by Alexa Dare
The bite wound on Nora’s lower arm, complements of her son earlier on, twinged. Both barely escaped his last attack. The lead of his room was not there in the quarantine area to offer any sort of safety.
“Is he okay?” Junior stepped back and bumped into Darcy Lynn’s bed.
His pencil scratched paper and he mumbled.
Nora worked her hands. Inside the glove casings, the tips of her fingers raked the silk-like inner lining. Always, when she did not use her own power, the need to do so built and built. Straining to hear, she leaned down, and through the filter of the mask, asked, “What?”
“First to live, they must die.” Eyes latched onto the page, Vincent scraped the pencil gray onto the white sheet of paper in harsh, quick strokes.
Chapter 9
At nightfall, dozens of gazes bore down on Brody as Yates escorted him through the camp to Cantrell’s cabin. While they strode along, no campfires burned, though low-hanging smoke hung below the tree canopies and above the cabins and tents. A few faint lanterns glowed.
Brody practically squirmed in his own skin and yearned for his hide-away trailer and shop in the old apple orchard of his family farm.
Spring had barely left winter behind, so chill bumps pimpled his bare arms below his t-shirt sleeves. The raised rash scurried under the scrub of his fingertips on his lower arm but rose again straight away when he moved to warm another spot.
No way was he going to admit to being cold and ask for a jacket.
The Mountain Militiamen or New Militia or whatever the heck they called themselves, from what Brody scoped out, was made up of close to three hundred members living in the camp. If they were as widespread as the pox virus Vincent manifested into reality, the extremists would take over the entire county in less than a week.
Brody shifted his shoulders. Nah, there wasn’t an itchy rash hidden by the length of his hair at the nape of his neck.
Keep telling yourself that, and you just might believe your own hype. Yeah, he could just hear what Cantrell would say.
Brody sighed.
The electronic parts for the cloaking device should arrive in the morning. Delbert claimed he could get the equipment by hook, crook, or overnight shipping to be picked up by a supply runner in town.
In the meantime, uber-technical wizard Brody Thackett had shut down his terminal at sundown. No TVs, radios, or other devices blared throughout the entire camp. Per Yates’s orders, even the low hum of gasoline-powered generators quieted.
Excitement and foreboding rammed with the beat of Brody’s heart. How badly had Nora Hicks harmed him? Something in his chest, felt not quite right—
Yet, nothing would stop him tonight. He led with his chin and ignored the murmurs of mostly men and a few women standing outside tents and on porches. Eyes forward, not wanting to seem weak by openly rubbing his arms, he kept walking. Through the dusk, he took in the shapes of cabins, mixed in with just as many large tent outlines. Even with a better look-see, he had no idea where in the area the camp resided.
Within the area, cigarette and cigar embers flared. From warm campfire ashes, wafts of sweet wood smoke spiraled to huddle just beneath the top leaves of the trees.
Thankfully, after a few yards’ walk, they came to a cabin with a sagging porch roof.
“No quarantine?”
“Outmost cabin.” Yates hitched his thumb toward the main camp. “Best we could do, considering the circumstances. I’m the only one that comes here. Until now.”
Brody’s chest weighted, and he fought to swallow. He croaked, “How bad off is he?”
“He let me give him the pox vaccination.” Yates stopped short of the porch steps. Everything about the camp dulled to charcoal. Even Yates’s expression shadowed gray. “He insisted I wear a medical facemask and latex gloves and claimed there was no help for the other disease raging through his body.”
“Mr. Yates, with all due respect, sir, you didn’t answer my question.” The fried bologna sandwich they fed Brody for lunch revisited his taste buds. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Your brother said you were a sharp fellow. You’ll figure all of this out in due time.”
Brody loped up the steps. When he turned, Yates no longer skulked behind him. “What’s with these survival guys fading into the dark of night?”
A single layer of silver-gray duct tape bound the edges of the wooden door to the doorframe.
Brody lifted his feet as if his high-tops were made of lead, and he edged across the porch. He didn’t knock, instead, butt tilted on uneven planks, he sat down and propped his back against the warped slab of wood. Arms folded on his raised knees, he rested his chin on his lower arms. Quiet joined the cedar and pine carrying on a light breeze from the camp edges and visited the surrounding woods like a specter.
