Alexander Death (The Paranormals, Book 3)

by JL Bryan

  Then his strong arm wrapped around her waist and hauled her back, just as a piece of ground broke away beneath her foot. She heard it roll and crash down the cliff.

  He pulled her backward, and they collapsed on the ground, his arms around her. Alexander was panting.

  “Why did you do that?” he asked.

  “Why were you so slow?” Jenny touched her fingers to his chin and traced his jawline. “I could have died.”

  “Don't do that again. I don't want to wait another lifetime for you.”

  “Then you'll have to be faster.” Jenny's hand found its way around to the back of his neck. She pulled herself closer to him, and then finally gave in to what her body was urging her to do—had been urging, if she was honest with herself, ever since she first saw him. She kissed him, pressing her lips hard against his lips. The tingling, electric feeling she felt whenever they touched was amplified a thousand times over.

  He pulled her close against him, kissing her and grunting as they rolled in the dirt like animals in heat. His hand slipped under her dress, his fingers wrapping around her thigh. Jenny tugged at the waistband of his pants.

  “Where can we go?” she whispered.

  Alexander's face drew back from hers. “We shouldn't. How much wine have you had?”

  “I know what I want.” Jenny's voice was slurred. She rolled onto her back, pulling him on top of her. She could hear the waves crash below them.

  “You know what you want right now. Tomorrow you could change your mind.” Alexander stood up, brushing away dirt. “It shouldn't happen like this. I want you to respect me in the morning.”

  Jenny sat up on her elbows. “You're kidding, right?”

  He smiled in the moonlight and offered his hand to help her up. Jenny ignored it as she stood.

  “Come on, Alexander,” she said. “Don't you like me?”

  “That's what I'm trying to show you.” He took her hand and led her back to the party.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Seth sat in his room on Monday morning, looking at pictures of Jenny on his laptop. He'd taken them with his Blackberry, which had somehow gone missing during the weekend in Charleston. One of them showed her in a long, old-fashioned white dress, laid out in a patch of golden sun on one of the huge boulders in the woods behind her house. Her eyes were closed and she was smiling. Tiny, flowering weeds grew from cracks in the rock.

  He had called Jenny's house Sunday evening, but nobody answered. He left a message on the raspy old answering machine.

  Seth worried that Jenny had been swept up by the police in the riot, like a lot of other people, but surely they would have let her use the phone by now to call her dad. Seth called the jail anyway to check, but they didn't have a Jenny Morton.

  Seth wondered where she might have gone. She obviously wasn't with her new BFF Darcy, since he'd last seen Darcy getting picked up by her parents at jail, and Darcy didn't seem to have any idea where to find Jenny. Darcy had even called her “Jenny Mittens,” as if they'd never been friends. Seth couldn't imagine where Jenny might have gone, unless she'd just gotten in her car and started driving, maybe angry at Seth and wanting to escape everything. She was somewhere on her own now, and Seth worried about her.

  There was nothing left for him to do, though, so he was reduced to just looking at pictures of her and feeling anguish over what he'd done with that random girl in Charleston.

  Then he heard the thunderous pounding on the front door, and the sound of boots. Seth ran to a front window and looked out.

  On the driveway below, several Homeland Security vehicles had arrived, including a couple of small trucks. Men in black body armor and gas masks were rushing inside the front doors of his house. He wondered how they'd even opened the front gate—maybe they had some kind of device that could mimic the remote control signal for gates like theirs.

  Seth panicked, wondering if he should run or hide. His mom was home, though, so he couldn't just disappear.

  “Uh, Mom?” Seth called down the back stairs. He'd last seen his mom in the family room, drinking wine and watching some movie with Drew Barrymore. His dad was away at the bank. “Somebody's here!”

  Two men in gas masks arrived at the foot of the stairs and began racing up toward Seth. “Don't move!” one of them shouted. His voice was full of electric crackles, transmitted by radio from inside his mask to a speaker mounted on the exterior.

