Death 07 - For the Love of Death (4 page)

Caleb

I jerk the receiver off the old rotary wall phone, punch in Gramps’ number, and wait.

Maybe a thousand landlines still exist in all of America. Because of our house’s age, we’re grandfathered. Even with my penchant for the antique and vintage, it’s still awkward and heavy to use. I press the circular celluloid earpiece against my ear and wait through five rings. Of course, Gramps doesn’t have an answering machine. His thoughts would be,
If he’s home, he answers.

Jade’s wide eyes stare up at me.

I shift my weight.

“Hello?” Gramps voice bellows into the phone like falling gravel.

“Hey Gramps, it’s Caleb.”

“I know who it is. I’ve got caller ID as part of my bundle, y’know.”

Caller ID
. The most archaic thing on the planet.

Jade’s lips quirk, easily making out his side of the conversation, seeing as how he’s shouting.

“He needs another ear replacement,” she says quietly. I nod, putting a finger to my lips.

“Right. Listen, Gramps… Deegan and Paxton are MIA. Ya know where they are?”

Jade and I stopped at two kids. Felt like ten. There wasn’t enough protection in the world for our kids as Randoms. We still worry.

The open line buzzes. “Both the kids were here. Pax and I changed the oil out on the Camaro…”

Good
,
Pax needs that connection.

“There was a little incident with Deedie.”

Jade covers her mouth with a hand. I wrap her forearm with my hand. Images flow. She nods, taking a shaky inhale.

“What’s going on?”

“Clyde brought her. Some ruffian is trying to vamp her psychic energy right out of her.”

“Brad Thompson.” Jade throws her arms down by her sides, color spreading across her cheekbones.

I’m so pissed it should be illegal. I can feel my old friend Rage come knocking. I concentrate on my breathing.

I hate some of these Randoms. My prejudice is worse than everyone else’s is, because I was part of the problem.

Now we have abilities in the few kids left who aren’t catalogued. Like trees, they have all kinds of branches.

This shitty Null is also a Drainer. Our government won’t give them a name, but we leftovers will.

What Thompson is doing is illegal. His father is also the head of the Sanctions. He pulls every undead legislation he can.

The prick.

Jade plucks my sleeve, and I cup the back of her head with my free hand. “Is she okay, Caleb?” She worries at her lip with her teeth.

Gramps says, “She’s okay, Caleb—just shook up.”

A breath whistles out of me.

“
Okay. So here’s the $64,000,000 question: where are she and Pax?”

Silence.

I hear Gramps do a swipe of his face with his palm. Deep exhale.

“Should’ve been home ’bout now, son.”

Jade shakes her head. “They’re not,” she whispers.

I say into the phone, “They’re not, Gramps.”

I don’t ask why my zombie, Clyde, happened to be corpse-on-the-spot for Deegan. I don’t ask why her Null guard was absent. I don’t ask any of that. “Gramps…”

“I’ll find her.”

“And Pax?”

“Don’t worry about him. He needs to figure out his own way about Ali, son.”

The mention of Mom’s impending demise is a wound that continuously seeps.

I open my eyes, and my wife cups my face.

I tip my head, putting my forehead to hers.

“Do I need to raise the dead?” I ask, my breath caressing Jade's face.

A beat of time drums between us.

Can’t take that shit back
.

“
Not yet. I'll roar out there in my Bronco and flesh out this bullshit.”

My lips twitch.

“Be careful, Gramps.”

He barks a laugh into the phone and I straighten from Jade, holding it away from my ear.

“If anyone's touched a hair on either of those kids' heads, there will be a shitstorm they'll never recover from. They'll stink until they die.”

Gramps.

“I'll meet ya,” I say, ignoring his paranoia rant.

“
Do ya know what route Pax generally takes?”

An alarm sounds and Jade yelps, throwing a hand over her heart.

“Hang on!” I give the phone to Jade.

I stride to the wall and depress my thumb on the pad, also obsolete. Many people have full cognitive pulse operation. Mind to signal.

I'm not ready for that.

<
Authenticate, Hart, Caleb
>

The message appears as scrolling letters.

<
The vehicle registered to the above name and address has been in a collision
>

<
Repeat
>

<
The vehicle registered to the above name and address has been in a collision
>

My heart stutters.

Pulse cars don't get in accidents.

They have monitors sensing obstacles and implement counter measures to avoid them.

