Resurgence Read Online Free PDF Page A

can from the floor as Evan, Samuel and Felix head to the lean-to outside where their things are kept.
    ‘What are we going to do?’ Opie asks as we watch the bedlam unfold around us.
    The ground shakes again – the explosions are getting closer. I hurry across to Hart, who is sitting on the bed staring at the floor, Pietra hugging his arm. ‘We’ve got to get
ourselves safe first,’ I say.
    ‘My parents are too old to escape.’
    I don’t have the heart to tell him that there was no warning of an attack anyway. Assuming it is Martindale that has been bombed, and given the ferocity of the quakes beneath our feet, it
is unlikely many have survived.
    I look at Pietra, telling her silently that she has to get Hart moving. She starts rubbing his back and whispers something in his ear.
    In the centre of the space, Imp is sitting by himself hugging the soft tortoise. I hiss at Opie, telling him to make sure we are ready to move, and then join Imp on the floor.
    ‘What’s happening?’ he asks, young eyes full of fear and lacking their usual mischievous sense of adventure.
    I take the toy from him, brushing away a few specks of sand and squeezing it before handing it back. ‘Do you remember what I told you when I gave you this?’
    Imp screws up his eyes and sucks on his bottom lip. ‘You told me about its shell.’
    ‘What did I say?’
    ‘That if anyone came or there were loud bangs, I had to take Colt and Eli and hide, like the tortoise hides in his shell.’
    I ruffle his hair. ‘Good lad. You hear the bangs outside, don’t you?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘When I say it’s time, you have to be a big boy. Take Colt and Eli and find somewhere safe. Don’t climb anywhere high and make sure you have something solid covering you. Can
you do that for me?’
    Imp looks at the tortoise, then at me. ‘Where will you be?’
    ‘I don’t know yet, buddy. You’ve got to look after the others and we’ll see.’
    He nods in reluctant acceptance just as Opie puts my rucksack down next to me. It is a lot lighter now. Before I can ask, he says: ‘I swapped a few of your things into my bag.’
    Usually I would protest but the ground shakes again, sending a spray of sand outside. Above us the rumble of the plane grows closer as the metal of the cars surrounding us creaks ominously.
    ‘Now,’ I shout, dashing towards the exit. The plane is circling ahead, halfway between our location in the gully and Martindale.
    Iris leads the way as everyone follows her out of the shelter. She rushes towards the gap between the cars with me at the back, heading away from the towers of broken appliances, towards the
hull of a rusting lorry. The once-red cabin is now scratched, the faded silver of the metal now the primary colour of the aged vehicle.
    She turns to order the children inside the cabin of the lorry but Imp is already sliding underneath the vehicle itself onto the solid ground, using a free hand to tug Colt with him. ‘This
is a safe shell, Mummy,’ he calls, before shouting for Eli to join them. She looks to me, asking if I know what he is talking about, but there is no time to explain about the tortoise. I tell
her he is safer underneath.
    Yet another bomb rocks the ground nearby. If anything hits us, the old lorry will offer no protection anyway – but it is solid enough to stop any falling objects from harming us.
    Felix joins his two younger brothers and Colt under the vehicle but the lack of tyres on the brown, rusting wheel hubs makes it too low for anyone except perhaps me to slide under with them. The
rest of us heave ourselves into the cabin, lying in the footwell with the crumpled metal roof offering as much cover as we are going to get.
    Arms and legs are piled uncomfortably on top of each other but there is little chance to settle as something loud and metallic-sounding crashes to the ground nearby, followed by a slow rumble
that grows into a cascading explosion as hundreds of electrical appliances fall. Iris jumps