He deposited her on the soft grass and held her until she stopped swaying, their combined laughter a music he would never tire of.
Clyde answered her question, “Then she be the luckiest girl to be born.”
“Oh... why is that?” Maggie asked. Not waiting for a response she turned, running up the steps of his grandfather's farmhouse, the earlier evil of the visit from the police lost in the joyous press of the secret knowledge they'd just shared.
“Because her beauty will rival that of her mother's,” Clyde whispered. Desire flared in his eyes with heat and purpose.
Intent.
Maggie saw it and ran, laughing as he charged after her.
Clyde chased her up the stairs, catching her easily on the turn in the stairwell, the pain of his fists forgotten before the distraction of her love.
CHAPTER 3
2010
Jeffrey was scared. His skinny arms were trapped in banded restraints. Not too much different than all the other kids that were here.
Except, maybe they wanted to be.
Jeffrey didn't. His parents did. Well, not his parents. His mom was actually his bio-mom. But the dad... he was step. A step he'd like to bash in the head a few hundred times. When those government dudes had come by the house and waved some cash in front of them, they'd jumped at the chance.
Selling Jeffrey out. He was young, not stupid.
And these apes gave him the effing full-on creepers. One of said apes approached, his eyes like big, magnified fish eggs behind his glasses.
“Don't you have a minion or something to figure this out for you?” Jeffrey Parker asked, his bold gaze not intimidated in the least by the scientist's stare. Even in the face of the large needle he brandished.
“Oh yes, we do, young man.” Those bulging eyes landed on him with slithering intensity.
Jeffrey thought it'd be a great idea to poach those suckers.
“But, my colleague and I enjoy the personal touch. Quality control, young man, quality control.”
Jeffrey's eyes flicked to his name tag, Dr. Zondorae. It was identical to the other doctor.
“You're related, not colleagues,” Jeffrey said as an accusation. He just knew these two were up to something. Who the hell comes to a kid's house and bribes their parents to let them be a part of human trials for a new drug?
In secret.
Gary Zondorae narrowed his eyes on the brat that presumed to question him. Whatever good nature he possessed, vanished.
Not that he'd had any to spare.
He moved in with the needle, piercing the vein of number one hundred three.
Gary actually had two needles. He'd made a split decision with one hundred three. He'd been palming the placebo dose, but when the subject got mouthy, that clinched his decision.
This brat was getting the real McCoy.
As he strolled away, angry tears stood in one hundred three's eyes.
They didn't fall.
He tapped his clipboard with a pen, using his finger to line up the number with the name.
Jeffrey Parker.
The stupid kid didn't know what the gift was that he'd get. It could be something spectacular. He was ungrateful. Gary would have given his eyeteeth to be injected with the genetic splice. The equivalent to the shortcut to the full potential they held as humans. Why couldn't people accept change? Be brave? Embrace opportunity?
Gary knew that most of the subjects came from socio-economically depressed environments. Most of them were of inferior intelligence.
He smiled, glancing behind his shoulder as he did. Gary's eyes fell on subject one hundred three. He saw that the kid's right hand was straining in the universal and unspoken language of communication.
Jeffrey Parker's middle finger stood at erect attention, directed at Gary Zondorae.
Of course, Gary thought, there could always be exceptions to that rule as he took note of the fierce intelligence that burned within the depths of Jeffrey Parker's eyes.
He would bear watching. Gary was suddenly struck that it would be very bad if that particular subject manifested a powerful ability. A yet unknown ability. With that type of constitution, it would be unfortunate indeed.
A flash of regret surfaced in Gary's mind for giving Parker the Cocktail instead of the placebo like the others.
He walked away, the disquiet of his epiphany following silently after him.
*
Kyle strode down the corridor, humming tunelessly as he did. His thoughts focused completely on the excitement of the breakthrough that everyone within his tight, scientific group were raving about:
Pulse Technology.
He slapped Brandt's door open and grinned when he saw him bent over his lab samples.
“Hey Hart, come to gloat?” Brandt smiled.
