I shook my head.
He nodded. “He'll come now whenever you're under duress. It's just what it is. Be prepared. They don't stay as they were, they become more.”
I looked at the perfection of Clyde, who looked entirely human except for the clown-mouth in red.
Cripes.
“I'm going.” The zombies looked at Parker, moving to stand beside him. “These are my soldiers now. They never go back-to-ground.”
Garcia started and my mouth dropped.
Parker smiled. “There is much you do not know about being a five-point. And as you do know... you are much more.”
Sirens wailed in the background and Parker's eyes narrowed on Garcia.
“Guilty,” Garcia said, his hands spread.
“I must go. We will see each other again.” Parker turned, and began to jog for the forest perimeter, the buzzing of the cars from the highway a droning in the background. I watched them melt into the woods, their shapes swallowed into the dark embrace of the forest.
Parker had saved me.
Clyde stood staring at me, waiting.
He looked achingly human.
Jade came to, her head whipping around. “Where is he?”
“Dead,” I said, gathering her into my arms.
“Is it over?” she asked.
Garcia and my eyes met. “Oh yeah, it's over,” I said.
Flashlights found us. Officers surrounded us, coming from below, guns drawn.
Gale reached us first. “It was Smith?”
Garcia nodded.
“Crap, Raul, I would have never...”
He nodded. “None of us did.”
They looked at McGraw, no longer animated, having fallen to the ground when Parker no longer needed him. Garcia shook his head when she looked a question at him. Then her eyes found Smith's sister.
“That bitch helped him,” she stated.
Garcia nodded. “She identified the Nulls and he killed them.”
Gale looked confused. “Wait a sec. How was the Mason boy killed almost ten years ago? That means...”
“He was one of the first, like my AFTD teacher,” I said.
“So, he was like our age when he started killing kids? Brett's brother was a Null,” Jade said.
I nodded. “He was a serial killer when he wasn't even an adult. And that sick sister of his was helping out.”
“She'll sing. Oh yes, she'll sing like a canary down at the precinct,” Garcia said with surety.
The other cops swarmed around us like bees to a hive, jerking Smith's sister to her feet and dragging her off for a nice little trip to the station.
Gale said, “Let's get your statements downtown.”
I wasn't letting go of Jade for anything, ever again. I took my pulse out and pulsed the Parents.
Initializing
Mom- CH
Where are you, young man? -AH
I had to go to a crime-scene and things got stupid...can you and Dad meet us down at the police station? -CH
Pause in pulse transmission
Yes, we'll be there in ten.- AH
K, I'll explain everything then.- CH
Pulse to hibernate
I used a watered down rag that one of the cops gave me to wipe Smith's blood off my face. Tossing it on the ground and turning to Jade I kissed the top of her head and stood with her leaning into me. I noticed Clyde watching Gale again.
“Must I leave and go to where I rest, Master?” he asked.
I nodded. “I don't know what Parker was saying exactly about our connection, Clyde. But it may mean something different for us in the future.”
“What connection?” Gale asked.
I explained everything, including the zombie soldiers that were never laid to rest.
“Does this mean that he,” and she pointed at Clyde and swallowed so loud I heard the click, “could be alive again?”
I shrugged. “I don't know, but the facts are: his don't rest again. They behave like zombie body guards.”
She circled Clyde and he followed her motion, following her with his eyes. Without warning, his hand snaked out and gripped her wrist, hauling her against him and she yelped.
He leaned in and I said, “Clyde!”
“Do not fret,” he said, his eyes going back to Gale's. “Why do you regard me thus, necromancer?”
“I am not like him,” her eyes darted to me then back to him, her wrist curled between their chests, his form looming over hers.
“Ah, there you are wrong. You do not command me but I feel you in my skull, a pulsating warmth of life. You are the same flavor as my master, like the girl,” and his gaze drifted briefly to Tiff then back to Gale again, “but different.”
“Do you not feel that tether which binds us?” he asked, every tooth straight and white in his mouth.
Guess I got it right this time.
“Yes,” she said, her voice breathy.
“Caleb!” Garcia said.
“Clyde, let her go, please,” I said.
He slowly released her wrist, and she stepped back, rubbing it, her gaze wounded and shocky. He'd taken her by surprise.
Clyde turned to me. “Has the danger passed?”
I nodded.
“I will go then back to whence I came.”
He turned to go and I called out, “Wait!”
I ran to him and stuck out my hand, he wrapped his around mine and we shook.
Like men do.
“Thank you.”
“You are most welcome,” he said and with a final look at Gale, was gone.
I came back to where Jade and Tiff stood. Gale was still cradling that hand, her eyes where Clyde had been, an indecipherable expression on her face.
We made our way in the murky gloom, the flashlights casting swaths of bluish-white light just ahead of our footsteps. We arrived at the squad cars, their bright blue and red strobes spearing the darkness with artificial color.
