Awakening (20 page)

W
E ALL SHOWERED. HAVING two bathrooms made that quick. While I was waiting, I tried to tie a knot in my necklace chain—I didn’t like keeping the pendant in my pocket. When that didn’t work, I looked for string and instead found a piece of ribbon and tied it on that.

After the showers, we ate. Andrew had a lot of convenience food—his housekeeping skills didn’t seem to extend to cooking. We found decent frozen meals, cooked them in the microwave, and they tasted so good—better than any gourmet dinner.

Simon organized our watch shifts as we ate. Derek insisted on taking the first, and the rest of us headed to bed, with Tori and me sharing the spare room and Simon on the office futon. No one felt right sleeping in Andrew’s bed.

I made a bathroom stop first. When I came out, I saw the photos along the hall, and stopped at a shot of Simon and Derek. Maybe twelve, they were roasting marshmallows over a campfire. Simon looked like Simon, with his spiked dark-blond hair and big grin as he showed off his flaming marshmallow for the camera.

Derek looked different. The picture had been taken before puberty hit. His skin was clear and he had a shock of black hair, still falling into his eyes. He was taller than Simon, but not as much, and he was thinner—he hadn’t started filling out yet. He still wasn’t magazine cover material, but he was the kind of guy that, at that age myself, I might have stolen a glance at across the classroom and thought he was kind of cute, with really nice eyes.

“That was taken out back here.”

I jumped. Simon laughed and shook his head.

“Yes,” I said. “I’m still jumpy. So this was here?” I pointed at the picture.

He nodded. “The summer before Dad and Andrew had their fight, I think. There’s a clearing where Derek and I camped out.” He paused, thinking. “I wonder if Andrew kept all that gear. I’m sure Tori isn’t the backpacking type, but…”

“If it means no more sleeping in rat-infested buildings, she’ll go for it.”

“I’ll talk Derek into giving us time to look for the camping gear tomorrow. I know you’re exhausted, so I won’t keep you up chatting, but you will tell me about the adventures I missed this time?”

I managed a tired smile. “Sure.” I started to turn away, then stopped. “You’ve got your watch alarm set, right? You’ll get me up after your shift?”

“I doubt either of us will be taking a turn. Derek only let me organize shifts because he wasn’t in the mood to argue. I’ll go out at three, but he won’t give up his post.”

“He needs sleep, too.”

“Agreed, and I
will
hassle him. But he doesn’t like us being here and there’s no way he’ll let someone without superhero strength and senses stand guard. The best thing we can do is find those tents and sleeping bags in the morning, get him to the nearest campsite, and let him sleep then.”

I got a few steps away before he said, “Chloe?”

I turned. The hall was dark, lit only by the living room light behind him, throwing his face into shadow.

“Was Derek…okay with you today? I know he was getting up in your face before we left Buffalo and I was worried. You guys seem fine now….”

“We are.”

When he said nothing, I said, “Really. We got along great, actually. A nice change.”

I couldn’t see his expression, but could feel his gaze on me; then he said softly, “Good.” A pause and a more emphatic, “That’s good. I’ll see you tomorrow then. We’ll talk.”

We headed for the bedrooms.

Once again, sleep and I weren’t on speaking terms. My brain was too busy playing in the land of nightmares.

I kept thinking of the woods surrounding the house. I’d hear a branch scrape the window and leap up, certain it was a bat and, of course, then start thinking of zombie bats, trapped in their crushed bodies….

After a Disneyfied dream of prancing through the forest, leading a singing trail of undead critters, I bolted awake, sweating, and decided it was time to give up the ghost…so to speak. I got out of bed and checked the clock. It was almost five, meaning Simon had been right about Derek not letting us take a turn. I got up, grabbed a coat from the front closet, and headed for the kitchen.

“Chloe,” Derek’s growl vibrated from the forest long before I could see him. “I told Simon I want you guys to sleep—”

He stopped as the smell of sausages drifted his way. I could imagine him sniffing the air, stomach rumbling, and I tried not to laugh.

I found him sitting on the grass in a clearing. I held out a lawn chair and a plate of sausages in buns.

“I know you won’t come in, so you might as well be comfortable. Unless you aren’t hungry…”

He took the sausages. I pulled a bottle of Coke from my pocket, then shucked the coat and passed them over.

“You should be sleeping,” he said.

“I can’t.”

“Sure you can. Just close your eyes and…” He studied me, then grunted, “What’s up?”

I looked out over the forest. The air smelled very faintly of woodsmoke, reminding me of the photo.

“I saw a picture of you and Simon. He said you guys had a camping spot out here. Is this it?”

