Death Whispers (Death Series, Book 1) (38 page)

That was the $64,000,000 question.

John studied it. “Hold on!” He leapt up and
ran out of the room. In the distance I heard voices.

“What's he doing?” I asked Jonesy.

“I don't know,” he shrugged.

John rushed back in with a funny looking thing
with a black plastic stem and a round piece of glass on the top.

“What's that?”

“It's my mom's magnifying glass,” Jonesy said.

“This will do the trick!” John said.

We all bent forward again, the high resolution in
the reader giving a sharper image as the convex shaped glass flowed
over the top, expanding and defining.

“Hell yeah!” Jonesy punched air.

“Jonesy! Language!” Helen yelled a reprimand.

“Sorry mom!” Jonesy yelled back.

Jonesy repeated quietly, “Hell yeah!”

John and I smiled.

“Okay, so the kid is holding up part of the car?
So what, it's a comic,” I said.

“That's where you're wrong,” John replied with
gravity.

I looked a question at him.

“You remember Alex?” John asked.

“The bad piano player?”

“Yeah,” he waved that opinion away
impatiently. “He told me that there were hidden messages in the
comics. That if we looked closely, we could find things in the
images, the artwork, that when strung together means something.

“Are you shitting me?”

“No, would I?” John asked.

We both looked at Jonesy.

“What?” he asked, oblivious.

We shook our heads. John wouldn’t make it up,
too weird.

“Alright, so what does it mean?” I asked.

“Well, that's what we've been trying to decipher
with just this months' worth of comics.”

“
What
does Alex
say
it means?”

“He
thinks there are allies of the paranormals that have been shut down
by the government and there's subtle messages in the comics that talk
about what is going on, what they're doing. Maybe even where they
might be located.”

“And... Alex got this all from, what? He pulled
it out of his ass?” Jonesy asked.

I
had a visual of Alex, who was such a nerd it hurt me to look at him,
but he was truly smart. Maybe there was something to this.

Jonesy turned off his DR. “That's for when we
have more time. I have a plan.”

Oh joy.

John asked, “What now? I thought we were going
to talk about the comic messages?”

“Later. Besides, you've already agreed to this,”
Jonesy said.

“What?” I asked, impatient.

“Let's figure out the hideaway. While there's no
chicks around to ruin it,” Jonesy answered.

“Jade wouldn't ruin it,” I defended.

“
She
wouldn't
mean
to but, she still distracts you. She's like the 'shiny thing'. She
moves and you follow.”

I really couldn't argue with that. I looked at
John for support.

John just shook his head. “He's right Caleb,
you're kinda gone on her.”

“I'm here tonight though, aren't I?” I asked,
indignant.

“Yeah, but we're not getting together as much as
we were. It's okay, I'm just sayin'.”

“Okay. I want to find a place to have a safe
zone. Somewhere we can go if the government gets wind of me,” I
said.

“
That's
what I'm talkin' about, Caleb,” Jonesy said like,
duh.

I still felt uncomfortable doing the zombie slave
labor.

“Come on Caleb, we need them,” Jonesy said,
seeing my face.

“Yeah, I have been thinking of a way for us to
use the zombies and get them back without being noticed,” John
said.

I held up my hand. “Let's just wait and see if
we even need to use them. Maybe we'll find a really cool place in the
old dump and it will be perfect, without...”

“Improvements,” John supplied.

“Right.”

“Let's go tonight, right now,” Jonesy said.

“I gotta have some food first,” John said.

Right on cue, my stomach did a huge rumble.

“That's a sign,” Jonesy said.

We walked out to the kitchen and plopped down in
front of a huge thing that my parents called a breakfast bar. The Js
and I pulled out the stools. Jonesy's mom poured us out three pops,
Big Red. Helen believed sugar was a food group, that made me happy on
a deep level.

She put a plate in front of each of us with four
slices. My mom's pizza was demolished during round one. Jonesy and I
were okay after that but John had to have two more. Helen said she
still had a whole pizza left.

