Death Whispers (Death Series, Book 1) (19 page)

Mom rolled her eyes.

Dad gave her a quick look but she was unimpressed.

“
It
was a good thing, what you did, but, you could have killed him.”
She spread her hands out, fingers splayed,
right?

I
couldn't argue with her there. I had felt what it was to control the
dead, I knew what they wanted, what I wanted of them.

“Is his dad going to be okay, do you think?”
Mom asked and Dad nodded.

I shrugged. “He was the one beating on his kid
and from what I heard Brett say, the mom too. If he goes to the cops,
how will he explain it?”

“Yes,” Dad said in a relieved tone. “A
conundrum to be sure.”

When I looked unsure, Dad explained, “A puzzler.
You may have gotten that contextually.”

“Yeah, but I wanted to know for sure. Just the
words around it aren't always enough.”

“I like that you ask, son.”

Once in awhile I was slick.

“So... it would stand to reason that we need
some target practice, the sooner the better,” Dad said. “Especially
in light of recent events.”

“What?” I asked.

“You know, we go out and practice, and you gain
control”

Okay. “When? Today?” I asked.

“No better time than the present. I don't have
anything on my schedule.” He gestured to his casual pajama attire.

Mom was wearing hers too. She'd wear them all the
time if she could. I'd be hotter than hell if I wore mine all the
time.

I took a bite of the still-steaming pancakes and
Dad waited for my response. I just nodded, my cheek distended into a
sideways hill with pancakes. I gulped a huge swallow of milk, the
whole great ball o' food slid down to the cavern.

Mom got up and flipped Dad's pancakes.

I raised my eyebrows. “I'm going all out,” he
said.

Dad didn't usually have pancakes, he didn't want
the dreaded shelf. I looked at his gut and thought it was okay, for
an old guy. I told him so.

“Thanks, Caleb, you know just what to say to
make me feel better.” Mom and he smiled at each other.

What did I say?

****

The
car ride to the cemetery didn't take long. Hell, the Js and I could
walk it pretty fast. Dad had his pulse to document... whatever. I was
nervous. I had never tried to make anything happen. It always just
jumped out in the middle of some psychotic event. But after thinking
about it, I do remember using the gophers to hurt The Dad,
Brett's
dad
.
I frowned. I had made them rise but that had not been on purpose. The
rest I had kinda steered, trying not to crash.

Mom turned around in the front seat. “Penny for
your thoughts.”

“I
don't know if I can, ya know, make anything happen.”

Dad's eyes met mine in the rear view mirror, the
brown eyes a mirror of my own. “Don't be nervous, Caleb.” His
eyes traveled back to the road as he was driving, the trees rushed
past us like a green highway in the sky.

“I just don't want you guys to go to all this
trouble, and I can't...” I struggled with the word.

“Perform?” Dad asked.

“Yeah. That covers it.”

“
Don't
worry about us, Caleb, we're not the enemy,” Mom paused, glancing
at Dad then looking back at me, “we just want you to gain control
of this..
.
quickly
.”

I
got that, but what if I couldn't do anything? It was broad daylight
for God's sake! Dad laughed and told me he didn't think the setting
needed to be creepy for things to happen. Mom smiled, I relaxed and
looked out the window at the gray day.

Dad took a left into Scenic Hill Cemetery. The
same scrolling gate from that first night framed the entrance; it was
not so eerie in the daytime. As much as a mile away the whispering
had grown louder. At the gate it was a dull roar. Like a washing
machine you had to scream over.

Mom asked what was happening and I told her.

“So it's like 'whispering'?” she asked.

“
Yes
and no. I don't know, it's hard to describe. It's like that thing
that you and Dad talk about... white noise?” Dad had the car
parked, thumbing off the pulse ignition, powering the car down. “But
you guys say that noise is like a
good
thing.”

“You're
saying the quality is different?” Dad asked.

“If
you mean type, then yeah. It's way different. Like something is going
to happen, that something needs to escape.”

Dad looked at me with that somber expression, Word
of the day baby, somber means gloomy, depressing, dismal). But I knew
from experience that he was definitely just serious, not sad.

“This seems wrong on a lot of levels, Kyle,”
Mom said.

“Yes, it probably is. But I can't have our son
running around raising creatures for his personal killing army. There
needs to be some control, some lessons learned. Better that he
practices, with our supervision, than become truly threatened at some
future point and not have the tools in which to effectively deter the
problem. Or, an irrevocable consequence.”

My zombies killing the populace at large.

Mom didn't have a rebuttal for Dad. He was the
logic-man.

Dad circled to the back, pulsing open the trunk.
He grabbed his pulse and turned to me. His pulse was a specialty
version. A tri-pulse that could record, interact and take stills, I
bet it could wipe your butt if you asked it to.

“I thought we'd start with the familiar and see
if you could raise someone we knew.”

Okay... surreal, but okay.

Mom's hand flew to her heart. “Oh God, Kyle, are
you kidding?”

He
didn't look like he was.

“
I
just hadn't really thought about using a
relative.
”

I watched her gulp like it hurt.

I
did a rare thing, putting a hand on her shoulder, our eyes so close.
“It's
me
having to do it Mom, not you. Better that it's somebody we knew,
right?”

Her hand cupped the side of my face, a smile
breaking through like sun sliding out from behind clouds. “You're
being the brave one and me being anxious isn't helpful.”

“But
your fear is not his fear, right Caleb?” Dad said.

“
No,
I'm not afraid of using it. It feels good
...
that's
scary.” I wiped off my sweating palms on my jeans, glancing around
I saw that we were all wearing the same thing, uniforms for dead
people raising! A cackle of laughter escaped me and the parents gave
me an odd look.

