“I feel something.”
I sure wasn't needing anything besides the AFTD.
“Don't worry. It's probably me spilling on you.”
“Spilling?” I asked.
“Yeah, sometimes when Sophie and me hang, I can leak some of the stuff I pick up onto her. She says it's major creepy.”
“Why do you feel...” I struggled a second, not wanting to sound dumb, but the only word I could come up with was one my parents would use. “Um… why do you feel anxious?”
“Anxious?” She giggled.
I frowned. “You've been laughing at me a lot today.” I thought of she and John having hysterics over my “trauma.” Uh-huh.
“Oh come on, Caleb. You can be really funny!”
Yeah, hilarious.
She slowed in front of an especially gross house. Paint peeled like ribbons of decay off the trim. The lawn, if one could call it that, started from some underground place near the house that teemed with a riot of overgrown bushes and became one with the sidewalk. The patch of ground was a dirty brown, somewhere between poop and mud. Strange mounds of dirt were sprinkled all over it like big pimples in an ugly face.
“This is Brett's house,” Jade said quietly.
I didn't really know what to say. I couldn't help but compare it to my house. The atrium, backyard, and the comfort smells of my home seemed like a dim light shining miles away when compared with Brett’s place.
The sound of raised voices filtered from the house.
Jade grabbed my hand. “Quick, hide!”
I whipped my head around, looking for a spot. Before I could figure out where to go, she dragged me behind an overgrown hedge.
A booming male voice was screaming words—bad ones. “You worthless turd! You wouldn't know sense if it knocked your dumb teeth out. Get the fuck outta here.”
Jade flinched each time an F-bomb flew.
I saw Brett’s silhouette through the window. I assumed it was him because the other person was much larger.
“Don't hit mom!” Brett screamed.
Even through the hedge I could see that his fists were clenched, definitely a Mason family theme.
The dad raised his fist. I knew he was going to clock Brett, and I couldn't just sit there and watch. I started to step out from behind the bush.
Jade grabbed my arm, eyes wide. “No don't.”
I shook my head. I didn't care that it was Brett. The whispering that was always in my head grew in volume, and a dull, static roar filled my mind. It felt good, throbbing with my heartbeat.
“Stay here,” I told Jade.
I cleared the hedge as the man’s fist connected square with Brett's chest. The impact made a meaty thumping sound, and Brett staggered backward. The dad came right after him with purpose. I jumped up onto the porch and threw open the front door. In the back of my mind, I was grateful it wasn’t locked.
“Hey!” I yelled.
Brett turned toward me, wheezing and arms flailing. The elder Mason wore a comical expression of surprise. Wasn't used to be interrupted in his little family beat-downs.
He recovered quickly. “Who the fuck are you?”
Ignoring his question, I said, “You're not supposed to be beating on people.”
Brett gave a spastic shake of his head, holding his chest with both hands. There was no love lost between the two of us but he thought I was insane to take on his dad.
Me too.
The dad stepped toward where I stood in the doorway. When he was younger, he may have been athletic, but the muscle was submerged in the hundred pounds he had on me. His gut hung over stained blue jeans, covered by an equally disgusting T-shirt. His fists were loosely clenched but ready for action.
I took a few steps back out into the yard. But then I stopped. I refused to run. I had no plan except that I didn't want to watch some kid my age—even a dickhead like Brett—getting the crap beat out of him by a grown man. Brett’s dad stalked toward me, all shadows and menace. Brett followed.
Without thinking, I let out the thing that was always curled tightly inside me. I didn't mean to, but like a caged animal suddenly freed, it responded to my distress signal. I was in trouble, with no plan whatsoever.
My power responded like a dinner bell.
Little dirt mounds in the lawn exploded, geysering like miniature volcanoes erupting. Clumps of crappy lawn and dirt rained down on all of us.
Brett's arms fell to his sides, and he dropped to the ground, sitting on his butt. The breath I was holding slid out of me in a long line of relief. The whispering had stopped, and the lawn had blown up, and I was feeling... fine.
