Mind Over Monsters Read online

  Great, I’ve made another friend.

  Carl takes off his gloves and bends down next to the body. He reaches out to touch one of the intact pieces. Gross. The second he makes contact, his body jolts like electricity just passed through him. The spasms grow more violent with each passing second. One of my students was an epileptic and looked like this when she had a fit.

  “Oh no, he’s having a seizure!” I cry out. I’m temporarily stunned into inaction. We’re all alone, and I have no idea what to do.

  “Leave him be,” Andrew commands.

  “What?” I shout. “We need to do something!”

  Andrew grabs my shoulder. “No.”

  I can only stand it for about five seconds. He could be swallowing his tongue or something. I kneel beside him and see that his eyes have rolled back in his head so only the bloodshot whites show.

  “Andrew, we—”

  “Don’t touch—”

  The rest of the sentence never reaches my ears. I touch Carl’s vibrating shoulder, my finger resting on his bare neck, and instantly a burning sensation travels through me, so hot I can’t even think. I’m on fire. My mouth opens to scream, but it hurts so much my vocal cords are paralyzed. The world disappears with a blink.

  Almost as quickly, the world returns, only a little out of focus and brighter. The orange sun still peaks out from behind the trees. I close the door to my Chevy Impala, and the keys I’m holding go into my khaki pants. There’s something not right about this.

  I start walking toward the clearing, looking up at the oranges and blues. Carrie was right; this place is less spooky now than it is at night, but not by much. Hopefully they’ll come before the sun completely sets. I’m here at seven sharp. They must be running late. An owl hoots, nearly knocking me out of my sneakers. Jesus, I’m forty-three years old, I shouldn’t be acting like a scared four-year-old. The trees groan and creak as a gust of wind travels through the field. What the hell is that smell? It’s like a slaughterhouse on a warm day. There must be a dead animal close. Okay, five minutes, then I’m leaving. Don’t know why I’m here in the first place. I should—

  Twigs snap in the woods, then more.

  “Hello?” I call out in a husky voice. There can’t be anyone here, as mine’s the only car. Maybe an anima—more twigs snap, this time much closer. Was that a grunt? Lord, the smell’s worse, if that’s even possible. I plug my nose.

  Twigs continue to crack, louder and louder with each moment. Something moves in the trees. Suddenly the flapping of wings fills the near silence. A couple dozen birds fly from their perches in the pines toward the orange part of the sky. I watch them escape in perfect formation. It has to be an animal. Oh shit, what if it’s a bear? Another twig snaps, and I turn toward the farthest part of the clearing.

  Guess I’m not alone after all. A middle-aged man dressed in a mud-caked blue suit with pale yellow skin and eyes almost sunken in stands there, staring at me. I knew I should have taken out my contacts before I left, my eyes must be getting wonky. I step toward the man, and he staggers toward me like a marionette. It takes me a second, but I recognize him. It’s Dale Cobb, the old math teacher. But … he died three weeks ago. What the hell?

  “Dale, is that—” I don’t get to finish. Dale grabs my arm, biting down on it with the force of a pit bull until he reaches bone. Oh, fuck me! I howl in agony and jerk my arm back. The flesh rips from me, blood pouring down my arm to the ground. Pain ripples along my arm into my spine. I scream again. Dale snarls, showing his blood-stained teeth like a rabid animal. “Fuck!” I spin around and start running.

  I only manage to make it a few feet. Someone else grabs my other arm and jerks it out of the socket with a sickening pop. White-hot pain shoots through my back and again when another mouth clamps down on my limp arm, tearing more of me away. Blood spurts from the wound. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a woman gripping me, with black holes where her eyes should be. The combination of the putrid smell coming from her or the unbearable pain makes me throw up. With my halfway intact arm, I push her away and continue staggering away, my legs wobbling. I gain a few more feet before one hand grabs me by the shoulders, head, and arms, spinning me around. There are so many of them, at least half a dozen, all reeking of death. Some of their skin sloughs off onto me. I can barely move, I’m surrounded, and their grips are so strong. I can hear and feel my bones breaking. Some bite down on my arms, my neck, shoulders, every inch of me. Right before I pass out, I piss my pants.

