Bry said, “Yeah?”
“Jade's gonna come over there and see if she can get a read on you, see how far John's whammy extends.”
“Ah... okay.”
I turned my face back up to John, who by this time had his skinny ass leaning against a crooked tombstone, glowing like a soft beacon of whiteness in the dark that was closing in. “You still narrowed in on me?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay Jade.”
Jade walked over to Bry while I crushed a spark of jealousy.
She put a hand on his forearm and said, “I get something but...” she looked at John, “it's an echo of normal.”
Okay, so we were working with maybe fifty feet.
“Are you fully juicing us John?”
“No, almost though.”
“Give us all ya got,” I commanded.
John made a strained face, I could see him struggle in the low light. He settled on a point between where Jade and Bry stood, about halfway around the base of the knoll, a loose arc.
Jade touched Bry again. “Nothing this time.”
“Kill it John.”
“Yeah, don't keep all amped-up or we won't have any cool shit happen,” Jonesy huffed.
John visibly relaxed and the white noise of the dead rushed back in like waves to the shore. This close to the graveyard, it was a constant thing.
“I hear them a lot,” Tiff said.
“Yeah, kinda hard to miss that whole group at the top of the hill,” I said.
Tiff rolled her eyes at that.
Jade joined us with Bry.
Jonesy was impatient up there next to John.
“Let's do it,” I said.
I half-pulled Jade up behind me as we laughed and talked about the baseball game.
“Jonesy got that last home run, right?” Sophie remarked.
“Yeah he did.”
“Brett did too,” Jade said.
“He'd be a really good athlete if he wasn't such an ass,” John stated.
“It's too bad,” Jade said.
“Come on, don't feel sorry for him. Look at what just happened at the hideout? I'll tell ya something. If either one of those jerks comes near you,” I said, putting a finger under her chin, “they'll get a reckoning.”
I wasn't doing forty pushes before bed for nothing.
Jonesy heard and said, “Yeah, I'm itching to get old pyro and Brett. That would be great!”
Nice to count on the Js.
We took a rest at the top, surveying the surroundings. The small hill overlooking Highway 167 had cars whizzing by, their progress creating constant noise. At least there wasn't the horrible auto smells anymore my parents described from when they were young. Pretty much, we were surrounded by a bunch of buildings with just a small oasis of trees adjacent to the graveyard. Which looked, well, untended.
Bry said, “My grandparents used to come here to make-out.”
“Are you kidding? They told you that?” Sophie gasped.
“Yeah, they've been married forever and thought they could just, ya know, talk about everything.”
“Wow, awkwardness,” Jade said.
“Not a lot of privacy,” I remarked, looking around.
“It was different back then. There was just the highway down there,” he jerked his head in the direction of the cars moving on the ribbon of concrete. “And nothing was here but those houses up by Panther Lake. Small neighborhoods, nothing more, from the 1960s and a few farmhouses.”
We tried to envision the Kent of sixty or seventy years ago; it didn't seem real. We moved forward into the center of the cemetery, looking at the tombstones, seeing that many of the etchings had worn away, only a few letters left.
Jade bent over to survey one, hair sweeping forward, her pert nose the only thing visible from the side. “Why is this one speckled?” she asked, running her hand over the polished surface, pressing a finger into a corner divot, worn smooth from many seasons.
I looked closer, some of the speckles seemed to sparkle in the pale light. I looked around me, there were similar tombstones with that speckled look. Small flecks caught the light, winking.
Night had descended, a velvet glove encasing our group while the moonlight speared through the trees, caressing a stone marker here and there, illuminating the areas between.
“I think it's granite,” I said.
“No... pretty sure those are marble,” John said.
“No, the all white ones are marble. My dad told me these were granite.”
“He gives you the graveyard know-how?” Jonesy asked.
I laughed. “No, he knows some stuff about geology.”
“I didn't think your dad did rocks and stuff.”
“I thought your dad was bio-chemistry,” John said.
