Ballistic: Icarus Series, Book Two (15 page)

“Oh,
hell
no,” I ground out rubbing at the absence behind my ribs. “Not this again!”

“Go,” Jake screamed. “Screw the fuel, Z. Floor it!”

“Hold on to something,” Falisha screamed as she pounded on the wall between the cab and the back. “It’s going to get real bumpy, guys!”

A loud crack echoed across the sky. An electric pole split cleanly down the middle like string cheese. It slammed to the pavement in two pieces less than a hundred yards behind us. Another jagged slash of light split the road at our backs almost as if it had targeted the fallen power line.

Sparks shot into the sky, and the dormant lines crackled and surged with energy. Tiny jagged tendrils of lightning threaded their way around the wires, piggybacking along each stretch of cable between the poles. The streetlights along the riverside bike path began lighting one at a time. Each surged and flickered for a few seconds, then exploded into a million tiny pieces of glass and electrified metal.

“Get us the hell out of here!” I yelled bracing myself on the dashboard.

A transformer exploded less than twenty feet to our right. Because of the trench that had been created by the amassed vehicles and debris, there was nowhere for us to go but forward. Zander buried the clutch, threw the deuce into gear, and pressed the throttle to the floor. The engine roared in protest, but soon enough he had the truck barreling down the highway at about fifty-five miles per hour. The lightning licked at our heels, obliterating cars and trees in its wake as it raced to strike us down.

Chapter 12

Four More

“Turn into the junkyard,” Jake said, pointing to a small lot to the left.

“Where, Jake?” Zander asked his brows knit. “There’s no opening for me to turn into.”

“Then,
make
one,” Jake pointed out the windshield. “There, knock that little car aside and go straight through the fence!”

“If you say so,” Zander bit his bottom lip and slammed the throttle all the way to the floor. “Everyone get your heads down and hold on!”

Despite the heavy chain and multiple locks that held it, the tattered chain-link fence was no match for the likes of our stolen military truck. The barriers held firm to each other due to the excessive amount of chains there, but the hinges popped free the second the front end collided with them. The gates flew through the air ahead of us then slammed onto the rough junkyard concrete. The deuce rolled over them as if they were nothing. Lightning struck the remains of the fence behind us starting a chain reaction that electrified the entire perimeter of the dump.

“Straight ahead, Z!” Jake pointed to the mountain of black at the rear of the lot then pounded on the back of the truck and screamed. “Everybody brace yourselves!”

Zander growled as he buried the front end of the truck straight into the side of the massive heap of old tires. A giant tractor wheel slammed down against my door and cracked the window. It left a streak of black as it skidded down the side of the truck to the ground. Tires in all sizes and states of disrepair toppled across the hood and roof of the truck’s carriage. The truck held its own under the onslaught and managed to climb over much of the fallen rubber but the farther into the mountain, we got, the less the deuce progressed.

We were half buried by a pile of cracking rubber and surrounded by white-hot bursts of lightning when the truck finally collided with an obstacle that it couldn’t scale. Something metal clanked to the ground beneath the truck’s belly. It ground against the pavement and wedged itself beneath one of the back wheels. My seatbelt snapped taut as the impact threw me forward, slicing a track across my neck and collarbone in the process.

“What the hell,” I shrieked unbuckling and glaring back at Jake while I rubbed at the injury. “We are stuck in the middle of this shit now!”

“Just watch,” Jake bit back, pressing himself against the cracked glass.

Blinding flashes split the sky all around us creating a barricade of white-hot electricity that crackled and fizzled in the air. The hair on my arms stood on end and my fingers and toes tingled with its energy, but the rubber tires had created a sort of force field against the worst of what Mother Nature was throwing at us.

“It can’t get to us in here,” I said. “That’s genius, Jake.”

“I told you rubber was a good insulator,” Jake shrugged, rubbing anxiously at the back of his neck.

“Check on the back,” I said tapping on Falisha’s knee and turning back to Jake. “You okay, Jake? You look a little pale.”

“Yeah, just amped up I guess,” he forced a laugh while his fists clenched obsessively. “Get it? Amped up? You know, because…lightning?”