  My eyes fly open. I’m greeted by Nancy looking down at me as if I’ve grown scales. It’s dark now, and the fuzziness is gone. The nausea is not. Nancy tentatively reaches across to me but I roll away, throwing up my pre-plane snack and some major organs onto the wet grass.

  “Holy shit,” Nancy says.

  I heave once more before panting for air. While I’m doing a great impression of a dog, I look down at my limbs. No blood, no bites. This is good. This is really good. I turn to the group. Carl is lying on his back panting too. A pool of vomit rests a foot away from him. Good to know I’m not the only one who tossed their cookies. Andrew kneels beside him, taking his pulse through the latex glove he wears. “It’s a little high,” Andrew says.

  “Like, will he be okay?” Nancy asks, as breathless as I am.

  “I’m fine,” Carl croaks.

  Andrew releases Carl’s wrist. “Stay on the ground until the dizziness stops.”

  I couldn’t get up if I wanted to. My heavy head thumps to the ground.

  “Will someone please tell me what just happened?” I pant.

  “Hell if we know,” Nancy replies. “I was, like, in the woods when Andrew radioed. I popped back here and found you and Carl in some kind of funny trance. We were totally afraid to touch you. We, like, shouted and shouted your names, but neither of you answered. Then all of a sudden, you both screamed like you were crazy. Then poof! You snapped out of it and started puking your guts out.”

  “Are you okay?” Andrew asks me.

  What a question. “I think so,” I say, wiping the residual vomit off my chin. I manage to get to my feet, but my legs feel like wet noodles. “It was so strange. I was a man. I think I was that man,” I say, pointing to the body.

  “We were,” Carl says sitting up. “I think we were actually reliving his last moments. What he went through. We were inside him when he was ripped up.”

  “You actually saw and felt him dying?” Andrew asks.

  “Yes.”

  “Bummer,” Nancy mutters.

  “Wait, I thought that’s what you do,” I say to Carl.

  “Normally all I get are emotions, sometimes images, or words. What just happened … ” Carl shudders. “That’s the most awful thing I’ve ever experienced in my life, and that’s saying a lot. I felt every bite, every bone … ” The memory makes him stop. “It was horrible. You all have no idea.”

  “I do!” I shout.

  The three look at me. “How?” Carl asks.

  “I don’t know.”

  “When you touched Carl, it must have connected your clairempathy skill to his psychometry skill,” Andrew explains, helping Carl stand.

  “Huh?”

  “Your power plus mine equals bigger signal,” Carl says. “Your clairempathy tapped into mine, and with the combined power we were able to see and feel more.”

  “I’ll take your word for it. Let’s never do that again.”

  Twigs crack in the woods, lots of twigs. Oh crud. My body tenses, and from the bug eyes on Carl, so has his. I unbutton my gun, as does Carl.

  “What?” Nancy asks.

  Will, Irie, and the rest run out of the woods, guns in their hands. “Is everyone all right?” Will shouts. “We heard screaming.”

  “Everyone’s totally fine,” Nancy says. “Chill.”

  “Then why the hell was there screaming?” Irie asks, out of breath.

  “Carl and Bea just had a bad trip, that’s all,” Nancy says.

  “What?” Will asks.

/>   “Beatrice and I concentrated our powers and saw the man die.”

  “Felt it too,” I mutter.

  Will looks at me either in shock or in awe. I’m hoping awe. “You actually saw the attack? You saw what killed him?”

  “Yeah, it was … ” I can’t remember the darn word, “dead people.”

  “‘Dead people?’” Agent Konrad asks.

  “I think she means zombies,” Carl says. “There were six of them.”

  “One was named Dale Cobb,” I add. “The dead guy knew him. He was a teacher or something.”

  “What else did you see?” Will asks.

  “He came here to meet someone,” Carl says. “No idea who.”

  “Oh, and he mentioned the name Carrie, who said this place was spooky,” I say. Irie raises an eyebrow. “What? It could be useful.”

  Another twig snaps in the distance. Carl and I once again become stone statues. Will looks at us, visibly confused. “What?”

  “Twigs snapped and out came bitey zombies,” I practically whisper.

