“What if Brett and Carson lead them to our new spot?” Sophie asked.
“It's okay. Between my skills and Team Dead, we'll be okay,” Jonesy said.
“Your skills? What skills?” Tiff asked. She murdered the silence with a popping bubble and the group flinched.
“Hey, I'm the one who comes up with the ideas, plans, and other cool stuff to entertain everyone,” Jonesy said.
“Mostly, you just get us into trouble,” Jade said.
Jonesy spread his palms out, eyes buggy. “But it's a helluva lot of fun!”
The secretary's voice came over the pulse speaker. “Eighth grade students, get in line according to your last name.”
We walked to our respective lines. Carson came out of nowhere and joined my line.
“Hey, Carson,” I said, feeling the waters.
“Don't talk to me, Hart, ya freak.”
“You too,” I said with a grin.
Carson glared at me. I turned away from him, I could blow him off.
Jade and Sophie were in line B, and John and Tiff were in line C. I caught sight of Brett a few people behind Jade. My heart raced. He saw me notice him and reached to touch Jade's hair. Sophie was talking to Jade, and her eyes widened. Jade saw her reaction and turned, so his hand brushed her face instead of her hair. Jade cringed, stepping back.
I left my line and strode over to Brett.
“Don't touch her.”
Brett smirked. “Gets you all fired up, Hart?”
“Need another zombie lesson, Brett?” I asked in a fierce whisper.
His eyes narrowed. “Ya know, someday, you're not gonna have Jonesy or one of your freak zombies around to save your ass, then what? Huh? She lives by me, and you're not always around.”
He looked at Jade. “Yeah, you're a freak like your boyfriend here. It's okay if you know what I think, though. More than okay.”
He smiled at her.
Jade shuddered, and I put my arm around her.
Ms. Griswold strode up, arms pumping stoutly by her sides. “Hart, Mason...problem here?” she asked, her nasal voice shredding my eardrums.
“No problem,” Brett responded.
Right.
“Mr. Hart, aren't you in the wrong line?”
“Ah…” I looked around, playing dumb. “I don't know.”
“I think you do. Get going.” She swung her clipboard to indicate my line. “Over there.”
She waited while I gave Jade a squeeze, crossing her arms over her ample chest and tapping her foot. I reentered my line where I had been.
It went on for kilometers, but I finally received my ticket.
Kent Paranormal High. Appear for registration on September 2, 2025, between 7- 8 a.m. for class roster.
Jonesy got Kent Lake High, but there was an addendum attached.
Secondary Aptitude Testing for Paranormal abilities will be administered within the first two weeks of instruction.
John said, “There must be kids slipping notice.” At our questioning looks, he continued, “There are kids who don't follow a puberty timeline. We're not all following the same schedule, y'know.”
“I thought the AP Tests picked up on that,” I said.
“They do, but it's not an exact science.”
Jonesy jumped around as if his feet were on fire. “Ya think I may ping later? Hot damn!”
John sighed. “I didn't say you. I've heard there have been a few kids who manifest later than the AP Testing.”
“Weren't the drug companies promising—” Sophie started.
Jade interrupted. “Yeah. That everyone would manifest an ability by a certain time.”
We'd all heard the same spiel. It was straight out of their pulsemercials.
“That's what they thought, but we're human beings,” John said. “Individuals.”
“What John's saying is we're all alike, but not exactly alike. The drug companies put us in the same box, and some don't fit,” I said.
“Generalizing the population,” John restated.
“So I may ping the test?” Jonesy asked again.
John threw up his hands. “I don't know! They'll see if you join us freaks at KPH.”
“Nice. I knew I'd have extra skills.”
“I thought you already had skills,” Tiff said, one eyebrow cocked.
“Yeah, I do, I said extra.”
“Whatever,” Tiff said, exasperated.
Sophie's cheeks had a faint blush as she and Jade walked off to their class. Maybe she was diggin' on the Jonester.
“Hey!” I called.
Jade turned. I jogged over and pulled her in for a hug. I slyly looked for adult radar then gave her a nice one right on that luscious mouth of hers.
