Wrath of Hades (3 page)

Raven slowly let out the breath she was holding. And she realized the birds were making all sorts of noises. Even though it was still cold, the cemetery felt lighter. She turned and ran away from the open grave.

As soon as she was out of the cemetery, Raven pulled her cellphone out. This time she had bars. Skimming through the contacts again, she tapped Ethan’s name. In seconds it was ringing. And it rang until finally the phone went to his voicemail. Raven frowned. She tried Pauline’s number, then Billy’s. Both times it rang until she got their voicemails.

“What’s the point of having a cellphone if no one answers when you call them?” Raven touched the screen, ending the last call without leaving a message.

It was strange how her phone started working as soon as she got out of the cemetery, but Raven dismissed the thought. She had bigger problems
. Ethan never ignored her calls.

Something wasn’t right.

The zombie attack. The birds’ weird behavior. The strange coldness. The cellphone not working in the cemetery.

Now Ethan wasn’t answering her calls.

Something was definitely wrong—weirder than normal wrong.

CHAPTER
2

Even when I was little, trouble seemed to be my middle name. Everywhere I went, there it was. There was no escaping it.

Believe me, I tried everything.

It was bad.

If I went outside, trouble was waiting in the form of the woods which I wasn’t supposed to go into. So what did I do?

You got it.

Into the woods I went as fast as I could run. I couldn’t stop myself.

I could go to the grocery store with mom and trouble would find me there. I remember walking by a huge can pyramid and the next thing I knew, I was surrounded by cans and more cans of green peas. Yeah, I hate those nasty little things, but I didn’t touch the display. I knew better, but because I was the one who walked by it…Well, you get the idea.

Once mom and I started moving around a lot, it didn’t seem to happen quite as often. But when it did, it was huge.

Space shuttle falling out of the sky huge!

                            --Raven Weir’s journal

“Walking out of the bookstore wasn’t funny. We can’t protect you if we don’t know where you’re at,” said Leslie as soon as Raven slid into the backseat of the small blue car.

“I just needed some fresh air.”

“You should have said something. We would’ve gone with you.”

“I needed some alone time to think—
you know, alone.” Raven sighed.

Bree reached over and put her hand on Raven’s arm. “We understand. Really, we do. You’ve been through a lot. But we can’t keep you safe if we don’t know where you’re at.”

“Yeah, I know. But—”

“No buts. You can’t leave without telling someone.” Leslie glanced in the rearview mirror, making eye contact with Raven.

“I’ve told you before. I’m not making any promises. If I have to ditch you to keep you safe, like it or not, that’s what I’m going to do.” Raven crossed her arms after she buckled her seatbelt. “I’m just glad you weren’t with me.”

“Why?”

“What happened?”

Raven rolled her eyes. In typical Ari and Bree fashion, the two spoke at the same time. “It was like a scene from a horror movie
, only the main characters were me and a zombie,” she said and waited for the explosion she knew was coming.

“A what?”
Ari and Bree both asked.

Their high pitched voices caused Raven to flinch. Her hands went up to her ears.
“A zombie.” Raven shrugged her shoulders. “You know, a crawl out of your grave and walk around even though you’re dead and smelly and have rotting flesh dropping off kind zombie.”

“No way.”
Bree’s mouth dropped open.

“A zombie?
You’re just joking, right?” Ari shook her head. “We were just talking about zombies. You know books with zombies as the main characters.”

“This wasn’t a book. If it was, I would have burned it.”

Leslie frowned. “I thought the news reports were just exaggerated to get more people to watch the news. You know a little Hollywood pizazz to make the news more interesting so the stations could get their ratings up.”

“I didn’t think they were real either. But tell that to Jerry
Spillman,” said Raven as she rubbed her forehead. “And they definitely don’t smell anything like roses.” She wrinkled her nose at the memory. “They smell more like three day old road kill in the middle of a Texas heat wave. Believe me, the buzzards wouldn’t want anything to do with one of them.”

A chorus of
eewws filled the car.

“And you were trying to get me to read a zombie romance?” Bree smacked Ari on the back of her head. “That’s just plain gross!”

“Hey, not funny.” Ari patted down her blonde hair.

