Only The Dead Don't Die (Book 3): Last State

by Popovich, A. D.

  “Mommy? I need you. Come back. We all need you—”

  Twila! Was it a trick? Gradually, she removed the Merkaba’s light-layers of protection until Twila’s faint figure materialized in her third eye. “Twila, where are you?” A flickering image of the lodge came into view. A dark rank-smelling cloud swirled around the lodge, sucking the life out it. It imploded. Her mind burst along with it.

  “The bad ones stole my power,” Twila sobbed.

  It explained Twila’s panic. Twila had seldom been scared during their long journey across post-apocalyptic America, relying on her metaphysical abilities since the pandemic. Scarlett, despite her fear, hadn’t known of such abilities until well after the pandemic. She was used to terror’s stranglehold most of the flipping time. But not Twila.

  “It’s a trick. They can only take your power if you let them. Concentrate,” Scarlett encouraged silently.

  “I can’t move. I’m frozen in time. Ooh, they’re coming . . . Hurry,” Twila pleaded.

  Scarlett peered deeper, demanding a clearer image. Several hordes marched toward the lodge, while others wriggled in the tall grasses, lying in wait. Scrabbling, scuffing, scratched at her hypersensitive inner hearing. When the hail blasted the windshield, she feared her eardrums might rupture.

  Luther and Zac jumped inside the truck. The doors slammed shut. Luther started the engine. Scarlett struggled to join their reality. Struggled to cut away the darkness swallowing each breath. Twila’s perception was right. It was as if Scarlett was stuck, frozen in time. Only, she had endured this state of sleep paralysis many times before. If she could jump out of it . . .

  “Did I ever tell you how much I hate tornadoes?” It was Luther’s voice.

  “The good news is the drones won’t be out in a storm like this.” It was Zac’s voice.

  “Is that a funnel cloud?” Luther vexed.

  “Aw, it’s just a hell of a storm cloud,” Zac said after the next round of lightning.

  Scarlett delved into Luther’s mind; he had a deep fear of tornadoes. But more than that, he feared the unknown metaphysical workings of the universe. Spirituality. A swirling cloud descended over her heart. She shoved it back. Everyone’s fears and shadows of doubts poured into her. Zac feared she might have been infected and was in the process of turning. He didn’t want to be the one to release her from an un-dying body. The act would deaden his soul.

  Twila thought she was powerless because she no longer had the crutch of her crystal Merkaba for protection. But the crystal was simply a tool. Ella was petrified, afraid her baby was dying in her womb. Justin worried Enforcers were searching for them. Dear Dean, he was afraid he couldn’t save everyone this time. He recognized the darkness as evil. And he refused to give in to it, which was the only thing protecting him, except for his will to persevere.

  Something else flitted around the depths of Scarlett’s spontaneous knowingness. A stranger. She pried deeper. It was a young woman with a baby girl. Zac had rescued another LifeGiver! But she couldn’t see her fears. The young woman projected an impenetrable shield around her and her child.

  Scarlett finally understood. If humans learned the discipline of maintaining the Merkaba-like shield of protection, they could counter the evil annihilating humanity!

  “You have learned so much, my child.” The Silver Lady made an unexpected visit. “However, you neglected to face your own fears.”

  “Can’t you save us?” Scarlett implored.

  “ ’Tis not allowed. Focus, my warrior child. What are your fears?”

  “Everything. Not protecting Twila. Losing Zac. Losing my dear friends. Becoming one of—of them!”

  “Well said. Now release those fears. Ban them to the cosmos. Demand their negative energy to meld into the multiverse, becoming part of the Yin and Yang once again.”

  “My fears are an extension of me. They control me.” Without fear, what would motivate her?

  “Believe, for fear only exists in your 3D world.”

  “That’s easy for you to say.” Still, the Silver Lady was right. She was letting the fear paralyze her. Focusing with all her ability, she grappled each fear by the horn and banned it from the crevices of her mind. “Release!” Scarlett demanded. Instantaneously, the darkness holding her hostage vanished.

