Death Whispers (Death Series, Book 1) Read online

  Mom put the plate of pancakes in front of me without a word. I poured hot syrup over the top, then passed it to Dad.

  The parents considered me, I stared back. They didn't look shocked anymore, maybe they had passed on to the numb stage. I bet they wished they had a kid that had low level psychokinesis. Ya know, somebody that could shut a door that was left open or some random thing. But they had me instead.

  I told them everything, we'd have to deal with it. The obedience of the gophers intrigued Dad. Mom was a little shocked at my indifference about Brett's dad's life.

  “Why should I care?” I asked, unruffled.

  “You've been raised to think of others, Caleb.”

  “Mom's right. We cannot condone willful sabotage of life Caleb.”

  Here comes the but.

  Dad looked at Mom for a long moment. She sat down at the kitchen table, resting her elbows on its beaten surface.

  “I understand you intervened because your friend was in trouble.”

  “He isn't my friend,” I clarified.

  “Yes, true, but, he was someone that was in danger. I commend your,” Dad paused here,“...bravery in the face of danger.”

  Mom rolled her eyes.

  Dad gave her a quick look but she was unimpressed.

  “It was a good thing, what you did, but, you could have killed him.” She spread her hands out, fingers splayed, right?

  I couldn't argue with her there. I had felt what it was to control the dead, I knew what they wanted, what I wanted of them.

  “Is his dad going to be okay, do you think?” Mom asked and Dad nodded.

  I shrugged. “He was the one beating on his kid and from what I heard Brett say, the mom too. If he goes to the cops, how will he explain it?”

  “Yes,” Dad said in a relieved tone. “A conundrum to be sure.”

  When I looked unsure, Dad explained, “A puzzler. You may have gotten that contextually.”

  “Yeah, but I wanted to know for sure. Just the words around it aren't always enough.”

  “I like that you ask, son.”

  Once in awhile I was slick.

  “So... it would stand to reason that we need some target practice, the sooner the better,” Dad said. “Especially in light of recent events.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “You know, we go out and practice, and you gain control”

  Okay. “When? Today?” I asked.

  “No better time than the present. I don't have anything on my schedule.” He gestured to his casual pajama attire.

  Mom was wearing hers too. She'd wear them all the time if she could. I'd be hotter than hell if I wore mine all the time.

  I took a bite of the still-steaming pancakes and Dad waited for my response. I just nodded, my cheek distended into a sideways hill with pancakes. I gulped a huge swallow of milk, the whole great ball o' food slid down to the cavern.

  Mom got up and flipped Dad's pancakes.

  I raised my eyebrows. “I'm going all out,” he said.

  Dad didn't usually have pancakes, he didn't want the dreaded shelf. I looked at his gut and thought it was okay, for an old guy. I told him so.

  “Thanks, Caleb, you know just what to say to make me feel better.” Mom and he smiled at each other.

  What did I say?

  ****

  The car ride to the cemetery didn't take long. Hell, the Js and I could walk it pretty fast. Dad had his pulse to document... whatever. I was nervous. I had never tried to make anything happen. It always just jumped out in the middle of some psychotic event. But after thinking about it, I do remember using the gophers to hurt The Dad, Brett's dad. I frowned. I had made them rise but that had not been on purpose. The rest I had kinda steered, trying not to crash.

  Mom turned around in the front seat. “Penny for your thoughts.”

  “I don't know if I can, ya know, make anything happen.”

  Dad's eyes met mine in the rear view mirror, the brown eyes a mirror of my own. “Don't be nervous, Caleb.” His eyes traveled back to the road as he was driving, the trees rushed past us like a green highway in the sky.

  “I just don't want you guys to go to all this trouble, and I can't...” I struggled with the word.

  “Perform?” Dad asked.

  “Yeah. That covers it.”

  “Don't worry about us, Caleb, we're not the enemy,” Mom paused, glancing at Dad then looking back at me, “we just want you to gain control of this... quickly.”

