by Alexa Dare
In a line of goody-two-shoe goodness, she and the little girls, along with the two fawning men, backed toward the tree line.
Her voice so clear and hypnotic, the words to the song had no meaning, for the lulling notes offered such peace and contentment.
Nora blinked as if fighting against a drugged sleep. The others, mouths agape, and many with drooling drips of saliva from their chins, swayed their torsos. Their heads leaned gently from side to side and their eyelids drooped.
Oh, if only Nora might close her eyes and rest…
Baking white cake batter and orange-slice fruitcake aromas filled the old timey kitchen.
The singing stopped.
Nora popped her eyelids open.
Irene, pale and doe-eyed, clutched her throat with both hands.
“There they are.” From the road, dozens of lost and bedraggled people, walked the pavement and carried rocks as if the stones were swaddling babies in their folded arms.
“Actual Stoners,” the bearded man beside Nora said. “They’re out to—”
“Kill the little monsters,” yelled what might be a farm hand.
A woman dressed in a turquoise pantsuit, the legs and arms smeared with red and black filth, screeched, “Stone them.”
The Stoners rallied and rushed toward Merv’s retreating group.
No destructive rushing wind blew.
Though Hannah appeared fearful and upset, no damaging hail fell.
The children had no more power than Nora since the onset of the geomagnetic storm.
How brave and stupid for them to come to rescue their missing while powerless.
Shots fired.
Rocks flew.
Armed with neither, Nora backed into the middle of her band of locals and militiamen and women.
Both bullets and stones hit, causing damage and bloodshed.
Fighting members of both sides of the factions fell.
“It is not the children you should seek.” A wrinkled piece of paper in hand, Vincent stepped from the woods toward the outlook.
Each group backed away, leaving behind their wounded and dead.
“He’s one of them,” a Stoner called out. “He draws pictures of sickness and disease, and people die.”
“We have to stop them. They’re going to kill us all,” said one of Nora’s traitorous, soon-to-be-dead troops.
“She is the one responsible.” Vincent pointed his index finger toward Nora. “This picture is like the one I drew on the Rocky Top wall face. You must understand, Nora Hicks did all of this. She made us this way.”
“I didn’t, Vincent, you know that.” A warm jolt of fear sent a tingling rush up her neck, through her ears, and over her scalp. Ash-tinged fear coated her tongue.
“Not at first, but you let their evil corrupt you.” Dressed in light green medical scrubs with the pants tucked into combat boots, his blue gaze narrowed.
“You’re not yourself. Stop this.” Nora edged closer to him. How dare he betray her like this.
A smear of soot decorated the high angle of his cheek. Black smudges, like charcoal or soot, no doubt from creating his giant sketches, smudged Vincent’s lower arms and hands.
He offered the page, face out, for view.
The drawing depicted her wearing a crown in the midst of the zombie dead.
“Kill him.” Fickle Ponytail Woman backed away from Nora. “That’ll put an end to this.”
“He no longer has his abilities.” Concern for Vincent reared like a mama bear protecting her cubs. Frantic, Nora elbowed her way toward her son.
“Wait. She don’t neither.” The old man aimed a crooked trembling finger. “She hit Chester bare knuckled, and he didn’t keel over dead.”
“The storm that killed the dead for good must’ve taken their powers,” said Chester.
Vincent joined Brody’s group. “Pictures always have power, Nora.”
“She’s their leader,” one called out.
A blur in her peripheral vision, then a hit rammed her forehead.
Hurt exploded like an earthquake—where was Junior—through her skull. Blood gushed into her eyes. Stinging, coppery crimson flowed and blinded her.
People grabbed her.
She batted the hands away. Why were they—shouldn’t be—touching her? “Don’t touch me. Release me.”
Ponytail yanked Nora’s hair and lifted her head. “Miss High-and-Mighty, you’ll be made to pay.”
Desperate, panicked at being touched after so long, Nora clawed at them like a bobcat caught in a trap. “The loss of our powers is only temporary. The stranger-than-strange storm can’t go on forever.” Of course, it could. “Once the storm lets up, most things will return to normal.” Liar.
