Death Whispers (Death Series, Book 1) (3 page)

“Yeah... what the hell?” I asked.

“Your face sorta got in the way.”

“
Oh...
really
?”
Gee, hadn't noticed that.

“It was an accident, John and I were
discussing...” Jonesy began.

“... arguing...” John interrupted.

Jonesy gave him a look. “I changed my mind is
all.”

I raised my eyebrows, Jonesy never switched gears.

“
About the
merit of them
knowing
,”
John finished.

We looked at Bret and Carson. Too late now,
spilled milk on the table and dripping on the floor.

Later
, I
thought. “I wasn't pulling a hypo in Biology,” giving a hard look
at Brett and Carson, the used-to-be-non-believers, “and now APs are
coming up.”

“Yeah, you have your dad to thank for that,”
Brett smirked.

I knew that was coming.

My eyes caught sight of a grape sized bruise the
color of pale chartreuse, the edges fanning to green then finally
purple. Brett's smirk faded under my gaze as he shifted his shoulder,
his shirt falling over the mark that lingered on his throat.
Someone's hand had left that, not my problem, but...

“Shut up, it's Caleb's ass on the line,”
Jonesy said, jamming a thumb at my chest. “You know what happens
when you hit the radar as a corpse-raiser. He'd be a government
squirrel, like that Parker dude.”

“Nobody wants to have their life planned by
somebody else,” John said.

“My dad didn't have anything to do with that,”
I said.

“But thanks to him, everyone's tested now
because of the mapping. All the do-gooders want to 'realize our full
potential',” Brett made quote signs in the air, “what an ass-load
of crap that was.”

Carson chimed in,
“So even if we don't
want
to be mathematicians or scientists we're on that freight train until
it reaches the depot.”

Carson's murky-green
eyes burrowed into mine. This was an old argument. Kinda like being
the preacher's kid, you got blamed for everything your parent did, or
didn't do.

“You dickface... yeah
you,” Jonesy looked at Carson, whose eyes narrowed. “It isn't
Caleb's fault that his dad started that ball rolling with the
mapping. If it hadn't been him, it would've been someone else...”

Carson's fists clenched and flexed, he didn't like
being told the obvious. Probably shouldn't have opened his mouth and
crammed a foot in there until he choked. Kinda brain dead, kinda
consistent.

“
Listen guys,
this isn't helping. It's the
now
we need to figure out. I don't want to pop a five-point AFTD on the
APs. They're what, a week away? My dad,” Carson rolled his eyes and
I ignored him, plowing forward, “says that puberty is the
exact
time they test because scientists have proven that abilities come
online then, sometimes for the first time.” Not for me,
I
added silently.

The first bell gave its shrill beckon exactly
then. I looked at Brett and Carson. “I need you guys to cover for
me. At least until the tests are finished.”

I was appealing to their good side.

You can't force us to, Hart,” Brett said.

“Yeah, just because daddy's famous doesn't give
you clout,” Carson echoed.

So much for that.

“How about doing it because it's the right thing
to do?” asked Jonesy, out of the blue.

“The human thing to
do,” interjected John.

“He's not human.” Carson said, stabbing a
finger toward my chest.

Prejudice at its finest. But what did I expect
from these two? They'd never been my friends.

“You got that right,” Brett agreed, walking
off with Carson.

We watched them move away into the multicolor sea
of kids.

“Did ya see that bruise necklace Brett was
wearing?” Jonesy asked.

Yeah, some people had more than corpse-raising to
worry about.

“It's the dad,” John said.

Jonesy turned those liquid eyes to me, “Feel
sorry for him Caleb? Don't go soft on me bro. You're always giving
jackasses the benefit of the doubt.”

Not yet,
I
thought, saying nothing.

Seeing my expression he said, “Yeah, my cup of
care is empty too.”

My conscious teetered on the balance of right and
wrong. Brett had it bad, but he chose to act bad. It didn't make
things easier, it made it more complicated.

Jonesy clapped me on the back and John gave me the
nod. My friends had my back.

