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

by Alexa Dare

  “Duh.” Hannah resisted sticking out her tongue. “No powers, remember.”

  “Guess the creepy storm just got a whole lot stranger.”

  “What are you about anyway? No blame, no gain?” Hannah zeroed in on the anger stoking as hot as the outside flames inside her.

  On the Rocky Top peak, the surrounding trees flamed, yet a bigger glow came from just over the bluff.

  “The whole town must be ablaze.” A shadow slid over Peyton’s face. “Too bad you can’t do whatever stuff with water you claim you could do.”

  “Yes, it is.” Hannah lifted her chin and met the older girl’s mocking gaze. Tapping into her anger, she reached out from inside of herself to the water, the clouds.

  She’d show Peyton.

  Nothing.

  “We’re lucky the dampness put out the fires in the entryways and first few rooms.” Peyton twisted her long hair into a braid down the side of her neck. “If nothing else, we’ve found a safe place for the night.”

  Hannah let go of the swelling, churning emotions as if someone pulled a plug and anger gushed out her feet.

  “I hear something.” Darcy Lynn tugged Hannah’s hand. “What if some of the dead people are in here?”

  “See,” Peyton said, “your scaredy-cat ways have rubbed off on a little girl.”

  “No marshmallows?” asked Jeremiah.

  “Shh.” Isaiah sidled close to his twin and clasped his hands

  A faint thumping, almost but not quite, drowned out by the loudness of the falling rain, sounded from farther inside the building.

  Peyton went down into a crouch.

  Hannah knelt, tugging Darcy Lynn to the floor beside her.

  The boys stooped down and huddled low to the ground.

  “No weapons,” Peyton hissed. “With two little kids and two frilly girls to defend.”

  “Hush, why don’t you.” Hannah would pound the older teen with hail. If she could.

  “You going to make me?”

  More tapping banged.

  “Listen,” Peyton held up a hand. “The knocking has a pattern.”

  Hannah met the girl’s narrowed gaze.

  Peyton’s green eyes widened.

  They spoke at the same time and said, “S.O.S.”

  For a second, the two of them smiled silly smiles at each other.

  “My father taught me.” Peyton squared her jaw and eyed Hannah as if she might be reassessing her opinion of the thirteen-year-old.

  Hannah nodded. “My brother.”

  “What’s S.O.S. ?” Darcy Lynn scooted behind the twins and hugged them. “You shouldn’t spell things and keep secrets, you know.”

  “S-O-S means someone’s in trouble and needs help.” Peyton crept up one of the stairways between two sections of stadium seat rows.

  “Why not H-E-L-P?” Darcy Lynn crawled on her hands and knees up the steps.

  Butts waddling, the boys duck walked from behind.

  “Good question. Come on.” Hannah knee walked to get ahead of the little ones.

  Where was the noise coming from?

  Through the dim hallways, they trailed the sound.

  “Glad Abe made me learn the letters. I’ll have to tell him his silly code tapping actually came in handy when we find him.”

  Darcy Lynn gasped. She whispered, “Do you think Junior, Brody, and Abe might be in there? Oh, hurry, hurry, let’s please find the others!”

  “Let’s go.” Darcy Lynn ran toward a stairway.

  “Wait.” Hannah made a grab and missed her and both of the boys as they darted, hopped out of reach, and chased after the little girl.

  “Maybe there’s chocolate kisses,” one boy yelled.

  “Or Niller wafers.” The brother ducked in front of the first.

  “Go after them. I’ll find tools. Or weapons. We may need both.” Peyton stood and raced back down the hall.

  At the top of the stairs, the three kids gathered at the top of the stairwell, staring down into the pitch-black.

  “Hannah,” Darcy Lynn gripped the railing and said, “it’s dark down here.”

  Peyton, to the rescue as usual, held a heavy, black long-handled flashlight. One corner of her mouth quirked, she handed Hannah the light.

  Nothing happened when Hannah clicked the on button.

  Yanking the heavy cylinder out of Hannah’s grip, Peyton smacked and shook the casing. “Stupid storm must have taken out battery power as well.”

  “Hannah,” Darcy Lynn said, “I’m scared.”

  “You three stay here.” Peyton pointed right. “Hannah, you take that way. I’ll go farther to the left.”

