It was an M-16, its black tip a solid circle in front of me. My eyes ran the length of the barrel, the spiral shape distorted, to lock gazes with Gun-Holder's lifeless eyes... killer's eyes.
The middle guy sauntered up to Gun-Holder and used his finger, pushing the end of the gun barrel up in the air toward the chopper.
“What the hell, Parker?” Gun-Holder said.
“We're not here to kill but to acquire, there is no threat in that, best to remember it.”
My head snapped to the middle guy, who removed his knitted black ski-mask, and there he was.
I'd know him anywhere, Jeffrey Parker.
He looked the same except no glasses, the geek in him peeking through at the edges but inside a mid-twenties body that was hard and lean with a face to match. That unfinished quality that he had in the last photo I'd seen was gone forever.
“Stand up, Caleb,” Parker spoke in a clear, ringing voice.
I did, but I was going to be in charge. This was not how I had thought I'd meet Parker, it was going to be on my terms. I glanced at the gun. Besides, they weren't here to kill me. They wanted me. That was almost worst.
It was my only leverage.
I turned around, sparing a glance for Tiff, who was standing with Man-Three a short guy as wide as I was tall, a gun trained on her.
This was going bad fast. Looking further back I spied the Js, Jade and the others still where I put them. Bry looked like the rock he was in the middle of the group. Jade's face was burning in my mind when I turned to face Parker.
“What do you want?” I yelled.
Man-Three, pressed a small voice-activated mike from his shoulder to his mouth, saying something quickly into it.
Suddenly, the noise of the helicopter toned way down like air leaving a balloon.
“There, that's better,” Parker said. “Do you know who I am?”
“Yeah.”
“Good, that saves time. We're here because we know what your potential is, Caleb.”
“You're wasting your time, Parker. I tested out as a two-point.”
He laughed, just short of braying; creepy and false. “Yes, we're aware of that. Our operatives were watching things very closely. We have high hopes for you, Caleb, and you won't disappoint.”
I let the questions stand on my face. I was not going anywhere with this guy. He made all the hair on my body stand on end.
Like recognized like.
“Who do you think was in your house making a mess of your things? We know every conversation that has happened since that moment. We are very aware of what you and your clever father have been manufacturing for the sake of keeping your gift a secret,” he explained patiently.
Like I wasn't going to get it.
I got it. “Here's the thing,” I said. “I'm not going to be the government's bitch.”
Parker smiled and said, “You'll be what we want you to be... to become.”
He signaled to Gun-Holder. “Get the girl. We can use her to persuade Mr. Hart to our cause.”
I turned to look at Tiff but Gun-Holder was jogging toward Jade.
Oh no, he would try to force me through Jade.
Everything slowed down then, I calculated how far Tiff was from me and she looked back at me, nodding. A gun tip like an arrow was pointed inches away from her head; I had to gamble with her life but we were all at stake.
I took two huge steps leaping for Tiff. She extended her arm as Man-Three whipped his gun around, using the stock as a weapon. She bent forward just as the butt whistled across her forehead, grazing it, a gash opening up as I touched her hand. She clasped the other one and we pulled toward each other as one, a mid-air waltz. We landed just the right side of the cemetery, our power shimmered together like a thing alive.
“No!” Parker shouted, realizing too late just what Tiff was.
Their intelligence needed work.
I craned my neck to look again at our group and Gun-Holder was within reach. Bry took the hand that he put forward for Jade in both of his, using the guy's own momentum to keep him moving. But he was an adult, a trained government assassin, and he took Bry with him for the ride.
“Move!” I screamed at Jade, as she flung herself out of reach and did the opposite of what the operative thought she would.
The operative was landing a solid beating on Bry (he never caught a break), and Jade ran through the tombstones, gray flags in the failing light.
“Shit! Get that girl,” Parker yelled at Man-Three.
Man-three, who was the tallest of the group, ignored Tiff and me.
His fatal mistake, going for Jade.
Parker had been far enough away but was closing the distance between us fast, Tiff and I holding hands.
