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

by Alexa Dare

  Except…

  Louise died in a house fire a few days ago.

  The thrill inside Hannah, as if soaking up ugliness and wrongness, sharpened like cherry gelatin without sugar and sank low into her tummy.

  So not right.

  Lilac and lavender scents triggered missing that ached like that of a faery princess lost and far away from her homeland and her clan.

  “The banshee’s scream fetched me to you.” Louise smiled. “Irene’s scream has brought your truest wish.”

  “If only we could go home,” Hannah whispered. “If things could be like they were…”

  “First, what you truly wish for. Then, what you don’t.” Louise stepped in front of Hannah. “Tell me, dear, what is your biggest fear?”

  All of a sudden, Hannah wasn’t a part of the water and ice, but apart from.

  In a milky, glittery fade, Louise vanished.

  The doors before Hannah swung open, and her brother ran out. Abe, yelling, mouth open, on fire, burning like a lit torch, fell at her feet.

  Even tapping into her panic, why couldn’t she use her ability to put the fire out?

  Not realness iced through her veins.

  Heat melting the carpet, Abe’s skin charred and his fingers clawed at the stringy fibers. Amid the rubbery stink, he raised his head and gazed into her face. “Help me.”

  His body, burned and crisped, except for the eyes.

  No. Not right.

  Wrong, wrong, wrong.

  Hannah dipped into her anger, yet no water spilled from the ceiling.

  Lies.

  Louise appeared between Abe and Hannah.

  Her guardian smiled and held out her arms. Hannah sobbed as Irene’s sister held her close and gently rocked to comfort her.

  “I’ll make you a berry cobbler with whipped cream on top. We’ll be okay, doodle bug,” Louise said. Louise hadn’t called Hannah that since Hannah insisted she stop. Hannah didn’t want to be a bug because Abe had started calling her dung beetle behind their guardians’ backs.

  “You died in the house fire.” Hannah shoved at Louise, tried to push her away. From over Louise’s shoulder, she shut out the sight of the burned-to-charcoal body of her brother. Oh, but the horrid cooked-to-death stink. “None of this is real, is it?”

  “Our family will be as it once was, always.” Louise’s arms squeezed harder.

  “Help me,” Abe croaked.

  The body crumbled like ashy embers and flames flared.

  “Abe.” Hannah choked down ashy gulps.

  The burning lump said, “Help me.”

  “Stay with me.” Louise’s too-tight hug pressed her ribs and cut off Hannah’s air. “You can, doodle bug. The banshee scream granted your deepest wish and shared your greatest fear. Don’t go. To relive the best and the worst is a small price to pay. Or you will return to the world of zombies, and death, and dying. All you must do is choose.”

  ***

  In the ruined classroom, clawing her way out of a snow heap, a scream, stabbed through Nora’s brain. The shock of the sound cramped Nora’s faulty heart in her chest as she pulled herself from under the weight of the snow.

  All faded to black, but a sharp hurt brought her back as a shard of broken glass cut into her knee. Pain shot through her Olivia—now Nora’s—body’s leg and sharp clamps of hurt panged under her left ribcage.

  Weary, hurting, she lay atop a heap of white.

  The sound of a door opening echoed.

  Holding her breath against the rush of rot, Nora threw up her arm to ward off zombies.

  “Mother, I have come to help.” Vincent slogged through icy, sloshing slush.

  “The zombies?” Had she truly been one of them?

  “The zombie plague ended. The dead walk no more.” Arms wide, a smiling Vincent rushed to her.

  “Don’t touch me. I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “Irene’s banshee scream brought me here. I am what you long for most in life. You truly do care for and about me.” Her son smiled with such purity, so boyishly, as he had at age six or so, before the project made him kill. “We are unable to cause harm. We can live the simple life you have always wanted.”

  Vincent wrapped his arms around her and hugged her close.

  Nora clung to him and sobbed. Her touch no longer killed. Her son was unable to create viruses and plagues. She was a normal woman and her teen son with average needs in a simple world.

  “The children are banding as one to end the storm. We shall be happy as one big family.”

