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  I took a step through the high, Victorian-style gate, my foot touching its reluctant toe on hallowed ground.

  The feeling of being forced pressed uncomfortably against my mind.

  Crossing the threshold of sanctified ground, the whispering turned into voices. One voice whispered to me the strongest. I stopped feeling tentative and like an invisible string pulled, was drawn toward one of the gravestones, standing sentinel near the middle of the cemetery, glowing softly in the moonlight. I came to stand in front of the headstone which read: “Clyde Thomas, born 1900, died 1929.”

  “Wake me...” it said.

  “What?” I whispered.

  It speaks.

  “Wake me...” it repeated.

  “Caleb, who are you talking to?” John asked, lack of understanding clear on his face.

  My head swung in slow-motion as if through quicksand, moving in his direction, blood rushing in my ears and my heart beating thick and heavy in my chest. Everything became crystallized in that moment. John's frizzy hair and freckles stood out like measles. A microscopic chip lay like an imperfect shadow on the headstone, shining stark contrast to the white marble.

  Something... something... was building, rising up as if underwater, rushing to the surface. I was supposed to finalize something, but what? The whispering of the corpse in the earth was so loud it drowned out John's words. John's mouth was moving but no sound was coming out.

  What-the-hell? He was arguing with Jonesy, his teeth a pale slash against his dark face.

  Flailing, Jonesy's hand suddenly connected with my face. My teeth slammed into my tongue and the taste of copper pennies filled my mouth. I leaned over and a drop of blood hung tremulously on my bottom lip, falling to the grave like a black gem.

  Everything clicked into place, vertigo spinning the graveyard on its side as if it had been waiting for this moment. The ground rushed toward my face and I threw my hands out to brace my fall, fingers biting into damp earth. A clawed hand broke through the ground like a spear through flesh. Searching, it grasped my wrist, the bones pressing in a vise-like grip that captured my breath, the intense coldness of the grave lingering on its dead flesh.

  The head of the corpse broke free of the ground, its shadowed gaze meeting mine, the hand releasing me. I scuttled backward, standing up, swaying, overcome with, excitement? Fear? I had done this thing and now, didn't know how to undo it. The corpse moved with purpose, pacing me as it used the undisturbed ground to leverage itself as another drop of my blood fell and landed with a dull plop on the corpse's forehead.

  The zombie's gaze fixated on mine, it put a hand on its knee and began to push itself upright. Dull, lank strands of hair hung loosely from a scalp strung together by a tight mask of rotten sinew.

  Jonesy had long since run out of the cemetery and was at a “safe” range from what the ground had disgorged.

  He better get his ass back here. He couldn't get away with whacking me and not helping me with corpse-boy.

  “Why have you awoken me?” The words sounded garbled, maybe there was some tongue in there?

  Must not be rude, not my strongest point.

  Out loud I said, “You asked me to.”

  John was standing at my right, trying to mask a fine, all-over tremble. His freckles stood out on a pale face like beacons of fright.

  “What the hell is this?” John asked.

  He didn't really just ask that? John... duh.

  The zombie looked at me with eyes that clung from threads of sinew; moving wetly in its sockets, sucking like a vacuum.

  “Why have you woken me?” it repeated, shambling a step closer. The smell... wow. It rose like a torrent of rotting garbage. John clapped his hand over his nose, taking a step backward.

  The corpse took another step closer.

  “Got any brilliant suggestions?” I asked John, my eyes steady on the zombie, hoping like hell John would lend an intellectual hand.

  “Do not have the Zombie Handbook handy,” John said, his eyes a tad wide.

  Not helpful.

  The corpse looked at me, head tilted, “You're just a boy... how could you know for what purpose you have disturbed my slumber?”

  Uh-oh, coming up with an excuse, so not my thing.

  “I didn't... mean to wake you up...” I fumbled out. I wasn't usually this tongue-tied but meeting a corpse in the flesh (ha-ha) stole my speech.

  “You do not know what you would have of me? You use your life-force to waken me and yet... without purpose? Put me back,” he said thickly. His clothes hung in tatters and the smell was definitely old, dark coffin, not that I knew what that smelled like.

  John's look clearly said, do something! I guess what I hadn't told my friends was that I had never thought that I could actually raise the dead. But here he was, standing before me in all his rotting glory.

  Looking out amongst the teenagers collected outside the cemetery, “To whom much is given, much is expected. Put me back,” he said.

  Adults were all the same, even dead, lecture, lecture.

  “How?” I asked.

  “You are the necromancer, boy, not I.” Again that quizzical brow over rotting facial countenance.

  Interpretation challenge... but I was managing.

