“I think it's granite,” I said.
“No... pretty sure those are marble,” John said.
“No, the all white ones are marble. My dad told me these were granite.”
“He gives you the graveyard know-how?” Jonesy asked.
I laughed. “No, he knows some stuff about geology.”
“I didn't think your dad did rocks and stuff.”
“I thought your dad was bio-chemistry,” John said.
“He is. But he had to study all kinds of sciences and I remember he told me once. They don't use granite like this as much anymore. They're using that recycled glass stuff now, ya know, the stuff that looks like quartz.”
“It's pretty,” Jade said.
I thought so too, but not out loud.
“Moving on... let's blow this Popsicle stand.” Jonesy walked away in the direction of the shack.
We made our way carefully through the long, hay-like grass where the markers appeared to be stranded and drowning. Onyx's tail appeared like a shark's fin through the grass.
“Good thing it's a full moon, not a lot of need for the LED's,” John said, slapping the one bouncing at his hip.
Jonesy was quite a ways ahead and held up a finger while still walking. “It adds to the vibe-of-creep I've been trying to establish, boys and girls!”
Tiff gave Jonesy a good natured middle finger salute, and without even breaking stride he said, “I saw that!”
Sophie giggled while Jonesy navigated the land mine that was the graveyard. Bry reefed his knee right into the corner of a tombstone and swore.
“Pull up your boxer briefs, bro,” Tiff said.
“Put a cork in it,” Bry replied, bringing up the rear with a small limp.
A broken fence marked what appeared to be one side of the cemetery, the slats of the fence crooked, standing up like swords. My sense of foreboding increased.
Jade whispered, “I have a bad feeling about this.”
“We picked The Place for the scare factor.” I looked around; I wasn't getting caught with my shorts down.
She didn't say anything but clung a little tighter to my hand, which I squeezed, the small bones moving under the pressure. She was fragile, such an interesting mix of girlness and toughness. I vowed to be hyper-aware of stuff around me, she was the one that needed protecting.
“There it is!” Jonesy whispered fiercely.
It was utterly different than I'd expected. For one, it was bigger. Jonesy said shack, but it was actually a small house.
It was super old-fashioned, a wide front porch that ran the length of the facade. The posts were square and stout, a bevel running up all four sides, softening the stern lines. One corner of the roof was drooping from post-collapse. It had an interesting window located dead center above the roof line in the gable peak, that looked like a dark unblinking eye. Not a happy architectural feature, that. From here the door looked like a gaping mouth, teeth unseen.
John, Jonesy, Tiff and Bry went forward. Jade and I lagging behind them and Sophie nervously bringing up the rear, her curly hair shoved behind her ears, the rest a cloud behind her.
“Hey, shouldn't we like, bring out the LED now?” Sophie asked, a bare tremor of fear coloring her voice.
“Not yet,” Jonesy said, hesitating on her face for an extra second.
Interesting.
Jonesy put his foot on the top step and it shrieked in protest.
We all jumped a mile.
“Holy-hell!” Jonesy stumbled back.
“It's a creaky step, brave one,” Bry laughed.
“Okay, smart-ass, you tromp up there.”
“Okay,” Bry replied, all man of the hour.
“Wait,” Tiff said.
Bry turned with a question on his face.
“Why don't you let us AFTDs check it out, hot-shit,” Tiff said.
Bry crossed his ample arms. “Fine,” putting his hand in front of him, palm extended, go ahead.
I moved away from Jade... changed my mind and took her with me. I didn't like her standing out here exposed. I was still remembering the hideout and how Carson and Brett had popped up like a couple of pieces of toast.
As Dad said, valor was sometimes masked as caution.
Jade moved in close, her torso following mine like a puzzle piece, to the side and slightly behind.
Tiff, on the other side turned. “Can you sense anything?”
“Nada.”
We both looked at John.
“Oh! Yeah...” he gave us a sheepish look.
Suddenly, our senses came back online like a river covering stones.
Tiff turned to me and nodded.