  Everyone grips his or her guns a little tighter. Another twig snaps. This time I actually pull the gun out. Another twig goes. All guns point toward the sound. Another twig. Shoot, I can barely breathe. The gun shakes a little but I grip it tighter. Will steps to my side, a comforting presence. “Stay close to me,” he whispers. A figure moves out of the shadow of the woods, and we all take aim.

  I’m actually relieved when Oliver appears holding something in his hand. He stops cold at the edge of the woods when he sees the barrage of guns. “Do not shoot!” he shouts.

  There is a collective sigh from the group. All the guns return to their holsters as Oliver walks toward us. “Jumpy, are we?” he asks Will. As he gets closer, I can make out what he’s carrying. It’s a friggin’ severed arm. A severed arm and he’s holding it like a newspaper. What the heck is the matter with these people? Oliver lifts it up, practically shoving the thing in our faces. “Look what I found.”

  “Lord,” I say. Oliver cringes when I say it. “Show a little respect.”

  “Where’d ya find it?” Agent Rushmore asks, examining it.

  “Just outside the graveyard about a quarter mile from here. Some of the graves looked recently interred. You ask me, this looks like—”

  “Zombies,” Will says, “we know. Carl and Alexander combined their gifts and saw and felt this man die.”

  Oliver’s eyebrow goes up. “Did they now?” He looks at me. “You really are full of surprises.”

  I smirk. I do so love to impress. “So we know that zombies killed him, the—”

  “You are wrong there,” Oliver says with a tisk. “It is not guns that kill people, it is other people. And in this case, it was a necromancer who, instead of using a gun, used zombies.”

  Shoot, he’s right. Ghouls really aren’t zombies because they still have their soul. They have control over themselves. Zombies, on the other hand, have no soul or higher brain function. Basically, they’re just meat puppets with superhuman strength. A necromancer—a person who can control the dead—can raise the dead, but he has to tell them what to do. I should have remembered that. Guess being torn into tiny bits has affected my brain.

  “Whoever did this must really have hated these people,” Carl says. “I can’t think of a worse way to kill a person.”

  “If you have a weapon, you will use it,” Oliver says. He tosses the severed arm next to the rest of the body.

  “So we find this necro and put a bullet between his eyes,” Irie says. “Piece of cake. Should be out of here by tomorrow.”

  Boy, I hope she’s right. But judging from the ache in my stomach, I have a feeling it won’t be that easy.

  ——

  Agent Chandler drives Andrew, Carl, Irie, Nancy, and me to our hotel after we’re done documenting the scene. I don’t even put up a fight this time. In fact, I’m the first in the Suburban. I lost my courage along with my last meal, and it is past time for me to go, in my opinion. Will, Oliver, and the agents stay behind to “work the scene,” or more accurately, find the rest of Davis Wynn. We pass the local cops on the way. I’m sure it will be easier to pass as official without a blind man and a Goth teenager around.

  I thought the life of a secret agent—that’s what I’m going to start considering myself just for my ego’s sake—would be a heck of a lot more glamorous but apparently not. The hotel we’re in is grungy. I think I can hear the cockroaches scurrying in the walls. It reeks of Lysol with a dash of something I have no desire to identify. I wasn’t expecting the Ritz, but my own room would have been nice. I’m stuck bunking with Nancy and Irie, and guess who gets the lumpy cot? If that wasn’t bad enough, MTV is on, even though Nancy’s asleep. I tried to turn off the TV, but she immediately woke up, turned it back on, and fell back asleep. Irie didn’t even stir. She passes out the moment her head hits the pillow. Even if the TV wasn’t on, I doubt sleep would be an option. Every time I close my eyes, I see those zombies attack, followed by buckets of blood.

  After tossing, turning, and even watching MTV for three hours, I finally give up. I climb out of bed and quietly exchange my pajamas for regular clothes. We passed an all-night diner just down the interstate and since what little I had in my stomach is now fertilizer, I could use a little grub. My iPod and book go in my purse, and I’m out the door.

  The road running by the restaurant and hotel is as deserted as the rest of this state. The only lights come from the hotel, and just as that light wanes, the lights from the diner take over. Good thing too. If it were totally black, I’d turn back, even if I hadn’t been through the wringer already tonight. Sometimes I hate being a girl. Can’t even walk when I want to.

