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

by Alexa Dare

From the tunnel, giggles and puppy yips sounded, followed by shushes and hushing noises.

  Grinning, he shifted pages, until he came across the crossbow sketch copied from the wall. Too complex for his drained brain, this one he’d need to work out further when he got another surge of intelligence . Once he figured out the firepower, they’d have flaming explosive arrows.

  “Shhhwooop. Kapow.” Brody chuckled.

  A shift moved in the outer edge of his vision.

  “Did you guys lose a marble?”

  The group of children cupped marbles in their hands. Some pointed and counted aloud. “All here.”

  “Then what?” Brody rubbed his eyes. Maybe a floater on his eyeball. Hopefully, no dust from the stuff they spread around to repel pests.

  He went to the wash bucket. The kids had all worn found work gloves, but maybe a bit had become airborne? However, they were natural minerals where Junior had schooled himself by instinct as to their uses.

  Brody washed his face and hands, then rinsed. He stared at his fingers. No fuzzy spots in his vision.

  Back toward the sleeping children, nothing out of the ordinary moved.

  Stress.

  Had to be.

  His too-tired mind created shadow gremlins.

  He shrugged.

  To heck with that, he had work to do. But first, one quick game of marbles. “Rack em up, guys and gals.”

  After only a short while, the kids got bored with playing the marble game with an adult.

  Down a musty dead-ended, bottle-lit tunnel, with the returned middle grade kids, they played a game of their own making. Something about a zombie wearing a blindfold and trying to get his or her hands on the others.

  Since they kept the noise to a low, growling roar, Brody let them play.

  Minutes later, as the aroma of cooking meat and potatoes stuffed the place so full that his tummy ached, Brody stood at the desk plank and jotted a simple note. He could use emptied shotgun shells attached near the arrowhead. He even had in mind what to use for the fuse.

  He jotted down possible short- to long-burning materials.

  The shag of his hair, days past an overdue haircut, tickled his ear. He swiped at the stringy strand tips. A comb or brush would do a lot better.

  “We even found Abe a shirt.” From the tunnel, Tonya giggled. “It’s military green though.”

  A gasp sounded from behind Brody.

  “Brody,” Tonya, from the tunnel shaft entry, said, “don’t move.”

  Brody swiveled his head to the right.

  “Don’t,” Abe repeated.

  “Move,” said Junior.

  “You want me to move?” Brody asked.

  “No,” Junior rasped. “Don’t.”

  “Don’t even breathe,” Abe whispered.

  Brody froze in place. The hairs on the back of his neck raised and a chill-filled tingle crept down his back.

  Along the fringe of his gaze, Abe crept forward with a skillet.

  “Wait.” Tonya said, “Here’s a mason jar. Brody might want to study it.”

  “It?” he asked in a breathy squeak.

  “I hate these things.” Tonya shuffled into view.

  “Things?” This time his voice came out as a weak falsetto.

  “Hold on.” Junior handed Tonya a kettle and lid. “Even safer.”

  “Abe, you’re taller.” Tonya edged to the side of the plank. “I’ll hold the pot and you bring the lid across from the web.”

  Web?

  Spider!

  A prickle rushed over his arms until goose bumps popped out on his skin. “I don’t like them, but most times a spider’s no big deal.”

  Junior stepped behind Tonya. “This ain’t no regular spider.”

  Deformed hostile worm. Sparking mutant roach.

  Not normal meant some sort of visible change.

  Behind him and just above his head, a clang rang out.

  “They got it.” Junior yanked Brody out of his statue-like pose.

  Brody reeled two steps back.

  “So gross.” Tonya held the pot.

  “The web won’t break.” Abe pressed a lid onto the kettle rim. “Never seen anything like it.”

  A thick white strand trailed into the pot from the ceiling.

  Junior pulled out the thick-bladed knife he used to loosen rocks and chisel minerals from hard-packed soil. He passed the knife. “You’re tallest.”

  Wrapped in the promise of ham and potato stew, Brody inhaled. His stomach lurched in an acidic wobble. Gulping, he clasped the handle. On tiptoe, he pulled the blade across the strand.