  Chapter 40

  Ella Marie Vasquez-Chen hobbled around the sheet-partitioned section of the musty basement while Justin helped Twila set up the sleeping bag on top of a folding table in the corner. Ella loathed it down there. It wasn’t like Dean to be paranoid, so she hadn’t argued. Besides, she was too restless to do anything except worry about Scarlett.

  Justin thought the secret room hidden behind the wall of shelves was cool. But, it was an icky, unfinished basement with three walls of dirt and a filthy dirt floor. Justin had already killed five spiders and a few other weird-looking bugs. She didn’t like creepy crawly things, period. So, Justin was constantly on bug patrol while she swept the earthen floor and thought of ways to brighten the room.

  Mindy wasn’t freaked at all. She had claimed first dibs on the back corner. Earlier, Justin had nailed a hammock into the frame of the house and added a sheet to divide the room. Mindy loved her privacy. Ella peeked around the sheet. Mindy and the baby slept under a pile of blankets. She couldn’t wait until she cuddled her own baby like that. Solid sleep—without worry.

  Twila joined her. “Ooh, I like this. Can I have a curtain?” Twila asked.

  “Sure,” Justin said.

  Justin seemed worried. Everyone was worried. Ella watched as he tacked the sheet into the basement’s ceiling. The sheet hung down, hiding the table.

  “Thank you.” Twila snuggled into the sleeping bag. “I’m going to meditate now even though I don’t have my magical Merkaba crystal. I want to see if they found Mommy yet. Don’t bother me.”

  Twila was such a goof. “The selenite will help,” Ella promised, handing her a selenite tower from her go-bag. “Here’s a baggy of pecans in case you get hungry.”

  “I don’t have time to eat. I have more important things to do,” Twila huffed, closing the sheet.

  Justin rolled his eyes at Ella. “Uh, Ella, are you okay? Don’t tell me you’re going to puke again.” Justin backed away.

  “I don’t think so. I hate it down here.” An annoying static itched the inside her ears. The walls seem to swallow her. She shook away the thought.

  “Mindy and Twila don’t mind,” Justin snarked.

  “Well, they aren’t pregnant,” Ella snapped.

  “Point. Sorry, you look so uncomfortable. What can I do?” Poor Justin seemed at a loss.

  “Even with all these pillows and blankets, I can’t sit down on that hard chair for long. And you’re cuh-ray-zee if you think I’m sleeping on this filthy floor . . .” Ella stopped herself. She wanted to rant about all the things making her loco. But it would pass in five minutes, and she’d be peeving about something else. Justin didn’t understand it was only her hormones. That, and what seemed like a hundred pounds stuffed in her stomach. She felt like she was about to explode. But there was something else. An underlying current seemed to suck away her energy.

  “Duh, I got it! I’ll get you one of those chaise lounge chairs by the pool,” Justin announced like he had just won the loteria. “I’ll make it comfy-cozy for you.”

  “There’s no way Dean will let you go outside,” she responded coolly.

  “I’ll sneak out the kitchen’s back entrance when he’s busy. Easy-peasy.”

  “Justin—” she scolded, tapping her foot. “Whatever . . .”

  “Back in a flash.” He shoved open the false wall of shelving, partially closing it behind him.

  Ella didn’t have the energy to argue. She waddled around the small section of the room, trying to work out the kinks in her stiff body. She hadn’t been exercising lately. It was probably why she had so much angst. That, and she was sick of being pregnant.

  A bolt of pain shot up her womb. A contraction? She waited f
or the next one. Nothing. Another false alarm. She hadn’t told Justin about her worries of premature labor. He was already freaked enough as it was. She slouched into the chair to rest her feet. She so wished she could sleep. She closed her eyes and tried the sleep meditation Shari had taught her. She imagined whimsical shimmering strands of lights swirling around her. She absorbed its wondrous energy as it trickled through every cell in her body.

  Annoying scratching-scrabbling sounds brought her out of her meditation. “What is that?”

  Something landed on her hair. Another one. And another one. “Ew!” Spiders in my hair! “Justin?” She shook her head vigorously. She glanced at the ground to see what it was. “Wait, it’s only dirt.” She had just swept the floor. She grimaced, wondering why dirt would be falling from the wall. Must be Dean and all his hammering.