  “And sing campfire songs and roast hotdogs?” Nora leaned away from the clinging form of her son. She shoved him off, yet his grip squeezed tighter. “You’re not real, and you’re not Vincent. I raised my son to be strong, to place duty before leisure.”

  “Always right, huh, Nora.” He sneered. “I can be your perfect son, the child you always wanted. You can be the best and suffer the worst. Much better than going back to a world where you are rapidly expiring, is it not?

  His barely blue gaze grew closer and closer until his eyes overtook her field of vision and his living, human teenaged musk filled her nostrils.

  “What better way to live on? I shall be the son you want me to be. We will be together and normal and happy. Always,” said fake Vincent. Leaning back, he leered, exposing a mouth filled with sharp, pointy teeth. “Choose.”

  Nora fought to take in a breath, to speak.

  “Too late.” With a raucous laugh, Vincent lunged.

  Chapter 35

  “No.” A stretch, as if someone pulled Nora’s thoughts like saltwater taffy, between her temples blanked out her vision. When her sight shifted from gray and focused, she lay in slushy snow in the meeting room.

  Cold rain, showering from a shadowy early morning sky, mixed with ice pellets, sleeted through broken windows above Nora’s head.

  Peyton, her lips curled from her teeth in a snarl, held a jagged length of rank arm bone. (The limb that once belonged to Nora. How sorrowfully odd.) Crouched, the teen stalked like some sort of primal tribal hunter.

  Real?

  “You did that too, didn’t you?” Peyton edged closer. “Made me see my dad alive, and then him trying to chow down on me.”

  “I—” Nora’s voice worked. She leveled her words with a thick sadness. “I didn’t. After what I just saw about my own son… How could you blame such a thing on me?”

  “Okay. So maybe not you directly.” The girl waited… For what? More snow to melt, so she might spring on Nora. “But that project you worked for created the banshee screamer that Dad told me about in my vision. This is your fault.”

  Nora thrashed to sit upright. A clamping jolt pounded in her chest. Her left wrist pressed to her ribcage, she massaged as if to force her heart to level out her erratic pulse. “I don’t have much time. In spite of your attitude, or perhaps because of, you are my chosen vessel.”

  Hurt shot from below her ribs and down her left arm, until she no longer felt her fingers. Cold, so scalding and thorough, flooded her ears and nose.

  Another scream, booming and loud, exploded through the windows from the building roof.

  Again, the banshee…

  ***

  At the scream, the Peyton girl’s eyes shot upward to reveal the whites of her eyes, then she fell into the piled slush.

  Good. Easy prey.

  A thrill, as sweet as caramel sauce, surged Nora’s smile.

  “Time to occupy my new home.” Too bad the girl didn’t possess an ability Nora might absorb, yet the girl’s body would serve a purpose. “A mediocre but adequate vessel.”

  Nora took a plodding step. Sharp hurt shot up her leg. A four-inch triangle of window glass jutted from her knee. “Not my hurt for long.”

  “No matter your form,” a floating heavily German-accented voice said. “You cannot hide.”

  “Killer.” A guttural whisper assailed her from all around.

  “Leave me be.” Nora cupped her ears. “You’re not real. Not
even the ghost voices of those I killed.”

  The door burst open.

  Her son led in a horde of stinking, shuffling dead.

  The zombie librarian rushed to Yates’ final vessel. She stood beside the body floating in the rising icy water. “You’ve killed him.”

  The echoing from-all-over voice said, “Killing is what you do.”

  The zombies closed in.

  Nora dragged her bleeding, gaping leg and placed herself between the zombies and her awaiting vessel. “Vincent. I’m your mother. Stop this.”

  “You are no mother. You have never been.” Vincent, his light eyes ever sad, shook his head.

  “I’ve been the best mother I was able.”

  “Your best,” he said, “has been my worst.”

  “I tried to do my best by you.” Nora sucked in gasps, tainted by the dead-smell flavor, to help her ride out the pain under her ribs.

  “Your best turned me into a monster.”

  A trio of zombies went for her injured leg. Nora punched and kicked at them with her good leg, yet they wouldn’t stop.