“Nothing special about her now.” The big-boned woman shoved Nora toward Vincent. “Bossy witch, always trying to tell us what to do.”
Her son let the drawing flutter to the ground and caught her.
“You do not appear well, Nora.” Vincent’s warm, innocent smile failed to defrost the iciness of his eyes.
The vengeful Stoners, pious in their seeking of revenge for their damage and loss, rushed both Merv’s and Nora’s groups, attacking and throwing more stones.
Choosing to take those with her that she might control, Nora shoved Vincent away. Grabbing Hannah and Darcy Lynn’s upper arms, she pulled them into the woods.
Yells and jeers faded as she gripped the girls’ wrists, dragged, and yanked them in plunging steps farther into the trees.
Someone hauled her, and thus the two girls, backwards and into a thicket of brush.
Nora gasped and threw a punch.
Roderick caught her balled hand with a smack in his grasping palm. With thick clumps of yellowish green hairy moss hanging from his head as if he hid himself along the ground, the extra-tall man tucked Darcy Lynn under his arm. Claiming their wrists, swathed in woodsy moss and cedar, he hauled Nora and Hannah after him.
“I thought you died.” Nora ran, tripped. Arm almost yanked out the socket, she ran some more, her legs scissoring in wide strides.
“Alive and kicking.” Deep in a thatch of thick brush, Roderick pulled up short and clamped his hand over a squealing Darcy Lynn’s mouth.
In moments, the littlest girl slumped.
“You’re killing her.” Hannah sprang at Roderick. “Stop.”
Nora wrestled the hitting, kicking girl off the man.
“Stop this.” The smack of the back of her hand across Hannah’s cheek left a blossoming red mark.
“You hit me.” Eyes filled with unshed tears, Hannah grasped her cheek.
Roderick covered the girl’s lower face with his big hand from behind. “Just cutting off their air long enough to put them out. Makes them more obliging.” The man’s Yates-like grin fostered a hitch in her chest as well as a twist in her belly as sharp as a jab.
Hannah’s wide silver-laced eyes fluttered closed, and her clawing hands fluttered to her side.
Welts of scratches crossed in bloody marks across the backs of Roderick’s hands as he placed Hannah’s unconscious body upon the ground beside Darcy Lynn on top of a bed of pine nettles and beneath low-hanging branches.
He stepped over the teenager’s body and strode over to Nora.
His crazy-man grin scared Nora more than the wide-blade hunting knife he brandished back and forth in front of him.
Nora backed away. She held out her hands, once formidable weapons.
“Irene. No.” Merv yelled from the direction of the Observatory.
More shots rang out, this time, off in the distance.
So much drama, one in which her own son betrayed her.
A strange wetness touched Nora’s face. Tears?
How unusual.
The singing halted, and screams shattered the surreal quiet of the forest.
Throughout, Nora never took her gaze from Roderick or the knife.
“You killed Yates.” Roderick, the thinness of his face taut, said.
“I th
ought the two of us were beyond that. We both know Yates got himself killed so he could spread the zombie virus.”
“Doc and Yates weren’t the only ones enhanced.” His chuckle spread wafts of mint as if he’d chewed gum, but most likely a sprig from a fresh plant.
Nora stumbled, kept edging away. “I didn’t realize Doc had special abilities.”
“Of course he did, that’s one of the reasons why he lives on in me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I am the vessel. It was up to me to see to it that they lived on.” Roderick’s eyes rolled to white.
Nora bolted to the side.
“Don’t, girly.” Roderick’s arm snaked out. He grabbed her and spoke in Doc’s voice, “We’ll just have to chase you down. There’s not time for games when there’s work to do.”
“Roderick, you’re a sick man.”
A sneer and another eye roll presented eyes that appeared bluer, more clear.
A change in eye color? How?
Roderick trailed his thumb along his chin in the same familiar gesture as before.
Nora wanted to run, but shock staked her feet to the forest floor. “Are you saying…?”
