Thunder: The Shadows Are Stirring (Thunder Stories Book 1) (3 page)

He returns with Sam and our medical kit, one of those things gifted to us this past winter. It has strange bandages and goopy concoctions I’d never seen before. Jamie, always interested in medicine, has read all the medical information he can find in our books. Because of this, even though he’s the youngest, he’s our go-to guy for any injury. As our EMB, or Emergency Medical Brother, he has learned to recognize natural remedies and take care of wounds; he even has the right bedside manner. The kid is a wonder, a complete Mini-Me of Dad, and smarter than any kid should be.

Sam comes to my side and holds my other hand as Jamie sews two stitches into the base of my pointer finger. I have to try not to shake with laughter at all the goofy faces of horror that Sam performs for me during the process. After the application of a cool and fragrant ointment, I’m good to go. I need to help with dinner. The boys caught some fish, but I don’t do slimy food. Although I’m learning about hunting, I’m most comfortable with gathering. The first time I caught a rabbit I cried, wiped my eyes, and offered up thanks. But I couldn’t eat it.

When the sun burns hot in the sky, we investigate soaring cliffs, narrow valleys, and dark caves. We also explore quiet forests and wide-open expanses of lush meadows, perfect for stealthy smack-downs and marathon runs through the grasses. Running helps my soul breathe and I can feel Mom at my side. Working on my fear of heights, I like to climb to the highest points and look as far as I can into the distance. Whether on a cliff or up a tree, Jamie and Sam stay near me and I tell Thunder stories until my throat goes dry. On one such occasion, Sam spots a honey tree, straight from Winnie-the-Pooh.

“Hey, Jamie,” he says with a slow smile, “get a stick and try to poke it in right over there, in the hole; I’ll distract the bees, and you can grab the honeycomb.” I groan at Sam’s words, knowing this won’t end well.

I try to be the voice of reason. “Hang on, let’s look it up and do it right. I know I saw something about bees in one of our books.”

“Nah, it’ll be fine. Trust me.”

Uh-huh
. While he’s the most surefooted and balanced person I know (okay, yes, I know three people at present, counting myself), he has his mush-brain moments. I’m sure he’s the reason Jamie gets so much practice being a medic. The bees come at us like a small cloud of death. With arms flailing, we race to the nearest body of water and dive in. Sam, speckled with stings, decides he never liked honey anyway.

After drying ourselves in the golden sunshine, we find sweet berries to pick instead. Watching Jamie’s narrow body as he tugs the fruit from the branches, I’m hit by how much he has grown. He’s almost as tall as I am and has the same honey-colored hair I have. He keeps his short and spiky, which makes his deep blue eyes even more prominent in his thin face. Like Jamie himself, they are serious and steady. I slide over to him and bump his shoulder.

“You’re a great kid, you know. Mom and Dad would be very proud of you.” Something flickers across his face and his eyes go bright. I receive a bone-crushing hug, and we get back to business.

When the air grows cool, the trees burst with my favorite colors: reds, golds, and oranges. Every leaf becomes its own sunset, and I mourn for pumpkin pie and grinning jack-o-lanterns. Sam shows up with some rosy-cheeked apples and tells me to grab a carving knife; I throw my arms around him in gratitude and he scuffs his feet. Now taller than I am, I have to tip my head to look into his blue eyes. Sparking with humor, they seem to glow from behind his fringe of ash blond hair.

“What? It’s just apples. I wanted to get something bigger for you, but I couldn’t find the fields today.”

I kiss his cheek. “These are perfect.” We eat dinner surrounded by a family of cheerful looking, cored apple heads. Afterwards, we set them in the ashes and enjoy them roasted for dessert. I look up from the dying flames and into the red-glowing faces of my brothers and my gut clenches with a feeling so strong, my breath sticks in my throat. These two boys are my best friends. I would do anything for them. They are my family, my lifeline to sanity. My world.