  “No. Stop this. They’ll eat me alive.” Said Nora.

  “No, they won’t.” Vincent held out a blood-smeared envelop. Her name was written across the front. He turned over the envelope.

  The crude sketch of dried blood showed a shape. She squinted as her vision tunneled. Her gaze blurry, Nora couldn’t make out the details.

  Zombie’s swarmed her. They clawed, bit, and ate.

  Nora’s scream followed her…

  ***

  Bolting into a sitting position, Nora gasped cold freshness into her aching chest and darted frantic glances around the classroom. Desks floated in the fast filling water and sleet from the massive downpour and melting snow.

  No active zombies, nor her son, were in the room.

  The girl Peyton lay nearby. Her eyelids fluttered. She swung her head and moaned.

  Was she and the girl caught in their own private horror loops?

  What was real? What wasn’t?

  Nora waded through the coldness of the snow to Peyton. Nora’s injured leg, that part had happened, lagged. Crimson thinned in the slush and fanned in rivulets of crimson about her legs.

  Her injured body grew weak. As if opening a carton of ice cream and finding the contents melted, Nora swayed over the blue-tinged Peyton’s unmoving form. Thankfully, her will to survive surged strong. “I’ll make it up to Vincent. We’ll be a real family. I’ll give him the life he never had.”

  How could she, with the world filled with such doubt?

  A bumping noise shifted against the room’s closed door.

  “Don’t disturb me,” Nora called out.

  More scuffs and knocks echoed. Hisses and squeals demanded entry.

  “What other tricks can my mind play on me?”

  “It’s not only your mind. The visions are because of the screams. I was offered the choice of being with my father tracking wildlife through the woods. We laughed and teased. Then I killed him. Over and over again, I murdered my zombie father. I didn’t want to leave him behind, but I chose to come back.”

  “Who wouldn’t?”

  “Someone like you, who’d rather stay in their misery and die than live their lives. You chose killing over living, how many times?”

  “This isn’t real.” Nora grasped her aching chest. “We’re not really having this chat, are we?”

  Scraping and gnawing on the doorframe.

  “Aren’t we?” asked Peyton.

  Nora grabbed for her. “I have to take you as my vessel. This one is flawed. Surely, you realize there is no other choice?”

  “What I know is that you are mean and cruel and the worst mother that ever lived. I also get that we’re in real time.”

  Plaster, soggy and lumpy, caved in low on the wall to the side of the door.

  A two-foot hole opened up.

  A wiggling ball crawled through. Naked-tailed rats, twice as large as normal, scurried in amid hissing reptiles. The pungent urine and heavy musk fragrance reached Nora as a too-real warning.

  “Black snakes and garden snakes,” Nora reminded herself. “They’re not deadly.”

  If they were even real.

  Yet, the all-too-real snakes twined around Nora’s ankles and calves.

  Rats raced up her torso toward her face and eyes.

  A rat sank its teeth into her wrist.

  Jerking back, Nora flung away the rat and held the sting of her lower arm. Like too-ripe onions, a vile tang soaked her back molars, and she fought not to gag or gulp.

  At the bite site, her skin turned black. In an instant, an ashy shrivel spread up her arm.

  These common snakes, normally predators, worked with the rats. Rodents with bites more toxic than any snake on the planet.

  Peyton stabbed the creatures.

  In musky tides, black goo spewed.

  In the middle of the room, over the mass of snakes and rats, a huge mutant spider crawled. Scrubs of scales and squeaks drilled as the twisting tangle swelled over the spider.

  The black widow, with orange glowing eyes, crawled from the thick writhing mass a foot or so away from Nora. Two of the spider’s rear legs curled useless against her body. Yet the other six legs carried her toward Nora.

  More rats bit.

  With smacks and slaps, she lunged through the icy churn to grab Peyton.

  Peyton climbed out an open window and into the downpour.

  A sharp tingle of the rat-bite toxin surging over her taste buds, Nora swam to catch Peyton. “No. I need you.”

  A slap hit Nora’s back.

  Nora dove into the water. Under the surface, she spun. In a frantic grab, she seized a black shape. Cold locked her lungs. She heaved out of the frigid wet to come face to face with the overlarge black widow.