“
Spillman. Spillman.” Leslie frowned. “The same Spillman who was killed in the boating accident?”

Raven nodded. “That’s the one.”

“Eeww! He was buried over a week ago. I heard someone say they kept the coffin closed during the whole funeral.” Ari wrinkled her nose. “If the body was bad then, it had to be worse after a whole week.”

“Believe me, it was,” said Raven with a little shudder. “Imagine the worse and then multiply it by a thousand and you still won’t come close.”
She knew she was going to have nightmares about this for a long time.

“And you were trying to push zombie stories on me?” asked Bree. She raised an eyebrow at Ari.
“That’s so not cool.”

“That’s different,” said Ari. She pretended to study her fingernails.

“How is that different? Zombies are zombies. They’re dead and smelly. Their body parts fall off too.” Bree rolled her eyes. “A romance novel with a zombie as the hero. That’s just gross!”

“Would you two give it a rest and focus? We’re not dealing with a book. The zombie problem is real. Raven was attacked by one.” Leslie put the car in gear and pulled onto the street. “Any idea why it attacked you?” she asked Raven.

Raven shook her head. “Not a clue. But it was definitely after me. It kept calling my name in this really weird raspy voice. It’s not something I want to do again. I don’t even want to go see that zombie apocalypse movie you were talking about the other day.” She shook her head. “No, thank you.”

“Did you know Jerry
Spillman?” asked Leslie.

“No. All I know
about him is what I read in online. Why would anyone play with a jet ski in the middle of winter?” Raven looked out the window. “It doesn’t sound like a smart thing to do.”

“He wasn’t the brightest light bulb in the house. I mean, you’re right. Who goes out on Pinewood Lake in winter?” Ari shook her head.

“It’s not like you can wear a swim suit. You have to have a wet suit or something.” Bree rolled her eyes. “I’ll just wait until summer to go swimming or boating. Thank you very much.”

“Would you two focus? I swear you two are becoming more airheaded by the minute.” Leslie shook her head. “Neither of you see the bigger problem.”

“Raven ditched us and was attacked by a zombie,” said Ari. “Not a fake Hollywood one or one from a romance novel, but a very real one that looked like a week old corpse and smelled even worse.”

“And it happened w
hile she was walking in the cemetery. Which by the way is not a smart thing to do,” said Bree. “Night. Day. Walking in a cemetery is never a smart thing to do by yourself.”

“And we don’t know why the zombie attacked her
or even how the body came back to life. All we do know is that it was Jerry Spillman, not someone Raven knew or in any way associated with while he was alive.” Ari wrinkled her nose.

“Was it a random attack? You know. Raven just happened to be the one walking by when it crawled out of its grave.” Bree glanced at Ari who was shaking her head. “We don’t think so. We think someone is after her
. Someone is behind the attack, pulling the strings, so to speak. But who?”

“Did we leave anything out?” asked Ari. She turned and high-fived Bree.

Leslie just shook her head and sighed.

“You’re right about one thing. It wasn’t random.” Raven looked at the palms of her hands. The knife wounds were closed, but angry-looking red lines went across both hands. “It definitely wasn’t random. It called my name and tried stabbing me with a knife.”

“Not one of the, ‘eat your brains’ types?” asked Ari.

“She just told you it was a knife wielding zombie, not one of the Hollywood ‘eat your brains’ or face varieties.”
Bree said to Ari. She turned to Leslie and stuck out her tongue. “See we get the bigger problem. You need to loosen up and have fun.”

“No, we need to worry about what’s going on, and figure out how we can stop it before Raven gets hurt. Or worse,” said Leslie, “one of us gets hurt.”

“I don’t plan on dying again. It hurts worse coming back from the dead.” Raven pulled out her phone and tried Ethan’s number again. It rang and rang until finally it rolled over to his voice mail again.

“Have you told Ethan?” asked Leslie.

“He’s not answering his phone.”

“Why not?” asked Ari.

Raven shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know. It keeps going to his voice mail.” Raven stared at the passing scenery. “Something’s wrong, and I don’t need this on top of the zombie attack.”

