by Alexa Dare
“Use the longer antenna and point it at the ground.” Abe, looking like an ebony-haired native warrior, stayed seated and patted the skittish horse’s neck.
The piercing noise stabbed Brody’s eardrums.
He shook his head. He switched the radio off.
Pine nettles and oak leaves shuffled. Birds chirped.
The horse snuffled low neighs.
“Mega quake’s building.” Accepting the weight of mountains on his shoulders, Brody said, “No doubt, a doozy.”
“Look.” Abe waved at the sky and tightened his hold on the dancing horse’s reins.
Overhead, ducking in and out of grayish clouds, three airplanes roared parallel to the tornadoes and the emerging storm paths.
“Let’s go.” Safer on his feet, Brody limped beside the horse to the far end of the parking lot and closer to the three-story dinosaur of a structure.
“The airplanes are diving low over Rogersville.” Abe sat forward atop the mount.
Brody shielded his eyes and squinted toward the valley from what was now the highest peak in the area after the collapse of Briar Patch.
The first plane dropped something from its bay over the west side of town.
“Care packages?” asked Abe.
“Looks like missiles or bombs.” Abe dismounted.
Shrill whistles reached the Rocky Top summit.
Throughout the hills, echoing booms blasted.
Like ghosts out of a graveyard, mushroom clouds rose from the town.
“Zombie killing run.” Sick whirls stirred in Brody’s upper belly. “Except it’s not just zombies they’re killing.”
Chapter 21
The sight of three big planes, soaring and diving like giant silver eagles in the midday sun, over the nearest town burned hot behind Abe’s eyes and seared a churning lump of anger in his chest.
The horse flung his head and side-danced, hooves clumping on the parking lot pavement.
Leading him between the building and the railed scenic overlook, as the swooping plane dropped bombs, Abe shoved the reins into Brody’s hands and ran to the rocky ledge.
Gripping the waist-high rail, he leaned out.
The town below the overlook spread for three to four miles. More town than city, featuring mostly white vinyl-sided and red-bricked buildings, the place reached out in a blend of new and old.
Over to the right, the farthest part of town away from Rocky Top, flattened crushed buildings flamed and smoked. Gushes of grayish black rolled into distorted thick shapes rushing to join the gathering storm clouds of the brewing storm blotting out most of the sun.
Gusts brought the smell of explosives and burning wood and even the heat of rising flames from the valley below.
Low beneath the clouds, the first plane, after dropping bombs on the west side of town, lifted and flew away from the bombed ruins.
How many hurt or killed?
Motor ramping, the second dove and headed, right to left, over the middle of town, as if putting on an airshow in front of the overlook where Abe clung to the rail.
“Main Street. Where they have Heritage Days. There’s daycares, stores, churches, even a school nearby.” Brody stepped near the railing off to Abe’s right.
“We never got to do those things because Irene and her sister wanted to keep us safe.” His eyes filled hot and wet. “There are thousands of people there.”
The plane dipped low.
Right above the taller three-story buildings and church steeples.
Must stop them.
Throat and chest tight, he lifted his chin and aimed his gaze straight on.
The silver plane’s body exploded into a giant yellow, expanding fireball in midair. The severed wings plummeted toward the church house steeples and tar-pitched roofs.
A fuel-soaked heated rush buffeted the overlook.
With a focused glare, Abe burned the falling wreckage, so that when the debris neared the ground only ash and embers pelted the buildings.
The third plane lowered over the town’s eastern side, to the left, flying over shopping centers, restaurants, the other grade school, the middle school, and lots of houses.
Without a blink or second thought, Abe blew up the bombs as they dropped.
Kawhump. Wham. Bang.
Next, the plane.
Varoom.
He seared the debris falling like fiery rain, even the metal to ash, before it reached the roadways and ground.
“Whoa, big horse. Easy now.” Brody called out as he tugged the rearing horse’s reins toward the building, “Unmarked, but in military formation with offensive maneuvers. How could they manage that?”