“Definitely,” Kyle said, clapping him on the shoulder, taking note of the spot of mustard on his tie, the rumpled shirt.
“Did you spend the night on the Thinking Couch again?” Kyle asked, letting the sarcasm permeate the room.
Brandt swung his palms up. “Guilty. Come here, fellow smartass, and see this newest thing.”
Kyle's brows came together. “Aren't you under a huge smoking gun, Brandt?”
He nodded. “You know it.” When Kyle's eyes grew serious, Brandt waved it away. “You worry too much Hart. Maybe it's that paternal instinct coming online. Stork's coming soon, right?”
Kyle barked out a laugh. “Yes, quite. Now show me what you have.”
They bent over the detailed calculations and after a long while, Kyle stood, his back cracking and realigning from his hunched position.
“The very last piece is the integral intelligence puzzle of human electrode impulse to device transference.”
Kyle grinned. “Like a microwave.”
Brandt grinned back. “That's extremely simplified since it's well known people don't cook potatoes.”
“Right!” Kyle said. Then, “So when's show and tell today?”
“Two o'clock.” Brandt's eyes flicked to Kyle's. “What about you? Have the trials... finished?”
Kyle scowled and gave a terse nod. That had not gone the way he'd wanted. However, he had gained a small victory in ensuring that only a small number of children were actually given the Cocktail, the nickname his colleagues had given the drug that would unlock paranormal ability.
“Look at the bright side, Kyle.”
What could that be? Kyle thought morosely, his lack of total control over the implementation of the Cocktail taking the joy of his discoveries and dampening them with a cloud of doubt.
“What you've discovered, combined with the Cocktail in addition to Pulse Technology will be a perfect complement.” He shrugged. “We're fortunate that all this discovery and technological advance happened in synchronicity. It was meant to be.”
Kyle thought about the Zondorae brothers and winced. They were ambitiously greedy. He didn't think timing had a helluva lot to do with it all.
Kyle believed it had a lot more to do with money and power.
The heartbeat of humanity.
*
two weeks later
Jeffrey gazed into the undersized mirror above the bathroom sink, his image reflected back in a spiderweb of cracks.
He didn't look any different.
He looked lame though, he'd just started his growth spurt, as Mom called it in a rare sober moment, and he'd shot up four inches in the last six months.
That's one of the reasons the government dudes were so hot to nail his ass for the trials: poor, stupid and in puberty.
They had a couple of things right but stupid he wasn't. With a little more secret spy shit, they could have gotten an IQ test result for free. But that little detail hadn't mattered. Because Jeffrey knew that he was in the top .003% of the world population.
His Brain Number was high, weighing in at a hefty one hundred sixty. Hell, if he gave two shits he could've applied to Mensa.
Jeffrey didn't. Whenever his step-monster
began giving him the Verbal Onslaught, as he liked to think of it, he just chanted his IQ inside his head. Sometimes, when Step-monster got louder, he'd just turn up the internal volume, drowning the pisshead out.
It was effective, it caused his stepdad to really believe he was dumb. Jeffrey liked handing him up the false proof whenever the opportunity presented itself.
Like now.
“...and your goddamned chores!”
“Huh?” Jeffrey deadpanned into the flushed face of Dave. Dear-old-Dave.
Jeffrey let his eyes fall to that half-eye look that adults interpreted as the Brain Fog epidemic that struck all teens. Jeffrey was exempt, of course, but had mastered faking it.
“See!” Dave wailed, stalking toward Mom, which made Jeffrey's faked stupor flicker. He better not touch Mom. Of course, Dave wasn't really his stepdad, he was just the latest Guy. Didn't matter, he wasn't going to touch his mom.
He shot Jeffrey a death glare and Mom shuddered. “He's a retard! He can't even respond with an actual word! He grunts, he's an idiot.” Dave fumed, throwing his hands up, dangerously close to Mom's face.
“He's a smart boy, Dave. You need to give him a chance,” Mom said in a weak voice.
Jeffrey hated that. Had always hated that. Couldn't she choose people that were good to her?