“Wow,” Falisha rolled her eyes then banged hard on the wall that separated the cab from the carrier and yelled. “Everybody still in one piece back there?”

“Barely!” Riley yelled back. “What the hell is going on?”

“It’s the lightning again. Everyone stay inside and keep your heads down,” I said as loud as I could without deafening the entire cab. I lowered my voice. “Jake, how did you know?”

“As soon as we left Conover, I—,” Jake flinched as another massive bolt of lightning severed the tall signpost and sent the junkyard’s neon crashing to the ground. It slammed into the concrete just a few yards from where we sat buried in rubber. “Never mind, it doesn’t matter. I don’t think this storm will last nearly as long as the last one anyway.”

“Why do you say that?” Zander asked cringing as one of the tires fell from the roof of the truck onto the hood.

“Because this isn’t a lightning storm. It’s just the beginning of something else. It’s foreplay.” Jake stared nervously out the window. “As soon as this crap stops— and I mean the very second it’s over we need to get the hell out of here. How far away is your brother’s house, Liv?”

“What’s going on, Jake?” I asked.

“How
far,
damn it?” He blurted, his brows knitted tightly.

“Jesus, hold on,” I scowled as a reached for old phone directory I had stashed in the truck. I had marked the page that contained the address of Beans’ foster family, so it only took a second to thumb my way to it on the town map located in the index. “Okay, they live here, at 302 North Chestnut.”

“Great, that’s our point B,” Jake winced craning his neck as if it were cramped. “Now, we need point A. Where the hell are we?”

“Walnut Street Salvage Yard,” Zander said.

He pointed to the sign that lay, sparking, just outside of our rubber force field. Another bolt of lightning struck dead center of the building on the north side of the lot. The blast split the peak in two, sending shingles and flaming shards of wood raining down onto the pavement. What was left of the building’s roof was in flames now.

“Walnut Street, Liv,” Jake ground out. “Hurry!”

“Right, right. Walnut Street.” I traced my finger along the streets that led away from my brother’s home and headed toward the river. “Umm. Okay, there’s Chestnut, 2nd Street, Union Street, Blackhawk Street— there! Walnut Street. So about six or seven blocks—three turns and we are there. We can get there in no time.”

“I don’t know about that,” Zander said tapping the gages on the dash. “We are on empty, and the transmission fluid is completely empty. I am about ninety percent sure we busted an axle when we hit the tires, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the tranny is shot, too.”

“Damn it,” I pressed my hands against the glass. “How the hell are we going to get there, now?”

“On foot,” Jake said with his hand on the door. “And as quickly as possible.”

“What is going on with you,” Falisha said to Jake. “You are acting crazy even for you.”

“
That
is what’s going on,” Jake said pointing out of his window.

The cloud cover was even closer to the ground now. It hovered just above the skeletal tree line that surrounded the salvage yard. Though the sky had finally gone dark, the lightning trapped within the thick curtain was glowing the same shade of muddy green it had that night at Johnnie’s. Unlike that night, however, these clouds were not slow moving. They rumbled and churned against each other, winding themselves around a central point in the sky. God had finally pulled the plug on this thing he called civilization and was ready to watch it all go down the drain.

“This is bad.” Falisha squirmed in her seat, staring out the window.

“No kidding,” Jake growled.

“How long till the light show nonsense stops and we can go?” I asked him.

“Couple more minutes, I think.” Jake shuddered. Another bolt lit the sky a few yards past the salvage yard fence. “The strikes seem to be grounding farther apart each time.”

“Good.” I climbed over the center console and wrestled my way into the back seat. I barely fit on the seat between Jake and Falisha but managed to balance there long enough to bang on the wall that separated the cab from the cargo bay. “Guys, I need you to listen to me very carefully. Grab everything you can carry and get ready because we have about two minutes until we need to bail.”

“What’s going on?” Riley banged back.

“No time to explain,” I yelled through the wall. “Just grab what you can and be ready.”

“Got it!” Riley responded.

The truck rocked back and forth as everyone in the back shuffled around. A few tires slid off to the ground. Muffled arguments and chatter echoed through the back of the cab, but we couldn’t make out who was saying what. I had no doubt they were just scared as we were.