“He is. But he had to study all kinds of sciences and I remember he told me once. They don't use granite like this as much anymore. They're using that recycled glass stuff now, ya know, the stuff that looks like quartz.”
“It's pretty,” Jade said.
I thought so too, but not out loud.
“Moving on... let's blow this Popsicle stand.” Jonesy walked away in the direction of the shack.
We made our way carefully through the long, hay-like grass where the markers appeared to be stranded and drowning. Onyx's tail appeared like a shark's fin through the grass.
“Good thing it's a full moon, not a lot of need for the LED's,” John said, slapping the one bouncing at his hip.
Jonesy was quite a ways ahead and held up a finger while still walking. “It adds to the vibe-of-creep I've been trying to establish, boys and girls!”
Tiff gave Jonesy a good natured middle finger salute, and without even breaking stride he said, “I saw that!”
Sophie giggled while Jonesy navigated the land mine that was the graveyard. Bry reefed his knee right into the corner of a tombstone and swore.
“Pull up your boxer briefs, bro,” Tiff said.
“Put a cork in it,” Bry replied, bringing up the rear with a small limp.
A broken fence marked what appeared to be one side of the cemetery, the slats of the fence crooked, standing up like swords. My sense of foreboding increased.
Jade whispered, “I have a bad feeling about this.”
“We picked The Place for the scare factor.” I looked around; I wasn't getting caught with my shorts down.
She didn't say anything but clung a little tighter to my hand, which I squeezed, the small bones moving under the pressure. She was fragile, such an interesting mix of girlness and toughness. I vowed to be hyper-aware of stuff around me, she was the one that needed protecting.
“There it is!” Jonesy whispered fiercely.
It was utterly different than I'd expected. For one, it was bigger. Jonesy said shack, but it was actually a small house.
It was super old-fashioned, a wide front porch that ran the length of the facade. The posts were square and stout, a bevel running up all four sides, softening the stern lines. One corner of the roof was drooping from post-collapse. It had an interesting window located dead center above the roof line in the gable peak, that looked like a dark unblinking eye. Not a happy architectural feature, that. From here the door looked like a gaping mouth, teeth unseen.
John, Jonesy, Tiff and Bry went forward. Jade and I lagging behind them and Sophie nervously bringing up the rear, her curly hair shoved behind her ears, the rest a cloud behind her.
“Hey, shouldn't we like, bring out the LED now?” Sophie asked, a bare tremor of fear coloring her voice.
“Not yet,” Jonesy said, hesitating on her face for an extra second.
Interesting.
Jonesy put his foot on the top step and it shrieked in protest.
We all jumped a mile.
“Holy-hell!” Jonesy stumbled back.
“It's a creaky step, brave one,” Bry laughed.
“Okay, smart-ass, you tromp up there.”
“Okay,” Bry replied, all man of the hour.
“Wait,” Tiff said.
Bry turned with a question on his face.
“Why don't you let us AFTDs check it out, hot-shit,” Tiff said.
Bry crossed his ample arms. “Fine,” putting his hand in front of him, palm extended, go ahead.
I moved away from Jade... changed my mind and took her with me. I didn't like her standing out here exposed. I was still remembering the hideout and how Carson and Brett had popped up like a couple of pieces of toast.
As Dad said, valor was sometimes masked as caution.
Jade moved in close, her torso following mine like a puzzle piece, to the side and slightly behind.
Tiff, on the other side turned. “Can you sense anything?”
“Nada.”
We both looked at John.
“Oh! Yeah...” he gave us a sheepish look.
Suddenly, our senses came back online like a river covering stones.
Tiff turned to me and nodded.
We stepped forward, that feeling of naturalness with the dead and open door. A thought occurred to me. “Don't touch my skin, Jade. Just in case.”
“Right,” she nodded. That would be great to get her all deadified on accident.
“Do you know what's gonna happen?” Tiff asked.
“Just what I read in the papers John brought over,” I replied.
