Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things (Dead Things Series Book 1) (11 page)

17

KAI

“A
re you sure she said it was Mrs. Carlton?” Rhys asked Kai for the tenth time.

“Yes,” Kai told him, shoving back an errant branch and slapping at a mosquito on his neck. Rhys’ boots beat out a steady cadence behind him as they crunched through beds of pine needles.

Kai stepped on a tree branch and it cracked loud enough to make himself jump.

“Could you make a little more noise?” Rhys muttered.

Kai flung a glare over his shoulder, “Oh, right, we might spook it. How well do zombies hear?”

He didn’t get why he had to be traipsing round in the woods with Rhys while Tristin, Wren and Quinn got to hang out at home. Isa was sending them out on a wild zombie chase all on the word of a disturbed old lady. Everybody knew Sylvia Goode was crazy. She called at least twice a week claiming to see the craziest things. Six months ago, she claimed she’d caught a unicorn. Now they were chasing zombies. The whole thing was ridiculous.

“We don’t know it’s a zombie,” Rhys grumbled.

His footsteps fell with more force as he thought about it. Mrs. Carlton had been dead for eight weeks. Isa was obviously still mad at him. This was a punishment. It had to be. She could have sent him out there with anybody. But no, as usual, it was Rhys. It was always Rhys.

“No, there is an excellent chance it’s a delusional fantasy created by a demented old witch.” Kai said, letting go of a branch, smiling as it smacked hard against Rhys’ chest.

The wolf grunted. “But what if it is a zombie?”

Kai rolled his eyes at the fancy term, “Zombies don’t exist because there are only five registered reanimators in the world and none of them are permitted to use their magic.”

“What if one of them went rogue?”

Kai couldn’t help but snort, “A reanimator went rogue and turned my third grade teacher into a flesh eating zombie? What would be the point of that exactly?”

“What is the point of any of the things these grims do? Evil things do evil-like things, it’s sort of their…thing.”

Kai snickered before he could catch himself. He risked a glance back at the wolf hoping the slip up wouldn’t have Rhys dropping into embarrassed silence. Kai lived to mock Rhys; he considered it his life’s work really, but he tried not to mock Rhys’ when he fumbled for words. He’d gotten enough of that when he was a kid.

“Even evil things have to have a reason to evil. No matter how random it may seem to us. I can’t imagine some random reanimator wandering through town and deciding to raise some old lady’s body for kicks. It just seems…farfetched.”

Rhys scoffed, “Last week Quinn had to disinfect a wound on my side caused by a manticore and a rogue reanimator seems farfetched?”

Kai cringed at the thought of that bite on Rhys’ side. That thing had been nasty. It seemed some new creature was wandering into their territory almost every day lately like they had turned on a vacancy sign. Kai turned to snark back a reply, but instead found himself abruptly yanked back against Rhys’ chest. “What the f-” Rhys clamped a hand over his mouth.

“Shh,” he said against Kai’s ear. “Listen.”

Kai froze, eyes drifting closed. It was faint, a strange scraping sound and then something clanging softly like an old ship’s bell. “Where’s it coming from?” he asked, lips moving against skin, voice inaudible to human ears.

Rhys’ muscles tightened, dropping his palm from Kai’s mouth. Kai could practically feel him concentrating, “I think it’s the old school. It sounds like the flagpole.”

“Isn’t it condemned?” Kai asked, trying to focus on anything but the feel of Rhys plastered to his back.

“What does that matter?” Rhys asked.

It didn’t really, but how was he supposed to concentrate with Rhys that close. He was glad it was dark out so he couldn’t see the heat rising under his skin. “Let’s just go,” he muttered.

They crept closer to the noise, scanning the trees as they went, not entirely sure what they were looking for. It could be an animal but the cold feeling in his gut was telling him otherwise. If there was one thing he’d learned, in this freaking town they could be dealing with anything.

They stopped at the edge of the tree line butting up to the school property. The bell sound they heard was indeed the flagpole, a metal loop clanged at the top where it still held the tattered pieces of an American flag. The place looked like a construction zone. Yellow caution tape wrapped around the columns of the school’s entrance and tiny red flags stuck up from various parts of the ground, warning of danger that Kai’s eyes couldn’t make out in the dark. Several pieces of equipment sat on the property, including a bulldozer that had seen better days.

He found the source of the scraping noise and recoiled. “Oh, that is so wrong,” he groaned.

The metal spikes on the bottom of the bulldozer’s bucket pierced what had once been Mrs. Carlson through her abdomen, holding her hostage in front of the dilapidated school. She was still moving. Her hands scraped uselessly against the rusted metal bucket, though it didn’t appear she was trying to free herself. It didn’t appear she was doing anything. She was just…there.

“What was it you were saying about zombies not existing?”

