Project Aquarius (The Sensitives Series Book 1) (14 page)

Suddenly, the gravity shifted and Drea floated up over the edge of the field like a balloon. Up, up, up she rose above the treetops of the overgrown deciduous forest. Old oaks and pines towered above the forest floor. Drea’s legs flailed–– she bounced from one treetop to another–– zooming, jumping, gliding, flying.

Her feet sprung off the top of ancient trees. She covered a great distance before slowing to a halt above another clearing. Mowed into the grassy field below were some indistinct words. She couldn’t make them out at first. The words were blurry and the letters kept rearranging. What did they say? New… new something?

Drea’s brain struggled to make sense of them. Then instantly the letters gelled into order. New Hampshire.

THUD! Drea’s feet hit the ground and a rolled up newspaper magically appeared before her out of thin air.

Search for Survivors Continues
was the top headline.

***

Drea awoke in her bed at home. The sheets were twisted and half on the floor.

“We have to go,” she said out loud to the empty room. Now, she was sure of it. And she knew exactly where to head.

Drea was relieved to find Laura, a real live human being, was still awake down in the family room. She was under a blanket on the well-worn leather couch, using a flashlight to struggle through Moby Dick. Rough choice. Drea did not find Melville relaxing in the slightest.

“Bad dream?” Laura asked, calling her out.

Drea grunted, but didn’t elaborate. It felt weird talking to a stranger about her psyche. But there was still a part of her that yearned for a comforting conversation with a parental figure…

“I used to have bad dreams when I was a kid. I don’t anymore,” Laura shared.

“Why’d they stop?”

“I don’t know. I figured I just grew out of them.”

“Oh.” Drea was sure she’d never grow out of her dreams. They were a stubborn part of her.

She slipped her feet into a pair of well-worn slippers and pattered into the kitchen. Laura followed and took a seat at the breakfast bar. The granite countertops glinted with strange beauty in the silver moonlight.

Drea opened the fridge out of habit. A wretched stench spilled out and made her gag.

“Whatchya looking for kiddo?”

“I don’t even know.” Drea slammed the door shut, but the disgusting smell lingered. “Comfort?”

“How about I put on some tea water? Hot tea always makes me feel better.” Laura filled the teakettle out of the tap and set it on the small camp stove on the counter. The spark of the propane lighter was blinding.

“I used to get hungry after my nightmares, too.”

“How did you know it was a nightmare?” Drea asked.

“You were whimpering and yelling in your sleep. Here, sit.” Laura gestured to her side.

As Drea reluctantly sat on the stool, Laura wrapped her shoulders in the blanket from the couch. The gesture softened Drea a bit.

“You have prophetic dreams, don’t you?” Laura asked.

Drea nodded and drummed her fingers on the counter.

“My friend Big Jim is a Dreamwalker, you know.”

“My best friend Sierra always said I was but…” Drea hedged, “I don’t know how to tell.”

“I think it’s just something you know intuitively, like a strong gut feeling that your dreams mean something... I’m not a dreamer anymore, but I’m intuitive. Like I knew coming here would be a good idea. I knew I had to find Sammy. I didn’t just know it in my head, I felt it in my bones.”

“But what if you were wrong?” Drea wondered.

“I find I’m rarely wrong when I follow my inner voice. You have to learn to trust it. I’m still learning too.”

Laura’s vulnerability paved the way for Drea to open up about her paranormal blog and her interest in the occult. Minutes fell away into hours as the two exchanged stories of the unexplained. It turned out that Laura used to read tarot in her youth, too. She asked Drea if she had a deck.

The bulk of the seventy-two cards slid through Drea’s fingers over and over again as she shuffled. Then she mixed them face down on the breakfast bar until they felt hot under her hands. She gathered the cards back into a single pile, drew the top three, and placed them in a simple three-card past/present/future spread.

The first card Drea flipped over, in the past position, was Wheel of Fortune— a card signifying the turning of the life cycle, completion of a journey as directed by fate.

Laura jumped excitedly in her seat. “See? It was fate, like I said! Fate brought us together.”

There was electricity in the air as Drea flipped the second card in the Present position. It was the Chariot, a card depicting movement. Get out, the card urged.

Finally, Drea flipped the last card. The future. The grotesque image was not easy to take in. There was a corpse on the ground with ten sharp swords sticking out of his back. Murdered.

The hair on Drea’s arms stood at attention. “Oh man, the Ten of Swords is not good,” she said.

“Don’t get all worked up just yet. You have to pull all meanings from the card, not just the obvious one. Look in the background,” Laura directed.

In the distance, there was a faint sunrise.

“A hint of better things to come, perhaps?” Laura suggested.

“Well the card certainly tells it like it is. There has been a lot of death lately,” Drea reflected.

“It also speaks of betrayal,” Laura added.

“What does that mean?”

“Pull a clarifying card.”

Drea focused all her energy on the deck. She held the remaining stack of cards in her hands while she asked in her mind.
If we make it through the bad part, what is beyond the sunrise? What can we expect?

Drea pulled a card from the middle of the deck, revealing the Ten of Cups, which depicted a vibrant rainbow arched over ten overflowing golden chalices. The scene radiated beautiful light. People in the foreground were rejoicing and embracing. According to the tarot, there was a future worth fighting for.

“It’s going to be okay. I don’t know how but it’s going to be okay,” Drea said decidedly.

The Ten of Cups had said so.

***

“
Everyone have everything? We’re doing an equipment check.” Laura was in teacher mode.

