Raging Inferno: A Post-Apocalyptic/Dystopian Adventure (Children of the Elements Book 3)

by Alexa Dare

  The door banged closed.

  The tree burned like a giant torch. Eager fire crackled and wood popped as if the sweet, fragrant burning fueled Abe’s frustration and anger.

  Yellows. Oranges. Slivers of whites and blues.

  Why didn’t the fire comfort him anymore?

  Abe paced along beside the tank. “What not to do. What to do. Everybody has a say so, but us. Don’t you think it’s time we made our own choices?”

  “It is. Only not stupid ones.” Hannah sniffled. “Darn it, Abe.”

  A whoosh of rain poured from the sky. Dampening all of them and hosing the tree. Water and fire sizzled, acrid smoke rose to disappear into the night as Hannah’s rain snuffed the flames.

  “He threatened to bring down Briar Patch Mountain on top of my son.” Nora’s fat, fake tears shone on her cheeks in the yellow porch light beam.

  “Nora cares for her son.” Irene shook her head in her you-can-do-better way. “Where’s your compassion, young man? Your empathy?”

  Abe’s cheeks heated extra hot. Unshed tears scalded his eyes. “I have none.”

  Irene approached. She cupped his jaw and stroked his cheek with her thumb. “Louise and I raised you to care and have an honest respect for others.”

  Abe couldn’t stand the feel of her comforting touch on his face. He fisted his hands to keep from knocking her hand away or shoving her from him.

  He stepped back instead. The insides of Abe’s chest twisted raw. A sort of Brussel sprouts sick burned deep in his belly. “I don’t need your pity.”

  In the distance, several torchlights and flashlight beams bobbed along the road to the old apple and cherry orchard.

  “Hannah, hurry Merv and Brody along.” Irene glanced down the dirt road. With quick motions, she helped Darcy Lynn to climb up, then supported Junior in a one-legged hop toward the tank.

  “See what you did.” Hannah screwed up a mad face. “Your fire led them right to us. How stupid can you get Abe?”

  “Enough. Go warn the men.” Irene clapped her hands.

  “Brody’s no man.” Hannah snorted. “He’s, well, Brody.”

  “You in the trailer,” a man’s voice from down the road called out. “Leave that stuff behind and head out. Won’t be no looting on our watch.”

  Carrying armloads of gear, Brody and Merv hurried out.

  Irene climbed and slipped atop the tank.

  Merv handed up equipment piece by piece.

  Abe clutched the broom handle with the jagged end.

  “Is that you, Mr. McConnel? No looting, it’s just me, Brody Thackett. Picking up some supplies.” Brody handed more equipment to Merv and helped Junior up the ladder and onto the hull.

  Irene pulled the boy over the railing and onto the top.

  Hannah climbed the ladder with the backpack, and once on top, helped to lower Junior through the hatch and into the tank’s belly.

  “It’s them,” a woman’s voice screeched. “Like in the picture drawn on the side of your new barn. It’s the children that brought this upon us.”

  “Brody, it’s Renn McConnell. No hard feelings about your brother messing with my barn a few years ago. We all know he risked his life for his country and came back not quite right. Don’t hold that against him or you. Nor the loss of the barn neither. But what are you doing with them young’uns? They’re the ones that caused all these storms and damage and hurt.”

  “I’ll scorch their tails, if need be.” Abe tossed aside the stupid stick.

  “No need.” Merv motioned at the metal railings. “Climb on up.”

  “I’m no kid.” Staring out at the torches making their makeshift lights burn a bit brighter with just a stare.

  “Mr. McConnell, I’m grateful for your kindness, sir, and we’ll be on our way.” Brody helped Irene to climb down the narrow ladder into the hatch.

  “New barn’s still standing,” the man said. “Because of the tornados and the fires, my house and tool shed ain’t. When your brother was involved in burning down my barn, caught red handed with the gas tank, your Uncle Merv made things right.”

  Merv climbed the metal rungs toward the front of the tank. Like some sort of old-time pirate, beard waving in the breeze, he stood on the hull. “Only right thing to do, Mac.”