  I got that, but what if I couldn't do anything? It was broad daylight for God's sake! Dad laughed and told me he didn't think the setting needed to be creepy for things to happen. Mom smiled, I relaxed and looked out the window at the gray day.

  Dad took a left into Scenic Hill Cemetery. The same scrolling gate from that first night framed the entrance; it was not so eerie in the daytime. As much as a mile away the whispering had grown louder. At the gate it was a dull roar. Like a washing machine you had to scream over.

  Mom asked what was happening and I told her.

  “So it's like 'whispering'?” she asked.

  “Yes and no. I don't know, it's hard to describe. It's like that thing that you and Dad talk about... white noise?” Dad had the car parked, thumbing off the pulse ignition, powering the car down. “But you guys say that noise is like a good thing.”

  “You're saying the quality is different?” Dad asked.

  “If you mean type, then yeah. It's way different. Like something is going to happen, that something needs to escape.”

  Dad looked at me with that somber expression, Word of the day baby, somber means gloomy, depressing, dismal). But I knew from experience that he was definitely just serious, not sad.

  “This seems wrong on a lot of levels, Kyle,” Mom said.

  “Yes, it probably is. But I can't have our son running around raising creatures for his personal killing army. There needs to be some control, some lessons learned. Better that he practices, with our supervision, than become truly threatened at some future point and not have the tools in which to effectively deter the problem. Or, an irrevocable consequence.”

  My zombies killing the populace at large.

  Mom didn't have a rebuttal for Dad. He was the logic-man.

  Dad circled to the back, pulsing open the trunk. He grabbed his pulse and turned to me. His pulse was a specialty version. A tri-pulse that could record, interact and take stills, I bet it could wipe your butt if you asked it to.

  “I thought we'd start with the familiar and see if you could raise someone we knew.”

  Okay... surreal, but okay.

  Mom's hand flew to her heart. “Oh God, Kyle, are you kidding?”

  He didn't look like he was.

  “I just hadn't really thought about using a relative.”

  I watched her gulp like it hurt.

  I did a rare thing, putting a hand on her shoulder, our eyes so close. “It's me having to do it Mom, not you. Better that it's somebody we knew, right?”

  Her hand cupped the side of my face, a smile breaking through like sun sliding out from behind clouds. “You're being the brave one and me being anxious isn't helpful.”

  “But your fear is not his fear, right Caleb?” Dad said.

  “No, I'm not afraid of using it. It feels good... that's scary.” I wiped off my sweating palms on my jeans, glancing around I saw that we were all wearing the same thing, uniforms for dead people raising! A cackle of laughter escaped me and the parents gave me an odd look.

  “Sorry, the whole thing seems a little...” I trailed off and Mom finished, “surreal?”

  I nodded. “Yeah... that.”

  Dad smiled and with the tri-pulse in hand we headed over the path of stones and winding road that led to our family plot.

  We arrived at a slight knoll. I had visited before when I was little but it'd been awhile and it felt fuzzy in my mind. Like a dandelion seed that once chased and captured, blows away, leaving not a trace behind.

  I looked at the gran
ite markers in front of me. My hair tumbled into my eyes and I flipped it back, where it instantly settled back into position. Mom frowned. I broke the stare, looking at the headstones again.

  Mom sank down to her knees and ran her right hand over the engraved lettering:

  Margaret “Maggie” Doyle, Beloved Wife-Mother-Grandmother, RIP; born 1935, died 2015, aged 80 years.

  Huh, she died the year I was born.

  A tear escaped and she withdrew her hand. “Gran was a good woman.”

  Dad agreed, “Yes she was.”

  The power swelled, one whisper above all the rest.

  “She wants to be free of the ground,” I said.

  “What?” Mom's head whipped around, hair falling in her eyes. “She's speaking to you?”

  I hated explaining the weird stuff to people that didn't have it, but it was her gran and all. “No... yes, not exactly.” I sighed. “I guess it's more of an impression of needs or wants or feelings, I don't know.”

  “Well, I guess the dead make choices too,” Dad said.

