I released the two, reluctantly. I tried to feel bad about almost killing Man-Three, who had put a gun barrel to Tiff's head just moments ago, and couldn't.
We had bigger problems. Leaving Man-Three on the ground, I rose off my knees. Jade ran to me, pressing her face against my chest. We turned to look at Parker and Gun-Holder, who still had the choke hold on Jonesy. I could feel the presence of my healed zombie at my back, ready to do the same command.
A literal bunch, zombies.
“Let him go,” I said to Gun-Holder.
Ten zombies looked in my direction. Of course he doesn't have to let Jonesy go.
I could make him.
Parker saw my thought process. “Don't, it'll be a stalemate,” he said, his voice holding a slight tremor.
Something had taken that arrogance down a notch. The life-suck thing. I was sure that was not covered under the five-point standard.
I held Jade tighter.
He seemed to visibly collect himself. “We raised this group together, we both control them,” he reasoned with me.
I wasn't feeling reasonable. “Yeah, maybe you guys didn't think this through when you were busy spying on American children,” I said, watching him flinch.
Sophie joined our little group. Where's John? I mouthed.
“... with Bry,” she answered.
Jonesy watched Sophie with concerned eyes. “Let him go or we'll see who owns who,” I told Parker.
He nodded at Gun-Holder who let Jonesy go with a disgusted grunt. He glared at Parker, shoving Jonesy away.
“Dick,” Jonesy muttered.
It was Parker's look that told me he was placating us. He had a plan and it didn't include us leaving.
Jonesy walked over to Sophie, giving her a hug. Their two-inch height difference allowed her curly hair to swarm around his like an embracing halo.
Gun-Holder spoke into his mike and the chopper noise was loud again, they had something up their sleeve, I knew it.
Parker stepped forward and I instinctively moved Jade back, taking Jade with me. “Don't get any closer, Parker.”
But Gun-Holder grabbed at Jonesy again, who was to the side of Sophie and she got taken instead.
“No!” Jonesy roared, his lightning reflexes grabbing at Sophie, who yelped in surprise as his fingers slipped off her arm. Gun-holder smoothly took her and ran for the ropes hanging suspended under the roar of the chopper.
“Jonesy, no!” I yelled over the noise.
Of course Jonesy didn't listen.
Sophie was too stunned at first to believe that she was being carried like a sack of potatoes toward a government helicopter and began to fight in earnest, bucking and thumping her fists on Gun-Holder's back.
Jonesy was fast, overtaking Gun-Holder, who was weighed down with a body to carry, both of them reaching the ropes at exactly the same moment.
Jonesy leaped forward, grabbing onto Sophie's wrists, both outstretched, just as Gun-holder grabbed a rope.
Power surged in a blooming arc around us, all of us ducking, the feeling of it unfamiliar but vital. Pulsing once like a great light, searing and painful, then that big spider in the sky stopped making noise, dropping toward us in a black rush of crashing branches and trees.
Jonesy jerked Sophie off of Gun-holder who was scrambling for safety. The blades of the chopper cut great swaths in the sky, slowing down but coming closer. I ran with Jade and Tiff back to where Bry and John were.
Jonesy dragged Sophie to safety just as a chopper blade embedded itself in the ground, a guillotine meant for harm, two feet behind Jonesy, spearing a tombstone, which disintegrated on contact, shards of marble flying through the night like tiny missiles of destruction, the ground shaking with the force of impact.
I didn't look behind me but took great leaps between tombstones until I reached Bry and John. Turning, I saw Parker and the other two government men on the ground. I took stock of the group: Bry and John on the ground, Jade and Tiff with me, a grubby and tired Jonesy with Sophie and my human-looking zombie.
He looked down at me, completely unconcerned with the mayhem of the moment. It was all about the directive. That was a relief, some things never changed, I took a shaky breath.
In the distance the other group of zombies stood there, torn between masters, Parker staring back at me. “We're not done here, Caleb Hart.”
“Yeah we are!” I shouted back.