  The Treetop Diner is small, with only seven booths and five seats at the counter. It has a rustic motif with brown walls painted to look like wood and pictures of men chopping down trees. The thick aroma of coffee and grease is welcoming. Right now, there are only two people visible, and when I go in, there are three. The waitress, a young woman with black hair and even darker skin, leans on the end of the counter flipping through a magazine. She looks up and smiles. “Sit anywhere you like.”

  I already know where that is.

  Will smiles as I slide into the seat opposite him, seeming

  genuinely happy to see me. His tie is askew. For whatever reason, this endears him to me even more. I give him a smile back. “Fancy meeting you here,” I say.

  The waitress comes over, putting his bill down. “What can I get you?” she asks me.

  “Eggs, bacon, hash browns.”

  “No prob. Coffee while you wait?”

  “You read my mind.” The waitress walks off, writing everything down.“I am so hungry,” I say.

  “I’ll bet.” He sips his coffee. “I puked at my first murder scene, and it wasn’t nearly as bad as the one tonight. You get as used to it as you can.”

  “Still embarrassing.”

  The waitress returns with the coffee before going back to her magazine. I dump three creams and sugars into the cup and take a sip. “Good coffee.”

  “Give me restaurant coffee over Starbucks any day,” Will says.

  “Amen.” I gulp half the stuff down.

  “Couldn’t sleep?” he asks.

  “Nope, and I doubt I ever will again.”

  He nods. “It must have been horrible.”

  “It was incredibly awful, yes. If you’ve never been torn up like that, I—” Looking up at Will, who has gone from Mr. Rogers to Hamlet in a second flat, I shut my mouth. What did I … ? It hits me. “Oh, shoot, I’m sorry. I mean, you do know, and I—I forgot. Jeez, foot in mouth much?”

  He looks up from his coffee to give me a reassuring smile. His eyes crinkle again. If he had an Irish accent, he’d be perfect. “It’s okay.”

  I smile back. Time to change the subject. “So, did you find anything else at the scene?”

  “Just the jaw and some skin chewed to the bone.”

  “Yuck, thanks for tha
t image.”

  I get another quick smile. “Not what you expected, right?”

  “You can say that, yeah. If I knew I would get that up close and personal with the nasties, I’d still be in San Diego. But it’s not just that. Now everyone is afraid that I’ll somehow suck out their power and torture them or something. Irie and Nancy went out of their ways to avoid me. In our own room! They looked at me like someone who has this terrible rumor about them circling the school, like I have lice or something. I got enough of those looks in actual high school, so no thanks.” Now I’m on a roll. “And how is it my fault? I was just trying to help! I didn’t think it was that big a deal to touch him. I mean, he was seizing, I don’t think I did anything that out of line. I’m not a scary person, so don’t treat me like one, all right? Is that too much to ask?” I’ve gotten myself into such a tizzy, I’m almost panting. “Okay. I’m done now. Rant over. Thank you very much.”

  I expect him to run screaming from the crazy lady, but instead he looks into my eyes and says, “You don’t frighten me.”

  “You’re not afraid I’ll suck out your werewolf powers and terrorize the moors?”

  “No,” he says with another smile. Such a nice smile. A gooey, melty smile. A smile that makes me momentarily forget all the crud of the day and smile myself. He reaches into his pockets and pulls out some money, putting it on the table. So I did scare him away? My smile fades. “Just give them some time. It is just your first day,” he says as he stands.

  “Yes, and I’ve managed to frighten or alienate the entire team.”

  “Well, tomorrow is another day. Try to get some sleep. I’ll wake you up at nine so we can start finding this guy.”

  I raise an eyebrow. “I get to investigate?”

  “Only if you want to.”

  “Heck yeah, I do.”

  “Good. I’ll see you in a few hours then.”

  “Okay,” I say, positively beaming.

  Will starts toward the exit—I can practically hear April say, “I hate to see him go, but I love to watch him leave”—but he turns around at the door. “Just so you know,” he says, once again playing with his non-existent ring, “you haven’t alienated me. Quite the … opposite. I think you’re doing a great job. I’m glad you’re here.”