“Sorry, the whole thing seems a little...” I
trailed off and Mom finished, “surreal?”

I nodded. “Yeah... that.”

Dad smiled and with the tri-pulse in hand we
headed over the path of stones and winding road that led to our
family plot.

We arrived at a slight knoll. I had visited before
when I was little but it'd been awhile and it felt fuzzy in my mind.
Like a dandelion seed that once chased and captured, blows away,
leaving not a trace behind.

I looked at the granite markers in front of me. My
hair tumbled into my eyes and I flipped it back, where it instantly
settled back into position. Mom frowned. I broke the stare, looking
at the headstones again.

Mom sank down to her knees and ran her right hand
over the engraved lettering:

Margaret “Maggie”
Doyle, Beloved Wife-Mother-Grandmother, RIP; born 1935, died 2015,
aged 80 years.

Huh, she died the year I was born.

A tear escaped and she withdrew her hand. “Gran
was a good woman.”

Dad agreed, “Yes she was.”

The power swelled, one whisper above all the rest.

“She wants to be free of the ground,” I said.

“
What?”
Mom's head whipped around, hair falling in her eyes. “She's
speaking
to you?”

I
hated explaining the weird stuff to people that didn't have it, but
it was her gran and all. “No... yes, not exactly.” I sighed. “I
guess it's more of an impression of needs or wants or feelings, I
don't know.”

“Well, I guess the dead make choices too,” Dad
said.

That was the first smart thing I'd heard anyone
say. Actually, that was exactly it. I was the thing allowing them
that need, or whatever it was, release, expression.

“Yeah,
it's not just me, they want to be free, and say things and have one
more chance or something. I'm somebody that can help them help
themselves.”

“You're a facilitator. Fascinating,” Dad
murmured, hand on chin.

“
Kyle,”
Mom hissed, “this is no time to ruminate about the schematics. This
is
Gran
we're disturbing.”

Mom
stood up, looking up at Dad, who was quite a bit taller. But Mom
never looks short, she always looks vital.

“Listen
buster,” she pointed a finger at Dad, oh-no the dreaded tone, “this
is NOT one of your science experiments, this is Caleb and Gran.”

She crossed her arms over her chest, all intense
eyes and huffy body stance.

“I don't know another way to be Alicia.”

Huh, Dad used mom's real name, he meant business.

“Well, tone it down, would you?”

He slowly grinned. “I'll make a supreme effort.”

Mom looked like that would be the last thing he
did.

The
whisper from Gran was a steady thing, it had a vibration all its own.
I was starting to get a signature from different people. Everyone was
different and now I could sense those differences. Gran's had a
familiar quality about it, I didn't know exactly what or why. I honed
in on that and let a tendril of my power uncoil. It felt a little
like the gophers but different, more complex. Their minds had been
one mind
to
me, simple. Hers felt like it had a complicated series of thoughts
and distractions. A dead brain... but somehow alive
.

I
gave it a good shove and thought,
come
here
.

I felt like a great weight had lifted from my
head, there was a feeling of vertigo, a shifting. My vision doubled
and I was fuzzy around the edges. Ah-oh, I'm gonna pass out and the
parents are going to be stuck with dead granny. Then my vision
cleared, stabilizing.

Nothing happened.

Dad took a photo of me... unhelpful-much. I
blinked at the pulse-flash and felt something cold hit the back of my
head. We looked up and the clouds that had threatened were now
roiling above our heads. Great smoky-colored plumes lashed back and
forth like an angry sea.

Dad looked at me.

I shrugged. “I don't know what...”

A
hand burst forth through the earth, softened by recent rain. It was
awful looking. Some nails were gone and finger joints were visible.
Oh boy, Mom was gonna see her Gran looking pretty disgusting. I gave
Dad the it's too late look and watched the train wreck happen.

Inch by slow inch the ground revealed Gran, as a
fossil being excavated, climbing through the ground to exit her
grave. Her silver hair hung in huge rope-like strands from a scalp
with bare patches, shining like an eggshell in the dimming light.

Her head was lowered (she was on all fours), her
hand reached out toward me and said, “More,” in the barest of
whispers. Without all the whispering in my head it felt blissfully
clear.

I
mouthed,
more?

Energy,
she
whispered in my head, like a thread of silk, worming its way through
my brain. I shuddered. That was an intrusive feeling. Disgusting as
hell.

I grubbed down inside myself, where that sleeping
monster lay, scraping what was left and hurled it down that
connection, the thing that tethered the two of us together.

She
suddenly flung herself backward, her back bent awkwardly behind her
knees. Both claw-like hands clung to the remnants of a blouse of some
kind, its fine print of flowers a spray beneath the tendons and sinew
of what she used every day to work with, touch, love
.

She straightened as suddenly as she was backwards,
standing. Ripples crossed her face and like watching a movie rewind,
the face knitted together before our eyes, skin flowing over and
filling holes. Not perfect, no, but better. The joints in her hands
were covered now and a few nails had righted themselves.

I was relieved until I looked at Mom, white as a
sheet, clutching Dad's shirt, looking somewhere between barfing and
fainting. Made me feel like a loser. Dad was fussing with the
tri-pulse, trying not to let Mom topple and get a still of
Gran-the-corpse.

He
got my attention and winked! My dad winked at me.

Nothing
rattled him.

It had its intended affect, I felt a little
calmer, not so frantic.

The corpse/Gran turned to me, ignoring her
granddaughter entirely.