It was gonna be a
hurricane of crap and I was in the eye of it. The Js and I walked off
to Shop class. Time to make my mom a heart-shaped box, when my heart
was definitely not into it.

CHAPTER 3

The
Js and I had
Shop
first period and it was a good thing because we needed to figure out
A Plan.

After talking to the ass-monkeys I couldn't get
the genome out of my head, cramming into the tight space of my skull
like a song that wouldn't stop playing.

The mapping of 2010 happened under pressure from
President Obama. Desperate for health care reform, mapping offered
incentive to activate “markers” for the population. It was the
key to identifying genetic potential for: cancer, heart disease,
stroke, even alcoholism and drug addictions. If the People wanted
universal health care, they would be mapped, with a microchip put
underneath the skin. Every marker identified genetic codes and a
percentage of the person's wage taken for the “privilege.” Now,
if someone didn't want the microchip, no health care. There was a
helluva lot more than just disease markers now. Teens were the proof.

We sat around the table together and our Shop
teacher, Mr Morginstern, approached us with a cheery, “Good morning
fellas!”

It was criminal he was happy. Doesn't he know the
Monday-is-hateful-rule?

“Hey,” I mumbled.

Jonesy and John gave Morginstern the nod.
Morginstern was excited about teaching and we were excited about
school ending for the day.

“So, how was your guys' weekend? Do anything
interesting?” he asked, eyebrows raised.

Yeah,
I think.

I
imagined a conversation like:
Ah no problem, Mr. Morginstern, just creeping around illegally in a
graveyard, raising a corpse, enemies seeing the blow-by-blow
...
real
interesting
.

Instead I said, “It was okay.”

Jonesy
was choking up on it. I gave him a look that said clearly,
don't
blow it.
“Yeah.”

John was unflappably silent as usual, controlling
a sly grin with effort, the anchor to our madness.

Morginstern
seemed to accept our weird responses and went over the whole process
of our boxes again
;
adults,
painfully redundant. We got to decide what kind of “box” to make.
Heart-shaped was the hardest shape of all (masochist). I got out my
sandpaper, one-twenty grit, extra fine.

John kept his voice low, “So what's the plan?”

A fine dust fell from the interior arc of the
heart onto the work table. The sanding from the three of us served as
an excellent conversation concealer.

“
I
don't know yet, I gotta think about it more. I'm not ending up like
Parker. 'Affinity for the Dead,' wasn't that cool for
him
,”
I said.

“Ask your dad, he's the genius,” Jonesy said.

“Quiet, smack attack.”

Jonesy ducked his head, half-apology,
half-embarrassment.

“I'm sorry bro, it was an accident,” he said.

“Gotcha, just wanted to see what you'd say,” I
joked.

“Oh man! Don't do that dude!” Jonesy threw his
sand paper at me and I deflected, the paper landing on John,
embedding in his hair.

Morginstern glanced over at us and gave us the
“warning” voice, “Caleb Hart! Jonesy and John, no throwing
supplies.”

“Come on you guys, stop screwing around. This is
serious,” John said.

As serious as a heart attack
, I thought,
struggling not to laugh. “I'll talk with my dad tonight, he'll have
ideas.”

“He's got resources, right?” Jonesy asked.

“Using your big boy words Jonesy?” I smiled.

We all laughed and agreed to meet up at my place
late. Maybe I'd con mom into making extra hamburger helper for the
Js.

The rest of the day was not as insane as the
morning. I had every class with John except PE, Jonesy was in PE (I
was never without a J). That was the class where we got to check out
the girls. One in particular I liked a lot.

“I want to play dodge ball today,” Jonesy
said.

“Yeah, that'll happen. 'No head shots, no body
shots above the waist, no leg shots'...” I imitated Miss Griswold's
annoying voice.

The girls are playing and that means we have to be
super careful. I sighed. Dodge ball rocked but Griswold was a
joy-sucker. I mean, what part of the body could we hit if everything
was a no-hit zone?

Retarded.