“Don’t gloat, it’s unbecoming,” Kai squinted, noting the way her mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water. Her skin looked grey and sloughed off in places. So gross. “What do you think she’s doing all the way out here?”

Rhys shrugged. “Don’t know. Maybe she was trying to get back to the school?”

That was the most depressing thing Kai ever heard. He couldn’t imagine coming back from the dead and trying to go back to work. “This doesn’t make sense. Don’t you think your wolfy senses would have picked up a reanimator?”

“Why didn’t your reaper senses pick up a reanimator?” Rhys snapped back.

“I don’t have super awesome hearing or x-ray vision. You are the superhero,” Kai said.

“Then I’m putting in for a new sidekick. A quieter one.” Rhys told him, conversationally.

Kai rolled his eyes in the dark. “Whatever. The only thing that really matters is what do we do with her?”

“It’s not a her, it’s an it. It’s not alive.”

“She looks pretty alive to me,” Kai told him.

“Semantics. What do we do? How do we kill it?”

Kai shrugged, “Text Quinn?”

Rhys nodded once.

Kai dutifully reached for his phone.
Mrs. Carlton is a zombie, how do we ice her?

The response came immediately.
Seriously? Take a picture.

Kai snapped a picture and sent it because he was a good friend.

“Really?” Rhys asked, exasperated.

So cool. How do you think it happened? Is there some kind of rogue reanimator roaming around Belle Haven?

Sometimes Kai felt like he lived in a real life episode of Scooby Doo.

You too? I don’t know. Focus. How do we stop her-it-her, dammit.

I don’t know, not a lot of hands on experience with zombies. In the movies, you sever the brainstem.

Aww, come on, man. She taught me how to multiply my nines and you want me to stab her in the head?

I don’t want you to do anything. I didn’t even know zombies were a possibility. My only reference materials are The Walking Dead, comics and some very outdated human google references.

K. Keep you posted.

Rhys leaned against a nearby pine tree, massive arms folded across his chest. “Well?”

“Sever the brainstem.”

Rhys pulled the knife strapped to his leg and handed it to Kai handle first.

“Why do I have to do it?”

Rhys’ mouth hitched at the corner, “She was your math teacher; given how you feel about math, I thought you might be feeling vengeful.”

Kai rolled his eyes. Mrs. Carlson was nice. He had no interest in stabbing her in the head. He snatched the knife anyway, marching forward with grim determination. As he got closer, his resolve flagged.

She didn’t look like somebody who’d been dead for two months. She looked…well, dead and rotting, but not as much as he would have imagined. Up close, her skin was grey in some places and black in others. She looked at him with vacant eyes, jaw snapping and hands reaching for him. Her nails were torn and jagged, caked with dirt. He shuddered. She’d crawled through six feet of dirt and rocks and roots only to be thwarted by an errant piece of construction equipment.

He stood, frozen; he’d never killed anybody he knew before. After a minute, Rhys pulled him away and tugged the knife from his hand. His mouth was a hard line as he held her head still and Kai looked away as Rhys drove the blade into the base of her skull. He still couldn’t escape the slick scraping sound of the blade against flesh and bone.

Her body went slack. Kai didn’t know if he was relieved or disappointed she’d gone so easily. Rhys wiped the knife on his pant leg and shoved it back into its sheath. Kai shuddered a little.

“Now what do we do with her?” Kai whispered.

Rhys’ brow furrowed, “Why are you whispering now? She can’t hear you.”

He was whispering because he was spooked. He couldn’t shake the feeling he was missing something.

Rhys pulled her from the blades of the bulldozer as if she weighed nothing and laid her on the gravel patch where the grass had long since given up. He pulled a lighter from his pocket.

“Dude, what are you doing?”

Rhys looked at him as if he was nuts. “What do you think I’m doing? I’m burning the body. We don’t know if she’s dead, dead. No body, no reanimation.”

Kai nodded, he wasn’t wrong. There was a reason so many residents chose cremation. Nobody wanted their graves robbed for spells or their bodies desecrated for any other nefarious purposes. It was the smart thing to do; he just hated the smell of burning flesh.

He sat on the step of the school’s porch as flames engulfed her body. Rhys leaned against the railing, testing it first to make sure it could hold him.

“I feel like we are missing something.” Kai finally said aloud. “Everything feels…different since Ember got here. Not bad but-am I crazy? Can you feel it too?”

Rhys nodded but said nothing.

“You don’t think…” he let the idea die on his lips. It was impossible. There was no way Ember could do this. Except there was Tristin, his brain argued. Maybe Tristin wasn’t a reaper because of the twin bond. Maybe it was their family. Ember did have the mark. Could Ember be a reanimator?

