Rising (41 page)

“Wake up, soon, Clara.
 
We need you,” I whispered, brushing a swift
kiss on her forehead, “I need you.”

When I passed back through the living area,
Melanie was sitting in a chair watching the two boys on the rug.
 
Before I made for the door, I stepped close
so that only she could hear me.

“Mel.
 
Keep your mind open.
 
If they come
here, your only warning may be from Homer.
 
If I know him, he’s doing his best to watch over us.”

“Don’t worry about us.
 
You be careful.”

I found Ben, Jeremy, and Zack on the back deck,
waiting for me.
 
Ben was shaking his head
at Jeremy, while pulling on a blue
Aéropostale
shirt that
Zack had just handed him.

“What is it?” I asked.

“He’s raided your Pop’s entire collection of
knives from the kitchen,” said Ben.
 
“Can
you believe that?”

Jeremy looked at me and shrugged.

“I was able to channel my power through objects
today.
 
I thought these might come in
handy,” he said, looping the strap of a canvas tackle bag over his shoulder.

“Good idea,” I said.

“What?
 
Are you kidding me?” Ben asked in disbelief.
 
“What if he accidentally kills us instead?”

“You didn’t see him in the last fight,” I said
in Jeremy’s defense.
 

I could feel Jeremy grin, more than see it in
the dark.
 
When we stepped off the porch,
Zack started to follow us.

“Wait, wait a minute,” I said, putting my hand
up to stop him.
 
“Where are you going?”

“With you guys, of course.”

“Zack, I need you to stay here and protect the
others.”

I could see the look of pain in his eyes, but
there was no way he was coming.

“Well, what do I do if they come?
 
Jeremy’s taken all the weapons.”

Jeremy rolled his eyes, putting a protective
hand on his bag of arms.

“Don’t try to fight them.
 
Get everybody in the car and get as far away
as you can.
 
As a matter of fact, if you
have to go, drive out to Canebrake Island.
 
Homer lives there and he’ll know what to do.”

Zack nodded, but seemed more unsettled now that
we were leaving without him.

“Don’t worry,” I said, stepping off the deck
with Ben and Jeremy behind me, “Homer said it would be safe here.”

We walked toward the path and Jeremy tossed the
Durango’s keys to me.
 
Guess he knew I
was a bit of a control freak about driving.
 
I’d thought Zack had already gone back inside, but then I heard him ask
a question that we had no time to answer.

“Who’s Homer?”

16

GABE

There was no moon to light up the
darkness.
 
There was no light at all,
except for the beams of the Durango straight ahead of us.
 
Cruising down Main Street felt like driving
through a ghost town—no lights, no people, no sound, nothing.
 
There wouldn’t be anyone here during a
hurricane anyway, but this felt more desolate than when other storms had hit.
 
We were headed to Ben’s house first, since it
was on the way to mine, and this was the quickest route.

“Weird,” said Jeremy.

“Yeah, it feels like the whole town is
deserted,” said Ben.

“No, I was thinking it felt like déjà vu, like
I’ve seen this before.
 
Wait!”

I slowed the SUV, but didn’t stop.

“What?
 
What is it?”

“Over there, Gabe.
 
Pull in.”

Jeremy was pointing to the gazebo at the center
of the plaza.

“Look, I know it sounds crazy, but I saw this
in one of my dreams.
 
I saw a family
killed here, and look, there’s someone hiding there.”

“Where?”

“In the gazebo!”

I’d never heard Jeremy so agitated.
 
I was almost past the plaza then turned
sharply into the long empty parking lot.
 
He was right.
 
As my headlights
swiveled across the gazebo, I saw someone’s head duck quickly below the
railing.
 
It definitely wasn’t a reaper
or shadow scout; it was a person who was terrified.
 
I parked right up next to the gazebo.

“Hello,” said Jeremy, hopping out before I’d
turned off the engine.
 
“You can come
out.
 
It’s okay.”

Ben and I were right behind him.
 
Someone slid up cautiously from a
corner.
 
I couldn’t believe who it was.

“Mrs. Jaden?” said Ben.

“Mrs. Jaden, are you okay?” I asked, stepping
speedily up the gazebo steps.

She looked nearly hysterical.
 
There was a wildness in her eyes that made my
heart pick up speed.

“Get down, boys.
 
Get down,” she urged us in a hushed voice.

Instinctively, we did so, half-kneeling inside
the enclosure.
 
We’d always done what
Mrs. Jaden told us.
 
She’d been our
English teacher for years.
 
But this
wasn’t our friendly, whimsical English teacher.
 
This was a frantic, frightened woman.
 
As soon as I knelt down, I saw a little girl crouched in the
corner.
 
I knew that Mrs. Jaden had a
daughter from the pictures on her desk at school and the stories she told in
class.

“What happened?” I asked.

“It’s my husband,” she said breathlessly, “he
left the house an hour ago to get some things at the store.”

She glanced over the railing across the
street.
 
I remembered that Mr. Jaden
owned and managed Beau
Chêne’s
only book store, Books
on Bayou Rouge.
 

“Our electricity had gone out, so I was
lighting candles around the house when I heard my neighbor screaming.
 
I ran to the back door, which looks out over
her yard, thinking a tree fell on her house or something, but what I saw, what
I saw was so horrible.”

Mrs. Jaden broke off, shaking her head and
remembering what I knew must have been a reaper killing her neighbor.
 