A supposed deserted site filled with men and women zealous about what?
A shift of his shoulders failed to jog an answer. Unable to shrug off a snarl of unease in his gut, he pressed the heel of his hands into the dip of his belly. Too many sets of eyes likely watching stabbed through the gloom. Crickets and katydids jeered at him, poking fun at his jacketless self and the plight in which he and his brother stewed.
If only things were once again simple.
He rapped the door beside the curve of his ribs with three firm knocks. “Cantrell?
A shuffling echoed from inside the cabin.
Out ahead, the faint glows throughout the camp blurred.
“Why’d you turn me over to them?” he asked.
“You were safer and more useful inside.” Cantrell’s deep voice seeped through inches of wood and the layer of tape.
“Safe?” Brody snorted. “That boss lady damaged my heart.”
“The abominations,” Cantrell’s tone dropped low, “of nature will shrivel and turn to dust.”
Like he’d taken a solid punch between his eyes, Brody winced. “So, you believe the kids are some kind of bad omens?” He banged his elbow against the door. “Up front, you said you wanted to help them.”
“No relief for the scavengers in life.”
“I believed you. In you. And all you can do is hide in a cabin and talk in riddles.”
Silence hung like the thickness of the wood between them.
With a sigh, Brody rested the back of his head. Below chirps and shrills, did the sound of his brother’s uneven breaths reach his ears? His hair and the itchy neck patch scrubbed the warped wood as he turned his head to the side and strained to hear.
“I’m sick, Bro,” Cantrell said from inside the cabin. Only the thick piece of wood separated them. “I should have never gone in to help the girl’s grandparents.”
“Helping people out is who you are. It’s what you do” Tears, hot and urgent, stung Brody’s eyeballs. His nose clogged. He blinked and snuffled in the gentle breeze. “You’re not a guy who turns his brother over to the bad guys.”
“We needed you inside.”
“We?” Brody popped open his eyes and blurted, “You mean these radical goons?”
“Better watch your step. Yates’ll only let you stray so far.”
“From what? Aw, hell, it doesn’t matter.”
“Watch your language, dude.”
“Fuck that.” Brody raised to his knees. He faced the door and tore at the tape. Sticky backing and rough wood raked his fingertips. Splinters poked under his fingernails in sharp stabs. “Let’s get you out. We’ll walk out of here with our backs straight and our heads held high.”
“Once militia,” said Cantrell.
“Always militia,” a voice echoed from behind Brody.
Still kneeling, Brody spun. Partially attached pieces of tape stuck to and yanked at his hands in a stink of chemical adhesive.
As if manifested from thin air, Yates stood on the steps. The tall man rested his elbow on the knee of his leg set on the porch. The gray shadows of his face hid all.
Shoving his shoulders down and back, Brody straightened his upper spine. “I�
��m no militia guy.”
“Your brother joined our group. You were drafted. You’re both part of us now, willing or not, and you’ll serve the cause.” Yates’s casual pose failed to mask the man’s coiled menace. “Delbert, take him back to your cabin. Keep a close eye on him.”
“He’ll watch me sit on my ass, because that’s all you’ll get out of me.” Brody lifted his chin, ignoring the bologna-tainted saliva pooling in his throat.
“You’ll do more and then some.” Pickle-perfumed Delbert tromped onto the porch. By a fistful of shirt, he yanked Brody upright.
“Boy, this is my one and only.” Swathed in the scents of the great and scary outdoors, Yates leaned close. “I’ll lay it out real plain. Should you not get me what I need, your value to the cause ends. Choose not to perform, you are a burden and will be dealt with accordingly.”
“Like Tuck and Helmsey. You shot and murdered two of your own. This isn’t anarchy or marshal law.”
“From here on out, it’s Yates’s law. You either do for me alive, or I do you dead.”
A two-fist-sized rock hardened beneath Brody’s ribs.
