Kodiak and Harper walked at the front of the pack, talked for hours sharing plans and ideas about what it would be like in Lakota. He didn’t like to think about the serious aspects, he supposed they would all go back to school and pick up where they left off. He was itching for some X-Box trigger time. Some mindless violence where no one really got hurt and the stakes weren’t real. An escape where when people died, they just hit reset and started over. Harper hoped they had a hospital set up, she wanted to learn more about medicine and repairing damaged bodies.
Vanessa ranged a couple of miles ahead of them on Ziggy. The Ostrich was much easier to handle than Bert and she could run farther and faster than Donny so she took over the duties as their forward Scout. She marked spots where she found supplies so Tobias or Kodiak wouldn’t waste time walking down long country driveways if there wasn’t anything worth having. She would find the best place for them to camp out and be waiting when they arrived. Sometimes she had to clean out a house and sometimes the undead were still fast and vicious but she had gotten good at killing. Most of the time she simply poked around, made sure there weren’t any infestations of fleas and had a fire going so the twins could cook.
They crossed into Oklahoma without much fanfare. They’d come down paths and backroads through Missouri and Arkansas and the sign that welcomed them to the Sooner state was faded. It was a milestone though and they celebrated that evening as they ticked another day off the journey.
33
Twisted
The miles melted behind them as they drew closer to the walls of Lakota, the fabled city they’d heard so much about. Some of the roads they traveled ended at streams and rivers but only once did they have to backtrack to find a bridge. Bert could wade through most of them but he was head strong and if he thought it was too deep, no amount of cajoling could get him in. Ziggy didn’t care much for deep water either but she would follow where ever Vanessa led her. As they got closer, now only a half finger away on the map, excitement, a little nervousness and anticipation filled each of them. They thought they might see or hear cars but they never did. There was no reason for anyone to be driving on the backroads, the truckers, retrievers and Hell Drivers stayed on the main route that linked the communities. Only a retriever would go off the safe roads anymore. There were so many trees and branches laying across many of them, it was slow going.
The weather was weird and everything seemed oddly quiet in an already quiet world. The air was heavy, almost ominous and from the looks of the clouds, there was a storm brewing. The sky was turning a strange shade of yellow they’d never seen before as they passed a sign at an overgrown crossroads.
Lakota: 10 miles.
The animals were acting skittish and kept sniffing the air, almost as if they could smell something troubling coming their way. They unconsciously picked up the pace and kept searching ahead for Vanessa. Miles away the horizon was thick with heavy rain clouds. The tribe wasn’t too concerned as long as they had a dry place to sleep, they’d been through storms before. They’d been trapped inside for days when a blizzard had howled outside Piedmont house. At least the weather was warm, they would welcome a nice gentle shower to wash away the stink and grime of life on the road. The clouds ahead were anything but nice. Evil was the only way Swan could describe them.
They were glad when they finally spotted Vanessa and Ziggy trotting towards them under the darkening sky. They hoped she found a good spot because the heavens were starting to look downright menacing.
Vanessa came in fast and the ostrich danced as she reined her around.
“It looks even worse up the road.” She said “But there’s a farmhouse with a barn about a mile up.”
Blacks and blues and grays shifted and roiled. Mother Earth was upset about something and was about to unleash her full fury. They felt small in the big, open plains. The breezes had stopped and stillness settled across the fields. The insects had ceased their noises, the flies that sometimes pestered them had gone to ground somewhere. Even they knew something was happening, something big and dangerous.
“Guys, I think we need to hurry.” Swan said with awe in her voice. “Have you ever seen anything like this?”
“No but I think a downpour is coming.” Kodiak said. “A real gutter buster. Show us what you found, Vanessa.”
They could feel the charge in the air as lightning danced through the clouds, silent and eerie. It was unlike anything they’d ever experienced. The atmosphere seemed heavy like it too was waiting for something to happen.
It was scary.
It was amazing.