  “Whose gonna make this right? A sinkhole swallowed up Slade’s entire homestead. Hershel’s place sank into a mud pit.”

  “Children don’t have nothing to do with what nature heaps upon us,” Merv said. “Those pictures were drawn to make trouble for these poor orphaned kids.”

  No parents because of what Nora and her cohorts did.

  Brody nudged Abe’s shoulder and offered a leg up. Abe trotted three steps back and made a running jump onto the tank track.

  No little boy, he’d do for himself.

  “Mr. McConnell, I’m as sorry as I can be for your losses. If you can use the super-sized upgraded generator behind the shop, you’re welcome to it.” Brody said, “There’s also a fuel tank. The adapted A/C unit’s a pretty good find as well. If it will help, you folks are welcome to take what you need.”

  “You’ll not be coming back?” McConnell asked.

  “No, sir. Don’t think so. I appreciate your neighborly presence all these years.”

  Merv helped a tied-up Nora up as well, then he and Irene climbed inside.

  The tank cranked in belches of white fuel clouds and with jerk and a lurch pulled away.

  “They want to blame us.” Abe curled his fingers into fists. “Why are you kowtowing to them?”

  “Sometimes, when bad things happen,” Brody, sounding tired and old, said, “blaming someone or something is all that folks have to hold on to.”

  “This wasn’t our fault,” yelled Abe. He stood and balanced on the tank’s vibrating hull. He shook his fist at the two dozen or so torchlights bobbing closer. “They made us, then things went wrong.”

  “Abe, sit down and shut up.” Hannah tugged his pants leg.

  “See told you they did this,” a second man hollered.

  “Their fault,” the woman bellowed.

  “I’ll show you who’s to blame.” Abe shifted his feet to stay upright in the sway of the moving vehicle. “I’ll show them all.”

  “Don’t.” Through his khaki pants, Hannah pinched his calf.

  “Stop.” Brody used the railing to scoot closer.

  “Sit down, boy,” Merv’s voice echoed from the hollow hull.

  “Abe,” Irene said, “you were raised better than that.”

  The flaking silver paint on the propane tank behind the trailer, in their flashlight beams and torchlight, caught Abe’s attention.

  Two men ran toward the back of the trailer.

  One held up a rifle, one a pistol.

  “They’ve got guns.” Abe tugged in quick pants. “Can’t let them hurt us.”

  Hot. Hot. Hot.

  Abe’s eyes watered as he glared at big cylinder half the size of the trailer.

  The varoom of the container exploding shook the ground. The force of the flaring, whooshing blast knocked Abe off his feet.

  He rolled, couldn’t get a grip on the iron hull.

  Brody grabbed his scratchy T-shirt, kept him from falling.

  Vroom.

  The trailer lifted three or four feet and blew apart.

  The boom stuffed Abe’s eardrums, then settled into a long, drawn out shrill tone so loud his eyes crossed. He clutched the railing. A flash of intense heat swallowed up the coolness of the spring night and a scorched sulfur tinge coated his mouth like pickled beets.

  Metal pieces of trailer and old computers panged and pinged the metal hull.

  Atop the tank, Abe and the others flattened on the roof and covered their heads and faces the best they could as the motor gunned and they jarred down the road.

  “You tried to kill us,” a guy yelled. “You and yours will pay, Merv. Brody, you’ll not get away with this.”

  “They caused this,” said the screeching faceless w
oman.

  Another man called out, “They’re freaks.”

  Freaks?

  A warm numbing circled the tops of Abe’s ears.

  “A person’s actions make them who and what they are, not their differences.” Merv, flames reflected in his sad eyes, looked out from the hatch. “You’re responsible for setting things in motion, but you’re not to blame.” The big man inclined his forehead toward the wreckage. “You’re thirteen and old enough to understand, though, this one’s on you.”

  Chapter 14

  Not happening.

  Yet reality resounded in the beat of Nora’s heart, booming louder than that of those around her. With overly large leather gloves, she clung to the tank’s upper railing, too shocked to speak, unable to move.

  Vincent couldn’t have drawn such horror.

  Well, yes, he was able to draw viruses and diseases into existence, but he wouldn’t do this. Besides, the—those things—uh, men out there, no matter what type of plague manifested, were not possible.

