Alexander Death (The Paranormals, Book 3)

by JL Bryan

  “Suit yourself.” Alexander shrugged and jumped down into the hole. The zombies who had fallen through were teenage girls. Ashleigh had identified them as her cheerleader friends, back when they were alive.

  Alexander shined his flashlight ahead of him. The dirt tunnel looked like it was still intact. He would have to duck to walk through it, but he was glad it hadn't collapsed.

  “Nice work, ladies,” Alexander said, slapping a zombie girl's butt.

  “How's it look?” Ashleigh called down.

  “Come and see.”

  A couple of dead football players picked Ashleigh up and lowered her into the hole, where Ashleigh's cheerleader friends took hold of her and gently lowered her to the floor. Ashleigh scowled as she looked around. “This is it?”

  “It's perfectly safe.” Alexander shined his flashlight across one of the wooden buttresses. It was covered in mushrooms and mold, and a tree root had partially cracked it.

  “You call that safe?”

  “I'm sure it'll hold up for a few minutes.” Alexander sent the girl zombies ahead. More zombies dropped into the hole and followed them.

  “Where does this lead?” Ashleigh asked.

  “Somewhere safe. We'll be inside the walls of my estate, so they won't see us coming.”

  “Your estate?”

  Alexander gave her half a smile. “We'd better get moving. There's a lot of work ahead, and our enemies aren't going to punish themselves.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Jenny awoke to the sound of breaking glass. She was lying on a couch in the library, napping while Seth took a turn watching the monitor. Heather was still asleep.

  “Seth?” Jenny asked. She stood up and stretched, and she heard more shattering and breaking sounds.

  Jenny walked along the hall, toward the kitchen, but then she heard the sound again. It wasn't coming from the kitchen.

  “Seth, where are you?” Jenny tiptoed further along the hall, toward the gallery at the back of the house. She froze in mid-step when she saw the three sets of French doors.

  Pale, diseased arms smashed in through the panes. Dead faces stared at her, and she recognized all of them. Cassie Winder, Neesha Bailey and other cheerleaders were reaching in through one set of doors, while a few big guys from the football team smashed down another. The third set of doors was broken to pieces by Coach Humbee, Mayor Winder, and Dick Baker, all of them wielding axes. The zombies surged into the house.

  She had killed all of these people, and now they were coming back for her.

  Jenny let out a long, high scream that rang and echoed through the house.

  “What's happening?” Heather asked somewhere behind her, but Jenny was too horrified to speak. “Jenny?”

  Jenny couldn't budge. Her feet felt cemented to the floor. She couldn't even think, she could only stare at the approaching horde.

  Heather gasped. She placed a tentative hand on Jenny's back, and Jenny let out another scream. This one seemed to unstick her feet and her brain.

  “Where the hell is Seth?” Jenny asked, whirling around to face Heather. The two of them ran to the open door of the office. Seth was there, reclined in the desk chair, bobbing his head to earphones while he watched the monitor.

  “Seth!” Jenny shouted. He didn't respond, so she grabbed the earphones out of his ears. An old song by Rage Against the Machine thudded out from the little speakers.

  “Jenny!” Seth looked up, startled. “What's wrong?”

  “Why weren't you watching?” Jenny snapped.

  “I've been watching.” Seth looked at the monitor. “Nothing's happening.”

  “Really?” Jenny snapped. “Nothing?”

  “Not as far as I can—”

  “Come here!” Jenny grabbed his arm and wrenched it, pulling him to his feet. She pulled him out into the hall, where the zombies of the mayor, the lawyer and the football coach lurched forward with their axes, followed by dozens of others.

  “Oh,” Seth whispered. “Holy shit, it's everybody.”

  “They're back,” Jenny said.

  “They didn't come through the gate,” Seth said. “This really wrecks our plans.”

  “Can we get moving somewhere?” Heather asked. “They look like they're picking up speed.”

  Jenny looked. The zombies were stepping faster down the hall.

  “Upstairs,” Seth said. “The Molotovs.”

  The three of them ran out into the dark foyer and up the wide front steps. In the guest room with the old ship theme, they each grabbed two of the bottles, and Jenny took the grill firestarter with the long snout. Seth shoved the remote controls into the pockets of his cargo pants, which he was wearing for that purpose.