     It had been one week since the Event. That’s what they were calling it now. The last four days had solidified a new kind of normal for the group. Laura had become surrogate Mom, sleeping in Drea’s parents’ room, cooking them breakfast, and reminding them to go to bed on time. Drea had continued her responsible sister role, taking turns cooking on the camp stove and getting Laura up to speed on the do’s and don’ts of Sammy’s world. And Darnell… well, he was like a cousin now, a hostile distant cousin who slept in the guest room and talked to his pet rat.

“I don’t see why we gotta do this,” Darnell protested, as he heaved his bag into the front hall.

“We talked about this. We can’t move all of the bodies. The city will become a biohazard. We have to leave,” Laura repeated yet again.

“Yeah, yeah… And there’s still some badass dude out there who killed everyone. Blah. Blah.”

“It’s dangerous out there,” Drea added patting Darnell on the top of his head.

He winced. Drea had been a little easier on the kid since she’d found out he had been in foster care. He’d had a rough life.

“Ya think?” Darnell sassed. “I ain’t a total ‘tard!” He added, “No offense, Sammy.”

Darnell was kind of harsh to everyone, but most of time he was just in survival mode.

“Why we bouncin’ so quick if it’s so dangerous out there?”

Laura repeated, “We’ve gone over and over it Darnell. Food is running low. No electricity means no water filter and no city water pump, which means inevitably no clean water and no toilet flushing.”

They had survived for a few days on what had been stuck in the pipes. Then it had turned brown and rushed out of the faucet with a hiss and a sulfuric stink. Drea’s dream image of the sewage seeping under the door was all too real. The boys had been peeing outside, but even so. The stench in the house said it was time to go.

“Can’t we just go to the store and get more stuff?” Darnell asked. He was the problem-solving type, which Drea liked. Fundamentally though, he was still a kid.

“No. Leaving is our only option. The tarot said so,” Laura asserted.

The Ten of Swords flashed through Drea’s mind— the ominous picture of the backstabbed man.

“We leavin’ ‘cause of that satanic mumbo jumbo? That’s bull,” Darnell complained.

At least the kid was extremely consistent.

“It’s a warning. And we’re heeding it.” Laura winked at Drea, making her heart flood with acceptance.

Over the past few days, Laura had often treated Drea like an equal and it was refreshing. Usually the nose ring and pink hair streaks scared off adults, but Laura saw Drea as highly capable. She had even suggested they split up the parenting: Drea would take care of Sammy and Laura would fight the good fight with Darnell.

“Everyone put your packs out in front of you. I’m doing an equipment check,” Laura instructed loudly.

She walked up and down the front hall, eyeing their bags. She stopped in front of Darnell’s, which was open at the top and spewing clothing in several directions.

Defensively, he said, “Hey, I got everythin’ I need. Don’t go touchin’ my stuff! You’ll mess it up.”

“Looks like it’s already pretty messed up,” Laura fired back. “Let me help you fit everything inside. Don’t want you to lose any of your precious stuff.”

The teacher bent down and undid a clasp that was straining over a bulging front pocket.

Drea checked on Sammy. He was sitting on the bench in the front hall, feet together staring straight ahead. It was part of his routine. In Vacation Mode, he was supposed to sit and wait there until it was time to go.

“Hey. You got everything in your bag?” she asked.

Sammy nodded.

“Even underwear?”

He always forgot to pack underwear.

He nodded again. Drea unzipped the top of his pack to find his specimen book,
Plant Classification
book, and research materials crammed on top. There was hardly enough room for the essentials.

“You brought 5 pairs of underwear, 5 pairs of socks, one more pair of pants, one more sweatshirt, and 3 T-shirts, right?”

Sammy nodded yet again. He was already wearing his red earphones. That had been Drea’s suggestion.

“I don’t want to go,” he admitted quietly.

“I know.”

“I’m scared,” he whined.

“Me too, bud,” Drea confessed as she knelt down to his level. That was often something that helped. “I know it’s scary and I know it’s not the routine, but I need you to try your best. Can you promise me that you’ll try? And you’ll do your best to listen to me?”

He nodded again. Drea couldn’t help it; she pulled him into a hug. He went limp as per usual.

“Remember why we have to leave?” she asked while embracing him.

He shook his head no. The forlorn look on his face broke Drea’s heart.

“School is out forever, remember? We never have to go to school again. And we have to move on because the toilet is broken and the fridge is too. And we need to get food.”

“Because we’re out of mushrooms?” Sammy asked meekly.

“Yeah, buddy. We ran out of canned mushrooms and the only way to get more is to go and get them… And we have to walk.”

“Okay,” he sing-songed half-heartedly. Drea shed a few tears onto his shoulder before he said, “Let go of me.”

Drea left her brother on the bench, staring into space. She disappeared into the living room and returned with a red wagon, overflowing with supplies. She parked it in front of Sammy.

“Remember when Dad built this wagon?”

Sammy shrugged.

She tried again, “Remember Dad used to load us in the wagon and take us to the park?”

“It was too loud there,” Sammy whined in recognition.

“Everyone ready out here?” Laura asked as she threw Darnell’s bag onto the overstuffed beast of a wagon. A mountain of personal packs balanced precariously on top of the foundation of supplies.

“We’ve got a tent, some sleeping bags, blankets, rain gear, containers for water, cooking supplies, and a stash of canned goods,” Drea reported.

“Checklist complete. Let’s go!” said Laura.

“Fine,” Darnell grumbled in resignation.

With a ceremonious “1…2…3.” Drea and Laura pried the 2x4s and cardboard off the front door.

“See you later alligator,” Drea said to the empty front hall.

“After while crocodile,” Sammy returned as he ambled down the walkway.

It was done.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Cyril

Cyril had bitten all the nails on his right hand down the quick. His life was a sauna of fear, as evidenced by the copious pit stains on his company shirt. The Master’s impossible request was a serious problem. It was going to take a miracle to please the boss this time.