Pahnyakin Rising (23 page)

Dresden shook her head but his movement never slowed.

“Run,” he whispered.

“What?” she fearfully whispered.

He gripped the door handle and began to twist. 

“RUN,” he shouted.

Dresden propelled herself forward and had made it to the back door when she heard the same snapping sound she heard when the Imperator twisted Brady’s neck.  She didn’t have time to cry or scream.  She barely had time to run. 

She jumped from the back porch and cleared three wooden stairs.  Her feet hit the grass and pain radiated up her legs.  She ignored the sharp stabbing in her ankle and jumped over twigs and a cracked terra cotta flowerpot that was left to erode in Shepherd’s yard.  She flew through a row of hedges that provided Nick security from his neighbors. 

‘Come on,’
she told herself,
‘just another block.’

Though Shepherd had given his life for Dresden to succeed (—and why did he?  Was it really an act of valor or a suicide at the hands of defeat?—), she still could not help but to wonder if this was the very last revenge he took upon her.  Was he lying?  She’d always heard rumors of some Easton homes with underground tunnels—the town played a prominent role in Indiana’s Prohibition almost a century earlier.  In the time it took for her to run that extra block, she considered every possible way Shepherd could have slipped in one last lie to end her. 

Old Man Sweet’s house was, undoubtedly, the nicest in town.  It was out of place in inner-Easton and would have fared much better in terms of beauty or space on the outskirts of town or out in the country.  It was two stories tall with four white pillars holding a balcony over the wraparound porch. 

Dresden couldn’t understand why Shepherd hadn’t taken that house for himself.  Growing up, all of Dresden’s friends and foes daydreamed of attending spectacular balls at the Sweet house, though they knew the dreams were just that.  Old Man Sweet was crotchety and bitter, taking out a personal grudge against Easton.  Dresden had always heard Sweet’s fiancé left him for man after he emptied every savings account he had just to
buy
the house.  The girl always heard the inside was eaten up in holes and rats the size of small cats ran rampant.  And as she crashed through the flimsy, scratchy tree branches of the fur, she could see how the northwest half of the roof had collapsed, leaving a black hole blemish on the white house with out-of-place red brick siding.

Moonlight wasn’t enough to see a white splotch on the wall.  Dresden panicked as stomps of Pahnyakins neared.  She figured she must have gained three more on her tail. 

With no other ideas of what to do, she stabbed at the sword’s button with her thumb and hovered it over the wall.

“Crap,” she cried.  “Where is it?”

Was Nick Shepherd that hateful? 

Dresden recalled his threats in high school and her stomach cramped at the recent thought of him encouraging the Pahnyakin to take her. 

She patted the wall, slapping her palm angrily against the cold stone and screamed in frustration. 

Despite Nick’s blatant disregard to her feelings and well-being upon her return to Easton, would it be fitting to believe he offered up one last ‘screw you’ to get the girl captured—or killed?

“Come on,” she pleaded aloud.  Her voice was shaky and her vision blurred as hot tears burned in her eyes.

Dresden blinked and felt a single stream of fear roll down her left cheek.  She prodded at the sword’s button repeatedly and gasped in relief. 

There it was, in front of her the entire time. 

It wasn’t so much a splotch of white as it was a freckle on the rectangular stone. 

She lowered the sword and pushed with her palm on the brick.  The wall creaked and groaned and finally gave way, turning inward. 

The girl forced her way in the entrance that slammed shut behind her.  She stood in total darkness with the sound of screeches and rustling. Dresden was almost too afraid to illuminate the room.

Using the sword once more, she shined the blue and white sparks in front of her body and shuddered.  She stood at the top of three steel steps that overlooked a long and narrow basement flooded with old newspapers and—what she could only estimate—thousands of gray and brown mice.

She felt a tickle on her shin and reached down. 

Her fingertips touched something silky and wet.  She moved the sword closer and saw a mouse climbing its way up her leg.

Dresden screamed and flung the rodent from her body, only to see two more on her right boot. 

‘Of course,’
she said to herself,
‘the door is across the room.’

With no time to waste, Dresden sprinted across the wiggly stream of mice.  She could feel bones crunching under the soles of her feet and she winced at the squeaky screams coming from the moving floor.  As she reached a rusty steel door, she fought to pull it open while battling the mice attempting to overrun her body. 

The door popped open with a boom and Dresden jumped inside.  She tugged at the door and tried to stop the mice from pouring in with her.  With her eyes finally adjusting to the black void surrounding her, she squirmed and knocked mouse after mouse from her sweater and pants.  She pressed the sword’s switch and realized the hall was wide enough for one person to walk at a time. 

She touched the gray stone walls with her fingertips and continued forward, praying Shepherd was right—that she would come out near the cemetery. 

Moreover, she hoped Dodge would be there.

-23-

She came to a rickety metal ladder that directed her to a heavy metal hatch which opened upward. 

Dresden grunted and forced the door open before pulling herself upward and collapsing on a pile of dewy autumn leaves.  While resting on her left side, she could see Easton’s east fence. 

And Shepherd was right: she was about a half mile from Easton’s perimeter and another half mile from the cemetery.  She hiked in the direction of the poorly-maintained (even in her time) resting grounds and tried to drown out the sounds of gunshots and shrieks coming from town.  

Her people weren’t going down without a fight, though Dresden imagined it was more of a blood bath than anything else.

She pushed through overgrown brush and tore pokey tawny burs from her sweater as she forged her way to the 12-marker cemetery.  As she neared, she heard hissing conversation.

