Of Flame and Light: A Weird Girls Novel Page 8

  “So those who haven’t yet crossed into heaven,” Emme reasons.

  “Or hell,” he adds. “Which is why Savana can raise them, their souls continue to linger, unable to achieve their peace—because of either something they did, or something they think they still have left to do.”

  “She’s preventing them from moving on by keeping what remains of their souls enslaved in these bodies?” I ask. Bren nods. “What a raging psycho.”

  “Yup. But it’s the power behind the rage that makes her lethal,” he adds. His features harden. “We have to end her reign of terror or whatever the fuck before she reassembles elsewhere and raises more dead.”

  “So no time for reinforcements,” Shayna mumbles.

  “Not if we’re going to help the zombies,” Bren replies. He looks at me. “Fire is the best way to break Savana’s spell over them. Light them up. Make sure they burn to ash.”

  My lips part. “You want me to kill them?” I ask.

  “No. I want you to free them. I can rip them apart, but they’ll piece themselves back together if they find enough to eat. Is that what you want?” he asks.

  “No,” I manage, not that I needed the visual. But I also don’t want hurt something that’s innocent.

  Shayna senses as much and tries to help in her own Shayna-like way. “I could cut their heads off,” she offers.

  Bren pats her back. “And I’m counting on that, baby, especially if they attack. But the only way to ensure they don’t come back is to destroy the body completely. That means fire.” He looks at me. “T, it’s either that or kill Savana outright.”

  I nod, determined to help, but not so willing to hurt. “Okay. Let’s go,” I say, adding a lot of attitude to mask my growing unease.

  I try to pump myself up for whatever we’re going to fight, kill, or mutilate. But the forest falls eerily quiet and it takes a very long time before we see anything. Yet, it’s like everything sees us.

  The knots along the wrinkled trunks resemble eyes, their twisting branches appearing ready to snatch us as we pass. The leaves sweeping in the breeze tilt and stretch in our direction, attempting, it seems, to get a better look.

  Bren keeps his head forward, more or less resembling any half-naked man out for a walk. But I know him, he’s taking everything in, down to the aroma of the earth at our feet.

  We reach a section of the forest where all life seems to have died out. There are no ferns or moss. The only green dangles from the branches of a tree perched a few feet away.

  This is one of those in-your face clues that darkness is upon us. Not that it prepares me for what we encounter next.

  A lake stretches out in front of us, a small island with a wood cottage sits near the center, its beach nothing more than mounds of rocks.

  Bren motions to a rowboat that’s seen better days. “You’re kidding, right?” I ask.

  I barely get the words out when the breeze picks up. I shudder from the amount of magic that strikes me. But it’s that awful pull from the lake that makes me want to break away. “She’s on the island,” I say.

  “I know. I can scent all the rotting flesh from here,” he says. “My guess is she’s in the process of raising more dead. We’d better get out there before there’s too many to manage.”

  Shayna wrinkles her nose when the wind picks up again and I release another shudder. “I smell it, too. Do you think it’s a bad sign that I can easily recognize the smell of decomposing bodies?”

  “Yup. Yes. Uh-huh,” we all mumble.

  Shayna and I help Bren tip the boat and shove it forward. But as soon as we hop in, Emme shoots us forward with her force.

  “Nice, Emme,” Bren says, lifting the oars out of the water to toss inside the boat.

  “I’ll take them,” Shayna says. She takes them from Bren’s hands, transforming them into long and deadly swords with her gift.

  Emme knits her small brow, focusing hard on pushing us forward. She doesn’t move us in a perfect line, but she’s steady in her movements, allowing Bren to keep a vigilant watch.

  The cottage reminds me of the one from those old Grizzly Adams movies our foster mother used to watch with us when we were kids. It’s quaint and unassuming, but maybe that’s what Savana wants the locals to believe.

  I’m expecting everything. You have to if you want to survive. Yet once again I’m not prepared for what I see. Bren lifts his hand, attempting to halt Emme’s efforts. But she’s so focused, she doesn’t notice.

  I cup her shoulder. “Slow down,” I whisper.