  That was the first smart thing I'd heard anyone say. Actually, that was exactly it. I was the thing allowing them that need, or whatever it was, release, expression.

  “Yeah, it's not just me, they want to be free, and say things and have one more chance or something. I'm somebody that can help them help themselves.”

  “You're a facilitator. Fascinating,” Dad murmured, hand on chin.

  “Kyle,” Mom hissed, “this is no time to ruminate about the schematics. This is Gran we're disturbing.”

  Mom stood up, looking up at Dad, who was quite a bit taller. But Mom never looks short, she always looks vital.

  “Listen buster,” she pointed a finger at Dad, oh-no the dreaded tone, “this is NOT one of your science experiments, this is Caleb and Gran.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest, all intense eyes and huffy body stance.

  “I don't know another way to be Alicia.”

  Huh, Dad used mom's real name, he meant business.

  “Well, tone it down, would you?”

  He slowly grinned. “I'll make a supreme effort.”

  Mom looked like that would be the last thing he did.

  The whisper from Gran was a steady thing, it had a vibration all its own. I was starting to get a signature from different people. Everyone was different and now I could sense those differences. Gran's had a familiar quality about it, I didn't know exactly what or why. I honed in on that and let a tendril of my power uncoil. It felt a little like the gophers but different, more complex. Their minds had been one mind to me, simple. Hers felt like it had a complicated series of thoughts and distractions. A dead brain... but somehow alive.

  I gave it a good shove and thought, come here.

  I felt like a great weight had lifted from my head, there was a feeling of vertigo, a shifting. My vision doubled and I was fuzzy around the edges. Ah-oh, I'm gonna pass out and the parents are going to be stuck with dead granny. Then my vision cleared, stabilizing.

  Nothing happened.

  Dad took a photo of me... unhelpful-much. I blinked at the pulse-flash and felt something cold hit the back of my head. We looked up and the clouds that had threatened were now roiling above our heads. Great smoky-colored plumes lashed back and forth like an angry sea.

  Dad looked at me.

  I shrugged. “I don't know what...”

  A hand burst forth through the earth, softened by recent rain. It was awful looking. Some nails were gone and finger joints were visible. Oh boy, Mom was gonna see her Gran looking pretty disgusting. I gave Dad the it's too late look and watched the train wreck happen.

  Inch by slow inch the ground revealed Gran, as a fossil being excavated, climbing through the ground to exit her grave. Her silver hair hung in huge rope-like strands from a scalp with bare patches, shining like an eggshell in the dimming light.

  Her head was lowered (she was on all fours), her hand reached out toward me and said, “More,” in the barest of whispers. Without all the whispering in my head it felt blissfully clear.

  I mouthed, more?

  Energy, she whispered in my head, like a thread of silk, worming its way through my brain. I shuddered. That was an intrusive feeling. Disgusting as hell.

  I grubbed down inside myself, where that sleeping monster lay, scraping what was left and hurled it down that connection, the thing that tethered the two of us together.

  She suddenly flung herself backward, her back bent awkwardly behind her knees. Both claw-like hands clung to the remnants of a blouse of some kind, its fine print of flowers a spray beneath the tendons and sinew of what she used every day to work with, touch, love.

  She straightened as suddenly as she was backwards, standing. Ripples crossed her face and like watching a movie rewind, the face knitted together before our eyes, skin flowing over and filling holes. Not perfect, no, but better. The joints in her hands were covered now and a few nails had righted themselves.

  I was relieved until I looked at Mom, white as a sheet, clutching Dad's shirt, looking somewhere between barfing and fainting. Made me feel like a loser. Dad was fussing with the tri-pulse, trying not to let Mom topple and get a still of Gran-the-corpse.

  He got my attention and winked! My dad winked at me.

  Nothing rattled him.

  It had its intended affect, I felt a little calmer, not so frantic.

  The corpse/Gran turned to me, ignoring her granddaughter entirely.

  “Caleb,” she croaked.

  Her voice sounded full of mush.

  I took a deep breath. “Hi Gran.”