The wind came out of nowhere, they could see it and the rain racing across the fields. It was uncanny. They were perfectly warm and dry, the sun was still shining down but they saw a wall rushing at them. When it found them, it was like being drenched by a bucket of water. Rain drops the size of golf balls were blown nearly horizontal by the wind.
Vanessa dropped her goggles, leaned low over Ziggy’s neck and was gone in a flash. They could barely see her when she crested the hill in the road. Swan swung up behind Kodiak on Otis while Donny leapt on Daisy’s back behind Analise. The three bears broke into a fast lope, the wolves and Yewan pacing them on either side. Harper and Bert galloped ahead and followed Vanessa down a muddy driveway already being washed away in the torrent.
When she caught up, Vanessa was trying to open the storm cellar that was halfway between the house and the barn. She tugged on a big steel door that looked like it opened into the side of a grass covered hill.
“Help me, I can’t get it open!” Vanessa screamed up at her over the howling wind.
Harper twisted in the saddle to slide down Burt’s backside like she’d done a thousand times but he shied, ducked his head and bucked when lightning struck and thunder boomed loud enough they felt it in their bones.
She tumbled over his side, grabbed frantically for the reins and barely caught them before she fell fifteen feet to the ground. They broke her fall but the homemade harness snapped and she landed on her back with a meaty thud. Bert’s eyes were wide and wild as he spun and ran away from the flashing, thunderous cacophony of the storm. Hail pelted them as Vanessa tried to help her to her feet and keep a firm grip on Ziggy’s reins at the same time. The bears ran up and Kodiak slid gracefully off Otis. He and Donny snatched the door open and held it against the wind
“Get in, get the animals in before they panic and we lose them!” Kodiak bellowed, his shouts nearly drowned out by the raging winds.
Swan sent the wolves down in the cellar and they went willingly. Ancient instincts told them to go in the cave, to find shelter, and they hurried in with tails tucked and the pups shivering. The bears shared the same instincts and nearly fought to be the first down the stairs and into the man-made den. Donny helped Vanessa drag Ziggy down the steps and Yewan slunk around investigating the concrete cave before settling down in a corner.
Harper was drenched, her blonde curls plastered to her leather but she was getting her breath back. The air had been knocked out of her. She spotted Bert running from them, heading for the trees in the distance. She started after him when Kodiak grabbed her by a shoulder pauldron.
“Let go!” she yelled above the roar of the storm and before he could answer the buffeting winds stopped. The torrential downpour turned into a light sprinkle and they could see rays of sunshine peeking through the darkness above. Both were surprised and momentarily forgot about the runaway giraffe. They felt the sudden change in air pressure and it became deadly calm. Too calm. Something that sounded like a faraway train cut through the silence and they turned to see the massive black funnel cloud bearing down on them. It took them a second to register what it was. A tornado. The bane of the Midwest, the killer twisters that could flatten everything in their path. They’d never seen one before, only on TV. They stood transfixed and watched as the landscape was ripped towards its center. Trees were buffeted and ripped from the ground and the yellowed corn stalks from the fields were sucked up in
to the swirling maelstrom. The sound grew louder and the winds started buffeting them as it grew closer and seemed to be aimed straight for them. He snapped out of his stupor and dragged Harper towards the open door as Donny frantically motioned for them to hurry up.
She tried to pull away, to run after Bert, the broken harness still in her hand.
“Leave him!” He yelled.
“NO!” She cried “We have to save him!”
“It’s too late!” Kodiak screamed above the deafening thunderous freight train bearing down on them. Boards and shingles and deadly pieces of tin flew past them. A tractor tumbled end over end and crashed through the back of the house as all the water from a fish pond was sucked into the swirling, black funnel.
