Death Whispers (Death Series, Book 1) Read online

  Morginstern gave his attention to Jonesy and me. “I think I caught sight of a skunk and smelled a skunk so there must be a skunk.” I had heard that before from Gramps. It was time to purposely misunderstand the expression.

  “What do you mean, Mr. Morginstern?” I asked.

  Jonesy was busy giving me the wide-eyed, figure this out.

  Morginstern's eyes narrowed, looking right into mine, I held his gaze. “I think you know exactly what I mean. I have to go teach class now, with the two of you, but,” he stabbed a finger in my direction, “I know there is discord between you, Carson Hamilton and Brett Mason. I know.”

  The laser eye fell on Jonesy (equal-opportunity lecture), “... and you... you're always around when these situations erupt.”

  Jonesy made some vague effort to look innocent but I had to admit, he almost always looked guilty.

  “Get to class boys and no more loitering, I'll be watching.” He walked back to class and we followed, our tails tucked between our legs.

  We went through the door, the last bell already rung and every kids' eyes on us. John was making strangling motions around his neck when our eyes connected. I gave him the slashing index finger across the throat gesture, can it, I mimed.

  Jonesy and I sat at the round table and Morginstern went to the front of the room explaining that he was unexpectedly delayed due to an incident out in the commons that needed his personal attention.

  All eyes swiveled to us. I hated that.

  I was in a foul mood because of the rough start. Jonesy caught my grumpiness like a cold and gave it to John. All three of us grumped together in silence, sanding our boxes.

  Finally, John said, “Listen... I know it wasn't cool for Morginstern to break that up but would it have gone to plan if you guys had let it fall apart before the cemetery?”

  No, it would definitely not have been cool, it would have ruined the Aqua Net Payback.

  Jonesy looked abashed. “I so want to do this on Sunday.”

  “I knew that, it's why I made an executive decision,” John said.

  “A what?” Jonesy asked.

  “He means he decided, on his own, what was best for our group.” I looked at John as if to say, come on.

  “No, you guys have to learn idioms.”

  Jonesy was utterly confused. I was gonna show off.

  “It's not really an idiom, ya know.”

  “Yeah, it is,” John shot back.

  “No, an idiom is an expression that is not literal to its meaning.” Mom was a word-freakazoid and had drilled this stuff into me.

  John looked perplexed but rallied. “Okay... so what you're saying is that I really am the executive of the group and my decision was allowable.”

  Uh-oh. I hadn't thought about the consequence of taking on John's Undeniable Logic.

  “Well, Jonesy and I,” Jonesy nodded solemnly as if he understood and was in complete agreement with my thought process, “have not appointed you the executive formally.” I hesitated here, “but the expression, executive decision is not opposite to its real meaning.”

  I then leaned back in my chair, mirroring Johns crossed arms.

  A slow grin spread over John's face.

  He began nodding. “Pretty damn clever, Hart.”

  We bumped fists and that sealed our coolness. We resumed the Dreaded Sanding.

  Friday droned on without further incident. Jade and I hung with the Js while eating lunch. Jonesy got Carson on board, giving him the time to meet Sunday. We whipped out our pulses and set our reminder chimes, synchronized and ready or kinda ready.

  The speakers began blaring out a message about the upcoming tests. Mrs. Calvert was reminding us that all eighth grade students' Aptitude Testing would begin on Monday morning so, “... be sure to get a good night's sleep and a proper,” who ever said that, I wondered, “breakfast.”

  We rolled our eyes. I was the only kid that actually ate breakfast. Most of the kids would show up on Monday morning starving big time.

  I gave Jade a hug as she walked off to her class and watched her progress. The Js watched me watch her.

  Jonesy shook his head. “Man, you got it bad.”

  John nodded in agreement. “Yeah he does.”

  I was kinda disgusted with them.

  “Oh and you two are going to be different when you like somebody?” I dismissed them with a wave of my hand, heading to class.

  After suffering through English and PE, we were ready to jam. It was lame I really couldn't talk to Jade in those classes. Even Miss Rodriguez's hotness didn't entice. Now that Jade was the GF, it was so just English now, except when she pulled out all the stops with a righteous outfit.