  As night faded to black, the ancient metal vehicle released burnt-oil exhaust smoke and lumbered down the road like a monster of man’s making in search of the devastation of war.

  The tank lurched along a rutted graveled road.

  Face down on the top behind the gun barrel and holding on tight to a metal railing, she bounced to bang her chin on the metal and tasted copper from a nick of her teeth on the edge of her tongue. Flinching from the sting, she rolled to her side.

  With a grab of Nora’s thick sleeve near her bicep, Hannah, eyes wide and glossy with tears, whispered, “They want whoever caused this, and that’s you.”

  The thirteen-year-old shoved out with both hands.

  Nora pitched toward the tank’s rear.

  Brody slapped the hull and yelled, “Whoa. Hold up.”

  Nora rolled on to her back. Her mid-back hit the rail and her legs flipped over. Her short nails were no match for steel, and she fell. The rope on her tied wrist jerked her bound arm, sending jolts of pain through her shoulder. Torso swinging, she banged in jarring thumps against the back bumper, just behind one of the grinding tracks.

  “Woman overboard,” Brody shouted.

  “Shut up,” Nora hissed. “You’ll draw attention.”

  In jerking stops and starts, the tank halted.

  The elbow of her free arm smacked the hull, and mind-numbing pain shot up and down her arm.

  “They’re after those responsible so we’re giving them the monster maker.” Hannah peered over the railing. “Isn’t that what you think of us? Vincent told me. What kind of mother are you, to call your own son a monster?”

  “What have you done, Hannah?” Brody moved to the edge. He reached out, but pulled back his hand, repeatedly, as if he wanted to help, but feared touching her.

  She couldn’t blame him.

  On his knees, he asked, “Why?”

  “They want the one to blame for this.” Hannah grabbed for the rope looping Nora’s wrist and yanked as if to tug the knot free. “And that’s her.”

  “We’ve no time for tantrums, girl.” Merv’s boot-sole clumps echoed along the metal plate above.

  From the tree lines on the roadside, men rushed toward Nora.

  With her feet a yard or so off the ground, Nora kicked.

  The bottom of her boot sole slammed into one man’s face. Blood spurted in a shooting gush from his smashed and canting to one side nose.

  “Witch.” Lunging, the man spat a thick wad of red and grabbed for her leg.

  Along with the fanatic from the militia group, two farmer-type men, one bushy headed and scraggly faced and the other, his hair shaved short against his skull, with both dressed in checkered long-sleeved shirts and denim, pulled at her other leg.

  She pumped her legs and her knee rammed one of their chins.

  No way could she kick away all of their pinching, bruising grabs.

  Her arm wrenching in her shoulder socket and shards of pain blinking white dots before her eyes, she wrestled with the man from the militia that once called her leader.

  Biting the fingertips of the glove on her free hand, Nora used her teeth to pull and yank off her glove. With a swing of her head, she spat the cheap leather away and grabbed the nearest one by the wrist.

  Dead before he slumped, the country bumpkin’s shocked, then blanked, gaze never left Nora’s face.

  The two others wrestled to pull her down.

  In a swamp of musky, pungent body odor, she pulled her legs toward her, as close in to her body as possible.

  The red-goateed militia guy saved her the effort and clasped his fingers around her throat.

  As pure dead weight, his body slumped and dropped.

  A dull throb pounded in her skull. Even a monster maker must pay a price.

  The third man, the one with salt-and-pepper short buzz, backed away. Brown eyes wild, he raised a pistol and aimed.

  “Let her go, Mac.” Merv held an old west-type sidearm.

  “Is what the girl yelled true?” the man, wearing overalls and high-topped work boots, squinted along the pistol barrel. “All this is the woman from Briar Patch’s fault?”

  “Why can’t you just accept the whims of nature and leave it at that?”

  “Because nature doesn’t make a woman able to kill a man like she’s just done,” said Mac.

  Obviously, Nora overplayed her hand with the children, perhaps if she stayed silent Merv could talk their way of out of this.

  Below Nora’s feet, a bloodied and bruised man crawled up the side of the tank to his feet.