We stepped forward, that feeling of naturalness with the dead and open door. A thought occurred to me. “Don't touch my skin, Jade. Just in case.”
“Right,” she nodded. That would be great to get her all deadified on accident.
“Do you know what's gonna happen?” Tiff asked.
“Just what I read in the papers John brought over,” I replied.
“What did they say?”
“That not all AFTDs could do ghosts.”
“I can. I hit for that,” Tiff said. “They call me a two-point with a potential three.”
I made the hand motion, tell me more.
“Remember Jade found me with the bird outside school?”
“Yeah.”
Jade nodded , remembering.
“Well, I kinda freaked out, sensed what the bird, dead bird, had been feeling, knew where it was. So, the guy...”
“Who?”
“Later... anyway, he told me that I had a 'wrapped ability'. That means the abilities overlap or some crap.”
“What does that mean right now?”
“It means that I'm not a full two-point or three point... that I have ...” she paused.
“Elements of both,” John interjected.
“Yeah,” she said, relieved of her burden.
“Okay while all of this is just fas-cin-a-ting...” Jonesy began, “can we see what the frick is in the shack?”
I gave him a look and he just shrugged, please stop boring me.
Ignoring Jonesy, Tiff said, “Anyway, as the five-point we all know you are, well... there's a lot of possibilities.”
Bry started to ask a question, and Jonesy made an exasperated sound, “I know Jones-my-man, hold on to your jockstrap,” he looked at me. “I never got the full scoop out of my sis, but what are all your points? It's not like I memorized it. I'm going to Kent Lake.”
Math-Science, a mundane with an AFTD sister. Genetics, weird stuff.
John said, “I'll fill you in.”
Jonesy threw up his hands, slapping his thighs. “Well hell,” he muttered, walking back inside the fence and plunking his butt onto one of the tombstones constructed with a partial, flat “roof” on the top.
He put his elbow on his knee and cupped a hand on his chin, reluctantly listening.
Wait. “Did you read all those papers?” I asked John incredulously.
“Well, yeah.”
“Huh, that's a lot of reading,” I said, impressed.
“Yeah. What did you read?” John asked.
“Just the AFTD parts.”
The girls rolled their eyes, John gave me The Look.
What?
“Anyway, there are five-points possible for each, documented ability. Or, for a few... levels.”
Jonesy interrupted, “Okay already, just throw out the AFTD stuff so we can get to the spooks.”
We ignored him.
John ticked it off on his fingers, “Cadaver-Manipulation,” John nodded at me, I mock-bowed, “spirit control (ghosts), communion with the dead,” he nodded to Tiff, “victim location, and zombie control.”
“Zombie control and Cadaver-Manipulation are two points that sorta overlap,” he added.
That made me think of Onyx. Where was he anyway? A burst of panic started crawling up my throat. HWY one-sixty-seven was close by...
T
he Dog felt the Boy's fear and found him. There had been very interesting smells surrounding this old structure. Bad smells too; fear smells.
Onyx bounded up from behind the shack. A wave of relief flooded me. Maybe Onyx should stay home next time.
“Good boy, stay here.” I petted his head, that felt too close.
“Life spark?” Jonesy asked.
“Yes, it's that thing that happened with Onyx. It's where an AFTD can...” his hand clasped his chin for a second, “call,” he snapped his fingers, “that life spark back when death is close.”
“So, some people can find bodies?” Tiff asked.
“Yeah, there are some AFTDs on the police force and they find murder victims, or traumatic death vics.”
I thought of Gale and how it might be bad to raise murder victims.
John understood me. “It's a given, Caleb, that if you're raising zombies, you can do the other stuff.”
“They don't really know, though,” Jonesy began. “I mean, we've only been having the shots, what, ten years now? Uh-huh, there's gotta be more abilities, things they haven't thought about. What about mutations?”
Jonesy could sometimes astound.
“Jonesy's right,” Sophie said. “They can't know everything. I'm A-P and they don't have all the levels figured out.”