“Miss ya,” I whispered, looking into the green pools of her eyes.
“Me too.”
“Give me a break!” Jonesy said. “You guys will live until the end of the day.”
I glared at him. “The question that you should ask yourself is whether you'll live.”
Jonesy ran down the hall. Breaking away from Jade, I raced after him. John trailed behind, laughing.
CHAPTER 29
Finally, Friday arrived. It was an easy day, just field games and a picnic. The last one out of the room, I was gathering my stuff from my final class, when the Js came over to my desk.
I raised my desktop to get a pencil that had rolled to the back. John leaned over to look, and the frizz of his hair speared my nose.
“Ah… choo!” I blasted the inside of my desk.
“Hey!” John yelped, jerking his head up and hitting the table top on his way.
“Ouch! That hurt like a bitch,” John muttered, rubbing his head.
“Nice, Terran,” Jonesy said, his eyes rolling to indicate adult radar had noticed his colorful wording.
Just short of wiping my nose on my sleeve, I spied the tissue box on Ms. Rodriguez's desk. I went over and grabbed a couple of tissues, then blew my nose. As I turned around, I noticed Ms. Rodriguez standing inside the doorway. She was dressed very summery with stiletto heels, a tight white skirt and a pale yellow blouse. A lacy cami in aqua flashed (a cleavage-hider, that). Her dark hair flowed around a face that was... angry.
“You know very well the rules of decorum in this classroom, Mr. Terran.”
John jumped and spun around to face her. “Y-y-yes, Ms. Rodriguez.”
“No vulgar language, understood?” She arched a perfect raven’s wing eyebrow.
John nodded.
This was priceless, Terran was the least likely of the three of us to curse. Loving it.
Ms. Rodriguez turned her attention to us and I dry swallowed.
Jonesy looked ready to crawl up his own ass.
Rodriguez narrowed her eyes at me. “Mr. Hart, would you”—she pointed a white, french-tipped nail at my desk—“gather your garbage, please?” She indicated the trash separator beside her desk.
Sighing, I lumbered back over to my desk. Jonesy looked as though he had been struck between the eyes with a hammer.
John slid one lanky arm into my desk and pulled out a colorful ball.
“A Hacky Sack!” Jonesy chortled.
“A what?” John asked.
“See? You're not so smart.”
“Give it,” I said. “It's my dad's.”
“I want a demo, Hart,” Jonesy said.
“Boys!” Ms Rodriguez called.
I whispered, “Later.”
“Okay.” Jonesy tossed the Hacky Sack to me.
I stuffed the bag in my jeans pocket, where it made a disturbing bulge.
“Hey, Caleb,” Jonesy said, “You may want to put that in your back pocket.”
“Right,” John agreed.
I stuffed it in the back, remedying the three testicle look.
“Better,” John said.
We went back to work, John using two pencils to excavate an unknown something.
It was slimy and gray... no, black. Sick. And not in a good way.
“Caleb, that is truly disgusting,” Jonesy said, awed.
“What is it?” John said eyeballing it.
“I don't know.”
“I want to see,” Jonesy said, leaning forward, giving it an experimental whiff; then he made a barfing noise, running over to the bin labeled Compost and heaved his breakfast into it.
Ms. Rodriguez left the room, squealing in disgust.
“That solves it, definitely a food item,” John deduced.
From the well of the compost bin Jonesy echoed, “Banana!”
“Thanks for clearin' that up!”
John walked it over to the compost bin, giving it a proper burial.
“I'm going to the bathroom and rinse my mouth out,” Jonesy said.
“Please,” John said.
“Thanks for figuring that out. I'll sleep better tonight, now that the mystery is solved.”
Jonesy waggled his brows. “Look at how I got rid of Rodriguez, huh?”
That was true.
Jonesy walked out, John and I scooping out the remaining stuff.
John said, “How can anyone get three English texts in here? You should be using your pulse-text.”
“I just like holding the real book.”
“Three of them?”
