Drown: YA science fantasy short story (The Great Keeper)

by Adelaide Walsh

  After a long moment, John nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Fine. But we follow slowly.”

  Dana nodded, and they crept after the men.

  The compound was packed tightly with buildings, enough that there were a hundred alleys and shadows to hide in as they tailed the two guards. They continued to chatter, mostly complaining about their watches, and the rain, and how late it was.

  And then, there was a building with a single door. ONE was stamped into the metal in red paint. The guards stopped at the corner of the nearest building. One of them chuckled.

  “Ten minutes, and I win,” one said.

  “Eleven minutes and you lose,” said the other. They both grinned as they watched the door, waiting for it to open, or to stay shut.

  “Great,” John muttered. “What now?”

  Dana stared at the door for a moment, stunned. She’d never felt anything so intense as this, this burning desire to run at the building and tear the door off its hinges with her bare hands, to set the entire compound on fire and drown everybody in it. Some unseen force was filling her with an impossible rage, a thirst for vengeance she’d never felt before. She felt her fists clench at her sides and stood, ready to run down the two gunmen.

  John grabbed her arm and yanked her back down hard. “What are you doing?” he whispered.

  Dana blinked. “Sorry,” she said. “Can’t you just blow something up?”

  John scowled at her. He absolutely could, it was just a matter of him wanting to. Fire Keepers were wildly powerful, but John, contrary to his element, was very reserved. He used it to start fires in hearths and roast marshmallows, not to actively blow something up to distract armed guards. He sighed and ran his hand over his face. “I swear, Dana, you’ll be the death of me.”

  “Would it be so bad, dying with me?” she replied, grinning.

  John chuckled wearily. “...Ugh, fine. What should I blow up?”

  Dana cast her eyes around the space, squinting through the rain. “Um...how about those barrels?”

  “Dana, there might be gasoline in those,” he implied. “That is the worst idea.”

  “And?” said Dana. John raised his eyebrows at her and she sighed.

  “Fine,” she said. “Just... look, there’s a dumpster. Use that.”

  “That I can do,” John responded. He cracked his knuckles, sighed, and snapped his fingers. Ten seconds later, they heard a very conspicuous crackling sound from the alley behind the guards. The guard on the left sniffed the air.

  “You smell that?” he asked.

  “No,” answered the other. “You hear that?”

  “Kinda.” He sniffed their air again. “I think... Ah, hell, that’s fire.”

  “Where’s it coming from?”

  “Uh... This way. Come on.” He started walking down the alley.

  “What if we miss the door?”

  “We’ve got seven minutes, it’s fine. Come on, if it’s a barrel, we’re in trouble.” He disappeared into the shadows, and a moment later his partner grudgingly followed him, muttering about losing their bet.

  “There,” remarked John. “Now what?”

  “Now we run,” said Dana. Before John could protest, she darted out from the shadows and booked it towards the door.

  She didn’t think about what she would do if the doors were locked until she got there... But then there was a strong gust of wind, and they blew open with a blast to rival the thunder. She threw herself inside, praying that nobody had heard. John was close on her heels, barely making it in before the door slammed closed.

  “Okay,” he stated, “We’re in. What now?”

  Dana shrugged. Her heart was pounding in her chest. “Now we look.” But at what?

  Before them was a long hallway, stark white and lined with doors. Their footsteps echoed painfully as they walked.

  “What do you think this place is?” said Dana.

  “No place good,” remarked John, “if they were betting on someone to die.”

  Dana nodded. Alright, Water, she thought, where is it? What are we supposed to see? Where do we go?

  A scream from the last door on the left was her answer.

  Dana started to run towards it, but John caught her by both arms. “Slow down, someone’ll hear you!”

  No, they won’t, Dana thought, but she stopped anyway. The scream started and it didn’t stop, drawing itself out, slamming itself against the walls with everything it had. John and Dana crept slowly towards the door, keeping low, ducking under the open eye-slots in every door. The lights were out in most of them, and from those still illuminated Dana could hear faint moans and the dull hum of a machine.