“Doc’s not the only one that found a new home. We can do this for you, Nora, as well. We shall prepare additional vessels to ensure our immortal souls continue. Throughout eternity”
Delusion. Mental instability. Trickery. Delusion.
“I made it into your old facility in time to rescue Yates’ essence.” Roderick knelt and held out the knife, handle and blade across his palms. In an eerie Yates’ whiskey drawl, he said, “In time, we’ll prove what kind of man we can be.”
Unashamed, she would take advantage of the man’s instability, and use him as she’d been used all those years.
Nora stepped forward, and like the Queen of the Dead that Vincent drew her to be, with a storybook curtsy, she accepted the blade’s handle.
“I promise you, my Nora Belle, your reign will never end.” His minty breath blasted her nose like sore muscle cream.
Nora blinked as a shudder trailed her jaws.
“You’re supposedly yourself, Doc, and Yates as well?” Nora’s insides quivered in a cold uncertain mass. One plunge of the knife—the madness, at least this one man’s, would end. Tartness banking her tongue, her grip tightened.
The blade tip trembled.
“Secure the girls,” the man who claimed to be many said. “Stay low and hidden in the brush. I’ll retrieve the boys, so our family can be complete.” He was smiling the lopsided grin Yates charmed her with so many years ago. “Don’t worry, Nora, my love. Stay safe, and I’ll find you. I will always find you.”
Roderick or Yates or Doc or whomever the man thought himself to be disappeared into the forest, leaving behind a promise that stabbed at Nora like the sharpened edge of her blade.
Chapter 26
From the Rocky Top Observatory atop a mountain ridge, Abe’s guardian’s soothing song faltered and stopped, like a songbird jumped by a bobcat.
Weary, not himself, with the weight of what happened in town on his back, Abe forced his knees to lift and climbed faster. Far more downtrodden than any thirteen-year-old should ever be, he wound his way through boulders to within a few yards of the top.
In the late afternoon breeze, the swish of pine and cedar limbs, tipped with bright green spring nettles, screamed in the building gusts.
Overhead, as the strange storm built, thunder boomed in a growl like a giant semi-truck on a straight stretch of a winding road. Beneath the darker-than-night sky, orange blips lit the dimness flashing everything red tinted.
As the thunder lowered to a dire rumble, from the overlook, gunshots and screams rang out.
Abe had to get there. Quick.
“Get them,” a woman yelled from somewhere on top of the peak and near the building. “They’ve done all this to us. They spoiled the sky and clouds. Caused earthquakes, tornados, flash fires, deluges and hail, then disease and pestilence. These abominations must be killed.”
Gulping dry, vinegary pants, Abe ducked low and crept into a crevice.
A pebble rolled beneath his boot sole.
His foot shot out and up. The other followed. In a blur of ground, rocks, craggy shrubs, then black red-dotted sky, he pitched backwards. Lips clamped closed to capture his yelp and windmilling his flailing arms, he fell.
From between two large rocks a hand arrowed out and grabbed his T-shirt front. The shirt’s material stretched, and Abe smacked at the hand.
Threads popped, but the twisting grip on the grungy and filthy shirt stopped his fall.
“Keep that up,” Junior whispered, “and you’ll end up at the bottom again. The hard way.”
“Junior.” Abe, sweat beading on his forehead and upper lip bringing a hint of salty flavor, eased into a sitting position.
“Help me pick them up.” Through a slit between the boulders, Junior scooped a handful of his brightly colored marbles from the ground. “Had to stop you from walking right into trouble.”
“Smart.” Abe gathered marbles, careful not to let the colored, molded glass click together.
“The rest of them are up there. Busted leg wouldn’t let me travel as fast, but I couldn’t stay behind. Had a blow out on the way.” Junior pointed toward the seat of his pants.
“You scooted on your rear?”
“Had to get here and out of sight, though since I can’t reach into the earth, I’m not sure how I can help.”
“So no ground dropping out from under the bad guys?”
“Nope.” Junior scrunched up his lips. “You?”
“No more flash and burn.”
“Dang.”
“Big time.”
From above, shots boomed and panicked scream shrilled.