“Get ready,” I told Falisha and Jake as I wriggled back up into the front seat and started shoving my stuff back into my pack. “Falisha you give the signal to the back, okay? Jake, just say the word.”

“Not yet,” he said softly, his eyes fixated on the tumultuous sky.

Another lightning bolt lit up the sky, but this one was farther away and didn’t quite reach the ground. Jake was right. They were thinning out but the situation felt no less dangerous. In fact, it looked almost as though the sky was retracting the lightning back up into itself, storing the energy for something bigger…something dangerous.

“Jake?” My heart was beating in my head.

“Wait,” Jake growled, but he gripped the handle of the door and leaned forward. A second later, the sky lit up again. There was no exit wound in the cloud cover. The electricity was trapped behind them. “Go! Go now!”

“Go!” Falisha screamed pounding hard on the back of the cab. “Everybody out!”

The tailgate banged against the rear fender of the truck as Riley and the others flung it open and started piling out. I struggled to open my door, but it wouldn’t budge. I rolled the window down but the entire truck died half way through, and I was left with only enough room to get my head through. The tractor tire that had cracked my window earlier was leaning against my door.

“Damn it,” I shrieked.

“This way,” Zander held his hand out to me. I climbed across the gear housing and center console and wriggled my way out behind him through the driver’s side door. He caught me as I jumped to the ground. “We good?”

“Yeah, let’s get out of here,” I said dragging him around the front of the truck.

Though the lightning had finally ceased its attack on the ground, it was far from done putting on a show. The cloud wall that hung low in the sky above us was pulsing with it as if it were trapped there and fighting desperately to get free.

“Lead the way, Liv,” Jake shouted over the loud crackling that filled the air. His face was tight, and his eyes were wide with the strain. “Let’s go!”

“We are on foot from here,” I shouted to the group then nodded to Riley. “It’s less than a mile away, and we don’t have time for anyone to fall behind. Stay close and keep up!”

Riley’s mouth settled into a grim line, and she grabbed my hand. Eli fastened the chest and waist straps on his pack, cinched them as tight as they would go, and nodded grimly. Ty had Christa on his back. He was struggling to get her situated while carrying both of their bags in his arms. Falisha and Jake rushed over, and each of them took a pack from Ty’s arms.

“Wait. Y’all don’t have to—” Ty attempted.

“We got your back, dude,” Jake said cutting short Ty’s protest. “You have enough on your hands already.”

“Thank you,” Ty smiled. His eyes flashed as a streak of lightning flickered across his features.

“Just get her there in one piece okay?” Jake clapped his shoulder awkwardly then stepped away. “She may be loud and a complete pain in the ass, but she’s all I have left.”

“Understood,” Ty nodded hefting Christa high and grasping her legs firmly against him. “Hold on tight, Sugar, okay?”

“’Kay,” Christa nodded nervously as she threaded her hands together tightly in front of Ty’s chest. She looked over at Jake and pursed her lips in annoyance. When she spoke, the shake in her voice betrayed her. “Be careful, jerk-face.”

“You too, Princess,” Jake huffed and put his scarf over his face as he lugged the extra pack onto his shoulder.

“Alright, guys,” I shouted doing the same. “Mask up and follow me!”

Riley and the others trailed along in my wake as we ran away from the salvage yard and the dwindling banks of the nearby Rock River. The houses on Walnut Street had already been raided and tagged. Their doors lay on the ground or swung open in the breeze banging against the shattered frames. All that remained of the people in this neighborhood are spray-painted numbers on multicolored boxes full of pointless memories.

The survival statistics were no better here than they had been in the other towns we had passed through since Icarus hit. Blood-red zeros dripped from their surfaces. Broken security gates and ornate front doors gaped back at us as we ran by.

The captive lightning above was a double-edged sword; it allowed us to see but also to be seen. If anyone or anything were out there watching us, we’d have no way of knowing. The lightning had effectively put the kibosh on whatever advantages I had when it came to sensing other GRS carriers. Despite how much I hated what the virus had done to me, I suddenly felt incomplete and vulnerable without that piece of myself.