John Terran: You raised your dead grandmother?
Caleb: Yeah, but she sorta got out of control, and then Tiff Weller had to help. Hang on to your shorts, guys, I will tell you the whole thing tomorrow. I don't want this on our pulses. You feel me?
CHAPTER 16
I didn't sleep well. Every noise, every scrape of a branch against the house was cause for wakefulness. I gave up and went to the window.
The street appeared still. The moon cast shadows everywhere, and under the streetlamps, the pools of light were bordered by inky blackness.
A police cruiser slowly pulled up in front of my house. Two officers got out—Garcia and McGraw. I sure didn't feel safer with those two guarding the house. Leaning forward, I pressed my nose to the glass, careful not to fog up the window with my breath.
Garcia turned abruptly as if McGraw had said something, bending to hear him. Surreptitious whispering ensued, voices I couldn't hear but wanted to. Their heads stayed pressed together for a few moments, one blond and the other so dark it blended with the night.
They looked up at my room. It took a whole lot for me not to duck, but they didn’t appear to see me.
A sigh of relief escaped me into the hushed silence of my room.
Just as they were finishing their covert conversation, another cruiser pulled up. Officers Gale and Ward got out.
Huh. Now this was interesting.
I was certain we didn't need four cops. I rested my butt cheeks against my heels, perching for the duration.
Even in the gloom it was easy to tell which cop was Gale. She was the smallest, more than a head shorter than Garcia. As obsessed with growing as I was, I noticed people's heights. Bobbi Gale was around Jade's height, but built bigger.
Gale gestured at our house and then threw her hands up in the air. Ward had his arms folded over his chest in a defensive stance. McGraw mirrored Ward, as Garcia moved to stand nose to nose with Gale. Their height difference didn't really allow for that, but she was right in his face, her's craning up to make eye contact.
Then, McGraw touched Garcia's shoulder and stepped back. His shoulders hiked up in an exaggerated shrug, and with a wave of his hand, he dismissed our house and walked over to his cruiser. Garcia followed. Even from my vantage point, I could see Gale glowering at him.
She was pissed. It was in the set of her shoulders, the way tension sang along them. I would've loved to have heard what they said.
Gale and Ward watched the other two pull away, then got in their cruiser and backed into the space that McGraw and Garcia had vacated.
That was weird as hell. I knew it wasn't a shift change thing because Gale and Ward said the checks would be random. I wondered if McGraw and Garcia had shown up when they weren’t supposed to be at my house. But I had no idea why they would have.
I stared for a couple more minutes, barely making them out in the gloom. Gale was in the driver's seat and Ward beside her, gesturing and talking, a badge twinkling in the dim light cast by the streetlight.
I flopped back against my bed. I tossed and turned and finally fell into a fitful sleep, unconsciousness pulling me under like a pebble in a river.
CHAPTER 17
I was swimming, the sun shining through the water, me at the bottom looking through layers of grayish-green. A great, pale orb shone dimly above me. It was important I reach it, though I didn’t know why.
Moving a hand in front of my face, it floated there like a disembodied appendage. I shifted my body, feeling the resistance and rose determinedly toward the surface, my hands knifing through the water. As I gained speed, I felt hotter, and the light intensified. Breaking through the surface, I opened my eyes.
I was in my room.
I became aware of things in stages, as if still dreaming and unable to wake up. I pinched my arm. That hurt. Definitely awake. A red crescent appeared on my skin.
I checked the clock. The Js and Jade would be at my house in three hours. Sitting up, I moved my stiff neck in a loose circle.
I got up on my knees and pulled the curtain aside. The cops were gone. I looked at the sky, noticing storm clouds brewing. Perfect cemetery weather. I raised the window a little. The May heat could make it eighty degrees in my room and it'd be ball sweat central. No thanks.
I got up and threw on some clothes. I kicked a pile of junk out of the way of the door and headed downstairs.
