Death's Awakening (22 page)

Parrish backed away,
turning her head. She didn’t want to look anymore.

Noah put a hand on her
shoulder, but she pulled away. She leaned against the top of a desk,
breathing in and out. Her ears felt like they were filled with cotton
and she struggled to straighten her vision. She should really try to
keep it together for Noah’s sake. This was his dad. He deserved
better. But she couldn’t control her reaction. Her stomach
churned and the room began to spin.

“You said you
wanted to know,” Noah said.

She nodded, but she was
afraid to speak. Afraid her voice would crack or grow hysterical.

She glanced over at
Noah’s father again, not wanting to believe it was real.

Noah leaned patiently
against the edge of a desk, giving her time to take it all in. His
head hung low and he picked at a frayed spot on his jeans.

God, how hard must this
be for him? What if she’d had to see her mother raise up from
the dead and turn into one of these snarling, hungry animals?

“How long has
he...you know...been like this?”

“Since the day
before you moved in,” Noah said. “He’d been sick
for a few days and then his heart just stopped beating. An hour
later, his eyes opened again. I got lucky and was able to trap him
inside the room.”

“Does he still
know who you are?” She had so many questions, she wasn’t
sure what order to ask them in. She was anxious to know everything
Noah knew, but she kept it to one question at a time. She wanted to
give him a chance to explain. It was hard to believe he’d been
carrying this on his shoulders this whole time.

“I don’t
know,” he said. He shook his head. “I don’t think
so.”

His voice trailed off
and Parrish searched his face.

“Shit. I’m
so sorry. I didn’t know.”

Noah shrugged, then
looked over at his father, pain written across his features.

Parrish looked down at
her hands. They were shaking.

“So, what do we
do now?” Her voice cracked.

Noah didn’t
answer her, and the question hung in the air between them.

“We need to talk
about the evacuation order,” she said finally. “I
completely understand if you don’t want to leave your dad here.
I have no idea what’s going on with Karmen’s family at
this point or if she’s hoping to find them, but my sister might
still be alive in New York. I had planned to go up there and try to
get here, but now—”

“Come on,”
he said, nodding toward the stairs. “Let’s go wake Karmen
up and talk this through.”

She followed him up the
stairs, chancing one last look at the zombie behind the glass.

Karmen
scrambled backward, knocking over the lamp on the end table.

Her
eyes opened wide, remembering the image of her brother’s
decomposing face.

“Hey,
it’s okay,” Noah said. “You’re safe. We’re
at my house. Everything is okay.”

Karmen
looked around, then rubbed her eyes. Her pulse raced, but as she
focused in on Noah and Parrish, she realized where she was and
started to calm down. Todd wasn’t here. She pushed the blanket
from her legs and studied her skin, searching for bite marks.

She
sighed with relief and relaxed back into the cushions on the couch.
She was okay.

Then
she moaned. Crap. What happened to all her stuff?

“What
happened? Did you grab my clothes and things from my house?”

Noah
sat on the coffee table and shook his head. “No, sorry,”
he said. “When I found you, you were passed out cold and there
were muddy footprints all over the carpet. Did you see any rotters
over there?”

Karmen
swallowed. She didn’t want to talk about it. She didn’t
want to tell him about Todd. She felt stupid enough as it was for
even going over there alone.

“No,”
she lied. “I can’t believe you came all the way over
there and didn’t grab any of my bags.”

She
stood up and slammed her hands against her legs. This seriously
sucked.

“Can
we go back?”

“No
way,” Parrish said. “Not today, anyway. It’s going
to be dark soon.”

“You
never should have gone over there by yourself in the first place,”
Noah said. “What were you thinking?”

Karmen
rolled her eyes. “I was thinking I was tired of wearing the
same clothes for a week straight.”

Parrish,
at least, had been wearing layers. She had a skirt, a t-shirt, socks,
a vest, and a tank top.

“There’s
something else we need to talk about first,” Noah said. “Come
over here and sit down, please.”

