The Changlings (The New Earth Chronicles Book 2)

by J. J. Thompson

  “Hmm. Okay, let's go in.”

  She pulled out her stone and was about to step through the doorway when a rhythmic slapping sound caught her attention and both she and Bobby spun around to look back down the road from the direction that they'd come.

  A large creature covered in black scales and as big as a car was pounding down the broken pavement directly at them. As it saw them turn toward it, it opened its fanged jaws and screeched hungrily. It was a drake.

  “Crap!” Bobby shouted. “We were followed.”

  He grabbed Sarah, who was standing still, frozen in fear, and practically lifted her off her feet as he pulled her inside the building.

  “Get to the blast door!” he exclaimed as he slammed the metal door shut.

  There were two bolts on the inside of it and he slid them into their slots, his fingers clumsy with fear.

  Sarah stood looking at him for a few seconds, still stunned by the surprise attack. As Bobby rammed the bolts home, she shook her abruptly and held up her stone, willing it to glow. They had to get moving.

  She ran across the room, dodging dusty desks and rusting chairs, and reached the thick steel blast door that led into the bunker. To her relief, she found it still shut tight. Whether someone had been here or not was impossible to tell, but she guessed not.

  “Bobby, I need your help with this thing,” she called out as she held up the glowing stone.

  “Coming!”

  He hurried across the room just as a heavy body slammed against the closed door behind him.

  “Damn it, that door won't hold for long,” he exclaimed as he reached Sarah.

  “I know. Come on, grab the handle and help me pull.”

  Sarah put her stone away, plunging the room into darkness, and took hold of the thick steel horizontal bar on the door. Bobby stood next to her and, on the count of three, both of them began to pull on the blast door.

  At first it wouldn't budge. After years of immobility, the hinges had rusted a bit. Plus, the door itself weighed several tons and neither Sarah nor Bobby were very large people.

  They were fairly strong though and their desperation increased their strength even more. And so, after a few terrifying moments, the door began to open outward with a reluctant squeal.

  In the meantime, the drake was still tearing at the front door to the building. From the sound of it, the monster was seconds away from ripping it off of its hinges and getting inside.

  Sarah wondered desperately if they could get the blast door open and then closed behind them quickly enough to prevent the drake from reaching them. She had a horrible feeling that they wouldn't have the time.

  The massive door was almost open wide enough for them to slip through.

  “Come on,” Bobby pleaded as he yanked on it. “Come on, you stupid door. Open!”

  And then...silence. The sounds of the drake trying to tear down the door to the building were cut off abruptly and both Sarah and Bobby stopped tugging desperately on the blast door and turned to listen.

  “What happened?” Bobby whispered in the darkness.

  They could see the outline of the door several dozen feet away as daylight peeked through the edges of it. The thing was bent out of shape and it would have taken the monster only a few more blows to knock it down. But it had stopped trying to. Why?

  “Dunno. Drakes don't stop when they've gotten the scent of their prey; we both know that.”

  “That's true. Well, let's not stop now. Come on. This is our chance to get this damned door open.”

  “Okay.”

  They renewed their efforts to open the blast door and, with a final yank, the heavy portal moved just far enough to allow the two of them to force their way through the gap.

  But Sarah hesitated, staring back at the front of the building while she listened intently.

  “Hey, what are you waiting for?” Bobby asked in confusion.

  He was already through the blast door.

  “Why did it stop?” she asked in a hushed voice. “It had us. A few more seconds and it would have been inside.”

  “Who cares? Sarah, come on!”

  “Hang on a sec. I have to know.”

  She began to walk slowly, cautiously, back across the room toward the entrance. Her senses were on high alert and she was ready to turn and run back to the blast door at the first sound of another attack on the building.

  “Are you nuts?” Bobby hissed. “Come back here!”

  “Just wait. This will only take a minute.”

  The light around the edge of the door was slowly fading as the sun went down. But dusk was still a few minutes away and Sarah knew that she'd have plenty of light to see with when she peered outside.

  A shuffling step made her look back and she saw that Bobby had tiptoed up behind her. She smiled at him in the dim light, but he didn't return it. His face was pale with fear.

  Sarah turned around again and kept going. When she reached the door, she stopped and put her eye to the gap, trying to see outside.

  The ground just in front of the entrance was churned up into a muddy froth. She could see gouges where the drake had ripped the earth in its eagerness to push through the door. But except for that, there was no sign of it.

  “It's gone,” she told Bobby blankly. “There's nothing out there.”

  “That's impossible,” he replied, looking stunned. “Drakes never give up on a hunt.”

  “Yeah, I know. But see for yourself; it's gone.”

  She moved over a bit and Bobby peeked through the opening.

  “Wow. What the heck happened?”

  “No idea. Come on. The door's practically fallen apart. Let's go out and take a look around.”

  They grabbed the edge of the door and pulled at it.

  “This is such a bad idea,” Bobby said nervously as they tugged.

  “Probably. We'll find out in a second. Here it comes.”

  With an shriek that bruised their ears, the door grated back against the cement floor. They only opened it wide enough to slip through and then Sarah squeezed between the frame and the door and stepped outside.