“What did they say?”
“That not all AFTDs could do ghosts.”
“I can. I hit for that,” Tiff said. “They call me a two-point with a potential three.”
I made the hand motion, tell me more.
“Remember Jade found me with the bird outside school?”
“Yeah.”
Jade nodded , remembering.
“Well, I kinda freaked out, sensed what the bird, dead bird, had been feeling, knew where it was. So, the guy...”
“Who?”
“Later... anyway, he told me that I had a 'wrapped ability'. That means the abilities overlap or some crap.”
“What does that mean right now?”
“It means that I'm not a full two-point or three point... that I have ...” she paused.
“Elements of both,” John interjected.
“Yeah,” she said, relieved of her burden.
“Okay while all of this is just fas-cin-a-ting...” Jonesy began, “can we see what the frick is in the shack?”
I gave him a look and he just shrugged, please stop boring me.
Ignoring Jonesy, Tiff said, “Anyway, as the five-point we all know you are, well... there's a lot of possibilities.”
Bry started to ask a question, and Jonesy made an exasperated sound, “I know Jones-my-man, hold on to your jockstrap,” he looked at me. “I never got the full scoop out of my sis, but what are all your points? It's not like I memorized it. I'm going to Kent Lake.”
Math-Science, a mundane with an AFTD sister. Genetics, weird stuff.
John said, “I'll fill you in.”
Jonesy threw up his hands, slapping his thighs. “Well hell,” he muttered, walking back inside the fence and plunking his butt onto one of the tombstones constructed with a partial, flat “roof” on the top.
He put his elbow on his knee and cupped a hand on his chin, reluctantly listening.
Wait. “Did you read all those papers?” I asked John incredulously.
“Well, yeah.”
“Huh, that's a lot of reading,” I said, impressed.
“Yeah. What did you read?” John asked.
“Just the AFTD parts.”
The girls rolled their eyes, John gave me The Look.
What?
“Anyway, there are five-points possible for each, documented ability. Or, for a few... levels.”
Jonesy interrupted, “Okay already, just throw out the AFTD stuff so we can get to the spooks.”
We ignored him.
John ticked it off on his fingers, “Cadaver-Manipulation,” John nodded at me, I mock-bowed, “spirit control (ghosts), communion with the dead,” he nodded to Tiff, “victim location, and zombie control.”
“Zombie control and Cadaver-Manipulation are two points that sorta overlap,” he added.
That made me think of Onyx. Where was he anyway? A burst of panic started crawling up my throat. HWY one-sixty-seven was close by...
The Dog felt the Boy's fear and found him. There had been very interesting smells surrounding this old structure. Bad smells too; fear smells.
Onyx bounded up from behind the shack. A wave of relief flooded me. Maybe Onyx should stay home next time.
“Good boy, stay here.” I petted his head, that felt too close.
“Life spark?” Jonesy asked.
“Yes, it's that thing that happened with Onyx. It's where an AFTD can...” his hand clasped his chin for a second, “call,” he snapped his fingers, “that life spark back when death is close.”
“So, some people can find bodies?” Tiff asked.
“Yeah, there are some AFTDs on the police force and they find murder victims, or traumatic death vics.”
I thought of Gale and how it might be bad to raise murder victims.
John understood me. “It's a given, Caleb, that if you're raising zombies, you can do the other stuff.”
“They don't really know, though,” Jonesy began. “I mean, we've only been having the shots, what, ten years now? Uh-huh, there's gotta be more abilities, things they haven't thought about. What about mutations?”
Jonesy could sometimes astound.
“Jonesy's right,” Sophie said. “They can't know everything. I'm A-P and they don't have all the levels figured out.”
“True,” John agreed. “Astral-Projection is about distance.”
“I think they're figuring it out as they go and acting like they have a handle on it,” Bry said.
Sounded like typical adult bravado to me.