  “Knife must be dull.” He reached out to grip the fiber close so he could saw with the blade.

  “No,” Tonya yelled. “Don’t touch it.”

  “Once you see the spider, you’ll see it might not be safe.” Abe, knuckles white, fought to steady the lid. “Bolt cutters. In the wooden crate.”

  Abe and Tonya pushed the pot parts together. The waxy paleness of their skin and too-lax faces scared the heck out of Brody.

  Three attempts at cutting through the web with bolt cutters made to cut metal, and finally, Brody severed the strand.

  The girl and boy lowered the pot to the floor, where they both pressed down on the metal lid.

  Junior lugged a flat rock that took all three of them to place over and anchor down the lid.

  “But it’s just a spider, right?”

  “Not any old spider.” Tonya stared at the jittering pot.

  “Aaannnd,” Junior said, “not the only one.”

  Brody dragged his wary gaze toward the pallet where the smaller ones slept. In an instant, his heart sunk lower than a flea’s belly.

  Layered webs draped and reached like awnings from ceiling to floor. Beneath and within the cocoon of the fibrous film, the three younger children slept, trapped by the woven strands.

  “Is it time to eat yet?” A boy strode from the play tunnel.

  Tonya covered the child’s mouth and muffled scream.

  Tarantula-sized spiders clung to the white entwined strands. The hourglass on the spiders’ shiny black bellies glowed orange. Half a dozen sets of eight legs quivered. Their fangs opened and closed as the giant black widow spiders waited and watched with orange glowing multi-faceted eyes.

  Chapter 16

  As the door opening widened, Hannah pushed the metal slab inward and reached inside the sweat-soured metal room to help Irene drag Merv, inch by inch, away from the doorway. Even through the big man’s camo clothing, the cold and clammy seep of his skin added more worry to Hannah’s list.

  For the time being, Darcy Lynn coaxed the boys to stop crying. Instead, they hugged each other and sniffled.

  “It’s okay,” Darcy Lynn, huddled with them beside the doorframe, said. “We’ll get something to eat soon.”

  “Promise?” Isaiah smacked his lips. “Peanut butter and jelly?”

  “Grape.” Jeremiah rubbed his tummy.

  “We will.” Wide-eyed and trusting, the little girl asked, “Won’t we, Hannah?”

  “I’m not sure about PB&J,” Hannah said, “but food.”

  After several minutes of pushing, a wide enough slit for Hannah to slip through opened.

  “Watch out for Peyton, she may be back,” said Hannah.

  “The wind will blow her away. Uh, when I can play again.” Darcy Lynn pressed her lips into a tight pout.

  “You’re brave. All three of you.” Hannah gnawed her lower lip. Handing the light off to the seven-year-old, she tucked a second and a third in the waistband of her ugly, men’s military pants.

  As if sneaking into a dragon’s lair, Hannah slid into the safe room’s darkness.

  Inside the gloom, Irene cradled Merv’s head in her lap. Hannah set a light stick aglow and passed the glowing stick to her guardian. Irene placed the stick on the floor and held out her arms. Hannah slipped into her embrace.

  Home.

  No bonfire needed.

  The caring woman, somehow still ba
thed in a faint hint of lilac, hugged Hannah close as if she never intended to let go.

  A warmth from inside Hannah swelled until heat pressed against the back of her eyes. Though no tears leaked out, her heart grew to bursting and her throat tightened. She croaked out, “Are you all right?”

  Irene nodded and lifted the light toward the side of the room.

  The glow revealed packages. On one, Roast Beef, Add Water was printed.

  “Food. Lots of goodies,” Hannah said. “We’ll find something to capture water. We could tear out some of the carpet, make a fire. Merv’ll know how to strike a blaze.”

  Gathering three packages not stamped Add Water, a biscuit pouch, an Italian bread stick pouch, and a cornbread pouch, she handed them out to the children. “Here we go. Don’t forget to keep a lookout.”

  “Yay.” One boy yipped.

  “Is this PB&J?” the other asked.

  Darcy Lynn poked holes in the wrappers with Peyton’s discarded screwdriver. Nose wrinkled, she said, “Looks nasty, but maybe the breads will taste good.”