Gripping the railing and panting in quick breaths, Abe stared at the rocks of the overlook cliff and pulled back his ability.
Flames, like tiny yellow and orange dancers, skittered over the rock ledge. Limestone maybe, Junior could tell him. As if powered by some sort of invisible gas, the six-inch flames flared up to a yard high, warming Abe’s face to match his rising fever.
“The pilots and any others in the planes.” His gasps rasped hot. “I…I…”
“It’s okay. Like we talked about, you did what you had to do, Abe.”
Throat pinched in ashy gasps, he nodded. He sucked in an unsteady breath and staggered toward the Observatory. “They’ll send more.”
“No EMFs. No planes. At least not for a while after we do what we need to do.” Brody grinned and put more muscle into getting the horse to follow. For a geek, the guy was danged brave.
From the cliff edge, a shwoop-shwoop noise tattooed along the ridge.
“Copter. I’ve got this” Abe held open one of the double doors and coaxed the horse inside a high-ceilinged blue-carpeted foyer. “If they’re tracking brainwaves, me being here will lead them to us. If I keep them busy—”
“There’s no reason. When we release the blast, the chopper goes down.” Brody dropped the horse's reins.
“If they don’t land and send troops in to stop us.”
The sleek shape of a black copter swooped toward Rocky Top.
“Brody, if your rigged radio locates high EMFs, the military or whoever, even guys like Yates, could track us. Maybe that’s how they found us in the first place.” Sweat coated Abe’s skin. Eyes closed, spinning, from his high temp, looped inside his head. “I’ll distract them and give you time to set up your device.”
“Abe, you’re just a—”
“Kid?” Abe snorted and tugged red velvet rope, used to separate waiting lines of people, from waist-high metal poles. “You stay. I’ll go.”
“Tie up the doors behind me.”
“Abe, wait.”
“I’ll burn my way in when I get back.” Abe ducked outside. Dodging under the railing, he picked a path down the slope and hiked toward Rogersville to enter the smoke and flames.
Abe’s temp spiked as he climbed down the rocky ridge. By setting a few trees afire, he made it easy for the circling copter to mark his path.
The bell of a white-steepled church on the end of town closest to the ridge rang.
The clanging bell drew herds of shuffling dead, some smoking from fires caused by the bombs, toward the little white church with the tall bell tower.
When Abe entered the Main Street area, the helicopter hovered overhead.
Acrid smoke swatted the ground.
Eyes burning and tasting ash, Abe ducked into a doorway. He stared and set more cars parked along the street afire.
Dead body stink blew by the storefront.
A pack of dozens of foot-scooting zombies walked past in a single-minded march toward the steepled building.
Abe let out a breath.
A zombie back-stepped, sniffed, and reached.
Face-to-face with a snarling human flesh-eating dead man, Abe lasered his gaze into the white-glazed stare.
Orange glowed from the inside of the man’s eyeballs. The zombie’s head burst into flame. Abe smeared bits and pieces of slimy goo out of his face.
He
wiped his eyes with his dingy white T-shirt.
By now, dozens upon dozens must gather around the outer walls of the church, where the bell clanged and echoed, but not for go-to-meeting services. The dead stink, worse than any pile of maggot-infested road leavings, filled the area.
His stomach rolled.
For those inside, the stink must be a whole lot worse.
Peeking out, he took in the bell tower, then the rotting mob rapidly gathering outside the church.
Burn the church, destroy the zombies.
Burning the place would kill dozens of living people inside.
The clanging bell rang on.
Pressed against the store’s door, he shook his head. Flicks of sweat flipped from the tips of his hair.
A strong wind stirred the rot.
The chopper, with missiles strapped to its lower hull, hovered in loud schwoop schwoops less than three or four yards over the tower. Uniformed men hung out, aiming big-barreled guns at the church.
Abe stepped out of the doorway.
In front of the courthouse, Abe set more cars and trucks on fire.
Their gas tank explosions should draw attention away from the crowd of the undead.
With a whirring whine, the copter dove in his direction.