I heard a noise behind me and spun around.
“Look.” Jade pointed at the yard.
All around the lawn, moles—big ones—stood at attention, their reflective eyes like small silvered coins staring at me.
“I killed all you,” Mr. Mason shrieked at the animals. “You're dead!”
Priceless, of course they were dead, you dolt. I could hear their thoughts. They were waiting for me to tell them something, to issue orders.
Mr. Mason pointed at Jade. “Aren't you that upstart LeClerc girl? The one that gave her daddy all the trouble with them cops?” He glared at her.
She shrank back from his words and moved to stand behind me.
The slug started making his way to where Jade and I were standing at the edge of the cracked sidewalk. The moles stood vigil, watching me.
“You two are in my boy's class, a couple of losers from what I’ve heard. And I know how to take care of that. Yes indeedy, I do. I'll clean that attitude right out of ya both.”
Mr. Mason moved forward as if to grab me.
I let a little juice funnel through to the moles. They swarmed across the grass as one unit. Wait a second. Those weren't moles. They were... I searched for the name—gophers.
I was jerked out of my reverie by a hand clenching the front of my hoodie, my toes clearing the sidewalk. I didn't struggle but hung like a dead weight. Jade squealed and yanked me back until I felt as if I were the rope in a game of Tug of War.
I appreciated her efforts, but Mason had the manic strength that only the truly drunk have. I was betting he would be hella sore tomorrow, but for beating up teenagers, he was about inebriated enough to make a go of it.
A gopher sailed across the remaining two feet, leaped, and landed on the back of Mason’s neck. It made a tight C shape with its body and sank its teeth into Mason’s exposed skin.
Mason dropped me like a box of rocks and attempted to jerk the gopher off his neck. I could feel the gopher thinking with solitary purpose: Protect the boy. All it knew was that I was its master, and it would be torn asunder rather than allow harm to come to me.
I turned. Like an invisible string, my power slid out, finding eager recipients. The other gophers jumped onto Mason. He did a little dance, hopping around and trying to get the gophers off. They were single-minded, biting and nipping any part of him they could reach.
I swayed, feeling as if I held a great baseball in my hand with the absolute knowledge that the perfect pitch was within reach. Jade's hand pressed against the small of my back. The gophers made satisfied mewling sounds as their teeth connected with flesh.
I was in the zone.
“Caleb, stop it!” Jade said, voice raised above the crunching and gnashing of teeth. “You'll kill him.”
Instead of being filled with the expected horror of Mason’s death at the teeth of my gophers, I felt a distinct satisfaction.
Brett appeared beside me. “Please,” he said, one hand on his chest where his dad had hit him, “he's bad, but he's still my dad.”
Brett the poet, I thought in a languid stupor.
I made the ginormous effort to rein in the power. For a moment, nothing happened. It was pulling on taffy that never came. I was suddenly scared my power was bigger than I could manage. Then something clicked into place, and I was in control again. The gophers looked at me, some of their teeth glistening
wetly black with Mason’s blood.
Rest, I thought and gave a mental shove of juice that felt like turning off a big humming battery.
The gophers—my gophers—swung their heads to consider me one last time before swarming back to their mounds and melting back into the ground like water finding a cleft in a rock.
Jade, Brett, and I walked over to where Mr. Mason lay groaning in the dirt. Blood pooled around his body. I stood without sympathy, the lingering emotion of wanting to end his existence remained.
I knew that I could call them back.
“Thanks,” Brett said in a hollow voice.
“What do you think, Caleb?” Jade asked.
“He'll live,” I said.
I took Jade’s hand and led her away.
I turned around once and saw Brett standing over his dad's body, staring at me as if he'd seen a ghost.
CHAPTER 13
I woke up Saturday morning in a great mood. I loved weekends.