“She’ll be here,” Dodge insisted.  “She would’ve sounded the alarms just the same.”

“Then what’s taking her so long?” a man insisted.  “We’ve been here at least ten minutes.  What if she doesn’t come?”

Dresden’s heavy, tired steps grew to jogging.  The bags on her back smacked her spine and the sword in her hand poked at her thigh.  Dying vegetation coming up to her knees swished dryly like a skipping record.

The whispers came to a sudden halt.

“It’s me,” she called in a pant, hoping to avoid a bullet to her head.  “It’s just me.”

The light of the moon cast a thin white sliver on the ground ahead. 

Dodge stepped into the light and opened his arms to catch her in motion.

“What took you so long?” he asked with a rushed exhale.  He leaned down and buried his beard against her neck.  “You had me worried.”

“I had to run,” she replied, “after I left Shepherd’s.”

“He said he was going back to his house,” said the man on their right.

He was tall and lanky with broken black-rimmed glasses that were taped together to keep the right lens in the frame.  His front left upper tooth was chipped and was slanted to a sharp point, and he had blood splattered on his muddied white hoodie and tight black jeans.

Dresden swallowed a ball of air that may have well been a jagged boulder. 

The man insisted, “Well?  Did you see him?”

She nodded.  “I couldn’t get away without his help.  He slowed them down so I could get out of the house.”

Dresden looked to the ground and said shamefully, “He’s dead.”

“Did you at least get anything to do this?” the man forcefully demanded.  “Or did you just let him die so we all could?”

“Greg,” a woman scolded him.  “Relax.”

Dresden glanced to the man shaking his head and waving a black pistol in the air.  “I can’t relax because I have one bullet left and we’re standing in the middle of nowhere with no plan.”

“I have supplies,” Dresden announced bitterly. 

It infuriated her that still, through everything she had gone through, she was still denied trust.

Dodge’s group pooled around her.

She didn’t recognize most of them.  Dresden counted seven other women ranging from, what she assumed, 18 to 50.  Nine men, including Dodge, looked worse for wear and were far younger than the oldest female present.  She reckoned the oldest male in the group was a year or two shy of 30.  He fidgeted by cinching and loosening his sweatshirt’s hood. 

Dresden nodded.  “I have a bunch of knives, some guns…I even found a few grenades.”

Dodge choked on his breath and coughed. “G-grenades?” he stammered in shock.  “You’re carrying a bag of
grenades
?”

He reached over her shoulders and yanked the bags from her body.   “Give me those.”

“Are you crazy?” he exclaimed worriedly.  “You could’ve blown up on the way here.  Dresden, what is
wrong
with you?”

She offered a blank stare and a light shrug.  “What?  I could’ve died on the way here, anyway.”

He blew out a gush of air and shook his head.  “But grenades? 
Really?
  You just filled a bag with a few explosives and thought it was a good idea not to lead with, ‘
Hey, Dodge, just wanted to let you know I have something in my bag that could blow me to pieces’
?  Geez, Dresden.  You’re going to give me a heart attack, I swear.”

Dodge shook his head again and jerked it upward.  “Where did you even
find
them?  Did you check them before you put them in the bag?”

“Dodge,” she couldn’t help but to reply with a chuckle at his protectiveness, “Shepherd had an entire vault filled with them.  I only took a few.  We’re gonna need ‘em.”

She proudly held up the sword.  “And I figured this would be useful.”

Dresden turned with her right side to the group and pressed the sword’s black button.  It sizzled and popped as its sparks flew in the night.

She turned forward again and handed dumbfounded Dodge the sword.  “You’re welcome, by the way.”

“Shepherd always kept the coolest stuff for himself,” he whispered under his breath.  He was enthralled by the sword.

“Do you think it’d be helpful?” she asked, seeking some form of recognition for her find.

Dodge extended the sword to his right and played with the button.

“A little,” he answered.  He handed the heavy backpack to Greg.  “Go through that and distribute it.”

Dodge looked to Dresden and nodded to the blade.  He flicked at the button and pointed to the metal buttons that ran up and down the sliver.

“See that?  It’s sending out short jolts.”

“Yeah, which means the current is enough to probably stun one, right?” 

“Yeah,” he nodded.  “But it’s not gonna do much more than that.  It’s pretty cool, though.”

Dresden’s hand brushed his as she poked at the tape-wrapped handle.  “But we can short out the regulator, right?”

He thought, “And hope to God it doesn’t touch a person.”

“But we can do it, right?  And then the current won’t be limited.”

Dodge rubbed the top of Dresden’s hand as she pulled away for him to pick at the tape.  It peeled away from the sword’s handle with a sticky slurp. 

“If we can do that, this thing is going to really come in handy,” he grinned.  “I’m guessing this is around seven million volts.  Based on that generator, this sword could probably take down three or four at a time.”

He scowled.  “But the battery’s likely to go after too long, especially if it’s been sitting around.  Did you use it on the way here?”

Dresden bit her lip and sheepishly shifted her eyes.  “I didn’t have a flashlight.”

“You-you used this as a
flashlight
?” he scoffed.

“Yeah,” she shrugged.  “It was that or die.”

“It’s fine,” he quickly answered. 

The sword’s handle was nothing like Dresden expected it to look.  It was brown and speckled with white.  A section was cut out of the side to fit the stun gun’s control box.  Dodge fished it out with his thick fingertips, grunting the entire time.  It finally fell out of the handle with a click.