Jade had stopped right in the middle of the graveyard, the Js joining the scuffle to aid Bry. Sophie uncertainly moved forward after Jade while Man-Three paced her, mirroring her progress.
“Jade, run to me!” I screamed.
A violent anger for our situation, Jade being in danger, our friends in jeopardy rolled like a huge heaving animal in my body.
Man-Three roared like a lion, rushing forward those fifteen feet to grab Jade who took evasive action, leaping to the side, using her smallness to maneuver around a tombstone at the extreme left.
I let my power out of my body that fast, a precise laser sent straight in front of Jade, where a zombie exploded out of a grave. He was a macabre thing of beauty, his arms fully extended, knees bent up in the air, classic karate stance.
He appeared before her as a warrior and I screamed inside its head the command: protect.
My zombie landed directly in front of Man-Three who unceremoniously pressed the M-16's gun barrel to the zombie's chest, using a palm on the zombie's shoulder, jerking him closer and fired point blank.
“No!” I shouted, my zombie blown to smithereens before my eyes.
But Jade kept coming, my zombie's sacrifice there in her eyes and body as she moved to me. My zombie danced as the rounds penetrated its body. Bits of flesh arced from behind it, splattering tombstones, all the while leaning into the gun man, its arms rising as it was getting blasted, going for the throat.
Man-Three must have had twenty-round clips. As he clicked empty, my zombie's chest a hole that the starlight penetrated, its face a dark prison of blood and gore.
Protect, I thought at him. Protect.
A little slower due to damage, nevertheless, the zombie surged forward, tearing the butt of the M-16 from Man-Three's hands, tossing it like so much candy into one of the tombstones and cracking the corner off like a chipped tooth.
“God dammit! Take its head, fool! It'll keep coming,” Parker screamed, reaching us.
A knife glinted in the dark and sailed out toward my zombie, embedding itself thickly in his neck, but not severing, black blood flying outward and hitting everything in its path.
I whipped my head around in time to see that Bry lay on the ground and Gun-Holder was making steady progress toward us. His arm tightened like a noose around Jonesy, who was flailing and struggling in his grasp. John and Sophie knelt by Bry, his other hand empty of the knife he'd just thrown.
Don't give up.
My zombie was slowing down, each wound more grievous than the last.
Gun-Holder was dragging my friend by the throat and Jade was not to me yet.
Parker was on our ass as we made our way to Jade, the zombie distracting Man-Three with Gun-Holder dragging Jonesy towards us.
More zombies, that's the ticket.
As if on deadly cue, Tiff and I got busy with a few more as Parker grabbed Tiff by her hood and zombies poured from the ground.
Gun-Holder stopped in his tracks, Jonesy giving him hell.
“Hold still or I'll choke you into unconsciousness, shithead.” Jonesy did.
But he wouldn't do what he was told for long, he wasn't big on listening.
There were several zombies and now Parker held onto Tiff like a deathline. He sucked off our power, addi
ng his to ours, it was numbing me.
The zombies looked at me, then turned to Parker.
Parker straightened arrogantly. “I am Master here.”
The zombies moved toward Parker.
I jerked Tiff just about off her feet and slung her to my left and away from Parker. “Stop!” I flung out to them.
They turned to me and Tiff, some without eyes, staring darkly at the two of us.
Parker looked at me. “This will not work, I am more powerful then you, more experienced. You cannot prevail.”
I wondered the same.
Never give up.
I turned with Tiff launching ourselves at Jade, running to the zombie with the knife in its neck. The first to answer our call, my call.
Jade's hand clutched solidly in mine, we tore through the zombies, moving like bowling pins as we wove between them, some stroking our bodies as we came through, bolstered by our combined power.
“Stop them!” Parker yelled, pushing zombies aside, knocking a few over.
Hands reached out and I said, “No.” Their hands hesitated.
I reached my zombie just as Man-Three was taking the knife out, getting ready to plunge that blade home, killing my zombie for real. A sense of something lurked below the surface, just a feeling, and I went with it like a drowning man reaching for the lifeline, my last hope.
