The Hunt: The Oakmont Saga, Book 2

Our group of escaped telepaths made its snaking way to the highway, the younger kids being helped by the older. Richard, having a much more thorough education in strategy and covert operations, had placed certain telepaths, all of them older, in various locations around the group. They were the lookouts, with both eyes and minds.

What worried all of us, especially the older ones, was that there had been no sign of pursuit, nothing. It didn’t make any sense. Individually, they wouldn’t have let a single one of us go free, but as a group, we were worth our weight in gold to them. Yet, we were free and there was no sign of them trying to recapture us.

“How far to the highway,” Richard asked me.

“I don’t know. It took Aliyah and me a little over two days, I think, when we escaped the first time. But there was a lot of snow, and we were smaller,” I replied, getting a sideways look from him.

“I’m not that small,” I said, to his facial humor. Since we’d left, and I’d recovered from leaving James, my mood had become a lot better. I was actually feeling the few smiles I’d given, which also came out in an occasional bit of teasing, like that. They seemed to be testing the limits with me, having sensed the change in my mood.

“Uh, yeah, you are,” Chelsea said for him.

“You’re supposed to be on my side,” I replied.

“I’m not on anyone’s side. I just tell it like it is,” she remarked.

“They found the highway,” Richard said, rather conveniently. He broadcast to everyone, via telepathy, Stop and kneel down. We are going to take a look, before moving forward. He and Chelsea had become very good at telepathic speaking, since I’d exposed them to it, so I wasn’t the one that had to initiate it any longer.

A few minutes later, he sent out the, all’s clear. Let’s keep moving, announcement.

“Melanie, are you sure that the couple is still there?” he asked. We’d decided to head to the Gardner’s house, once we got to Whitefish. They were our best bet to get help.

“I have no idea. Their cover was blown, thanks to me, so they may have left.”

“Well, I guess we’ll find out,” he replied, and I only nodded in reply to that.

It was late in the afternoon, by the time I saw the two trees and the light poles, marking the driveway to the Gardner’s house. Our small army walked up the driveway, with me moving to the front of the group, Richard and Chelsea coming up beside me, along with my nurse. I’d learned her name was Maggie, and she was eight years old. She had a knack with helping people, which is why they assigned her to me.

Just as we were about to get to the house, Ma and Pa Gardner walked out onto the porch. They had a look of immense curiosity, until they saw me. Their faces actually lit up, smiles forming from ear to ear, as Ma ran to me, wrapping me in a strangling hug.

“Ma!” I yelled. Tears poured from my eyes, all the horrors I’d seen coming back to me in a rush. It took a few minutes, but I regained control and looked up at her.

“I’m so happy to see you, I think,” she said, looking at me with a happy, but worried expression.

“I was captured, but we escaped, again,” I told her.

“It looks like you brought a lot of friends this time,” Pa remarked.

“The building had a partial collapse, and we managed to get away in the confusion,” Richard told him.

“I’m Pa Gardner. This is Ma,” Pa said, extending his hand to Richard, who shook it firmly and vigorously.

“I was worried about you, after we left. No one ever told me what happened to you,” I told them.

“This is our home. We’re not going anywhere, and we’re too old and ornery to be killed,” Ma replied, with a warm smile.

“Ma, I have no idea where we’re going to put so many kids,” Pa said, surveying our rather large group. “I think we need to call this one in,” he then said.

“Can we call my Dad?” I asked.

“Absolutely, honey,” Ma said, putting her arm around me and leading me inside. As I was being led in, I looked back at Richard and Chelsea, who gave me a small smile of encouragement.

Once she’d dialed the number, and was transferred through their system to Dad’s phone, I heard it ring. “This is Brager,” came the acknowledgement.

“Dad, we need help,” I said, tears forming in my eyes, at hearing his voice.

“Sweetheart, are you alright?” he asked.

“I’m okay Dad, but we need help. We’re at the Gardner’s and we need a way to get out of here,” I told him.

“I’ll have someone come get you,” he said.

“There’s a lot of us,” I said, cringing slightly at the under exaggeration.

“How many are we talking about?” he asked, getting my unspoken implication.

