Secret skies, p.1
Secret Skies, page 1
Secret Skies
Sharlene Healy
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Excerpt of Burning Skies
About Author
Also By
Copyright © 2021 by Sharlene Healy
All rights reserved.
No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any real persons or places is entirely coincidental. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in, or encourage, the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author's rights is appreciated.
To Cassidy
Prologue
We crouched down, quiet, ready. Max rolled a smoke grenade toward the main room, just as we planned, and with a little ding, it burst open and filled the area with gas. Men and women dressed in green fatigues sprang up without hesitation and ran to the door, clamoring to escape. We grinned in unison. We had prepared for that. Several troops rammed their shoulders into the door, but it wouldn't budge. They raced to the other exit and met the same results. Some picked up a table to throw at the door, determination written on their faces, while others fell to the ground, coughing uncontrollably. Max nudged my shoulder and nodded toward the control room. We needed to hurry. The doors wouldn’t hold for long.
I had to be quick to get this file onto the computer. I dropped to the ground and army-crawled to the control room, staying close to the ground and away from the smoke. I reached the door and snuck inside. I shoved the door shut and glanced around. It was a tan room filled with windows that looked out toward the main room, plus another door opposite of the one I entered. Monitors lined a cluttered desk. I picked a random computer, drumming my fingers on my thigh as the display finally faded from the screensaver to the desktop while I moved the mouse. I shoved the USB into its slot and copied the files to the desktop. Two minutes for the file transfer. Only two minutes.
Pop. Pop. Pop.
“Sam, get out of there!”
The file was still copying over when there was a banging on the door. A minute left. The door broke and the distinct smell of rotting flesh overwhelmed my senses. The hairs on the back of my neck stood straight up. My shoulders tightened, and I slowly turned to see a fully formed mera stalking in from the same door I had used. The mera’s tongue slid out and whipped the air as it stalked toward me, its talons clicking on the tile. My heart raced, and I kept my eyes on the mera while I reached for the gun at my back. If I fired, I could distract the mera long enough to get out of the room. After all, with just one mera, I wouldn’t need backup to run away.
“You’ll never beat me alone,” growled the mera, its voice echoing all around my head.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that the transfer was finally done. Abandoning my gun, I reached for the computer and ripped the tiny USB out and started backing away toward the other door. The mera laughed, a sinister sound ringing through my head, its wings unfurling halfway and flapping. I felt the door handle at my back, and I pulled when all of a sudden the entire door ripped right off of the hinges. I fell down with a loud smack and heard a low growl behind my ears. The mera in front kept stalking toward me, while the growls behind me became louder and louder. They had trapped me. I had nowhere to run.
Chapter One
Our car ate up the road, the gravel crunching underneath the tires in an old, familiar way. I sat in the passenger seat, and Max steadily kept up with Rain, who was driving in front of us. The mera base we were headed to was right next to a town in Vermont, a few hours away. Thankfully, we didn’t lose the blueprints in the fight. Supposedly, the base was rare because it was next to a town. The meras didn’t usually like to be out in the open. Nate and June figured it was the best option to find our parents.
I leaned out the window, loving the feel of the air after being underground for so long. The sky was bright and clear, and no enemy creatures were in sight. I took a deep breath and sighed, releasing the tension in my neck. I rummaged around in my backpack by my feet, pulling out my phone.
“Max, are we far enough away from the bunker that I can turn on my phone?”
Max turned his head and glanced at me. “Sure, all of you can.”
I hummed a cheerful tune as I turned on my phone, glad that I charged it before we left. June and Tom mimicked me, each of us waiting to see if we had anything to respond to. I hadn’t been able to talk to anyone for so long and I wanted to see what everyone was up to. My phone finished turning on, and then it dinged and kept on dinging. The texts and notifications lit up my screen. I had to put it down until it stopped. There were so many notifications. There were several missed calls from Great-Aunt Lucy, some from when we first were supposed to be at her house, then one every week since. I grimaced. This would be hard to explain. I scrolled through texts from friends asking to come join in various summer activities and asking where I was.
“June, Tom, do you guys have any calls from Aunt Lucy?”
June piped up first. “Yeah, a ton.”
“Same,” said Tom.
I grimaced again and glanced at Max. “I have to call her back. I don’t know what to tell her.”
Max shrugged. “The truth, minus the existence of Bunker 3.”
I drummed my fingers on my leg, thinking of what I would say to Aunt Lucy. I dialed her number and waited. “Hello?” came my aunt Lucy’s voice through the phone.