“True,” John agreed. “Astral-Projection is about distance.”
“I think they're figuring it out as they go and acting like they have a handle on it,” Bry said.
Sounded like typical adult bravado to me.
“What if there's someone that has a completely new ability or is a higher level or a sixth point? Jonesy's right, they don't have it figured out. It's up to us now. The adults don't have abilities. The ones that do are the first group from 2015, the one Parker's in,” Jade said.
Look where that got Jeffrey Parker.
After a minute or so I said, “Better to be mundane.” I felt I could say that, Dad being a famous scientist. People always assumed that I would be something too. I couldn't find my way out of a paper bag in Math and Science.
Jonesy stood. “Okay, what I get from this is dead stuff can't get us with the freak duo here,” Jonesy nodded to Tiff and I. “And possibly, my man Caleb, can find some violent corpses.” Jonesy's teeth were a pale slash in his face, grinning.
John sighed. “That's not exactly accurate... Caleb is,” John wavered, “may be some kind of anomaly.”
“A what?” Jonesy asked.
“Something that doesn't meet normal patterns,” Sophie said.
Jonesy's teeth disappeared and he was just a bulky shape at the edge of the fence, the moonlight slanting behind a cloud.
“Something new, something rare...” John expounded.
“A surprise!” Jonesy said, unfazed.
John just shook his head. “I don't know what could happen, Caleb,” he turned to Tiff. “But we're in...” he thought, “uncharted territory.”
“Perfect,” Jonesy breathed out in a sigh.
Jade gave him an unfriendly look, which thankfully he missed in the dimness.
We went forward again, where yawning holes like chicken pox littered the porch decking. We moved around those, as the clouds cooperated by moving aside, a patch of moonlight lit the corner of the door. It was a faded red, a large square of glass in the middle, miraculously unbroken. Tiff wrapped her hand around an oval doorknob with perimeter beading hung askew from its cradle, glowing like a dirty gold egg in the failed light.
Our eyes met. “Ya scared?” she asked, all bravado.
I nodded.
Her shoulders fell a little. “Me too,” she admitted in a whisper, “that's why we gotta.”
I agreed.
Turning the knob, the door swung open silently as if inviting our motley crew inside.
I'd forgot about Onyx who shot past us, starting his exploration.
He was doing dog reconnaissance.
I cautiously looked around taking in a super-small house, definitely not a shack.
Jonesy, John, Bry and Sophie had followed us closely and Bry said, “It's a caretaker's cottage.”
John asked Bry, “What's that?”
“Back in the day...”
“When?” Jade asked.
“You know, a hundred years ago... or more...”
“Oh.”
“They used to have these little... houses for the dudes that would take care of these cemeteries.”
“They lived here? Right here, next to all the dead bodies?” Sophie asked.
“It is a cemetery, that's where dead bodies go,” John stated.
“Quiet neighbors,” Jonesy said.
Funny.
“Okay, yuk, go on,” Tiff said.
“Anyway, they would water the flowers people left at the graves, mow the lawn with this push-mower thing, paint the fence, you know, maintenance stuff.”
“So... not a shack,” Jonesy asked.
“No, more like quarters,” John clarified.
We looked around, getting our bearings.
“Watch out, this place is a dump, there could be more holes in the floor,” I said.
“Stay in pairs or more,” Bry said.
Tiff, Jade and I took a few steps more and I turned to John. “Dude, I just can't see that great, give me the LED.”
I could vaguely hear Jonesy in the back mumbling. But, with only meager moonlight finding its way through the dirty glass of the kitchen windows, it wasn't enough.
John slapped it into my palm, pressing my thumb on the push-button switch (something that wasn't Pulse-activated!). A brilliant swath of light slashed a path, illuminating the base of a staircase. The steps were narrow and tall, like a ladder, not true stairs.
I swung the light away from the stairs at the base of our feet, the girls shoes dwarfed by our surfboards. “Stairs last, let's check out the main floor.”