“I think there’s a little over 90 of us,” I answered. There was a long pause, and I knew it was from the shock I’d just given him.

“That’s a lot,” he finally said, clearly still a little surprised, but beginning to get his mind working again. “We’ll have transportation sent as fast as I can get someone there,” he promised me.

“Melanie, can I speak with your father?” Pa asked.

“Why don’t you put it on speaker phone?” Ma urged me. Following her suggestion, I pushed the button, and set the handset on the table.

“Mr. Brager, if you can secure one of those really big school buses, I can drive it. It’ll still be tight, but it’ll work, I think,” Pa suggested.

“Are the school buses there contracted or system owned?” Dad asked.

“Contracted,” Pa replied.

“You go to the bus farm and it’ll be waiting,” Dad instructed him.

“Yes, sir,” Pa replied, standing a little straighter.

“Are you alright with driving them to Seattle?” Dad then asked.

“Absolutely,” Pa replied, and I actually envisioned him saluting, as he answered, even though he didn’t. He seemed very proud to be able to help, though.

“Do you have an agency credit card?” Dad then asked.

“No sir, but I’m not worried about it. We’ll take care of everything,” Pa said.

“We’ll settle the bill, once this is all over,” Dad assured him.

“I’m heading off, then,” Pa said, and walked out.

“Dad, I hid the stuff in the house where I was captured. I don’t know the address, but it’s in Piedmont, South Dakota,” I told him.

“We already have it all. Good job, angel,” he said. I couldn’t stop the thoughts of Mom from coming, any longer.

“I love you, Dad,” I whispered, tears beginning to roll down my cheeks, knowing I’d never see Mom again. Unable to stop myself, I began sobbing and ran into the room Aliyah and I had shared so long ago.

“What’s the matter, honey?” I heard, as I felt Ma’s arm wrap around me. I sank into her, unlike the last time I’d been there. Although I was still pretty messed up, I’d actually come a long way.

“My Momma’s dead, and it hurts too much,” I told her, and I felt her stiffen ever so slightly.

“I’m so sorry, sweetheart. When did it happen?” she asked.

“While I was at Oakmont,” I replied.

“And you found out when you got back home?” she asked, assuming it was the first time.

“No, I have visions sometimes, of things that are really happening, and I saw her die on the operating table. I think it happened a week ago, maybe a little longer, but I’m not sure,” I said, my crying intensifying as I finished. This time, she didn’t ask any more questions. She only held me tighter, letting me cry myself out on her shoulder.

“Why?” I asked, when I finally lifted my head, wiping my eyes as I did.

“I don’t know, sweetie. There’s no good reason,” she replied, taking my hand in both of hers and holding it.

“Someday, I’m going to make them pay,” I said, my sadness changing to an intense anger, in the blink of an eye. I sometimes wondered if I might be bipolar, the way my moods sometimes changed. I had to admit though, I didn’t really understand what bipolar was, or how it worked.

“They’re coming,” Richard said excitedly, as he burst into the house.

“Who, honey?” Ma asked.

“A lot of telepaths, and I think there’s a lot of soldiers with them,” he said. All of my emotions forgotten, I stood up and walked to the door, Richard falling in behind me.

“Do we have time to hide?” I asked.

“I doubt we can hide. They have telepaths that can sense us, just like we can sense them,” he explained. Of course, he was right and I should’ve thought of that.

“Do you know how to link?” I asked, to which he nodded.

“Chelsea has been showing me,” he replied.

“Good. Can you get all of us linked together?” I asked him, turning to look into his eyes. He almost looked down, trying to avoid the eye contact, but his confidence surged and he joined my eyes, nodding that he could.

“They won’t expect that,” I said, a smile forming on my face, as well as a maniacal laugh, deep in my throat. I could tell Richard was doing what I’d said, but there was a look of worry on his face. The thing was, I didn’t really care what people thought about me.

Not really thinking about it, I sent a probe to Richard, allowing him to control it. He surprised me, though, when he very deliberately put the control in my ‘hands’. I looked at him, curiously, and he said, “Believe it or not, you’re probably the best trained of all of us.”

That did surprise me, as a matter of fact. My training was almost nonexistent, other than the past few weeks with Mr. Miller, and I’d almost not used my abilities at all for almost two years before that. We were in a very bad situation, if I was the best trained.