Good to them?
Dave grabbed Mom and shook her. Mom's hair flung back and forth like a brown whip as she tried to remove herself from his grip.
Jeffrey knew from experience that if he distracted Dave, he'd go after him instead of Mom.
She'd be safe... again.
Jeffrey rushed him from behind, his body... now five-nine instead of five-five was nearly Dave's height. But what Jeffrey didn't have was the weight of a man.
The strength of a man.
Hell, he was fourteen and didn't know how to fight. But he could take a hell of a punch.
None of Mom's Guys had ever been able to knock Jeffrey out. No glass jaw for him; it was a small point of pride.
Dave turned and did the expected, whaling on Jeffrey. The symphony of Mom's screaming a backdrop to the numb pain that began to seep in from the repetitive abuse.
It was shattered when the door burst open. A creature that Jeffrey didn't even know what to call entered their shabby rental and with it the smell of rotting garbage and ripe shit. Jeffrey looked at it upside down from his perch on the floor, Step-monster's fist poised above his face with his other hand deeply fisting his T-shirt.
“What the fuck is that?” Dave asked in a hoarse whisper.
Jeffrey had a good idea but was afraid to admit it. Its eyes found Jeffrey's and he knew it belonged to him.
Jeffrey guessed the corpse showing up cleared up the mystery of what ability he had.
Didn't get the placebo after all.
Figures.
It had been one of the abilities they'd listed as theory only. See, they knew there'd be Empaths, Telekinetics... standard issue skills. Yeah, right. It was all pretty out there anyway. But the rarest of the listed skills was Affinity for the Dead.
And this thing was dead.
As a doornail. Six feet under. Pushing up daisies. Taking a dirt nap.
It stood framed in the doorway, smelling like a rotting sewer. Mom screamed and the thing didn't even flicker.
“Master,” it said as if through a mouthful of gravel and Jeffrey's swollen eyes widened. He didn't respond as it moved in a slow and graceful shamble toward Dave.
Shock was beginning to creep in around the edges of Jeffrey's mind, grayness teasing at his reality, his consciousness.
Dave dropped Jeffrey's head like a hot rock and it bounced off the cheap vinyl floor, stained and cracked from the hordes of low-income renters that had lived there before him.
“This isn't natural!” Dave bellowed irrationally.
Well wasn't Dave the clever one?
It hissed and kept coming.
Dave pegged Jeffrey with a hard stare full of accusation. “It's not good enough that you have to be as dumb as a post and lippy. No-oh!” Dave's eyes watched the zombie Jeffrey had accidentally raised move toward Dave with grim determination. “You gotta be one of those AFTD weirdos too. Uh-huh, I see where this is going.”
Mom plucked at his sleeve with a whimper, her naked fear at seeing a dead man walk into their House of Squalor tangible. Dave turned on her like a cobra and struck, lashing a meaty palm out that laid the flesh of her cheek open. At first it was an open wound, deep and white, an oyster shell pried apart.
Jeffrey knew from experience those were the worst, they never bled at first but later bled like an open fire hydrant.
“Mom!” Jeffrey shouted, the dead guy forgotten even as he did a gagging dry cough at the smell of him. Jeffrey's anger and fear for her ignited into a neat flame. The zombie responded to Jeffrey's emotional signature, reaching out with one hand it latched onto Dave's throat and squeezed.
Jeffrey didn't know a throat could make noise when it collapsed. That thought just sorta floated into his consciousness as Mom's face dripped blood all over the dirty floor, the red mixing in with the blood that had dried before it.
Jeffrey heard a noise from behind and swung to meet the new threat just as the zombie dumped Dave, gurgling and gasping onto the floor where he writhed around without sufficient oxygen. Dave's arms slapped the ground at his side, bloody handprints decorating the dirt of the floor like errant finger painting.
The government guys were back.
They swarmed inside his house like a living wall of hornets. The one in the lead said in the cool and slightly raspy voice of a serious smoker, “Move.”
Jeffrey did, staggering backward and watched as the skinny guy with the cigarette did a double tap on Dave.