John stacked them in his arms, placing them on the bookshelf. We hardly used textbooks, everything was pulse this and pulse that. On top were the dedicated pulse readers, all English.
Jonesy returned from the bathroom as we were leaving. “They're already playing baseball out in the field,”
“What are we waiting for?” I asked.
All of us tore out of there like our asses were on fire.
***
My belly was full of hot dogs, chips, and chocolate milk. During the baseball game, Jonesy had got a homerun, but John had only made it to first base once, tripping on the way there. I had been busy staring at Jade and gotten nailed on the shin by a bad pitch. My leg was throbbing in a distracting way.
“Look what I got,” Jonesy said, holding up a loose fan of Blow Pops.
He looked like one of those magicians who pulled coins from behind people’s ears. I grabbed a grape-flavored one. Mom would have a turtle if she caught me with sugar. Sugar was evil.
I thought it tasted pretty good.
Jade grabbed sour apple. Disgusting, but that wasn’t a surprise since she did like licorice ice cream.
I glanced at Jade just as the sun slid behind a cloud, reducing the luster of her hair to shimmering black oil. She caught me looking at her and smiled.
Jonesy snapped his fingers in front of my face. “Snap out of it, Hart!”
I swatted his hand away. “What's the haunted plan tonight?
Jonesy smirked, “I think you can just show up and scare all the ghosts with that haircut your dad gave you.”
Jade gave me a sympathetic look.
I scrubbed a hand over the bristle and sighed. I narrowed my eyes at him. “How do you know my dad gave me a haircut?” I asked.
Jonesy laughed. “Are you really asking that question? Your dad always gives you the haircut.”
“Is it that obvious?”
Everyone nodded.
I folded my arms across my chest, talking around the sucker. “I doubt my hair is going to be enough to scare anyone or anything.”
“Caleb's right, what's the plan? I noticed it's Friday the thirteenth and nothing's happened,” John said.
“The day's young,” Jonesy said, brandishing his half-eaten lollipop. “There's plenty of crap that can still happen.” He eyed us. “So I'm thinkin' we should meet around eight at the cemetery then weasel over to the shack about ten.”
John nodded. “Maybe bringing my LEDs would be good.”
Jonesy huffed. “No. How is it gonna be creepy if you're wrecking it with LEDs? Think, my man!”
“He's got a point,” I said.
“It seems safer, though,” Jade hesitantly added.
“What could go wrong?” Jonesy asked.
Jade gave him an astonished look. “Ah... everything.” She bit into her sucker to reach the gum.
John stopped chewing long enough to say, “The gum loses flavor fast.”
“Yeah,” Jade and Jonesy said at the same time.
Jonesy grinned. The gum fell out of his mouth and plopped on the ground. “Ah, damn.”
After they walked off, I asked Jade, “Why don't you pulse Andrea and see if you can come to my house for dinner?”
“Okay.” She pulled out her pulse and was done in seconds. “It's okay. But did ya ask your parents?”
“Nah, my mom won't care. She'll think it's a vacation from the Js.”
We walked to my house, our fingers entwined. I was really getting used to having her next to me. When we got to my place, we went straight to the kitchen. I did it out of habit, and Jade just followed.
Mom looked up from the stove. “Hi, Caleb. Oh... hi, Jade.”
“Hey, Alicia,” Jade said.
“Are you staying for supper?”
We both nodded, and I asked, “It's okay, right?”
“You bet. It'll be ready in,” she turned to the pulse-clock, synchronized to Greenwich Mean Time, “five-ish, okay?”
“Great, Mom. we're gonna go up to my room.”
“Door open, Caleb.”
Jade blushed, and I said, “Yeah, Mom.”
Holy crow.
“Oh!” Mom said. “How was your last day of school?”
“It was good. Jonesy got a home run.”
“Not surprising. He's pretty athletic, our Jonesy. Your dad will be home shortly.”
“Really?” That was different, Dad didn't usually get home until supper time.
“He knew it was your last day of school and thought it would be fun to play some ball or whatever.”
Jade said, “Ah, I've got some stuff to do, and then I can come back for dinner.”
