by M. J. Haag
DEMON FLAMES
M.J. Haag
Becca Vincenza
DEMON FLAMES
Copyright: M.J. Haag and Becca Vincenza
mjhaag.melissahaag.com
beccavincenzaauthor.wordpress.com
Published: September 5, 2017
ISBN-13: 978-1-943051-02-1
Cover Design: Shattered Glass Publishing
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without express written permission from the author.
DEMON FLAMES
As hellhounds continue to roam and the zombie plague spreads, Drav leads Mya to the source of her troubles—Ernisi, an underground Atlantis and Drav’s home. There Mya learns that the shadowy demons, who’ve helped devastate her world, are not what they seem.
Trapped in Ernisi, Mya tries to convince Drav to return her to the surface so she can continue her search for her family. However, he’s determined to keep her where he knows she’ll be safe. When Mya falls ill, Drav must choose between her and his people.
One
It was all so surreal. The continual ringing in my ears added to the despair of realizing the world around us was being bombed to hell. Drav’s fingers bit into my side with each jarring stride as he sprinted to put more distance between us and the Army base. But, I barely noticed the ache.
Staring at the clouds of dust and smoke that rose into the air caused a numbness to spread through me. I’d survived so much in the last week. Zombies. Hellhounds. Now this.
In the distance, the second shockwave flattened debris with a devastating force that raced toward us. I ducked my head down and hung onto Drav with the same desperation he held me. His arms tightened, and he seemed to run faster. The force of the impact jostled him, but he didn’t stumble this time.
I glanced up at him. Tears caused by the brightness of the sun streamed down his cheeks, dripping from his tense, stubborn jaw. That stubbornness had saved me. If he’d left like I’d wanted, I would have died.
I caught the sun’s reflection off the large body of water to our right while I listened to the north side of Oklahoma City fall to its knees.
When the shockwaves no longer touched us, I peeked over his shoulder again. Trees blocked most of the view, but I still saw the smoke and dust-clouded horizon. My breath lodged painfully in my throat. My city, my home, was gone.
My family.
“Drav, stop. Put me down.”
He immediately halted and placed me on my feet. Before I could look at the phone I still clutched, he clasped my face between his large hands. His squinted, worried gaze swept over me.
“Are you all right? Were you hurt?” he asked.
The panic in his voice warmed me. Even with everything I knew gone, I wasn’t alone. I gripped his wrist with my free hand.
“I’m fine. Are you okay? That first aftershock hit us hard.”
He nodded and, with a shaky exhale, set his forehead against mine. I appreciated the sentiment. My insides still felt like Jell-O. Leaning into his embrace, I released his wrist and placed my hand on his chest. Our breaths mingled while we stood in the relative safety of the trees, the distant continuing blasts emphasizing the fate we’d escaped.
“Drav, I need to call my family. I need to let them know I’m safe.”
His hands slid from my cheeks to the back of my head.
“I need to know you’re safe, too.” The look in his eyes made my heart stutter for a moment, as did the way he gently trailed his fingers down the side of my neck. Emotions that I didn’t have the time or luxury to examine raged inside of me. My breath caught at the feel of his fingers toying with the ends of my hair. Everything felt confusing when it came to him.
“I am safe,” I managed to whisper.
He nodded and pulled back a bit.
Exhaling slowly, I tore my gaze from his and lifted my phone. I still had a signal. I half laughed and half cried as I fumbled to dial Ryan’s number. Drav stood close, watching me, his thick fingers still playing with my hair.
Ryan picked up on the first ring.
“Mya!” His voice echoed like he had me on speaker phone. Hearing him cracked the hold I had on my frayed emotions. He really was alive.
“Mya, baby, are you okay?” Mom asked.
“I’m fine. We barely got out. I can’t believe I’m talking to you.” Silent tears choked my words. Drav’s fingers immediately traced down my hair.
Mom began to cry, and Ryan’s voice shook when he next spoke.
“Oh my God, Mya. I wanted to call you as soon as they turned the phones back on, but I was scared you had your ringer on and the infected would hear.”
“It’s okay. I’m okay. I’m safe. I promise,” I said. “Where’s Dad?”
“When we saw your text saying where you were, he went to try to stop the bombing,” Ryan said.
I laughed through my tears. That sounded like Dad.
“You’ll probably need to bail him out from somewhere. Where are you? I’ve been at least a day behind you. At the house. The cabin. The base.”
“They’re not telling us where we are.”
“What? Why not?”
“Because they’re afraid.” His voice lowered. “There are some rumors that it’s not just the hounds and the infected out there. I’ve heard something else showed up with the quakes. Something smart. Something the military’s afraid of.”
I met Drav’s steady gaze.
“I don’t understand what that has to do with them not telling you where you are.”
“Whatever these things are, they can understand us. Communications went down to stop them from getting any potential information they might be able to use against us.”
“Then why turn the phones back on?”