His fear-filled breath ramped to panting to cool his inner rise of heat, and Abe focused on the blur of the blades.
In seconds, flames spun in a fiery circle above the copter’s body. Mouth hanging open, the pilot cast panicked glances overhead.
The metal long spinning blades drooped to scrape the unmarked hull.
“Gonna take you down.” Abe raced along the center of the paved road, darting around abandoned cars, back toward the ridge.
Shots boomed and chinked slivers of brick to pelt him as he ran.
Blam.
The force of the explosion pushed him along faster.
No glance back.
Up top, Brody needed him. Fever heated Abe‘s brain to create an out-of-it-ness as he climbed the steep slope to Rocky Top.
***
High on walkways on top of the Observatory building, standing right behind the satellite dish and opposite a telescope as big as a monster space-ship cannon from one of the Sci-Fi fantasy e-books he read, Abe eyed the device Brody attached to the wiring.
“You want to do the honors by throwing the switch?” Brody’s face looked grayish under the overcast sky and with a headlamp light banded to his forehead.
“I reckon.” Fever burning ultrahigh, Abe shrugged and gulped the flat tang slathering his tongue.
“On my say so, okay?” Brody checked wiring, went around to fiddle with the gadget on the curved face of the massive dish.
“Bet this thing could pick up phone calls from China.”
“From space. This place is a lot more than a star sideshow.” Brody returned. “Too many secret goings-on right under our noses.”
Gusts, tainted by aroma of dead-people and burning wood and rubber smells whipped their hair.
One of the cyclones, as if sensing what they were up to, headed in a straight path toward where he and Brody stood.
“Do it,” yelled Brody.
The floors below them filled with light as if every bulb in the place glowed extra bright. A small screen, the size of a smartphone, glowed below the lever.
“The digital readout should give us the amperage.”
Numbers raced to reveal the amount of voltage.
The lights below dimmed, and the image on the monitor shrank to postage stamp sized.
His face slack with panic, Brody ducked and fiddled with the lever’s wiring.
“You need more power?” Abe gripped the switch until his knuckles throbbed.
“The device gathers then sends out a damper blast. Maybe I need to rework—”
“Hold up.” In the way he’d gathered energy when the bad guys shocked him with a collar, Abe stared into the lever’s wires. He absorbed. Took in. Heat. Energy. Fire.
Power.
Like he couldn’t get enough.
Blisters formed on the backs of his hands . Not from the actual electric transfer, but from the energy he absorbed.
From far away, Brody spoke. “What are you doing? Wait. Stop. Don’t.”
Even Abe’s brain sat ready to boil in his skull.
His vision blurred.
Hot. Too hot.
He had to put an end to this mess. Fix it all. Help his sister and the other kids. Rescue the people below. The dim echo of the bell’s clang rang from the town.
Teeth gritted, his mouth tingling as if current ran through him, he stared hard at the dish and sent a surge of power to Brody’s blaster device.
Sizzling white light glowed over the edge of the wide dish, then narrowed out of sight.
Zzzzzt. Puffs of electric-filled smoke wisped.
An orange beam, faster than a bullet, shot up into the sky over the town. A hole gouged gray.
Amongst the bank of clouds, sparks shot like embers. Bolts, more orange than white, split across the sky. The clouds bled to black. Red flickers winked and burned in solid blackness.
“Holy crap. Geomagnetic storm. What did you do?” Brody’s voice silenced and only his mouth moved.
A stuffy static shoved into Abe’s ears and a metallic zing looped inside his mouth.
“Measured.” Brody rammed Abe with his shoulder in the chest to knock him loose from the lever. “Exact.” He mouthed other words, Brody said, “No turning back.”
Gasping, Brody’s face paled, and he grabbed his chest and dropped where he stood. He thumped to the floor, and his upper body arched. With a shudder, his body slumped like a deflated balloon onto the walkway.
Inside Abe’s head, something swelled, then shrank and broke.
