Death Whispers (Death Series, Book 1) (36 page)

“Okay Onyx, let's go!”

The strange sound again, thunk, thunk, thunk.

“Caleb, he probably needs to go out to the potty
area and do his business,” Arlene said.

“Oh right, K. Jade, let's go,” I said.

The Dog heard the sounds, potty area, and the
liquid wanted to rush out, but he held it in. The Dog bounded around,
hoping the Boy and his people would notice that he was a Good Dog and
needed to let the liquid go.

The Boy and the small female went toward the
doors where holes appeared to the place-that-smells-very-interesting.

He burst through when the holes appeared and
lifted his nose in utter bliss. So many different liquid smells here!
Where to start?

The person-who-fed-him came and said the
sounds, “go hurry up.” He wished to impress the Boy with how
quickly he could let the liquid go.

He trotted over to an especially good smelling
corner and let the liquid rush out and was very happy when it covered
the other liquid smell.

“
Good
Onyx, good hurry up,”
the
Boy said
.

He wagged his tail, the Boy was using the happy
tone with him because he was a Good Dog.

He followed the Boy, who took him to the fresh
place where there were no holes to think about and he could run and
run and run. The Dog hesitated. He wished to run but the Boy had no
soft, round thing that he could grab, and the pack had a calm,
unhurried posture.

He waited.

The pack made noises with the person-who-fed
him, then opened a metal box with holes on top and with foul smelling
round shapes on the bottom.

The Boy gestured that he wanted the Dog to get
in. But the Dog felt a disquiet with the box. He remembered that it
was a Bad Thing. The pack got into the big metal box that smelled
like the Boy's pack. He sniffed it suspiciously and looked at the Boy
for direction.

The Boy reached for him and scooped up the Dog.
He gave a lick with the wet thing in his mouth in appreciation. The
Boy tasted like a Good Boy, not the good of-not-quite-right-trash
smell of the small female, but still good. He liked his new pack and
wagged his tail.

****

Onyx
explored every, tiny corner of our house, spending an especially long
time in my room, stumbling over all the crap on the floor, deciding
it was good and rolling around on top of it. Perfect, now that's a
good dog!

Jade
had gone home a few minutes after Onyx arrived. I was feeling
righteous: the testing was over, the government hadn't come
yet
to kidnap me, Jade and I were together and Onyx was finally here!

Mom had done some crock pot thing... chili, so we
could just scoop and pork. I liked that.

The front door opened and Dad came through,
looking a little frazzled. Onyx gave a small growl.

It's
okay, Onyx, it's just Dad.
I
let that thought float out through whatever allowed me to talk to the
dead. And that was the frequency the dog was on.

Onyx sat up straighter and cautiously approached
Dad.

Dad sat down on his haunches, putting his hand
out. Onyx sniffed his hand, doing an exaggerated lean with his neck,
slowly wagging his tail.

The male was Alpha, he smelled very much like
the boy but not at all like the Alpha female. The Boy smelled like
both of them. The Dog made his tail move to show he liked this new
pack member...thunk, thunk, thunk.

A part of the male's body was out, the Dog
leaned forward cautiously... smells like older male, like the Boy...
he shows respect by making himself smaller. The Dog likes the Alpha
Male. The Dog shows respect by lying down.

I watched Onyx lie down, showing his belly. Dad
was petting him on his belly and Onyx wagged his tail. Good,
everybody was friends now.

Suddenly, Onyx flipped over and stood, trotting
back over to me, where he turned and sat down next to my chair.

Dad stood, stretching, arching his back and
standing on tiptoe.

“You stiff?” Mom asked.

“Some... been in a chair all day.”

Dad turned to me. “Feel like one on one today?”

That sounded great. “Yeah, it's been forever
since we played.”

“Now that the immediate crises are over, we can
resume our lives,” Dad said.

“
It
has
been stressful,” Mom said.

“How do you like your new dog?” Dad asked.

“Onyx is awesome!”

Mom looked critically at Onyx, who stared back at
her expectantly, his brown eyes a pool of liquid in his black face.
“He sure is black, like an ink spot that barks.”

It was the first supper we'd had in what seemed
like forever where we just talked about normal stuff. No government
threats, break-ins, bullies at school or raising dead stuff. Almost
normal.

Time for more chaos.

After supper, Dad and I were cranking it up on our
cement basketball court. I was guarding him like a cheap suit and he
was huffing and puffing around me. I jumped up just as he was
shooting and slapped the basketball right out of his hands.

The Js came walking up then, taking off their
hoodies as they strode, piling them up just outside the court.

“Hey Kyle!” Jonesy yelled.

John inclined his head to Dad.

Jonesy
ran over and we ganged up on Dad. After all, he was all-that-was-man
and
six-foot one, he had to man-up.

We tore around the court, Dad driving the ball
toward the basket, Jonesy accelerating and me trying to steal, John
getting in the way of all of us. It was the absolute best.

We horsed around till the light faded so much that
we couldn't see the basket. Bounding up the steps we threw the door
open. Mom was in her pajamas with two pitchers of iced tea. Jonesy
rushed over, grabbed the biggest cup out of the cupboard he could
find, filled it to the brim and chugged it down while we watched.
Finally, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

He saw us all watching him. “What?”

“Hey, Mrs. H., what do ya say about some banana
bread?” He waggled his eyebrows in that charming Jonesy-way of his.

Mom laughed. “You bet, it's right over there,”
while pointing to the right of the bread box. A large slab was left
out from yesterday.

Mom said, “Looks like someone wants to meet your
friends.”

Onyx had come to sit patiently in the corner of
the room, eying my friends with curiosity.

“Hey boy!” John extolled.

“That's right! You got him today...” Jonesy
said. “So this is the famous dog?”

