Drake and the Fliers

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Drake and the Fliers Page 12

by Allison Maruska

“What does that mean?” Gray asked.

  Drake looked at Sonar. “Boston.” Then to Scopes. “Vegas.” He patted his chest. “San Francisco. Or Denver.”

  “Boston? It would take forever to get there,” Scopes said.

  Sonar shook his head. “He wouldn’t go there. This ain’t about me.”

  “You don’t think so?” Scopes raised her hawk brow.

  Drake wanted to steer the conversation back to likely options, not the wrong ones. “We’ll go to Boston last. Let’s work backwards from what we did when we were looking for Preston, before we found him here.”

  “What was that?” Terry asked.

  “Amarillo, Vegas, San Diego, Denver. We should throw San Francisco in there too.”

  Scopes lifted up from the chair. “All right. Let’s go. Those dead animals are grossing me out.” She glanced at the field. “Wait, what’s that?”

  Terry stood. “What?”

  “Come on.” Scopes flew over the field and hovered.

  Terry jumped and shifted. He glided next to Scopes, whispered to her, then picked up something small in his beak. He carried it back to the group and dropped it.

  The rattle landed near Drake’s feet.

  Drake picked it up. It was light green plastic and shaped like a tiny barbell. He shook it.

  Preston had left this, knowing they would find it.

  “Yeah. It’s a game.” Drake’s voice cracked. “And it’s definitely personal.”

  ****

  Drake led the way to Amarillo, unsure of where to look for Talon. He had a rough idea of where she had led them when they were searching for Preston, so he headed in that direction.

  He landed in front of the high school he thought Talon had attended. She’d hovered over it longer than any other buildings. There were no other fliers in sight, so Preston’s group wasn’t here, but he wanted to feel connected to her somehow.

  He tried the door and found it unlocked.

  Scopes’ voice kept him from entering. “What are you doing?”

  “I want to see something.” He walked inside.

  The interior held a chill, and sunlight shone through a few skinny windows, barely piercing the darkness. Drake shuddered: something about an empty high school felt inherently creepy. Bowling ball-sized holes penetrated several walls, and a few craters lined the floor. Considering the level of vandalism Drake had seen in other places, this was mild.

  The others wandered around different parts of the building. Alone, Drake made his way to the front office, where a large poster hung near the door.

  The poster showed every student’s picture, organized by class. Talon was a sophomore when the virus hit, so Drake scanned those images.

  He wasn’t sure why this was important. What did it matter if this was her school? He hadn’t been a part of her life then, and seeing her picture wouldn’t help him find her. Gathering everyone again to start heading towards Vegas would be the practical move.

  He almost walked away from the poster when he saw her picture with her name under it: Christina Ramirez. Ezekiel’s picture was right next to hers.

  How could those two be related – twins, even?

  Drake kept his focus on her picture. She was younger but otherwise looked the same as the girl he loved. Her black hair draped the sides of her face and fell over her shoulders. Her smile looked like someone had made her laugh.

  Drake pulled the rattle from his pocket and squeezed it while he stared at her. “I’ll find you. I promise.”

  “Guys! Come here!” Gray’s voice sounded from down the hall.

  Drake joined the others as they ran from different directions. Gray pointed at a closed door with a hole at the base and a window taking up most of the top half.

  The group crowded around the window.

  “Do you see it?” Gray asked.

  Something wrapped in a dark blanket leaned against the wall on the left side of the room.

  “What is it?” Scopes asked.

  Gray stretched over Drake’s shoulder. “I saw it move. I think it’s a person.”

  Drake opened the door as silently as possible and crept inside.

  A skinny girl jumped up, held the blanket around her naked body with one hand, and glared at him. She pointed a yardstick at him like a sword. Piles of empty water bottles burying countless junk food wrappers surrounded her.

  “Why are you here? What do you want?” Her eyes darted from Drake to the others. Her black hair was a matted mess, and her pale skin hugged her emaciated frame. The room smelled like she hadn’t showered in recent memory.

