But I don't know if I trust me.
CHAPTER FIVE
Pax
Present day
Okay.
So, now everyone's in one spot, and (so far) no one's trying to kill us or take us.
Yet.
Jeff Parker (the good one, not the fuckburger from bot world) is walking around Grampsʼs lawn, one eye on the complication—cop for short.
Yeah.
As far as lame shit goes, McNeil's existence in our time is numero uno on the list of possible Murphy's Law tallies. You'd think that somebody, such as my good self, would reach a Murphy's Law limit.
Right, what bullshit thinking is that.
Dee's constantly going on about ML. For me, it adds up to if a case of the Dumbs is going to happen, it's either happened to me or it hasn't happened to me yet.
Sophie and Dee finally come out of the bathroom, freeing it up for the rest of us, and I about choke on my own spit.
Dee's got ten pounds of makeup on her face and doesn't look like her.
My face whips to Mitchell, eyes narrowing on his beefy form. He has a hit-between-the-eyes-with a two-by-four look.
Fuck.
As I'm staring at this developing catastrophe between Mitch and my sister, Dad comes up and claps me on the back. “We're alive, thanks to you.”
I grunt.
My Important People Count is coming up two short. And that's not counting Archer and Bry and Mia Weller.
“Gram and Grandpa Kyle aren't here.”
Dad's shoulders slump, and I feel like an asshole for restating the obvious, but really, this little eye of calm in the Hart storm won't last. Better to just call out the pink elephant, as Gramps would say.
“I know.” His exhale is weary.
I feel my brows knot. “They'll be questioning them or some shit.”
He nods. “Sanction, you mean.”
Who else? After all, we took off in an illegally souped-up SUV from the twentieth after I'd been nailed for unidentified zombie action and Dee had made a few appendages disappear.
Saying we're on the radar is the under-fucking-statement of the century.
“Yeah, Dad. They'll be questioning my supposed-to-be-dead-cancer-surviving granny.”
Dad spins me, gripping my shoulders, and I'm forcefully reminded I've let my yap run.
Always had diarrhea of the mouth.
“This isn't funny,” Dad says loudly, swinging his palm at the misfit group of middle-aged friends, a stolen cop, Mom, sister, zombies, and... the zombie's sister. She's definitely hot.
I jerk my shoulder from his grasp. “I get it.” I thump my chest. “I so get it. But here's the thing, Dad—this is what it is, and freaking out about everything isn't going to help. Being solemn isn't going to help. We need to eat and sleep, and if helicopters don't land on the lawn tonight, we can regroup our shit in the morning.”
Clyde is suddenly there.
I don't turn, but feel his presence with every beat of my heart. “Don't threaten me, Uncle Clyde.”
His eyes gleam in the dark. The typical zombie feature, it’s a type of phosphorescence of the undead. “I did not speak.”
“Ya don't have to. You're fucking scary without talking.”
Tara walks up in the middle of the tense moment, studies me for a few seconds, and says, “I guess things have really gone downhill in”—she looks around—“what did you say the year is now?” She looks to Dee.
“Thirty-nine years in the future,” my sister answers softly without meeting Tara's eyes.
Tara throws up her arms. “So, rude people are here too.” She nods to herself. “There wasn't that advancement, anyways.”
I glare at her.
“And you—I don't care what gift you've got. And all the ʻgiftsʼ are weird to me.” She doesn't look at her zombie brother. “But from what little I can get, we're all running from some freak police force that regulates zombies? Too bizarre for words.” She rolls her eyes.
I close the distance between us and do something crazy—thinking before I speak. “I'm sorry about your brother.”
Her expression changes like a pulselight command to off. Grief takes over where sarcasm just was, and a lone tear glides from the corner of her eye. I fight to maintain eye contact.
Girl tears, they'll break a man down.
“Brothers,” she says in a hoarse whisper, swiping the wetness away with an angry gesture.
