Dead Awakenings (3 page)

“Whoa…easy. You don’t want to do that. Fixing a broken bone is not a fun process for us.” Aron reached out to steady her.

Us? What us? Her mind whirled.

Moonlight streamed in from a metal-covered window high on the wall.

“We’re almost there.” His voice was encouraging, his urgency to get outside palpable. They had nearly reached the door when she heard people waiting on the other side. She hadn’t been able to hear them before over the sound of her own panting.

Aron pushed open the door, and the brisk night air slapped her in the face.

“Wait!” she screamed, too late.

Two large men waited for them. The first one grabbed Aron by the shirt, pulled him through, and flung him to the ground. Aron’s messenger bag flew across the blacktop of the broken-up parking lot and skidded to a stop a few feet away. A second arm reached in and grabbed her by the waist, pinning her to the outer wall of the building quicker than she could react.

The wind knocked out of her chest. She gasped for air as the large man pinned her in place. In the cold, clear night, moisture from the side of the cement building seeped through her shirt, causing her to chill. Everything around her sharpened in focus; all her senses were on fire. She heard crickets chirping over the sound of Aron and his assailant grappling on the ground. Bright stars dotted the skyline over the shoulder of the man holding her. They twinkled and sparkled with a clarity she had never noticed before. She knew she should be frightened by the situation, but her brain fired too fast to for her to catch it all.

Aron crouched low, and the man he fought circled, trying to find a way to end their standoff. Aron’s skin prickled and snapped with little darts of energy. The sparks gave him a slightly blue glow.

A man appeared out of a large sedan. He had something in his hand. Her eyes focused easily, though he was over thirty feet away. An eight-inch-long glass tube with metal at both ends. With the cap off, the needle glistened in the moonlight. If she didn’t do something fast, that needle was going to find its way into her body—she knew it.

Her mind shot into overdrive, and she felt an urgency to get away. She twisted and churned underneath the large man’s now increasing grip. He groaned and pressed into her harder.

The man yelled over his shoulder. “Hurry up! She’s comin’ alive.” The syringe started to jog a bit faster. Pinching the man’s chest with her right hand she made him wince enough to get her left arm free. Reaching up she found the nearest exposed pieces of his skin, his face and neck. To her surprise her nails made a deeper wound than she would have thought possible. He howled in pain and struck her across the face. Her head rocked into the wall, her lip splitting open on one side. She shook her head to clear the daze, then the smell hit her. Something sweet and tangy, rich and moist. Her stomach roared.

The man smelled better than a hamburger and fries, shake and apple pie all mixed into one. When she opened her eyes, she found that her vision focused a hundred times clearer than before. She felt the crevasses in the concrete blocks pressing into her skin, heard the static of Aron’s skin. But the smell overpowered her. She locked eyes on the man who had hit her, now a few steps away, holding his neck.

Hunger overcame her, and she became blind to everything else. Blind to the syringe, blind to Aron, blind to the stars, consumed with the need for food. In one quick movement she was on him. The force of her body knocked him to the ground, her mouth latched onto his exposed neck. Biting, ripping, tearing. It was soft and tender in her mouth like a perfectly prepared steak tartar. Butter melting on warm toast. She bit harder, his screams barely pierced through the veil of hunger. The sounds stabbed her eardrums and reverberated in her head, but didn’t matter. He tried in vain to push her off of him. She was so hungry. Her body woke up from its weary slumber as sustenance flowed from her stomach to her legs, arms, fingers and toes. A feeling she had never experienced before.

Her vision lit on the man with the syringe. He was only a step away.
“Get Away!”
The man flew through the air and hit the ground hard next to his car. Her brain flooded with hunger again and she lowered her mouth to the awaiting neck. Strong hands ripped her away.

Luca pulled her close to his chest. Screaming, she kicked and struggled. The touch of his body tingled and electrified her. A look of surprise crossed his face, and he pushed her away from the physical contact. Letting his hands slack for a moment was all it took. Completely out of control and in want for more sustenance she lunged forward, grabbed his arm and ripped into his flesh. She had just torn into him when she heard Luca scream, into her head.