  Seth's natural reaction to armed masked men charging up his stairs was to turn and run, so he did that, but another pair of Homeland Security guys were already waiting in the upstairs hall. They were closing in on him from both sides, and he had nowhere to escape. He stopped and held up his hands.

  The men who'd pursued him up the stairs seized him and slammed him hard against the wall, so that Seth saw sparks behind his eyes. They wrenched his hands behind him and bound them with some kind of hard plastic zip ties. Then they slammed his face into the wall again.

  “What did I say to you?” one of them asked over his radio. “I said don't move. That means you don't fucking move.” They pulled Seth back, then slammed him into the wall a third time. Seth felt his nose pop, and tasted a hot stream of blood that spilled over his lips.

  They hauled him downstairs to the library, where his mother was already seated in one of the old wingback chairs, her hands bound in front of her with one of the industrial-strength plastic zip ties. She gasped when she saw Seth's face.

  “What did you do to him?” she demanded.

  “He resisted.” They threw Seth onto the rug in front of the fireplace, and then pointed the snout of a machine gun at his head.

  “I want to call my attorney,” Seth's mother said.

  “Afraid not,” one of the masked Homeland Security guys replied. “We're not here under a search warrant. We're here under a national security letter. That means you can't call anybody, and you can't tell anybody we were here.”

  “That's crazy!” she replied.

  “It's the law.”

  Three of the masked men stayed with them, their guns pointed at Seth and his mother, while the others joined the mob searching through the house. Seth heard glass breaking and the loud thuds of furniture being overturned.

  “What do you want?” Seth asked.

  “I think you know who we're looking for,” the federal cop said. “Tell us where she is.”

  “I don't know!” Seth said.

  “Seth, what in the world is he talking about?” Seth's mom asked.

  “I don't know,” Seth repeated, more quietly this time.

  They spent an hour searching the house and grounds while the three men watched Seth and his mother in the library. Finally, a small group of the Homeland Security officers returned to the library, and one of them peeled off his gas mask, revealing a middle-aged man with graying hair.

  “Okay, we're getting tired of this,” he said to Seth. “Tell me where she is.”

  “I don't know where she is,” Seth said.

  “Who?” Seth's mom asked.

  “Jennifer Morton,” the older man replied. “Where is she?”

  “The Morton kid?” Seth's mom asked. “That's what all this is about?”

  “Tell us where to find her.”

  “If you let me look in my husband's office, I can probably find her address. Her father does some repair work for us now and then—”

  “We've already been to the Mortons' hovel out in the woods,” the man said. “Nobody home. We believe she is attempting to evade custody.”

  “What did she do?” Seth's mom asked.

  “That's not relevant,” he replied.

  “You broke into my house and assaulted my son,” she said. “I think I deserve to know why.”

  The gray-haired Homeland Security man sighed. “I want to interrogate them separately. Move the kid out of here.”

  Two of the masked men grabbed Seth up and stood him on his feet, then marched him from the room.

  “Where are you taking him? Bring him back!” Seth'
s mom shouted.

  “Ma'am, you're going to have to shut the hell up,” the older Homeland Security man said.

  “We're going to bury you in the biggest lawsuit you've ever seen before this is through,” she told him. “We'll get you fired.”

  “Good luck with that.” The Homeland Security man followed Seth and his armed escorts down the hall. They opened the double doors to the dining room and dragged Seth inside.

  A woman was already sitting at the center of the long table, dressed in a yellow hazmat suit with the CDC logo printed on it. She'd removed her hood and gloves, as if they'd determined there was no threat here, and she was typing at a laptop. She looked up when they entered the room.

  Seth recognized her—she was the CDC doctor who'd come to Jenny's house during the quarantine, and left with samples of Seth and Jenny's hair and blood. Seth wondered what she'd found.

  “What's up, Doc?” Seth asked her.

  “Sit down,” the gray-haired Homeland Security man said, and the two masked men pushed Seth into the chair across from Heather.

  “You remember me, Seth?” the doctor asked.

  “Dr. Reynard,” he said. “You're an epidemicist.”

