Death Whispers (Death Series, Book 1) (55 page)

To which Jonesy interjected, “Anal-probe! Right
here!” pointing over the top of John's back. Which caused John to
roar with laughter, falling down on his bony ass.

The TSA agent pursed her lips in a thin line.

Dad stepped in and said, “I'm quite sorry about
their behavior, it's been a trying day, they're a bit... giddy.” He
was trying to calm the storm.

The TSA gal looked down at John who was on the
floor, tears streaming out of his eyes and made an exaggerated grunt,
“Get off my floor, young man!”

Mom and Jade had mouths hanging agape, even my
laid-back parents were somewhat embarrassed.

John got onto all fours and stood up, still making
the funny mouth, trying not to burst out again, Mom was talking
sternly to Jonesy, his back to us.

John finally stood up and said, “I'm really
sorry about that, I don't know what my problem was.”

“Arms up,” humorless said. “Turn-around...
next!” she nearly yelled.

John, suitably chagrined, walked over to our small
group. Dad in the center of us said, “Come close fellas.”

We all leaned in, Dad spoke to our group but his
eyes were all for Jonesy, “I better not have any more of this
behavior. Jonesy: control your bullshit.”

Jonesy blanched, I don't think any of us had ever
heard Dad swear. Truly, I hadn't thought he knew the words. A silence
fell over our loose circle.

Dad straightened. “Come on, follow me.” He
strode off, Jonesy and John followed with their tails between their
legs.

****

Tim Anderson just flat-out didn't believe us.

Dad tried to reason with him, but Anderson
interrupted with a, “Dazzle me guys. Can something die and you
raise it?” he asked me, eyes boring into mine.

A what? Did he mean, murder someone to bring back,
here? In the tower-o-glass? I looked at Jade and she just shook her
head, she didn't know either.

“Listen,
Dr. Hart... I know you're the principal scientist with regard to the
genome map, terrific. But, you expect me to put my, excuse me ladies,
nut-sack on the line for some wild stories about a six-point AFTD,
running amok with his friends, and some shadowy government co-op
dispatched to 'acquire' him.” He pointed at me, air-quoting, like
it was alleged, not actual.

He was starting to piss me off.

Dad too, who began drumming his fingers on
Anderson's desk.

“What do we gain from trumping up false
stories?” Mom asked in a huff.

Good point.

“Who
knows? I get whack-jobs all the time that come in here and spray
their lies all over. I'm not inclined to believe things on hearsay.
I'm a journalist guys.”

Dad
slapped his hand on the desk, rattling the glass pen holder,
Anderson's eyes widened but he didn't comment (not easily
intimidated). “We are not crazy
or
making things up.”

Anderson leaned back in his chair.

“Jade, show Mr. Anderson what's going on.”

I looked at Dad, what was this about?

Jade stood and came over to Anderson, a predatory
smile played on her face that I didn't know she had.

“Dad...” I didn't know where this was going.

“It's okay, Caleb.”

“What are you doing, girlie?” Anderson asked
her.

Uh-oh, I knew her dad called her that.

Jade just smiled wider and touched his shoulder,
he jumped like it'd hurt but I knew it hadn't.

“Seeing,” she answered.

Emotions flew across her face as we watched her
start to know Anderson.

He didn't let it continue though, picking her hand
off his shirt like lint. “That's enough of that,” he said,
shaken.

“What's going on?” Dad asked.

“He wants an exclusive if he can have proof,”
she said and he nodded. “Otherwise, it's just a wild goose chase.”

“Are you quoting him?” Mom asked.

“Yes... no. I mean, people think in images and I
saw geese in his head and him chasing them...so, I know it was that,”
Jade said.

“It's an old expression,” Anderson said
quietly.

“He wants to go to the ghost cemetery,” Jade
said.

He glared at her.

“Well, you didn't believe us,” I said.

“Let's do it. We go to the... honey, what's the
name of that old place?”