  What? Nora had killed him, stopped his heart.

  The man growled and grabbed her ankle.

  “What the heck,” the mob’s leader stumbled back and slammed the butt of the handgun into the back of the man’s skull.

  The man’s head shot forward, bringing the clack of his teeth closer to Nora’s leg.

  Nora kicked her free leg to knock the man aside.

  Red-rimmed eyes glared at her as if she were a starving man’s steak on a hot serving plate.

  Oh, God, what had Vincent done?

  The attacker, who should be dead but wasn’t, bared his teeth and lunged.

  Nora nailed his forehead with her boot heel.

  Guns waved, no longer at her, but at the risen man.

  The second body, that of the redheaded militia follower, twitched. His shoulders hitched, and he lifted in a swaying hunch to all fours.

  Fluke.

  Had to be. Maybe her powers had waned, and she hadn’t killed them after all.

  Though that didn’t explain the state of the bargemen.

  Her extended arm yanked, jostling her like a hornet’s nest in a windstorm. With another wag, her wrist pulled free. She slid down the metal hull and fell.

  Above her, the Hannah girl shoved Merv and Brody away. “Let’s go. Leave her. She’d do the same to us.”

  Nora’s feet hit the ground. The impact jarred through her jaw and rattled the hurt in her head, but she managed to stumble a step or two and stay on her feet. She pressed her back against the vibrating outer plate of the idling tank.

  “Mercy on us,” Mac said. “The men killed by the blast at the trailer are walking up the road.”

  Wild-eyed, one of the local men rushed from the brush and raised a rifle. Booms blew the brains out of the guys who tried to gnaw her ankle.

  Nora turned aside as brain matter and gore splattered and pelted her like thick glops of splashed rotten slime and swampy mud.

  Both men’s bodies collapsed and didn’t move.

  “Zombies,” the shooter yelled. “Shoot ‘em in the head.”

  “These fellows are our neighbors.” Mac lowered his pistol and staggered back a step.

  “Mac, things aren’t like they once were. Climb on. All that can, and we’ll try to find safety.” Merv held on to the railing and leaned out to help the man board. “Now our neighbors and friends are dead men walking, out to consume you bite by bite.”

>   Nora backed across the road.

  Merv’s gaze, above his bushy mustache and beard, locked on her.

  Nora shook her head.

  Bad horror movie dialogue continued to echo from the roadway as Nora edged into the woods.

  In a short time, the tank’s motor revved and grew softer as the tank drove away.

  From the way Abe had acted out at the farm and with how Hannah turned on her—

  Yes, Nora’s little monsters were coming into their own.

  Nursing her wounded, bloody tongue against the back of her front teeth, she hunkered in the brush as pride filled her.

  Nearby brush shuffled and footsteps came close.

  Nora tossed aside the second glove. She scooped up a tree branch to grip in her right hand and flexed her left. “Come on if you want to fight.”

  Moon-illuminated figures stepped into sight.

  “You want a fight you’ve got one.”

  More shadowy figures hemmed her in.

  She swung the stick in quick swishes and turned.

  Dread throbbed in her temples.

  Stinking dead women and men, flesh grayed, jaws grinding, and teeth snapping, snarled and closed in until the zombie pack’s growls filled the night.

  ***

  Intact, but herded like a steer toward Briar Patch, Nora hiked among long-branched briars that grabbed at her pant legs and sleeves in gouging tugs of sharp-pointed thorns.

  A dozen or so of what used to be among the living lined a half circle behind her. Some in camo, one in soldier garb, one of the men who left his post earlier on, and three women gnawed at their own lips and tongues.

  Oddly, the women in their current state sent shudders along Nora’s skin far worse than the males.

  In the breeze, decay and rot latched on to the night like a leach as one of the women wore a polka-dotted black and teal loose-fitting dress caked with dark red gore.

  Braid swaying, a blond, slim young adult, wore black spandex capris and one open-toed pump. In a hip-rolling lurch, the girl, missing half of her face due to a gunshot, chewed at the inside of her other cheek.

  A short, older round lady pulled out hunks of coarse three- to four-inch strands of gray and white hair and fed.