  “Epidemiologist,” she corrected. “I apologize for the wreck they made of your house. I wanted a much more subtle approach, but who listens to me? How are you feeling? It looks like they got you pretty bad. I should check you for trauma—”

  “We're searching for a fugitive,” the Homeland Security man interrupted. “We don't want to give anyone advance warning.”

  “Well, you're not doing a great job,” Seth said. “She hasn't been here in days.”

  “Seth, just tell us where to find Jenny,” Dr. Reynard said. “That's all we want from you. Then these guys will leave your family alone.”

  “I really don't know where she is right now. I already told them that.”

  “When did you last see her?” the Homeland Security man asked.

  “Thursday, I think,” Seth replied.

  “Where?”

  “We went swimming at the reservoir. We had a fight. I haven't seen her since. What is all this about, anyway?” Seth asked, though he was pretty sure he knew—two hundred dead bodies discovered on the town square of Fallen Oak, all of them festering with Jenny pox.

  “We're asking the questions,” the Homeland Security man said. “Did she mention any plans? Where she might be going?”

  “No. I'm surprised she wasn't at home. Hey, I don't know why you're here, but you must be looking for the wrong person. Jenny hasn't done anything illegal.”

  Dr. Reynard's eyes narrowed. “I want to talk to him alone.”

  “Not until he answers a few questions,” the Homeland Security man said.

  She glared at him. “I'll get your answers.”

  The man looked from her to Seth, then shrugged. “You got twenty minutes.” He stepped towards the double doors.

  “These guys, too.” Dr. Reynard pointed to the two masked guards with their guns trained on Seth.

  “I'm supposed to provide you security,” he said.

  “Seth's not the threat,” Dr. Reynard. “Besides, you've got him restrained. Just leave the guards outside the door.”

  He sighed. “It's your ass, doctor.” He waved, and the two masked men followed him out and closed the doors.

  “This is pretty strange work for a doctor.” Seth smiled at her. He'd learned that a little flirting went a long way when he was dealing with older women.

  “Where is she, Seth?”

  “I really don't know.”

  “Which is what you would say even if you did know,” Dr. Reynard said.

  “True,” Seth replied. “But, lucky me, I don't even have to lie. I've been looking for her, too. Is she in some legal trouble?”

  Dr. Reynard stared at him for a minute, then scowled. “Don't even give me that.”

  “Give you what?”

  “I know Jenny is an immune carrier of a fatal pathogen,” she said. “I know she killed two hundred people right here in your town, right in front of the courthouse. Don't bother putting on some show for me. Don't you care anything about those dead people? Their families?”

  “I thought those people died from some kind of chemical leak,” Seth replied. “The news said so.”

  “Don't be cute.”

  “I can't help it.”

  “Asshole!” Dr. Reynard stood up and paced along the dark paneled wall of the dining room. “I have more than two hundred corpses we're holding in deep freeze. I have some minor cases of the same disease—we picked those up in Charleston, so I know she was there Saturday night. So were you. We found the hotel on your credit card history.”

  “I was just there for college orientation. You can probably find that out, too, since apparently nothing's private anymore.”

  “And I have a couple dozen walking corpses. Want to explain that to me?”

  “Walking corpses?” Seth asked.

  “I'm getting tired of the stupid act, Seth.” Dr. Reynard tapped at her laptop, then turned it to face him.

  On the screen, Seth watched a security camera video—black and white, date-stamped, the movements jerky because the camera clearly only took a couple of frames per second.

  It was a wide corridor, probably in a hospital, judging by the beds stored against one wall. A longhaired young man in black sunglasses, a white T-shirt and jeans led a group of assorted other people. Something was wrong with how the rest of the group moved—sluggish, dragging their feet. Some of them had huge and obvious wounds in their heads or torsos, which looked like they should have been fatal. They each dragged a black body bag in one hand and held some kind of blunt object—broom handles, broken lighting fixtures—in the other.

  “Here's something else you need to explain,” Dr. Reynard said. “Some guy walks into a morgue. He somehow animates a group of dead bodies, and they march out into the street. Later we find the bodies in a heap in an upper-class neighborhood in downtown Charleston. They didn't even bother climbing into their body bags for us.”