I incline my head in a half-nod. “Okay. But because Timmy and your deaths were the most traumatic memory in Mitch's life, when he gained his AftD's ability to blink, he subconsciously returned himself to that time. And we came along for the ride. Ya see, Mitch doesn't feel pain because he's dead. So he can blink in daylight—any light.”
“That...” Tara's gaze moves unerringly to Mitch. “Is not my brother.” Her voice has gone to a low purr of seething anger.
Dee studies her shoes.
Mitch's expression doesn’t change, but his jaw tightens. Being disowned is hard, no matter how it's delivered.
“He saved us.” I hold her with my gaze, locking with eyes the exact deep blue of her brother's. I swallow my pride—big time. “Mitch saved you.”
“For what?” she says with a harsh laugh, slowly spinning around while the tears fall. “To be here, hunted by wackos from the future? Oh, yeah”—she gives another vicious jerk of her head—“that's such an improvement.”
“Technically, this is the present,” Uncle John interjects quietly.
Tiff punches him in the arm.
The rest of the group gather around us. Full dark looms; the solar lights that sprout like squat soldiers at the perimeter of Grampsʼs lawn flicker on like sick fireflies.
“I'm taking this all in, you know,” McNeil states from his awkward position on the ground.
“Hot lot of good it'll do ya. This is a flavor of strange a fella can't categorize.”
This from Gramps. His eyes meet mine as he cups hands around another cig to light it. He inhales then shoots a stream of vapor to meet the light breeze that's picked up.
The cop snorts, shaking his head in clear disbelief. “Keep thinking I'll wake up from this nightmare and be somewhere normal.”
“First rational thing I've heard,” Tara agrees.
“Okay, I've tried to be soft and sympathetic, and it's not been real easy,” I say. “But this is where you're staying. Unless you want to go back and greet the cops at the murder scene—who will think your cheese has slid off your cracker.”
“Nice,” Gramps says thoughtfully.
“You're a jerk,” Tara says.
Probably true. “Yeah.”
Clyde shakes his head. “The fairer sex—”
“Uh-uh,” Tiff says, whipping her index finger in front of her face. “Don't go there.”
“Let's come up with a plan of action,” Mom says.
I'm surprised. Usually, Dad is the one to figure messes out. He's expert at it by this point.
She takes a deep breath and lets it out, stirring the black hair that's escaped her sloppy ponytail. “Mom and Dad are probably at Sanction headquarters. Archer, Bry, and Mia...” Mom shrugs. “They're probably there too, for all we know.”
“Maybe being tortured,” Jeff says unhelpfully, speaking for the first time.
“Should I have healed you?” I ask.
He lifts a shoulder. “Like to look at the worst-case scenario first.” The corners of his lips twitch.
“Parker, you're one morose dude,” Jonesy says.
There are no dissenters to that sentiment.
“This is the Sanction Police, not a modern-day Helix Complex.” Dee looks around (I’m still getting used to the made-up look), meeting everyone's eyes. “They'll be held—questioned—but torture isn't going to happen. Too many eyes watching for that kinda stuff to go down.”
Not necessarily.
“What about the suits that caused our wreck, Dee?” I ask.
Our stare holds for a few seconds as a silent,
shared memory passes between us: my broken arm, the freaking pivotal blink that took us to Bot Central to begin with.
“What police is this?” McNeil asks from the ground then adds, “Can someone un-cuff me? My gun is tit's up, and clearly, I can't go back to where I came from.”
“I do not recommend that, master,” Clyde comments, eyes like razor slits on McNeil.
“I'm harmless,” he says, with his hard cop eyes.
Uh-huh.
Clyde's eyes slim down on him. “I think not. I remember what occurred with Officer Garcia and how holding us at gunpoint was remarkably easy when his family was threatened with peril.”
“Let's be honest,” Sophie says slowly. “You wouldn't be any different if someone had your wife and kids.”
Clyde turns to her, allowing the silence to overwhelm the moment, and I marvel at his verbal timing. Now that's a talent. “My actions are predicated on many things. Many circumstances.”
Sophie gulps as Clyde's eyes quietly shine back at her.