“Melanie, we’ve all had more training, but most of us haven’t used our abilities in a real situation and none of us has ever used it for combat. You have, and that makes you the best to lead this,” he said, elaborating on his statement, and answering my unasked questions.

“Okay,” I replied, not feeling very confident, even though he was right.

“Think of this, though. They haven’t either,” he said, feeling and seeing the doubt in me.

“He’s right, Melanie,” Chelsea said, backing him up.

“We’re all with you,” Maggie added, smiling up at me. I pulled her into a brief hug, letting her confidence boost me, letting all of their confidence boost me. I definitely needed that.

I stood up, giving Ma a small additional hug, then walked outside with my small entourage. I had no idea what she thought of us, but right then, I felt like I ruled the world.

As the links were established, a measure of telepathic power unimagined flooded into me. This was different than the pool of energy, which I was scared of. Telepathic energy didn’t have that feeling of raw goodness along with it. It just was.

I was further shocked, when I realized that Chelsea and Richard were also giving me their telekinetic energy. That was the energy that frightened me so much, and they were feeding more of it to me. The amount of energy at my disposal was immense.

As that thought came to me, I could sense every single person moving toward us, along with every person within a very large area. The people from Oakmont were actually walking like a military group, in formation. In addition to them, I even sensed the people in the town of Whitefish, able to separate out each and every one. I suspected that I could have sensed animals, as well, if I’d wanted to.

As that recognition came to me, another one also came. It was weird, but seemed like I was looking over my own shoulder. I was disconnected from myself, somehow. I was still making the decisions, but I was apart, too. I knew I could do what had to be done, and I embraced that.

Not willing to wait for them to attack, I sent a barrage of telepathic probes to the ones that were clearly the weakest of their group. I wanted to reduce the energy they had at their disposal, in case they linked like we had. With those probes, which went through their shields as if they weren’t there, I sent a very small charge of energy, hoping to only knock them out. Of course, I didn’t care too much. They were a threat, and I had to remove the threat. In all, I knocked out 30 in that first assault.

That paused the entire army, such as it was, as 30 of their number dropped without warning. There were another 70 telepaths, along with 100 soldiers, or security guards. I wasn’t exactly sure what they were, other than the guards for the school. I suspected that they all had military training, but I wasn’t certain, and didn’t have the time to analyze them.

The next part of this was going to be more dangerous. These telepaths were much stronger, and likely better trained. I randomly chose one and attacked. The number of probes I assaulted her with was incredible, and overwhelmed her before she even knew she needed to defend. I didn’t even need to find holes in her shields, as they collapsed under the onslaught. Repeating my earlier method, I sent a small surge of energy, and she was out.

I went one by one, as I took the telepaths out, but I knew this wasn’t going to work. There were too many of them and this was taking too much time. Then it occurred to me. I’d made some kind of shield back in Mississippi that hid us. Searching my memory, I looked for how I did it.

Hoping it’d work, I envisioned a sphere of energy around us, hiding our thoughts, and our presence. The hope was that it’d make them look somewhere else for us. I didn’t want to be seen.

At first, there didn’t seem to be any obvious evidence that I’d succeeded, but then I noticed that the telepaths seemed confused. They had stopped and were grouping together. The soldiers, however, were continuing forward. They knew where they were going, and since they couldn’t see us anyway, my sphere of energy didn’t seem to affect them.

I thought about simply attacking them, but there was still some small amount of compassion left in me, in spite of the disconnected state I was in. So, I sent a probe to every one of the soldiers, If you come to us, I will destroy all of you. Turn back now, if you want to live.

I was very disappointed when my warning didn’t work. Not a single soldier turned around. They were going to attack us, and there was a good chance, they’d try and kill us. There were too many of us for them to try and use tranquilizers, and I knew I was expendable. My compassion evaporated, like a wisp of steam.

“Richard, maintain a force field around all of us,” I told him, all emotion in me extinguished.

“Okay,” he replied. Thankfully, all of us were close together, making the link easier to establish. In this case, it also reduced the area that Richard needed to put a force field around.