  The spider’s fangs opened and closed. Venom dripped.

  Beneath the frigid water, snakes wrapped around Nora. They banded her ribs.

  Her chest ached to breathe.

  Unable to inhale, her upper body jerked.

  Nora gripped the black widow and exhaled her final breath.

  Chapter 36

  Under the shrill of a second fading second banshee scream, a freezing-cold Hannah stood before a set of double doors, staring at her blue-tinted, out-reached fingers.

  While muffled moans from inside the blocked doors drifted into the hall, dead smell floated from behind her.

  With a glance back, Hannah crouched.

  Zombie bodies, gray and dried up, piled, like kindling logs, in the hallway behind her.

  No scorched body lay anywhere near.

  Were the scary visions over?

  The awful screams?

  A shiver trailed Hannah’s jaw.

  Hannah gulped down the bad stuff dug up by the visions but cringed at the ghostly hint of ashes that slid down her throat.

  Dreams that were all too real.

  A mewling Vincent sat native style on the blue carpet and rocked. “My fingers are gone. I cannot hold a pencil or pen. Do you not see? I am nothing if I cannot draw.”

  No longer frozen by the cold that came after the use of her powers, Hannah stooped and took Vincent’s hands in hers. “Your fingers and hands are fine. Besides, you can even make pictures in your mind, remember?”

  “Mother truly loves me. We shall picnic and play catch, she is going to teach me to drive, and we will go to the mall and to the movies. I will meet Brody there.”

  “It’s a lie. All of it.”

  Vincent rocked and smiled a silly smile.

  “Don’t you dare drool.” Hannah drew back her hand. “Sorry, up front.”

  She slapped Vincent’s face. Smack.

  The stupid grin drooped.

  She shook him. “Vincent, get it together. Please.”

  He blinked.

  She backhanded his other cheek. “What you’re seeing and think is happening isn’t real.” She aimed another blow.

  Vincent caught her ar
m. “Not real?”

  “No. Let’s go. I can sense the water pouring down, lots and lots of dampness is heading our way. Our powers are getting stronger again. Do you have the envelope?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good, because in addition to whatever bad stuff you sent your mother’s way, you’re going to draw the end of the storm.”

  “Mother doesn’t care for snakes, rats, or spiders.” Vincent smiled, except this time, instead of being loopy silly, this grim stretch of his lips sent wary prickles all the way down Hannah’s spine. “So I sent her gifts.”

  “That takes the pestilence thing to a whole new level.”

  “She claims they are unclean.” He shrugged.

  The double doors burst open.

  Wind as cold as a winter squall and twice as harsh erupted from the room.

  “Darcy Lynn at her best.” Hannah grinned, helped Vincent to his feet, and the two of them entered the big theater room.

  The fallen roof left snow and broken panes piled over the stage and the front most seats.

  Darcy Lynn stood on one side of the stage area. From the slush, with the powers of the rushing wind, she lifted the limp body of one of the twin boys from a pile of slush on the stage.

  “No, not Isaiah or Jeremiah!” Hannah barreled downstairs.

  Abe rushed toward Hannah. In a firm hug, he wrapped his arms around her and lifted her off her feet. “We left them to get supplies. We heard the crash. Came back.” Abe held her too tight.

  Hannah inhaled the unclean aroma clinging to her brother then a musky scent that was only her brother’s.

  He choked out, “We couldn’t save them all.”

  Brody and the rest of the kids took care of those hurt, moving them to farther up in the seats, away from the rising water.

  On a quick exhale, she stepped from Abe’s warm hug and said, “But Merv can heal most of them, right? We can get more food from the shelter room.”

  Too many sets of sad eyes stared at Hannah.

  “What? What’s going on?”

  “Uncle Merv didn’t make it.” Brody stood on the stairs, holding little Isaiah in his arms.

  Darcy Lynn lowered the other twin’s body near the few that no longer moved.

  “They. They’re…” Hannah’s throat pinched.

  “Dead,” Brody said, looking drawn and much older than seventeen.