“Kyle, I don't remember,” Mom said.

“Anyway, we go there and Caleb raises a zombie,
you see some of the evidence, and then you write something. Seems
clear-cut.”

“He will,” Jade said.

“Must be a nice skill, young lady,” Anderson
said.

“It's Jade,” adding, “not 'girlie'.”

“
Right.
Okay... so, let's get going. The young la-
Jade
,
has convinced me this may be authentic.”

CHAPTER 36

The cemetery was exactly as I remembered it except
instead of being silvered by moonlight, it had a hazy white quality.
The evening sun laying low in the sky, slanting through trees and
open slashes where the forest surrounding it broke.

Tim Anderson strode forward, squashing the tall
blades of grass as he went, moving between the tombstones toward the
caretaker's cottage. He arrived at the front steps, turning around to
face us.

“Where-oh-where is the stealth chopper? The gun
casings? The knives? The remnants of battle?”

Definitely this guy missed his calling and should
have been on stage, not writing for the biggest paper in the state.

We all started scouring the graveyard and apart
from a few tromped down places of flat pasture between the graves,
there wasn't a mark anywhere.

No way they could have cleaned this place.

Jonesy
opened his mouth and Dad held up a finger in warning. I guess Dad was
up to
here
with Jonesy. “What about the tombstone that got whacked by the
chopper blade? What about the chopper blade embedding itself into the
ground?”

Right! We sprinted to the spot where we thought
the chopper had landed and disintegrated the grave marker.

We
stood in a circle around where the marker should have been but there
was nothing. Well, not true, there was a hole that was deep, maybe
almost a foot, long and rectangular, where a marker had been.

“They took the whole damn thing!” Jonesy
yelled.

Dad and Mom were too shocked to get mad at Jonesy
for being him again.

Anderson bent down, letting his fingers trail over
dirt that hadn't been exposed to the outside for one hundred years.
“You might have something here.”

He walked the whole graveyard and every so often
he would look at something closely until John yelled, “Look at
this!”

We ran over there, the parents coming last.

A huge gouge had been punched into the dirt. On
either side there was a a swathe, crescent moon shaped, like a smile,
with the center being a deep well.

Without looking up I said, “Jonesy, get a
stick.”

He came back with a long branch from an alder or
something and I stuck it into the hole made by the helicopter blade.
It went down until there was only six inches sticking out. Drawing it
out, I put it beside my body.

Dad said, “Looks like about four feet.”

“Looking like you guys might have been telling
the truth,” Anderson conceded.

*

Back at Anderson's office, where we passed through
security unscathed by hysterics, we sat for a solid hour, telling our
story. His voice-activated pulse-recorder loaded directly to his
pulse-top.

On a couple of parts Anderson remarked or asked a
question to clarify something. Finally, we were finished.

“Well, that's one helluva story there. A real
humdinger.”

“I can understand you coming to me, or someone
like me. I will do my best, tonight,” Anderson said.

“Tonight?” Dad asked.

“Yeah, my boss is going to be thrilled. But
better than that, it offers a little protection for your kid there.”
Anderson became thoughtful. “I'm not a real introspective guy, but
I'd say you've been given something special,” he looked out at us
all. “It's how you use it that will make the difference.”

Standing up, he stuck his hand out. “Sorry I was
so tough on you in the beginning. It's been a pleasure. You've got a
good kid here, Dr. Hart.”

“Kyle,” Dad corrected. “I know we do.” he
smiled at me with what may have been pride.

“Those other two though...” he waggled his
finger at the Js. “They may be trouble.” He laughed, taking the
sting out of it.

CHAPTER 37

The article came out and sensationalized the
paranormal community. People believe what they want to believe; there
were sides. Some thought that it was a greatly exaggerated story
about a bunch of teens that got together to be wild in cemeteries.
Others thought that the government was putting its nose where it
didn't belong, endangering this new generation of kids.

Still others thought that the drug cocktail that
gave human beings a key to power came with a price. Having survived
the last few months I'd have to agree.