She wiped her eyes with her sleeve, obviously
trying not to break down entirely.

“We know, Mrs. Jaden.
 
We’ve seen them, too.
 
Why are you waiting out here for your
husband?”

She shook her head again, glancing across the
street.

“After I saw my neighbor with that thing, I
grabbed Michelle and rushed over here to get Joseph.
 
While I was walking across the plaza, I saw
two shadows that looked like tall men just vanish right through the door to our
store.
 
They didn’t open it.
 
They just walked through it.”

She said it as if she was trying to convince us
she wasn’t lying or delusional.
 
Sadly,
she didn’t realize how well we knew what she was talking about.

“They’re not even bothering to camouflage,”
said Ben beside me.

“Yeah, we know what they are,” Jeremy said to
Mrs. Jaden, “they’re scouts that help the other ones, the bigger ones.”

It was interesting to hear Jeremy dance around
the harsh truth with Mrs. Jaden.
 
He
didn’t use terms like dark giants, reapers, or killing monsters, which might’ve
thrown her over the edge.

“We’ll go get him,” I said.
 
“You and Michelle wait here.”

“No, boys.
 
It’s too dangerous,” she said, grabbing my arm to stop me, “I should
go.
 
If you’ll watch Michelle, I’ll—”

“Look, Mrs. Jaden,” interrupted Jeremy,
“there’s no way in hell we’re gonna let you stroll in there just cause you’re
our teacher and you’re an authority figure.
 
Those rules don’t apply to this.
 
Just trust us.
 
We’ll take care of
it.”

Michelle stared out from behind her mother with
round, brown eyes.

“How long ago was it that you saw them?” I
asked.

“Just before you pulled up.”

“Let’s go,” I said.

We stepped out of the gazebo, walking speedily
across the parking lot.
 
I heard her
faint whisper behind us as we moved farther away.

“Be careful.”

It sounded less like a human and more like the
wind, which had died down from what it was earlier.
 
Now, the wind blew softly, making a hollow
whistle along the empty street.
 
When we
made it to the entryway of the bookstore, Jeremy was on the verge of yanking
the door open when I grabbed his arm.
 
I’d been to this bookstore a thousand times and knew what noise would
warn the shadow scouts that we were here.
 
I pointed upward where a bell dangled above the entrance.
 
Jeremy gave a quick nod—then retrieved a
sharpened knife from his canvas bag.
 
With a swift cut, the bell came down, and he tucked it in his pocket.

I eased the door open then the three of us slid
inside.
 
All was dark, and there was no
sound of anyone or anything.
 
I gestured
for them to follow me along the wall of Fiction that trailed up to the
register.
 
We pressed ourselves against
the bookcase, moving slowly and quietly. Then I felt the shadow scouts; their
eerie presence prickled the hairs on the back of my neck.
 
Looking in every direction across the aisles
of books, I didn’t see them.
 
I turned to
Jeremy and Ben, mouthing the words, ‘do you see them?’

All three of us swiveled our heads in opposite
directions, trying to find any sign of them.
 
My eyes were starting to adjust to the lack of light in this enclosed
space, but I still had to feel my way along the wall of books behind me.
 
Jeremy stepped one row over through a cross
aisle, moving alone parallel to us.
 
We
were almost to the front where the rows stopped and wire racks of bookmarks and
decorative journals stood.
 
Then I heard
a noise, a shuffling sound.
 
Somewhere
behind the register, I saw the thin beam of a flashlight cross the ceiling then
return to a desktop.
 
Peering closer, I
saw it was Mr. Jaden, juggling the flashlight while pulling papers from a
cabinet and stuffing them in a briefcase.
 
He was completely unaware of our presence or the shadow scouts.
 
Just as I stepped forward to call out his
name, two black figures leapt onto him from both sides.
 
Mr. Jaden gasped.

“It’s them!” I yelled.

         
In
a split second, the pressure built in my chest then flowed out of my body
through my outstretched hand toward the
shado
scout
on the right.
 
Two pairs of yellow eyes
turned on me, gleaming in the dark.
 
One
pair went out.
 
I heard a sharp hiss and
then shriek of pain from Mr. Jaden.
 
I couldn’t
tell what damage I’d done, but I knew the other shadow scout had instantly
cloaked himself.

“Jeremy,” I called.

“I know.”

He was right beside me, beginning to sing an
old song I knew all too well—
Enter
Sandman
by Metallica.
 
If I didn’t
know him better and what he was doing, I would’ve thought he’d lost his
mind.
 
I stopped trying to figure Jeremy
out a long time ago.
 
The familiar melody
and lyrics grew louder and louder as did a steady, building vibration coming
from him.

“
Tuck you in, warm within,
keep you free from sin, till the sandman he comes. Sleep with one eye open,
gripping your pillow tight—exit light, enter night, take my hand, off to
never-never land.”

I jumped suddenly when a light appeared on my
left, but it was Ben.
 
His skin was
beginning to glow white as he absorbed the energy from the hidden shadow
scout.
 
Jeremy continued to sing as we
all moved closer to the counter.

“Ben, get Mr. Jaden.”

“What do you want!
 
Get back!” Mr. Jaden yelled from behind a
cabinet, holding one hand to his bleeding forehead and lifting the flashlight
over his head as if he was ready to strike.

“No, wait, Mr. Jaden,” said Ben, “We came to
help you.
 
Your wife and daughter are
outside.”