  She clasps her hand over her mouth, muffling her gasps and likely her screams. What I mistook for large rocks littering the beach are actually skulls, hundreds of them. Some human, some not, some . . . freshly cleaned.

  “I thought you said they only eat dead animals,” I say to Bren, trying to keep my voice low and steady and doing a horrible job.

  “Looks to me like they’ve been eating each other,” he says. “Savana’s probably starved them and turned them into cannibals. Em turn us around.” He frowns when the boat slows to a stop. “Em, we have to get out of here—”

  He growls when he sees Emme sitting perfectly still. Jesus Christ in heaven, it’s all I can do not to shriek. A swarm of arms in various stages of decomposing stretch out from the water, stroking her paling skin. Wet, ragged clothing hangs loose against feeble shoulders, exposing damaged muscle and flapping skin from the festering bodies. But it’s their gaunt and skeletal faces, and the agony in what remains of their stares, that humanizes them and keeps me from attacking.

  These people are walking around in anguish, forced to live, even when they died so long ago. What kind of monster does this?

  “Taran, take a breath,” Bren says. “I need you to stay with me, kid.”

  Again, my arm is shaking. Again, I feel like I’m losing control. But I’m not alone. Shayna hovers over them, her swords raised in her trembling hands. Horror traces every speck of her pixie face. Like me she sees and feels their pain.

  Bren shakes his head when she steals a glance his way. “Don’t,” he tells her. “They’re not attacking yet.”

  “And if they do?” I ask, biting out the words.

  “Then we have a job to do,” he growls. “Emme, turn the boat around.”

  She swallows hard, trying to shake her head, but not quite managing, when a zombie pulls herself up to caress Emme’s cheek.

  “I can’t,” she says. “They’re holding us in place. If I try, I’m going to drag them along the bottom.”

  I jump when I see the row of hands along the edge of the boat and more heads poke through the surface of the water. There’s a woman missing half her scalp, helping the others bring the boat closer to shore. She smiles, showing me what’s left of her teeth. I think she’s trying to be nice, but when a tiny snail slinks out between two spaces, I think I would have preferred a more vicious response. Those I can handle. Those I’m used to. But this . . . how are we going to get through it?

  My arm is shaking me so hard, I swear I’m rattling the boat. But it’s not fear I sense. Oh, hell no. It’s an overwhelming need to act, lash out, and charge whatever did this to them!

  “Taran, easy,” Bren says.

  My magic charges over my head, firing from my core.

  Sparks of blue and white erupt above me, lighting the air. Like small children, the zombies point, appearing in awe of the shimmering energy.

  “Emme, turn the boat around,” Bren says when only mere feet remain between us and the shore.

  She rams her eyes closed, lifting the boat only for it to be wrenched back down. More heads bob up. More arms. More dragging us forward. The boat jerks back and forth, Emme fighting against the collective pull of at least twenty zombies.

  “Should I cut off their hands?” Shayna offers, the sorrow in her tone expressing she’d rather not do so.

  “Please don’t hurt them,” Emme begs, tears streaming down her face. “I can feel them . . . I can feel them hurting.”

&
nbsp; Bren kicks out of his boots and peels off his underwear. I stumble out of the boat onto the stony beach, trying not to react when the brittle bones of legs and skulls crunch beneath my feet and the zombies gather around us.

  Bren’s massive brown wolf form lands gracefully ahead of me, growling when he turns back toward the boat. He didn’t like all these zombies touching Emme, and his beast dislikes it even more.

  “Easy, Bren,” I mutter. For all this shit’s too sick to be real, I can’t shake the sadness these zombies inflict. It’s the prime emotion overtaking me. That, and rage.

  I reach for Emme to help her down when Shayna positions herself behind her. My right arm is shaking like a leaf beneath the wrath of a storm, but it’s Emme who seems ready to keel over, her pallor a deathly white.

  “I can feel them,” she repeats. “Taran, I sense their pain.”

  Emme’s healing touch is more than simply possessing the ability seal wounds. Her sympathetic nature enables her to find the hurt so she can fix it. But she can’t fix this, which is why it’s affecting her so deeply.