“You believed in me, Bro,” Cantrell’s muffled voice called out through the wooden slab of the door as Delbert dragged Brody away. “That’s all a brother could ever ask for.”
“No, Cantrell.” The stone around his heart crumbled like shards of flint in Brody’s chest as they left the cabin behind. “A man expects his brother to do right by him.”
Chapter 10
Even inside the suit, Briar Patch Mountain reached out to Junior. Energy hummed deep into his bones and jabbed an earthy sharp tinge over his tongue. Junior scrubbed his knuckles over the slick plastic of the hood, making his hurt brow throb worse.
Nothing feels right anymore.
Facing Nora and her son, underground where fresh air barely blew in from overhead, the plastic sweatiness coated him like snail slime. Worst of all, the hateful suit kept him from drawing earth energy.
The sick room of metal and stone with three beds—one for him, but he wasn’t sick—crackled with tension.
“What did he mean about us dying? What’s he doing now, Nora?” Junior pried the heel of one boot with the toe of the other. “You’ll not harm Darcy Lynn. You’ve already hurt her enough.”
“He’s helping you, Junior.” Nora edged sideways, like she meant to try to sneak close.
“You lie when the truth would do better.” With a squelch, he shucked off the boot and balanced on one leg.
“Tell him, Vincent.” Nora’s voice ripped shrill. She motioned with her hands toward the teenager. “Explain to him what you are doing.”
“You are sick.” The teenager shrugged. His strange eyes stared out from above a white doctor’s mask. He didn’t glare but looking into his eyes was like looking into a deep, deep cave. “I must draw you at your worst to bring you more alive on the page.”
“You talk funny and make no sense.” Junior, as his cheeks heated and jaws quivered, lifted his chin. “You’re not somebody I want to be friends with either.”
“Don’t be rude.” Nora’s face flushed red, and her mouth puckered into a knot.
Vincent blinked lazy eyelids. “Nora insisted I learn to speak properly. Do I not?”
“You sound like you got too far above your raising.” Junior’s upper body swayed as he held his bare foot from the ground. Balanced on one foot, he frowned and cast looks from the mother and son and back again.
“I am what Nora and the project made me. As are you.”
“I never had a mother.” The teen was trying to trick Junior. “Your mother and her army guys kidnapped me and the others and brought us here.”
Nora’s stared long and hard at her not-so-nice son. “Vincent is not entirely aware of the scientific experiments. Once we bring all the children together again, I’ll explain our overall plan to you all.”
“You leave Abe, Hannah, and Brody alone.” The collar jolted rings around his neck. He put down his foot, let the bottom barely scrape the floor.
The entire concrete slab shook.
Nora lost her balance, and in a wave of swiping arms, fell. From on her back, she glared. “He will draw pictures so you can get well.”
Light eyes wide, Vincent held his pencil and papers.
From her bed, the jostled sleeping nurse moaned.
Like a pond crane, Junior raised his bootless foot again and balanced with his arms. Once he no longer directly touched the ground, the tremors subsided. “You took us from our homes. Killed our families.”
Nora’s mouth dropped open, and she rolled on to her front. Her reddish-brown hair stuck out from her head and her eyeliner stuff raccooned her eyes. “We brought you into Briar Patch Mountain for your betterment. We know how to get the most out of you, and to put you into situations where you will be more useful.”
“I’d rather live with Aunt Pearl than here.” He pressed his foot sole downward.
He focused on underneath. Below. Cracks split the floor around Nora’s fallen body. With a yelp, she clawed, trying to get to her feet. “I regret what happened to your aunt. I had nothing to do with the earlier collection activities.”
“I’m sorry she’s dead but I’m glad she’s gone.” Junior weakened the gravel and cement within a three- or four-feet square beneath Nora. With the super power of the collar, his joints weighed heavy, but he experienced no pain. “I’ll feel the same about you.”
“Do not speak to her in that manner.” Vincent’s pencil scratch, scratch, scratched against paper. “She is, after all, albeit at times regrettably, my mother.”
“Why should I care?” The suit hung like armor and scrubbed Junior’s skin with wet tugging squeaks at his every move. He gritted his back teeth at the tight fit that locked him away from the earth. “You want to draw dead pictures of us, maybe hurt us. You’re as bad as she is.”