“You smell like anxiety,” Rhys grumbled, hand shooting out to touch him. Kai knew better then to read anything into it. Wolf DNA made Rhys’ need to comfort him override his loathing of him.

“We need to find out what is going on with Ember,” He said finally, trying not to dwell on how pathetic he felt as he pushed into Rhys’ touch.

18

EMBER

M
onday came faster than Ember anticipated. It turns out enrolling in high school in a mystically charged town was surprisingly easy. They didn’t seem too concerned with the proper paperwork and documentation. Ember was almost disappointed. The idea of school made her stomach turn. She wasn’t sure she could handle it if things went badly here too. Isa assured her she had a built in clique. She’d never be alone here.

“I can’t believe they didn’t at least ask for my ID or a social or anything.” Ember remarked to Tristin.

“Well, when everybody here could easily conjure up whatever documents they ask for, doesn’t really seem worth worrying about.” Tristin told her. They waited outside the office for Ember’s schedule.

Kai and Quinn stood nearby at their lockers, deeply engrossed in what was probably a conversation about video games, comic books or obscure eighties movies. It seemed to be the only topics the two of them ever discussed. Kai’s eyes cut to a stocky blonde guy, words dying on his lips as the guy strode down the hall. He had too many muscles and a smirk on his face. On his way past, he gave Ember a leer so invasive she wanted to go home and shower and winked at Tristin. She made a gesture that implied she was vomiting.

When he saw Kai, he sneered and said loudly, “Hey Lonergan, made your sister scream lately?”

Kai smirked as all eyes in the hallway rolled towards him, “No.” Kai said, “But your brother looked pretty satisfied when he left the other night.”

The guy’s face contorted in rage and he launched himself sloppily at Kai. To her cousin’s credit, he didn’t even flinch at the large fist heading towards his face. It never hit its target. Instead, Rhys was there, eyes flashing, a deep growl rumbling from his chest as he held the boy’s fist in a crushing grip.

Ember’s heart pumped double time. Where did Rhys even come from? Did he just lurk in the shadows waiting to fight with somebody? How old was he?

“Walk. Away,” Rhys rumbled in a tone no human could match. He used the boy’s own fist to shove him backwards, hard enough for him to fall on his ass.

“Your bodyguard won’t always be here to protect you, bitch,” the other boy told Kai.

“Big talk from a guy named Eugene,” Quinn piped up from where he stood just out of the way.

“It’s a family name,” the boy spit, rubbing his bruised hindquarters as he walked away.

Quinn smirked, pleased with the outburst.

Kai’s chest was heaving but it seemed to have more to do with his proximity to the wolf then the excitement of the confrontation. He punched Rhys’ chest, flinching as his fist made contact with the solid wall of muscle. “I could have handled that myself.”

He glared at Kai, nostrils doing that weird flare thing he did whenever in Kai’s presence.

“Really? Cause you looked like you were about to handle it by getting punched in the face.”

Kai flushed from his neck to his hairline. “Nobody asked for your help,” he whispered.

The wolf placed a hand on Kai’s chest, pressing him back to the locker. “My sister will kill me if I let anything happen to her pet.” He leaned forward, his lips inches from Kai’s ear. “Stay. Out. Of. Trouble.” He turned on his heel and walked away.

Ember didn’t get what his problem was. He was such a jerk. He had to know Kai had a crush on him, right? Her cousin stared down the hall before straightening his bunched up shirt.

“Whatever, douche,” he muttered to the werewolf’s retreating back. Rhys’ shoulders stiffened but he kept walking.

Well, so far, it appeared super powers didn’t make high school suck any less. She had government first period, which meant separating from the others.

Kai smiled at her encouragingly, “Don’t worry, Donovan and Neoma are both in that class. They’ll keep an eye on you.”

Tristin rolled her eyes. “It’s not her first day of preschool. She doesn’t need a babysitter,” she grabbed his arm. “Come on.”

Walking into the room, actually felt very much like her first day of preschool. These people all knew each other. She could already feel herself starting to sweat. Nice, that’s attractive. She straightened the skirt of her new dress and took a deep breath. Maybe she could just make a run for it.

“Hey, hot stuff.”

The squeak that erupted from her was both mouse-like and embarrassing. This delighted her attacker all the more. He kissed her cheek before dancing away.

“Donovan!” she wheezed in exasperation, narrowing her eyes at him. He was wearing yet another sleeveless hoodie; this one a royal blue that made his Husky blue eyes even lighter. Did this school even have a dress code? She was positive that his biceps were going to distract her from learning about their government.

A dark haired man, who she could only assume was the teacher, sat at the front of the room. He didn’t look like the teachers at South Oleander High. He wore jeans, a red-checkered shirt. He’d rolled his sleeves to his elbows revealing tattoos running all the way down to his fingers. They resembled runes she’d seen in her dads books on alchemy. He wore black framed glasses and he was, objectively speaking, good looking…well, for somebody who was her dad’s age. Gotta love that paranormal DNA.