We piled into the back of Garcia's cruiser and as we drove away I was struck by something:
Clyde hadn't smelled like the dead.
CHAPTER 32
I was exhausted but happy. Finally. We were almost to Gramps' and it was a Halloween that was clear and cold. I'd had to commit to wearing a coat, which seemed vaguely uncool. After all, with Jade curled up next to me, I felt pretty warm.
The week leading up to my birthday had been full of questions, speculations, confessions. Best of all, Jade and I were no longer separated.
Zealots that belonged to the separatist group, Mundanes Unite, had raised John Smith and his sister Anne. Mom had explained to me that it was a group set on the control and incarceration of paranormals.
In other words, Professional Creepers.
The Smith kids had never had a chance in a household like that. Day in and day out, they were preached to about how dangerous all paranormals were. It was only a matter of time before someone snapped.
Garcia had gone to each family personally, delivering the news of the killer's demise. Brett's family took it the hardest. To think that John Smith had chosen a toddler at the same park that I was in, that I was playing at that day. Well, it had been a terrible, near miss.
It could have been me.
It didn't make sense that Ceci had been targeted. But Anne Smith had confessed they used her death as a distraction to lead the cops away from the Null theory.
A distraction. Somehow, I didn't think Officer Cline would think about it that way. Ever.
The cops kept the tidbit about the zombies eating Smith out of the papers somehow. Parker was kept under wraps too. He'd been listed only as a “good Samaritan.” I wasn't so sure about that but I knew one thing:
He'd saved me. A supremely weird development.
I didn't know how to feel about that part. He was neatly in the “bad guy” box. Now I'd have to rethink his role in my life. He'd gone against the Graysheets to help me. Why?
And he had zombies with him all the time. It was a new world order, I thought.
Too bizarre for words.
As we got out of Bry's car, I saw Jonesy and my parents huddled around the fire, their breath misting and a smile broke over my face. The first one in what felt like a million years.
Mia's car pulled up after Bry's and the rest of the group got out, finding a spot by Gramp's ginormous fire.
Jade was crammed in the crook of my arm and we slowly approached the fire. The moon rode high over our heads, the stumps in the lake bed frozen spears dotting the horizon.
Dad looked at me. “Happy Birthday, Son.”
“It's been a helluva year, Caleb!” Gramps agreed, stabbing a dog through the middle and hanging it over the flames.
I laughed. “Yeah, it sure has.”
“I hope it's not a trend. I, for one, want things to settle down,” Mom said.
John and the other kids were solemn but Jonesy broke the mood.
“Settling down is not part of the program for Caleb. Excitement follows him around.” With that, he bent Sophie back where she stood and laid a big one right on her mouth.
In front of his parents.
“Young man, you get your tongue out of her mouth right now!” Helen said (obviously over her bout of morning sickness or whatever).
Alex sprayed pop into the fire and it sparked back and hit Mia's hoodie, which started to smolder. Bry leaped over and jerked off her sweatshirt and half her top came off with it, exposing her bra.
Mom said, “Oh my.”
Jonesy, (his tongue firmly out of Sophie's mouth), had missed the fire part and said, “Are we really taking clothes off?” in a hopeful voice.
“No, you ass-hat, Bry was trying to help Mia!” Tiff said in a huff.
“Looks like it,” Jonesy said in a droll way.
John barked out a laugh and Jade smiled up at me.
Looked like things were back to normal.
For tonight.
The End
Death Inception
Book Three of The Death Series
by Tamara Rose Blodgett
Death Inception
Book Three of The Death Series
by Tamara Rose Blodgett
Copyright © 2012 Tamara Rose Blodgett
http://tamararoseblodgett.blogspot.com
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
All rights are reserved.
Edited by Stephanie T. Lott
For:
Reader Shannon French
CHAPTER 1
1929
Margaret “Maggie” Parker felt the warm breath of him on the nape of her neck before kisses fell like soft rain and the tug of her apron strings loosened in his capable hands.
He was insatiable, her Clyde. And she loved him for it.
Clyde looked at Maggie, her large pale green eyes brimming with trust and he felt his resolve strengthen again to make an honest woman of her.
Soon.
He studied the lightweight and slightly sheer flowered dress she wore; it clung to every curve. He ran his rough hands down the smoothness of her arms and gooseflesh rose in response to his touch. Clyde smiled as she managed a feeble attempt to resist his advances while cooking at the hellaciously hot stove. It was the beginning of summer and jamming wood in the box for a hot supper seemed almost sacrilegious, what with summer's heat upon them. The sultry night lifted her natural fragrance to waft between the two of them, roses and morning glory, an intoxicating mix.