Chapter One: Over the Edge

(OLIVIA)

L
AZILY DIPPING MY TOES
into our hot spring pool, I’m thinking it doesn’t smell too much like sulfur this morning, when I hear what sounds like an elephant crashing through the bushes some distance away from me. As I’m pretty sure we do not carry that brand of animal up here, I barely exert the energy to peel up my eyelids and peer around. The sun is feeling so good, and the bees are droning and the birds are singing their chirpy tunes …. Wait. That actually sounds more like my brothers.

“Oh man oh man oh man oh man!!!!”

“Frack, frack, frack! Keep running. Go gogogogo GO!!!!!!”

Definitely my brothers. The tone catches my attention, and I jump up, whipping my head around.

“Shoist!” I yelp. “Criminy, what did you do?!” Because there happens to be quite a bit of blood soaking through a rip in Sam’s shirt, but he’s running like he doesn’t know this and Jamie’s trying to disentangle himself from his own bow and neither of them is slowing down. At all. And they’re not the ones who sound like an elephant. Right. Not a time for questions.

Without gawking back at the crazed beast which is undoubtedly a gigantor mountain lion (usually smallish, they go for your head), a bear (they simply swallow you whole), or an extremely huge rabid badger (you don’t even want to know what they can do), the three of us sprint as fast as we can into the forest, which is straight ahead of us. Frankly, it could have been molten lava in front of us, and we were not going to turn away from it. Teeth and claws and foaming jowls already had dibs on our fear.

“Faster! Faster! Gogogogogo!”

There are no words beyond this last call of our bravery. Our bare feet, already hardened from use, pound the uneven ground and slap against sticks and rocks like those details don’t even exist. I’d say the smell of fear begins to permeate the air, but I am afraid it is not
fear
I smell. There’s something cloyingly putrid and foul about this stench, and I’ve got to assume it’s wafting from the animal behind us. I hear it crashing through the bushes and low branches, and I’m relieved I can still see my brothers peripherally. They’re about a half step behind me.

A tingle jolts the base of my neck and needles seem to dart down my spine. Something’s about to happen, and whatever it is, it’s going to be bad. Very. Bad. A charge zings the air, like electricity, and my racing body grows silent within itself. No breath, no pulse, no sound. My insides drop into a rhythmic flow. My legs and arms move in a tempo so fast the trees around me blur to a black smudge. I am so quick, I seem to split the world as I run. Nothing can block my way. Nothing can slow me down, and I hope to God my brothers are with me because there is no way I can stop.

And then the wall of mist hits.