She tried to twist out of his grip, she had to get to Bert, but he jerked her off her feet. The roof of the barn sucked up into the sky and the wooden boards followed. His heart raced and fear drove him towards the shelter, he could feel the winds trying to pull them into the hungry turmoil that was sucking up everything in its path. She fought him, punched at him, and cursed him. She was in a panic, a wild cat, he was leaving Bert outside. He would be killed, sucked up into the tornado and ripped apart. Kodiak wasn’t gentle as he forced her through the entrance and dragged her down the stairs. It took Donny and both the twins to muscle the door closed and slide the locking bar into place. The vacuum pulling everything towards the outside died instantly as the world beyond the doors was ripped apart.
“I hate you!” Harper screamed as they untangled from where they’d fell. “You left him to die!”
She slapped him as hard as she could but the loud crack of skin on skin couldn’t be heard above the roar of destruction all around them.
The doors heaved against the pull of the storm and dust poured down from the ceiling. Something heavy slammed into them and shook the bunker. The pandemonium lasted for long minutes as they found their companions in the dark and tried to stroke their fear away. Whisper to them that everything was fine and scratch them in their favorite places.
After minutes that felt like hours, the wind eased its howling and the swirling cloud of destruction moved further away.
“I think it’s over.” Vanessa said softly, almost as if she was afraid it would hear her and come back for them.
Donny nodded and stroked Yewan’s neck. He could feel the fear in the big cat. Could feel the trembles of her muscles under his fingers.
“Help me with this.” Kodiak said as he tried to open the door. He needed to get out and find Bert. Harpers slap had hurt but the words hurt more.
The crossbar was bent and he couldn’t push it up out of the heavy steel bracket. It was jammed tight.
“Gimme a hand guys.” He told Donny and Tobias and they hurried up the stairs. Harper was crying bitterly as Vanessa and Swan tried to comfort her.
“He’s dead. I could have saved him.” They heard between the sobs. “He didn’t care.”
The boys threw their backs into the bar and tried to ignore her, they didn’t know what to do about a crying girl. The bar wouldn’t budge.
“Something must have hit the door pretty damn hard to bend this.” Tobias grunted “It’s solid steel.”
They dug out more flashlights and searched the room for anything they could use as a pry bar. At one time it had been an expensive concrete storm cellar in an area along tornado alley. When the owners had it built, they’d had children and had been worried about their safety. They’d held drills and every member of the family knew what to do, all the way down to the littlest who was in charge of bringing the hamsters. It was well stocked with emergency food, flashlights and a hand crank radio. They had water, blankets and a camp toilet. Years passed, nothing happened, the children grew up and went off on their own and now it was used for storage. Old bicycles, tractor parts and baby seats that were too nice to throw away. Now everything was covered in a fine film of mold, the wooden shelves were rotten and during the rainy season water stood stagnant in the floor. It had been a decade since the old farmer had been down the steps and the sum total value of all the things inside would have been zero dollars and zero cents. For the children, they turned out to be very valuable indeed.
34
Salvaged
Harper wanted to scream in rage. It was no use. The thick steel door was bomb shelter quality; they weren’t going to cut through it. Even if they could whatever the tornado had dumped on the other side had buried them. Kodiak’s Warhammer had pried the locking bar loose but the door hadn’t budged. No matter how hard they pushed against it, no matter how many pry bars they jammed into the frame, they couldn’t move it a fraction. Something big was laying on it. Maybe the house, maybe a tree, maybe a bulldozer from the next county over.
