Second Dead

  Chapter 17: Up the hill

  I gazed into the dying embers of the fire. The faintest memory of a dream danced through my mind but slipped away faster than I could recall it.

  Incense smoke hung in the air. I stared at the clock above the fireplace. The second hand ticked toward the minute hand. Tick, tick, tick, the hand clicked forward. Past midnight by three precious minutes….

  “Shit.” I jumped from the floor.

  “You were talking in your sleep,” Susan whispered while we put on extra clothes. She glanced over her shoulder toward Mom.

  “Yeah, so. What’s new?”

  “Mom heard you; that’s what,” she hissed while she pulled her boots on. “You were talking to Nana. You called her Máy Màn.”

  “Shit.” That’s all I needed. “What else did I say?”

  Susan peeked into the kitchen. She turned back and said, “You told Nana you were scared, you didn’t want her to leave you. I don’t know what Mom heard or how long you talked before I woke up.”

  “Shit,” I said for the third time. “All right, thanks.”

  Afraid this would cause some problems, I cast furtive glances toward my mother. At the very least, she would believe this to be an unlucky start to our journey. She’d worry about negative energy, evil spirits and all that crap.

  “Come on, guys. It’s time,” Dad said. He fumbled with the contents of a box on the breakfast bar.

  Dad had not slept. Even in the dim lamp light, I could tell. Theo and I picked up our book bags and walked over to the counter.

  “Weapons only. We’ll bring up your other stuff,” Dad said. He removed walkie-talkies and chargers from the box and placed all four on the counter. “Fully charged. Took care of it when you were asleep. Should last a couple of days.”

  I reached for my bow before I remembered the weapon now belonged to the abler Klara. Knowing Klara to be much deadlier with the bow than I, had made giving it to her easy. Now though, I felt naked without it.

  Kitchen’s clean, I noticed. It was obvious some effort had been made to tidy up.

  Dad saw me gaze around. “Yeah, your mom freaked out about the mess. We threw all the trash in Chris’s room.”

  “Hey,” Chris said.

  “Let it go, son. Your mom didn’t want anyone going through Chet’s stuff.”

  “Looks nice,” I murmured. We were leaving. We were finally leaving home. With a rush, I already missed it.

  “Yeah, well, just behave yourselves. Your mom’s a little -- Let’s leave it at she’s not taking this well.” Dad clammed up when Mom came in from the garage. “We also took care of Calvin. Nothing much. I offed him and put him by his barbecue pit. I think he would have liked that.”

  Dad glanced up at the clock and grimaced, “Damn. We're losing time.”

  The clock showed twelve twenty-five.

  “You guys know what to do, right?”

  “Yeah, Dad,” I replied.

  Dad sat down and pulled on his boots. He tucked his pant leg into each boot while he continued with his instructions. “You have fifteen minutes after you leave the yard and then we’ll move out. Remember, we’ll meet you at the top of the street, right past Beanies. Got that?”

  “Right, Dad, got it,” Chris replied, for what I’m certain was the hundredth time.

  “Just making sure.” He turned to Theo. “You have everything?”

  “Yep, right here.” Theo patted his coat pocket.

  Dad stood up and stomped his boots on the floor several times. “Susan, show time.”