  She moved the chair a foot from the wall, ready to get back to her meditation. She slipped in the iPod’s earbuds Justin had found and flipped through the songs, looking for something she liked. She was embarrassed and ashamed for freaking out about every little thing. Something grabbed her hair. Not a spider. Her head yanked back, slamming into the wall.

  “Aggghh! Oh—My—God. Justin? I need you!”

  Ella snatched her hair from the bony fingers protruding from the basement’s dirt wall. More fingers punched through the wall. Arms with no faces!

  “Twila! She opened the sleeping bag to find Twila in one of her bizarre catatonic states, eyes fluttering back, body spasming. But it wasn’t a catatonic seizure. It was the state Twila went into during danger.

  “Mindy!” Ella pulled the curtain back. An iridescent bubble of light hovered around Mindy and her baby. No hands protruded from her wall.

  “Justin!” She slowly backed toward the shelves. No heads yet, no feet. How could a horde be underground? She had a little time. She pushed on the shelving unit. “Holy crap!” How had Justin moved it? She should have paid more attention. Her hands frantically searched the shelf for a lever. The shelf wasn’t moving. Then she saw why. The shelf had slipped off the track. The outer edge of the shelving unit was wedged into the other side of the track on the cemented side of the basement’s floor. She couldn’t lift it back onto its track.

  “Twila, Mindy—wake up!”

  More hands punched through. The dirt pile at the base of the wall had turned into a mound. I’m not a wimp. I know how to slay Zs. All she had was the broom and a hammer. Her head barely fit through the shelf’s opening. She peered around the corner of the shelving unit. Power tools lined the shelves. She spotted a long wooden handle. The top of the tool was covered with a tool belt. “Oh, it better be—”

  She reached her arm as far as she could. She managed to shove the tool belt to the floor. “An axe!” Can I reach it? With trembling fingers, she nudged the handle. She let it fall to the cemented floor. She used the hammer’s claw to scoot the axe within reach. If Justin had closed the shelf unit completely . . .

  With axe in hand, Ella swung at the wall of arms and hands. She hacked away at them. Skulls emerged through the disintegrating dirt wall. Getting into the swing of things, she started on their slimy dirt-coated skulls. Their flesh-rotting skin had peeled away where they had forced their way through the dirt. Disgusting.

  “Justin, Twila, Mindy—someone!” she wailed while bits of bones, flesh, and blood splintered and splattered off the axe blade, raining down on her.

  “Hell’s bells!” Dean shouted from behind her.

  “The shelf is stuck!” Ella yelled, not looking back at Dean. She didn’t have a second to spare. Four Zs made it through the wall. How could she get four? She started for the nearly skinless Z ripping down the curtain to Twila’s spot.

  Dean struggled with the shelf, grunting and cursing.

  “O-M-G!” Two Zs grabbed her by her elbows. She couldn’t swing the axe. The Zs dragged her to the opening in the dirt wall. “Dean?”

  A gun went off. One by one, Zs crumpled to the ground. But more thrashed through. She hacked at the knees first, crippling them as she backed away toward the shelf. Strong arms pulled her back. Someone took the axe from her. She turned to find Justin firing into the wall. More Zs tottered to the ground. Dean sat Twila by the base of the stairs.

  “Are you okay?” Justin cried out.

  Ella merely nodded.

  “Where’s Mindy?” Dean shouted.

  Ella pointed to the curtain, covering her mouth, wanting to know but not wanting to see. Justin kept firing into the heads burrowing through the wall. Dean swept the curtain aside with the axe. Mindy and her baby slept soundly as though nothing were happening. A nearly transparent force field of flickering energy enveloped them. Safe. The Merkaba! That’s why they’re safe. Mindy had learned to harness the protection of the cosmic Merkaba. Something Shari had been trying to teach them, but Ella hadn’t learned to manifest it.

  “Mindy!” Dean yelled as he picked up Mindy and the baby. Mindy’s bubble of protection popped. She snapped to and struggled out of Dean’s arms, landing on her back with her baby in her arms on the cemented floor. She ran up the stairs, clutching her baby to her chest without saying a single word.

  Dean tried shoving the shelving unit back into position while Justin shot the demon-Zs . . . until his gun ran out of bullets.