“Tiff,” I said.
She looked at me.
“Let's put him back before Parker gets his crap together,” I said.
We all looked at my zombie, who stood unblinking, staring at me.
Unnerving.
“Rest,” I said, unfurling that power again, just a stab of it directed at the zombie, Tiff's hand convulsing on mine.
He lingered, staring, and for one awful moment I thought maybe I'd used it up in all the chaos. But then he turned, running gracefully on fully formed legs. His clothes re-knitted to perfection, the stolen energy from another human being powering his effort. The grave opened like a crater to receive, swallowing him whole, the ground closing over him like a giant mouth.
“Let's go,” I said quietly.
Parker watched us. The zombies around him stood like a small forest of corpse-trees, unmoving. He could lay them to rest. Besides, he said we were part owner.
Let him figure it out.
The government men laid at Parker's feet, the one I hadn't used up, hand rummaging around for that M-16 he dropped.
Time to get going.
Bry struggled to sit up, looking worse for wear. “Tell me to stay behind next time,” he said, out of the fattest lip I'd ever seen.
Tiff said, “Let's go, right now!”
We hightailed it outta there, the graveyard and its inhabitants at our back.
CHAPTER 32
Our bikes stood at attention, hidden in the bushes at the beginning of a little used dirt road, which led to the main paved road. Instead of a clean escape a cop car stood parked, lights out, idling softly.
Jonesy swore with real feeling.
A dome light appeared inside the car as the cop got out, swinging it shut behind him, he turned his face and I recognized Garcia.
“Great, we're screwed. He's in it with them,” Bry said, his voice thick with injury.
Jade seemed to sway next to me and I held her against my body. What else could go wrong?
He had the gun, the badge, and crooked friends.
John said, “I don't want to be his bitch either.”
It was bad when John was swearing. “We're not going to be any kind of slaves for anybody,” I said, stepping forward.
Garcia surprised us all, running forward. “You guys hurt?” he asked, all-concern.
We said nothing.
He sighed. “Listen, I don't have a lot of time here, they're calling in reinforcements as we speak. I have to get you kids out of here and somewhere safe.”
“Wait a sec, we thought you were with them,” Jonesy said, jerking his head in the direction we came.
“The Graysheets? Hell no, I'm deep undercover but won't be if we don't get your butts out of here.”
“We can take him, form a rebellion if he gets outta line,” Tiff said.
Everyone rolled their eyes at that, even me.
“Okay,” I said, what choice did we have? But I didn't have to like it.
“What about our bikes?” John asked.
“Leave them,” Garcia said. “We'll get them later, or somebody will, it sure won't be me,” he said, looking around.
We piled into the cop car, all the girls stacked on top of us and Onyx, who had been oddly silent jumped in last, riding shotgun next to Garcia.
Garcia got in and put the squad car in drive, looking down at Onyx, who wagged his tail.
Garcia just shook his head at the dog and got rolling, the gravel crunching under the wheels of his cruiser.
We left the graveyard, surrendering our anonymity forever.
****
“So wh
at's going on?” I asked
Garcia stared ahead at the road for a minute, I thought I'd have to repeat the question.
“Where to begin?” he said almost to himself.
Our group, with the Weller kids bashed up again, sat waiting to hear why he had the good fortune to be cop-on-the-spot. Even Onyx was looking at Garcia.
“Let's get where we're going, then we can talk.”
“No, I don't want to go to someplace you want, I have a place, we have a place that we know is safe.”
“Not the hideaway, Caleb. Maybe he can't be trusted,” John said.
“Yeah, the hideaway, John. You think we can't take care of things if they get exciting?” I asked him, turning around in the seat where John was squished by Sophie, a sliver of his face showing behind her.
I turned to face Garcia, who did a quick check of my expression. “We have a place you can take us where we feel safe.”
“I'll have to pulse Bobbi,” he said.
“Gale?” My face was one Fat Dirty Look.
“Yes, Officer Gale,” he said, noting my expression. “I guess I deserve that.”
