Raging Sea (Undertow, #2)(10)
Arcade nods, then snarls. “Move this machine, Lyric Walker.”
“Well, let’s get going already,” Bex adds, without bothering to look at me.
“Bex?”
“Drive.”
Chapter Four
TEXAS IS MASSIVE AND CROSSED BY INTERTWINING highways that lead you to endless tiny copies of the town you just drove through. Still, every dot on its map has a quirky claim to fame. Duncanville, Texas, once housed four nuclear warheads designed to protect Fort Worth and Dallas from the Russians. Hutchins, Texas, has the state’s largest men’s penitentiary. Terrell, Texas, is the birthplace of Jamie Foxx. Lindale, Texas, is the blackberry capital of the world. Chandler, Texas, boasts the state’s biggest horseshoe-throwing competition. Corsicana, Texas, has an annual cotton-harvest festival. Canton, Texas, is the former home of notorious bank robbers Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow. I speed past each one, wondering at the lives of the people who call them home. I wonder if they’re bored. I envy them. When this is all said and done, I’m going to move to one of these little towns and bask in the boredom.
Bex and Arcade have no interest in the scenery. They nap while the road ticks off the miles. To keep me company, I flip on the radio but keep it low so I don’t wake up the happy twins. I’ve never seen anything as ancient as the Ford’s stereo. It’s a collection of clunky buttons with two knobs and a little window. I push one of the buttons, and a red line slides across the glass and lands on the number 1430. Static turns into polka music—lively horns and accordions. I push another button and land on a station playing a marathon of someone named Conway Twitty. I listen to a few songs. He’s not bad—kind of a country-pop thing—but then he sings that he wants a lover with a slow hand, which completely grosses me out. I push the next button, and the music is replaced by a fiery tirade.
“So, America, more news from the frontlines, and the casualty list continues to grow. The Alphas continue their onslaught.”
“Not the Alphas, dummy. The Rusalka,” I grumble at him.
“As reported, the city of Norfolk, Virginia, the site of the world’s largest military base, is lost. After several tidal waves and relentless flooding, the president has declared the base and surrounding neighborhoods a disaster area. FEMA and the Red Cross are on the scene, but there doesn’t appear to be anything to do. Folks, there’s no way to sugarcoat this. Norfolk was a terrible blow not only to our country but to our military. We just lost trillions of dollars in weapons, ships, tanks, and supplies, and it’s the first American city to fall in this war.
“More coastal towns have been attacked, and as I have predicted many times on this program, the war between them and us is moving to small-town America. According to reports, the creatures came ashore in Jamestown, Rhode Island; Portsmouth, Virginia; and Rowayton, Connecticut, to wreak havoc.
“We lost a lot of good people yesterday. A hundred of these monsters marched into Panama City, killing one thousand. Yes, you heard that right, one thousand servicemen and -women. There are reports that some of the bodies were stacked in mounds that spelled out the word surrender. Disgusting. Unfortunately, yesterday’s losses bring this week’s death toll to a whopping three thousand one hundred and eighty-eight people, more than twenty-five hundred of them military personnel. Like we do every day, we ask listeners to join us in a moment of silence to honor these fallen American heroes.”
There’s a long, quiet void where only the radio’s hiss and the sound of tires on the road can be heard. The number of dead flops around like a fish in the bottom of a boat. Three thousand one hundred and eighty-eight people were killed in one week.
I flip off the radio. I can’t think about those people. They’re on their own.
I spot a sign for a rest stop, and since I haven’t seen a cop in hours, I decide to pull off and take a break. The sun is setting out on the horizon, the end of a long, hot day, and the reward is a canvas of reds and purples and oranges.
Bex wakes and gives me a sleepy and confused look.
“I need a break,” I whisper, leaning over her to get my phone.
“We all do,” she grunts, and immediately drops back off to sleep.
I step out into the cool night and zip up my hoodie. I stretch, then walk over to the bathroom, where I wash my face and hands. I long to brush my teeth, but I’d have to wake the others up again to get into the pack. Instead, I wander over to a picnic table and lie down on my back. I take out my phone. I’ve got a decent signal, so I type the words CHIHUAHUAN DESERT into the browser, and a map appears. The area is huge, and it spreads into Mexico, New Mexico, and Arizona. It looks like a whole lot of nothing. There are county roads snaking through it and a handful of tiny towns. A big swath of it is a national park. I try to find the ideal place to put a camp. It would have to be in a remote spot, I assume, so that no one would find it. It’s not going to be on a major road or near one of the towns. The problem is the entire region is barren. It could take us days to search it all. I hope Doyle sends me another message with more details.
I flip through my pictures to remind me of why I’m going to Tempest in the first place. One is of my mother, Summer Walker, in her ever-present flips-flops and cutoff shorts. She’s on the beach doing yoga, strong in the warrior pose with the Atlantic Ocean behind her. She’s so beautiful and strong, her black hair fluttering in the breeze. I hope they haven’t hurt her. She is a Sirena, and I’ve heard what they do to Alphas at Tempest.