  “A what?” I asked, surprisingly calm, for the first time, there were no whispers. Perfect, blessed silence filled my head. It was the most natural thing in the world; talking to the dead. Looking at the corpse, its eyeballs like inky marbles stared back at me with uncanny devotion.

  “A diviner of the black arts, magic...” he replied.

  All that time with the star in my basement, huh, right.

  I could still taste distressingly metallic blood in my mouth. I was connecting dots here, but I had an epiphany, I could put it back with blood! Things had only gotten über-weird when I had my lip busted open by Jonesy. I looked back at the corpse, Clyde-- no longer feeling that sense of swimming power just underneath the surface. Now was not the time to get queasy with the dead. I needed to regain that essence, fast.

  “Ah... hang on a minute,” I said to the corpse, who stared blankly back... ah-huh.

  “John, give me your blade.”

  “What the heck Caleb? What are you planning to do with this...” John said pointing his finger at the patient corpse, “...thing?” who was as immobile out of his grave as in.

  “I figure my blood made it jump out of its grave, now I need some to put him back and you're going to help me,” I said in a one sentence rush.

  John's face got paler, if possible. “Ah, we're good friends and all but no, not a good plan! We don't know that for sure anyway.” The logic-master was not feelin' it. Couldn't say I blamed him, me holding a knife and all.

  “... here's the deal, let's do a little 'friendship blood bank' just for the sake of putting the dead guy back in his grave, eh?” I began tapping my foot on the disturbed mess of the grave. John would ante up the blood or this was gonna be a long damn night.

  “What?” strained trust crowded his eyes.

  “Just here, give me your forearm.” I placed the side of the blade on his forearm where it shone black in the pale moonlight. My left hand wrapped tight, steadying his flesh for puncture.

  John took a deep breath,“Okay, but you're going to owe me, big time.” The whites of his eyes bulging.

  I pressed the point of the blade against his arm until the pressure broke the skin. John sucked in a lungful, blood welled and I let up the pressure. The zombie's head jerked at the sight of the blood, causing the disturbing sound of neck bones popping.

  Would I ever get used to that noise? I repeated the process with my own arm. Our identical wounds pressed together, I offered it to my zombie. I could feel somehow that he was mine, I knew it.

  A vibrating tuning fork of trembling power welled up inside me. A strange mixture of fear, dread and excitement paralyzed me. My teeth throbbed with the intensity of it. The zombie's hand snaked out, taking hold of the offered forearm. It felt cold aga
inst my warm flesh, like iced tentacles. I swabbed a blot of blood, inking it with my index and middle fingers on the zombies forehead, like warpaint. It rolled those empty eyes up at me, its dead bones clinging to my fingertips.

  We shared a suspended moment in time, a terrible beauty of control balanced precariously. “Go back and rest,” I said, feeling that balance reached, that I was choosing for both of us.

  The zombie reluctantly let go of my arm, sand through a sieve, lying down on the disturbed ground while his grave encased him in a shroud of earth.

  I was a corpse-raiser, one of two, and it was not a safe thing to be.

  John and I stared at each other over the grave for a swollen minute, his face showing a mixture of sympathy and dread. He knew what this distinction would mean for me in the world we lived in.

  I was shaking from the intensity of it all, there was no controlling it. This was not the same as Biology experiments and roadkill, this was real, this was huge. Looking outside the cemetery perimeter at two enemies and one friend, I knew it was time to swear the group to secrecy. A trickle of sweat slithered down my back, pooling at the waistband of my jeans, instantly chilling against my fevered flesh. I didn't want the same future as Parker, that loss of freedom was so not a part of The Plan, my plan.

  John and I headed out of the cemetery in a wave of uncertain promise.

  CHAPTER 2

  I smacked my alarm, just five more minutes I thought, dozing off.

  “Caleb!” Mom yelled up the stairs.

  “Yeah?” I yelled back.

  “School!”

  I stumbled out of my bed and looked on the floor for today's clothes... Hmm, what to wear that wasn't too wrinkled. I picked up a pair of jeans and a shirt and took an experimental whiff. Good enough! I jerked the jeans on with a hop and a zip. Opened the underwear and sock drawer, nothing. I ripped open every drawer for socks, ah-huh! Finally, a couple of socks, not matched but clean... happy day.

  I trudged over to the kitchen table, scarred from a thousand meals.

  “You cookin' today?” I asked, hopeful.

  “No, but you're eating.”

  Eating in the morning blows. I was that lazy. I'd open the fridge, nothing. Then the freezer, repeat. I usually ended up cramming a yogurt down.

  Mom looked in the fridge. “What flavor?”

  “Do we have blueberry?” It was the only non-barf fruit I could think about eating this early.