Clyde sighed, wrapping his strong arms around her. If only he could get ahead of the loans on the farm. Maggie turned in the circle of his arms and pressed her cheek to his chest, she grabbed one of his large hands and kissed the scabs that marred his knuckles from the fighting. He smiled down at her, the smooth skin of her hands contrasting with his wounded knuckles.
He pulled her away from the stove and toward the staircase.
“No, Clyde!” she squawked in mock horror, “supper will burn.”
But he saw the desire light in her eyes, burning there like she said the supper would.
Clyde lowered his lids to half-mast. “Turn down the heat, then.”
She flushed furiously, the pink blooming from some point down low and effusing her cheekbones a delicious rosebud color. Maggie giggled and ran back to the stove, turning down a dial that wouldn't make the stove lose its heat until the middle of the night. Once that porcelain Behemoth gained a head of steam, it stayed hot for hours.
Clyde held out his arms and when she got close enough, he swept her up into his embrace, cradling her against his chest. His height and breadth gave him the extra money they needed to get over this financial burden they faced.
Enough to give her the wedding she deserved.
The home.
The life.
They were locked in the bedroom for a long time, the supper sticking inside the pot, forgotten.
*
2010
Kyle Ulysses Hart kissed his wife's bulging belly with enthusiasm, lifting dark eyes to her bluish gray pair.
“You're terrible, Dr. Hart!” she laughed, tugging at his hair while he pressed his cheek to the warmth of her womb. Her girth would soon be a thing of the past; the arrival of their son bringing an end to her discomfort. Kyle laughed at her shyness, she was incredibly sexy with their unborn son inside her. Kyle was uniquely suited to understanding the miracle of birth and what things transpired to cause its inception.
He'd been instrumental in mapping the human genome, after all.
Kyle smiled at his wife, trying to erase the meeting he'd attended earlier with the pharmaceutical companies, making an effort to listen to Ali's prattle about the newest plant for their garden. The birth tree they'd be planting for their son. She'd already picked out a name, but he'd nixed the middle name. He liked Sebastian, after his great-grandfather. It was unique, like his son would undoubtedly be.
Caleb Sebastian Hart.
He liked the sound of that. He helped Ali off the couch and gave her a light smack on her rear as she went into the kitchen. She managed to contain the waddle with an effort even as her laughter spilled over him like musical notes.
He grinned, turning to settle down and work at his laptop as Ali readied supper. It would be very good when he began testing the Pulse Technology’s answer to the computer age, the laptop, as they knew it, would soon be obsolete.
Brain Impulse. It was the wave of the future.
Even with his excitement over scientific advance, his good humor faded as he remembered the conference from earlier that day.
Michael Dunham the Third drummed his perfectly manicured fingertips on the solid wood table of the conference room within The Human Genome Project Center.
He hated sucking up to these scientists. It was a necessary evil, however. Without their approval, the public would balk at little Johnny getting stuck with their juice.
Very powerful juice.
Dunham smoothed his tie down for the twelfth time and tried to contain his bored expression as Dr. Kyle Hart outlined the genome to the gathered pharmaceutical representatives and his scientific team that were present; who followed his summary with rapt attention.
Who gave a ripe shit? Why couldn't Hart just roll over like a well-trained dog and take the money they were offering to fund the inoculations? It was confounding. Of course, the government agency that had funded the monies to make it possible for this advancement was highly covert. As far as Hart was ever going to know, non-existent.
It was better that way. Better for Dr. Kyle Hart, though he didn't know it.
Dunham raised his hand and watched Hart pause mid-sentence, a frown of concentration shifting to mild annoyance.
The sap actually loved what he did. And not for the money.
It was mind-blowing to Dunham.
“Yes, Mr. Dunham?” Kyle Hart asked, eyebrow cocked with the, I hope you understand I was just about to make an important closing point look.
Yeah, he'd gotten that.
“Thank you for expounding on your research, Dr. Hart, but it won't be necessary. We have been extensively briefed as to the markers, their discovery and the subsequent drugs that will allow the activation of said markers.” He spread his hands as if to say, let's get down to the nitty-gritty.
Kyle didn't like this guy. He stank of bureaucracy and cunning slyness. Dunham needed to appreciate the importance of human trials before widespread inoculations. It would unlock Pandora's Box. Had he considered what that might mean? Kyle wasn't going to be a part of playing God on the children of the United States.
It was not lost on him with his own unborn son would be inoculated along with everyone else.
Their eyes locked and Kyle stated, “I will not sign off on human trials.”
Dunham's smile widened into a grin. “Now that just works out fine, Dr. Hart. We don't need you to. We just need you to approve them after they're completed. Establish credibility that the drug works to enhance what may have taken evolution a hundred or even a thousand years to naturally occur. Really, the inoculations allow immediacy to what evolution would have inevitably provided.” He shrugged.
The Death Series, Books 1-3: Death Whispers, Death Speaks and Death Inception (The Death Series, Volume 1) Page 67