  Machines, Dana thought. Nature wasn’t fond of them, but that couldn’t be the only reason they were here. Even Keepers used electricity.

  “Maybe it’s a hospital,” John whispered, but he didn’t sound hopeful.

  “Maybe,” said Dana. The scream grew louder, cut off, and started again, and this time it sounded like nothing human.

  As they approached the door, they heard an electric whistle, and the screaming stopped. John grabbed Dana by the shoulder.

  “Wait,” he said. “Slowly.”

  Dana nodded, and together they rose up on either side of the door and peered through the thin metal eye slit.

  The scene beyond was white and sterile. Three men stood around a table, one taking notes and examining a twitching figure under a white sheet. An arm rolled out from the sheet, tubes in its bulging veins spilling a translucent blue liquid onto the floor. The second man was at the machine the tubes were connected to, turning dials, seemingly powering it down. The third stood in the center of the room, removed from everything, observing the other two men as they worked. He wore a white lab coat, tan trousers, and a thin beard. Eyes of ice roamed the room, unnervingly detached.

  “System failure,” the man at the machine said, strangely calm.

  The doctor tutted, clasping his hands behind his back. “Yes,” he said, sounding almost bored. “Take him away, then.” He shook his head, visibly disappointed. “And we were so close, too.”

  “Next time, doctor,” said the technician, and the doctor nodded.

  “Yes,” he said. “Next time.”

  “Formula needs tweaking, that’s all.”

  The doctor grunted. “Perhaps.”

  The first man set down his clipboard and swung the wheeled table around to cart the body away. As it moved, the body beneath the tarp swung into view. Its skin was black, burned to ash as though by acid, leeched away by something impossibly hot. His eyes, open, were red all the way through, dripping blood. A white tongue lolled out of an open mouth over cracked teeth, still twitching.

  Dana gasped.

  The doctor looked up. Dana didn’t duck away in time.

  “It appears we have visitors,” said the doctor. “Perhaps you’d like to join us?”

  “Let’s go,” said John, and they started running for the front door.

  “Not so fast,” they heard the doctor’s voice. Gunmen swarmed out, silent, crackling with the electricity of their weapons. John and Dana stopped short. Dana resisted the urge to put up her hands.

  “Stay calm,” John whispered. She gave him a small nod.

  “Indeed,” said the doctor, striding out into the hall. “We should all stay calm, don’t you agree, boys?” He looked around at his soldiers. None of them relaxed their grip, but Dana thought she saw a few of them smile. Or maybe that was just her imagination.

  “Temba,” she said to the doctor, a peculiar certainty overtaking her. “You’re Temba.”

  The doctor seemed surprised. “I am,” he said. “What gave me away?”

  “Lab coat,” Dana said stupidly. Not that it would have been any better to say it was a wild guess.

  Temba chuckled, tapping his thumbs together. “Ah,” he said. “I should have known.” He cocked his head, examining Dana – he seemed totally unaware of John behind her. “And you... I must confess, you look disturbingly fa
miliar, my friend. Who are you?”

  The one who’s gonna blow this place to high hell, she thought, but she kept that to herself. “Nobody,” she said.

  Temba chuckled again. There was a tautness in his voice when he spoke next. “Don’t be so modest,” he said. He stepped forward and held out his hand as though to touch her face; John was in front of her in an instant.

  “Don’t touch her,” he growled, staring daggers into the doctor.

  Temba retracted his hand. “Forgive me. I meant no offense. Your friend only looks so... Familiar. I swear I’ve seen her face before, but I can’t quite place it. Perhaps you could help me?”

  John looked between Dana and the doctor. “Can’t,” he said simply.

  But then the doctor’s eyes widened, and he offered Dana an unabashed grin. “Ah,” he said, clapping his hands together at his revelation. “I do know you! You, you’re the spitting image of that...” He took a deep breath, pulling himself back from saying something unsavory. “...of Adele. That’s it, isn’t it?”