Yeah. Clyde is scary as fuck. Even though deep down, Sophie knows Clyde wouldn't hurt her, the potential hovers, and a little self-preservation instinct buried deep inside her flags him as a threat.
For good reason.
Sophie shuts up with the slick comparisons.
“You seem like the reasonable one of this group.” McNeil shoots a glare at Gramps.
The solar lamp closest to him casts a cutout of light across his face.
“Not really,” Gramps replies conversationally. “But you can talk if it'll ease you.”
McNeil rolls his shoulders, obviously tight from being in the same position for almost two hours. “First—I gotta take a piss like a Russian racehorse.”
Gramps barks out a laugh, and uneasy chuckles crop up like weeds. Not a human being around who doesn't get that need.
He nods, seeing our understanding of the basics of life. “I can't take you all on. And this seems like bullshit, but since I don't have any other explanation for why I'm in this weird place, there's two—what? Night of the Living Undead around?”
I'm puzzled, but kinda get the reference. “Yeah.”
“And they're more than human-strong?” McNeil asks.
“Yes,” Ron the Null comments for the first time. “Much. There's nothing that negates their single-minded devotion to whatever they've set their brain to, except their AftD.”
“AftD?” He shakes his head again. “Give me the Reader's Digest version, then—for the love of all that is holy—let me use the john.”
Terran frowns.
Dad says, “You're still on earth, but in the year 2049,” Dad leaves out the parallel-world part without a discernible pause, “My dad is a geneticist and mapped the human genome in 2010.”
McNeil's eyebrows jump.
“Then in 2015, a chemical process synthesized by some insane scientists created an inoculation administered to the teen population of the world to allow paranormal abilities to manifest.”
“Holy mother of God,” McNeil says in dawning horror.
“Yup,” Gramps comments, rocking back on his heels.
“Of course, that introduced—are you familiar with the expression ʻbig brotherʼ?”
McNeil slides his jaw back and forth. “Yeah, I'm not an idiot.”
Dad smiles. “Anyway, a highly covert government agency called the Helix Complex began re-ordering our future generation, and in the end, most of my generation lost their talents, and our women...” Dad pauses over this barbaric reality for a few seconds. “They became sterile as a side effect of a counteractive chemical measure.”
McNeil is silent, giving each person a thorough perusal. Finally, he says, “This is our future?” He flicks his eyes at Tara and no one clarifies it's but one of two shitty futures. “Because I responded to a call about reported gunfire. We all responded, like we do every damn day.” His eyes sweep us like a disease. “I got a girlfriend, a life.” McNeil hangs his head, and when he lifts it, his eyes are resolute. “I want to go back.”
“Back to what?” Tara says. “The people in our time won't believe you. And even if they did, you'd be hounded forever, answering questions about the future.” Her eyes go back to me, accusing. Fantastic. “A terrible future,” Tara adds as she glares.
I don't meet her eyes. Not interested in seeing every bit of the hate on her face.
“It is what it is,” Dee says.
Maybe Dee's too practical for Tara.
“Yeah, because of you weirdos.”
I've had it. I plant my feet wide and cross my arms. “We aren't weird. We were born this way, me and Dee. We didn't have any choice.”
My parents stay silent. I know it's not their fault. But being paranormals has been tougher than fuck. There's no arguing that fact.
“I know you want to blame someone, honey, but sometimes there just isn't anything anyone can do. And for the record, your brother is still him.”
Tara laughs, dismissing Mom's gentle words. “Yeah—dead.”
“All right. Enough's enough,” Gramps says in his normal, decisive way, cutting his hand down between us like a samurai sword.
Tara startles.
“We don't have time to coddle you. Even after the shock you've suffered, which we all feel badly about. If we want to survive this and save Deedie, you'll have to buck up.”
“Buck up?” Tara asks.
Gramps thick eyebrows pop. “Yes, indeed. My granddaughter is in jeopardy. Because where her brother”—he indicates me with a chin jerk in my direction—“can blink to parallel earths—I guess an infinity of them—Deedie has an ability that the Sanction Police won't be quiet about. They might be regulating zombie activity and occupation, but there will be someone else who's very interested in her black hole business.”