“That's him,” I said proudly.

We all looked at him and his tail started to wag.

“Mom, is it okay that he sleeps in my room?”

“It's okay, but I think that he may want his own
space,” Dad said.

I felt a lecture coming on.

“Kyle means that you have to move all your junk
on the floor, to some other spot so he has a place to be,” John
said.

Oh, that made sense. But, maybe he would like the
smell of my stuff on the floor I told them.

Mom shook her head. “No, Caleb, he can't just
lie on your clothes.” A cool idea foiled!

John's hair was standing straight up because he
was always pushing it out of his eyes and a combination of boy-grime
and sweat had acted as... I don't know, some kind of gel, I guess.
Jonesy's hair was cut close to his scalp and seemed to dry instantly
when he was sweating. We all thought that was really cool. Mine hung
in strings. We all needed showers but I wanted to get my room in
shape for Onyx.

“Hey guys, let's get a space for Onyx,” I
said.

John shrugged.

Jonesy said, “Sounds like a plan.”

I
looked at Onyx and he was just there
.
Cool.

We climbed the stairs, opened my door and surveyed
The Cave.

“Crap Caleb, it's a mess in here,” Jonesy
said.

“Oh,
I don't know, it looks a lot like your room Jonesy,” John said,
cocking and eyebrow.

Jonesy
gave John a dirty look. “It's not this bad,” he protested, waving
his hand around.

“Whatever. This isn't getting a spot for Onyx
figured out.”

“Caleb's right, let's get to work,” John
agreed.

We started picking up all the clothes off the
floor, heaving them all in a pile on top of my bed that soon became a
mountain. John looked at my garbage stack, I shook my head.

Jonesy, seeing the direction of where I was
looking said, “No man, the dog can't sleep on the desk...”

That was my logic.

John frowned, he was thinking we would clean the
whole room. Out of a scale of interest from one through ten, with ten
being the highest, cleaning my room was a negative number.

“Where do the clothes go?” John asked
reasonably. Then, “This clothes hamper here? Are these dirty or
clean?” he asked, pointing to the pile on the bed.

I shrugged, who knew? If they smelled bad, I
didn't wear them.

John folded his arms across his chest. “This is
your closet?”

“No. This is my closet.” I opened the bi-fold
doors and a bunch of crap rolled out at our feet.

Jonesy surveyed stuff. “Look, there's my History
text from last year! I had to pay a fine!” He glared at me.

I shrugged again.

John threw up his hands. “Okay... the plan is,
dump the junk in the dirty clothes hamper upside-down, then put the
dirty clothes in the hamper, then, put the clean clothes in the
closet.” He looked over at the closet, “and I guess stack all
that crap in the bottom.”

Damn.

“
I
hate to say it Caleb, but, I think you're gonna have to go downstairs
and get a trash sack,” John looked at the closet again, “not
those weak ones that your mom uses for kitchen trash, but
yard
waste.”

“Can't dude, we compost.”

John face-palmed. “I forgot your mom doesn't
believe in trash.”

“My Dad does.”

“Really?” Jonesy asked.

“Yeah, but don't tell my mom. She thinks trash
is very uncool,” I said with feeling.

“Jonesy, minion, go fetch trash receptacle,”
John said.

Jonesy gave a sharp salute and beat it downstairs.

Onyx stood patiently waiting for us people to
figure it out.

Jonesy came back up and we put the trash pile in
the bag. Actually, John did. Somehow, I think he was offended by it.

We started into the closet.

“Do we give the school back the History book?”
John asked.

Jonesy and I looked at it and at the same time
said, “Nah.”

“Jinx!” Jonesy said as we grinned at each
other.

John sighed again, into the trash it went.

An hour later, the bag couldn't fit any more and I
noticed that there was a lot of floor space to choose a spot for
Onyx.

After a ass-load of discussion, we decided that
Onyx needed to be at the foot of my bed, but close to the computer
desk, on the right. I had a sudden idea and decided to search around
in the closet, moving all the non-trash items. Mom's Stephen King
collection was carefully put aside. I found just the thing, Gran's
afghan. It was a bunch of bright-colored squares all stitched
together to make a huge blanket. It was itchy. Mom said it was made
of wool. She didn't like synthetic fibers since they were made with
petroleum products. I folded it in half, then half again, placing it
in the new spot.

I
thought in Onyx's head,
here's
your new spot.

He walked over, sniffed the scratchy thing, and
laid down on it.

“Good dog.”

He wagged his tail.

“
He
sure
seems
like a good dog,” Jonesy said. Hearing that, Onyx wagged his tail
harder.

Smart too.

John turned his attention back to the closet,
poking at my stack of books with a toe “Why don't you use a
dedicated reader?”

“It's like the watch, isn't it?” Jonesy said.

“
Caleb
is
a little outdated,” John remarked.

“No. I just think that it's important to use
some stuff that isn't modern. I mean, think about our dependence on
Brain Impulse Technology? If everything went stupid, and suddenly
that junk didn't work, just think about the chaos, even if it was
only for an hour; people would melt down.”

John looked thoughtful. “You have a point.”

Jonesy looked at my watch. “It's not even LED,”
he nearly wailed.

I looked down at the funky thing, scratched and
old looking. It had been Dad's first watch and I liked it.

John bent his head over it and grunted, “It's a
winder.”

“A what?” Jonesy asked.

“You have to wind it every day to keep time.”

Jonesy looked baffled.

John shrugged. “I gotta split. Let's get this
stuff back in the closet.”

We threw all the stuff back in there, stacking the
books carefully, and shut the thing. Jonesy looked relieved that the
doors could close.

Onyx sat on the blanket watching us.

Jonesy whispered, “He's kinda creepy, Caleb, the
way he just stares at us.”