by Alexa Dare
“Because of the water, the sealant won’t stay in place unless the pressure evens out.” A twisting ache settled low in Brody’s belly.
“Get your frog-belly hands away from me,” Abe smacked at the ice packs and hunched away from his sister, “and let me find the tanks.”
“How long,” asked Hannah, her tone holding more threat than promise, “do you think it would take for a twin to freeze?”
“A lot longer than it would take to singe his twin’s brows.” Abe’s voice popped out with such a deep tone that his own eyes popped open. In the low light, they boy-man blinked. “I seem to be good to go for now. Is there a countdown for the flush? How soon before the tanked oxygen fills the cabin?”
Lines from the manual scrolled across Brody’s memory as the sparse contents of his stomach curdled. “Uh, a few seconds is all.”
“How many?” Hannah studied his face as she would a spider shut inside a mason jar. “Spill.”
“Too many.” Brody ducked his head. From above, a giant drip of water splashed the back of his skull. “No use forming a cloud over my head, I’m doing the best I can. Can’t you float us, lift the sub and control the tides?”
“You saw what happened with Abe. Nothing works the way it should. I’m scared and upset. Anything that could possibly go wrong will.”
“Then we need to take the chance to seal the window.” Brody rubbed the ball of his hand over his aching chest. “The Am-Sub’s going to protect itself. That’s how the computer’s set up. We have to trust the coding.”
“The tanks.” Abe ducked his head and pulled first the red, then the green from holding brackets beneath the dash. “Helps a lot when you are able to see what you’re doing.”
Brody clutched a tank under each arm. “You got your burn status under control.”
“Yep.” Abe’s smile wavered. “For now.”
“I’ll take those. You two have work to do.” “Hannah tugged at the tanks.
“Oh, oxygen.” Darcy Lynn pointed at the face cup. “That’s the stinky plastic stuff that swishes into your nose and tickles.”
“You got it. The green one’s an oxygen tank, with hose and face mask.” Brody let Hannah take charge of the tanks. Like he had any other choice. “We share the mask until the main air flow system kicks on. Easy Peasy.”
“Nothing’s ever easy when it comes to plots and plans.” Hannah hugged the tanks against her chest.
“Got a better idea?” asked Abe.
“No more time to think. Time to do.” Hannah snatched a tube. “We just what? Squirt this stuff and push on the window. No big deal.”
“I’ll help!” Darcy Lynn hopped up and down.
“We need all the help we can get.” His heart twinged suddenly as if wrung tight like a soured, unwashed dishrag.
Fingers fisted, Darcy Lynn hugged her hands to her chest.
“For a little bit, we won’t be able to breathe. Then, more air will rush in like one of your wind gusts. We need to press outwards on the back window. If the goop has a good chance to stick in place...” Via the thick windowpanes along the vehicle’s sides, he eyed the brown river water.
“We better hurry, guys.” Abe hung on to the steering wheel. “I have a hunch that Vincent’s close by and Nora’s not too far behind.”
“Here goes, um, er, everything.” Brody’s hand shook. He tensed his fist so hard his hand jiggled double-time. Holding his right hand with his left, he steadied his finger. “Get to the back window. Be ready.”
The kids headed to the cabin’s rear. Behind the girls, Abe peeked about as if he feared a full-out fail.
“Just do it,” Hannah called out.
“Bossy much?” Three menus and four screens later, he set the cycle in motion.
“Ten seconds to cabin oxygen release,” said the robotic voice.
He lurched in a gawky crawl down the narrow aisle. Near the rear of the cab, he splashed through pooling warm water. Water soaked his khaki-covered knees and lower pant legs.
Like a trickle of a stream, water flowed over the glass.
Hannah squirted a large rope of sealant along the top edge of the window. In quick swipes, Hannah smeared the yellow green paste over the glass and gasket.
The biting stink of the sealant stabbed his nose and jarred Brody’s taste buds. Yuck. He pressed his upper body against the glass. “Get ready to hold your breath.”
“There’s still water coming in.” Darcy Lynn held out her fists, ready to shove the glass slab in place.
“No air, then the water stops,” Hannah said. “And maybe we get to breathe again.”