  “Last one.”

  “Where's Dad?”

  Mom and Dad were on the opposite end of the spectrum. She was free-spirited (read: hippie) and thought the mystery of life and choice was taken when the scientific puzzle of the genome mapping was solved.

  It made for an interesting family life.

  “He is working on that new project.”

  Great, hopefully not anything new for kids to rant about. I'd gone through enough being hassled as I was growing up.

  “Does that mean he'll be home for supper tonight? I've got something to talk to him about.” I wisely didn't want to mention the whole corpse-raising episode. Dad was logic and fairness mixed. He'd know what to do. This... I might need some help on.

  “Yes, he will, you know how important meal time is,” Mom said.

  Maybe, maybe not. Science was important to Dad.

  After I wolfed down the yogurt, knowing the beast would awaken again at 10 a.m. in class, perfect timing, I made a 2-point shot at the trash can. Swish! No mess, but that didn't stop the frown forming on Mom's face.

  I moved quickly to grab my backpack but she blocked me and I was forced to look up at her. Every girl in the world was taller than me... wonderful.

  She brushed the hair out of my eyes and it shot back down. “You need a haircut.”

  “No, mom.” A time-sucker was all a haircut was and I had more important things to do.

  Slamming the door behind me I took the stairs two at a time, cruising at a jog. I wanted to reconnoiter with the dudes, get things straight in my head from last night.

  I slowed to a walk. I'd still be there early and I was feeling lazy. Looking up, I noticed the canopy of trees allowing filtered morning light to break through, speckling the ground with sunspots. My head began the familiar thrumming, a buzz seeping into the crevices of my mind as I walked toward the school.

  I stopped where I stood, the buzzing had become whispering, my heart speeding, my breath quickening in response, my palms dampening.

  The whispering of the dead had arrived.

  I looked around, noticing the paved street, the pebbling of the asphalt worn away by a million cars, the shoulder giving way into the ditch.

  Nothing.

  I started walking again but the whispering grew louder. I followed the dull roar of the insidious voice like a magnet and was rewarded with volume.

  There, on the border of the forest and the soft dirt of the ditch lay a crumpled body, torn and broken, its head at an awkward angle. My hands trembled as the whispering broke through to voices and images, flooding my head like a pulse-screen.

  I heard the thoughts:

  Headlights bursting like twin spots before its eyes as it tried to escape those lights... rushing forward... it sprinted across the street, not timing the advance properly and the twin orbs bore down on it.

  Pain. Intense pain and blinding light.

  The cat thought of its litter, its people... then-- was no more.

  My breath returned in a paralyzing rush, my feet planted at the base of her body. A small body that had shared the last moments of its life with me. A life that was now gone.

  I stood for a moment, taking it in, realizing that life as I knew it was never going to be the same. I wasn't going to breeze through being a teenager.

  Snapping back to reality I realized I was the Pied Piper of road kill.

  Great. Definitely my life-goal.

  This was just the kinda thing that had been happening. The frogs in Biology, there had been so many. I hadn't been able to camouflage that. People would be suspicious. Why couldn't I be developing something righteous like Pyrokenesis? Now that would be tight. At least only Brett and Carson knew the corpse-raising part. Getting them to cooperate with silence, that was another thing.

  I trudged on, my limbs heavy, my head swimming with the heaviness of an undead-moment. I lifted my hands, the fine shaking almost gone. Beaded sweat decorated my upper lip and I wiped it off with the back of my hand. I needed to get a hold of this thing. I was on it. That's what I told myself but my gut churned with uncertainty.

  The familiar doors to our daily prison came into view. I went inside the school, spotting the “cemetery group.”.

  John and Jonesy stood apart from the others in stark contrast to each other. Almost five foot ten, with a shock of frizzy, carrot-colored hair and pale blue eyes, John looked a little freakish but he was my main dude, the go-to guy when things went sideways. I gave Jonesy an unfriendly look, touching my face. He had short, nappy hair and teeth that stood out like white Chiclets in a dark face. He was taller than me too, but built stocky. They'd been with me since Kindergarten.

  The rest of the group was a mixed bag, didn't feel solid here. It would take some clever conniving to get promises of secrecy from the rest. Brett Mason and Carson Hamilton stood side-by-side with identical white-blond hair and height, hard to tell apart unless you looked at them full-on. They'd been with me since Kindergarten too, but not in a good way.

  Edging through the throng of kids I made my way to John and Jonesy first. Jonesy leaned against the locker, arms crossed. John looked ready to explode, not typical.

  Jonesy said, “Sorry about the bludgeoning.”

  “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 pointed out.

  “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.