“What if there's someone that has a completely new ability or is a higher level or a sixth point? Jonesy's right, they don't have it figured out. It's up to us now. The adults don't have abilities. The ones that do are the first group from 2015, the one Parker's in,” Jade said.
Look where that got Jeffrey Parker.
After a minute or so I said, “Better to be mundane.” I felt I could say that, Dad being a famous scientist. People always assumed that I would be something too. I couldn't find my way out of a paper bag in Math and Science.
Jonesy stood. “Okay, what I get from this is dead stuff can't get us with the freak duo here,” Jonesy nodded to Tiff and I. “And possibly, my man Caleb, can find some violent corpses.” Jonesy's teeth were a pale slash in his face, grinning.
John sighed. “That's not exactly accurate... Caleb is,” John wavered, “may be some kind of anomaly.”
“A what?” Jonesy asked.
“Something that doesn't meet normal patterns,” Sophie said.
Jonesy's teeth disappeared and he was just a bulky shape at the edge of the fence, the moonlight slanting behind a cloud.
“Something new, something rare...” John expounded.
“A surprise!” Jonesy said, unfazed.
John just shook his head. “I don't know what could happen, Caleb,” he turned to Tiff. “But we're in...” he thought, “uncharted territory.”
“Perfect,” Jonesy breathed out in a sigh.
Jade gave him an unfriendly look, which thankfully he missed in the dimness.
We went forward again, where yawning holes like chicken pox littered the porch decking. We moved around those, as the clouds cooperated by moving aside, a patch of moonlight lit the corner of the door. It was a faded red, a large square of glass in the middle, miraculously unbroken. Tiff wrapped her hand around an oval doorknob with perimeter beading hung askew from its cradle, glowing like a dirty gold egg in the failed light.
Our eyes met. “Ya scared?” she asked, all bravado.
I nodded.
Her shoulders fell a little. “Me too,” she admitted in a whisper, “that's why we gotta.”
I agreed.
Turning the knob, the door swung open silently as if inviting our motley crew inside.
I'd forgot about Onyx who shot past us, starting his exploration.
He was doing dog reconnaissance.
I cautiously looked around taking in a super-small house, definitely not a shack.
Jonesy, John, Bry and Sophie had followed us closely and Bry said, “It's a caretaker's cottage.”
John asked Bry, “What's that?”
“Back in the day...”
“When?” Jade asked.
“You know, a hundred years ago... or more...”
“Oh.”
“They used to have these little... houses for the dudes that would take care of these cemeteries.”
“They lived here? Right here, next to all the dead bodies?” Sophie asked.
“It is a cemetery, that's where dead bodies go,” John stated.
“Quiet neighbors,” Jonesy said.
Funny.
“Okay, yuk, go on,” Tiff said.
“Anyway, they would water the flowers people left at the graves, mow the lawn with this push-mower thing, paint the fence, you know, maintenance stuff.”
“So... not a shack,” Jonesy asked.
“No, more like quarters,” John clarified.
We looked around, getting our bearings.
“Watch out, this place is a dump, there could be more holes in the floor,” I said.
“Stay in pairs or more,” Bry said.
Tiff, Jade and I took a few steps more and I turned to John. “Dude, I just can't see that great, give me the LED.”
I could vaguely hear Jonesy in the back mumbling. But, with only meager moonlight finding its way through the dirty glass of the kitchen windows, it wasn't enough.
John slapped it into my palm, pressing my thumb on the push-button switch (something that wasn't Pulse-activated!). A brilliant swath of light slashed a path, illuminating the base of a staircase. The steps were narrow and tall, like a ladder, not true stairs.
I swung the light away from the stairs at the base of our feet, the girls shoes dwarfed by our surfboards. “Stairs last, let's check out the main floor.”
Jonesy gave a lingering glance at the stairs. It was a democracy so he came along with the rest of us, but his fascination lay elsewhere.
As the reluctant leader, the call of the dead was a song in my soul, a resonating note which lingered. We explored.
The Death Series, Books 1-3 Page 32
