Praise the Dead Read online

  “You’ll show me more today, right?” the teenage boy asked, now only about twenty yards from the dilapidated shed. Leaves and sticks crunched beneath his feet.

  “Maybe,” the girl coyly replied.

  “You promised!”

  “And you promised to bring me some Southern Comfort, but you didn’t.”

  “I brought Jack Daniels. It’s even better.”

  “But I like Southern Comfort.”

  “A promise is a promise!” the boy protested.

  “Exactly.”

  It was obvious the conversation between the two teenagers was quickly escalating into an argument, but Andrew could think of no way to use that to his advantage. Regardless, they were still heading towards the shed. He had to act fast.

  With more expertise than any actor, Andrew burst into tears and staggered out of the shed, sobbing as loud as he could, pretending to gag.

  “Help,” he croaked. “Please . . . help me!”

  The older kids stopped in their tracks, jaws hanging open. As he had suspected, it was the girl who recovered first.

  She cursed and started towards him. “What’s wrong, honey? Are you okay?”

  With his left hand, Andrew pointed over his shoulder towards the shed. “In there . . . there’s . . . dead things. Blood.” He turned his sobs into wails, appearing on the verge of hysteria. He gagged again for added effect.

  “What?” The girl reached him and crouched down. She was probably sixteen or seventeen. Long blonde hair. Quite pretty, really. Andrew wondered why she was out here, willing to trade her body for booze.

  The boy was approaching, his face a sour expression of annoyance, a brown paper bag in his hand. “What are you talking about, kid?”

  Andrew peered around the girl at him, tears streaming down his beet-red cheeks; he fell into the girl’s arms for a consoling hug.

  “It’s okay,” she said soothingly, stroking his back. “You’re safe now. Did someone hurt you?”

  Resting his chin on her shoulder, Andrew paused his sobs long enough to grin at the boy.

  Annoyance turned into confusion and the boy stopped in his tracks. “Maggie?” he said obviously uneasy with what was happening.

  With a single roar of triumph, Andrew reared back from the girl and plunged a pair of kitchen shears into her throat.

  Maggie’s eyes widened in surprise, her fingers doing a little dance above the scissors.

  Behind her, the boy dropped his paper sack and rushed forward. “Maggie!”

  Having used this method on animals a dozen times, Andrew yanked the shears from the girl’s throat and stepped back quickly, out of range of the spray of blood.

  As he watched the girl topple over onto her side, her dark blood soaking into the leaves and pine needles beneath her, he felt a twinge of excitement unlike anything he’d ever experienced before. His whole body seemed to tingle and twitch with electricity. The closer the girl came to death, the closer life came to Andrew.

  Kneeling beside her, the boy looked up at Andrew, his face the perfect picture of shock, drained of all color except for the vibrant blue of his eyes. “What did you do?” he asked. His tone was conversational and it increased Andrew’s excitement.

  “Don’t worry,” Andrew told him. “I have the power of resurrection.”

  Chapter Six

  As Andrew spoke the truth to a teenager, six thousand miles away, a crow told Lindy, “It has begun.”

  The sky—dark, low and oppressive—made the young girl nervous as she walked briskly beneath it, taking a shortcut home from school. She hated gray days, the threat of rain. It seemed the birds grew more active just before a storm. Perhaps it was that they knew the weather was about to change, knew they would have to go into hiding again soon to wherever it was birds hid when it rained.

  The fact they would leave her alone during the actual storm was of little consolation to Lindy.

  But today was different somehow.

  Today, only a single fat, black crow matched her pace, hopping along the sidewalk beside her, or sometimes fluttering up to perch on a telephone wire and caw down at her good and loud.

  Urgently.

  “Nothing I can do about it,” Lindy muttered, moving her lips as little as possible. “I’m just a kid.”

  Even to the average listener, the crow’s response would have sounded like an angry protest.

  For an instant, Lindy was tempted to lash out at the bird, kick it away from her, teach it a lesson it would hopefully carry back to all the other birds and end this nonsense once and for all.

  She felt her face flushed with shame. She knew she could never harm another living creature. Doing so would be wrong, with the one exception being in self-defense. All she could do was grit her teeth and march on towards home, trying to block out the sounds of the crow.

  But, of course, that was impossible. If it had been possible, Lindy would have figured out how to do it long ago.

  Eyes trained on her feet, she barely registered the man seated on the bus stop bench.

  Until he spoke.

  “All throughout history, children have been warriors.”

  Lindy looked up fast, swallowing nervously. She almost replied to the man, but thought better of it. He was a stranger. She hurried by, increasing her pace.

  Much to her dismay, she sensed the man rise from the bench and fall into step behind her.

  “Children can be fierce and fearless, which is what you’ll need to be. Very soon now.”

  Lindy broke into a run, anxiously glancing around for another adult, anyone who might help her get away from this odd, frightening man.

  Suddenly, the crow took flight, as though it too were afraid of the stranger.