  Through the door opening, Hannah grinned. “I doubt it, but its food, right?”

  “Right.”

  The boys' smacking lips boosted the blossoming under her ribs even more. She crawled and returned to Irene. “What’s wrong with Brody’s uncle? He was the one tapping, right?”

  A sad smile stretched over Irene’s lips, and she nodded.

  A muttering rose from deeper inside the room.

  Hannah activated and rolled the third light stick across the concrete.

  The stick halted against the bottom of a tennis shoe.

  The greenish light hollowed shadows in Vincent Hicks’ cheeks. Light hair sticking up in spiky sprouts, he sat on the concrete floor, hand tucked under his outer thighs, and rocked his upper body. “I shall not draw. I must not draw.”

  “If it happens like it did with Darcy Lynn and me, your ability comes back right after a headache, then the hurt and your power go away in a few minutes.”

  Vincent nodded and kept rocking.

  “How can we help Uncle Merv?” asked Hannah.

  Irene lifted her hand and mimicked drinking from the cup, then brought her thumb to her fingers and tapped her lips.

  Near where Vincent sat, Hannah found bottled water on a lower shelf. “I know this is scary for you and you’re trying really hard not to cause any more harm, but you’ve got to get your act together. A girl wants to make you pay for causing the sicknesses. I doubt she’s the only one out to get you. Your mother intends to collect us, if she can get her hands on us.” Hannah leaned in close. “Why is Merv sick? Did you do something to him?”

  “Will not draw.” The sixteen-year-old squeezed his eyelids shut.

  Hannah kicked out. Her shoe connected with his outer upper thigh. What she meant as a nudge, the toe of her shoe whammed against his leg.

  He flinched and gazed at her with his haunting eyes. “He refused to eat. He tried to heal her throat and became quite weak. He said he would not take from us because we did not know how long we might be entrapped.”

  “But there’s pounds and pounds of food here.”

  “He claimed once he started, he might eat more than his share, so he chose not to eat.” Several empty containers sat in the floor around Vincent.

  “Least you could have done was clean up your own mess.” Hannah brought water, then scrounged a container labeled Protein Powder. “What if we start with this?”

  Irene nodded.

  Carrying the powder, the glow stick, and the glass-contained gallon of water was like juggling cherry-flavored gelatin, but no way would she ask that dweeb Vincent for help. Besides, he needed to ride out his power surge until he went back to being harmless again.

  But would, or could, he?

  Maybe he was more like the Peyton girl. Always hostile and always a threat. Hannah wouldn’t turn her back on either of them.

  Irene gripped the length of her slender neck, then held her hands palms up. She shook her head. Silent tears dripped from her jaw.

  “Something broke in your vocal cords. I’m so sorry.” If only she could cry for Irene, for Merv, for the dead, those that wished they were dead, and the other children. She whispered, “If I am able ever to cry again, I’m afraid I’ll never stop.”

  Irene stroked Hannah’s cheek. Hands over her left breast, Irene patted her chest.

  “I love you too. More than I’ve ever said or shown.”

  Irene clutched the area over her heart, then patted her palm atop Merv’s wide chest.

  “You love him, don’t you?”

  Irene bobbed her chin.

  “Then that gives us extra reason to force food down his throat, doesn’t it?”

  Drop by drop, the two of them dribbled the fake-vanilla-flavored protein water onto his lips. Irene at times rubbed his chin and throat below his bushy beard to get him to swallow. Sometimes she parted his parched lips and allowed Hannah to pour the tiniest drip of water.

  “Hannah! Peyton’s back.” Darcy Lynn dragged the boys, clutching their ration bags, into the room. “She’s running toward us and looks real mean.”

  One of the little guys pushed the door. The other dropped his food package and shoved the metal slab so hard that both boys pitched forward.

  The door swung shut. The latch clicked into place.

  ***

  For what seemed like hours into the morning, Peyton banged on the thick metal door slab as Hannah held one of the crying boys, while Irene rocked and cuddled the other.

  The staleness in the small, metal-walled room settled heavy around them. Steel shelving units of food covered three of the walls. Everything in the room, even the food packets, seemed gray, which shaded green in the chemical light stick glow.