“I don't wanna walk, Caleb,” Jonesy said
through a mound of food crammed into one side of his mouth.

“Listen, mister, don't talk with your mouth
full,” Helen said.

“Sorry, mom,” Jonesy said, and smiled, the
pizza guts showing through his teeth. Helen shook her head and
started a load of dishes.

“Why not?” I asked.

“Because, I think it will be fun to just watch
you ride on that old bike of yours, I need a laugh.”

John smiled.

Helen said, “Jonesy, that is a perfectly
adequate bike.”

“Mom, have you looked at it? Really looked at
it? It's pathetic. It's a one-speed.”

“Those are classic instruments for the
development of large motor skills,” she elaborated.

“Huh?” Jonesy asked.

“Mrs. Jones is talking about your butt,” John
said.

It was Helen's turn to grin.

“Let me explain. There are no gears, right?”

“Right,” Jonesy agreed.

“So,
it forces you to use the booty gear.”

“Precisely, John, and I thank you for
clarifying,” Helen replied.

“You're just not gonna admit that it's not as
cool as my Raleigh Scout, mom,” Jonesy stated.

“Not on your life, big-for-your-britches.”

John and I barked out an appreciative laugh. The
DNA train wasn't far from the track with his smart-ass behavior.

Jonesy glowered at his mom but she didn't even
flinch; tough-as-nails, loved it.

We grabbed our bikes, my tires the monsters of the
group and were on our way. The old, abandoned dump was really close
to Scenic Hill Cemetery so we parked our bikes there and walked over.
It wouldn't be good for some observant adult to see a bunch of kids'
bikes loitering in front of a dump.

We
looked up at the sign, “Kent Refuse, Authorized Personnel Only,
Trespassing Prohibited, Hours of Operation: Mon-Fri: 10:00-4:00.
Then, over the top of that was the haphazard lettering,
Closed.
Our gaze traveled to the top of the chain link fence where barbed
wire swirled lazily in a spiral. That would take some doing.

I turned to John. “What do ya think...”

He pulled out two pair of gloves.

Jonesy's eyebrows shot up. “Great! Good
thinking,Terran!”

John, always prepared.

“You first,” I said to Jonesy.

Jonesy grunted, threw on the gloves and climbed.
Fine muscles bunched and moved in his forearms as he finessed his way
up the links, John keeping an eye on the road for adults.

“Hurry,” John said.

“I am. Can it!”

Finally, Jonesy got to the top and pushing down
the barbed wire with one hand, straddled it in preparation for
swinging his leg over to the other side.

“Hey!” I yelled.

“What? Kinda busy, ya moron.”

“Why don't you stay awhile?”

“Shut up Caleb, it's your turn next,” Jonesy
said, giving a nervous look at his balls, millimeters above the
barbs.

Jonesy carefully swept his left leg over, securing
a foothold on the opposite side. He removed one glove at a time with
his teeth, throwing them one-handed over the top of the fence for
John and I.

I struggled the gloves on while Jonesy climbed
down the other side. I got them on and stood facing Jonesy. Jonesy
smiled and did an elaborate middle finger. John laughed.

“Have fun with that, Hart.”

A
knot of anxiety was like a ball in my stomach. I was gonna do this.

I
was definitely not scared of heights.

I took a deep breath and started to climb. It was
pretty easy until I was just about to the top and my arms started to
shake. Jonesy hadn't mentioned that part. Maybe it hadn't made him
tired. He was shorter, but muscular.

I used the same tramp-down-the-barbed wire
technique as Jonesy, hovering precariously over the top in complete
terror that my arm strength would give way just at that moment. But
the threat of a testicle free life kept me stable. Swinging the other
leg over the top, I hung there at the top of the other side, catching
my breath.

“Somebody needs to do some push-ups!” Jonesy
sang.

Jerk.

I climbed down and stood by Jonesy on the right
side of the fence.

“I do push-ups.”

Jonesy grunted, “Maybe do some more.”

John was still staring at the road.