  Dana swallowed, suddenly remembering how Nick Blade knew Temba. They went to high school together, she thought. He’s the one who tried to burn the farms. He’s the one who built Biolance.

  Her stomach dropped into her heels as she realized exactly where they were. Water, why did you bring us here?

  The storm outside grew harsher. Thunder crashed, loud enough to shake the building and make the guards flinch. Temba remained unmoved, smiling like a snake.

  “Good,” he said. “That was going to drive me insane if I couldn’t place you. So, tell me, Adele’s daughter... You have a name, I assume?”

  Dana said nothing. Temba shrugged.

  “No matter,” he said. “Why are you here? Sightseeing, I suppose?”

  “We got lost,” said Dana. “Got... curious.” It wasn’t completely a lie...

  “Fine, don’t tell me,” said Temba. He cocked his head, suddenly thoughtful. “Although your presence here may be a stroke of good fortune... you see, I’ve had some... let’s say, experiments, go awry and I’ve need of some... some samples, you might say.”

  “Samples,” John repeated darkly.

  Temba nodded. “Yes, yes, samples. From people like your mother,” he said to Dana. “People like you. Blood, saliva, brain tissue, the like.”

  Brain tissue. Dana felt herself go numb. That didn’t sound like the kind of thing living people could give away.

  “If you’d be so good as to hold still,” uttered the doctor.

  John snapped his fingers. Fire leapt to life in his palm, and the doctor’s expression changed.

  “I assumed you would be unhelpful.” He looked around at his gunmen and waved vaguely at John. “Kill them.”

  John didn’t even have to move. He blinked, and suddenly everyone in the room, Temba included, was engulfed in pillars of white-hot flames. Dana stared at them as they dropped their guns, screaming, rolling on the flat white ground in a vain attempt to put themselves out.

  John grabbed her hand and they ran.

  He blasted the door open with an uninhibited wave of fire, sending it straight into three armed men running towards the building. The only sound was sirens and crackling flame, the hiss of spitting metal and gasoline taking fire. Dana looked left and saw the barrels, loose and rolling, leaving a fiery trail behind them.

  Burn it, said Water. Drown it. Destroy it. Leave nothing behind.

  Gladly, thought Dana. “Water says to burn it.”

  John laughed bitterly as they ran. “Way ahead of you,” he said. All around them buildings were taking the fire, filling with smoke, spilling scientists and soldiers into the soaking black night. The rain fell harder, but the fire didn’t seem to care. Freezing winds swept up the orange blaze, carrying it from building to building, sending coils of smoke through vents, curling around the legs of towers and snapping them like twigs. It was a living thing, this fire, an animal bent to John’s will; he moved his hand and the fire spread, grew hotter, bolder, swallowing anyone that got in their way.

  And then there was an explosion.

  It threw them both forward, slamming them hard into one of a hundred burning buildings. They looked back and saw a mushroom cloud, small and green and glowing, billowing up from a mound of black and grey rubble across the compound. The wind carried a strong toxic chemical smell towards them that made Dana want to vomit. Waste, she thought, chemical waste from his stupid experiments.

  The sky was red and green as they ran, as John sent fire crawling down every alley and into every building, between stones and into cellars, smoking out anyone who thought they could hide. Everything, everything was burning now, every building was collapsing in on itself as fires hot as magma made support beams buckle and melted the mortar that held blocks of concrete in place. All around them was the sound of breaking things, tumbling stones and splintering wood, the screech and pop of breaking glass and the muted thunder of explosions as the fire found things in labs that could burn.

  “Come on,” said John, his face stoic and white, totally blank. They vaulted over a soldier writhing on the ground, under the toppled remains of a doorframe, and towards the wire mesh fence, running for everything they were worth.

  Dana stopped at the fence, breathing hard. She felt a pang in her chest, an icicle in a field of fire, holding her steady. Wait, she thought. There was something else she needed to see.

  From somewhere in the ashes, Dana heard a voice.

  “Leaving... so... soon?”

  She turned. A body was crawling towards her, a man with burning hair and a blackened lab coat. He was laughing, teeth impossibly white against the smoke that clung to his skin.