  “How long have you been here?” Drake asked.

  She poked him in the shoulder with the yardstick. “Get out! I’m cursed. Get out before you become cursed too!” She lunged at the group.

  Drake grabbed the yardstick and yanked it away from her. “What do you mean? Are you talking about the virus?”

  She cackled and held the blanket with both hands. “The virus would have been a blessing. I’m cursed.” Her eyes widened. “And so are you!” She pointed and backed away, making it two steps before she hit the wall. She screamed.

  Scopes walked to her and put her hands on the girl’s shoulders. “Stop. Stop screaming.”

  The screaming continued.

  Scopes shook the girl’s shoulders and yelled in her face. “Stop!”

  The girl froze, apparently surprised by the rebuke.

  “What’s your name?” Scopes asked.

  The girl’s lip quivered. “Erica.”

  Scopes nodded. “I’m Mandy.”

  Drake couldn’t stop from grinning. Learning Scopes’ real name felt like learning a deep dark secret.

  “How long have you been here?” Scopes asked her.

  “Since it started. The end. But I’m cursed!”

  “What do you mean?”

  Erica gestured with a head tilt. “Get back.”

  Scopes did, and Erica shifted into something that looked like a flying lizard, taking up half the room. Drake struggled to make out her details in the nearly-dark space before she shifted back to human form a moment later, scrambling to grab the blanket and cover herself. Leaning against the wall, she fell back to the crouched position she’d been in when they found her.

  “Can I show you something?” Scopes asked.

  Erica looked up and nodded.

  Scopes walked into the hall and squeezed back through the door a minute later in her hawk form.

  Erica screamed again.

  “It’s okay, Erica,” Scopes said loudly enough for the girl to stop screaming. She spread her wings. “We all shift. You’re not alone, and you’re not cursed.”

  “You all do that?”

  Drake stepped towards her and held out his hand. “Yeah. Everyone who survived the virus does. Come on. You don’t have to stay here. There’s nothing wrong with you.”

  Her shaking hand found his; her fingers felt like icicles. She stood, scanned the group, and grinned.

  ****

  “What’s with all the holes?” Gray asked. The group sat on the floor in front of the office, where Erica voraciously ate the jerky and crackers Drake had given her.

  She laughed, spraying cracker crumbs onto her blanket. “I did that.”

  “Why?”

  “If I don’t do it, I hurt.” She pounded her chest with her fist.

  Drake questioned the wisdom of letting this girl join them. She seemed more than a little unstable. Then he realized what she meant. “You can do something, when you’re a…lizard thing?”

  No one else had a gift similar to Drake’s ability to breathe fire. This was the closest he’d come to finding another dragon.

  Without warning, she shifted, arched her back, and shot a ball of liquid onto the floor behind the group. It smoked and dissolved a crater into the tile while sending an acrid smell into the air.

  Sonar walked to the crater and kneeled over it. “You spit acid?”

  Erica shifted back to human form, wrapped her skelet
al frame back in her blanket, and plopped onto the floor. She crammed more food into her mouth. Her body odor wafted over Drake, and he made a mental note to figure out a way for her to clean up as soon as possible.

  “I guess it’s acid.” She swigged from a water bottle.

  Sonar traced the crater with his finger. “Does it hurt?”

  She shook her head. “None of you guys do that?” She leaned away from the group, as if she suddenly felt like an outcast again.

  Drake stood, sensing the need to show her his abilities. “Not exactly. Hold on a sec.” He ran to the office and returned a minute later in his dragon form after squeezing through the office door. He heaved a fireball at some lockers.

  “Whoa!” Erica smiled. “What about the rest of you?”

  After the rest took turns showing her their flier forms, they discussed a flier name for her.

  “How about Gila? Like a Gila monster? It’s the only venomous lizard I know of,” Terry said.

  “Heeeeeela.” Erica opened her third packet of jerky. “Nah. I’ll keep Erica.”