The cold, wet particles jab into my lungs and I gasp, my skin feeling every sensation as the opaque vapor shrouds my body. Without pause, I push deeper. The sharp crack of a snapping branch echoes around me, and I break through the barrier. Three strides past the wall, I realize my feet are on nothing. I have just leapt from a cliff and I’m falling faster than I ever could run.

~~~

T
WO VOICES ADD TO MY OWN SCREAMS
, and my heart jumps.
My brothers are with me.
Then my brain kicks into gear and beats me over the head.
Idiot! Now all three of us are going to die.
However, since we obviously would have been eaten if we’d stayed on land, this could be better. Somehow.

Falling spread-eagle, like I’ve forgotten to open my parachute, the wind is so strong in my ears I can’t even hear my own shrieks any more. Or maybe I’ve been yelling for so long my vocal cords have given out. Or maybe my lungs have burst for real this time and I’m already dead.

Now that I think about it, if this is death, the passing seems to have slowed our descent because I don’t feel downward movement anymore. If I could unlock my eyelids, it might help.

I take a little peek.

My eyeballs don’t explode, so I figure it’s safe enough to fully open them. And all I can say is, if this is our afterlife, it sucks. And we must not have been very good people because this is so not my idea of heaven. There’s only one way to describe it: an empty, barren void filled with zilch. We’re free-floating, surrounded by this dull gray color—like fog, but not—and there’s nothing to indicate which direction is which. My stomach squirms and I have to swallow a mouthful of saliva.

Shaking, I reach for my brothers’ hands and they are not macho enough to resist. I even reel them in for an impromptu group hug, which reminds me Sam is still oozing blood. Which is not good.

Or maybe it is. If we’re dead, we wouldn’t bleed, right?

Jamie’s face is tinged a pale shade of green, and I’m guessing, after crashing through all those bushes and jumping off a cliff, I can’t be looking good myself.

“Guys, what’s that?” Sam interrupts our moment and points down at a dark shape which is rapidly gaining on us. My breath hitches. No more wild badgers. Please.

I squint and almost laugh in shock. “Um, I’m pretty positive it’s a horse.”

And without even time to question it, we’re situated on the broad, black back of this huge horse, which has enough room for the three of us. And I
know
this part. I hold on tight behind my brothers and make sure no one falls.

As we climb in altitude, the air becomes colder and the gray nothingness morphs into huge swirling snowflakes like we’ve backtracked to winter. We land at a ledge.

When the horse (who can be no one but Thunder, himself) dips his immense head, the three of us follow his line of vision and peer downwards. Below us winds a narrow mountain pass, barely visible through the falling snow. A lone car is creeping its way forward, and even at our distance, it’s obvious each time the tail end loses traction. I want to close my eyes, but this time they’re frozen open.

We watch in horrified silence as a massive monstrosity of an animal careens around the curve of the road, heading straight for the SUV, where it rams solidly into the back right corner. The vehicle jerks forward, gaining momentum as the tires lose their grip, and hydroplanes over the snow and black ice. The driver over-corrects and the world spins and comes to an end.

Time fast-forwards, and we get to witness the aftermath. Red and blue flashes glimmer dully through the soap bubble snowflakes, like wrongly colored Christmas lights. Emergency crews are blocking off both sides of the narrow road. A middle-aged officer backs away from the wreckage, shaking his head.

“Thank God, there were only two of them in there,” he says to a poncho-covered figure who’s holding onto a small note pad. “That woulda wiped out a whole family. Just not right, this close to the holidays.”

And just like that, the story of the three of us is rewritten.

Sam passes out, Jamie holds himself stoically still, and I scream silently into the night. The flanks below me quiver as Thunder whinnies, and beneath that equine sound I swear I recognize a keen of mourning.

We need to get moving. None of us are dressed for this and we need to tend to our wounds, especially Sam’s. He’s really scaring me right now.

As if Thunder has read my thoughts, he bounds off the ledge and races down the now empty road gaining speed until we lift into the air in a graceful, if stomach-dropping, swoop. As we climb, the air grows warmer until it turns into a spring evening.

Then it all goes black.

When I wake up, I’m lying in the top bunk in a room I recognize instantly as belonging to Gunther’s house. And I have no memory of how we got here.

I stay on my back and suck in a long, slow breath, ready to admit I can’t take this kind of “crazy” much longer; my life has become
way
too strange for me. The differences between reality and fantasy are merging, and I’m afraid my mind is cracking under the strain. I cringe when a sick feeling of hope flickers inside of me. Maybe I’d dreamt it all and we’re at Gunther’s for the Thanksgiving holiday? I hardly dare ask it.

Shifting my position, I lean my head over the footboard and do a quick check through the bay window across the room. Nope, it’s definitely springtime. That means I haven’t been imagining everything and time has passed. Garh! Can hope vomit on you? At least now we’re safe and no longer alone; Gunther has found us.

The room we’re in is one of his larger ones, with two sets of twin bunks. The flooring is made of wide wooden slats, with a thick, nature-hued rug running the length between the beds. Above a desk, at one end of the room, is a framed bulletin board. Pinned to this is a calendar, which, if accurate, lets me know it’s April and I’m almost fifteen. In my current state of mind, I don’t bat an eye at the news.

Lining the walls are shelves filled with books and some kitschy, cabin-related knick-knacks. The shelves lead to a bowed window with a bench seat, covered in pillows. The addition of a couple squishy ottomans creates a small library nook. I find the room soothing in its familiarity.