Summer rolled out like a great sea of time before
us: an awesome girlfriend, Onyx (teen's best friend), the Js, ready
to try anything.

Life was good.

But
in the quiet dark of my room, questions pressed at me before sleep
took hold. Where was Parker? What had they been planning for me? What
had
caused the electrical problem that ultimately saved us from possible
capture and certain pain? Were we finished? That little (loud) voice
in my head didn't think so.

A few days later, Jonesy asked me if we could go
rouse some zombies. I told him no. For now, I was zombied out.

But
maybe sometime, that would change...
sooner
rather
than later.

The End

Read on for the exciting first chapter of book two,

Death
Speaks

Prologue

I'm Caleb Hart,
still the son of the famous
scientist who mapped the human genome back in 2010... but I'm down
with that now.

In 2025 my
paranormal ticket was punched and I began raising zombies...
accidentally.
After
narrowly escaping the Graysheets, (a super-secret bunch of government
creepers bent on making us robots for their Evil Plan). I managed to
get a great girlfriend, Jade, all-that-is-girl, survive Brett and
Carson's full attention, and was ready for freshmen year at Kent
Paranormal High (KPH).

I have a cop that
might
be trustworthy
named Garcia. He and his new partner, Bobbi Gale (she's got the
undead vibe too), really want some help finding the person
responsible for the deaths of all those kids we ran into as ghosts
last year at the caretaker's shack...

Journalist Tim
Anderson wrote the cool article spotlighting the Graysheets so they'd
get off my back. But some nights I lie awake, thinking about my
counterpart, Jeffrey Parker, and what he spends his time doing for
them
.

Jade's dad was in
prison for a month for resisting arrest and assaulting a minor. Too
bad he can't be put away forever, 'cuz I know he'll pop out of his
drunken toaster to make us miserable again.

My thoughts frequently
stray to Clyde, my main corpse...he could be a really righteous
commando for an undead team. You never know when you'll need one.

Onyx is a teen's best
friend and (except for Jade) the best addition of last year.

I'm feeling a little
stressed out about my freshman year in high school and how my
Affinity for the Dead class will flesh out (hardy-har-har), but if I
can survive last year, I can do anything.

But right now it's late
summer and the school year threatens to descend and shatter the fun
of it all. How will I get through one day in school without the Js as
my tag team? It won't be the same without Jonesy, but it'll be great
to have Brett going to derelict KM where his ass belongs. I guess
I'll just have to wade through it all like everyone else, me and the
gang... minus a J.

CHAPTER 1

“Go in, Caleb”
Jonesy said, arms crossed across his chest, standing gooseflesh
riding his forearms like chicken skin.

“I will. I'm working
up to it.”

John Terran, Mark
“Jonesy” Jones and I were all standing on the dock looking out
over the murky waters of Lake Tapps. Mom had given us a ride out to
Gramps' who had lived on the lake (since the dawn of time) in a small
house with the biggest (illegal as hell) lawn in the entire universe.
Jade and the girls were the smart ones, beach towels thrown beneath
them, sunning themselves on the lawn.

Jade looked up, her
eyes shadowed by her hand. “Go ahead Caleb, you've been diving in
all summer. You can't let Jonesy be the only one.”

Easy for her to say.
None of the girls wanted to be lakesicles.

Jonesy gave me
his best Devious Look and smiled. John's eyebrows shot up to his
hairline, I knew that look, he meant business
.

Jade had made her
comment and flopped her head back down on the towel, looking every
inch the hottie lounging in a patch of sun. Sophie and Tiff lay on
either side of her. But my eyes were only for Jade. She wore a
bikini that was about the size of the floss I hated using, in a
mouthwatering tangerine that shimmered in the afternoon light. Sophie
was wearing a turquoise suit that set off her dark skin and light
sea-colored eyes while Tiff had exchanged her trademark hoodie for a
bikini top and shorts. Huh.