  “Why did you stop eating? Or…taking care of yourself?” Drake asked.

  “Because I’m cursed!” She jabbed the jerky at him. “It was better to die than to reveal myself as a monster.”

  “To who, though? There’s no one left around here.”

  She laughed. “Not anymore! I scared them away.” She wiggled her fingers and made a noise like she was a ghost haunting the place. “They were humans. Normal. I scared them away.”

  “How long ago?” Drake asked. Maybe she meant Talon.

  “A while ago.” She stood. “I need a bath.” She stomped to the door and dropped the blanket when she walked through it.

  The rest of the group stared at her, mouths gaping.

  “Where is she going?” Scopes asked.

  “There was a fountain outside,” Terry said.

  Drake jumped to his feet. “She’ll freeze out there.” He grabbed his bag and followed her.

  She splashed around in the fountain. “This water’s cold!” She clasped her arms over her naked chest. “Do you have soap?”

  This girl seemed determined to get hypothermia. Drake dug out a bar of soap from his bag and tossed it to her. She finished in less than a minute, and Scopes ran to her with some of her extra clothes. They were too big, but at least Erica wasn’t naked or smelly anymore.

  Scopes brought Drake’s soap back to him. “I’ll take her to get some new clothes.”

  Drake shook his head. “We need to head to Vegas. Today, before it gets dark.”

  “That’s not gonna happen. We only have a couple hours of daylight.”

  As they spoke, Erica ran to some bushes on the side of the path and threw up.

  Scopes sighed. “Plus, her body isn’t used to eating. We’ll find something gentle for her.”

  “We can do that on the way. I don’t want to lose any more time.”

  “Drake, Phoenix has no idea where we are or when we’ll find him. An extra day won’t make a difference. I want to find Talon too, but we can’t do that in the dark and with Erica so weak.” Scopes walked to where Erica knelt over the bush.

  We could leave her here, Drake thought, but he wished he hadn’t. Erica would wither away, and how would he like being left behind?

  Scopes was right. Drake scuffed the ground with his shoe as he walked back inside.

  ****

  Wanting a distraction after Scopes and Erica left, Drake put on one of the headlamps and explored the school with Sonar. The looting and vandalism were more obvious in the classrooms than in the halls. One room that appeared to be spared held a variety of mechanical parts on the counters and an odd machine on the floor by some cabinets. It rested on four wheels, had a body similar to a canister vacuum, and two metal arms that stuck out from the side of the body.

  “I know what this is.” Sonar rushed inside and moved the metal arm of the contraption. “It’s a robotics lab. I was in the robotics club at my school. We were starting to plan for the next competition when the virus hit.”

  “You built robots?” Drake stood on the other side of it. “What for?”

  “Because we could. Some teams build them for fighting, or to function in certain elements, like water. We were working on one for transportation.”

  “A robot car?”

  Sonar laughed. “Something like that. Ours was solar powered. Would be nice if this one was. It’d be fun to play with it.” He moved it a few inches across the floor by pulling on the metal arm.

  Drake hadn’t seen Sonar in such a good mood since before Preston left. The realization gave him an idea. “Did Phoenix know you were in the robotics club?”

  His smile disappeared. “Yeah. I told him how we barely missed first place last year.”

  “What if you got this working? We could use it when we find them.”

  “How would that help anything?”

  “Send it in first, before he sees you. Make him remember a happier time.”

  Sonar stared at the robot. “I thought I was supposed to pretend I wanted to join him.”

  “Exactly. This will get his attention. If he sees you took the time to connect with him, he’d be more likely to believe you.” Drake’s pulse quickened.

  Sonar lay on the floor next to the machine. “Can I have the headlamp?”

  Drake handed it to him.

  Sonar shined the light under the robot. “This one runs on a battery. There’s probably a remote somewhere. As long as we find a good battery, it should run. We’ll be able to see better in the morning. I’ll come back and look around.”