Jonesy gave a lingering glance at the stairs. It was a democracy so he came along with the rest of us, but his fascination lay elsewhere.
As the reluctant leader, the call of the dead was a song in my soul, a resonating note which lingered. We explored.
We could've hear a pin drop it was so quiet.
“Ah hell, nothing's going to happen here,” Jonesy said, dejected. He grabbed the flashlight out of my hands. “Hey!” I yelled.
He planted it under his face and started making the idiot grins people do under LEDs. Funny, he looked like the ghosts we weren't seeing. It was just the thing that cracked the group up, tension escaping like steam under a door.
Without warning, while Jonesy capered about, a green luminescent shape rose up over Jonesy, hovering for an instant above his head. Swooping down, it speared through his chest, Tiff and I leaping forward, my hand reaching for the vague shape.
Jonesy shrieked like he was being stabbed, “It's cold! It's a ghostsicle! Get it out off me!”
Tiff reached it before me, and I used the hand that wasn't now latched on to Jade to grab that opaque emerald. Instantly warmth bathed wherever I touched.
Tiff's eyes widened and held my gaze. “Pull!” I shouted over the chaos. Bry tried to wrench Tiff away while John and Sophie were reaching for Jonesy. My Empath girlfriend caught between and as green as the ghost.
Tiff understood and wrenched the ghost through Jonesy's chest where just a snippet of its form was. She wrapped it in her fist, with my left hand around her balled hand, my right wrapped around Jade. And we pulled, not with our hands but with our combined power.
The ghost made a popping sound as it was extracted through Jonesy like hot taffy, who collapsed on his butt. “It's a brain freeze, but in the body!” John and Sophie crouched beside him, but I had bigger fish to fry.
The ghost hovered about us, it looked like a man. I looked down and a part of it was like a rope to where our hands still held it. Tiff looked at me and we let it go. Like taffy, that rope snapped back into the ghost's form, making a sucking noise like water down a drain.
Onyx had be
en barking the whole time. “Quiet boy.”
The Dog did not like this cold, dead-smelling thing. The Dog knew the Boy was dominant and he did not have to Protect, but the Dog did not like it.
Bry came up behind Tiff. “What is it?”
“A ghost, dumb-ass,” Tiff whispered.
Tiff, so delicate with her wording. Bry gave her a glare, sibling love.
Onyx growled.
“Shh... Onyx.”
The ghost seemed to know what I was, gliding forward.
My hand moved forward, looking up into the ghost's semblance of eyes and moved my hand through its form. It felt like bathwater, at once semi-solid and warm, right and good. Tiff tried, her eyes widening as she gazed up at the tall figure, its color shimmering in the ambient moonlight.
“So warm, like fur,” Tiff said.
Our eyes met. “Like bath water,” I said.
“It's the same, but different,” John said. “You're AFTD but different people, your perceptions are different.”
“That damn thing is not warm! It's cold as hell!”
“That's an oxymoron,” Sophie said smugly.
“I know what I felt!” Jonesy huffed.
“Everyone knows hell is hot, dope,” Bry said.
“Whatever! That thing is cold as hell!”
I turned back to the ghost and it swung its head toward Jonesy.
I felt its agitation.
“I don't think it likes you,” I said to Jonesy.
Jonesy backed up.
Jade leaned forward and I caught her hand. “Maybe not.”
“I can't hide behind you all the time, Caleb.”
“I don't mind.” Leaning down, I kissed the tip of her nose, which coincided with her whipping her hand out and grabbing the ghost. It let out a shriek that reverberated in the house, she took it by surprise. Tiff and I reacted to that, the ghost jettisoning off straight up through the ceiling to the second floor.
Jade snatched her hand back, cradling it against her chest. “Not smart Jade!” Tiff yelled.
“God, you could have been hurt! We don't know what we're dealing with here!” I was scared, shaking her by the shoulders, what had she been thinking?
“I was.”
“You were what?” I asked.
“It did hurt me.”
Death Whispers (Death Series, Book 1) Page 32