Karmen
crossed her arms in front of her chest and sat back down on the
couch. She hoped she wasn’t about to get another lecture from
them about staying inside. She wasn’t going to ever go out on
her own again. They could count on it.

Parrish
handed her a sheet of paper and Karmen read it, her eyes growing
wider with every line.

Her
face broke out in a huge smile and she jumped up on the couch,
cheering. “I told you someone would come for us,” she
said. “Yes!”

She
shook her butt and danced, but then looked down and realized the two
worry-warts were sitting there looking all depressed.

“What?”
she asked. “You can’t seriously be upset about this.
After everything else we’ve been through, this is good news
folks. The government is still around. We’re being rescued.
What’s not to love?”

“It’s not
that simple,” Parrish said. “If we go to the safe zone,
we’re giving them complete control.”

“So?” Geez,
that girl could find the negative in any situation.

“So, we won’t
be allowed to leave, no matter what it’s like there,” she
said. “They could turn it into a slave camp and we wouldn’t
be able to protest.”

“A slave camp?
Are you being serious right now? Why would they do that?”
Karmen asked.

Parrish shrugged. “I’m
not saying that’s the best example or that they’re going
to do that to us, I’m just trying to make the point that they
will own us.”

“They’ll
also take care of us,” Karmen said. “Food. Water. Safety
in numbers.”

“My main worry is
that they said no weapons,” Noah said. “What will we do
if the camp we’re in gets overrun or something? We’ll be
sitting ducks without any kind of weapon.”

He had a point, but
Karmen thought both of them were worrying too much. “The
soldiers will have weapons,” Karmen said. “We won’t
have to take care of ourselves or kill the zombies. They’ll do
it for us.”

The room grew silent
and Karmen let out a long sigh.

“Are we debating
whether or not we’re going? Or just talking through how we feel
about it?” she asked. “Because I’m going. With or
without you guys.”

No one said anything,
but Parrish and Noah exchanged another look.

Karmen was tired of
their meaningful looks. She felt left out and she hated it. She
wondered if any of their other friends would be at the camp. She was
dying to know if Kate was okay. And Melinda. Maybe they would be
there.

But were Noah and
Parrish really thinking it was a bad idea?

She stared down at the
evacuation notice.

They had to go. “This
is our chance at some kind of normal life,” she said, laying
back against the couch.

“Life isn’t
ever going to be normal again,” Parrish said.

But Karmen still wasn’t
ready to believe that.

He
was having another one of those very real dreams.

This
time there was some kind of camp. A military unit of some kind.
Tanks. Hummers. Jeeps. Even a Bradley. In the distance, he could hear
jets flying overhead.

There
was a long line of people waiting at a check-point. Doctors examined
each person, then either admitted them or sent them away. Crash
wasn’t sure, but it looked like some kind of quarantine
procedure.

A
disturbance near the back of the line made everyone scatter. Z’s.
Zombies. Dozens of them. No, hundreds. They came marching through,
drawn to the smell of human flesh.

The
soldiers did what they could to contain the threat, but there were
just too many of them.

The
camp was overrun in less than an hour. Bodies littered the floor of
the parking lot.

That’s
when the three of them arrived. In his dream, Crash could see them as
clear as if they were standing right in front of him.

A
beautiful blonde with legs for days. A tall guy carrying a large
backpack and a shotgun. A girl, dressed very cool and punk in her
combat boots and skirt.

These
three were his purpose. The ones he’d been waiting on. The ones
he’d been preparing for all this time. Somehow, he was
connected to them. Somehow, he had to find them.

Just
before he woke up, a sign appeared in the dream. McLean Memorial
Hospital.

He
knew it. It was in one of the rich suburban areas in Virginia, west
of D.C. Crash lived in Trinidad, one of the more dangerous spots in
the nation’s capital, but it was cheap and it was home.

When
he awoke, he felt filled with purpose.