“Let's get going,” Jonesy said through the
fence.

John sighed, looking one more time at the locked
gate. “Just a sec,” he said, jogging over to the gate.

“It's locked John, you're gonna have to climb,”
Jonesy called out smugly.

John stood staring at the gate, which was a huge
chain link affair with a padlock the size of my fist.

“It's got a numbered entry,” John called.

Jonesy
shrugged,
so?

“It's pre-pulse,” I explained.

“Whatever. John, just climb, you're wasting
time.”

John started to spin the numbers on the lock,
jerking it experimentally. Finally, after a minute of messing around
with it and Jonesy grumbling, it opened, like magic.

John
looked over at us and grinned triumphantly. “I guess I'll just open
the gate, and
walk
in,” he said.

Oh brother.

And he did; walking right in and right over to us.

Jonesy had his hands on his hips. “What-the-hell,
Terran? Why didn't you try that from the start?”

“I didn't think about it until it was my turn to
climb,” John tapped his head and continued, “Work smarter, not
harder.”

Nice.

“Okay, smart-ass, go close the gate so adults
don't check it out.”

John sauntered over to the gate, carefully
arranging the lock so it would appear locked.

He came back over and we started to search for the
perfect spot.

The dump was an interesting place. I was thinking
it was gonna smell trashy. There was some of that, but the acute
trash smell was long-gone. The refuse station had been closed since I
was little back when recycling became mandatory, with trash penalties
and stuff. There just weren't that many dumps in service anymore.

There was a butt-load of tires and old cars and
the appliances! It was insane!

Jonesy was thrilled with everything, touching and
opening all of it.

John and I let Jonesy explore, while we stayed on
a semi-clear path that meandered and wound through huge hills of
broken and beaten cars. Old appliances lined the “road” on either
side.

He looked inside a huge, commercial style freezer.
“Hold on a sec... I've got an idea.”

“What?” I asked.

“I think... that if these cars,” he looked up
from our vantage point of being at the base of the “hill” of
cars, “weren't compressed all the way, we may be able to make a
'doorway',” he made a large rectangular outline with his fingers of
a doorway, “using one of these old fridges, kick the back out and
find some space behind it that we can use.”

He folded his arms across his chest and let me
think it through. I looked over at the long line of appliances. Maybe
one didn't even have a back anymore? I slowly nodded.

“Good, huh?”

“Yeah, let's get the Jonester over here and lay
it on him.”

“Jonesy,” I yelled.

“What?!” came the muffled reply.

I turned to John. “Where is he?”

John shrugged.

Suddenly, a head popped out of an old car.

“Come on, stop dickin' around and get over
here.”

Jonesy shot his leg out and booted the car door
open, its protesting creak piercing the quiet with a squealing groan.

John cringed at Jonesy's subtlety.

Jonesy trotted over and rubbed a hand over his
face, covering it with grime. I looked closer. It was like grease,
great.

“You've got grease on your face now,” John
said.

“I do? Oh well, whatever. I've got soap at
home.”

I told Jonesy the plan.

“Hot damn! What are we waiting for? Let's tear
these babies open!”

We separated, searching each one. Finally, there
was an ugly pink fridge with a clear handle, that looked to have a
car emblem embedded in the handle. Weird.

John looked critically at it, circling around the
thirty percent that showed.

“Good size,” he stroked the top that he could
barely reach. It was a behemoth, bigger than some of the fancy
fridges that were in restaurants. John whistled at Jonesy and he
walked over from inspecting an avocado-colored beauty.

John slowly opened the fridge; it was deep,
probably two feet plus. A perimeter of internal rust edged the
interior all along the back. Rust-like lace spread out from the
corners in a spider web of burnt orange. Jonesy stepped forward and
tore out the two shelves that hung cattywampus inside, making them
sail like Frisbees over John's head.

“Hey! Watch it,” John said, ducking.

“Hold your shorts, Terran, you'll live.”

“Kick out the back Jonesy,” I said.

He turned his head and looked at me. “Duh.”