  “Do as Peyton says, okay?” Hannah squeezed, then patted the little girl’s shoulder. “Stay right here. We’ll be right back.”

  Darcy Lynn snuffled. “But—”

  “If there’s no cotton candy…” Jeremiah said.

  “Or candied apples down there,” Isaiah added, “best not go.”

  With a snort, Peyton took off one way down the hallway, and Hannah raced along the other.

  Inside a storage, sour-mop fumed closet, among brooms and cleaning supplies, she found an emergency kit with sticks with writing on the side that that claimed they glowed. Pleased with her find, she hefted the kit and ran back to the stairwell.

  “You guys okay?”

  “I’m not a guy.” Darcy Lynn huffed.

  Hannah rummaged through the safety stuff. There were some sort of road flares as well.

  Peyton carried a bulky, two-foot by two-foot black metal toolbox that filled her arms and then some.

  “Here, give me those.” Setting aside the clunky box that clanged when moved and reeked of oil and metal, Peyton snatched the sticks out of her hand. She twisted a tube and a yellow glow filled the liquid inside.

  “Yeeeessss.” She grinned. “Not a bad find, Hannah.” She handed the light sticks back to Hannah. The tools clanked as she hauled the toolbox off the ground and into her arms. “When I am able to set this down, pass me one of the sticks.”

  In the stick’s yellow light, Hannah led the way, while the kids whispered behind her, and Peyton clunked with the toolbox from the rear.

  Halfway down a lower door hallway, a thick metal plate, like what you might see on a bank vault or on a hideaway safe room Abe always talked about, and wider than a normal door, shielded whatever or whoever from the outside world.

  From inside, they could hear the knocking.

  “They got treats?” Isaiah tilted onto his tiptoes. “Cereal with milk. Yummy-yum-yummy.”

  “Oatmeal and sugar.” The other twin smacked his lips.

  “Either a bomb shelter or a safe room. Either way, there might be some grub.” Peyton set the box down with a bang.

  Both boys shushed her.

  Hannah and Darcy Lynn flinched and clung to each other. Hannah hissed out, “Could you possibly make any more noise?”

  Peyton handed Darcy Lynn a long-bladed screwdriver. “Be on the lookout for Z’s.”

  “Oh, Z is for zombie.” Darcy Lynn clapped.

  “Zzzzzzz’s.” Isaiah bounced up and down. “Phewy Z’s.”

  “You see one of those dead-stinky-walking-brain-eating goomers, and you poke the pointy end of this blade deep into an eyeball.”

  “They’re little kids.” Hannah yanked the tool from Peyton.

  “I don’t have the wind to play with right now.” Darcy Lynn’s eyes glistened in the strange light.

  “Right.” Passing the tool, Hannah leaned in close to the metal plate and listened. “The tapping stopped.”

  “For now.” Peyton knelt. “They are playing it smart.”

  “The lady Z was real smart,” Isaiah held out his hands. “But never fed us nothing.”

  “Not even berries. She was too stinky dead.” Jeremiah held his nose.

  “She was nose-holding rank all right.” Peyton sorted through the toolbox.

  “How do you expect to break into a bomb shelter?” asked Hannah.

  �
��There’s always a way in.” Smug-faced Peyton shrugged.

  The too-wet carpet dankness filled the hallway strong enough to sting Hannah’s eyes.

  “Do they keep pretzels shut up?” Jeremiah asked in a nasally whine.

  “Gummies too?” The second twin sounded weepy.

  “First we’ve got to get inside. Bet the latch was made to work on electric, battery, or gas generator.” Peyton set aside the tool and banged on the solid metal door with the hammer.

  Someone on the other side banged back.

  “Yay!” Darcy Lynn and the boys clapped.

  A pattern of short then farther spaced taps vibrated through the door.

  Peyton sighed. “I don’t like fessing up to this, but look, I can make out S.O.S, but I’m not keen on the rest. Should have made a better effort to learn when Dad took the time to teach.”

  Bless Abe for making her learn the alphabet in Morse code. Her being able to get a message to whoever was inside ought to show up Miss High and Mighty Smarty Pants.

  “I’ll keep watch.” Hannah sniffed and turned her back to the door. “But I’ll share with you what to tap.”

  “Fine.” Peyton huffed.