His gaze swept by the metal catwalks and the dish to the odd-colored sky. He slumped across Brody’s stillness.
Sometime later—no way to know how long, a minute or hours—men’s leather brown loafers scooted before Abe’s murky gaze.
Whump, the body of a security guard, dressed in all tans and browns dropped. The dead man’s skull hit the metal and bounced.
From inches away, the zombie’s eyes stared.
Chapter 22
On a Wednesday afternoon, in the cramped remains of Briar Patch’s crude makeshift lab, Nora studied the micro-slice of Yates’ flesh. A lone generator powered lights that ranged from dim to bright every few minutes, but at least her lab gear worked.
Nearby, tied to a chair, Yates in zombie form rasped low, wet, decay-filled growls.
The stench of those foul breaths and from his rotting flesh seeped into her grungy clothing and soaked into her pores.
First, she must isolate the virus.
She set the slice aside and smeared blackish blood onto the thin rectangle glass of a microscope slide.
As she bent over the lenses, a pulsing sort of hum drilled into her front sinus cavity. A slither shifted inside her skull, spread through her brow, and swelled.
Nora gripped the counter.
A wave of dizziness weakened her knees. She slid to the floor and twisted about to face the room. Back propped against a cabinet, she shut her eyes. In clawing grasps and by digging in her boot heels, she clung to concrete. The pressure in her head and the rush of vertigo brought a tinfoil sharpness into her mouth.
A cramp, stuffing the thrumming of her pulse into her ears, hitched under her ribs.
Beats skipped.
Such irony.
The woman who stopped hearts now suffered a heart attack.
Ah.” Sharp pain shot down her left arm. A numb tingle chased behind the hurt, and her gaze rolled upward and into the gray of her eye sockets. “Uh. Uh. Uh.”
“You’re dying, don’t yaw know,” an out-of-nowhere voice said.
The rot odor of Yates’ animated corpse fading, Nora’s eyelids dragged down as if weighted, yet she peeled one eye open.
Dressed in a stylish fuchsia jacket and skirt, a silver-haired m
atron, arms folded, stood in the middle of the room.
Not there. Not really.
The woman’s deep mocha features shone under the flicker of the weak lights and a musky spiced perfume drifted about.
The lights blinked off.
“Dying and fairly so,” said the voice of her first long-ago official kill. What was the female foreign diplomat’s name? Years ago, Nora stopped the activist’s heart, but did not recall her identity.
What sort of monster had Nora become?
“Feel how your pulse drains.” A male German scientist—her third or fourth mission—asked. “Not much longer for you now.”
She raised her chin. The back of her head bumped the cabinet door. Wincing, she squinted into the gloom.
No shuffling noises or growls from Yates.
Yet dozens of shadowy shapes—ghosts from Nora’s past—filled the room.
“Bringer of death,” a third victim intoned.
Yes, the most seemingly natural deaths possible, and Nora, with her deadly touch, served the end of life to her victims on a serving platter.
Like her mama’s oval porcelain serving plate.
Her mother wouldn’t have been proud of what Nora had become. An aroma of fresh baked and buttered cornbread overtook Nora’s nose. “Child, you should have done better with yourself.”
Nora’s lashes trembled and tickled her under-eye hollows, but she couldn’t pry her eyelids up with a crowbar. “Mama?”
“How could you have allowed things to get this bad.” Her long-dead mother said, “I thought better of you.”
“So did I.” Nora moaned.
“I never did.” Roderick, Yates’ helper, certainly not one of her victims, laughed until his choppy guffaws faded as if he walked out of the mountain through the tunnels. His singing echoed, “The lines never been broken, and you’re on the hook, baby.”
Nora gasped through the red-hot pain in her chest. She rolled her head to the side and managed a peek from beneath her lids.
Within the shadows, a rotting lump, the long-dead Yates leaned forward against the straps across his upper chest. Not moving, his head lolled and his mouth yawned open.
Jabbing aches twisted under her ribs, and Nora pounded her upper left chest with her fist.
Beat.
More pain flared.