  ****

  Scopes and Erica rejoined the group early the next morning. Erica wore new clothes, black from head to foot. Her clean black hair formed tight curls that ended at her shoulders, making her skin appear ghostly white.

  “Are you feeling better?” Drake asked her.

  She nodded and sat in the circle where everyone ate snack foods for breakfast. “There were beds in the store, so we slept there.”

  Drake envied the good night’s sleep the girls must have had. “That’s a good idea. We pulled out gymnastics mats here.”

  “Where are we heading next?” Gray asked.

  A mechanical noise from down the hall interrupted their conversation. Gray hopped to his feet and looked in that direction. “No way!” He ran towards the noise. The others followed.

  A small robot – the one Drake and Sonar had found the night before – moved independently down the corridor. Sonar appeared a moment later, holding a remote and smiling.

  Drake rushed to Sonar’s side, and Sonar stopped the robot. “I found a few extra batteries. The thing was basically done. But I don’t know what the crew planned for it to do.”

  “Who cares? We can use it however we want.” Drake glanced at the remote. “Can I try?”

  Sonar handed it off and pointed to the levers. “This one moves it forwards and backwards, and this one turns it. Just like a remote control car.”

  Drake drove the robot down the hall, stopping it at Scopes’ feet. She scowled at him, and he laughed.

  Drake handed the remote back to Sonar. “Now we have to find them.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Drake trailed the group as they flew away from Amarillo. Erica darted through the air, diving, ascending, and weaving around trees and power lines. The sunlight reflected off her green, iridescent skin, making it hard to see exactly where she was at times. Her behavior reminded Drake of when he started flying.

  As she glided a few feet off the ground, Drake lowered enough to get her attention. “Erica!”

  She looked up, then lifted to Drake’s level. “Isn’t this amazing?”

  “What? Flying?”

  She nodded and flapped her wings, which rivaled Terry’s in their span. Drake didn’t recognize her strange lizard form and guessed that like Terry, she was something prehistoric.

  “You’ve never flown before?”

  She shook her hea
d. “I’ve been hiding at the school and eating what I could find there. I didn’t know where else to go. Then I started changing and figured…” She stared at him.

  “You figured you were the only one like you.”

  “Right.” She banked slightly from side to side, weaving through the air. “Was it like that for you?”

  “Sort of. I was living in an office tower in Denver.” Drake told her about his first experiences with shifting and about meeting Preston. She seemed interested in hearing the story, so he told her everything, up to what brought them to Amarillo.

  “Your girlfriend went to that school?” Erica asked.

  Drake nodded. “I wanted to find her picture. It’s silly, I know.”

  “It’s sweet. She’s lucky. She would have been in my class. What’s her name?”

  “Christina Ramirez.”

  Erica’s head snapped around to face Drake, and she lost a few feet of altitude before she recovered. “Seriously?”

  Drake scowled. “Yeah. Why?”

  She shook her head. “It’s nothing. It doesn’t matter anyway.” She pulled ahead and descended, gliding over the treetops.

  What did she know about Talon?

  ****

  The sun had set by the time they reached Las Vegas. Scopes and Sonar had better night vision than the others, so they led the group to the neighborhood where they had all once lived.

  Everyone headed to the houses they’d used when they lived here. Drake had trouble entering the one he’d shared with Preston and stood on the street in front of it, staring.

  It was darker than he remembered, and not just because the sun had set. He drummed his fingers on his leg, contemplating the life he had when he stayed in this house.

  Preston had been his friend. When they were in Denver, and then here, Drake couldn’t have imagined Preston would pick apart animal carcasses and kidnap people. He would have told anyone who suggested those possibilities they were crazy.

  Drake sighed and walked through the front door. From what he saw in the headlamp’s beam, not much had changed in the last six months. He made his way down the hallway, stopping in the bedroom Preston had used.

  While Drake’s room looked like it had belonged to a younger boy, Preston’s had apparently belonged to someone older. Instead of superhero posters on the wall, there were framed pictures of world landmarks, like the Great Wall of China and Taj Mahal.

 

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