  I told John this and he looked at me in horror.

  “Miss Rodriguez is still completely hot. You having a girlfriend so does not change that,” he said with real reproach.

  “Well, maybe she is still pretty hot,” John gave me the, ya think? Look.

  I rolled my eyes, “... but, there is Jade and she's plenty distracting. I bet all I'll pull out of that dumb class is a 'B'.”

  “Yeah, your parents will have a shitfit if you get a 'C'.”

  John was laughing but I didn't think it was that funny, not all of us could just have a heartbeat in class and get an 'A'.” I mentioned that most obvious fact and he shrugged. That was John, he wasn't going to admit he was smart, no-oh.

  Mr. Cole came over and asked John to play a measure or two on the piano to see if he could sub for Alex sucking at a measure. John stared at the sheet music and began playing and I listened. The adults called John a natural.

  The notes floated out, he used all the dynamics, gaining volume and softening at the correct times. When he approached the fifth measure, Cole stopped him with a hand.

  “Okay, today I want you to work with Alex, he needs some fine tuning.”

  John went over to where Alex was sitting and they looked over the sheet music. Meanwhile, I bent over my piece and got my fingers in position to play my chords.

  I was jammin' out a good set and then that cop from the accident walked in. My heart began hammering in my throat, blood rushing to my head making a faint roaring in my ears. What in the hell was this? John looked up from helping Alex and saw Garcia and about crawled up his own corn cob. My fingers stilled.

  I set the guitar down and stood.

  Garcia went right to Cole and said, “Hey Tony, I just wanted to borrow Caleb for a sec.” His voice formed the question like it was a request but I didn't think so.

  “Sure thing Officer Garcia,” he winked.

  They're friends, swell.

  Garcia looked at me, crooking a finger. I left my stuff where it was and followed him out the door into the parking lot

  He faced me. “So, how are you, Caleb?”

  “Since last week, fine.” I mean, we just saw each other. We were alone, without anyone hearing what was said, I was gonna be careful.

  “You remember that I said that I'd keep an eye on you?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, it's come to my attention that there's a couple of young men that are becoming a problem at the school.”

  I so didn't need this.

  “There's no problem,” I rushed out. Calm down Caleb.

  Garcia raised a brow. “Really, because I've heard different reports.”

  Ah-huh, somebody had diarrhea of the mouth. “We're not great friends or anything, that's for sure.”

  Garcia switched topics, tricky bastard. “Doesn't,” he looked down at his notepad, he still wrote stuff down instead of pulse-pad, “Jade LeClerc live fairly close to the Mason boy?”

  Yes and why did Garcia care? I was liking this less and less. He was doing more than keeping an eye on me.

  “Yeah.”

  “There's a situation that has been escalating in that neighborhood that you need to be aware of.”

  Was he warning me... or warning me?

  He waited while bees droned lazily, the sun warming our faces.
<
br />   Garcia sighed. “Listen, Caleb, I'm here to help, not run your life.”

  I waited.

  “Okay, I have a feeling about you and I'm going out on a limb. I know the Mason kid is under tremendous pressure at home.”

  I just bet he is.

  “Miss LeClerc has escaped, by a slim margin, a similar background, but not the same can be said for Mr. Mason,” he intoned solemnly. “I was hoping, when there's a huge potential trauma for kids realizing some form of paranormal ability, if you might restrain yourself from exacerbating this situation.”

  He lost me, what?

  Garcia sighed again. “Listen, don't spin Brett up like a top right now, he's like a bomb waiting for detonation.”

  “Gotcha.” The bomb reference I understood.

  Garcia's shoulders relaxed and a lopsided smile appeared.

  “Maybe you can mention this to the Js.”

  Sunday. At. The. Cemetery.

  I clamped down on my expression, but a little leaked out. Sergeant Raul Garcia's smile slipped. Him calling John and Jonesy the “Js” struck me as odd too. I didn't like it.

  “Yeah, okay,” I responded.

  The bell shrilled and Garcia glanced down at his watch. We had that one thing in common. Everyone else had a pulse, all pulse technology kept world time perfectly.