“Aunt Lucy? It’s Sam—”
Before I could even say anything else, sobs came through the other end. “Sam. Oh my gosh, Sam. I thought you and your family were dead. No one was answering their phones. I tried for months. Susan, James, all of you. Where are you? What happened? The police stopped looking.”
I glanced at Max. “It’s, uh, sort of complicated. Mom and Dad were kidnapped—”
Aunt Lucy started sobbing again.
“Aunt Lucy. It’s going to be okay. We’ll get them back.”
“But. The police—” more sobs came through the phone. “They should do it and—”
“Don’t worry, Aunt Lucy,” I said, interrupting. “We’ve got people on it already. They’ll get Mom and Dad back. We’re not going to stop by, but when Mom and Dad are back, we’ll come visit you. We love you. I’ve got to go.”
Aunt Lucy sniffed. “Okay. Call me when you find them.”
I hung up the phone, frowning. Cutting her off wasn’t the nicest thing, but I knew I couldn’t give her the answers she wanted. Max reached over and squeezed my hand. I looked at him in surprise, and he grinned at me.
“Don’t worry. We’ll find them,” he said.
I squeezed his hand back and looked out the window. The brief flare of hope that lit my flame of determination glowed brighter. We had a surprise on our side. The meras weren’t expecting a bunch of teenagers to come after their parents. The mere thought would probably send them into fits of laughter. They were overconfident, never believing that their monster forms could be defeated. I would never have believed it either until I saw it with my own eyes. Too bad June didn’t have a dozen of those machines ready for us. An idea formed in my mind, and I knew our plans needed to change.
“June. Can you make more of those mera remotes?” I asked as I twisted in my seat to look at her. She sat still and stared at me straight in the eye.
“Well, with Nate’s help, the right supplies, and a place to work, yes.”
I drummed my fingers on my car door and the steady beat focused my thoughts. The plan became clearer.
“Max. Do you know somewhere like that?”
Max looked at me, his mouth twisted into a little frown. “I might. Let’s pull over and talk to Nate and them first.”
He flashed his brights at Rain and moved over to the side of the road. Rain caught the drift and skidded to a stop ahead of us on the road’s shoulder. Rain and Nate popped out of the car and
came to talk to us.
“Crystal and Nettie are asleep. What do you want?” Rain said, crossing her arms and standing with her feet apart.
“Nate. What if you and June made some more of those mera devices? Could you do that?” I asked, getting straight to the point.
Nate looked at June and nodded. “Of course we could, with the right supplies. We recorded our entire process,” said Nate.
Max looked at Nate. “You realize what will happen, though, right?” he asked.
Nate nodded again. “If the meras get one whiff of what we’re doing, then we’re dinner.”
Tom chuckled to himself. “Whiff. Get it? Because they’re like wolves?” he whispered to me.
I rolled my eyes and elbowed his side. He faked falling over until Rain glared at him.
Nate walked over to June and took her hands, holding them with the lightest-looking touch, while looking into her eyes. “I’m not going to lie. If the meras find out what we’re doing, we’ll be lucky to die quick,” he said.
June stared at Nate and searched his eyes for a moment. Then she looked at all of us, one by one. “And if it works, we could save our parents and who knows how many others.”
“Then it’s decided,” Max said. He went to the car and pulled a map out of his backpack, and spread it out over the hood of the truck. “This used to be an old mera base,” he said, pointing to a little red dot in the middle of nowhere. “They abandoned it a couple of months back because it was too remote for its original purpose. Making large trails would have led people straight to them. They might still have a generator, but I’m not one hundred percent sure. We can head there instead of our initial plan.”
Max and Rain started discussing routes and trails, so I pulled June and Tom aside.
“You guys. Are you sure about this? You know we’ll have to stay there for a while, so June and Nate have time to make these devices. And you heard what Nate said. You’d both be targets, and stationary ones at that.”
June looked at me. “Sam,” she said.
That was it. Nothing more. I sighed and shrugged my shoulders, knowing that June would not budge. Tom patted me on the back. “Don’t worry Sam, this is going to be fun. We’re going to kick some more mera butt and save Mom and Dad,” he said.
I admired Tom’s enthusiasm. Even with bandages covering his body, he was still willing to get back up and fight those awful creatures again. I, on the other hand, did not want to face those things unless we had more of June’s machines. Machines that were guaranteed to work. We were lucky that Pearl was the only one who walked away with major injuries. Nettie had enough medical knowledge to patch us up, but what could she do with crushed and broken bones.
If we had June’s machine, we really could make them hurt. We could rescue our parents instead of just finding them. I searched June’s face and saw the resolve there. It assured me she was not changing her mind anytime soon.