Bree patted Raven’s arm. “There’s a really simple explanation. And we’ll find it.” She looked at Ari and raised her eyebrows questioningly.

Ari shrugged her shoulders and shook her head. She looked at Leslie, who just frowned.

“Do you think he and the others are all right?” asked Raven. She didn’t notice the silent co
mmunication passing between the other girls in the car. “What if they’ve been attacked too?”

“They are fine.” Leslie glanced at Raven. “We’ll know for sure in a few minutes.” Leslie turned into the drive leading up to Raven’s house.

Raven frowned.

Not one vehicle was parked around the house.

“Something’s not right.” Leslie put the car into park but didn’t turn it off. “I think we should go to my house.”

“No.” Raven opened the door.

“Wait. It’s not safe.” Ari opened her door to get out too.

“Would you both stop?
” Leslie’s voice was a little sharper than normal. “Raven, you can’t go in alone. You’ve already been attacked once today.”

Raven looked at Leslie. “And if something’s in there, then you could get hurt. That’s not going to happen if I can prevent it.”

“It’s our job to protect you. Not the other way around.” Leslie stared back at Raven.

“I’m not letting you go in and get hurt. It’s not happening.
So there’s no point in talking about it.”

“Yeah, it’s possible we’ll get hurt. But we knew that when we took the oath,” said Leslie. “You need to let us do our job. We care about what happens to you.”

Ari and Bree nodded in agreement.

Raven rolled her eyes. It didn’t matter what oath they took, as far as she was concerned, they were her responsibility, not the other way around.

“We could sit here and argue about it or you can let us go and check.” Leslie raised an eyebrow.

“You’re not going alone, and I’m not staying out here. So I guess we’re all going.”

“Raven, that’s not an option,” said Leslie.

“It’s not up for debate. Either I go in alone or we all go in. But either way, I’m going in
side the house.”

“Fine!
Have it your way.” Leslie turned off the engine and got out of the car. The others followed her.

“Front door or back?” asked Bree.

“Front,” said Raven without any hesitation. Even though everything had been cleaned up and fixed, in her mind, she still saw the broken back door, the shattered dishes all over the kitchen floor, and her blood. Diane told her, the memories would eventually fade, especially when she started replacing the bad ones with good ones. But Raven knew her memories of dying on the kitchen floor would never fade. How could something like that just go away?

“Raven?
Are you okay?” asked Bree.

Raven shoved the memories aside as be
st she could. “Yeah, I’m fine. I’m just worried about Ethan and the others. It’s not like him to ignore my calls.”

Bree glanced at Leslie. She lifted her eyebrows questioningly.

Leslie didn’t say anything, just slightly shook her head.

Raven saw the exchange, but chose to ignore it. They were always exchanging information that way, so it wasn’t a big deal. Besides she had other stuff to worry about. She went up the steps and opened the front door. Leslie and the others followed.

“Ethan? Diana? Professor? Hello!” Raven called out. “Is anyone home?” She walked into the room.

The only answer was the sound of the girls’ footsteps on the hardwood floor as they spread out around the living room.

“I don’t think anyone’s here.” Bree stepped around Raven. “Hello! Any bad guys here?”

“We still have to check every room,” said Leslie. “Do you really think the bad guys are going to answer our calls? Like, yeah, it would make our lives easier. But I don’t think it’s going to happen.”

Bree and Ari blushed.

“I didn’t think of that,” said Bree. She looked around the living room. “I’ll go check the office.” She started to leave.

“Wait. Bree’s right. No one’s here. They would’ve attacked by now,” said Raven.

‘Are you sure?” asked Leslie.

Raven rolled her eyes. “I’ve been attacked enough times, haven’t I? I think that kind of makes me the expert, at least in this area.”

“We still need to check. Just to make sure no one’s here.” Leslie put her hands on her hips.

“Fine.” Raven left the room.

“Hey, where are you going?” Leslie turned and followed Raven.

“The kitchen.”

“Would you wait up?”

“You wanted to check the house to make sure no one’s here. I’m checking the kitchen, because that’s where most of the weapons are. Hello! If I was the bad guy, that’s exactly where I’d go—to the almost endless supply of shiny, sharp, pointed objects.”