by A J Donovan
The beast snakes its head around but I quickly reach forward and press my hands against the vulnerable areas. Power pours through my hands and I push myself to the limit of what I can do, forcing out more power than ever before. It’s all or nothing. If I don’t kill it now, it will take my head off.
Ice spreads through the beast quickly. It roars out in pain, trying to shake me off, but it can’t move. Over half its body is frozen solid. When it reaches the beast’s heart, the creature throws its head back and howls. The ice travels up its neck and then over its head. Finally, the tip of its snout turns to ice.
Exhausted laughter comes from my mouth and I let myself lie on the ground for a moment. I’m alive.
“Jake?” I look up. Rafael is standing over me, staring at the dead beast.
“It’s dead,” I say between breaths.
Rafael steps closer to the beast warily. “Is this frozen all the way through? It’s not about to break out of the ice and attack us, is it?”
“All the way through.”
Rafael helps me to stand and we both take a moment to examine the beast now that it’s safe. It looks like a dog or a wolf but it’s several times larger than it should be.
Diana bursts into the shop and runs to pull me into a hug. Leo appears beside her and says something about how worried he was that I could have died. I don’t hear him. Exhaustion is clinging to my mind and every thought feels sluggish.
Betty walks into the shop and everyone turns to her. While Reggie is in charge of the group, no one is more respected than Betty.
“Everyone, listen to me,” she says.
Diana, Leo, Reggie and everyone else quickly grows silent.
“He’s exhausted. Using that much power takes a toll on everyone. We should give him some space to rest and recover.”
People start nodding and quietly congratulate me before dispersing. Some of them leave the shop and some of them hang around the frozen beast to stare at it.
“There’s my dad,” Leo says, looking through the shop window. “I’ll fill him in on what happened here.” He hurries outside.
Betty moves closer to me and Diana links her arm through mine.
“I felt your power, Jake. You grow more powerful every day. I knew it was happening but before now I thought it was a gradual growth. What I just felt was leaps and bounds ahead of what I expected. To be completely honest, I am surprised you’re not dead.”
“The beast have killed you,” Diana says to me.
“That’s not what I meant,” Betty says. “Not the beast. Of course, that was incredibly dangerous and I am eternally grateful that you survived without sustaining any injuries. What I meant is the strain your power has on your body. You are exhausted, Jake. I worry about what would have happened if you used any more energy. You could have seriously hurt yourself.”
“I feel fine,” I say.
“I believe you, but I still think you should rest and allow your body to heal.”
Betty smiles at Diana. “Will you keep him safe, my dear? He will need you today.”
“Of course.”
I let Diana lead me out of the shop. We pass Reggie on the way and he starts to speak to me but Betty stops him. He looks like he is considering ignoring her advice but after a moment he nods and lets us leave without asking me a thousand questions.
Exhaustion pulls at my mind and my senses and it grows stronger with every step we take. By the time Diana leads me back to where we set up camp, I can barely see straight and my limbs are too heavy to lift.
Diana manages to push me into an SUV before I completely lose consciousness.
***
Chapter 15
Jennifer
“The power of the second Unturned is increasing rapidly.”
Jennifer shakes her head. “This is all happening so fast. Too fast. Where are we on the SWAT teams?”
The man in the suit frowns. “They’re not moving as fast as they should. The undead are slowing them down. By the time they reach the coordinates we give them, the Unturned have moved on. Speaking of which, the two powerful ones are getting very close to each other. The one responsible for the hurricane moves very rapidly into the other’s path.”
Jennifer watches the monitors in front of her. Things are escalating too quickly. The government factions that managed to remain in power are acting foolishly. They view the Unturned as another threat. They don’t understand how valuable they could be.
Jennifer had to move their operations to a different location after an unfortunate breach of security. The new building has abysmal communication facilities compared to the previous one and half of her staff was lost in the transfer. If she still had those resources, she could do more to stop those fools from targeting the two Unturned.
However, she acknowledges that she has gotten lucky. The scientists working for her opponents in this race have not managed to develop accurate machines to detect the Unturned. Only the most powerful have shown up on their radars and their geotracking is vague, at best.
Reminded of the advantages she still holds, she turns to her companion.
“Do we have an update on the lesser Unturned?”
The man nods, flipping through several pages on a clipboard that looks tiny in his massive hands. “We have obtained several more in the last 24 hours. The science division is improving the accuracy of their machines with every passing hour. Pinning down their locations is becoming child’s play. Also, none of the targets have proved powerful enough to resist the retrieval teams. You asked me to keep note of that.”
Jennifer finally turns to him. “Yes, I did. Don’t expect the same when it comes time to deal with the more powerful ones. Especially these two. Don’t underestimate them.”
The man inclines his head. “I won’t.”
Chapter 16 - The New Rex
Kim
“Rex?”
I can’t believe it.
The dog-turned-beast growls playfully and then he jumps off me and licks my face again.
“Rex, you’re... different,” I say, sitting up slowly. He just continues watching me excitedly and I burst out laughing. Only in this crazy new world could something like this even happen. “I leave you for a few hours and you get a makeover.”