  “Ask them who’s in there, please.” Darcy Lynn shifted foot to foot.

  Peyton grunted.

  The mildew-filled air crackled with waiting.

  Hannah, smiling inside and out, called out the types of taps for letters. So Smarty Britches needed help after all. If being useful was like melt-in-your-mouth cotton candy the boys talked about, then eating crow must be like chewing shoe leather.

  Peyton banged out the taps on the metal door slab.

  Who’s there?

  Hannah listened to the pattern of the return bangs. “They said they are trapped and need help.”

  “Ahhh.” Isaiah tipped to his toes. “They didn’t’ say who.”

  “Because they don’t want us to know.” Peyton said, “Tell me how to spell out Vincent.”

  “You don’t think he’s hurt them, do you?” Standing next to Hannah, Darcy Lynn worried her fingers over the plastic tool handle. “Ask about Junior. Abe and Brody too.”

  “Hannah?” Peyton’s voice dropped low.

  Heavy hearted, Hannah scrubbed the smooth of the light stick as if it were a magic wish-granting stone. Slow and steady, she shared the taps for V-I-N-C-E-N-T.

  “Now the question mark.” Peyton held the hammer at the ready.

  “Two dots, two dashes, two dots.”

  Peyton banged the quick spaced taps, the longer spaced taps for the dash, the quick ones again.

  Silence stretched out until the quiet became their answer.

  Chapter 12

  Fifteen children in all, from the blanket-wrapped baby girl, to ages of eleven or twelve, along with Abe, Junior, and Brody, packed in the widened tunnel space. A dozen and a half lost ones—more likely abandoned, orphaned, or both—bedraggled ash- and dirt-smudged were heavy lidded and bone-tired.

  At least, they’d gotten a boost from the puppy.

  In the faint glow of phosphorous bottle lights, like bright-white lightning bug flares, inside a wide wedge of an old mining tunnel, the youngsters piled on scratchy, none-too-clean blankets.

  Their wide-eyed haunted gazes…

  Sometime during the early morning hours, as he paced along one of the walls, the burns on his back stinging and grateful he wasn’t injured worse, Brody shuddered and tucked his chin. He clutched and tapped a rock gently against his opposite palm. With a heel-spin, he studied the rock wall where he etched notes.

  The few scribbles on the stone taunted him like a freckle faced boy sticking his tongue out in a spit-spattering raspberry.

  Damp soil and stone, wet dog, smokiness, and little-kids-in-need-of-scrubbing odors fit with the dreariness of the tunnels that the weak lights didn’t begin to touch.

  “Being a good guy in a topsy-turvy world ain’t easy.” Brody scratched his head with the small stone he used to etch.

  Dang, maybe if he had a good meal, even Uncle Merv’s creamy wild turkey surprise, he might be able to halfway think.

  “Wish you’d met my brother Cantrell before he, you know, lost it.” Brody said, “He’d have liked and gotten a kick out of both of you.”

  “You a tinker, mister?” A soot-smudged, shoeless boy rubbed sleep from his eyes and shuffled over in a strong whiff of smoke.

  No longer a computer or electronics whiz, he shrugged. “I reckon I’m a gadget man.”

  “You need parts and screws and nails and such, there’s stuff back at our place.”

  “Not sure, uh,” Brody’s heart twisted, “what might be left standing once we get there.”

  “You mean,” said the boy, a winking of hope in the kid’s eyes blinked then snuffed. “Because of the fire and rain thunderstorms?”

  “There’s lots of tunnels, leading to underground hiding places.” Short hair all fuzzed against her scalp from the earlier humid heat, the oldest of the girls crawled from the blankets. “That’s why we came to the McConnell’s barn. We were going to sleep in the loft for the night, then make some torches and go under the ground in search of breakfast first thing in the morning. Some places might even have cured meat and potatoes and stuff. Some of us were made to run errands, so we’d know where.”

  “I’m hungry,” the boy whined, yet studied Brody’s wall scratches.

  “We need to make food runs.” Abe settled in the younger ones on the pallets once again. “Will the mine be our home base?”

  “Junior, with the timber shoring,” Brody asked, “you think we’re safe here?”

  “More fiery thunderbolts hits might make the underground rickety again.” Junior shook his head. “Better off down here for now though.”