  “You can’t escape your destiny,” the man called after her. “I’ve been told, just as you have. I’ve been waiting for you.”

  The world around her seemed to twirl and twist in on itself. She suddenly became weak and dizzy and she knew she was going to fall long before she actually did.

  The pavement seemed to scream and rush up towards her face. But it wasn’t the pavement screaming at all. The scream came from her own throat as her feet tangled and she went down hard and fast, with barely enough time to break her fall with her hands.

  Wincing in pain, Lindy blinked back tears as a calloused hand was offered. She raised her gaze to see the man bending over her.

  “Let me help you,” the stranger said, his voice grave.

  “No!” she spat. “Get away or I’ll scream.”

  “It’s your destiny to lead,” and he said, oblivious to her threat. “And mine to follow.”

  Lindy scrambled to her feet, not daring to take her eyes off the man to examine her scraped hands. “You’re crazy,” she told him. “Leave me alone.”

  “I wish I was crazy,” he said, slightly smiling as the first raindrops began to pelt them both.

  He was probably in his forties; very old as far as Lindy was concerned. He had a kind face and a gentle smile, but she was smart enough to know that most predators of children practiced looking that way. It was easier to lure their prey if they looked like a kindly old uncle.

  “I used to think I was crazy,” he continued. “You probably think you are, too.”

  Determined not to let her fear show, she shot him the dirtiest look she could muster and began walking again. Not running this time. That would be a dead giveaway. Moving quickly, but still just walking, her eyes scanning back and forth for someone—anyone—who she could call to and hopefully spook this weirdo into flight. But the neighborhood was deserted, most adults still at their day jobs and the kids probably inside playing video games or surfing the Net or who knew what else.

  She would have to deal with this whacko on her own.

  “My name is Jackson,” he said, strolling alongside her as if they were best friends. “Jackson Reynolds.”

  “I don’t care,” she told him.

  For the first time in her life, she was wishing a bird would come
to her. Maybe give her a clue as to how to get away from this man.

  It suddenly occurred to her maybe heading directly home would be a mistake because then this Jackson man—if that was really his name—would know where she lived. He might even want to hurt not only her but her mother as well. Lindy couldn’t allow that to happen, but she had nowhere else to go. Her mind raced.

  “Oh, I know you don’t care,” Jackson said. “You think I’m a stranger now and you’re not supposed to talk to strangers. And that’s true. You should never, ever talk to strangers. But I’m not a stranger. Not really. Like I said before, you and I are destined to fight side by side.”

  Lindy gave the man a sharp look. All this talk of destiny was too much like the things the birds were always telling her. Without slowing her stride, she studied the man’s features. Could he be one of those animal-people that she read about in fantasy novels? There was a word for them . . . what was it? Canids? No, that was the dog-people. The bird-people were called . . . what? Corvids? That was it.

  “You’re bleeding,” Jackson said, interrupting her train of thought. He gestured to her hands. “Scraped yourself up pretty good.”

  She glanced down to see the heels of her hands were red and raw, dribbling blood down her wrists to splat on the sidewalk and mingle with the rainwater. She was surprised that she hadn’t noticed the blood.

  “You’re gonna need to patch those up,” he added.

  Lindy dropped her hands and shrugged indifferently, pretending to be braver than she felt. “Beats puking,” she said.

  Jackson surprised her by laughing. “That it does.”

  His laughter emboldened her. “Are you stalking me?”

  As if she’d waved a magic wand in front of his face, Jackson grew serious again. “No.”

  “Then what do you want? Are you a pervert?”

  “No,” he balked. “I told you already . . . Lindy.”

  Suddenly chilled, Lindy shivered. “How do you know my name?”

  Jackson sighed, as if reluctant to answer. Finally, he said, “I’ve been dreaming about you for years.”

  That cinched it.

  “Liar!” she shouted. “You are a stalker! I knew it!”

  “No, it’s true . . . I—”

  But Lindy didn’t give him another moment and took off down the street. This time, the strange man didn’t follow her.

  Chapter Seven

  The teenage boy back pedaled, his eyes darting between Andrew and Maggie.

  Dead Maggie.

  “I can do it,” Andrew told him. “I promise. Just watch.”

  But the teenager didn’t want to watch. All he wanted was to get out of the woods, away from the little boy with the blond hair and the bloody scissors in his hand. His jaw worked as if he wanted to say something, but no words came out.

  “You can’t go,” Andrew persisted. “I’ve never done a person. It might take longer.”

  He took a step towards the boy. Andrew could tell the kid was about to flee and he didn’t want that. He wanted to share his secret, at long last. He hadn’t realized how much it had been killing him to keep his talent to himself.

  “Wait,” he said. “If you would just wait, I could show you.”

  But it wasn’t meant to be.

  The teenager spun and would have run had he not stepped on his dropped bottle in the paper bag and lost his footing. He tumbled to the ground with a scream and that was all the opportunity Andrew needed.