“They weren’t going to. People here rioted when we heard the military was going to bomb the cities. Everyone is missing someone and hoping they’re still alive.”
“Cities?”
“Yeah.” Yelling erupted in the background on Ryan’s end and grew louder.
“Head north,” Ryan said quickly. “There’s more than one safe zone for survivors. Stay away from the cities.”
The line went dead. Pulling the phone from my ear, I checked the connection and immediately tried calling back. No one answered. A moment later, I lost my signal.
Without warning, I found myself once again holding my bag and cradled in Drav’s arms. He took off running. The wind battered my face, but I didn’t protectively duck into his chest again.
“Wait,” I said, trying to breathe. “Where are you going?” I looked around at the blurring trees and the sky, trying to get my bearings. We needed to head north. Where in the heck was the sun?
“We must keep moving,” he said without slowing.
The trees gave way to a few houses in the rural outskirts of the city as well as a hazy view of the sun before we ran under their cover once more.
“But we’re going the wrong way. The sun needs to be on our right side.”
“Listen,” he said, maintaining his focus on running. “Do you not hear it?”
Ducking out of the wind, I concentrated on the sounds around us. The absence of bird song and animal chatter still creeped me out. That left the faintly discernable whoosh of our passage under the noise of the explosions going off—getting louder, actually—and the hum of the planes in the sky.
“What should I be hearing? The bombings or the planes?”
“Both. And they are in the direction you want to go. You have many cit
ies, and they plan to destroy them all. You are not safe here. If I take you north, you will get hurt.”
My stomach sank as I realized he was right. He couldn’t take me north. Ryan had made humanity’s fear of Drav’s people clear. If Drav tried helping me reach a safe zone, he’d be the one hurt. I couldn’t risk that. I had to reach my family on my own. Yet, the idea of leaving him upset me. This new world scared me less with him at my side. And, he certainly wouldn’t like the idea of me going off on my own, either. However, the bombings would give me the cover I needed to use a different mode of travel.
“We need to find a road or a car,” I said.
He veered out of the trees without question and found a quiet stretch of country road within minutes. He ran beside the worn blacktop, passing the occasional house. Nothing moved and there were no cars. I needed to figure out where we were.
“Stop,” I said when I spotted a road sign.
Drav did as I asked, but he didn’t set me down.
We were running alongside 60th Avenue. Perfect. Kind of. We weren’t as far south as I’d thought.
From his arms, I eyed the quiet expanse of road. A few abandoned cars dotted the blacktopped length further south, near Highway 9. In the distance, heading north in our direction, I saw a few infected. They were sprinting toward the sounds of bombs and their eventual ends.
“This will work,” I said. “If we find a car with keys, I can drive north. The infected won’t bother me much. With all the bombing, they won’t hear me unless they’re really close. And in a car, the people bombing will know I’m not infected, and I’ll be safe.”
I looked up at Drav. The tears hadn’t stopped streaming, and I wished Phutsy hadn’t head-butted Drav and broken his sunglasses.
“It’s not safe even with a car,” he said.
“Look around, Drav. Nothing’s safe anymore. Driving a car to where I need to be is the safest option.”
He studied me for a long, quiet moment before moving toward the first car. The broken driver’s side window gave a clear view of an infected woman strapped into the front seat. She didn’t lurch forward or move anything but her head. Only her eyes tracked our approach, almost as if she was aware she couldn’t reach us…that we needed to come to her.
“Skip this one. It’s probably out of gas,” I said, not wanting to get any closer.
Drav jogged to the next car. The driver’s door hung open, the inside empty.
“Let me down so I can see if there are keys.”
He set me on my feet and took the bag from my arms. I quickly found the keys in the ignition. The excitement at finding them died when the engine failed to turn over. Dead battery. However, after checking the visor, glovebox, and center console, I found another pair of sunglasses for Drav.
The dark lenses provided him a measure of relief and stopped the watering so we could continue our search.
We hit the jackpot with the fifth vehicle parked in the driveway of one of the homes on the road. The truck started on the first try and had a full tank. I looked up with a smile, expecting to see Drav standing by the driver’s door. However, the space was empty. Across from me, the passenger door opened, and he got in.
“Uh…”
“Close your door, Mya.”
“Drav, you can’t come with me. Where I’m going—”
“You need me to get there safely. Now, close the door.”
I frowned but did as he wanted. The sounds of the blasts were growing louder and the infected drawing closer. We didn’t have time to argue out all the reasons he needed to let me head north by myself.
Shifting the truck into reverse, I backed out of the driveway and started south. I would take him as far as possible. When I found a place to turn west so I could circle around the city, I’d drop him off.
“Can you open the glove box? It’s that compartment tucked into the dash right in front of you.”
I swerved, trying to avoid one of the infected running at us but ended up hitting it anyway. Blood spattered the windshield, and I fumbled to figure out how to clean it off.
“What do you need from in here?” Drav asked, drawing my attention from the mess.