  “It’s okay, baby girl,” I say—like there aren’t dead and mutilated bodies swarming us, and pretending like these poor beings aren’t moaning, aren’t in pain, aren’t practically begging us to help them.

  She grips my palm as she steps from the boat, ramming her eyes shut as more bodies surround her, stroking her like the sweet, precious gift we’ve always believed her to be.

  “It’s okay,” I say, again, even though it’s not. “Come on.”

  I keep her hand in my good one. The way I’m feeling: volatile, angry, and scared, no way am I touching her with my bad hand.

  I march forward, pulling her with me. Do I want to be here? No. I want us out like yesterday. But like Bren says, we have a job to do, and that includes taking this wicked bitch down.

  Smoke trickles from somewhere behind the house, the stench of whatever is burning causing my stomach to roil. But as it billows and expands into a black and broadening cloud, I know something’s wrong, and that it’s more than what this psycho witch is grilling.

  Bren snarls as Emme’s hand slips from mine. I whip back to check on my sisters, but all I see is darkness as my world slips away.

  Chapter Eight

  Son of a bitch.

  I groan as I roll onto my back. I’d like to say this is the first time I’ve been knocked unconscious. I’d also like to say my boobs are the same size, but hey, such is my life.

  Dirt. All I sense is that and dank heaviness that accompanies a . . . cave? Through the fog taking up residency along my brain, I make out a dim glow. It takes me a moment to realize it’s coming from my light-saber arm. I push up on my hands, grimacing when my fingers sink into the soil. Yet it’s what I see when I glance up that has me scrambling to my feet.

  A lonely hand scuttles by me, chasing after a rat. Oh, but it gets better. I press my back against a dirt wall as a foot hops by, chasing after the hand, that’s chasing after the rat, with a decapitated head rolling —I shit you not—merrily behind them.

  It’s like some kind of fucked up nursery rhyme. I don’t want to know the next verse, especially not with the collection of zombies gathering from all sides. These are different from the ones who pulled us onto shore. Their grisly faces are more emaciated and their bodies are in a more advance stage of decomposing. As they shuffle toward me, pieces of their skin fall in small moist clumps.

  I hold out my hand. “Stay back.”

  They collectively moan.

  And move closer.

  I grit my teeth, summoning that spark from deep in my core. The dank air seems to enclose around me, giving me a chill and snuffing out my inner heat.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  On wobbly legs, I slide my back against the dirt wall, my hands out. The zombies gather closer, cocking their heads, their empty sockets mesmerized by the glow of my arm. At first, I think they’re simply curious. But then their short thick tongues push forward, appearing to lick what’s left of their lips.

  I jump when another hand scrambles by, its pinky brushing against my foot. My back presses against the dirt wall as I slide against it. I’m not sure where to go. I only know I can’t stay here.

  I bang my fists against the wall, trying to stimulate my fire. My left hand doesn’t react, tensing uselessly. But that spark I so need triggers from my right arm, igniting flames along the path of my blue veins only to putter out.

  Come on, light.

  I punch the wall harder, the effect causing another spark.

  The zombies limp forward, closing in, reaching out.

  I jerk from fear and pain when a root pokes me in the back. I can’t be too far from the surface. That doesn’t mean I can see a way out.

  I punch at the wall, the small space I managed to put between me and the zombies quickly disappearing. Come on. Come on. Light.

  A woman with no ears tugs at my hair.

  Please, light.

  A boy, no more than four grips my waist.

  God damn it, light!

  The long dark tunnel explodes in a wash of blue and white as my arm catches fire.

  I gasp from its viciousness and its sudden arrival. “Okay, thanks,” I say, wishing I didn’t fear it as much as I do.

  The zombies have stopped, appearing stunned as their absent stares focus on the light. I think that I’m in a good spot, and that at least for now, I’m safe and can find my family.

  Until the little dead boy at my waist grabs my arm and detonates to ash.

  My screams echo along the dirt tunnel, the sob that follows lodging in my chest when the zombies hurtle themselves forward and knock me down. Hands reach for me, batting at my skin. I think they’re trying to kill me. But it’s not until my arm blows them to bits that I realize they’re trying to re-die.

