Burnout (The Invasion Chronicles Book 1) (2 page)

               Lydia sighed in relief as it began stumbling back the way it had come, running with stilted, uneven strides.  She closed her eyes and let the warm, rushing sensation in her chest go on for a few more seconds.  The Burnouts tended to just keep going in whatever direction they were pointing in, Lydia had noticed, until they saw something else.  When her eyes snapped open again the door halted, instantly falling silent.

The Burnout was still heading in the direction of the noise, and Lydia exchanged an uneasy glance with Ava when she saw a couple of other dim figures emerge from the mist-shrouded spaces in between the houses down the street.  None of the things turned back towards Meadowbrook Court, however.  Lydia slipped her hand out of her friend's, and picked up the rifle. 

"Thanks," Ava said quietly.  She sank back down onto her chair and shot Lydia a sheepish, apologetic look.  There was no mistaking the gratitude in her dark eyes though.  Lydia's mouth quirked up into a tired smile.

"No problem," she said. 

They looked back to the street in front of them.  Lydia kept her hand curled around the rifle for the next ten minutes, relaxing only when the three Burnouts seemed to lose interest in the now-silent storm door and began wandering off in the opposite direction of Meadowbrook.  As the figures faded into the mist, Ava slumped down in her chair, reaching up to rub her eyes with one hand.

Lydia rolled one of her sleeves up and looked at the black plastic watch that stood out starkly against her pale white skin.  It was something she would never have been caught wearing before...but it wasn't like she could pull out her phone and check the time anymore. She and Ava had another twenty minutes before Andrew and Jill Royce—an older couple who had lived across the court from her grandfather for almost ten years—were due to take their places.  They would have to warn the Royces there were Burnouts in the immediate area. 

Ava shivered, wrapping an old denim jacket that actually belonged to Lydia’s grandfather tighter around her thin body.  Ava had been in the middle of an annual week-long stay at Lydia’s house, a tradition every summer since they had decided they were best friends in second grade, and few of the clothes she’d brought with her were suited to the cooler weather.  She and Lydia could share t-shirts and pajamas, but Lydia was shorter than her by almost five inches—pants and long sleeves ended far short of Ava’s wrists and ankles.  She flashed Lydia a pale ghost of her usual bright smile. 

“Who says a Psio never comes in handy, huh?” 

Lydia nudged her friend’s ankle with one foot.  “Hey, easy on the
p-
word,” she muttered.  She was joking, but even so, she couldn’t help a quick glance around to make sure there was no one in hearing distance.  Habit of a lifetime.  Even in Ohio, it wasn’t like Psios were unheard of—Columbus was a pretty cosmopolitan city, after all, and though there were no hard numbers worldwide, most geneticists agreed that the percentage of the population with confirmed psionic abilities was rising.   It was just—not particularly common, and still a little taboo.  Especially families like Lydia’s, where there were multiple generations with abilities.

That probably had something to do with the direct correlation between Invasion and the spike in people born with such abilities. 

The point was, Lydia’s telekinetic gift wasn’t something she had ever advertised; Ava was the only person outside of her family who knew.  And while she didn’t share all of Grandpa’s fears about what could happen if she started using her powers more often, she
was
afraid of how the rest of their group would react.  Would look at her. 

There had been plenty of people blaming psios for the Burnouts, after all.  Stupid conspiracy theories, the kind that had been popping up whenever there was some disaster ever since the days of Invasion.  Psios had been blamed for everything from hurricanes to earthquakes to the failure of presidential candidates.  This time had been different, though.  The Burnouts were no natural disaster, and plenty of people had been willing to buy into any theory that might provide answers.

Grandpa tried to shield her from the worst of those news reports, the ones that showed angry mobs descending on homes and businesses of people who had been open about their psionic abilities.  He’d tried, but Lydia had her own newsfeeds and media sites she could search.  The pictures still gave her nightmares. 

“You gonna be okay?” Lydia asked, shaking away the dark thoughts.  She rubbed at her temple until the warning twinge of a tension headache faded away.  It was always harder, somehow, to use her abilities on something she couldn’t actually see. 