Dad was in his favorite chair, working on his pulse-top. Mom was in the kitchen, cooking pancakes. Music swam around the room on low volume while she put the fixings on the table: butter, milk, and syrup. Dad was gonna succumb. He tried to limit pancakes because he was O.L.D and didn't want to get F.A.T.
I plopped down in my seat.
Mom gave me the eye.
“Kinda late getting up this morning, pal.”
“Did you hear the cops?” I asked.
Mom rolled her eyes, and Dad closed his pulse-top.
“I thought you said that was shut down, Dad.”
“It is. I was just putting it through some security paces. Security protocol. Rudimentary procedure before I have one of our tech people go through it.”
“Oh. I thought maybe you got it fixed and were reading the boring news or something,” I said.
Dad smiled. “That 'boring news' keeps me up to date on world events, Caleb.”
Ah-huh.
“I didn't hear a thing,” Mom said.
“I was awake when they came around midnight,” Dad said.
“Oh. I didn't hear that time,” I said. “Just the four a.m. run when Garcia and McGraw came.”
“That makes me all warm and fuzzy,” Mom said.
Dad had chipmunk cheeks, but after a few chews, he said, “I flat out don't like Garcia and McGraw showing up.”
I nodded.
“They looked like they were arguing out there.”
“Who?” Dad asked.
“Ward and Gale were there too.”
“What? That's bizarre. They don't need that much show of force to deter a criminal revisit.”
“I guess it's too much to ask what they were arguing over,” Mom said.
“Yeah, but the girl...”
“Officer Gale?” Mom asked.
“Yeah, she looked pretty mad. She was using a lot of hand gestures, right up in Garcia's face.”
“So what do you suppose they were discussing?” Dad asked.
Judging on how different Garcia had been at the cemetery, I had a feeling that I had his full attention—and not the good kind. Gale knew I was AFTD. She suspected I was something unique but wasn't ready to out me to anyone. I got a sense of protectiveness from her. I told the parents that and—she'd seemed angry about the other two showing up.
Dad said, “I think that Garcia has been assigned to our house, you... all of us,” he gestured with his finger, encompassing us, “flagged in some way. If anything happens here of any importance, he's alerted.”
“I don't like it,” Mom said.
Dad shrugged. “I am concerned about Garcia's watchfulness. It's not a matter of if, but when he finds out Caleb is a C-M.”
I wolfed down my pancakes. Talk of my discovery as a corpse-raiser did not interfere with The Appetite.
“What can we do legally, Kyle, to stop this interference? He's just a kid, a minor for goodness sake.” As she lowered her chin, her hair fell forward.
Dad tucked a strand behind her ear, where it curled around the lobe. “I've been looking into that. We'll go to the press if it comes to that. If he gets noticed, and they try to pull a Parker, we'll see how uncomfortable we can make them. They managed to stifle a lot of the press about the Parker boy, but there is heightened awareness now of paranormals and AFTDs.”
I didn't like the sound of that. I'd be famous, like Dad, but not because I was a brainiac—because I was a freak, infamous. Nobody wanted to be famous for weirdness.
“Why does everyone think AFTDs are weirdos?”
“You're not a weirdo Caleb,” Mom said.
> “I know you're not keen on more people knowing about your unique ability, but the alternative is not acceptable,” Dad said. “Do you think anyone thought this would be the outcome? That mapping the genome and its subsequent use to unveil these abilities in the human race was going to be without uncertainty, challenges—danger?”
He was right. The other scientists, the ones who took up where Dad and his team left off, hadn’t considered the consequence of their actions. Now we had people my age through mid-twenties who could do some pretty tight shit. And there wasn't always a counter to that, except for psychic nulls, and those weren't common. Some paranormals were committing crimes, and our police were chasing their asses trying to keep up with that.
He shrugged. “The police force pairing mundanes and paranormals is a good thing. They need it.”
“Why do some paranormals break the law?” I asked.
Mom muttered, “Because they can.”
Dad nodded. “There will always be people making the wrong choices. It's human nature.”
“The world spins,” Mom said.