“So we’re changing the subject?” He shook his head, set up the chair, sat, and looked at me expectantly for a moment, “Yeah. This is the spot.”

“It smells like someone else had a campfire going earlier tonight. Someone burning leaves? Or kids getting a jumpstart on summer?”

“So we’re definitely changing the subject?”

I paused, then lowered myself to the grass. “It’s just…this.” I waved at the forest. “I’m worried that I’m going to, you know, in my sleep…”

“Raise another corpse?”

I nodded.

“That’s why you couldn’t sleep last night, isn’t it? I thought about that later, on the bus. You were afraid she was buried out there—the girl you saw get killed.”

I nodded. “I was worried that if I drifted off, I’d keep thinking about her, about summoning her, like with the homeless guy. I can’t control my dreams. And I figured there was a good chance she
was
buried out there, never found.”

“So if you did raise her, and we left her body there to be found, that wouldn’t be such a bad thing, would it?”

“Maybe…if I knew I could safely raise her and release her quickly. But what if I…What if she didn’t dig her way out and I never realized I’d raised her and…”

I turned to look into the forest again.

“I’ll get you a chair, too,” he said.

I protested that I wasn’t staying, but he just kept going. When he returned, he came around the other way.

“I circled the house,” he said. “If there was a body on the property, I would have smelled it. The wind’s good tonight. You’re safe.”

“It’s not…it’s not just people I’m worried about.”

I finally told him about raising the bats in the warehouse.

“I didn’t summon them,” I said. “I didn’t even know I could do that with animals, that they had a soul, ghost, spirit, whatever. If I go to sleep and dream of any kind of summoning, there’s got to be a dead animal somewhere nearby. I could raise it and never know. I’d just walk away and leave it trapped in its corpse for—” I took a deep breath. “Okay, I’m freaking out, I know.”

“You’ve got a reason to.”

“It’s not like I’d do it intentionally, and maybe that should make a difference but…”

“It’s still not something you want to do.”

I nodded.

He took a gulp of the Coke, then capped it, stuck it into his pocket, and stood. “Let’s go.”

“Where?”

“I’ll hear anyone who comes near the property. So there’s no need to sit here doing nothing. We might as well hunt up some dead animals for you.”

I scowled. “That’s not funny.”

“I’m not being funny, Chloe. You’re worried because you don’t understand why it’s happening and how it works and how to stop it. We can experiment and get some answers. It’s not like either of us has anything better to do for the next couple of hours.”

D
EREK CROUCHED BESIDE A flat, matted creature that had once scampered through the forest and now looked like it had been run over with a steamroller.

I tapped it with my toe. “I was thinking of something with more…”

“Remaining body parts?” he said.

“With more recognizable features, so I’ll know what I’m summoning. But, yes, more remaining body parts would help, too.”

“That was a mole. I think there’s a rabbit over there somewhere.”

“You can smell everything, can’t you? That’s cool.”

He looked at me, brows lifted. “Being able to find decomposing animals is cool?”

“Well, it’s a…unique talent.”

“One that will get me far in life.”

“Hey, someone has to find and clear away the road kill. I bet it pays well.”

“Not well enough.”

He stood and inhaled, then walked a few more feet, stooped, and prodded a chunk of rabbit fur.

“I’m definitely thinking something with more body parts,” I said. “Like a head.”

He gave a snort of a laugh. “It’s probably around here somewhere, but I suppose you want the parts
attached
, too.” He paused. “I wonder what would happen if—”

“Keep wondering, because that’s one experiment I’m not conducting.”

“We’ll find something.”

He walked a few more feet, then stopped again, shoulders going rigid as he surveyed the forest.

I moved closer and whispered, “Derek?”

Another slow scan of the woods, then he shook his head and resumed walking.

“What was it?” I asked.

“Voices, but they’re far off. Probably whoever had that campfire.”

Despite the dismissal, he slowed every few steps to listen.

“Are you sure it’s okay?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“Should I be quiet?”

“We’re fine.”

After another few strides, I cleared my throat. “About the other night. When I said I didn’t know that having a dead body around was a problem. Well, obviously, it happened after the bat thing so…”

I waited for him to fill in the blank, but he kept walking.

“I knew it was a problem,” I went on. “I knew I should say so. I just didn’t want to…overreact, I guess. When I raised that man, I wanted to admit it, about the bats, but…”

“You didn’t need me telling you you’d done something stupid when you already knew it.” He pulled back a low branch for us. “Yeah, you need to be more careful. We all do. But you don’t need me making it worse by getting on your case. I know that.”