“No offense, but adults aren't really on our trust list right now,” John said.
“Fair enough,” Garcia responded.
I gave Garcia directions and he used his car-pulse to let Gale know where we would be.
She met us there in her civilian car, looking very weird in her regular clothes. I thought it was a little like meeting your teacher in the grocery store; they actually ate food?
We piled out of the car, stiff from being crammed together. I did a secret scan of Jade, making sure she looked okay. The cemetery had been a true threat. A threat to our freedom and in the end, a threat to our lives.
Garcia and Gale seemed amused by our breaking and entering of the old dump station. I thought for sure they'd be mad, but Garcia thought it was a clever contingency plan.
“You kids were thinking ahead after all,” he said, looking around him at the inside of our hideaway.
“This is totally not safe,” Bobbi Gale said, staring at all the smashed metal pieces from various cars making an uneven metal ceiling above our heads.
John replied, “It's been this way for ten years.”
“It'll be okay,” Jonesy agreed, his idea of true peril on a different level than the rest of us.
It was cramped with all the bodies in there but we pulled up milk crates and other things we collected for “chairs,” and sat down.
John lit the propane lamp. A total throw-back but it worked.
“Where did you guys find this old thing?” Garcia flicked the lamp.
“My mom's old camping gear,” Jonesy said.
“Better not use it for long in this enclosed space,” Gale said. “It can get pretty toxic.”
“We know,” John said. “We'll have to eventually replace it with LED when we get the big bucks.”
“Try pulsing your parents again guys, maybe the pulses will work here,” Garcia said.
“No...we know they don't work in here,” I swung my pulse around, “too much metal or something.”
We went outside to pulse our parents (and aunt), letting them know we were hanging at the ice cream shop. I felt bad about the deception.
After settling back into the cavern-of-cars I told the story from the beginning,
Jonesy filled in the gaps, “... and then the helicopter just stopped working and crashed,” he said. “And Soph and I almost got chopped!” Jonesy finished, doing a judo-chop to his hand, the smacking sound echoing in the space.
The cops were thoughtful. “That doesn’t ring true to me,” Gale said, looking at Garcia. “The Graysheets take all that time to acquire Caleb and blow it with a state of the art helicopter dying?” She shook her head, disbelieving.
“Tell us again exactly what you did, Jonesy,” Garcia said.
Jonesy repeated what he had done, grabbing Sophie, then the chopper stopping.
“And our pulses didn't work either,” John said.
“My car died about the time I heard the crash,” Garcia added. “In fact, it began working about the time I saw you kids.”
“It was idling when we saw you,” Sophie said.
Garcia nodded. “Yeah, just at that moment I finally got it started. I was getting worried about how we'd get out of there.” He and Gale looked at each other.
Something occurred to me. “John, you must have been holding back huge.”
“Oh yeah, it was all I could do when Parker started his bullshit,” John said.
“He turned out to be a monkey's ass,” Jonesy said.
The cops laughed. “You guys sure have a way with colorful wording,” Gale said.
“Yeah, Parker is a disappointment,” Garcia agreed.
“Ya think?” Jonesy said, disgusted.
Gale changed the subject, “I have a first aid kit to take care of you two,” she said, looking over at Tiff and Bry, holding up a small box with a red and white cross emblazoned on the front.
“I'll live,” Bry said, his face telling a different tale.
“Come on Bry,” Tiff said. “The parents aren't gonna buy us continuing to get beat up.”
Sighing, Bry went over to where Gale was, heaving himself down on a crate.
“I got in a couple of good ones,” Bry said.
“He was an adult, a bad one. You're lucky he didn't clean your clock,” Garcia said.
All of us looked at him. “Sorry: a thorough job of beating the snot out of someone,” he clarified.
“Eloquent, Raul,” Gale laughed.
“So now what? It's obvious they want me. They put spy crap in my house so they know I can raise zombies, that I'm a full-on five-point,” I said.