I admired her sense of justice but I just couldn't, as she would say, embrace it.
My eyes flicked to my watch. “The Js are coming over with Jade in two hours.”
“You know, Jade is a J too,” Mom said.
“Yeah, I guess, but she's not. Ya know, she's her own thing.”
“Autonomous,” Dad said. “Independent from the Js.”
“Oh! Well that's true.” My face got hot, Jade was so not like the Js.
They pretended not to notice how awkward the whole Jade conversation was.
My parents were mainly cool.
CHAPTER 18
Everyone showed up on time. For Jonesy, that was nothing short of a miracle. Time management was not a priority with him. Scheming was—we all had our talents.
Jade walked on my left. She was absolutely mouth-watering in a pink hoodie, faded jeans with strategic holes, and pink high top All Star basketball shoes. Her hair was pulled up in a ponytail, the end making a black sweep in the valley of her shoulders.
I casually held her hand. I loved feeling its smallness. One of the many things I liked about Jade—other than her utter coolness—was how physically small she was. It didn't diminish her. She didn't have some complex about it. She knew who she was, and that was tight.
Jonesy had been talking the whole time since we left, and I started tuning in, even with the distraction of Jade.
The bag full of gear rattled as he walked animatedly beside John, who was between us.
“Anyway, like I was saying, I snagged the can of Aqua Net a couple of weeks ago out of my mom's separator.”
“How'd you manage the lighter?” John asked.
“My dad registered it for barbecuing.”
Lighters were like guns. Because of the fire starters, any accelerant—lighters, matches, fuel—had to be registered like guns. Pyrokenetics could use anything like that as a deadly weapon. Some really talented ones didn't need anything. They were the weapons.
“Being able to start fires would be the coolest!” I said wistfully.
“No way,” John said. “Think about the control and all the adults up your ass all the time. Ah... no, that would suck, dude. Big time.”
Jonesy fist-pumped. “I like it. I could think of about a million things to torch. Starting with the school!” He grinned then asked,“You're not gonna, like, make something pop out of the ground, are you, Caleb?”
I got a mental image of a Jack-in-the-Box—or a Jack-in-the-Coffin— and grinned. “Nah, that's totally not the plan.”
Jade squeezed my hand and I squeezed back.
John said, “But you just had that episode with your grandma at the cemetery.”
“You didn't need blood to, like, put her back?” Jonesy asked.
“No. I've been thinking about that. Maybe it was coincidence the blood happened to be part of it last time. Gran rose without any of that.”
But a knot of unease began to build in my chest. I wondered if there was something special I needed to do to get a corpse back to rest. Tiff had been there to help, so I had no idea how or if I could have accomplished it without her.
“Okay, so we don't have to worry about an accident?” John asked, placing stress on that last word.
Like potty-training, nice.
Jonesy hooted. “Accidental corpse raising!”
I shook my head. “No, I don't having any corpse-raising plans today.”
Jade asked, “Why are we meeting them at the cemetery then?”
“That's our turf,” Jonesy said. “Caleb pulled the creep-out card there, and they'll feel all off base. Plus, the master”—he tapped his temple— “needs a proper environment.”
John's eyebrows shot up. Usually, John was the brains of the operation. Jonesy was in his element, scheming.
Jonesy said, “Hey, I know that I'm not brilliant, but I've got rockin' good ideas, and I'm rollin' with that program.”
We laughed. There was no denying he had a program.
We crested the hill, and the gates of the cemetery loomed ahead. I gave a little shudder, the sensory memory playing through my body like a discordant instrument. Jade looked a question at me, and I shook my head. Hard thing to explain. Had to be there or in her case, not.
The weather hadn't improved. In fact, it looked like it was working up a head of steam, a late spring storm. The clouds rolled like giant pewter boulders.
John saw where I was looking and said, “Might rain.”
Jonesy shrugged. “We'll get Carson and Brett all lit up before the sky opens.”
I checked my watch.
“What time is it?” John asked.