  They hurried down the hall into Seth's room, and Jenny opened a window looking out onto the back yard. Seth pounded it with both fists until it broke loose and fell.

  In the moonlight, they could see the hill set back in the yard. The gate to the Barrett family cemetery was wide open, and few straggling zombies were still trickling out.

  “How can they be coming from there?” Seth asked. “That's not possible.”

  “Is there some kind of tunnel or passage underneath the graveyard?” Jenny asked.

  “Not that I know of.”

  “I think you might know of one now.” Jenny lit the two matches taped to the bottle in her hand, and she hurled it at the mob below. It exploded, setting two elderly church ladies ablaze. She and Seth took turns hurling the bottles, setting fire to the zombies at the back of the horde, but it seemed like most of the undead had already made their way inside the house.

  “Let's go get the rest of the bombs,” Seth said. He and Jenny hurried out into the hall, with Heather close behind, but it was too late. Seth's buddies from the football team led a mob of zombies, which was already close enough to block off the door to the guest room with the Molotovs.

  “Jenny Mittens, drowning kittens...” a young woman's voice sang. Another group of zombies approached from the opposite direction, led by several very decayed bodies, most of them little more than skeletons. Behind the walking skeletons, Jenny saw Alexander, who was smirking. He was accompanied by a Latino girl Jenny didn't recognize. The Latino girl was the one singing, wearing a very wide smile. “...she's so stupid...so says Cupid....”

  “Ashleigh?” Jenny asked. She remembered Seth's story about how a Mexican girl had placed Ashleigh's soul into Darcy Metcalf. This must be that girl.

  “Everybody missed you, Jenny Mittens,” the girl said. “They all wanted to come back from the grave and see you. Including me. You think you can just kill me and get away with it?”

  “You are Ashleigh,” Jenny said. She could recognize the self-righteous voice.

  “You left me in a very rude fashion, Jenny,” Alexander said. “I don't think this relationship is going to work out. Unless, of course, you find your way to your knees and beg for mercy.”

  “Oh, go to hell, Alexander,” Jenny said.

  “I know you have an unstable temper, Jenny,” he said. “But honestly, what did I ever do to deserve this heartbreak at your hands?”

  “You tried to make me a monster,” Jenny said.

  “You are a monster.” Alexander gestured around at all of them. “We are all monsters, the four of us. I was only helping you remember.”

  “Except the things you wanted me to forget,” Jenny said. “Like Seth.”

  “Oh, yes, little Jonny the Fourth.” Alexander looked Seth over. “We brought special visitors for you, too. I have to say, as heir to my name and my fortune, you're quite a disappointment. Don't you agree, Jonathan the First?” Alexander nudged one of the skeletal bodies, and it raised a hand and waved as if greeting Seth. Alexander put an arm around it. “Say hi to your great-grandfather, Seth. Time has certainly not been kind to my old body, has it? You know, it's interesting. I had my friends here dig up most of our family's bodies, but with my corpse, I simply called out to it and it came digging up to meet me. Isn't that interesting
?”

  Seth stared at him. “My relatives? You brought up my dead ancestors?”

  “Don't be so offended,” Alexander said. “They are my family, too. Oh, here's a special treat, just for you.” Alexander stood aside, and another zombie stepped forward. The embalming fluid had done its work—Jenny could recognize the partially decayed face of Carter, Seth's dead brother, from pictures around Seth's house.

  “You fucking bastard!” Seth leaped toward Alexander, and Jenny grabbed his arm to stop him. Fortunately, Heather followed suit, grabbing his other arm, and together they managed to restrain Seth from diving into the crowd of zombies to get at Alexander.

  “Seth, no!” Jenny shouted. “Don't let him get to you.”

  “I'm afraid I've already gotten to all of you,” Alexander said. “I'm going to watch your friends and family tear you apart, Seth, Jenny...whoever you are.” He was looking at Heather.

  “She knows who I am.” Heather pointed to Ashleigh. “Does the Homeland Security Committee know you're here?”

  “She's a CDC doctor,” Ashleigh told Alexander. “The one who's been studying Jenny.”