  “There’s too many! Justin, help Ella up the stairs. I’ll be right behind you with Twila.”

  They made it to the kitchen. Dean slammed shut the basement door. Ella’s thighs went damp. The splat of water gushing onto the floor made her want to pass out. No!

  Justin flashed her the oddest look.

  Ella shook her head slowly. “Even though that just scared the pee out of me. It’s not what you think.”

  Justin stared with unknowing eyes.

  “Naw, for cryin’ out loud—now?” Dean’s voice went soprano.

  “Sorry.” Ella couldn’t stop the flood of tears.

  “Breathe, you’ll be fine.” The calm Dean returned. “We’ll work this out together.”

  Recognition swept across Justin’s face. “Holy, shit! The baby? It’s not even May yet.”

  “May first, to be exact,” Dean advised.

  Ella groaned at the contraction. “It’s normal.” She panted between breaths before Justin had a heart attack.

  Something crashed against the other side of the basement’s door. “Ella, just hang on a little longer. Say, Justin, need some of those two-by-fours right about now,” Dean said, laying Twila next to the refrigerator.

  “On it!” Justin yelped.

  Ella waddled out of their way while Twila rolled about. Is she mentally fighting off the horde? It was an odd thought. Dean leaned back against the basement’s door, struggling to keep it shut.

  Justin returned with an armful of lumber, which he dropped at Dean’s feet. “Hammer!” Dean pointed to the kitchen counter.

  Mindy poked her head into the kitchen before running up the stairs.

  “Mindy needs to work on her team-building skills,” Justin quipped with hammer in hand.

  Dean reached into his front shirt pocket for nails and hammered away while Ella panted furiously.

  “Justin—” she urged. She couldn’t wait much longer. I hope it’s not too soon.

  “Just a sec.” He held the boards while Dean pounded in the nails.

  Ella belted out, “Mijo’s not waiting!”

  Dean turned around at her. His eyes turned sad. “This will just have to do. Let’s get her to the third level. We can barricade ourselves in the room if need be.”

  The desperate look in their eyes scared her to death. She was about to have a baby in the middle of a horde attack. Archangel Michael, we need your help.

  Dean tucked the hammer into his belt. He lifted Twila’s lifeless body over his shoulder. “Justin, help me carry Ella up the stairs.”

  Justin stared wild-eyed from the basement door to Ella to Twila. “Ye-ah, we got this!”

  “I can’t go up the stairs. I’m in labor.” What were t
hey thinking?

  “Just put your arms around our shoulders. We’ll carry you up nice and easy,” Dean promised.

  Ella didn’t see how they were ever going to get her up the stairs.

  Chapter 41

  Scarlett Lewis took in a deep breath of the pleasant aroma, cherishing it. It reminded her of someone. Is that Zac? It was difficult to tell. The tea made her feel as if she were floating in blissland. The bumpety-bump-bump of the old truck creaking over the rutted, roadless plains told her she had returned to her 3D earth reality.

  “I’m not liking the looks of this,” Luther uttered in a grave tone.

  “I’ve never seen them so composed, orderly,” Zac whispered.

  “Where d’ya think they’re going?” Luther asked.

  Scarlett woke up all too quickly and grabbed the truck’s dashboard in a panic. The jacket on her shoulders fell to the floorboard. The lodge! They want Ella and Twila.

  “Scarlett! How are you feeling?” Zac gasped in obvious relief.

  “We thought you suffered a concussion from one of those grenade blasts?” Luther said, keeping his eyes on the road.

  “Got to say, nice outfit.” Zac’s eyes lingered on the plunging neckline.

  “Oh, that.” She pulled up on the dress. “I didn’t have a choice.”

  Zac draped the jacket back over her while she stared in disbelief at the droves of creepers walking single-filed as if in a trance.

  “Things just keep getting stranger and stranger.” Luther exhaled heavily. “Never seen anything like this. They should have swarmed the truck by now.”

  “It’s like they’re on some sort of exodus or pilgrimage,” Zac speculated.

  “Like a scene from a low-budget horror flick. One with a really bad ending,” Luther muttered. “Better not be any graveyards and chainsaws up ahead.”