“Time for the ass-clowns to show,” Jonesy muttered.
Jade covered her mouth, hiding a smile.
Carson and Brett rounded the hill behind us as if conjured. Their blond heads glowed in the dim light of the overcast sky. They climbed the hill with determination, wearing dual expressions of purpose.
***
When they stopped just in front of us, Brett made a point of staring down Jade. I wondered if he had told Carson about his dad's meltdown and the gopher attack. Probably not.
The great trees inside the cemetery stood sentinel, their sweeping branches moved by invisible strings.
Jonesy shook his bag of goodies and they rattled alarmingly.
“I've got this experiment all fleshed out.” He waggled his brows. “Me and my boys tried it last year, and it turned out cool.”
Carson looked interested. The only reason he'd be motivated to try something connected with the three of us, was to prove how much of a mondo-stud he was.
Typical.
Carson leaned forward, trying to scope what was in the bag. Jonesy pulled it back.
“Come on, Carson,” Brett said. “This is just some kinda game. Let's get outta here.”
I was feeling unsure about making Brett pay, but Carson... that was okay. The Js and I had decided if Carson was taught a lesson, Brett would lay off, too, following his lead. I liked it better because Carson just acted like an anus cause he had one. He didn't have worries, the dick nozzle.
Carson shook his head. “Nah, I want to see what Jonesy's got that's so special.”
“Well, c’mon,” Jonesy said.
We followed Jonesy and his bag of mayhem into the cemetery. As soon as I crossed the threshold, the buzzing of voices rose to a fever-pitch, like the droning of bees. I tried to tune it out, but there was something about actually being in the cemetery that seemed to make it resonate deeper.
I stalled a little and Jade slowed beside me, her eyes widening. I knew she was getting a little feedback.
She whispered, “Are those the voices?”
I nodded.
“Is it like this all the time?”
“Not always, but this close to a big nest o' corpses, oh yeah.”
Everyone turned to look at us, so we began to walk again. I let go of her hand.
She didn't need the overlap, and I was straining for control. So many dead were just impossible for me to ignore. But without Jade touching me, it was a little better. She was like a radio antenna amplifying their signal, almost like Tiff.
Jonesy took out each item out for the cluster fun. It looked like a weird hodgepodge to me. If I was guessing right, he had improved on his original idea.
He was completely serious, the first clue that the whole thing was absolute bullshit. He said to Carson, “You take this tube-thingey”—he pulled out a corrugated tube that looked like something Dad had put by the foundation of our house—“and Brett holds the other end.” He held up the hairspray. “Spray this crap inside the tube.”
“Why is it duct taped on this side?” Carson asked.
Jonesy did a long, slow blink.
Carson had the IQ of a shovel.
“It's to keep the Aqua Net inside the tube, Carson,” he explained slowly.
Carson tried to save face. “Yeah, I knew that.”
John turned away and laughed into his hand while pretending to cough.
Brett glared at him. “What's the lighter for? How'd you get it?”
Jonesy smiled. “Swiped it from my dad.”
I was drowning in the voices but making a colossal effort to quiet them.
Carson asked John and me, “You guys did this, right?”
We nodded. I gritted my teeth. Get on with it.
Then, just to sweeten the deal, I asked, “Scared?”
Carson lowered his chin like a bull before a red flag and replied through gritted teeth, “We can do anything you pussies can do.”
Resolute, his chin rose and he crossed his arms across his chest.
Going according to plan.
Jonesy handed Brett the duct-taped end of the tube. Carson grabbed the can of hairspray out of Jonesy's hand. The top spun off and became a bright pink exclamation point on top of a grave marker.
Jade watched with fascinated horror.
I knew it wouldn't end well, but it was like a piece of chocolate with mystery stuff inside. I suspected it would taste bad, but there might be something about it I liked.
Jonesy held out the lighter. A ghost of a smile formed on Carson's lips, as he leaned forward and delicately plucked the lighter out of Jonesy's fingers.
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