“Stop!”

His words were meaningless chatter. At the same time she noticed that his arm tasted different. There was no smell, no flavor, nothing—like eating tofu. One second later a blast of energy rammed her, knocking her down. She lay on the ground dazed and confused. Victor stood in the stairwell doorway, holding up the barely conscious computer kid with one arm. He had blasted her. Luca cradled his mangled forearm to his chest a foot away. Aron, who had finished the fight with his assailant, ran toward Luca. Luca stared at her silently, his eyes ablaze with fury.

The dead man she had been feeding on lay at Luca’s feet. She could smell him, the richness of him wearing off like leftovers.

“No!”

Luca stepped forward and glared at her. She growled. He narrowed his eyes, growling back. Letting go of his injured arm he crouched in the same defensive stance she had seen Aron assume.

She tried to move forward, but heard him in her head again.

“Stop it! He won’t taste the same now anyway. Don’t try.”

Her gaze drifted to the body but she didn’t move. Her body craved the dead food on the ground. She stared at the blazing orange eyes of the beautiful Luca standing between her and the dead man. Minutes passed and neither backed down; he watched her like a living statue. An owl hooted in the distance, a breeze blew past her face.

“We’ve got to get out of here, Luca,” Victor called from the driver’s side of the SUV. “More will show up when no one reports in.”

Luca nodded, but kept his eyes trained on her.

Finally Aron broke the stand-off. “I need to take care of that arm, Luca.”

She went limp, falling onto the ground. What was she? Her head buzzed, her body tingled and pulsed with an energy not her own. She stared at the stars again, trying to process everything around her. The vividness of their light dancing in the sky enthralled her. Luca could speak in her mind. Victor and Aron had some kind of electric abilities. What the hell was going on?

Victor grabbed her by the arms and pulled her over his shoulder, like a sack of potatoes, and dumped her into the large black vehicle.

The car smelled of piña colada air freshener and raw meat. The computer guy lay behind her, his coloring very blue. Peering out the window she saw the man she had killed. She hadn’t meant to, but something had taken over, a hunger she had been unable to control. An all-consuming need for food.

The front passenger door opened and Aron hopped in. The radio played hard rock music she didn’t recognize. Cool air whistled through the vents. Dashboard lights blared into the night.

Luca slid into the seat next to her, his arm now wrapped in gauze; anger radiated off of him in waves. She quickly turned to stare out of her window, but the dead man lay gaping at her. She felt trapped between the two of them.

Her hyper eyesight began to dim; the stars weren’t as bright as they had been.

“What am I?” She whispered to no one in particular.

Luca looked over at her. Victor put the SUV into gear and they pulled out onto a road as cracked and broken as the parking lot. They bumped along for several minutes when Aron finally answered her.

“You are reanimated dead human tissue. Your physical body is dead, but your spirit lives on inside. Your tissues have reanimated due to a virus of sorts.”

She didn’t understand a word he said. “Huh?”

“You died.” Luca stared ahead. “Someone brought you back.”

“I died?” She tried to comprehend the words. “I died, and someone brought me back?”

“Yes.”

“So I’m alive?”

“No.”

Not helpful.
“But how? And why?”

“That’s exactly what we want to know.” He stared ahead again.

“So I was dead, and now I am back, but not alive. I’m something else.”

“Yes.”

“Is that what you all are?”

“Yes.”

“So…what do you consider yourself then?”

Luca’s eyes met hers. “A Deader.”

Chapter Three

The SUV rolled along quickly down the dark highway. She tried not to think of what she’d done to the man on the ground or to Luca. The rhythm of the tires made her drowsy, despite everything that had happened. Her mind drifted, and her consciousness floated away in a whiff of smoke.

* * *

She sat, nervously waiting to audition for the school’s High Excellence Choir, the Nevada State Champion singing group. Tristan Atwater stood on stage singing “If I Loved You.” He would have been great, but for the fact he couldn’t sing. Didn’t matter though. Tristan was so popular that everyone cheered and hooted for him anyway. He looked around as though he were trying to spot someone, hopped down from the stage, jogged up the aisle and out the theater entrance.