  “That's very interesting.” Alexander yawned. “Now, if you don't mind, we all have our lives to get back to. Well, some of us do.” He made a gesture like he was throwing a ball.

  The zombies charged forward from both sides, the football team leading the attack from one end, Seth's dead relatives leading from the other.

  “Come on!” Jenny screamed, pulling Seth's arm. She opened the door to third-floor staircase and pulled Seth in with her. Nobody had to tell Heather to get moving. She followed them through, then slammed and locked the door, while fists pounded on the other side.

  They picked up Louisville Sluggers that were waiting on the third step. After much discussion, they had determined that a baseball bat would be the most effective and convenient tool for bashing back a horde of zombies at close range, once Jenny explained that guns were essentially useless against them.

  The door cracked and splintered, and then two sledge hammers crashed through it. Dr. and Mrs. Goodling broke down the doors and then charged up the steps gripping the large hammers, their eyes blank. The football players followed them through the shattered door.

  Seth cracked his bat into Dr. Goodling's arm, then into Mrs. Goodling's, breaking their arm bones so that they dropped the sledge hammers.

  Jenny, Seth and Heather backed up the staircase while beating the horde back. The idea was to lead them up into the third floor, which Seth's grandfather had redesigned as a maze of narrow hallways to trick his great-grandfather's ghost. It would ensure they would only have to confront a few zombies at a time, and hopefully a number of zombies would get lost or distracted down some of the dead-end corridors.

  Seth's grandfather had long ago nailed shut and walled over all the windows on the third floor. Several hours ago, Seth and Jenny's dad had broken a hole in one of these walls with a hammer and pried the window open. That window would be the escape route for Seth, Jenny, and Heather, but they had to cross the maze first, trapping the zombie horde inside.

  They reached the stop of the stairs and backed through the maze while the zombies pressed forward. Seth led the way, down one narrow, dim passage and back up another.

  Jenny pounded at the zombies, even taking the head off of Seth's dead grandfather.

  Then the roar of a motor sounded, and a chainsaw ripped out through the wall next to Jenny, barely missing her head. She cried out and reeled back. Seth caught her.

  The chainsaw ripped a diagonal slash through the maze wall. Another chainsaw carved through the wall farther down, shattering mirrors along the wall.

  “Hey, zombies can't use chainsaws!” Seth protested.

  Axes and sledgehammers brought down the carved wall in a crash of plaster and dust, and zombie cheerleaders swarmed forward, swinging their tools. Jenny, Seth and Heather barely made it around the next corner. Some of the zombies followed, but more of them were focused on destroying the maze, wall by wall.

  Seth led them up the next hall, but seven or eight of the football players had gotten ahead of them through a hole in one wall or another, and now charged towards them. Alexander had them trapped.

  “This way!” Seth led them through a door into his great-grandfather's bedroom, which got them out of the most immediate danger, but it was the worst place to be. There was no other door in the room. When Seth's grandfather had rebuilt the third floor, he'd shrunk this bedroom to make sure it didn't touch any exterior walls, so that there was no easy exit for the ghost. The room was surrounded by the maze on all sides.

  Then one wall of the bedroom came down, and the zombies flooded the room. Alexander and Ashleigh strolled in with them, Alexander looking with an amused smile at the spartan bed, the yellowed photographs, the antique adding machine with the gold and silver coins beside it.

  “You've preserved my room in such perfect condition,” Alexander said. “I'm touched, Seth. I bet your whole family lives in fear of me, don't they, Seth? Amusing little humans.”

  “Fuck you, Great-grandpa,” Seth said.

  Church deacons and football players seized Heather, biting and ripping at her, while Cassie and Neesha and the rest of the zombie cheerleader squad swarmed in tight around Jenny and pulled her away from Seth. Jenny didn't even have room to raise the Slugger, and teeth bit into her fingers and wrists. Somebody pulled the bat away, leaving her empty-handed.

  Jenny struggled and kicked against the dead cheerleaders, but she felt their grips tightening, as if the girls' hands were iron. She realized what was happening—the zombies were growing stronger as they touched her, feeding off the dark magic of the Jenny pox. She felt her ribs cracking under the pressure. They tore at her clothes, and teeth bit down all over her.