  John lurched out the door, coming to stand by me. He and Garcia were about eyeball to eyeball, John was gonna be tall I thought for the millionth time. But Garcia was all-that-is-man, broad shoulders (he hit the gym pretty hard), with bulging forearms.

  John looked sorta unfinished. That was okay, we were still boys, we didn't have to be men yet.

  I didn't know this then, but soon boyhood would slip away and manhood would arrive like a thief in the night. Inch, by insidious inch.

  ****

  Jade came up as Garcia was leaving and gave me the look that I was already beginning to love, where she looked thoughts at me and I knew what she was thinking. No paranormal skills necessary.

  I pressed her head against my chest in a tight hug. “Yeah, it's the same cop from the accident.”

  Jade bent her head back from me, her hands grasping my forearms. “Garcia?”

  I nodded. John stared at Garcia's car as it became a white dot in the distance.

  “What did he want?” John asked, still staring.

  “He wants us to lay off Brett.”

  John looked at me, then at Jade, then back to me again.

  “Really,” I said.

  “That's so not going to work!”

  “Yeah,” I agreed.

  I looked down at Jade. “He mentioned you too.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Garcia is keeping track of us. Somebody blabbed and now he knows we're fighting. He knows about Jade's dad, Brett's family, that they live in the same neighborhood...” I trailed off.

  A cop's interest in our lives couldn't be a good thing, whatever angle you look from.

  “We need to get the twins off our backs, at least distract them.” John shrugged, his palms outstretched, what else could we do?

  Jade restated the facts, “I sure don't like Garcia being this interested in our lives.”

  Yeah, ditto.

  We stood in the warm sunlight, thinking about it.

  John broke the heavy silence, “I guess there isn't much more we can do. The plan's set, Jonesy will never back down and it would make things way worse if we didn't meet Brett and Carson. They'll think we're cowards if we don't, un.bear.a.ble.” John enunciated each syllable, like a guillotine to the head. I smiled, visualizing.

  “Right. I hear that, but everyone knows what I think,” Jade said.

  We had to be brutal with Carson and Brett, so we could be free from their daily crap. She'd handle it differently.

  “We know, but trust us, if there was an easier way to shut those two down, we'd have done it. Some guys need a two-by-four to the head before they understand we aren't tolerating their bullshit.”

  Jade's mind-wheels were turning. “I'll be there.”

  That's my girl. I almost did a fist bump with John but played it cool.

  John smirked, he saw my thinly veiled glee. We were trying to survive until Tuesday.

  That reminded me! “I get the dog on Tuesday,” I blurted out.

  John said, “Wow, I didn't think that was gonna happen!”

  “Me either, but the Parental Unit caved! They think I've been traumatized by this whole AFTD thing... so, I get him!”

  “Have you been 'traumatized'?” Jade asked with a trace of sarcasm.

  “Yeah... really, really bad. And I'm gonna need a lot of sympathy and attention.” I looked down at her with a perfectly straight face.

  She looked up at me, her face breaking into a full grin. “Good luck with that.”

  John started howling,slapping his knee. “Yeah, that was priceless, you traumatized, yeah right!”

  I was miffed. I mean, what if I had, ya know, been traumatized?

  My face stiffened. That made John howl louder and traitor that she was, Jade joined in. And where-the-hell was the unspoken girlfriend-boyfriend code of honor? As if things couldn't get any funnier, Jonesy walked up.

  “What's so funny?”

  John and Jade were in the throes of laughter, at my expense, I thought moodily. I turned to Jonesy and said, “They don't think I've suffered a trauma.”

  “What... you? Hell, no! You're the man, you don't need sympathy for anything.” Jonesy looked around for support but John and Jade were busy busting a gut.

  “What's with them?” Jonesy jerked his thumb at the offending duo.

  “I don't know,” I huffed. They quieted themselves down to a couple of random hiccups, then looked at each other and another hysterical bubble of laughter escaped.

  Jonesy looked perplexed.

  “You had to be here, I guess,” I said... or not, narrowing my eyes and giving them the look they deserved.

