Death Whispers (Death Series, Book 1) (5 page)

“Now
this is why I had only one son,” she said dramatically. “So I
could have two more children later on.” She smiled, she'd always
liked the Js.

Mom made noises about homework before the guys
came.

No
Call of Duty tonight, there was other stuff to discuss. As I was
thinking that, the doorbell rang. A bright orange flare appeared
through the window, an obscure flame through the glass. It had to be
John.

“Come in!” I yelled.

John lurched in with Jonesy blundering behind like
usual, shouting his greeting, “Hi Ali, Hi Kyle!”

The Parents smiled. John looked at the three of
us, scoping reactions. I gave him the chillax expression.

The stairs reverberated like a herd of elephants
as we jogged up to my room to discuss our evil plan.

John began, “So what happened with your
parents?”

“It was cool,” I replied.

As cool as it could be when you let someone in on
your reanimation-skills. “My dad thinks that he can get some kind
of cerebral downer, or...” I thought about it for a second,
“inhibitor for during the test, so I won't respond like a
five-point.”

Jonesy piped in, “What about the rest of the
test? Are you going to be all high and test stupid in everything
else?”

Fair question I guess. “Nah, my dad didn't think
it would affect the other subjects.”

John whipped out a crumpled mess of papers from
his backpack, futility trying to straighten them.

“What's this?” I asked, eying it with
suspicion. I wasn't excited about reading anything informative.

“It's something I found on the Internet. It
might give us some clues about what you can do.”

I glanced at the first page which read:

'Affinity for the Dead' or, AFTD, is not just a
genetic marker, but a new reality.

Huh,
I read on about the boy that had made headlines only a few years ago.

A
boy like me.

Jeffrey Parker, eighth grade student, is the
first to hit the radar with full-blown, “Affinity for the Dead.”
As everyone understands, in 2010 Geneticist Kyle Hart and his
scientific team mapped the Human Genome, thereby giving us every
genetic marker that we hold as humans. This invaluable information
would eventually lead to a pharmaceutical breakthrough that has now
unlocked those previously unknown codes.

Flashes of psychic ability have been witnessed
for centuries but now that the “key” to unlock this “door”
has been discovered we will continue to have teenagers manifest
different abilities that begin to awaken during puberty.

Parker is (unbelievably) able to raise the dead
from their graves. He claims that he, “hears voices” that ask him
for, “different things.”

I looked at the Js, Jonesy was quiet for once, a
miracle.

John
said, “I read the whole thing. It talks about all the different
abilities we
all
may
have.”

“
Whoa,
hold on!
”
Jonesy
said. “I want something cool.”

I
raised my eyebrows, like
I
wanted AFTD? I'd struggled to appear average, no special attention
was good.

His cheeks flamed even with his dark skin. “Listen
Caleb, dude, no offense but I don't want what you got.”

John
glared at Jonesy. “I'm tellin' the truth!” his eyes anxious.
“What happened in the cemetery made me want to piss my pants. That
dead guy...
damn
!”
he slapped his knee.

We
laughed...
so
Jonesy.

The cerebral-downer was a temporary solution. One
mess at a time.

“What about after the test?”John asked.

There he was diggin' around at the crap I had just
decided not to think about. He was like that. I gave him a
less-than-friendly look.

“I don't know... I thought I'd wait and see,”
I said.

“
Not
good Caleb.” John said. “You know that ass-hat Carson and
definitely
Brett,
are thinking about ways to make your life miserable.”

I
had actually thought of that. I wanted to get through the testing,
then tackle the terrible twins. Didn't know if I'd be able to before
they ratted me out to some adult that would make trouble.

“I
heard Jade LeClerc saying something to Brett,” John said. My head
whipped in his direction, I so wasn't interested in Jade being near
that asswipe.

Why was she talking to Brett Mason? The girls walk
on the far side of the hall to avoid him, the perv. I asked John.

“She told him to 'go to hell'.”

“What?” I yelled.

“Chill out. I overheard them before sixth hour
PE.”

That
would have been before PE today
?
I noticed Jade didn't turn and say “hi” to me like she usually
did.

My hands clenched into fists. “Was he doing
something to her?” Just the thought of that butt-munch saying one
thing to her made me want to punch him in the face.

“Calm down,” John shrugged. “I heard your
name mentioned, then she told him where to go.”

Jonesy gave the thumbs up, “They saw me come
around the corner and she took off. Brett asked where all my
'queer-bait' friends were.”

Jonesy started pacing in tight circles around the
room, excited. He's kind of a violence lover.

I could relate.

“Did you let him have it?” Jonesy mimed a fist
punching his open palm, making a satisfying thwack.

John just looked at him. “Would you stop? You
understand the bully laws, right?”

Those
finer details were lost on Jonesy as a huge grin overtook his dark
face.

I
knew that look.

“What?” John asked. He thought Jonesy was
gonna get us in trouble (usually true).

“I'm thinkin' about a bit o' payback,” Jonesy
said.

Uh-oh,
we knew what
that
meant. Jonesy had rigged payback schemes, some not so successful,
with Brett and Carson in the past.

You'd think they'd catch on.

“Jonesy...” I started. He held up his hand to
silence me.

“Just listen. Brett and Carson are dumber than
rocks, right?”

John
and I looked at him, ya think
?

“
How
about I have them try a cool experiment before the APs and get 'em
all distracted from their plan to sabotage your life?” For Jonesy,
this was bordering on brilliant. I turned my finger in a circle, keep
talking.

“How about the tube and Aqua Net trick?” he
asked.

We
groaned. That had gone really bad.

John scowled. “No way Jonesy. You remember what
happened when we tried it!”