  “Seth!” Jenny cried out. She managed to turn her head until she saw him.

  None of the zombies were attacking Seth. Instead, Alexander was grappling with him, clenching Seth's arms in his black-gloved hands. Ashleigh exhaled a cloud of fluffy pink spores that clung to Seth and Alexander's flesh for a moment before dissolving. Ashleigh, like Jenny, must have figured out how to make her power airborne.

  Ashleigh lay a hand on Seth's face. “Sweet boy,” she said. “Deep down, you still love me, don't you?”

  “Seth, fight it!” Jenny said. She was having trouble breathing. The zombie cheerleaders were crushing her to death. Somewhere off to her side, she heard Heather screaming in pain.

  Alexander released Seth, who stood where he was, staring at Ashleigh with a big, goofy smile.

  “Come on, Seth,” Ashleigh said. “You know you belong to me. You know I love you more than I could ever love anyone else.” She took his hand. “Forget about Jenny. Stay with me. Forever.”

  Seth gazed at her as if hypnotized.

  Jenny remembered she had a solution to this—she'd developed a strain of Jenny pox specifically to attack Ashleigh's power. She'd liberated Seth from her spell before.

  Jenny imagined black flies devouring golden thread. She conjured up the Ashleigh pox inside her, and then she blew out a cloud of spores.

  The black spores whirled around Seth, Ashleigh and Alexander. Seth and Alexander looked disoriented, while Ashleigh suffered an intense cough fit, spitting up gobs of dirty yellow fluid, and fell to her knees.

  Something clicked in Jenny's mind. Back in Chiapas, Alexander had sent the zombies after all the Hale Security men, but he'd sent living people to collect Seth from the helicopter. And now, even though he had a couple hundred zombies on hand, he didn't send one of them to attack or restrain Seth.

  “Seth,” Jenny said, barely able to draw a breath as the cheerleader zombies crushed her. “Seth, I make the zombies stronger. But you're my opposite.”

  Seth looked at her for a moment, and then tore into the dense crowd of zombies surrounding her. They were like matchsticks in his hands. He ripped off heads, tore limbs from sockets, flung zombies across the room. The zombies crumbled in h
is hands.

  All the zombies crushed in around Jenny, throwing up a mob between her and Seth, pushing back across the room and away from him like an evil tide drawing her out to sea.

  “Seth, it won't work,” Jenny said. “You have to... turn it up. Breathe it.” She coughed out a few dark spores.

  “I'll try,” Seth said. He closed his eyes.

  His skin began to glow an eerie, bioluminescent white.

  “Hurry,” Jenny whispered. She was starting to black out from the pain. The zombies were still tearing at her, still biting her, and she was covered in her own blood.

  Seth opened his eyes. His blue irises had an electric glow.

  Then Seth exhaled, and a blinding white fire billowed out from his mouth. This broke into ten thousands tongues of white flame that rained down on the zombies like phosphorous. Jenny thought for a moment of the Pentecost, the holy flames descending on the heads of the disciples. He had created Seth pox.

  The mob of zombies screeched and twisted, collapsed, writing on the floor, breaking apart. The dead cheerleaders fell away from Jenny and she dropped to the floor. Wherever the white flames landed on Jenny, her injuries were healed.

  Seth coughed out a few more drips of white fire. He doubled over, leaning heavily on his knees, ready to crash to the floor himself.

  Behind him, Alexander had picked up an ax. He approached Seth, raising the ax over his head, glaring at Seth's back with a look of raw hate.

  “Seth,” Jenny said, but her voice was too weak. She pushed herself up to her hands and knees. “Seth, look—”

  Alexander swung the ax down towards Seth's neck to decapitate him. Jenny cried out hoarsely, reaching a hand forward. Seth's eyes looked up and met Jenny's just before the ax hit him.

  Heather screamed and ran at Alexander. She swung a sledgehammer into Alexander's knee, putting her whole back into it. There was a loud crack and Alexander's entire leg broke and bent backwards, and Alexander screamed and fell to the floor. Heather dropped the sledgehammer and staggered back until she was resting against a wall, panting. Like Jenny, she was beaten, torn, and bitten all over, blood soaking the tattered remains of her clothes.