One in the head and one in the chest.
Assurance of death.
The gurgling stopped abruptly. The waving arms fell lifelessly beside him.
Jeffrey felt Dave's life become malleable as Dave blinked onto his new undead radar.
Jeffrey Parker's zombie turned at the men in black and hissed.
He pulled his gaze away from his mom's abusive dead boyfriend just as the blood began to pool underneath Dave's body and saturate the filth of the floor.
Jeffrey realized his zombie viewed the government guys as a threat and was crouching in front of him protectively.
Pretty smart for a dead dude.
Jeffrey had never felt the power of protection in his entire life, it was a heady thing. It didn't matter that he had AFTD, that his life was solely about surviving shit, that he was brilliant and nobody noticed, nobody cared.
This dead guy was going to take them apart.
For him.
As he moved in to do it, the guy with the cigarette and gun said, “Torch it.”
“Fuck me! Look at that thing...” one of the guys in black began backing up and another sprayed puke as the smell enfolded the group.
Assassins.
The skinny guy, with plumes of smoke rising on either side of his face like devil's horns said, “Give it to me, dickless.” He grabbed a thing that looked like a gun but had a blue flame like a sideways teardrop feathered at its tip.
Jeffrey realized too late what they were going to do, and his zombie responded to his distress.
He turned a devoted face to Jeffrey, the gore of strung tendons and partial flesh a chaotic dance of macabre reverence.
The dude with the silencer used his other hand to point the tip at Jeffrey's zombie as fire spouted from the end of it and lathered that face that had been staring into Jeffrey's eyes moments before, melting it like candle wax.
The zombie sprung at the trigger man, his body aflame, heat and rot coming off him in waves as the other agents sprayed bullets into its body until daylight shone through the holes like Swiss cheese.
Jeffrey puked then. Mom was moaning behind him, Dave was good and dead and this thing... that he was somehow responsible for had been tortured because of him.
At he
art, Jeffrey was a survivor. That's what he excelled at. If the dead guy hadn't shown up right when he did, well... Jeffrey might be dead by Dave's hand. Jeffrey slapped a hand out against the wall to steady himself. He was beginning to make sense of it. Jeffrey had also learned to be adaptive. There really hadn't been a buttload of choice in his life anyway.
The smoldering corpse cooked on the vinyl floor, forget chalk outlines, his shape was permanently etched there. He met the flame-thrower's eyes and knew his intent instantly, even as his mind rejected the possibility.
“No,” Jeffrey whispered.
“Yes,” he said, plugging Jeffrey's mother in the forehead with the last bullet in his gun.
Of course, he thought dreamily, these guys wouldn't want any witnesses.
It was the last thought he'd ever had in his old life. Because when Jeffrey woke, everything was gone.
A new path had been laid. One he was forced to follow.
Jeffrey thought it was worse than the one he'd been on before.
CHAPTER 4
1929
Clyde put the last of the luggage in the small trunk of his 1929 Buick Coupe, slapping the metal with his palm to settle it into the latch. The new smell off the upholstered seats still assaulted his nose and Clyde gave a small smile, he took special pride in the mechanical systems and care taking of the vehicle.
He knew it would be the last inanimate object he would ever let go of. So he fought in the ring. With Maggie expecting, and the stigma associated without the benefit of marriage, he'd have to step up his pace. This would be his final spar, then he'd tie the knot, bringing the babe into the world the right way.
Clyde came around to the driver's side and jerked the handle up, the weight of the door swinging wide as he dropped in beside Maggie, the stiff and long gearshift a barrier between them. Clyde eyed her appreciatively, she wore her hair unfashionably long.
For him.
He grinned. The bob haircut that had neutered the femininity of his era had not latched onto his Maggie. No, her deep red hair swept off a smooth forehead, her pale green eyes like the fresh water of the sea. Maggie was beautiful.
She was his.
The Death Series, Books 1-3: Death Whispers, Death Speaks and Death Inception (The Death Series, Volume 1) Page 69