Rex starts panting again, and his tongue hangs out of the side of his mouth.
“Are you thirsty?” I ask him.
He sits down heavily, releasing a shockwave that travels through the floor and knocks over a lamp. He doesn’t notice.
“I’ll take that as a yes.” I turn and walk towards the stairs. Rex stops scratching his ear and runs to catch up to me.
A walker throws himself against the glass front door when I walk past it. The glass is glazed and blurry but the walker’s dead eyes are locked on me. I stare back at it. I move closer, so that I am only inches away from its face. There is only a thin sheet of glass between us. I don’t feel any danger and I smile. This power is terrifying and dangerous and I couldn’t use it when I needed it most, but I have it now and it makes me powerful. I will never be afraid again.
Rex growls behind me. “You don’t like walkers?” I grin at him. “Good boy.”
The walker keeps scrabbling at the glass, determined to get through the door and attack me. It has no idea that it can’t get through.
I reach down and unlock the door.
The walker is too stupid to understand that this is a trap and it rushes forward. Rex pounces onto it and they crash through the patio chairs. He has the walker’s torso in his jaws and he shakes him wildly. The walker continues to moan, not caring that most of its bones are broken, or that Rex is about to eat him. It keeps staring at me. I meet its undead gaze steadily.
“Rex, don’t play with your food.” He looks up at me. I don’t expect him to understand, but he drops the walker without hesitation and crushes its skull with a quick snap of his jaws.
“Good boy.” I smile at Rex and pat his neck. I would rub his head but I can’t reach it. He’s gr
own so big that it’s a miracle he can still fit through the door.
I search the rest of the house for supplies and pack everything useful I find into a satchel. It’s white leather. I take a second look at it because I realise that it looks like something I would have bought, before the outbreak. It’s the kind of thing I might have picked out in a store, when I went shopping with my friends.
I wonder if any of them are still alive.
I call out for Rex so we can leave this place and move on. He lumbers out of the bathroom and I laugh. “Were you drinking out of the toilet bowl? Seriously?” I rub his leathery neck again. He makes a sound closer to a purr than a growl. “I guess I can’t blame you, I never did get you that drink.”
We head up the street, in the direction of the area where I saw the soldiers. There were more shops around there, and more walkers. I’m not afraid of the walkers and I didn’t get a chance to properly look through the shops for anything useful. It’s been hours, I’m sure the soldiers are long gone.
We’re coming out of a jewellery shop when I hear the sound of an engine coming towards us. Maybe Tom Sawyer and his buddies are coming back for more. I can introduce them to Rex.
Rex growls as a big jeep pulls around the corner. The wind picks up and the vehicle starts to shake. I don’t release anything stronger for now, but I’m more than ready to fight back if they try anything. I wonder how easy it would be to use the air to flip the jeep.
There is a man on the back of the vehicle, manning some kind of massive gun that’s attached to the top of the jeep. He is aiming at Rex, not at me, but he doesn’t fire. It could because of how close I am to Rex. Maybe he’s afraid that he might hit me if he fires. I don’t recognise him, at least not at first.
A second man leans out of the passenger side window and the pieces of the puzzle fall into place. It’s Cole, the soldier who was bitten when I last saw him. This jeep must be a part of that military group. They’re probably scouting the area or looking for supplies.
They pull to a stop about twenty feet away. Cole steps out and lift his empty hands into the air. I can see that now that there are only three of them. The man on the turret and the driver both watch me with suspicious eyes. I think the driver is the man who was leading the larger group.
I wonder where the rest of the soldiers are.
Cole Acosta raises a hand in greeting. “Hi. I think we met earlier.”
I shrug and smile at him. “I think we did. Have you met my dog? He wasn’t with me earlier, but you’ll love him. He likes long walks, he loves it when you scratch his neck, and if you try anything he’ll rip your throat out and eat your friends.”
Cole blinks. “Okay.”
He looks back at the driver. The man nods at him.
“We were wondering if you... wanted help?” He looks very uncertain and the reason for it is obvious. He’s talking to a crazy girl and her nightmare guard dog. I’m the last person that might need help.
“I don’t need help.”
Cole frowns. “But-”
“You can leave now.”
“I don’t-”
“I said you can leave.” My smile drops and the air pressure rises. “Now.”
Cole takes a step back. “Okay, we’re going.”
The guy standing on the back of the jeep is clearly terrified of me but I look at the driver and find him watching me calmly. He’s not panicked or afraid. He nods to me and the engine roars to life.
Cole opens his door, but before he gets in I call out to him. “Wait.”
His expression is wary and he tenses up. I observe him for a moment, searching for answers about why I keep hesitating. I know I can’t go to him and his friends and ask them to take me with them. I know I can’t join a group because we could meet more people and I could form more attachments and friendships and then everything could be stolen from me again.
I need to be alone.
And don’t I deserve it? I let Matt die. If I figured out how to control my new powers sooner, I could have saved him. If I was smarter or faster or better, we would be somewhere safe, laughing with Scott and Cara and deciding where to go next. We would be happy. That future is gone and it’s my fault.