I was taken by complete surprise when there was an explosion behind us. Richard had put up the shield just in time. A helicopter had come up behind us, and fired some kind of rockets, two of them hitting the force field. I’d been too distracted with the large group ahead, and with trying to protect us.

In a moment of inspiration, or maybe desperation, I sent a pulse of energy out, hoping it’d act like radar. Sure enough, I felt three more helicopters coming up behind the first.

Although I had the telekinetic energy from Richard and Chelsea, I knew Richard needed his energy to maintain the force field, likely more. Those explosions had hurt him.

Chelsea feed Richard your telekinetic energy and Richard stop feeding it to me. Keep the force field up with it, I said, receiving a mental nod in response.

Chelsea, find someone that is really good at sensing people and have them be the lookout. I got distracted too easily. Someone else needs to do that, and get them some energy feeds as well, I told her, again receiving a mental nod of agreement.

As soon as my wishes were sent, I turned my attention to the closest helicopter, and began pulling energy from that vast pool. I didn’t hold it, like I typically did, instead letting it flow right through me and to my target. With that energy, I used my mind to hold the rear rotor, and then pushed the helicopter to face the other direction. The pilot began fighting the controls, but I was stronger.

I’m about to destroy your helicopter. I think you need to get out. I’ll let you put it down, but be quick, I announced to him. As soon as my words entered his mind, the helicopter rapidly descended, almost too fast.

Five men ran as soon as it touched down, the pilot following only a moment later. Once they were clear, I sent a small amount of energy into the fuel tank and was rewarded with an explosion. It wasn’t massive, like in the movies, but the helicopter wasn’t going anywhere else anytime soon.

With that small success, I sent a probe to the other three helicopters, Leave or I’ll destroy your helicopters, like I did the first one. I won’t give you another warning.

Two of them stopped, not doing anything, but the third fired two rockets. As much as I didn’t want to, I repeated my sabotage of the first, but with that one still in the air. Unlike the first one, this one had a much more impressive explosion, and fell to the ground in a mass of metal and flame. I didn’t feel anything.

I turned back in the direction the soldiers were coming from, remembering the people from the first helicopter. They were trying to sneak toward us, and a voice had been trying to warn me, but I’d been ignoring it.

Like they were an annoying fly, I sent a small surge of telepathic energy into their mind, and all six of them collapsed in a heap. That allowed me to return all of my focus to the main group, who were within eyesight by that time, including the remaining telepaths, of which there were still 64. I’d only taken out 6 in my attempt to stop them, in addition to the 30 weaker ones.

Chelsea had done something that had impressed me when she did it, but I wasn’t sure if I could or not. Ready to try anything, I used my mind to attempt to create a cone of flame. What I got was more of a very narrow jet. It began and ended out in the open field where the soldiers and telepaths were. Not having time to consider other options, I started slicing through the soldiers with it, not noticing what I was doing. I did notice that they were falling, which was my goal. Several telepaths were also caught up in the pandemonium that erupted as the thin bar of flame began cutting through their ranks. The entire ‘army’ broke and began running away.

Once the last of them were out of sight, I released my hold on the pool of energy flowing into me, along with the link. As I surveyed the battlefield, such as it was, I saw the carnage I’d created. There were burned and maimed bodies all over the place, some of them still moving.

I was surprised when at least some of the boys didn’t yell excitedly at having won the battle, but rather, they were all very somber. They seemed to reflect my mood.

“Is it over?” someone asked.

“Yeah, it’s over,” Richard replied.

My legs were unable to hold me up any longer, as the full scope of it hit me. I began heaving, emptying everything that was in my stomach, and more, as a barrage of disgust, horror and guilt assaulted me. Once that initial moment of vomiting finally passed, my head exploded in pain, and I felt pains throughout my body that I hadn’t known were there, including a lot of burning. I was a ball on the ground, feeling it all. At least I was writhing on the ground.

“What’s wrong?” I heard Richard ask someone.

“I have no idea. We can’t get into her mind, and there’s nothing obviously wrong with her body, other than the known injuries,” I heard Chelsea reply.

“Richard, have you seen what she did?” a voice I didn’t know asked.

“Huh?” Richard replied.

“We need ambulances for the dead and wounded people. A lot of them,” the voice said.