Just then Jade LeClerc walked by, my eyes tracking
her. She wasn't popular, but she had something special. Jet black
hair gleamed like a curtain of silk waiting to be touched. She had
the greatest eyes, green like a cat's. A memory shimmered just out of
reach...a red shirt, concrete and dirt... Ow! Jonesy gave me a
strategic elbow to the side, the memory slipping away in a vapor.

I turned to him. “What was that for?”

“Stop staring, she'll notice,” Jonesy said.
“Why do you like her anyway, she's kinda emo.”

“No
she's not, she just wants people to think she is. Keeps them away,”
I said, trying to recapture that fleeting shard of the past.

“
Oh
and you're such a girl expert...
right,
”
Jonesy laughed.

He got the scowl he deserved. “I've watched her.
She doesn't make a move to be anyone's friend, but there's something
cool about her...”

Something I wanted to protect.

“She's too weird. Pick someone else. Look at
them all.” Jonesy spread out his hands to include the bounty of
girls.

Huh, they all looked kinda average to me. My eyes
strayed back to Jade. She just looked different, unique. I'd build up
the courage to say something to her. I told Jonesy that.

“You've had Science with her what, almost two
semesters? We're in fourth quarter and you still haven't said
anything?” Jonesy stated, disgusted. “Besides, what's she gonna
think when she finds out about what you can do? She saw you pass out,
right?”

I
couldn't deny his reasoning there. Who hadn't seen me bite the floor?
Maybe, once I had a plan on how to hide what I was, I could say hey.

“Maybe she doesn't need to ever know,” I said.

Jonesy arched a brow, the whites of his eyes wider
in his brown face, “You can't cover forever bro.” he shrugged.

I figured, but I liked to fantasize.

Miss
Griswold blew her whistle and we lined up for warm-ups. We were in
alphabetical order so Jonesy and I weren't close, neither was Jade.
But I was close to Carson Hamilton. Real Close.

“Hey Hart, thinking about any ghosts?”

Carson-the-Clever,
yeah right.

We did jumping jacks.

“Switch drill!” Griswold shrieked.

We went down to our knees and started the
push-ups.

“Don't
be a retard Carson, you and Brett said that I was faking shit, I
wasn't. I proved I'm AFTD,” I huffed out, five more.

“Switch drill!” Griswold's irritating voice
rallied for the final insult.

We stood up, time for jumping power lunges. I
hated these. I put one foot out and lunged so my knee didn't pass my
toe then, up, jump, other side. Talking was almost impossible.

Carson managed, he had a lot of hot air.

“AFTD
is so rare only freaks have it. That's why they took Parker away, the
military wanted to quarantine his ass, to protect everyone.”

Carson
dropping another pearl of wisdom, wonderful.
Like
I care
.

I wasn't gonna win with him. He was like a dog
with a bone. He had something in his mind about me and it was made
up.

Hop! Switch legs.

“Stop!” Griswold yelled.

Finally, I turned to Carson, breathless.

“Nobody'll
believe you. You didn't believe until the cemetery.” He would look
like a dumb ass if he ran around school telling people I was a
corpse-raiser (like we were running around in droves). Carson was all
about what people thought of him.

He looked thoughtful, huh. Carson was a
rock-with-lips.

“Maybe I won't tell anybody, but we may want
something, me and Brett, I mean.”

He looked down at me from his slightly taller
stance and smirked. I'd love to deck him in the face. We glared at
each other and Griswold approached in a stout waddle. Why do teachers
always seem to know just when something is going down?

“Problem here boys?” hands on considerable
hips.

“No problem, Miss Griswold.” Carson said in
the aren't-I-wonderful voice.

I could never contain my expression so I didn't
bother.

She turned to me. “Is there a problem, Mr.
Hart?”

“
Nah,
we're just talking,” I said, she was just so...
her
and
it wasn't good, being her
.

“Hmm,
just talking. Why don't the two of you 'just talk' when you're on
your time, not our mutual time, eh?” she enunciated like we were
stupid. That'd be one of us.