  “Am I free of this?” she turned to gesture at the grave. Her skeletal fingers caressing the air.

  “Right now you are.”

  She frowned. I could tell that she wasn't clear on where she was at exactly.

  Comprehension slowly dawned on her face.

  “I am dead. Really and truly dead.”

  This was the hard part. “Yes.”

  “And you are a,” she struggled to think, being dead fifteen years would put a crimp on that, “necromancer?”

  I had actually looked up that word after the first corpse called me that. I guess they knew what I was... somehow.

  I would keep it simple. I was certainly more (and different) than that. “Yes, Gran.”

  “You have questions of me. I hear them.”

  That was new. I guess the communication was a two-way street.

  She stepped toward me and I fought the urge to step back. That was all in my head. This new thing I could do, this ability, did not feel sickened or grossed out with Gran. Actually, I felt a sense of ownership over the dead, mine, it intoned, mine.

  Standing my ground until she was about eighteen inches away, in my peripheral vision I could see my mom step away from my dad. He pulled her in against him, watching me, all the while murmuring something in her ear. He looked at me, giving me the barest of nods. I refocused on Gran.

  “I want to know what this is.”

  She tilted her head to the side, like I had asked an important question that eluded her grasp.

  “Why... this is you, Caleb. You have caused this.”

  Her arms, with the sleeves in ribbons loosely swaying in the slight breeze, clung and whipped around her like a cape.

  “I mean,” I was frustrated here, dad was taking stills in the background and it was distracting. I gave him a look, he stopped.

  “What did you hear?” I asked her.

  “Your summons, dear boy, your summons.”

  Oh. “You heard me calling you?”

  “Yes, your voice telling me to come to you. You did call me to you. For your bidding.”

  Wow, this was definitely big-time-in-my-pants-creeper status, she looked at me raptly, waiting for some command. No wonder Parker was in trouble. If he had anything close to this, he would be like a king amongst robots. Not a cool thought. I was starting to understand why Dad had been so fast to get me hooked up with the happy med. The,
we're-gonna-hide-what-you-can-do pill.

  “Ah, no. I don't have a job. I just have some questions. Actually, I'm worried I can't control this so my dad thought it would be good if we came here and practiced.”

  Saying it out loud made it sound super dumb. Don't worry Gran, just a little corpse-raising and then we'll tuck ya back in your grave-bed and be on our way. Geez. Practice makes perfect.

  She looked puzzled. “You're just practicing this gift? With me?”

  I gulped and I heard a dull click, my throat dry as a desert. “Yeah, that's about it.” I would have killed puppies for a glass of water about now.

  She finally took the time to turn around and look at my parents. She stood there, with her hips facing me and her torso almost fully turned to them, reluctant to turn away from me and fully face them. I heard disgusting sounds when she turned and realized it was her spine, wetly cracking.

  Mom's face was flaming when Gran looked at her. But my dad just stared back. Whatever he was thinking, he wasn't swayed by emotion. As he would say, the nuts and bolts of preparing me was the critical thing. He knew what Gran was, Mom didn't. That was the difference. Mom still thought of Gran as Gran. But she wasn't anymore, she was Gran but she was other too.

  “Gran.”

  She turned from my parents without a backwards glance or a word. Mom looked at Dad and he shrugged.

  Gran looked at me, waiting.

  “Who are those people behind you?”

  “My granddaughter and her husband,” she said, just restating the facts. Pretty clinical for a corpse.

  “Do you want to talk to them?” I asked.

  “Do you wish for me to?” she asked, her eyeballs, which had not filled in all the way, (better not to think on that too long), rolled around in the eye sockets with a little too much room.

  “No. I wish for us to discuss things.” Copying her words.

  She relaxed. As if a corpse could relax.

  “I am here to serve you.”

  I gave Dad a panicked look.

  Okay. I needed to get a grip, figure out some stuff and put great-grandma back in the ground.

  “Is there anything you need?” I asked.

  “Yes, it would give me great peace if you would tell my son, if he lives, that I am sorry.”