  The younger boy pounced on the older boy with the agility and speed of a hungry panther, leaping over the dead girl and landing on his prey, his weapon already extended.

  “I can save you!” Andrew shouted as he sank the shears into the teenager’s back. “You just have to let me!”

  Beneath him, the teenager wailed in agony, writhing beneath Andrew, attempting to fling him off his back.

  Andrew held strong, withdrew the shears and stabbed again.

  And again.

  And again, until the teenager stopped moving, stopped struggling.

  Panting, long bangs hanging in his eyes, Andrew told the teenager, “Don’t worry. I can fix this. I have a . . .” He paused, trying to remember the exact phrase. He smiled when it came to him. “A divine purpose.”

  Yanking the shears out the last time took a lot of strength. Andrew had to stand on the kid’s back and pull up with all his might. He suspected maybe the blades were stuck in a bone, but after a few times of wrenching the tool back and forth, it finally came loose with a wet, slipping sound that pleased him.

  When he was done, he stepped off the teenager’s back and looked between what he already thought of as his two latest experiments.

  Which one first?

  Andrew frowned. He’d never had this particular conundrum before.

  After a while, he decided on the boy. He figured it was the boy who he should prove his talents to first. The girl hadn’t known anything, had been taken completely by surprise. He could explain everything to her later.

  Yes, the boy, then.

  Andrew kneeled by the body, debated whether or not he should roll it over onto its back, then decided against it. That would take too much effort and he needed to not only concentrate but hurry as well. Daylight was wasting, as Walter was fond of saying, not to mention he was hungry. He wondered what his mother was fixing for dinner and hoped that it was indeed her who would be cooking that evening. She and Walter were supposed to take turns cooking, but Walter’s idea of fixing dinner was coming home with hot wings and Andrew didn’t like hot wings.

  He cleared his throat and cracked his knuckles the way he’d seen a magician on television do it. He rolled his shoulders, shook out his arms, stretched his neck.

  None of this was necessary, but Andrew knew he needed to work on his showmanship. Soon, he would probably be doing this for money and he had to make it look good. He wanted to be a millionaire and you had to make it look good to be a millionaire.

  Finally, he ended the performance with a heavy sigh and closed his eyes, hanging his special hands straight out over the body for a few seconds before resting them on the teenager’s head.

  He deepened his breathing and relaxed, putting everything else out of his mind.

  Barely two minutes later, he felt the body twitch beneath his palms.

  Chapter Eight

  For the time being at least, the birds were gone.

  Though the rain had already stopped, the afternoon had grown blustery; the trees in the backyard whipped back and forth, their leaves rattling and dancing.

  Lindy arrived home from school and went straight up to her room, avoiding her mother. She didn’t want to have to tell her about Jackson Reynolds and was afraid her mom would see it on her face: she was scared.

  Not so much of the man himself, but of the things he’d said. He had known her name, which probably meant he already knew where she lived.

  So much for keeping her mom safe from a lunatic.

  Wondering if she could balance the scales a bit, Lindy sat at her desk and switched on her computer. When it was ready, she hit the Net and did a search for Jackson Reynolds, ultimately finding him due to his photographs.

  What she found would have been disturbing to an adult.

  According to the articles she discovered and their accompanying pics, Jackson was originally from Michigan and had suffered a tragedy fifteen years prior, before Lindy had even been born.

  On a summer evening, he’d come home from his job as a landscaper to find his wife and daughter butchered on the living room floor, stabbed multiple times in addition to having their throats slashed.

  There had also been signs of sexual assault against both of them.

  His daughter had been twelve at the time of her death.

  Jackson, though clearly distraught, had been arrested immediately and was held on charges of suspicion until forensics had cleared him. The DNA found on the bodies didn’t match his, though it was still suspected he had something to do with the murders becau
se he’d been working alone for most of that day. In the upscale neighborhood where he’d been, not a single person could be found who would testify to seeing him.

  Lindy chewed her lower lip as she read. None of this was good news and she almost regretted doing the search in the first place.

  It was almost too much for her young mind to handle.

  She studied the black and white photo of Jackson in handcuffs. Though the man was a good deal younger than he was now, it was still unmistakably the same man who had approached her earlier.

  Now what? she thought. Though she continued to search for another twenty minutes, she found nothing else that she considered useful, and, as far as she could tell, the murders remained unsolved.

  She switched off the computer, hoping the things she’d read wouldn’t give her nightmares. It was only then she realized she was trembling. If anything, the search made her more frightened of the things Jackson had told her.

  What did he want with her?

  “All throughout history, children have been warriors.”

  That phrase, among all the others, was the one that stuck out to her most of all.

  A tap at the door and then, without waiting for a response, her mother popped her head into the room.

  She smiled at Lindy. “No hello for your old mom today?”

  Lindy forced a smile in return. “Sorry.”

  Her mother scowled. “Do you feel okay? You look a bit peaked.”