  “That's pretty crazy,” Seth said. As he watched the looped footage of the dead bodies shuffling through the corridor, his blood turned icy and a knot formed in his guts.

  He'd heard once before of somebody who could animate the dead—Seth's own great-grandfather, who had used zombie labor to work his more remote fields. Seth had only recently learned this from his father.

  “You know something,” Dr. Reynard said.

  Seth just gaped and shook his head.

  “Say something,” Dr. Reynard said. “Who is this guy, Seth?”

  He used to be one of my ancestors, Seth thought. Now he's back in a new body, with a new name.

  “I've never seen him before,” Seth told her.

  “Bullshit.”

  “Who is he?” Seth asked.

  “I want you to tell me everything,” she said.

  “About what?”

  “Here's what I think, Seth. I think Jenny was planning to see how much damage she could really do, how many people she could wipe out at once. And when the heavy Homeland Security presence showed up, you people somehow started this riot as a smokescreen to help her escape. And she slipped away—if not with you, then with him.” She tapped the young man on the screen.

  “With him?” Seth asked, feeling alarmed. If this guy really was the reincarnation of the first Jonathan Seth Barrett, then he might be very dangerous. Seth's great-grandfather had been a tyrannical man, feared by his own children and grandchildren.

  “Do I have things right so far?” Dr. Reynard asked.

  “Definitely not. Jenny would never want to hurt anybody.”

  “Except your neighbors here in town. The mayor, the police...a lot of kids from your school. Guys you used to play sports with.” Her eyes narrowed. “She's a mass murderer, Seth. You seem like a decent kid. I can't believe you'd protect someone with so much innocent blood on their hands.”

  “Innocent?” Seth snapped. �
�How would you know? What if it was a lynch mob screaming about witchcraft? What if they tried to kill her, and she was just defending herself?”

  “Is that what happened? A lynch mob?” Dr. Reynard drummed her fingers on the table for a minute. “So that's why nobody in town wanted to talk. They didn't want to tell us about their relatives trying to kill a teenage girl. Is that it?”

  “It was just an example.” Seth tried to make himself calm down, but the things she'd said about Jenny were getting under his skin.

  “A pretty specific example. So your view is that Jenny acted in self-defense?”

  Seth took a deep breath to calm himself. He needed to be smart about this. “Jenny didn't do anything.”

  “Aren't we a little past that now, Seth?” she asked. “I know Jenny has something deadly. I watched her blood cells destroy healthy cells under a microscope. Honestly, I'm getting sick of all this horror-movie crap. Diseases with no vector. Zombies marching through the streets of Charleston. I want a straight story from you.”

  “You wouldn't believe a straight story from me.”

  “I'm all ears.” She stared at him, waiting.

  After a minute, Seth shrugged. “There's nothing to tell.”

  “Fine. You can get charged with two hundred counts of murder along with your girlfriend. I'm pretty sure they have the death penalty in this state.”

  “She's not even my girlfriend. She broke up with me last week.”

  “Did she?” Dr. Reynard rolled her eyes.

  “Seriously. She was mad at me because I'm leaving for college. And that was it.”

  “Why doesn't she infect you, Seth? Are you immune? Or can she decide when she's contagious and when she isn't?”

  “Infect me with what?”

  “The Jenny pox.”

  Seth flinched a little at that. How did Heather know those words?

  “Talk to me, Seth.”

  “You want me to talk?” Seth asked. “I'll talk. You people just ripped through our house for no reason. You come in here and talk to me about zombies? Zombies? And accusing my ex-girlfriend of murder, when everybody knows it was some crazy chemical leak?”

  “Come on, Seth—”

  “Maybe you didn't check into my family,” Seth said. He leaned forward, pressing his counterattack. “My great-uncle Junius Mayfield is a sitting United States senator. He's not going to like hearing how his niece and her son were attacked in their own home for no reason. If I were you, I'd stop harassing people with your crazy ideas. We can bring the hammer down on you. We can destroy you. Who are you to go to war with my family? You're a nobody.”