“Excuse me, Mr. Bishop?”

He didn’t look up, “Yes?” What was with the people in this town not making eye contact? “I’m new. Ms. Kelley told me to give this to you.”

She slid the paper underneath his nose. He pushed it to the side, “Thank you. Take a seat.”

She turned to scan the classroom. Donovan gestured grandly to the empty seat next to him in the second to last row. Neoma had taken a seat behind him and she smiled shyly at her. She scowled at Donovan on principle, but was relieved she didn’t have to look for an empty seat. She smiled at Neoma as she settled.

The moment the bell rang, the teacher looked up. He stood, smiling at the class. “Good morning, young people. It appears we have a new student.”

All eyes turned to her, “Our new student is…” he faltered, looking apologetic as he struggled to reach the piece of paper he’d left on his desk. “November Lon-” he stopped abruptly, eyes skittering to hers, startled. He recovered, clearing his throat, “Lonergan. November

Lonergan. Welcome, November,” his voice died off and he stared at her as if he’d seen a ghost.

“Ember,” she corrected, “Just Ember.”

He smiled tightly, “Of course, Ember it is.” He shoved the piece of paper in his pocket. “I hope you are better at government than the other Lonergans I know. Okay, people, open your books to chapter six.”

A girl in the front row watched Ember all the way to her seat. She had black hair, ivory skin and an extremely nasty scowl on her face. If Snow White and Dracula had produced a child, it would have been this girl. Ember took her seat, giving the girl one last look before she opened her book.

The rest of the class was uneventful, though she could feel the eyes of the other students boring into her. As class ended, people started to file out.

“Ms. Lonergan, may I have a word?” the teacher called out.

“See you at lunch?” Donovan asked slinging an arm around Neoma.

She nodded absently before she walked towards the teacher. “Yes, sir?”

“You don’t have to call me sir. Most kids just call me Alex.”

“That’s weird.” She told him, not entirely sure what to make of him. He seemed like he was trying too hard.

“Do you know who I am?”

She stared at him for a full minute before cautiously answering, “You are Mr. Bishop, my government teacher?”

“That’s not quite what I meant.”

Why was everybody in this town so enigmatic? “Should I know who you are?”

“I would hope so. I’m your uncle.”

Ember felt herself go numb to her fingertips. Tiny little sparks licking up her arms like she stuck a fork in a light socket. She took a few deep breaths. She couldn’t get all charged up at school. There was no ice water to hose her down.

“I’m pretty sure my cousins would have mentioned my teacher was also my uncle.”

He laughed humorlessly, “I’m almost certain you are wrong about that. I suppose you are staying in that makeshift boarding house with those wolves?”

She thought of the five-bedroom house with its insanely large bathrooms. “I’m hardly staying at a youth hostel.”

“Your father wouldn’t want you there.” He snapped. Ember flinched, taking a step back. His tone softened then. “Listen, Kai and Tristin didn’t have any choice about where they lived. All their family is gone. You have choices. You aren’t like them.”

“You are telling me I’m a witch?”

“Kai is a reaper. Only one exists at a time in a family. He inherited the…gift,” he looked like the word stuck in his throat, “when his mother died. You certainly aren’t human. I can feel the energy coming off you.”

That really didn’t answer her question. He talked like a politician. This information only made the energy tingling over her move faster. “I don’t even know you,” she told him.

“You don’t know them either.” He reminded her.

“No, but they came to find me. Why didn’t you ever come to look for me? Why didn’t my dad ever mention you? If you and my dad were so tight, why were we living in Louisiana under an assumed name? Did you know I was alive?”

The older man paled at the barrage of questions but Ember didn’t care. She could feel her anger building. “If we were such a tight family where were you while my dad was drinking himself to death? While our family was unraveling?”

“Ember, please calm down. I promise, if I would have known about you, I would have come to find you. I thought you were dead,” he told her beseechingly. “We
all
thought you were dead.”

“So, I guess the question is, why didn’t my dad trust his own brother to know we were still alive?”

He heaved a sigh, “Ember-”

“I’m fine where I am.” She told him numbly. She grabbed her bag, walking quickly through the door. She jumped as she came face to face with Donovan. She slapped one of his arms, “Stop scaring me. Were you eavesdropping on my conversation?”

He shrugged, not denying it. “Listen, I’m not going to tell you what to do but I will tell you the witches lie. They lie about anything. They will do or say anything to maintain the balance.”

He pulled his hood up and shoved his hands deeper into his jacket pockets. He looked ridiculous.

“And not for nothing,” he told her, walking backwards away from her down the hall, “But your uncle just lied to you.”