  The rain had stopped again and the clouds had begun breaking up. Slivers of blue sky could be seen overhead, but the day was ending and the blue was fading fast. Sarah spared a quick glance above her, but she was on high alert, looking around for any sign of the drake.

  Beyond the torn-up ground, there was a strange trail in the mud that looked like something had been dragged away from the building. She frowned at the markings in confusion.

  The drake was dragged away? By what? And how? Neither she nor Bobby had heard any sounds of a struggle. And besides, what would attack such a monster? Another monster? Maybe. But what kind?

  “Bobby,” she said loudly. “Come out and see this. Something happened to the drake.”

  “What?”

  Sarah watched as Bobby forced his way through the partially open door, wincing as he scraped his arms. He wasn't as slim as she was.

  “What do you mean, something happened?” he asked once he'd joined her.

  “Take a look for yourself.”

  She pointed at the shallow trench leading away from the door.

  “See? It looks like something grabbed the drake and dragged it off. Strange though; the mark is only about thirty feet long or so and then it just disappears.”

  Bobby moved closer to the muddy trail and squatted down beside it. He touched the track and then looked up at her.

  “I don't get it,” he said, shaking his head. “If something attacked the drake, we would have heard it. And even if we didn't, it looks like the creature was carried off. What could do that?”

  “A dragon?”

  Bobby stood up and grinned in disbelief.

  “Yeah, right. The drakes serve the dragons. They aren't going to be attacked by one.”

  “Wyverns maybe?” Sarah speculated. “We've seen a few fly over the city occasionally.

  “No way,” Bobby told her emphatically. “Wyve
rns aren't any bigger than a drake is, and I'm guessing that they're a lot lighter since they can fly. A wyvern wouldn't be strong enough to carry something as large and heavy as a drake.”

  “Yeah, that's true, I guess. Well then, I give up. Something carried it off, which means that whatever it was could come back. So let's get back inside before it does.”

  “For sure.”

  Both of them hurried back to the bent and scratched door. Sarah was about to slip through the gap when Bobby grabbed her arm and stopped her.

  “What is it?” she asked in surprise.

  “What's that?” he asked as he pointed toward the opposite end of the building.

  Sarah looked over in the dwindling daylight and saw something resting on the ground; something that looked pale and thin against the dark, muddy earth.

  “Um, I have no idea. Was it there before, when we got here?”

  “No way, I would have noticed it.”

  “Fine, let's check it out. But hurry. I don't want something dropping out of the sky and snatching us up.”

  They trotted down the length of the building, looking up and over their shoulders several times, just in case.

  Both of them slid to a stop as they neared the odd-looking object.

  “Holy crap,” Bobby muttered. “What made that?”

  The strange item that had caught their eyes wasn't what he was talking about. It was the massive footprint that it was resting in. At least eight feet long and three feet wide, the print had been planted deeply into the soft ground. At one end was the outline of three clawed toes and at the other end was the imprint of a sharp spur of some kind. It looked freshly made.

  “My God,” Sarah said in a thin voice. “It must be a dragon track.”

  Bobby looked around the area. Because of the constant rain, the ground was covered with puddles and the earth was squishy and soft. But even so, he found no other tracks.

  “How is that even possible?” he wondered. “Look, it's just the one footprint. Do dragons land on one foot? That can't be right.”

  “Whatever. We can worry about it later. Right now, we have to get out of here. This is just too creepy.”

  She stepped gingerly on to the print and looked down at the object that had drawn them over.

  It was a long, narrow parcel wrapped in tan leather. Against the black earth, it looked almost white.

  Sarah poked it suspiciously, shrugged and picked it up with a grunt. It was heavier than she had expected it to be.

  “What is it?” Bobby asked.

  “Well, it's not a bomb or a magical trap, so let's examine it once we're safe inside. Go on now.”

  Bobby nodded and they hurried back to the twisted metal door and squeezed inside. Sarah handed him the package and took out her stone as the day ended and the interior of the building was plunged into darkness.

  The magic rock glowed blue as she concentrated on it, almost bright in the gloom, and she led the way across the room to the open blast door. After a brief moment of hesitation, she ducked inside and held up her light to look around.

  The main tunnel that ran the length of the bunker to the distant, useless elevators looked almost the same as she remembered it. There were some cobwebs on the ceiling and the painted concrete floor was dusty, but that was about the only difference.

  “I think that we're the first ones to enter here since we deserted the place ten years ago,” she said softly to Bobby as he walked in behind her.

  “How can you tell?” he asked quietly.

  It felt like they had just entered a church, or a shrine of some kind. The atmosphere was heavy with stale air and a feeling of sad neglect.

  “Look at the ground,” she said as she held out the stone. “See? No footprints in the dust.”

  “Huh. Looks like we got lucky. Come on, help me seal and lock the door. Once it's secure from this side, nothing's getting in here, not even a dragon.”

  “Shush. Don't jinx us. I'll be happy if it keeps out drakes and goblins.”