“I didn't mean to chase you off, Jade,” Mom said.
She laughed. “I'm sure my aunt has something for me to do since I'm going out with friends tonight.”
“Oh?” Mom arched an eyebrow.
I jumped in. “Yeah, a group of us kids are going to explore and walk around.”
“Who?” Mom asked, hands on hips, eyes intense.
I shrugged, trying to be casual. “The Js and Tiff.”
“That tough girl from Scenic Cemetery?”
“Yeah, she's good to have around, Mom.”
“Really? Why?”
“Because she is AFTD too. It just makes things better if some weird stuff comes up.”
“Is there a plan for weird stuff?”
Uh-oh, this was getting close to lying. “No. But we didn't think anything bad was gonna happen at Scenic, and you know how that turned out.”
Mom looked thoughtful.
“Okay, who else?
“Sophie and Bry Weller,” Jade supplied.
“Who's he?” Mom asked.
“He's the older boy that was there,” I said.
Mom grimaced. “Oh. That was an unfortunate incident for him.” She shook her head.
Unfortunate incident didn't cover it.
“Is there some issue with everyone in that Weller family shortening their names?” Mom asked in her random way.
Jade said, “Tiff thinks her name sounds,” she paused, “too girlie.”
“What about the boy?”
“I don't know about him,” Jade admitted.
“Look at Jonesy. Why doesn't anyone call him Mark?”
We thought on that.
Finally, Mom said, “he doesn't seem like a Mark.”
Yeah, Mark was so wrong for him.
“Yet, he is clearly Mark,” I said.
“Okay, be back by around five, Jade. We're having pizza and salad.”
Salad? Disgusting. I'd drown it in ranch dressing.
Jade smiled. “I love salad.”
Jade and I hugged by the front door, and she sauntered off. I looked after her,
torn between walking her home but not wanting to be freaky overprotective.
Mom came up behind me. “You can't protect her all the time.”
I smiled. Mom has telepathy, but she's not a paranormal.
“I hate where she lives.”
“No, you hate who she lives near.”
That was mainly accurate. “That, too.”
I went to the bathroom to take a shower and wash off the layer of baseball grime with a chaser of sucker.
CHAPTER 30
Jade and I arrived at the cemetery a late. We were holding hands, with an occasional whack from Onyx's tail.
The whole group was there. Bikes were piled up beside the gate. It wasn't dark yet, but the sky had deepened to a polished azure—that color only summer could claim.
Tiff and Bry had on hoodies—the Weller uniform. My stomach clenched when I caught sight of him. Our last encounter had ended badly. He was John's height, but he had fifty pounds on my friend—definitely a jock. I swallowed nervously.
Onyx lowered his head, and I thought, It's okay, Onyx.
The Boy has put the good sounds in the Dog's head, but there was a nervousness that is not typical of the Boy. The Dog became watchful of the new people, a foreign pack.
The Dog approached the big male and sniffed his hand. Then, he moved his nose to the female. They were pack, but the others... not. He backed away cautiously, knowing he must maintain his rude eye contact when his Boy was nervous with the pack of two. The Dog understood when the big male looked away that the Dog was dominant.
That was good. The Dog wagged his tail.
“Doesn't seem like your dog likes me much, Hart,” Bry said.
“Nah. He’s just sizin’ ya up.”
Tiff gave me a little salute with her fingers. “Hey, Caleb.”
I nodded back at her. “Hey.”
Bry came over, and I tensed. Onyx omitted a soft growl.
“We're cool,” Bry said, giving me the guy clap on the back.
Everyone seemed to relax, including Onyx. Cool. I instinctively liked Bry for putting stuff to bed.
***
We hiked up a steep knoll, Jonesy in the lead and John, with his LED strapped to his side, following closely.
I caught Sophie glancing at Jonesy, but he didn’t seem to notice. She was taller than Jonesy—what a weird pair they'd make.
The Death Series, Books 1-3 (Dark Dystopian Paranormal Romance): Death Whispers, Death Speaks, and Death Inception Page 25