I race back to the phone and tear it out of Jade's hand, mouthing
sorry
as I do.

I grip it so hard the plastic squeaks in protest.

One word. “Gramps.”

He
hears
me because he listens so hard.

He always has.

“I knew some strange-ranger shit was going to go down.”

“
How?” I ask. “You're not a paranormal.”

“
Pfft.” He grunts. “Gut instinct.”

“
This changes things.”

“
Not really… the guns were always gonna go.”

I roll my eyes.

“Probably don't need the arsenal. Organics will be there already.”

“
Not if the wrong people show up.”

Adrenaline comes to fuel Rage.

Swell.

Jade's eyes widen at my emotional signature.

“I'll meet you,” I say.

“
Call Clyde.”

I hit him like a ton of bricks. My summons is pure, strong. Agonized.

The response is nearly instantaneous.
Master.

The kids, Clyde, they've been in a car wreck.

A second of tomblike silence.

I will be at your home momentarily.

Then he is gone from my consciousness.

“I just put out the SOS, Gramps.”

“
Good. Going to blast off and see if the kids are okay.”

“
Okay, see you soon.”

An empty dial tone sings in my ear.

I gently replace the receiver.

Jade is coming back from the pulse monitor on the wall.

She grabs my hands.

“
Caleb, are the babies alive?”

I reach out to our two children. Both possess high levels of AFTD.

A beacon to my ability, a lighthouse in the fog of humanity.

Like knows like.

I strike out in all directions, my power fanning away from me in great swaths.

Nothing.

Not a return. An echo. A ripple.

I open my eyes.

We're touching.

Jade knows
.

“No…” She backs away. “They can’t be dead.”

I quickly shake my head. “No, they’re not dead.”

She leans in, her eyes searching mine. “But are they alive?”

The lie trembles between us. But we only do truths.

I let me hands fall. “I don’t know.”

Tears shatter her face like wet fear.

I don’t explain because I don’t need to.

Jade knows where I’m going.

To find our children.

I charge out of the house and catch sight of a familiar silhouette growing larger as it runs at me. And like the mirage years ago when he saved me, he materializes now.

Clyde.

My zombie.

My friend.

Pax

I awaken, and the first thing I know without moving is my arm is already healing.

Crooked.

Fuck me.
I sit up and watch the dudes behind the veil between worlds. I blink, and my eyelids lift.

I hate this multiverse bullshit.

Dad told me about Miranda Chen and how she could world-hop. But those Dimensionals are gone now.

I don’t know what I’m called, but I’m sure of one thing; there are more worlds than the few she explored.

I didn’t pay an ounce of attention to what one I went to. Dee and I needed to get the hell out. Twilight came, I used my eyeballs, and here we are.

We
.

I look around and gooseflesh crawls over my body, overriding the pain of my busted arm.

Dee's gone.

I jump to my feet. My vision swims at first, doubling. Always the fun of the inter-dimensional transition. Sort of like spin cycle inside a clothes washer.

Not that I’ve ever experienced it.

I walk, holding out my arms in front of me. The left is turned like a corkscrew. I grit my teeth, ignoring the pain.

Great.

Gotta find an Organic. Of course, as I scan my current environment, I note it looks different from my world.
Figures.
Hopefully I won’t meet myself. I chuckle, finding the perverse buried in the humor.

Why did Dee leave?
It’s not like her. I think of her timid personality. It’s the entire reason she does martial arts. That and the fact Dad would have an entire herd of cattle if she didn’t have some skills.

I move through this world with purpose. I know Kent like the back of my hand. Unfortunately, this is not remotely like my Kent.

All the identical houses give it away.

And the robots.

Steam pours out of grates that grow out of sidewalks every three meters.

It’s a different season here. Not late summer like back home but early winter, I’d gauge.

My thin hoodie blows for warmth. My teeth chatter like a bitch. I recognize shock easily. Another bennie of no kids is higher and more diverse learning.

I am a level one medical responder.

I can heal myself. Due to my unusual gene distribution, I’m a certified Organic with a moderate ability to heal, three-point.

Can’t set my own arm, though.

I wade through streets where adult-sized bots walk. Their disconcerting gazes travel over me in a scan-like sweep.

Don’t like it.

They stop and turn to me, all of them forming a loose circle.

Like a gang.

Obviously, there isn’t a plan for them to look remotely humanoid. Sure, they have arms and legs on their sexless bodies made of an unidentifiable silver-colored alloy. No hair on their skulls, reflective eyes, nothing remotely human.