“I think what really needs to be addressed, Caleb, is what you did out there to the government guy,” Gale said, dabbing antiseptic at the corner of Bry's eye. “That's not part of any five-point I've heard of,” she said trailing off, gazing at me around Bry, everyone's eyes on me.
Gale got back to working on Bry's face, talking as she patched him up, “The scientists have theorized about that possibility, but they've never had any proof.”
“You mean Caleb suckin' the life out of bad-ass, then juicing his zombie up?” Jonesy asked.
Garcia chuckled. “Yes, I think that's what Officer Gale was getting at.”
“That will make you even more of a threat,” she said.
“Does that mean you're a six-point?” Jade asked, through the veil of her hair.
She was cuddled up next to me, more on my crate than hers. I leaned closer, then put that hair that hid her eyes behind her ear, running a finger down the outside edge of her lobe. She rewarded me with a tiny shiver.
“Doubt it. I can't be a 'first' anything,” I said with certainty.
“I'm AFTD, Caleb, and I know there is not one documented case of Life-Transference,” Gale said. “Not one.”
“Did that guy die?” Sophie asked.
“I don't know, but he deserved it,” Jonesy said.
The cops were silent.
“Yeah he did. He had a gun pointed at sis,” Bry said.
Bry looked at me. “Thanks for taking care of her, Caleb,” he said.
“It almost wasn't enough,” I said, feeling guilty.
Bry stood up and came over and clapped me on the shoulder. “But it was.”
Garcia interrupted with, “I guess your best protection is your father, Caleb.”
“Why?” I asked.
“His fame,” he continued, “his son disappearing would be an inexplicable problem.”
“Didn't seem to give them pause tonight,” John said.
“Our source tells us they want to do experimentation, that they're not ready to take you forever,” Garcia said.
Disquiet fell over the group.
“Comforting,” Jade said.
“Those dicks don't get to have Caleb,” Jonesy said.
“Yeah, what he said,” Bry agreed.
Of
course I agreed.
“How did Parker go from being like Caleb to working with them?” Sophie asked.
“We don't know what's happened this last ten years to form him.”
“... shape him,” Gale finished, nodding to Garcia.
“What was his family life like?” I asked
“It was bad. Sort of the opposite of yours. There was no one to advocate for Jeffrey Parker,” Gale said.
“So, he's a tragic figure, now?” Sophie asked, arms crossed over her chest. “I don't know if I buy that. Doesn't he have a responsibility to choose the right thing now?
“Who knows? Maybe they brainwashed him,” Jonesy said.
“It doesn't matter. Caleb's AFTD, so is Tiff; he was going to hurt his own kind. He's shit, I don't care what way you color it, he's made his choice.” Bry fumed.
We looked at each other over the hissing light of the lantern.
Finally, Garcia said, “We need to get these guys at their own game.”
Gale nodded in agreement.
“You called them 'Graysheets,' what does that mean?” I asked.
“We don't actually know their real name, it's just a nickname Officer Gale and I gave them,” Garcia said.
“What does it mean, though?” Jade asked, leaning in against me.
“It means that they don't understand black and white, right and wrong.”
“Gray,” John said.
“Right,” Garcia pointed at John.
“Sheets?” Tiff asked.
“I got it!” Jonesy said. “They cover things up!” he air-pumped his fist with enthusiasm, breaking off to yawn.
“Don't tell me you're tired?” Bry asked.
“Nope. Just needed some O2 baby,” Jonesy said.
I looked at my watch, which hadn't been affected by the whole electrical fall-out at the graveyard, couldn't see. I moved toward the lantern, sticking my wrist under the light, a fine fissure layered the crystal like ice. Damn, my watch got nailed in the fight. I couldn't really see the time.
“Ah-man, that sucks donkey dicks,” Jonesy said.
I laughed, couldn't help it, John leaned in. “Maybe a jeweler could fix it?”
“Right, like anyone even has these anymore.”
Everyone gathered around, Garcia, the tallest of us said, “My dad had one of those! Is it a winder?”
“It was,” I said.
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