“We gotta help.” Abe bounded upright. His foot ground, then slipped on a missed marble. With a whump, he hit hard on his right knee.
Ten-year-old Junior held out a cupped hand, then wiggled his fingers.
Pain flaring through his leg, Abe scooped up the marble and placed the red aggie that tripped him into the younger boy’s grubby palm.
“You best know,” Junior said, “the Nora lady took Darcy Lynn and Hannah.”
“Merv and Irene are in deep trouble, with the bad guys being between us and woods where Nora took the girls.”
Abe’s heartbeat kicked into overdrive. He swiped his lower arm across his brow. “My fever’s breaking.”
“Except for my leg, my pain’s less too.” Junior rummaged his pockets and the backpack Abe carried from the Inn. “Since we don’t have our giftings, we’ve got our smarts. You may not make fire, but better than anyone, you know how fireworks.”
No powers. “Sure, I know fire.”
Face pinched with worry, Junior handed Abe a piece of flint, a palm-sized steel striking stone, and a sealed sandwich bag half full of white powder. “You can’t burn like before, but you can scare these guys.”
A warm flare of hope spread under Abe’s ribs.
With a grin, Junior placed the marbles into his threadbare treasure bag tied to his belt loop.
“You want me to use this stuff to put on a show?”
“People always believe what they think they see.” Junior slid the pack toward Abe. “The powder’s gonna cause a flash. I don’t know the name of it, but it’s got firepower. The flint and striker will give you the spark you need.” Junior pulled out a stack of two-inch-long wood splinters. “Careful of the sharp edges.”
The smell of the wood pieces cupped in Abe’s hand, almost like a mix of strong pine and kerosene, burned his nose and eyes.
“Rich fat pine or lightered pine, from a hundred-year-old stump cut high up in the mountains and as flammable as wood soaked in gasoline. The dried leaves in one of the front pouch pockets, when set afire, will make the thickest, blackest smoke you’ve ever seen.”
“Junior, you know your plants and earth stuff.” Abe quietly unzipped pouches or lif
ted flaps and peered inside.
“There’s dried skunkweed leaves in the right zipper pocket that’ll both smoke and stink them out. Pulpy leaves in another pouch are aloe, for later, in case you get blistered.”
“You’re scary good at this.”
“It’s all I’ve ever known. Someday, when I learn to read, I’ll know the real names for every dang kind of rock and plant there is.”
“I’ve always been able to burn with my eyes. How am I going to pull this off?” Abe gripped the backpack’s canvas straps.
“I suspect your sister would tell you to go big or go home.” Junior removed a small zippered plastic bag. “I’ll take this. Last resort, just in case stuff.”
“Junior, I…I don’t feel like myself.”
“Me neither. Like there’s a cave inside of the part that’s me. None of us are ourselves anymore. If you’re gonna save Brody and the rest, you gotta do this.”
Like a flash fire addled his senses, a numb tingle swooped behind his eyes and left a sourness along his taste buds. “Brody’s okay?”
“As okay as Brody can be I reckon.”
After feeling as if his own inner flame snuffed out, Abe’s heart cartwheeled in his chest.
The younger boy scooted through the rocks, the tattered rear of his britches revealing the blink of dirt-stained tighty whities.
“Junior?”
“Yep.”
“Whether I can make this work or not, this is great stuff. I’m glad you’ve got my back.”
“Always. It’s what family does for one another.” The scooting noises shifted farther away.
Abe shouldered the strap as of the backpack were weighted down with a boulder-sized load of responsibility. Pocketing the baggy of fire-making powder, he palmed the flint in one hand and the striking stone in the other.
“I’m not an actor. No magician either.”
No answer.
A glance over his shoulder confirmed Junior was no longer there.
Alone, unarmed except for a bag of tricks, Abe clutched the pack and climbed the rest of the way to the jagged ledge of the overlook.
In the Observatory parking lot, like brawlers in a mob movie scene, groups of people fought. People hit one another with rocks and the butts of rifles. Bloodied and dirtied men and women swung punches and pounded one another with their fists.