They blink with lids that eerily mimic my own.

Creepers.

“Identify,” one spits out in a metallic crunch of syllables. Then, “Scan detects compound fracture in the left humerus.”

Brilliant, guys
. My disquiet deepens. However, I’m not quick to panic.

I shrug.
I’m not in any trouble
. “Paxton Hart.”

A siren wails.

Not a siren. A bot’s open mouth opens, and a horrible high-pitched bellow rings out. Sort of like that old
Body Snatchers
movie Gramps has.

I crouch instantly and feel the breeze from metal arms as they fold over the air where I just was.

I blink, and the veil of my eyelid skates over my pupil. I make the bot’s weakness. I swing out my right arm and pound the flat of my hand into bot-boy behind me. He sails through a sheet of glass that used to be a storefront picture window. A tinkling rain of glass shatters from the impact.

They all look alike
. I quirk my lips as the wailing one is silenced, dropping my foot to the ground from the roundhouse love I put on it.

Another topples like a bowling pin, head canting to the left.

Two down,
three to go
.

Then more come.

My arm throbs as my gaze bounces around at all the bots.

It’s not fun anymore. Dee is missing, my arm’s busted, and a posse of creepers is trying to do me in.

“Clean subject,” the first bot announces.

They swarm.

I flex my right arm and it bursts to muscular life. I slap the bot who spoke and its head spins off, landing with the sound of a tool box dropped from a roof.

“
Smart ass,” I say.

“
Paranormal level five, full sanction protocol.”

What?

Okay,
so done with this noise.

I smack two away and my Body strength sends them flying into the ones who come after them.

Twenty count now.

I can't get out of this.

Deegan!
I yell in a psychic scream I send like a net.

If she is here—and boy, she had better be—I can stand some help with the tin herd here.

Nothing.

Shee-it.

She's sleeping or unconscious.

I don't allow myself to think about the alternative.

Twenty-five bots mill around, communicating with metal clicks and chirps.

Sounds like insects. With a plan.

I close my eyes as a hand descends on my wrecked arm.

The pain melts as I ring the supper bell.

I feel them all around me.

Rise,
I command.

I open my eyes and chop the bot’s arm with my right hand.

It collapses and I tear it out of the shoulder socket. Apparently, that affects balance and it staggers away, sputtering and illuminating the two meters around it with a light show shooting out of the gutted joint.

“
Corpse revival detected,” several of the bots announce in a simultaneous stutter.

“
Yeah. Roger that,” I say, feeling queasy.

Shock's progressing nicely
.

The horde is different here, yet so much the same. My heart does that weird gallop thing inside my chest.

Bound to happen when my entire family responds to my summons. Including myself.

As a corpse.

*

I face myself. Looking at me as a corpse goes on the top one hundred list of the strangest brand of shit I've ever lived through. Yet.

“Master,” the Paxton of this world says in way of greeting, question and answer.

A bot lands on me and I collapse under its weight. Color me stunned.

Help!

The bot's weight is gone and Paxton Corpse twists its head around.

A bot's hand becomes a knife-like bayonet morphing into a single, stabbing implement, and it slams through Paxton Corpse's guts.

His intestines wind and slide around the spearing metal as it spins.

Paxton Corpse frowns as though it puzzles him this bot just stabbed him. Both his elbows slam backwards and the bots knife-hand slides out.

“
Better,” Paxton Corpse comments.

Wow.

Disable,
I think at the collective horde.

I stagger to my feet and my family is there.

Gram looks better as a corpse in this world than as a dying human in mine. Cancer is the queen of all bitches.

I stand in the middle of the melee as my eyes burn with the most intense need to cry I've had in my life.

Their gazes move to me.

I swallow what feels like a brick.

I say, “Disable them all.”

The bots are outnumbered as the zombies descend. I back away as my sister, Mom and Dad, and the grandparents tear limbs and heads off the bots.

They’re simply no match for the animated strength of the undead.

I back further away, but the sight of Gramps as a zombie freezes me. He moves through the bots like water, a tornado of arms, legs, and flying fists.

They fall like metal dominoes.

I’m not surprised when Clyde, the Clyde of this world, joins the fray.

His gaze reaches mine.

Go, young Master,
he broadcasts in my mind.

I clench my teeth, jogging away in an unsteady gait.

I have to find an Organic.

Gotta break my arm again.