Read The Earth Dwellers Online
Authors: David Estes
I should be taking SATs and applying for college, but I’m not. I’m fighting witches. Day in and day out. Master says it’s what I’m born to do, but I’m not sure I buy that, just like I never believed my coach when he said I was born to play football.
The blood is seeping through the bandage on my hand, so I wrap another one around my palm, tighter this time, still pondering my options.
My secret hideout is no longer secret. I’ve been living in the mountains of West Virginia for near on six months now, doing my best to establish some sort of routine in a world that is all chaos and havoc. I push my thick glasses higher on my nose.
There’s a bark and the scrape of claws on wood, and Hex charges in, stopping only to sniff around the base of the broken door, which is leaning against the wall. My German shepherd looks up, cocking his head as if to ask, “Is there a reason you’ve removed the door?”
“A witch decided to invite herself in,” I explain.
Hex trots over, sniffs at my wounded hand, whines. “Fat lot of help you were,” I say. “Where were you, chasing squirrels again?”
Instead of answering, he licks my face. “All right, you’re forgiven,” I say. “But only this one time.” As if. Blythe used to say my soft spot for animals was the size of my entire body.
I bite back a roiling swell of sorrow.
Don’t think about the past, for it will destroy you.
Master’s words, as poignant and sharp as if he were here, tumble through my head like they always do.
Think, think, think.
The fires set by the witch’s lightning bolts were anything but normal, burning themselves out on their own, rather than spreading across the wood lodge like they should have, leaving black scorch marks on the couch and drapes. She escaped, but not before I could wound her, and the potion baked into the throwing star could very well kill her. But these things aren’t predictable, and if she survives…
Surely she’ll return, and next time it won’t be just her.
Most witches, warls and wizzes run in gangs these days, preferring to stick with their own kind for both protection and companionship. They tend to join gangs based on magical specialty. There are the Brewers and the Conjurers and the Necromancers and dozens more, new gangs popping up like weeds after a week of rain. And, of course, the Electros, those witches who can summon and control electricity. The way the red-haired witch threw lightning bolts around the lodge, it’s a good guess she’s one of them.
But if she happens to die from the throwing star…
Could I be safe here again? Could I replace the door and go back to living the way I have been? The thought of going back on the run makes my abs clench in frustration. A year spent living in random motel rooms, abandoned homes and cars has left me yearning for stability. And this lodge has given me that.
Never get complacent.
“To become complacent is to die,” I murmur, a whistle through my teeth. Sometimes I wish my memory wasn’t so good. Maybe then I could forget a few of my Master’s lessons.
I shake my head because I’m being as idiotic as some of my old teammates, all muscle and no brains. It’s my Master’s lessons that have kept me alive all this time.
For a moment I wonder when violence became so easy. Even in football I hated the violence, and yet now, I fight to kill whenever necessary. Whenever I’m threatened.
Easy. Too easy. What have I become?
Hex barks and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what he’s saying. “I know, buddy, it’s time to move on,” I say.
Why did I even stay in the mountains for so long? Because the trail was cold? No. Because I was scared? Yeah, I’m scared and lonely sometimes, but that’s not it. Because I don’t want to know the truth about Xavier and Blythe? The answer cracks my head wide open with the slam of three letters: Y-E-S.
My dog jumps up, wags his tail, and makes his way to the open doorway, stopping only to look back and wait for me.
“You know, you could help pack,” I say.
He barks again, and I’m pretty sure he’s trying to convince me that there’s no time for packing. Again, he’s right.
If the red witch survived, it won’t take her long to return with reinforcements, and then the world will lose yet another witch hunter.
I sling my backpack over my shoulder, content with having a few bottles of water and bags of beef jerky to tide us over until we can scrounge up some more food. At least we’ve never had an issue finding food, which there is a healthy abundance of. Everything happened so fast and so many people died that there wasn’t even time for looting. All it takes is a stealthy jaunt into Walmart to grab a backpack load of nonperishables and you’re good to go.
“Not that way,” I tell Hex, and he follows me out the back door, down the porch steps and past the unused fire ring that once was likely the site of many a tall tale of the thirteen-point buck that got away.
Using my hands like flippers, I push between two bushes on the edge of the wood, letting their branches and leaves spring back behind me, hiding any evidence of where we entered the forest.
Birds sing overhead. If there is a gang of Electros nearby, they aren’t close yet.
Listen to the birds, they’ll tell you the story of your enemies.
“I know, I know,” I mutter.
Hex leads the way through the thick undergrowth, along a path that only we know. It was once a game trail, but has now become overgrown and choked with weeds and roots.
Red and yellow and purple flowers float by on either side, and I sneeze. My allergies are coming back as the pollen count goes up, spring hurdling toward summer. It’s funny how in the middle of a witch apocalypse the world barely even seems to notice, just keeps going about its business, growing things and rotating on its axis and circling the sun, moving through the seasons. Does the earth even notice our struggles? Or are we nothing more than squatters on its blue/green/brown flanks?
We pass a massive tree that I usually sit under to read one of the many books I’ve accumulated since moving into the lodge. All left behind. The only book I brought—which only leaves my pack when I’m using it—is my journal, which I’ve been keeping since I was twelve. Between its nondescript brown covers are my thoughts and dreams and fears and anger, in the form of poetry, short stories, and journal entries. Sometimes I think writing is the only thing that keeps me sane.
As we cross a small creek that’s been our main source of water, Hex stops to drink. I watch him for a minute, his pink tongue lapping greedily at the moving water, marveling at how adaptable this dog has been. When I found him, he was malnourished, badly abused, and cowering in the shadow of a large black pot; a cauldron. His eyes were bloodshot and he flinched when I reached out to pet him. The spell casting witch he used to belong to—who met with a rather miraculous demise that included using mirrors to turn her own spells against her—had subjected Hex to all kinds of nasty tests involving her spells and potions. It seems she’d been playing the middle between the Brewers and the Casters, unwilling to commit herself to a single gang. Anyway, Hex still has some lingering effects from the experiments, which tend to exhibit themselves at the strangest of times, like when he once started floating upon seeing a lone pink balloon riding a gust of wind across the sky. I had to call his name a dozen times before he looked down and slowly sank back to the ground.
As we start walking again, I wonder whether the red witch discovering my hideaway was a blessing in disguise. After all, my mission isn’t going to complete itself, and although the months spent in the woods, only going out at night to hunt witches, has been mildly enjoyable, Xavier is still out there somewhere. Or at least I hope he is.
The Necros may have killed my adopted family and maybe Blythe, too, but I have to believe they kept Xavier alive. Someone I know has to be alive.
Don’t they?
Brew
by David Estes, coming January 16, 2014!
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