  Merv stirred enough to drink water on his own.

  “You have to eat enough to be big and strong so you can get us out of here.” Darcy Lynn had taken Merv’s recovery on as her own. Hannah and Irene thought to force-feed the man, but the girl took the effort to a whole new level. She ripped open a protein bar wrapper and crammed the bar into his mouth.

  “Already got the first part down pat.” Merv his back against the wall beside the door. His chuckling jiggled his round belly.

  “Uncle Merv, stop talking and eat.” Darcy Lynn tore open another wrapper.

  “We’re locked in here again. I shouldn’t.” Merv turned his face aside.

  Bangs echoed through the metal slab.

  Jeremiah chomped on a piece of flatbread. “Peyton’s not so nice.”

  “She’s booger-eating mad.” Isaiah broke bits of bread and crammed the pieces hamster-like into his cheeks.

  “Uncle Merv, Irene can’t scold you so we will.” Hannah used her light stick to scope out the stuff on the shelves. “Darcy Lynn’s right, we need your help getting us out of this place.”

  “My having to eat so much is because of my enhancement. It’s not right or fair for you others.”

  “Once you get to feeling better, you might not need all that food. Right now, we don’t have our powers all of the time.”

  “Might be why I wasn’t able to heal Irene. You got your powers back though?”

  “After the fire fell down from the sky and my head pounded really badly.” Darcy Lynn frowned. “For a little bitty bit.”

  “Mine seems to have receded once again,” Vincent said. “What is that strange light you brought to us?”

  “These? They’re some sort of light we found in the emergency kits.”

  “Not the safety lighting sticks.” Vincent pointed up toward the ceiling. “That.”

  In the rear corner, a yellow light blinked.

  “A lightning bug.” Darcy Lynn grinned. “They fly and fly in the wind.”

  One of the boys clapped. “Firefly.”

  “A bug that lights?” Vincent stretched his neck. “How is such a thing possible?”

  “Boy, they sure kept you locked up, didn’t they?” asked Hannah.

&n
bsp; “Unless they took me into the field and used me for harm.” Vincent shrugged. “The insect actually lights up?”

  “Its lower body glows and blinks.” Hannah smiled. A sign of hope after all?

  “I have missed out on so very much.” He frowned.

  The lightning bug took flight and blinked downward along the wall to land on the pile of rations.

  Two more lights appeared in what must be a crack in the upper wall.

  Uncle Merv grunted. “Guess they don’t build shelters like they used to.”

  “I am grateful that you knew this one existed,” Vincent said. “Had we not taken shelter, our survival was in grave doubt.”

  “First the locals attacked,” said Uncle Merv, speaking around a bite of crunchy granola-type bar, “then the zombies. Didn’t think we were gonna to make it.”

  Irene snapped her fingers. When they all turned to her, she tapped her nose and raised the tip.

  Hannah sniffed in hot metal and singed paper odors. “Something’s burning.”

  Vincent retrieved a light and went to the rear. “Just how dangerous are these lighting bugs.”

  “Lightning. They like to blink and fly.” Darcy Lynn dug more bars out of a box, handed a few to the boys, and piled a stack of a dozen or so on her lap for Merv.

  “Perhaps you need to come and see, Hannah.”

  “It’s just a tiny little bug,” Hannah huffed and shot her gaze up and around.

  “You’re not a fraidy-cat, are you?” Darcy Lynn giggled.

  A bang of metal clanged on the outside of the door.

  “Well, if we can’t get out, she can’t get in.” Merv snorted and chuckled.

  “This person wants to harm me?”

  “Kill is more like it. She blames you because her dad turned into a zombie.” Hannah edged toward the back shelf. “Peyton said he was killed, but I think she might have been the one to take him down.”

  “I should never have caused such a horrific plague.”

  “No you shouldn’t have.”

  “I was foolish.” The light ghosted Vincent’s pupils close to white. “Not myself.”

  “What you did to your mother.” A shudder jostled Hannah’s shoulders. “Now that was bad.”

  “Nora died?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “I see.” Vincent nodded.

  Atop one of the packets, in the midst of a blackened circle, a lightning bug blinked.