Adrian's Undead Diary (Book 5): Wrath by Chris Philbrook

swathes of color from clouds of gases floating a lifetime away. She could see more constellations in the night sky than she’d ever imagined existed, and that comforted her. There was so much majesty she’d never experience it all.
    She had her head tilted back, eyes fixated on the sky above, her long blonde hair brushing against her bottom when she realized Oudry had put his lone hand on her arm. It was telling that she simply looked to him, and didn’t pull away sharply. It had been a long time since she’d jerked from his touch, having come to grips with what he was, and what he represented. Michelle looked down at him, wondering what he wanted.
    The night air had a brisk chill to it, and her skin puckered against it. As she asked her friend what he wanted, she caught that familiar essence of flowers once more. “Oudry what is it? Something wrong?”
    They had more or less come to a stop in the middle of nowhere. She couldn’t see the airport ahead, or the original road behind. The flat, featureless terrain in every direction gave her no bearing. With the enormous blue-black speckled sky above, she could’ve been floating in space.  
    As Oudry inhaled a deep breath, she smiled, awaiting more words from the Divine. “We cannot go further. We shall rest here, and have a final talk. The Warden is close, but Evil is closer.”
    Michelle’s heart suddenly thundered in her chest.

    *****

    Oudry gathered several small piles of sticks over the course of a few hours while Michelle sat on the edge of the airport road in the flat featureless night. She pulled the thin zip up sweatshirt she’d found a month ago around her to fight the cool air. It was a feeble effort, and she knew it would be a very long night, devoid of rest. She was kept warm and mildly cheerful only because Oudry had spoken of The Warden, and that he was near.
    She tried to forget that he’d said Evil was close too.
    Oudry moved about her setting up small piles of the dry wood he’d gathered. Almost in a ritualistic fashion he put the sticks down in three piles, spaced equally a few paces apart. She shivered and watched him intently until he’d arranged the fire piles to his mysterious satisfaction. When he finished, he took a seat on the ground in front of her, and looked at the pile nearest her. She knew he wanted her to light them.
    When Michelle and Oudry were walking through what she thought was the former nation of Liberia, she’d rested in a small shop that sold tobacco products. Before she’d left the next day, she found a single remaining lighter on the floor, and she scooped it up. Michelle fished the small tool from her tattered pant pocket and went to work on getting the sticks to take the flame.
    Surprisingly the tinder caught with little effort. Once she had the first small pile of sticks burning on its own, she sat back down, and looked to the patiently waiting Oudry. The dead boy turned his head and leveled his eyes on the second pile of sticks, and she put two and two together, and began to light the remaining piles of branches. Much like the first pile, the final two piles took the flame from the lighter almost immediately, and burned warm and bright. Surrounded on all sides by golden yellow flame, she was cocooned in warmth. The night’s chill was shooed away as she sat down cross legged on the cool dirt across from Oudry.
    She watched the flames flicker across his face for some time, waiting for him to do something, anything. Oudry’s pale white eyes took on the light of the flame and for the first time in a long time, she started to feel fear again. Oudry’s expression was blank, and distant, but as the golden light of the flame lit up those white eyes, she started to feel as if something was wrong.
    “Oudry, you said we needed to have a final talk, what did that mean?” Michelle asked the immobile child with one arm. Putting the words out there made the pit of her stomach knot. For months now she’d been with him in one