She was up.

After she finished, bowing to a stunned and silent crowd, she walked out into the hallway from the auditorium. Tristan lounged on the floor bouncing a ball against the wall. His russet-colored curly hair had fallen into his eyes. Beach-tanned vacation skin, a warm golden glow beneath. She gave him a weak smile and hoisted her bag higher on her shoulder as she walked by.

“So, you think I’ll get in?” He bounced the ball in front of her, making her stop short.

She pulled her hair out of her face. “Well, maybe if they have a non-singing part.” She tried to hide a smile.

He stood staring at her for a minute and then burst out laughing. “Yeah, you’re right. But you’re fantastic. You’ll definitely get in.”

“You heard me, from out here?”

“I snuck back in to see you.”

“There’s lots of great girls in there.”

“Not to me.”

She felt herself flush and let her hair fall so he couldn’t see her go two shades deeper pink.

“Sorry, where are my manners. I haven’t even introduced myself. I’m Tristan Atwater.” He walked forward to shake her hand.

She brushed her hair aside and looked him in the eyes. “Evaine Michaels.”

“I know.” He laughed. “You’re the reason that I tried out today.”

“What?”

“It’s true. I wanted to meet you ever since I saw you last week on the track. So yesterday when I walked into English class and saw the audition sheet with your name on it, I decided to sign up. And here I am…telling you…I can’t believe I just told you all that.” He had been talking very fast, and now he blushed as he ran his fingers through his hair.

“So you went up there…in front of everyone…and sang. Just to get to meet me?”

“Yeah, I pretty much figured that if I screeched like a barn owl and you weren’t embarrassed to talk to me after that, then maybe you wouldn’t be too embarrassed to be seen in public with me on Friday night.”

She couldn’t believe this cute, popular senior was asking her out. Sure, guys had looked at her before, but no one had ever asked her out. She figured it was because she had the words “Damaged Goods” stamped on her forehead—and her chest and back and probably even on her butt.

His eyes were like emeralds shining against a golden sky. She’d been taking them in for several seconds when he cleared his throat and his words finally registered in her brain.

“Wait. Are you asking me out?”

“Only if you are going to say yes.”

She laughed. “OK. Yes to this Friday.”

“Great.” A beautiful smile spread across his face. “I’ll pick you up at your place around five thirty.”

“No!” she almost shouted. “I mean. Why don’t you pick me up here?” She could only imagine what it would be like if he came within ten miles of Phyllis’s clutches.

“Uh here…at the auditorium?” He frowned.

“Well, I figure I’ll at least get into the chorus, so I’ll be here at rehearsal that day and we won’t be done till a little after five. And you have track, don’t you?” It surprised her how easily keeping people from finding out about her mother had come back to her. She’d been hiding Phyllis for so many years that self-preservation came naturally.

“Let me give you my cell number in case something changes and you need to get a hold of me before then.” He looked at her for a minute, and a smile creased his warm face. “But you can’t change your mind. You aren’t allowed to do that. If you think you are going to then I’m not giving it to you.”

* * *

Her eyes flew open as a large pothole in the road threw her against Victor’s seat. She looked around frantically and tried to figure out where she was. A moment before she’d been talking to a tall man with broad shoulders. Now, she sat shaken, in a black vehicle bumping down a road with men she didn’t know. She’d been dreaming. The dream was important, and she tried to remember it, but the harder she tried the quicker it slipped away like water running through her open fingers. After a minute she stopped and stared out the window as they rolled down the highway. A tear slid down her cheek and she closed her eyes, listening to the soft bass of the rock music.

It didn’t take long for her mind to wander again. Slipping away into the darkness between sleep and wake. Though her mind was still empty, a ribbon of awareness now stretched out into space. Relaxing, she let her mind follow the ribbon. A voice spoke, like an inner monologue. She felt a connection to the voice. Reaching out she followed the sound like walking down a cleared dirt path in a dense forest. Someone was in pain. An arm throbbed with an unending ache. Her mind wandered into the thoughts of someone else.