  Chapter 14

  With the main door locked securely behind them, Sarah and Bobby got ready to explore the Diefenbunker again for the first time in a decade. Bobby took off his sunglasses and put them away and then pulled a candle out of his pack and lit it, to give them a little more light. Sarah's stone was bright enough, but the blue glow gave everything an odd, ghostly tint and really wasn't all that bright. Besides, the candle's light was warmer and felt more normal than the magical light of the stone.

  “Where did we leave the torches?” he asked as he put down the bundle that they had found outside. “They'd light up this whole place a lot better than your stone and this candle.”

  “Probably down on the fourth level, with the rest of the supplies that we couldn't carry with us,” Sarah answered. “You know, the bottles of soap and cleaning fluid, the piles of sheets and blankets, all of that stuff.”

  “Oh right. Too bad there's no food down there too.”

  “If there had been any, we wouldn't have left, would we?”

  “That's true.”

  Both of them knelt down and stared at the mysterious package. It was tied securely with three pieces of leather string and Bobby gestured at it.

  “After you,” he said with a smile. “You're the boss, after all.”

  “I wish you'd stop saying that,” Sarah protested as she put down her stone. “It makes me sound so...so...”

  “Bossy?”

  She made a face at him as he chuckled and then began to untie the bundle.

  “What could it be?” Bobby wondered, nervous and excited in equal measure.

  “No idea. It's not ticking or moving, so that's a good sign. I'm more curious about who or what left it. And why.”

  Bobby's expression became serious.

  “Yeah, good point. That gigantic footprint is still freaking me out. What made it? And why only one? A joke maybe?”

  “Made in just two minutes? That's about how long we waited after the drake disappeared before investigating. No, whatever it was, it wasn't a joke.”

  Sarah finished untying the leather straps, absently rolled them up and slipped them into a pocket of her jeans.

  “Here goes,” she said, taking a deep breath. “Merry Christmas.”

  “Ho ho ho,” Bobby muttered.

  She began unrolling the bundle and stopped almost at once as a note, written on thick, white parchment, fell to the ground.

  “What the...?”

  Sarah snatched it up and Bobby slid across the floor on his knees to look over her shoulder.

  “What's it say?” he asked excitedly.

  “A gift for you both. To Sarah, for her power and to Bobby, for his bravery,” she read, wide-eyed. “Use them with honor. Esmiralla.”

  The note was written in beautiful script using black ink.

  “Esmiralla? The woman from the painting back home?” Bobby asked in surprise.

  “Yes, the woman from my dream. My God, she is real.”

  “After the picture of the old man changed, I could have told you that she was real,” Bobby replied dryly.

  “But to actually hold a note in my hand that was written by her? That kind of confirms it.”

  She sat back on her heels, the parchment trembling in her hand.

  “Wow. Esmiralla. Who is she? What is she?”

  “You know what this means, right?” Bobby asked, nodding at the note and the bundle. “Whoever she is, Esmiralla was here, right outside of the bunker. She's watching over you, Sarah.”

  “Not necessarily,” Sarah disagreed. “The package could have been left by someone else, on her behalf.”

  “Yeah, I guess that's true. Someone with a size one hundred foot.”

  She smiled weakly at his joke and put down the note.

  “Whatever. Okay, let's see what she was talking about.”

  Sarah picked up her glowing stone and Bobby raised his candle higher so that they could both see better. She pushed at the bundle and it unrolled several tim
es and then flattened out, revealing its contents. Both of them gasped in unison.

  “For my power,” she said in wonder.

  “For my bravery,” Bobby whispered. “As if I had any,” he added.

  Lying on the unrolled leather wrappings were two objects. One was a wand about the length of Sarah's forearm, made of dark wood and tipped with a bright, yellow gem. The other was a sheathed sword. The hilt was plain and well-worn, and looked like it had seen a lot of use. A plain leather belt was wrapped tightly around the sheathe.

  “A wand? What am I, a fairy princess?” Sarah asked derisively as she picked it up.

  The mocking smile faded from her face to be replaced with a frown.

  “It feels...hmm. Strange. Like I've held it before. But I haven't. Have I?”

  While she was turning the wand this way and that in her hand, Bobby reached down and lifted the sheathed sword. He dribbled a bit of wax from the candle on to the cement floor and set it down in the little puddle. Then he grabbed the sheathe in one hand and grasped the hilt with the other.

  “For my bravery,” he murmured again.

  And then he drew the sword.

  A long, keen blade reflected the light of Sarah's stone and the candle, giving it a mystical glow. But as Bobby examined it, he could see that it was just a sword. A beautiful, obviously old weapon but still, just a sword.

  “I don't know how to use this thing,” he told Sarah as he stood up and swung it experimentally a few times. “Why give it to me?”

  “Makes more sense than this,” she replied with a wave of her wand. “Do I look like Tinkerbell?”

  “Well, you are about the same size,” Bobby said with a wide grin.

  “Watch it, mister,” she warned him and poked him playfully with the tip of the wand.

  “Ouch! Be careful, that thing's sharp.”

  “Oops, sorry. I was just kidding.”

  She pushed herself to her feet and held up her stone.

  “Let's figure these things out later. Come on, grab your pack and the candle and let's head downstairs. I want to call the others and tell them what's going on. And find out if they've been attacked by those damned drakes.”