The events of the previous night came crashing down on me a minute later. I made a mental note to pulse the Js later and update them on the newest mess. I wondered if it would change our plans for Sunday.
I heard Mom sounds coming from downstairs. I glanced at my suspended monitor. The glowing numbers read 10:40. I hadn’t slept too late for breakfast. I stood up too fast and swayed dizzily.
Pancakes were the cure for the hole in my gut.
I stumbled over to my door, kicking the clothes out of the way, then went down to the kitchen.
Mom looked up from the griddle as I rounded the corner. “Hey, pal. So how did it go last night?”
Dad plopped down opposite me, resting his head in both hands. We looked at each other and he gave a chuckle of mute understanding. Family telepathy, I guess.
“Yes, how did things go?”
I threw out what happened. “Brett's dad was beating on him and I got in the middle by raising an Army of Gophers.”
Mom put a plate of pancakes in front of me without a word. I poured hot syrup over them.
My parents stared at me, but they didn't look shocked. Maybe they had passed on to the numb stage.
I told them everything. The obedience of the gophers intrigued Dad. Mom was a little shocked at my indifference about Brett's dad's life.
“Why should I care?” I asked her.
She sat down slowly at the kitchen table, resting her elbows on its beaten surface. “You've been raised to think of others, Caleb.”
“Mom's right,” Dad said. “We cannot condone willful sabotage of life, Caleb.”
Dad looked at Mom for a long moment.
“I understand you intervened because your friend was in trouble.”
“He isn't my friend,” I clarified.
“Yes, true, but he was in danger. I commend your... bravery in the face of that danger.”
Mom rolled her eyes at Dad's words.
“It was a good thing, what you did, but you could have killed him.”
I couldn't argue with that. I had felt what it was to control the dead. I knew what they wanted.
“Is his dad going to be okay?” Mom asked.
I shrugged. “He was the one beating on his kid and from what I heard Brett say, the mom too. If he goes to the cops, how will he explain it?”
“Yes,” Dad said. “A conundrum, to be sure.”
“Huh?” I asked.
Dad explained, “A puzzler. You could have gotten that contextually.”
“Yeah, but I wanted to know for sure. Just the words around it aren't always enough.”
“I like that you ask, son.” He paused, steepling his fingers. “So it would stand to reason that we need some target practice, the sooner the better, especially in light of recent events.”
“When? Today?” I asked.
“No better time than the present. I don't have anything on my schedule.” He gestured at his pajamas.
I nodded and took a bite of the still-steaming pancakes. I gulped a huge swallow of milk, and the whole great ball o' food slid down the pipe.
Mom got up and flipped Dad's pancakes.
I raised my eyebrows at him.
“I'm going all out,” he said.
Dad didn't usually have pancakes. He didn't want the dreaded shelf. I looked at his gut and thought it was okay, for an old guy. I told him so.
“Thanks, Caleb. You know just what to say to make me feel better.”
***
The ride to the cemetery didn't take long. I was nervous. I had never tried to make anything happen. I did remember using the gophers to hurt Brett's dad. But the first bit, making them rise—hadn't been on purpose.
Mom turned around in the front seat. “Penny for your thoughts.”
I clasped my hands together. “I don't know if I can, ya know... make anything happen.”
Dad's eyes met mine in the rear view mirror. “Don't be nervous, Caleb.” His eyes traveled back to the road as he was driving, the trees rushing past us like a green highway in the sky.
“I just don't want you guys to go to all this trouble, and I can't...” I struggled with the word.
“Perform?” Dad asked.
I nodded. “Yeah. That covers it.”
“Don't worry about us, Caleb. We just want you to gain control of this... quickly.”
Dad took a left into Scenic Hill Cemetery. The place wasn’t as eerie in the daytime. The whispering had grown louder when we were about a mile away. At the gate, the voices were a dull roar, like a washing machine I had to scream over to be heard.
I must have talked too loud because Mom asked what was happening with me.