Black hole business. I drag my hand over my face in a tired swipe. I have no fuel left. I'm flat beat.
“What?” McNeil asks in a sharp word.
“It's called Atomic,” Dee explains in a low, embarrassed voice that I hate to hear.
“What is that?” Tara asks, turning to look at her with wide eyes.
Here we go.
“It means that if Dee wants something—anything—to go bye-bye, it's gone.”
“Gone where?” Tara asks.
“Where does the thing she decides to make go poof... go exactly?” McNeil asks, echoing Tara.
“We're not entirely sure,” John admits.
“Holy cow,” McNeil looks at Dee like she just grew another head in the middle of our little three-ring circus. “So this tiny girl can decide something's going to go somewhere, and it's gone to parts unknown.”
Dee nods.
I'm so proud of her I could burst. She doesn't look embarrassed at all. Dee looks defiant.
Excellent.
Then Tara says, “You're not just weird; you're dangerous.” Her eyes grow frantic, as though an escape portal will present itself before her. “All of you.”
“Yep, that's right as rain, missy. But, you're safer here than in 2010. I think we've beaten that particular piece of truth to death.”
“Indeed,” Clyde adds, folding his arms and rocking back on his heels.
“I guess I can console myself that you haven't actually caused me harm or killed me.” McNeil sighs, shoulders slumping.
Mom frowns at him. “We're not murderers.” Her voice is in high-insult mode.
“Of a sort,” Clyde mutters, and Mom's frown morphs into a scowl.
Our “normal” might not be a setting found on any dryer—in any world.
“In other words,” Tara begins, hand on hip, “I'm stuck here with a bunch of wanna-be X-men, in a crappy future with my zombie brother?”
“Ding, ding, ding, she gets it,” Tiff says, whipping a stiff index in a sharp circle. “Now, if we have some down time, I'd love a shot of something.”
Gramps lips give an ironic twist. “Not if you want babies.”
Tiff's expression sours. “Yeah—damn.” She lace
s her hands, placing them on the back of her head and staring up at the sky in obvious disgust.
“And... an alcoholic,” Tara says disbelievingly.
Tiff's middle finger sprouts from her fist.
“Real classy,” Tara says, nodding. “Full of compassion.”
“We don't have that luxury. All we can hope for is some food and a couple of hours of shut-eye.” Gramps shrugs. “The sooner you accept that Mitch is your undead brother, the easier things will be.”
“Let's just gloss over all the other minor details. I'll never accept him. I don't get to see my parents again, my brothers were murdered before my eyes, and you guys are a bunch of hardened-criminal types with powers!” she yells.
“I still need to piss,” McNeil breaks through in a droll voice.
My exhale is somewhere between a huff and a cough.
Tara marches across the expansive lawn to the back steps and strides inside, closing the slider so hard that when I blink, and my secondary lid covers my eyeball, I see the glass shiver in the frame. Of course, I can see the glass to the molecular level, gravity causing it to sag minutely with every tick-tock of time.
In a hundred more years, the glass will be lower in its frame. Not everyone will see.
Just me.
And whoever comes after me.
CHAPTER SIX
Ron
My entire body aches. As a matter of course, I'd say that being in this new earth, which is from the same era as my own, can't even distract me from my healing.
Feeling like day-old dog shit.
I've had my ass kicked by a middle-aged woman and a pack of Brad Thompson zombies, and now, having been blinked (or whatever strange thing they call it here) has upended my guts into a twisted nest of snakes.
Dragging a tired hand over my face, I take in the scene of everyone arguing about whether or not they should untie the cop. I know exactly how the guy feels.
Being a level-five Null isn't that great. I got hosed in my world, and my usefulness was fast coming to an abrupt end.
I'm certain Brad's plans for Deegan Hart were a scheme-y blend of illegal, cruel, and self-satisfying. (A special Brad brand of conduct.)
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