  “Not sure how safe branching out is.” Brody eyed the lines of a drawing that his mind no longer seemed able to track.

  “We have to eat.” Abe shrugged at Brody’s wall writing and sketches as if the notes and pictures made no sense to him either. “Even if we come across cured, over-salted ham or canned sardines that would make Hannah turn up her nose, at least we'll have food.”

  “I’m about ready to start making mud pies.” Junior patted the flat of his belly.

  “We can’t eat mud.” The little boy finger combed his buzzed haircut. “Can we?”

  “He’s kidding us.” Abe herded the boy back toward bedding. A lift and spreading of the blanket stirred the nose-itching odor. “Best get some shut eye while we can.”

  “I’ll go.” He’d find his missing-in-action shovel. Make a food run. Without heart trouble and with his wounds healed, thanks to his enhanced uncle, making such a trek was no big-honking deal.

  “Brody, you forget, you’d get lost in a closet.” Abe, shaking his head, rejoined them.

  “If you sketch me a detailed map and point me in the right direction…” Head hanging, Brody sighed and shrugged his shoulders. Warmth infused his cheeks and the upper tips of his ears. A comfortable easiness filled his chest. First time he’d felt normal since... He couldn’t recall exactly when.

  “Here’s some small chunks of limestone.” Junior held out a handful of pebbles. “It’s softer, so you can use it on the walls like chalk.”

  “You know your stuff, Junior.” Brody admired the kid’s humble, yet massive, knowledge of plants and rocks. “I’ll start a list. First food, don’t you think?”

  “Yay!” the boy who’d asked about grub earlier called out.

  The other kids stirred and shushed him.

  “Wait.” Excavating thoughts from his sluggish, reluctant brain was like trying to dig a hole in a pigpen. Muck kept filling in what little progress he made. “What about water? The way it changed— Well, you know.”

  A prickle trailed the length of his spine at the memory of the mutated, fire-starting roach and the deformed, aggressive worm.

  Dang.

  He gripped the stones so tight his fingernails throbbed and his knuckles ached. “We’ll need a way to some
how treat the water.”

  An elusive, just-out-of-reach solution niggled in the stubborn recesses of his thoughts.

  Brody had the answer.

  But he couldn’t pull it out of the clutter.

  “Might be some writing notebooks at one of the drop off places,” the girl said. “Make a list or draw out what you need us to find.”

  “She’s not going, is she?” Junior blew a huff out his nose.

  “She has a name, and it’s Tonya.” The eleven- or twelve-year-old girl, her mocha skin ultra-smooth in the bottle light, head faked and twerked a shoulder.

  Had it come to sending kids out into the danger?

  There was no hope for the directionally impaired, so yes, their survival depended on beyond-courageous children.

  “Tonya knows the tunnels.” The words rasped out his throat as if they had claws and burned like acid. He swallowed and cupped the stones, fingering the pieces of limestone in his palm. “Above the ground’s not exactly safe.”

  “Nothing’s safe anymore.” Tonya led with her chin. “I’m able and willing.”

  Amid the earthiness of the tunnel, Junior scowled. “You best keep up.”

  “At least, I’m wearing shoes and can keep up.” Tonya’s gaze zinged along the bridge of her nose to Junior’s mud-caked and eternally stained feet.

  “Without shoes, I’m faster barefoot than anybody.”

  “Of course you are.”

  A tightness in Brody’s temples drew his attention. Maybe the underground pressure combined with the outer EMF levels?

  The sharp throb of a headache settled in.

  As if on autopilot, on the wall and with a piece of limestone, his hand wrote an elemental symbol.

  “What’s that?” Abe asked.

  “I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Yet I do.”

  “You’re getting your smarts back.” The thirteen-year-old grinned.

  “Could be.” Sledgehammering hurt rammed through his head, shooting a metallic tingle circling his gums. Dizziness looped and swirled within his skull. “Heck of a pounding headache though.”

  “Me too.” Abe squeezed shut his eyes and staggered on his feet.

  “You fellows don’t look so good.” Tonya edged back.

  Junior smacked his palms on both of his temples and moaned.

  “Another electromagnetic fluctuation in the geomagnetic storm,” Brody muttered. “The rising brainwave levels cause a surge of blood flow, which in turn stimulates the side effect of headaches.”