  Jade and John finally managed to quit laughing. While we walked away, I filled Jonesy in on the whole cop-showing-up-at-the-school thing.

  Jonesy said, “That's easy for him to say. It's not his ass during school catching crap all the time.”

  He had a point. Maybe Garcia was okay, but I wasn't trusting anyone right now. I told them and we agreed that Garcia was just another thing to worry about.

  Enough with the gloom, I shook it off with an effort, it was Friday! Time for Jade to meet The Parents.

  “You guys want to come and hang at the house?” I asked.

  Jade hesitated for a second, “I guess I have to meet your parents sometime, huh?”

  “They're great! Ali makes the best food,” Jade looked at him like a bug, but typical Jonesy he kept talking, unawares, “...and Kyle is pretty cool.”

  John watched the interplay, having whipped out his pulse and gotten hold of one of his parents. “I can.”

  The rest of us joined in a silent pulse parade of contacting respective parents and Aunt Andrea.

  Everybody could.

  I wondered how Jonesy had managed to get his pulse back early?

  “It's not mine,” he said by way of explanation.

  Just then Alex walked up to our small group with palm extended. Jonesy turned and gave the pulse to Alex, who ran his thumb over it, blanking it.

  “I borrowed Alex's pulse for ten minutes.”

  “Couldn't live without it?” I asked.

  “Dude! It's been diabolical without it; pure torture!”

  Jade rolled her eyes.

  John came over to Alex, who was where I was a couple of months ago, short. He looked like a sixth grader masquerading as eighth and asked how he managed that.

  “I did a delayed ID protocol.”

  John was enthralled. We'd never get away once John started talking tech with another tech-freak.

  “How?” John asked.

  “See here,” Alex pulled out his pulse and after a quick thumb-pass, he thought: settings: then; timer/ID,“... a
fter that, there's only three different timed settings to choose from.”

  Bor-ing, I thought.

  John was nodding, obviously feeling it.

  “John,” I said, breaking up the tech-fest.

  John looked over, let's go, I mouthed.

  He turned back to Alex. “I want to know more but I gotta book.”

  Alex gave John a mock salute and we headed to my house. Geeks, I thought, not without admiration.

  I walked with my hand entwined with Jade's and noticed Jonesy was keeping an unusual silence.

  Just when I thought he had to be sick or something he said, “Heard it's gonna rain this weekend.”

  John stopped and looked at him. He threw his hands up in the air at a perfect sky. He looked at Jonesy again. “From this to rain?

  “Yeah, man. My mom is totally into NOAA, she keeps up on the weather. She says, and he swung his butt around, making airquotes, “... that a 'system' is moving in.”

  John was nodding. “That means the barometric pressure should be dropping soon, giving rise to storms.”

  Wow, that sounded creepily adult like. I told him and he smiled.

  “It'll just make things more dumb for Sunday,”John said.

  Duh, Pacific Northwest, it's an obligation to rain here.

  “Oh, I don't know, maybe Carson's gonna have to stick his head further in that pipe. Too bad it can't work in a toilet.” Jonesy contemplated the logistics of making some kind of toilet episode happen with the jackass twins. Finally, he waved that thread of conjecture away and got back on topic. “Doesn't matter. He will still get his, rain or shine,” Jonesy said with finality.

  Nothing derailed Jonesy.

  Jade had been quiet, she didn't just talk to hear herself. We started walking again, a light breeze bringing fresh smells, somewhere between warm earth and floral. Jade would like our deck with the lilac bushes in bloom. The Js wouldn't care as long as mom was the food-bearer and Fridays meant pizza.

  We turned off the main road, making a left into my neighborhood. We passed the swampy stand of trees where the bench stood, my house was last in a row of about eight. I could just make out the arches. A false street lay on the north side, where a fence stretched right behind our backyard, running the entire length of our neighborhood. We walked through the atrium.

  Jade paused, looking around. I forgot, she'd never seen our house. I looked around, taking it in from her perspective. A Japanese Maple spread its delicate canopy over the pebbled cement walkway, umbrella-like, its shady green leaves translucent with fiery red veining. All around, flower beds burst with shade loving plants, ferns, Hostas and Astilbe.