“How many others have you met like us?” I ask, biting back everything else I want to say to him. I’ve made my choice.
“None,” Cole says. “But I’ve heard stories. There was a girl in the city who was barely old enough to read. She threw fire at hordes of zombies until they overwhelmed her. We met a group who told us about a man who fell into a lake and found out he could breathe underwater. There were stories of an old man who could melt metal just by touching it. Other things, even more unbelievable than that.”
I take a few steps towards him, even though everything inside me is telling me to turn the other way and not look back. “What can you do?”
He doesn’t question how I know that he is immune and he has some kind of power. I don’t entirely understand how I know, but I can feel it. Somehow I just know that it’s true.
“I can shoot lightning out of my hands.”
“No way.”
My shock and awe must be obvious on my face because he laughs and smiles at me. My shock is followed quickly by surprise. His smile is so genuine and warm that I find myself taken off guard. It’s not bitter or cold or angry. It’s nothing like what I’ve been feeling recently and it’s nothing like this new world or the horrible people living in it.
I join in his laughter and a weight leaves my shoulders.
He grins. “I can show you, if you want.”
I step closer again and nod eagerly. “Show me.”
Cole lifts his hand and points it at the nearest building. There’s a spark in front of his palm but after a moment it sputters and stops. He narrows his eyes and then suddenly a stream of lightning bursts from his hand. It crashes into a wall and plaster and brick explode from the point of impact.
The lightning fades and dies and I realise I’m laughing. “That’s so cool.”
He looks back at me, a smile still on his face. “And you? What can you do?”
“Nothing as amazing as that,” I say quickly. I should feel comfortable showing him my power but when the moment comes I’m self conscious. I feel like I’m exposing myself and opening myself up to judgement.
“Try me. Is it something to do with him?” He looks at Rex, who growls at him in response. I murmur softly to him and he calms down. “I’ve never seen one of them so calm and obedient.”
“No, that’s a whole other story. What do you mean-”
A howl pierces the blanket of silence on the rest of the street. I freeze and all three soldiers immediately ready their weapons. I look at Rex. His ears are perked up and all his muscles tense up. The howl didn’t come from him but he’s have a visceral reaction to the noise.
Crashing noises come from the end of the street and then two creatures that look like Rex burst into view. I take a good look at them and decide I was wrong. These monsters look nothing like Rex, their eyes are full of rage and their faces are marred by ugly snarls.
I wonder if they saw or heard the noise from Cole’s lightning and followed it here. Cole yells something and the man operating the turret opens fire. The bullets bounce off the beasts without even slowing them down. The driver yells at us to get into the jeep so we can escape. Cole obeys immediately and leaves the door open for me to follow him.
I ignore all three men and turn to the approaching beasts.
“Rex,” I say. “Go.”
My companion sprints forward and tackles one of them. He knows I am more than capable of dealing with the second one. I wave my hand and air lifts the beast off the ground. It growls and flails harmlessly, several feet off the ground. He’s thrashing violently and I am forced to focus to keep him in place.
I glance at Rex. He is wrestling with the other beast. I have to believe he can take care of himself, I can’t lose my concentration or else my beast will break free.
Th
e air builds up around it until the pressure is almost too much to handle and then I bring it crashing down. It hits the ground and screams in pain. I grit my teeth and prepare myself to end this fight. Despite the collision with the ground, and despite the several broken bones I am sure I gave it, the beast gets back up and charges towards me again.
I need to use my power more efficiently. This is taking too much time and effort.
I try to crush its head but its skull is too strong. The bone is far stronger and thicker than I was expecting. I squeeze my hand into a fist and its eyeballs explode. The beast howls again and starts shaking its head frantically. I hear a noise beside me and whirl around to find Cole beside me.
He is pale and clearly terrified but he lifts his arm and throws a stream of lightning at the disoriented beast. The stream hits the monster in the shoulder and it screams, but it doesn’t stop. It stumbles forward blindly but it’s obvious that it doesn’t know where we are. It was relying completely on its vision to hunt us.
Again, as if some cosmic power can hear my thoughts, the next thing that happens proves me wrong. It’s almost ironic. The beast sniffs the air and then turns to face us.
I curse under my breath.
The monster charges again and it has almost reached us. In seconds, we’ll be dead. Maybe I should have run when I had the chance. Several thoughts cross my mind in a fraction of a second. The beast is almost on top of us. Cole stayed to help me. Rex is winning his fight, but he won’t be here in time to save us. My lungs are filling in quick, sharp breaths that struggle to keep up with my racing heart.
A lightbulb goes off in my head.
I reach out with my mind and my power. The air flows in and out of its strange, mutated lungs. I let myself flow with the air and when I fully connect with the movement I grab onto it. The air flow stops.
The beast stumbles and falls only a few feet before it reaches us. My fingers curl as I grip the air with my mind and I expand my power, twisting and turning the air so that it becomes sharp and tears apart the monster’s lungs.