  “Do yourself a favor,” said Temba, spitting blood. “Run. Run as far away from here as you can and never... never... come back.” He chuckled, red spilling out from between his teeth. “This... this is only the beginning. Soon I will create something that will beat all of you. Something... much stronger... than you.”

  Stronger than us, Dana thought numbly. He’s building an army?.. She saw the burned man on the table again and the tubes in his arm, and she nearly collapsed right there. Water... this is what she was meant to know.

  John grabbed her shoulder. Barrels of gas, warehouses full of chemical waste took flame around them, blowing their concrete roofs into the sky. “We need to go. Now.”

  Dana couldn’t tear her eyes from Temba. The mad doctor smiled his red smile and Dana felt her bones freeze.

  “Tell Nick I’m coming for him,” he said. “All of you. You.... unnatural, unholy...” He cringed with a sudden bout of pain. “...monsters.”

  “YOU are the monster,” Dana replied. She felt John pull her away.

  They disappeared into the trees. Behind them in the fire, Temba kept laughing.

  Conclusion

  Thank you for taking the time to read this short story! It is a part of a larger series where Captain Dana Reeves takes on her enemies in a bid to save the Journeymen and lead the Keepers to victory. The series is a delicious mix of romance, sci-fi and fantasy. You’ll be happy you picked up the first book and eager to read the next.

  If you enjoyed this book, then I’d like to ask you for a favor: would you be kind enough to leave a review for this book on Amazon and Goodreads?

  It will help other readers discover the book and enjoy it!

  Thank you!

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  Bonus: Other books by Adelaide Walsh

  At the moment I have two series being published on Amazon, The Great Keeper series, a short story of which you have just read (and, hopefully, loved), and Urban Fantasy series The Coven Unleashed. They are combined into a common universe.

>   In this section you will have a chance to read for FREE the intros to the novelettes and short stories that I have published (to give you a deeper dive-in and a more complex understanding of the universe created in my books).

  THE GREAT KEEPER SERIES starts in Shake, where Dana’s parents meet and the reasons for the dystopian future of Freeze are drawn...

  In an exclusive short story Christmas Eve Frenzy, available only for my subscribers, the consequences of a major battle between the Keepers and Biolance are shown...

  In Freeze, we get to know the possible consequences of the Great Keepers’ main rule being broken, and the peculiarities of a Journeyman’s life from the point of view of different generations...

  And in Burn (TBA) we receive a closure to the story: how would the Keepers act if their enemy releases formidable powers, close to those of black magic?.. Will they stick to the Code?.. Or will they let the darkness corrupt them?..

  The ties between the world of Dystopian Great Keepers (Burn, in particular) and Urban Fantasy The Coven Unleashed series (The Grave Run) are drawn in The Bloodless case, exclusive to Mrs. Dracula anthology.

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  Here’s a sneak peek into the story...

  “2040. That is a year that will live in infamy in our history. That year, Dr. Zack Temba and Biolance unleashed a scourge, a lethal virus, on all of us that eliminated millions of the Journeymen around the world, reducing the rest of us to mere subjects under his reign. Most of those killed were key figures of society and scientists whom he knew would stand in the way of his plans. Let me remind you, my fellow Keepers, that our raison d’être is the survival of the Journeymen - the human race that is helpless against science. That is why we exist.”

  He halted in his tracks as he listened for her movements. He saw a telling branch waving rather vigorously and walked towards it. Confident, he continued speaking, “Amidst the conflict, rose a woman of courage and destiny, willing to risk her life to save humanity. Captain Dana Reeves. She has led rebellion after rebellion in a bid to restore unity and peace in our age. That, children, is the example you have before you. She is a lesson to you all. The symbol that you must carry with you as you train to liberate us all. She, children, is the reason why you must make the best use of the knowledge you gain now in 2049 so that good may conquer evil once and for all in the future. A being such as her and the hope she carries with her is why humanity must endure the tyrannical rule of Dr. Zack Temba.”