“
Exactly!
It's the perfect thing! It'll take one of them out and distract them
around AP time. Then, after testing, if the cerebral-whatever-it-is
works, they can flap all they want but if you're not popping the big
AFTD guns, there's no proof.” Jonesy spread his hands wide,
bow
to my invincible logic.

Of course, sometimes his logic could bite us all
in the ass.

I ran my hand through my hair, thinking
furiously. Today was Monday... so almost a week for strategy.

I said, “Okay, but you're going to what, steal
your mom's hairspray?”

“
It's
Aqua Net,
there is no substitute,” he said, mildly insulted. “We've got
spiders entombed in the corners of my parents' bathroom from my mom
using it forever. Pretty damn effective.”

I told him it was effective but disgusting.

Jonesy
got defensive, “My mom swears
by
the stuff. She never has to redo her hair.”

Well...
good for her. Jonesy's mom's hair was stiff. I could throw a pencil
and it'd stay. There was no moving it. Jonesy called his mom's
bathroom time, The Ritual. Aqua Net sure worked when we tried
fun-with-fire. It was worth singeing Carson's nose hairs.

John didn't like it. Out of the three of us, John
was the most cautious. Of course, he'd gotten his eyebrows burnt off.
They took about three months to grow back and his parents had been
super-pissed.

“Come
on John, just restating the obvious here. Wouldn't it be cool to get
those turds back and off our backs at the same time?” Jonesy asked.

“Yeah, but if they really get hurt...”

“They won't,” he said.

Dismissing John's worries I turned to Jonesy,
thinking of a possible problem, “what if they tell us to stick it?”

“
I'll
tell 'em the same stuff I told you; we already did it and it's fun.”
He said with a sly wink because it had certainly
not
been fun: singed eyebrows. I could almost taste the foul perfume even
after a
whole
year. “Then, if they smell a trap, I'll say they're
sissy-sucking-titty-babies.”

John gave a satisfied nod. “That'll work.”

Jonesy could handle it with his boatload-of-charm.

The
cemetery was the best place because Carson and Brett wouldn't want us
to think they were scared after the raising-the-dead-guy episode.
Jonesy said he'd talk to them tomorrow and see if they swallowed the
hook. Meanwhile, Dad would get the cerebral-blocking drug and I'd be
set. Now I just needed to find out what was happening with Jade,
maybe start with a conversation, geez,
so
original
.

CHAPTER 5

John and I always sit together in our classes. We
have Miss Rodriguez for English. She's a first year teacher so she's
not bored and raging at us yet. Her back was to us while I sly-pulsed
to John about Sunday. We had a satisfying view of Miss Rodriguez
(she's pretty hot), when she suddenly turned, burning holes into me.

I
jerked like I'd been slapped, so busted,
I
didn't know what she'd said!
I
looked at
John
and he was wide-eyed,
don't
look at me!

“Caleb
Hart,” Miss Rodriguez said, my whole name, not good. “What tense
is this here?” She pointed with the dry eraser pen to what I had,
until just now, not noticed.

My
cheeks grew hot and I wanted to sink underneath the desk. I stared
numbly at the question: My family has been making plans for a
snowboarding trip.

Well,
definitely future tense but perfect or progressive perfect, I wasn't
sure.

I sneaked a glance Jade's way and she'd written
PROGRESSIVE in block letters on the back of her notebook. I slid my
eyes back to Miss Rodriguez, who was looking less hot all the time.

”Future Progressive, Miss Rodriguez.”

She smiled brilliantly at me, her gaze wandering
over the thirty of us.

“It's
nice someone is paying attention to the correct tense. Now remember
class,” she turned back to the white board, “at this age, it is
assumed that you speak correctly, now it's time to know the 'why'.
Grammar achieves this by teaching how our language supports speech.”

My
heartbeat slowed to a trot,
that
was close.

I looked at Jade again and she gave me a shy
smile. I smiled back. She'd saved my ass! It was the first outward
sign she liked me more than just a “hey” in the hall when we
jostled through the crowd. Brett's eyes narrowed, noticing our
interchange, smirking. Jade saw where I was looking and I watched the
smile wash away.

English ended and we swarmed into the hall like
bees, weaving our way to our lockers. PE was next period and looking
at my watch, a retro thing from my dad, and realized I had maybe four
minutes to talk to Jade. My eyes surveyed the long hallway, looking
for the sweep of black hair. I'd overheard her say she was part
Cherokee Indian, that's where the black hair came in.

Score! I scoped the hair like a black flag in the
crowd. Shiny, spilling around her shoulders with movement as she
talked to Sophie. I waved.

Sophie
saw me and leaned forward, saying something to Jade. Jade turned and
my heart paused in my chest, her effect on me was that powerful. No
guy wants a girl to know that they're enthralled
,
so
I blanked my expression.

She smiled wider as I made my way to where she
stood by her locker, my backpack a solid weight, swinging as I moved.

“Hey,” I began with my best casual smile.

“Hi Caleb,” Sophie said then looked at Jade.
“Gotta go!” she winked and a brilliant bit of color spread over
Jade's cheekbones.

I'd have to get things warmed up.

“Thanks for your help in Rodriguez' class,”
safe intro.

“It looked like you could use it,” she smiled.

“Hey! I knew it was future, I just didn't know
the other.”

“Riiigghht...” her eyes glittering with humor.

I
huffed at her comment but it was for show, it wasn't that hard
talking to her after all.

Her cat-green eyes looked up at me, smokey rimmed
with soft, Kohl-colored make-up, not too much. She was hot, just
looking at her made my chest tight, my heart a stutter-rhythm.