  I push up on my legs, shoving the mounds of heavy ash away and take off running. I keep my arm out and away out of habit. Yet despite the intense heat, it’s not singeing me—not like before. But like moths to a flame, the zombies stagger forward.

  They’re not fast, but neither am I. The stones poking through the ground make it hard to maneuver, and so does the narrowing tunnel. I’m sure I’m going the wrong way, and burying myself deeper, until I catch a small trace of sunlight in the distance.

  The pitiful howls and the moans of the zombies overtake the small space. They’re close. All of them. But I don’t dare look back.

  I try to reason that I did the merciful thing back there, and that I should just light them all up like the Fourth of July. But guilt and fear are among the most brutal emotions, second only to grief. And to see that little boy, dead or not, engulfed by my flame, tore me up.

  Sweat trickles down my face. I’m hunched over, dirt raining down on me as my shoulders and head smack against the protruding roots. I stumble over a large stone, causing my knee to smack hard against another. But the space is so narrow, I don’t dare stand, falling to crawl on all fours.

  I see the small opening just ahead when the foot from before hops in front of me. I think it’s going for my firing arm, which is thankfully choosing not harm me, until it kicks out my other arm and makes me fall forward.

  “What the hell?” I say, spitting out dirt as it hops back behind me and kicks me in the ass.

  I lurch forward, swearing at it when a hand (and nothing else), snags my ankle.

  I kick out, trying to shake it off as I continue to Army crawl forward and the moaning zombies gain ground.

  The hand hangs tight, and the foot continues to kick, and good God, this is so not right.

  I wrench my flaming arm behind me. It rattles slightly, spitting bits of blue and white flames. It’s not a lot, but it’s enough to light the tunnel and help me catch sight of the crowd of zombies rounding the corner. They crawl over each other like freaky babies through an alien womb, the bigger ones shoving the smaller ones down and away in their urgency to reach me.

  Their flailing limbs and increasing speed cause t
he ceiling to crack and pepper dirt in chunks. I cough and gag, my lungs struggling to draw a clean breath as I drag myself forward. I don’t want to kill them. But they want to die and possibly need to. So with a grunt, and another string of swears, I try again, digging deep until that familiar heat ignites my core in one brutal rush.

  Like a bullet through a chamber, I’m propelled forward. It would be a good thing, but this tunnel doesn’t go straight. It winds like serpent causing my shoulders to slam against each bend.

  I scream, and so do the zombies. Me, because holy crap, I’m in pain, and the zombies in celebration of their re-deaths. It’s only a guess. I can’t see anything.

  Smoke blinds me, burning my eyes. I dig in my feet, pushing forward as the earth caves in around me.

  I keep my head down, creating a small pocket between my mouth and the ground as I claw forward. I’m certain I’m going to die when my flaming hand punches through the earth and into air.

  Moist soil falls along my fingers as a cool breeze sweeps along the skin. I’m exhausted and out of breath. But knowing I’m inches from freedom helps lurch me forward. I push through, spitting out mud as the first rays of dim sunlight spread across my face.

  I dangle from a hole on a side of a hill with one arm out while my chin rests against the opening. Smoke filters out from the hole. I know I should keep going. But right now all I want to do is breathe.

  Nothing like a zombie hand scrambling along my shoulder and smacking me across the face to snap me out of my stupor.

  “What the fuck?” I scream at it.

  I try to backhand it when it smacks me again, but it skitters out of the way and latches onto my forehead, trying to shove me back into the hole. And of course, because that’s not bad enough, something else grabs my right ankle, then the other. The remaining zombies haul me backward, refusing to let me escape.

  There’s several things wrong with this scenario: getting chased down by zombie groupies—who want me to kill them, being shoved back into the hole where I was almost buried alive, and getting my ass kicked by random and decrepit body parts.

  Apparently, zombies don’t need air. But I do, and so does my fire to work. But apparently zombies forget a lot of things like, I don’t know, staying dead and basic chemistry.