He looked at me for a moment, then his nostrils flared and his face lifted to catch the breeze. He waved for us to turn left. “And about me not figuring out I was ready to start Changing? I lied. With the itching and the fever and the muscle spasms, I knew that’s what it had to mean. I just…Same as you, I didn’t want to overreact and freak out Simon. I figured I could handle it.”

“We all need to be careful. Especially now, knowing what they did, the…”

I trailed off, feeling the now familiar bubble of rising panic, that part of me that couldn’t stop reading those words.
Genetic modification. Uncontrollable powers.
How bad it would get, how far it would go, how—?

“Chloe?”

I bumped into his arm and saw that he’d stopped, and was looking down at me.

“We’ll figure it out,” he said, his voice soft. “We’ll handle it.”

I glanced away. I was shaking so hard my teeth chattered. Derek put his fingers on my chin and turned me to face him again.

“It’s okay,” he said.

He looked down at me, fingers still on my chin, face over mine. Then he let his hand fall and turned away with a gruff, “There’s something over here.”

It took me a moment to follow. When I did, I found him crouched beside a dead bird.

“Is this better?” he asked.

I bent. The corpse looked so normal that it seemed to be only sleeping. My conscience could live with temporarily returning the spirit to this body. I started to kneel, then leaped up.

“It’s not dead.”

“Sure it is.” He nudged it with his toe.

“No, it’s mov—” A maggot crawled from under the bird’s wing and I stumbled back. “Could we get one without hitchhikers?”

Derek shook his head. “Either it’s going to be like this, with maggots, or too decomposed for maggots.” He bent to peer at it. “They’re first stage blowfly larvae, meaning the bird hasn’t been dead more than—” His cheeks flushed and his voice lowered another octave. “And that’s more than you need to know, isn’t it?”

“Right, you did a science fair project on this, didn’t you?” When he looked up sharply, I said, “Simon told me about it when I was checking out that corpse in the abandoned building. He said not to mention it to you, though, because you only came in second.”

He grunted. “Yeah. I’m not saying mine was the best, but it was better than the winner’s, some eco-fuel crap.” He paused. “That’s not what I meant. There’s nothing wrong with stuff like that, but the kid used junk science. Got the environmental vote. I won the people’s choice award, though.”

“Because, apparently, people are more interested in checking out maggoty dead things than saving the environment.”

A short laugh. “Guess so.”

“Back to this particular maggoty dead thing…I guess I should get to work, trying to make it
un
dead.”

I knelt beside it.

“We’ll start with—” Derek began.

He stopped when I opened my eyes.

“Shut up, right?” he said. “I was going to make some suggestions for a, uh, testing regimen, but I guess you can do that.”

“Having only the faintest clue what a testing regimen is, I’ll save myself the embarrassment and graciously turn that part over to you. When it comes to the summoning, though…”

“Shut up and let you work.” He sat cross-legged. “You said with the bats, you were summoning a ghost you couldn’t see. So it was kind of a general summoning. You should start by doing a specific one. That’ll tell us whether you still raise a nearby animal if you’re trying to raise a specific person.”

“Got it. I’ll try Liz.”

I figured if we were being all scientific about this, I should use some kind of control measures. I’d start with the lowest “power setting”—just mentally saying “Hey, Liz, are you there?” I did that, then checked the bird. No response.

I pictured Liz and called again. Nothing. I imagined pulling Liz through. Nothing. I tried harder, still clearly focusing on her image. I kept checking the bird and kept looking—hoping—for any sign of Liz herself.

“How hard should I try?” I asked.

“As hard as you can.”

I thought of what the demi-demon had said about raising zombies in a cemetery two miles away. I was sure she’d been exaggerating. And yet…

“Try as hard as you’re comfortable with,” Derek said when I hesitated. “We can always do more another time.”

I ramped it up a little. Then a little more. I was closing my eyes after checking the bird again when Derek said, “Stop.”

My eyes flew open. The bird’s wing was twitching. I stood and moved toward it.

“It could just be the maggots,” he said. “Hold on.”

He got up, took a branch and was reaching it toward the bird when his chin shot up. His eyes narrowed, and his nostrils flared.

“Der—?”

A distant crack cut me off. He lunged and hit me in a football tackle. I toppled over. Something stung my upper arm right above the bandages, then whizzed past as we dropped. It hit the ground behind us with a
thwack
and a geyser of dirt. Derek quickly lifted off me, but stayed over me, like a shield…or more likely making sure I didn’t jump up. He glanced over his shoulder.

“You okay?” he asked. As he turned to me, his nostrils flared again. “You’re hurt.”

He plucked my sleeve. There was a hole clear through a fold in it.

“I think they shot a dart,” I said. “It grazed me. It landed over—”

He’d already found the spot. What he dug out, though, wasn’t a tranquilizer dart.