Three days. Three long days and nights they’d been trapped in a hole in the ground. The darkness was absolute which led them to believe there wasn’t simply a tree or something on the doors, they’d been buried alive. No light seeped around any of the edges. They had gone through all the junk on the shelves and some of it had come in handy. The camp toilets and the chemicals in plastic bottles were still good. Some of the home canned goods were fine. Whoever had done it years ago had taken the dampness into consideration and dipped the lids in wax. They had enough food to last them a few weeks, long enough to dig their way out, but that wasn’t the problem. They were running out of air. Whoever had built the shelter hadn’t added drainage or a fresh air vent. It was basically a concrete box with a military surplus security door sold to worried homeowners by slick salesmen and built as cheaply as possible. They found a crack in the ceiling in one corner and had decided to break through there instead of the steel of the doors. Once they got through the concrete, there should only be a few feet of dirt. They hadn’t anticipated the steel mesh imbedded in the cement to hold it all together. Getting through it was slow and tedious work that consisted of hammering each strand back and forth a few thousand times until it broke. Concrete dust had filled the air the first few days but now it had all settled. That wasn’t the reason it was getting harder to breathe. When they realized they were slowly dying of asphyxiation, they stopped trying to make the hole big enough to squeeze through and concentrated on busting the rest of the way through the concrete. They had to break through, they needed an air supply.
Harper still sulked, still blamed Kodiak for Bert’s death. If they hadn’t been trapped in a black hole, if things weren’t so frustrating and dirty and smelly, they probably would have blown off a little steam, found a quiet spot and talked things through. Penned up so closely together with no privacy, not even to go to the bathroom, it was easier to stay mad. It was easier to redirect anger at somebody who had dragged you into the tomb you were in than be mad at an animal who just left a load you stepped in. He hadn’t tried very hard either she told herself. She’d rejected his halfhearted apology and he hadn’t tried again. Fine. She wouldn’t have accepted it anyway.
They were hot, sweaty and already down two flashlights, their batteries dead. Swan was feverish, the bites from Diablo were infected and her wolves knew something was wrong with the pack mother. She sat in a corner and dozed most of the time. She would be the first to go, Harper thought. She was the luckiest. She barely knew what was happening.
The boys had built a rickety platform and took turns with the hammers 24 hours a day. Nobody was getting any sleep, everybody was irritable. Even if they broke through and got some fresh air, would they have enough food to last until they made a hole big enough to crawl through? What was worse, dying from lack of air or dying of hunger or thirst? Would they kill their animals and eat them? Would the animals go mad from thirst and attack each other or the children? The situation was grim and she was fine to stay angry for a while longer. It made things easier. You didn’t care if you were mad.
Tobias paused his chiseling at the concrete and let out a whoop.
“I’m through!” he shouted and started pulling out handfuls of dirt. It rained down and made a pile on t
he floor. When he was shoulder deep against the ceiling he called for a spear and Vanessa handed hers up. With a final prod, grass and leaves tumbled down the fist sized hole and sunlight shone through. They cheered and gathered around, sucking in the cool, clean air. It tasted good, she’d never know it to have a flavor before but it was almost sweet it was so clean and pure.
The wolves smelled the danger first and their growls were heard above the happy chatter of the kids. Everyone got quiet and looked to them as they eyed the hole, fangs bared and low rumbles in their throats.
“Oi, anybody down there?” a British accented voice shouted down the hole from above.
Nobody answered, too surprised at what they heard. There were the sounds of a scuffle above and then the gekkering barks of excited foxes shoving their noses into the hole. Zero answered back with a bark of his own and then they heard Caleb shouting. There was a chattering from the monkeys, the British guy yelled something then they were yelling right back, nearly dancing with joy.
“Move over you little hellion.” they heard him say and his voice replaced Landon’s hollering down at them.
“Have you out in a bit.” He said. “I think we found the door. Seems to have a Cadillac parked on it. Might want to stand clear.”
Now that they had a hole letting in the sounds of the outside world, they heard diesel engines idling, the sound of a chain being hooked to something and the screeching of metal and crunching of wood as the car was dragged off the door. Dirt was shoveled off, boards and tin tossed aside and crowbars jammed into the frame to pry the bent door open. A dozen hands grabbed it from the outside and pulled it open. Bright light illuminated the cellar as dirt spilled down the steps. They squinted up at a tall figure silhouetted in the sun as three little kids ran around him and down the stairs, ignoring him telling them to be careful.
The Feral Children | Book 3 | Nomads Page 17