Alexander Death (The Paranormals, Book 3) (37 page)

Tommy began to feel antsy and restless, like the action was happening somewhere else and he was missing it.

Since it didn't look like anybody was coming back, Tommy made his way out of the woods to the rickety little house. The front door was locked, but Tommy knew how to pick cheap residential locks.

The house smelled like dog and the ghosts of old cigarettes. Tommy rummaged through the bills on the table, glanced in the fridge for anything interesting, cut himself a slice of some really good hoop cheese he found under a glass dome on a cutting board.

The old cassette-tape answering machine was almost as big as a shoebox—it took Tommy a moment to even figure out what the boxy device next to the telephone was. He pressed the PLAY button, but all the messages had been erased.

He'd been here twice before. The first time, he'd come in search of Ashleigh's killers, but he hadn't known about the Jenny pox and had come away sick and scarred. The second time, Ashleigh had sent him to fill Jenny's father's mind with fear until it popped, and to leave a note Ashleigh had made for Jenny.

On this visit, he was in no hurry. He walked through the dining room, looking at the clay pots and simple sculptures on the table. He glanced into the hall bathroom, and then he found Jenny's room.

Tommy sat on her bed, looking around at the old cabinet-style record player, the dresser with the fire scars at one end. He looked at himself in the mirror, and there he saw the photographs tacked on the wall alongside Jenny's bed.

He turned to look at them. They were pictures of the boyfriend, Seth, who Ashleigh also hated deeply. Of course, Tommy thought. Why would Jenny hang around this pathetic dump when she had a boyfriend with a mansion across town? Since nothing was happening here, Seth's place seemed like a good place to look. He was going to die of boredom and his growing anxiety if he had to sit around doing nothing the rest of the night.

Tommy returned outside and rolled his bike out of the woods. He cranked it up in Jenny's driveway, and then he pulled out onto the paved road.

***

The meat truck rattled and shook as it crawled along the dirt road, which was really just a pair of weedy, sandy ruts through endless acres of dense pine trees. It came to a stop at a fork in the road.

“I think this is it,” Alexander said.

“You thought that the last ten times,” Ashleigh said.

“I've only stopped twice.”

“Now it's three times.”

“Just give me a minute.” Alexander grabbed the flashlight and climbed out of the car.

“See if there's a bathroom,” Ashleigh called after him.

Alexander ignored her. He thought he could discern the faint traces of the overgrown trail here. Plenty had changed in the decades since he last lived in Fallen Oak, but he had once known every inch of the town and its countryside.

He bashed aside limbs with the flashlight, stomped down thick brambles with his shoes, slowly making his way deeper into the woods.

He was beginning to think he'd stopped at the wrong place yet again when his flashlight found the brick chimney jutting up among the brambles. It had sunk into the earth a few feet over the years, and it leaned far to one side, but it was still there, surrounded by rubble masked by thorns and weeds.

Alexander dashed back to the truck. He unlatched the rear door and pulled down the ramp. Zombies marched out one after the other, carrying axes, shovels, and picks looted from a hardware store a few towns away. Alexander and Ashleigh had also gorged themselves on Waffle House food to stock up on calories. Ashleigh's purse was stuffed full of Power Bars in case they needed more.

Ashleigh leaned out the driver-side window. “Does this mean we're here?” she asked.

“We're here.”

The zombies hacked open the trail with their tools. They worked reasonably fast. After spending so much time feeding on Jenny's energy, Alexander was at the most powerful he'd ever been in this lifetime. The zombies themselves were finally defrosting. He'd kept the temperature in the rear of the truck around forty-five degrees, enough to loosen them up without bringing on rot.

Soon, a wide, clear path connected the dirt road to the rubble. Ashleigh jumped down from the truck to join him next to the old chimney.

“This place is a wreck,” Ashleigh said.

“We're just passing through,” Alexander said. “We're not renting a room.” He waved a hand, and the zombies attacked the rubble, slashing away thorns and weeds, shoveling bricks aside. Once, there had been a small cottage here, a good place to retreat for reading books and writing letters. It looked like it had been completely forgotten, which was fortunate for him.

After a few minutes of digging and scratching, a few of the zombies sank through the sandy earth and tumbled out of sight. Alexander approached the hole, which had once been hidden under the floor of the cottage. The zombies were piled on each other down on the dirt floor below, still making digging motions with their hands. Alexander had them stop and stand up. He pointed into the pit with his flashlight.

“Ladies first,” Alexander said.

Ashleigh looked into the rough dirt hole. “No, thanks. I'll wait.”

“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.”

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?”