“Hannah, stop.” Abe squeezed his lids tight as if he didn’t want to chance a sisterly glare. “We’ve got the green tank, remember?”
“Five seconds,” the robotic voice shared, “to oxygen purge.”
Brody nuked the urge to tell the inhuman voice to shut up. “Okay, suck in a breath and hold.”
“Oxygen release in progress,” the Am-Sub gloated in her mocking tone.
With a hiss, the rest of the air rushed out.
Chapter 5
Abe slitted his lids to peer about. Far more than pitch dark greeted him. Outside the underwater car’s windows, bubbles from the oxygen flush burst into hungry orange, yellow, and white-tinged flames in the murk. From around the rear glass, trickling water grew heated.
Hannah’s elbow jabbed Abe’s ribs.
What little breath Abe sucked in rushed out of his lungs in a mighty huff. Unable to inhale, he shrugged and shook his head.
No, he wasn’t making the water boil.
Abe pressed his hands to the window and focused his gaze out the side window at the burning. He imagined the flames shrinking, like a fire on one of the grills cooking chicken for Brody’s pretend meal, until the real river fire sizzled out.
He rested his hot forehead against the smooth pane.
Quiet. Smaller. Sizzle. Out.
His head bobbed. No air to breathe.
Darcy Lynn cupped the oxygen mask to her face, then offered you know how that goes d it to Brody.
Abe’s forehead tapped the glass surface. His knees gave out. He slid downward, but he kept pushing on the glass pane.
The light from the outside died down, which meant so had the heat in the water.
He breathed a shallow sigh of relief but couldn’t manage an inhale.
Fever chased away the cooling down his sister shared with him like a pack of hounds on the trail of a fox. Sweat dripped down his forehead and slithered like a beetle bug down the middle of his back.
Darcy Lynn fell to the floor, her face reddened toward purple. She clawed at her chest. Her mouth opened wide, but no noise came out.
Brody pressed against the window but bent to give her back the mask.
In a loud hissing gush, a gush rushed from vents.
“Oxygen and pressure nearing normal levels,” the Am-Sub’s computer voice said.
Relief-filled breaths ballooned Abe’s chest.
Darcy Lynn writhed and held her neck as she sucked in mouthfuls to fill her little girl lungs.
“Hannah, stop raining,” Abe rasped out. “You’ll short out the gear.”
“We were suffocating. Of course, you’d expect a girl to get upset. Who wouldn’t?” Hannah rolled her eyes in the returning blink of the blue light.
“Press harder.” Brody wheezed gasps, walked his hands up the window glass, then shoved his unhurt shoulder against the pane.
“Why isn’t the stupid window sealing?” asked Hannah.
Abe knelt.
“Don’t stop pushing, you goof.” Hannah nudged him with her bare foot.
“Darcy Lynn,” Abe said, “can you use the wind, make it push just enough on the window to seal the leak? Not a hard gust, but a firm, easy breeze.”
“Can’t breathe. I need to breathe.”
Abe grabbed her flailing hand and held on. “You can. In. Out. See, like me.” He placed her free hand on his lower chest. “You have to make the wi
nd push steady, a little at a time. Too much and the glass will blow out and lots of water will come in.”
“Nothing works right.” Barking sobs hopped from her throat.
“You’re telling me.” Abe snorted out the chemical burn of the sealant. “I somehow caught the water on fire. Who knew water could burn.”
Darcy Lynn’s giggles fueled his hope.
“Abe, she’s just a kid.” Hannah nudged his elbow with her knee.
“So are we.” Abe didn’t shoot her a look. Were he to singe her hair… A brother only got one shot at messing with his sister. At age six, he paid dearly by thinking he’d wet his own bed for a week.
“Squirt the rest of the sealant, Hannah.” Brody groaned as he pressed his shoulder harder. “Abe’s idea may be our only way out.”
“But—”
“If I can put out part of the fire in the water, you can focus the current to lift the ATV.”
“I don’t think...” Hannah mumbled.
“That’s your problem, Hannah. I might think too much and be a dweeb, but you don’t think at all.” Abe goaded her because guided anger beat spazzed out upset.
“Fine.” Hannah squirted more gunk, the same color as guacamole dip, along the top of the window. “About time you started doing.”