Jade and Tiff struggled to keep my pace as I landed next to my zombie, my knees sliding on the grass as my hand encircled the wrist that held the knife, Man-Three's eyes widening in surprise. I wasn't as strong, but I'd startled him, the element of surprise was enough.
My zombie understood, we were connected, his eyes glittering black diamonds, he snaked his hand out, grabbing my other wrist. The girls' hands fell away. Only the three of us connected now, the gun man, the zombie and me.
It took only a second to break his concentration and as he moved to finish the zombie taking my straining arm with him for the killing blow I thought, die.
A big sucking nothing happened for a heartbeat. Then Man-Three started shrieking, great gulping screams, one after another, as my power took from him.... and gave to my zombie.
It was watching a movie in reverse. My zombie started to fill out, the knife pushing out of his neck, falling to the ground. His cheeks filling in, the gaping hole of his chest filling in as I watched, the skin pooling together, flesh like water filling the void.
My eyes moved to Man-Three, the light in his eyes fading, his body growing stiller.
“Caleb, what are you doing?” Parker asked in a near whisper.
“Killing him,” I replied dreamily. If felt good to use this thing, my zombie was mending itself and this bad guy, very bad guy... would... would be gone.
“Caleb!” Tiff shrieked in my face.
“Huh?” My head swam toward her.
“Stop! You're killing him!”
I released the two, reluctantly. I tried to feel bad about almost killing Man-Three, who had put a gun barrel to Tiff's head just moments ago, and couldn't.
We had bigger problems. Leaving Man-Three on the ground, I rose off my knees. Jade ran to me, pressing her face against my chest. We turned to look at Parker and Gun-Holder, who still had the choke hold on Jonesy. I could feel the presence of my healed zombie at my back, ready to do the same command.
A literal bunch, zombies.
“Let him go,” I said to Gun-Holder.
Ten zombies looked in my direction. Of course he doesn't have to let Jonesy go.
I could make him.
Parker saw my thought process. “Don't, it'll be a stalemate,” he said, his voice holding a slight tremor.
Something had taken that arrogance down a notch. The life-suck thing. I was sure that was not covered under the five-point standard.
I held Jade tighter.
He seemed to visibly collect himself. “We raised this group together, we both control them,” he reasoned with me.
I wasn't feeling reasonable. “Yeah, maybe you guys didn't think this through when you were busy spying on American children,” I said, watching him flinch.
Sophie joined our little group. Where's John? I mouthed.
“... with Bry,” she answered.
Jonesy watched Sophie with concerned eyes. “Let him go or we'll see who owns who,” I told Parker.
He nodded at Gun-Holder who let Jonesy go with a disgusted grunt. He glared at Parker, shoving Jonesy away.
“Dick,” Jonesy muttered.
It was Parker's look that told me he was placating us. He had a plan and it didn't include us leaving.
Jonesy walked over to Sophie, giving her a hug. Their two-inch height difference allowed her curly hair to swarm around his like an embracing halo.
Gun-Holder spoke into his mike and the chopper noise was loud again, they had something up their sleeve, I knew it.
Parker stepped forward and I instinctively moved Jade back, taking Jade with me. “Don't get any closer, Parker.”
But Gun-Holder grabbed at Jonesy again, who was to the side of Sophie and she got taken instead.
“No!” Jonesy roared, his lightning reflexes grabbing at Sophie, who yelped in surprise as his fingers slipped off her arm. Gun-holder smoothly took her and ran for the ropes hanging suspended under the roar of the chopper.
“Jonesy, no!” I yelled over the noise.
Of course Jonesy didn't listen.
Sophie was too stunned at first to believe that she was being carried like a sack of potatoes toward a government helicopter and began to fight in earnest, bucking and thumping her fists on Gun-Holder's back.
Jonesy was fast, overtaking Gun-Holder, who was weighed down with a body to carry, both of them reaching the ropes at exactly the same moment.
