats. “We got inside just in time. Is the firestorm your or your kind’s doing?”