“Never have I been nor shall I ever be.” Vincent looked boyish and closer to Junior’s age, like the thought took years from his life.
Junior sent out another warning.
The floor rocked. The bag hanging on the pole above the nurse swung. The grass green oxygen tank near the head of Darcy Lynn’s bed tipped and clanged.
“You won’t listen.” Nora dragged herself upright. The ground beneath her army boots crumbled like dry sand. “You don’t understand. Although you didn’t mean to do so, the toy you brought back made Darcy Lynn sick. That’s why she has a rash and is shedding bloody tears.”
“Huh-uh. She’s hurting inside. She’s lost her family because you kidnapped us and did something to her grandparents. Then you caused her to do awful things. She’s just plain heart broke and is crying blood.” Junior’s chest crimped tight.
“That’s silly, you stupid little boy.” Nora dipped her upper body low, readying to jump to more solid ground.
“I may not be book-learned, but you’re the one that’s not real smart.” Like boiled cabbage, sour heat blazed in Junior’s belly. “You have to touch someone to hurt them. Since you like hurting people, I’ll keep you from harming anyone, ever again.” He curled his toes and pushed out with his mind.
A twin bed-sized bulge rose below Nora. She pitched backwards.
“Nora, enough. I will explain to Junior.” Vincent’s wide eyes made his round face even rounder.
“You don’t have to make excuses or justify yourself. You are my son, the Master of the Void.” Nora climbed onto the mound. As if it were a down-slanted ramp, she lunged down the front side, straight at Junior.
Heartbeat and breath ramped, Junior ripped off his gloves and knelt. He gripped the vibrating roughened slab with his fingertips. Pulling inward first, he shoved from inside himself.
The floor at the nurse’s head lifted, and her bed rolled out into the middle of the room.
Nora charged. Growling a shrill yell, she held out her arms. “You’ll pay for this, you little brat!” The bed’s foot frame slammed her leg and hip. Arms thrown out, Nora flew off her fe
et and plunged through the room. Nora crashed and slammed against the wall.
Filled with the groaning nurse, the bed slowed and stopped just short of ramming her again.
Throughout the attack, Vincent kept glancing back at his picture drawing. His pencil worked fast, even though he didn’t always look straight at the page.
Nora swayed to her hands and knees.
“My sincerest of apologies, but once I sketch you ill, I shall draw you no longer sick.” Vincent’s hand stroked faster over the paper. The eraser top of the pencil blurred.
Junior’s throat pinched. “You want us dead. You’re like your mother.”
“You little…” Spittle flicked from Nora’s lips.
Junior shook his head at the teenager. “No wonder you are the way you are.”
“Never will I emulate her.” Putting a stop to his drawing, Vincent lifted his left hand. He jabbed the dulled pencil point into his index finger.
Junior backed up until his friend’s bed bumped his butt and lower back.
Blood welled and streamed toward Vincent’s wrist. Pencil laid aside, he dabbed the fingers of the opposite hand as if the red were paint. His sad eyes went glassy. “My sincerest apologies, Junior, to both you and your friend. Truly.”
“That’s sick.” Junior put out both arms to shield Darcy Lynn from the sight. “You’re not right in the head.”
From over the top of the page, Vincent’s eyes narrowed. “Rightly or wrongly, I draw pestilence and am Master of the Void.” In quick, sharp swipes, he dabbed at the drawing with his bloody fingertips.
A quarter-sized drop of blood splatted and spread near Junior’s bare big toe. A wet tickle circled his right nostril. A metallic flavor filled his mouth. Red liquid gushed hot from his nose. Splatters plopped on the floor between his foot and boot and splashed warm droplets all the way up to his ankle.
From Darcy Lynn’s sleeping eyes, blood dribbled in thick, flowing streams. Red leaked from her ears, nose, and mouth.
Junior kicked off the other boot, faced Vincent and Nora, and planted his feet wide apart. “You make her better now!” He swiped at his nose tip with his forearms. Blood smeared like finger paint.