Jonesy leaped forward, grabbing onto Sophie's wrists, both outstretched, just as Gun-holder grabbed a rope.
Power surged in a blooming arc around us, all of us ducking, the feeling of it unfamiliar but vital. Pulsing once like a great light, searing and painful, then that big spider in the sky stopped making noise, dropping toward us in a black rush of crashing branches and trees.
Jonesy jerked Sophie off of Gun-holder who was scrambling for safety. The blades of the chopper cut great swaths in the sky, slowing down but coming closer. I ran with Jade and Tiff back to where Bry and John were.
Jonesy dragged Sophie to safety just as a chopper blade embedded itself in the ground, a guillotine meant for harm, two feet behind Jonesy, spearing a tombstone, which disintegrated on contact, shards of marble flying through the night like tiny missiles of destruction, the ground shaking with the force of impact.
I didn't look behind me but took great leaps between tombstones until I reached Bry and John. Turning, I saw Parker and the other two government men on the ground. I took stock of the group: Bry and John on the ground, Jade and Tiff with me, a grubby and tired Jonesy with Sophie and my human-looking zombie.
He looked down at me, completely unconcerned with the mayhem of the moment. It was all about the directive. That was a relief, some things never changed, I took a shaky breath.
In the distance the other group of zombies stood there, torn between masters, Parker staring back at me. “We're not done here, Caleb Hart.”
“Yeah we are!” I shouted back.
“Tiff,” I said.
She looked at me.
“Let's put him back before Parker gets his crap together,” I said.
We all looked at my zombie, who stood unblinking, staring at me.
Unnerving.
“Rest,” I said, unfurling that power again, just a stab of it directed at the zombie, Tiff's hand convulsing on mine.
He lingered, staring, and for one awful moment I thought maybe I'd used it up in all the chaos. But then he turned, running gracefully on fully formed legs. His clothes re-knitted to perfection, the stolen energy from another human being powering his effort. The grave opened like a crater to receive, swallowing him whole, the ground closing over him like a giant mouth.
<
br /> “Let's go,” I said quietly.
Parker watched us. The zombies around him stood like a small forest of corpse-trees, unmoving. He could lay them to rest. Besides, he said we were part owner.
Let him figure it out.
The government men laid at Parker's feet, the one I hadn't used up, hand rummaging around for that M-16 he dropped.
Time to get going.
Bry struggled to sit up, looking worse for wear. “Tell me to stay behind next time,” he said, out of the fattest lip I'd ever seen.
Tiff said, “Let's go, right now!”
We hightailed it outta there, the graveyard and its inhabitants at our back.
CHAPTER 32
Our bikes stood at attention, hidden in the bushes at the beginning of a little used dirt road, which led to the main paved road. Instead of a clean escape a cop car stood parked, lights out, idling softly.
Jonesy swore with real feeling.
A dome light appeared inside the car as the cop got out, swinging it shut behind him, he turned his face and I recognized Garcia.
“Great, we're screwed. He's in it with them,” Bry said, his voice thick with injury.
Jade seemed to sway next to me and I held her against my body. What else could go wrong?
He had the gun, the badge, and crooked friends.
John said, “I don't want to be his bitch either.”
It was bad when John was swearing. “We're not going to be any kind of slaves for anybody,” I said, stepping forward.
Garcia surprised us all, running forward. “You guys hurt?” he asked, all-concern.
We said nothing.
He sighed. “Listen, I don't have a lot of time here, they're calling in reinforcements as we speak. I have to get you kids out of here and somewhere safe.”
“Wait a sec, we thought you were with them,” Jonesy said, jerking his head in the direction we came.
“The Graysheets? Hell no, I'm deep undercover but won't be if we don't get your butts out of here.”
“We can take him, form a rebellion if he gets outta line,” Tiff said.
Everyone rolled their eyes at that, even me.
“Okay,” I said, what choice did we have? But I didn't have to like it.
“What about our bikes?” John asked.
Death Whispers (Death Series, Book 1) Page 34