Hannah’s verbal jab lanced him, yet he grinned through the hurt. “We’re going to do it now, aren’t we Darcy Lynn?” Abe tugged Darcy Lynn’s hand and helped her sit up. “You can do this, right.”
“Where’s Fluffy Dog?”
“In your pockets.” Hannah scoffed
“Where’s his eye. Oh, no, I lost his button eye.”
“We’ll find it,” Brody said. “First, the leak’s getting worse instead of better. Even if things get screwy, Abe, you had one heck of an idea.”
“I can play, even under the water.” Darcy Lynn eyed the outside water. “We have to hurry, Junior needs us lots.”
Hannah made a don’t-ask-me face. “You can’t know Junior’s in trouble.”
“Don’t know how, but I do.” Darcy Lynn backed down the aisle.
“Let’s do this.” Streams of water rushed down the side of Brody’s face. “So we can find Junior and help him.”
Darcy Lynn swayed her wrists, then wiggled her fingers as she did with her wind play.
A swoosh sounded from the cabin’s front.
“Get down,” Brody yelled.
Abe hugged the floor, and pulled the tiny girl, her fingers waving, down next to him.
Hannah and Brody let go and dove for the floor.
Water gushed across the window and down the rear wall to splash onto the cabin floor.
Darcy Lynn sat up and cupped her palms the toward herself. She flipped her hands to face the wide back glass. With a cough, she held them palm out as if pushing an unseen wall.
“You’re doing real good.”
Darcy Lynn coughed. “Well. Miss Nora said you should say well, not good.”
The slash of the wind rushing against the window stirred the green-goop adhesive stench and whipped Abe’s hair.
“Well for you doesn’t sound quite right,” Abe said, “but okay.”
More coughs erased her weak smile.
“Whew, man.” Brody moaned. “Ease up, Darcy Lynn. The water stopped.”
The little girl fisted her hands, and the gust halted. Coughing and bent over, and she slumped to her knees. She scrambled along the floor as if seeking the lost button.
The breeze had blown away the evidence of the leak. No further water trailed the glass.
“Yay!” Darcy Lynn scooped up the dog’s eye button.
Abe squeezed her in a quick hug. He stood and tugged her to her feet.
“Pressure balance complete,” said Am-Sub.
“No thanks to you.” Hannah shot a dagger gaze at the control panel.
Their joined laughter forced Abe’s mouth into a cheek-aching grin.
“Thirty minutes of oxygen remaining.” The robot’s girly voice hung like the last kernel popped just as the popcorn scorched.
Abe’s fevered warmth chilled as if Hannah had placed more icepacks to his neck. His plan went up into smoke. No Plan B, and the four of them were in deep trouble. With only minutes of air left, Abe’s goal of getting them out of the ATV snuffed out.
“I hope the soldiers didn’t order a lot of these maxed-out ATVs.” Hannah patted the little girl’s head.
Darcy Lynn beamed and cupped the button to her chest.
“More likely they ordered them by the dozens and paid for them with our money. Upfront.” Brody limped toward the dashboard.
Abe’s panic-filled breaths scalded his lungs with tugs of heated plastic seal and goo. He closed his eyes. Best to not let his frantic gaze set the fresh flow ablaze. “The water current, Hannah. I can keep the fire at bay, if you can lift us out.”
“What about the wiring? When I play, as Darcy Lynn calls what we do, the rain comes falling down.”
“You do what you need to do. Brody and I will take care of the gear.” To get Hannah in the mood, once again, he said, “Don’t tell me you’re getting ready to boohoo all over.”
“Open your eyes, crispy critter boy,” Hannah taunted. “We’ll see who gives who a reason to cry.”
“Hannah, that’s so not fair.” Shame flamed Abe’s feverish face even hotter. “I was only two when I set the tip of the cat’s tail on fire.”
Hannah giggled. “When I tried to put out the fire, the poor cat’s tail froze solid and broke off in my hand.”
“Stanley became Stumpy.” Abe sighed. “Was our last bonfire really only a few days ago?”
“Feels like forever and a day ago.” Hannah stared out into the rushing river as if she wished she were out there instead of in the Sub. “I hope Irene is okay.”