“What are you talking about?” Richard asked.

“There are a lot of injured people out there, but there’s more dead people, and it’s really disgusting,” the voice said.

More killing. More dead people. All at my hands. I truly was a monster!

At least, it was me and not any of these kids that did it. They wouldn’t have to carry this guilt, this shame...this knowledge that they were a murderer, a beast that needed to be caged. I could save them from it, maybe give them the possibility of a somewhat normal life.

Then it occurred to me, the pain I was feeling might be connected to the injuries I’d inflicted on them. I wasn’t certain of that, but it kind of made sense. This might be the price I paid for my evil. There was always a price.

Although, it was sort of a far fetched idea, it made sense to me. I’d long ago learned to believe in the possibility of far fetched ideas, considering the things I was capable of.

It took a while, but I managed to get my mind under some amount of control, although the pain wracking my body wasn’t stopping. Pushing it down, I stood up. There were a lot of kids standing around looking at me. They all had the same look on their faces. It was a combination of awe and horror. There was true fear in their eyes, as they looked at me.

“It’s time to go,” I said.

“Pa’s not back with the bus, yet,” Ma Gardner said. I hadn’t even realized she was nearby, but it made sense.

“We’ve got to get away from here. They’re going to come back, but with a lot more. They know what I can do now, and they won’t underestimate me again,” I explained. “And I’m evil,” I said, barely above a whisper.

Without another word, I began walking down the drive, very pointedly not looking at what I’d done. I’d already seen enough. The wind kicked up as I began walking, streaming my hair out behind me.

The flames from my attack on the soldiers, and also from the destroyed helicopter, were beginning to catch in the grass. Without really thinking about it, I lifted my hand, made a gesture as if closing it, and robbed the energy from the flames. They all went out in an instant.

It was all about the energy, and energy didn’t just disappear, until it had run its course. Of course, as I had already established, there was always a penalty for power. I felt a wave of intense heat surge through me as I did that, the energy transferring into me. It wasn’t like a hot wind, but more like I’d had a flame thrower turned on inside me. I almost collapsed again, and did stumble, but I forced the pain down and kept walking.

I didn’t even look to see if anyone was following me, because I knew they were. Although they were frightened of me, I was their best protection, their best chance of escape. I was also a huge target, which increased their danger, but they had to accept that.

Just as we got to the end of the driveway, a regular sized school bus pulled up. Although I was no expert at school buses, I knew it wasn’t big enough for all of us. He stopped the bus, before pulling into the drive as he couldn’t without running over dead and wounded soldiers and telepaths. He jumped out, concern all over his face.

“What happened?” he asked.

“They attacked and I killed them,” I simply said, then turned my eyes to the bus. “That’s not big enough.”

“They didn’t have any of those really big ones, so I figured Ma and I could both drive one of the regular ones,” he replied.

“Richard, can you drive?” I asked, without looking over my shoulder.

“Yeah,” he said.

“Do we have anyone else that can drive a bus?” I then asked.

“Yeah,” he repeated.

“Good. Get the kids in. We’ll have to sit in each other’s laps until we get to the bus place and get another, but we can make it work,” I told him.

“Melanie, let us take you,” Pa said, realizing that I’d just removed him from our group.

“We’re too dangerous. We need to be away from regular people,” I replied, and I could see him building up for an argument. I also knew he was going to use his status as an adult, and also in his role within whatever agency he worked for, to strong arm me.

“I’m not trying to be disrespectful, but this is not up for debate,” I said, and stood aside as kids began filing into the bus.

I could see when he realized I wasn’t going to bend and he couldn’t force me. However, what he did do was a surprise to me.

“At least let me drive you to the bus farm, and show you the second bus,” he said. There was no good way for me to resist that, so I nodded.

The ride to the bus farm, although not very far, was one of the most uncomfortable bus rides I’d ever had. There were as many as four kids in many seats. Since I was so small, I was in a seat with four.

That only happened because I insisted. They’d tried to give me a bench to myself. The only reason I didn’t was because I refused to get on the bus unless I sat with others, and then I had to argue about the numbers, knowing I was smaller. With every bump along the way, I regretted my decision to sit like I did.