“Alright everyone,” said Max. “We’ve got the route down and we’re going to have to take about a six-day hike to reach the building. We’ll stop and load up on food and supplies before we start.”
“Let’s move it. Now,” said Rain, walking away, confident that we would listen to her.
I looked at June again. “Are you sure?”
She stared at me and didn’t answer again. I sighed and hopped into the car. Max drove his car around Rain’s and started going straight. We might as well get this party started, then. I plugged in my seat belt and pulled out my phone. If we were going to be in here for a while, I would have time to catch up on what’s been happening. Scrolling through the news, I tried to find out what people were saying about the town’s explosion. I finally found a news article on the third page of Google searches. The headline read “Nuclear Accident in Small Town, NY.” I paused. Was the media trying to brush this off? I clicked on the article, nerves buzzing inside me. The piece started out by saying that an unfortunate nuclear power plant meltdown had shocked a small town, but the military responded quickly and competently to contain the damage. It made no mention of those who were missing or the meras. Max noticed me glaring at my phone.
“What’s up?” he asked.
I showed him the headline on my phone and told him it was about the city we had been in. He nodded, unsurprised.
“You figured they wouldn’t print anything about the meras?” I asked.
“Of course. Meras are in every sector you can think of. Media, government, military. Why would they want to alert anyone to their plans?”
I sighed, putting my phone down again. I didn’t really want to read more lies when the truth was already so hard to find.
Chapter Two
I looked out the window and laughed a little to myself. Here I was, once again in a car, driving down a road with my siblings. Except for Ben. My heart ached, wondering where my parents were and what was happening to them. Wondering if Ben was doing okay. I leaned my head against the window and sighed, my breath fogging up the glass. It was still summer outside, the hot sticky air warmed by the sun’s rays, but hints of fall were arriving. The weather was slightly cooler at night. The buzzing of bugs had arrived at a high point, as if the tiny creatures knew their time to burrow was coming.
Max reached over and squeezed my hand again, a silent reassurance that everything was going to be okay. Perhaps even more than okay. I turned and smiled at him, returning the squeeze, and he returned to focus on driving. A little snort coming from the seat behind jolted me, and I twisted around to look. June had her head against the window as well, but her mouth was open as she snoozed away. Tom was in the same position on his own window. Their similar positions made me grin as I glanced at Max.
“They’re both asleep,” I said.
He smiled. “You know, it’s been a hard couple of days for you, too. You’re welcome to sleep. It’s going to be a two-hour drive before we stop, and another hour after that.”
“Are you sure you’ll be able to stay awake on your own?”
“Oh, yeah. I’m good. You sleep, please,” he said with a grin.
I leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, before mirroring my siblings’ positions and promptly falling asleep.
A scream pierced my ears, and I swung to see a mera advancing toward Pearl. I hesitated, wondering what had happened. How did I get back to this fight? I spun, looking around, realizing I was also in the city. The gravel was the same; the cars were still hidden and Ben was still frozen. I watched in horror as the mera caught up to Pearl. I tried moving, but it was as if my feet were glued to the ground. The mera grasped Pearl in its talons and ripped his fangs through her neck, effectively biting her head off. My feet stopped sticking, and I screamed. I flew toward the mera with my knives out. I stabbed it in the back, the blade sliding deep into its flesh. As I stabbed, the fear turned into an emotionless laugh bubbling in my throat. Something inside urged me to stab with a frenzy.
Blood covered my face, my hands, my clothes. I brought my hands up, watching the blood slide down my fingers. I looked up only to see straight into a mirror, my face covered in blood. A low rumble rolled through my head, a voice chuckling. I kept watching the mirror, and I saw Zeek emerging from a doorway to stand behind me. He stared into my eyes, his face lighting up with disgust and triumph.
“You’re exactly like us, you know. You can pretend you aren’t as much as you want. But you like killing. You like the cold blossoming inside, erasing the need to feel.”
I glared. “I’m nothing like you. I never will be.”
Zeek laughed low. “Oh, Sam. This is only the beginning. You’ll see. You’ll be just like us.”
I screamed. “Never!”
I punched the mirror, unexpected rage bubbling to the surface, demanding to be free. I spun around to give the same treatment to Zeek, but there was no one behind me. Rage continued to consume me, engulfing my thoughts. Zeek had disappeared and there was no outlet for this massive emotion in this tiny room. I clenched my hand and, like a child throwing a temper tantrum, I threw my head back and screamed. I screamed out, all the rage and hate and fear running through my veins.
Max’s hand shook my shoulder, jolting me out of my catharsis. “Sam, please wake up. Sam, it’s only a dream.”