“Wish we had a sense of her and where she is.” Abe sort of reached out with his mind. Only he tapped the position of the three of them in the ATV, Vincent, Nora, and Junior so alone and farther away. No outreach to Irene.
“When Cantrell rescued us, he claimed he took Irene to a safe place.” Hannah shrugged. “Though he helped me find you, he never said where she might be.”
“If we could find Uncle Merv,” Brody said, “he might know of another bunker.”
“Twenty-five minutes of oxygen remains.”
“Can’t you shut up the fake voice?” Hands on hips, Hannah marched up the aisle.
“Get us out of here, Hannah. If you do, we’ll find Irene.” Abe had sunk lower than a snake’s belly to play on his sister’s hope and guilt.
“And Junior.” Darcy Lynn trotted to the front. “We gotta get to Junior.”
“Get ready to drive, Burn Boy.” Hannah elbowed past. Coldness trailed after her as if icicles clung to the tail of her over-large, military T-shirt. In front of the fixed rear window, she stood and wrung her hands. “I have to bring the current in low and not push the glass too hard.”
Abe returned to the driver’s seat. “Strap on your seat belts.”
“Is she going to be all right?” Brody knelt before the panel again.
“Having her powers linked directly to her emotions makes it tough.”
A drip plopped on Abe’s forehead and ran down the bridge of his nose. He blew the drop away in a puff hard enough to chase off the chemical smells. “On all of us.”
A mist gathered in the cabin.
“Eew, I’m all wet.” Darcy Lynn shook to stir the moisture away. “Like when the umbrella broke.”
“Rain gear’s under the front row seat behind the driver.” Brody said, “Get the books and hold on to them under a raincoat so they stay dry.”
In the rearview mirror, Hannah’s tear-streaked paleness worried Abe. He hated seeing his sister so upset, but—
“Twenty minutes of oxygen remains.”
“I think Amy is broke.” Darcy Lynn gripped her button and thumped her off-the-floor tennis shoe heels against the seat front. “She’s counting and the numbers are going the wrong way.”
Hannah’s quivering lips flushed toward blue, yet the corners of her lips lifted into a sickly smile.
Tight dread settled upon Abe’s back. “You can make it hail and rain, but you can’t direct the flow of a river. How lame is that?”
“Reverse the flow, not only direct.” As cold wrapped around her, hard shakes rocked Hannah.
The back of the Am-Sub creaked and lurched up, rocks and all.
Water swirled and lifted the ATV’s front.
The rocks at the back fell away. A muddy wave lifted the sub.
Relief spread under Abe’s ribs and deep inside his belly. “Hey, Brody, I wouldn’t mind some wonton soup and eggrolls.”
“As long as we skip the sushi.” Brody messed with the monitor and pushed a button near Abe.
The motor roared to life.
“Put it in gear, Sparky,” Brody said. “You’re mobile.”
“Don’t call me that.” Heat built in Abe’s cheeks.
“I like it,” said Hannah, “though I think Burn Boy is better.”
“Fluffy wants dry land.” Darcy Lynn bumped her heels faster.
“Fifteen minutes of oxygen remains,” the Am-Sub said.
“Oh, you be quiet.” Darcy Lynn raised her fists at the voice.
Their joined laughs lifted the cabin’s mood.
Hannah giggled until she slid into a nearby seat. Hiding her face in her hands, she wept.
Wincing under the sound of his sister’s hitching sobs, Abe, at the wheel, steered the Am-Sub.
A pulsing tone sounded and a light on the dash flashed as the motor of the Sub purred to life. Under its own power, the ATV arrowed, with Abe driving at the helm, through the water from the river bottom.
Ahead, water churned, and a hull of a boat loomed.
“The timber barge.” Brody shielded his eyes to the light beams from above. He sagged into the copilot seat and belted his seatbelt. “The crew jumped ship.”
Legs flailed in the river between the Am-Sub and the barge.
Abe braked and shifted into reverse. He angled back, then up. At thirteen, he drove an ATV on steroids. He was cooking with gas.
The front hull broke the surface of the water. Flames licked the metal in hungry laps.
Darcy Lynn gasped. “A river of fire.”