“No,” Ava said bluntly, “but I’ll survive.”

Lydia looked out over the deserted street that used to be her home, her eyes roaming over the abandoned vehicles, the trash and debris that was strewn everywhere. The vehicles she and Ava were sitting on were only part of a barricade that ringed the entire court, a Frankenstein’s monster of a blockade made of everything in the houses that hadn’t been nailed down. 

Her grandfather’s neighborhood had been a quiet subdivision, all manicured lawns and neutral paint. The kind of place that had high PTA meeting attendance and bred armies of mild-mannered CPA’s named John.  It was a war zone now.  The street was clogged with dead cars, and bits of trash and debris drifted freely in the wind.  Here and there, toys and clothes littered the asphalt, bits and pieces of lives just left outside to rot. 

Two houses at the end of the block had caught fire at the end of the summer, older “heritage” homes that hadn’t been treated for fire resistance.  With the power grid gone, the standard fire suppression systems hadn’t activated.  The houses burned nearly to the ground before a lucky August downpour put out the blaze.  They were just twisted, blackened hulks now; broken piles of roof beams and metal support studs reaching up to the sky like bones poking out of a disturbed grave. 

Every night, the voices on the emergency broadcasts urged people to just hold on a little longer.  They promised that help was on the way.  That the threat of the Burnouts would soon be contained.

Lydia knew she was not the only one who had realized those voices were lying.  

#

              The Royces arrived right on time, jogging across the court from their house with their jackets held over their heads.  Lydia passed the rifle down to Andrew Royce as Ava scrambled off the van, and then followed her friend.  She stumbled as she jumped onto the ground, nearly tripping forward.  Jill steadied her with one bony hand on her shoulder, and she shot the old woman a grateful smile. 

"Any trouble?" Andrew asked.  He pursed his lips at their wet and bedraggled appearance, sighing as he tossed a glare up towards the umbrella.  Jill climbed up onto the van with a speed and agility that belied her wrinkled face and short bob of gray hair.  Andrew waited until his wife was steady before passing the rifle up. 

"We saw some Burnouts," Lydia reported.  "Three of them."

"They were heading back towards Brookhaven Street," Ava added, "up by those houses that burned down?  But they might come back.  One of them...one of them was Jenny Morrison."  Ava's voice dropped low on the last sentence, her jaw going tight as she stared at the ground.  Andrew's face softened, and he closed his eyes.  

"Ah, kid.  I'm sorry," he said as he gave Ava’s shoulder a gentle squeeze.  "I know her and your family were close."  He sighed again and scratched one hand through the thick, white whiskers on his chin.  

Lydia and Ava were the youngest people on Meadowbrook—most of the houses were owned by retirees and middle-aged couples whose children were out on their own.  Apart from one other family with young children, Lydia was usually the only person on Meadowbrook under the age of forty. She knew if Mr. Royce got the chance, he would put the Burnout that used to be her friend's favorite teacher out of its misery rather than leave them to do it.  

"You two need to tell Mike." Andrew jerked his chin towards Lydia’s house.  Lydia exchanged a wary glance with Ava before nodding.  Her grandfather would understand why Lydia hadn’t shot the Burnout, but he would still be furious with them both for risking it.

"We will," Ava promised.  “Right now."

"Good.  And get dried off, too!"  Andrew turned around and began his own climb up to the top of the van (much more slowly than his wife had managed).  "Last thing we need is anyone gettin' sick around here," he muttered as he heaved himself up. 

They took off running across the court, splashing through puddles on the asphalt.  The rain was coming down even harder than before, and the drains had started to back up.  She and Ava would probably be recruited to go around to the drains in front of each of the houses and make sure they were cleared of debris before the afternoon was over.  They darted up the steps of her grandfather's house, pausing to strip off their dripping jackets and kick off their mud-spattered sneakers. 