“A map, if there is one.”
“There is,” he said, pulling out an old map of Oklahoma as I crossed over a deserted highway nine.
“Good. Because the only roads I know heading north are the ones that cut through the city they’re blowing up. See if you can find us a way around.”
Paper crinkled beside me. I pressed the wipers again and removed the rest of the blood in time to hit the next infected. I’d run out of washer fluid at this rate.
“I can’t read this,” Drav said.
“What do you mean? I thought you just needed to see a word to know it.”
“No. Once I hear a word, I know it. Writing is different.”
“Why?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe because we don’t use writing.”
“Really? Okay.” With the road before us clear, I slowed down, not bothering to ease off onto the shoulder. There was no point without traffic.
“Let me see the map,” I said, once I stopped.
“Wouldn’t it be easier if I drove and you told me where to turn?”
“You can drive?”
“I think so. The pedal on the right makes the vehicle go. The pedal on the left makes it stop. The wheel gives it direction. The handle beside the wheel cleans the glass.”
“There’s a bit more to it than that. Just hand me the map.”
Drav passed me the map. As I studied the map, he began to run his finger lightly up the length of my arm. I shivered and peeked up at him. All of his focus remained on gently stroking me. I swallowed then slowly leaned away and focused on the map.
After a few moments, I figured out the route I would take to drive around the city so I could head back north.
Something thumped into my door, making me jump and squeak. A boy around my age, stared at me with cloudy eyes. He swayed side to side on his feet, his mouth gaping open and close. Behind him, I saw another infected sprinting our way, attracted to the sound of our engine instead of the distant blasts.
Sliding the shifter back into drive, I took off, continuing south.
“Is it just me or are they getting creepier?”
“You’ve always found them creepy,” Drav said, watching the road in front of us.
“And you haven’t?”
“No. Not creepy. Unpleasant and numerous.”
I couldn’t argue with that. The two infected fell behind, and I paid attention to the road ahead. Because of the river, I ended up driving all the way down to Lexington and through Purcell before heading north-west on I-35, more than an hour after the bombing had begun.
The attempt to stop and drop off Drav failed completely. He refused to get out. I couldn’t say I experienced any disappointment over his unrelenting refusal to leave me, yet I did worry about what would happen to him when we reached our destination. I didn’t want him to get hurt.
As we drove, a solid, light grey filled the sky to the east. Not just above Oklahoma City, but off in the direction of Tulsa, too. The bombers were destroying everything. I understood why. Getting to the military base had been hard. The infected far outnumbered the survivors. Bombing had been an easy way to kill them and the hounds. But what about the shadow men like Drav? I glanced at him. They were different, overly clueless about girls, and prone to acts of violence. Yet, they weren’t all bad. Especially not Drav. I hoped his people wouldn’t die because of the explosions.
Despite the destructive activity to our right, we continued north at a reasonably steady pace. Some people must have tried evacuating on the highway earlier, because the further north I drove, the more cars we saw crowding the road. A heavier degree of dust had settled on them, as well.
A jaw-popping yawn made my eyes water as I navigated through the abandoned vehicles. I leaned forward, trying to see through my yawns and the silt covering the windshield.
“You’re tired,” Drav said. “Stop and rest or let me drive.”
I was exhausted, and Ryan’s crappy“head north” directions likely meant we had a lot of driving in our future. It would be easier if I taught Drav how to use the truck now.
“Fine,” I said, slowing. I slid the gear shift into park. “The letter P stands for park, R for reverse, and D for drive.” I pointed to each one as I spoke then moved to open my door.
“No,” he said, grabbing my arm.
I glanced out my window, expecting an infected. Drav’s hold vanished, and his fingers gently traced over the sleeve of my hoodie. I looked at him.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he said softly.
“You didn’t.”
He brushed his fingers along my cheek and smiled slightly.
“I’ll get out. You slide over. It’s safer if you stay in here.”
He opened his door and missed my blush. Trying to control the summersaults in my stomach, I once again realized how thankful I was that Drav had refused to leave me.
A second later, he climbed into the driver’s seat and glanced at me, as if making sure I had truly remained safe for those few moments he’d left. Apparently satisfied with what he saw, he buckled his seatbelt and focused on the truck. I watched him move the shifter into drive while keeping his foot on the brake.
“Good,” I said, impressed. “Now ease off the brake and gently give it some gas with the right pedal.” The truck lurched forward then smoothed out into a steady acceleration.
“Go slow until you get a feel for steering and stopping,” I said, feeling a little nervous.
He wove through the vehicles and even stopped to move one out of the way. My mouth popped open when I saw him lift the back end of the sedan. He swung it off the road with ease then got back in and took off without a hiccup.
“Rest, Mya. I’m comfortable driving.”
“You’re not tired?” I asked. “I don’t want to crash because you fall asleep at the wheel.”
“No. I’m not tired yet. I’ll wake you when it’s your turn to drive.”