Somehow,
he was going to have to get in touch with those three.

He
got up from his small bed in the corner and woke up his computers.
Then, he started work on trying to hack in to the military’s
communications hub.

The witch studied the
purple stone.

Three of the five
symbols were connected with a small rope of light. It had been that
way from the beginning. From the first moment she’d held it in
her hand.

Overnight, though, a
fourth symbol had become connected to the other three. The Dark One
had said they would soon meet up with the fourth. The rope connecting
them was thin and dim, but it was there. Only the fifth remained
completely disconnected and alone.

The witch was running
out of time.

The Dark One would not
be pleased with her. The group would soon become four and their
powers would strengthen. Their journey toward each other had already
begun in some small way. They would be drawn to each other, even if
they didn’t know why. Circumstances would bring them closer and
they would feel a strong pull to find each other. It was simply the
way the magic worked.

When the guardians
sealed the Dark One deep inside the earth, they made a sacrifice.
Instead of going back to their own world, they would stay here. They
would live and die and be born again, over and over for eternity.
Their powers were dormant. Sealed inside of their bodies until they
were needed.

If the Dark One ever
awakened, the guardian’s powers would also begin to awaken.

By now, all five of
them would have discovered some level of new ability. They might not
recognize it for what it truly was, but soon they would begin to
piece it all together. And if the five of them ever joined up, their
memories would come back to them. Their purpose would become clear
and their powers would become strong.

She couldn’t let
that happen.

The Dark One needed
more time. More strength.

Once she was free, the
guardians wouldn’t be able to stop her. Not again. The witch’s
job was to keep the guardian’s apart until her mistress could
free herself.

As the magical seal on
this world began to break apart, the witch discovered new abilities
of her own. Just as the Dark One said she would.

The tracking the Dark
One told her about was something she’d been practicing. She had
learned to meditate and concentrate on the souls of the guardians.
First, she had learned to concentrate on their mark. The girl with
the violet eyes had her own mark on the purple Fatalis stone. An
infinity sign.

When the witch
concentrated on this symbol, the girl’s face became more clear
in her mind. Eventually, she had even learned to see the girl’s
body. Her surroundings. And most importantly, her dreams.

Soon, she would be
strong enough to connect with all five of the guardians this way. And
this is how she would find them.

This is how she would
defeat them.

They needed blankets
and warm clothing.

If they were going to
try to pack up everything they might need over the next few months,
Parrish knew they had to be thinking about what would happen once
winter hit.

Especially her since
she might be on foot and heading north soon.

It was possible she
could look for things on the way, but it would be better to at least
have a few sweatshirts or jackets packed away just in case. All of
her winter clothes were packed away in the attic. Even if they had
time to go over to her house so she could grab a few of her
belongings, it would take too long to search the attic for the right
boxes.

Maybe Noah had some
things they could use instead.

Parrish had been
working on the packing list alone in her room while the others slept,
but she ventured into the hallway just to see if Noah was still
awake.

A sliver of light shone
out from underneath his door, so she took a chance a knocked lightly.

Noah answered right
away. He was dressed in loose pajama pants and a black sleeveless
shirt that showed off the muscles in his arms.

“Hey,” he
said. “What’s up?”

“Do you have any
sweatshirts or extra blankets that might pack up easily?” she
asked. She looked past him and saw an open journal on his desk. She
didn’t realize he’d been keeping a journal. “I hope
I’m not interrupting.”

He shook his head.
“It’s no problem,” he said. “I think I might
have a few things that would work. You want to come in?”

Her heart beat a little
faster as she passed through the door to Noah’s bedroom. Being
invited in to his private space felt so intimate.

Noah’s room was
messier than she expected. It was probably exactly like a typical
teenage guy’s room, but for some reason, with the way Noah’s
father was always so strict, she just expected every inch of their
house to be immaculate. Of course, Noah’s father was behind a
glass wall in the basement—hardly in a position to yell at his
son about having a messy bedroom.