“It's hard to describe, Mom. It's like that thing that you and Dad talk about... white noise. But you guys say that noise is like a good thing.”
Dad turned off the car. “You're saying the quality is different?”
“If you mean type, then yeah. It's way different. Like something is going to happen, or something needs to escape.”
“This seems wrong on a lot of levels, Kyle,” Mom told Dad.
Dad looked somber. “Yes, it probably is. But I can't have our son running around raising creatures for his personal killing militia. He needs to have some control. It’s better that he practices with our supervision, than for him to be truly threatened someday and not have the tools to effectively deter the problem.”
We all climbed out of the car.
“I thought we'd start with the familiar and see if you could raise someone we knew.”
Mom's hand flew to her heart. “Oh God, Kyle. Really?” Mom put her hands on her hips.
I hadn't really thought about using a relative.
I put a hand on her shoulder. “It's me having to do it, Mom, not you. Better that it's somebody we knew, right?”
She cupped the side of my face, a smile breaking through like sun sliding out from behind clouds. “You're being the brave one, and me being anxious isn't helpful.”
“But your fear is not his fear,” Dad said. “Right, Caleb?”
“No, I'm not afraid of using it. It feels good. That's the part that is scary.” I wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans.
Glancing around I saw that we were all wearing the same thing—jeans and T-shirts. Uniforms for dead people raising. A cackle of laughter escaped me, and my parents gave me odd looks.
I shook my head. “Sorry, the whole thing seems a little...”
Mom finished, “Surreal?”
I nodded. “Yeah... that.”
Dad smiled and led the way to our family plot. I had visited before when I was little, but it'd been a while.
I bent my head to look at the first granite marker.
Mom sank to her knees and ran her right hand over the engraved lettering.
Margaret “Maggie” Doyle, Beloved Wife-Mother-Grandmother, RIP; born 1935, died 2015.
Huh, she died the year I was born.
A tear rolled down Mom’s cheek. “Gran was a good woman.”
Dad said, “Yes, she was.”
“She wants to be free of the ground.” I heard my voice as though from far away. Detached.
“What?” Mom's head whipped around, hair falling in her eyes. “She's speaking to you?”
“No... yes… not exactly.” I sighed. “I guess it's more of an impression of needs or wants—feelings. I don't know.”
“Well, I guess the dead make choices too,” Dad said.
“Yeah, it's not just me. They want to be free. They want to say things or have one more chance, something. I'm somebody that can help them help themselves.”
“You're a facilitator. Fascinating,” Dad murmured, cupping his chin.
“Kyle,” Mom hissed, “this is no time to ruminate about the schematics. This is Gran we're disturbing.” She jabbed a finger at him. “Listen, buster, this is not one of your science experiments. This is Caleb and Gran.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, all intense eyes and huffiness.
Dad looked chastened. “I don't know another way to be, Alicia.”
“Well, tone it down, would you?”
He grinned. “I'll make a supreme effort.”
The whisper from Gran was a steady thing with a vibration all its own. I was starting to get a signature from different people. Everyone was different, and I could sense those differences. Gran's whisper had a familiar quality about it. I didn't know exactly what or why, but I honed in and let a tendril of my power uncoil. It felt a little like the gophers but different, more complex. Their minds had been one mind to me, simple. Hers felt like a complicated series of thoughts and distractions. A dead brain... but somehow alive.
I gave it a good shove and thought, Come here.
I felt a great weight lift from my brain. My vision doubled and became fuzzy around the edges. Don't pass out, ya fool. I didn't want to leave the parents stuck with dead granny. Then my vision cleared, and the vertigo passed.
Nothing happened.
Dad took a photo of me... unhelpful-much. I blinked at the pulse-flash and felt something cold hit the back of my head. We looked up. Clouds that had only threatened were now roiling above our heads. Great smoky-colored plumes lashed back and forth like an angry sea.
Dad looked at me.
I shrugged, disappointed after all the build-up. “I don't know what—”
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