Grandpa’s house wasn’t the largest on the court, but Lydia thought it was the prettiest.  It was a simple two-story with a wraparound porch and a large port window on the east-facing wall.  It had pale green siding with bright white trim and old-fashioned shutters, and her grandmother had put large flowerbeds under each window the year after she and Grandpa moved in.   Lydia had spent many hours with her grandmother, tending the flowerbeds and the large garden out back. 

Like most houses in their neighborhood, it was heritage-style and had been built with mostly pre-Invasion designs and materials.  They had most of the bells and whistles of modern technology, of course—fire suppression, network-connected comm screens in all the rooms, automatic appliances—but Lydia’s grandparents had never cared for the aesthetic of post-Invasion tech.  Their house had none of the graceful lines, shining surfaces, and automated
everything
that Ava’s did.  The inside of her best friend’s home resembled something out of an old pre-Invasion science fiction story.

Lydia carefully draped her jacket over the back of the wooden porch swing, running her hand over the soaked sleeve for a moment.  It was one of her mother’s, a sturdy military-issue leftover from her mom’s days as an Army nurse (unfortunately before ionic weatherproofing had been refined enough to mass produce). 

They slipped into the house quietly. Grandma had always hated the sound of slamming doors, and even eight years after her death, even with what might very well be the
end of the world
going on, no one in the house ever forgot that rule. Lydia felt some of the sick, hyper-vigilant tension that they all carried all the time now dissipate as soon as they closed the door.  Logically, Lydia knew they were only a little safer in the house than they were outside. However, it was hard not to feel protected while surrounded by the familiar walls.  This house had been home for almost as long as Lydia could remember. 

The windows had all been thrown open despite the rain, and the cool air swirling through the house was a welcome change after the hot, stifling August.  The electricity was one of the first things to fail, and Lydia had never realized just how uncomfortable the house could get without environmental regulators.  Even something as basic as
air conditioning
was missed.  Several of the other houses on Meadowbrook didn’t even have windows that opened, relying completely on the central air system.  There had been a lot of people sleeping on the floor in Grandpa’s living room during the hottest summer months.

She reveled in the breeze the swept aside the stale odors of sweat and smoke.  If she closed her eyes and concentrated, she could almost smell the lemon furniture polish and fresh coffee that she'd always associated with the house.    God, she missed coffee.  Some days she thought she would sell her soul to be able to synthesize a fresh cup of coffee.  The kitchen was the one area of the house where her grandparents had unabashedly
relished
advances made since Invasion, and the foodsynth was always the latest model.

They were about to dash upstairs for dry clothes when they heard raised voices in the kitchen.  As one, they paused in the front hall and exchanged startled looks.  Grandpa didn't sound angry, exactly, but he was arguing with someone.  Without thinking about it, Lydia pressed a finger to her lips, jerking her chin toward the kitchen.  Ava nodded, and the two slipped down the short, narrow hall.  They paused by the entryway, flattened against the wall and tucked just out of sight of the long breakfast bar that dominated the space. 

Mike Carter paced back and forth in front of the sink, muttering a string of profanity to himself.  Well, mostly to himself.  He was in his mid-sixties, a retired Marine with scarred, gnarled hands and sharp, hawk-like features and piercing eyes that were the same whiskey-brown shade his daughter and granddaughter shared.  His shoulders had started to stoop with age, and his middle had gone a little soft in the past few years, but he’d always seemed a near invincible figure to Lydia.  In the three months since the Burnouts had appeared, he'd become the de facto leader of their group.

Jim Perry, a heavyset black man with a shining bald head who had been Grandpa’s next-door-neighbor for seven years, was seated at the breakfast bar.  Spread out across the gray crystal countertop was a pile of old road maps that appeared to have been drawn on with red and green marker.  The red marks heavily outnumbered the green.  Ava elbowed Lydia's side, raising a questioning eyebrow.  Lydia just shrugged.

                "It's too risky," Grandpa said, halting his pacing and turning to face his friend.  "We're safer here."  He leaned forward, bracing his hands against the counter across from Jim.