His tongue.
Something nagged at the edge of his psyche, spearing his l.u.s.t. Howie"s command effortlessly flowing from Jade to him. He wasn"t sure what it was but when Caleb Hart appeared he knew what he didn"t want.
Interruption.
CHAPTER 18.
I raced down the steep concrete steps that led to Jade"s c.r.a.ppy room, hearing her screams.
Then they abruptly cut off.
I burst through the opening where a door hung off one hinge and my stomach fell into my feet. Brett had Jade in a firm hold, backed up against a wall, dry-humping her for all he was worth.
Something shifted in my head and my rage became liquid.
The lava erupted from the volcano of my emotions.
It was her soft whimper that made my head pound with an instant headache. The dead at my back surged forward, responding to my emotional avalanche instantly. Fire seared my veins and I moved toward the two with purpose.
I never saw Howie.
But he saw me; he"d planned it perfectly. He knew how I"d react, and I didn"t disappoint. He"d been waiting in the shadows of the room and hit me in the head with a spare piece of lumber, hidden in the recesses of one of the corners.
I saw stars, slumping to the ground, my head spinning like a top.
I watched from the ground, my girlfriend making out with Brett like she wanted it and felt like I"d be sick, powerless to do anything. The barf just rose in my throat when John leaped forward, covering Randi"s ears and I heard Howie scream into the stillness of the scene, "Kill each other!"
As bruised and stupid as I was, I tried to rise to do his bidding, his compulsion was so powerful it intensified my headache.
And along with that, my rage.
Terran dragged Randi backward, unaffected by Howie.
Howie, I realized too late, was a Manipulative.
Effing spectacular. Weren"t they springing up everywhere like nasty-a.s.s weeds, I thought incoherently.
John, with his Null-ness was immune and had put it together instantly. John lifted his hands off her ears and held Randi"s face as everyone began pounding each other. I noticed Sophie and Tiff were really going at it. No surprise there.
"Get us out of here!" he screamed over the carnage, the noise of the fighting a dull roar in my ears. I was on all fours, shaking my head, my eyes pegged on Brett and Jade as I began to rise. I could taste his death on my tongue, my head was swamped with it. Every zombie that was mine began moving toward him with deliberate purpose. My purpose now had focus through Howie"s directive.
I was not immune.
Randi understood what John had told her to do and pressed her eyes shut just as Howie realized his a.s.s was gra.s.s. Whatever sick plan he"d had... failed.
We blinked out of the existence of our world and fell smoothly into the other.
Queen Clara"s sphere world.
The problem with that was Randi, in her acute panic, wasn"t selective. The whole d.a.m.n posse went. Parker, the zombies, my friends, Gramps... and Howie.
We hurtled through the dark vastness of that s.p.a.ce where it felt like our flaming bodies were pelted by sleet and landed in the middle of Outside in Clara"s world.
But it was not the same time we had left, and the circ.u.mstances had changed.
Oh, had they.
Bodies lay around the field scattered like so much flesh and clothes.
My eyes automatically sought Jade. I couldn"t find her. I tore myself up by sheer will, fighting the puke for the second time in so many minutes.
The zombies were already standing, looking at me and a point behind my left shoulder.
Parker.
I turned and faced where he was.
He hugged the ground like a lover, his head pressed against it. I ran to where he was, slipping twice, vertigo trying to claim my equilibrium. I made it, gripping his elbow and hauling him up.
We swayed together for a moment then he leaned away from me suddenly.
Parker bent over and sprayed chunks into the tall gra.s.s, the sun just rising here in this world.
"Caleb!" Randi shouted across the wide-open s.p.a.ce.
I turned and saw my zombies squaring off with a group of dudes.
I knew these guys.
The fragment.
s.h.i.t-in-a-sack.
It hadn"t taken them any time to find us. Weak, shaken and disoriented from the travel, we were vulnerable to their a.s.sault.
Parker"s zombies reached for their a.s.sault rifles.
Then realized they didn"t have any weapons. It was comical. They ran their large hands over the spot where they should have been and balled their empty hands into fists.
Those guys were so resourceful. No weapons, no problemo.
Clyde came to stand beside us as Parker straightened. "That sucked," he said, wiping the back of his sleeve against his mouth. His all-black ensemble had suffered with the Puke as an Accessory.
I smiled. He was right. I was getting over the effects of the travel.
I looked at Clyde, who never took his eyes off the group of fragment. "Where did the young woman take us?"
"Somewhere else," I said, my eyes sweeping the area for Jade... then, reluctantly, Brett. My eyes were flying over the bodies that were mostly standing now, some were puking, some were fine. I spotted John and breathed a little easier.
"Clearly, Master," Clyde said, peeved.
Bobbi Gale said, her stance alert and ready, "Where, Caleb? I"m not wanting the twenty questions!"
"Randi is a Dimensional."
"Great! So we"re in some other world somewhere?"
I nodded. "It"s a long story," I said, giving her serious eyes and continued, "but those guys," I pointed to the advancing fragment, "are the bad guys."
Bobbi looked at the ragged but tough-looking group that were making steady progress straight for them and thought Caleb might be on to something.
"How bad?" she whispered.
"Very," I replied and walked into the middle of the teens in the hopes of getting to Jade.
Brett had Jade wrapped against his body when he woke up in a strange place. His eyes cracked open, his stomach rolling around in a hot wave of gonna barf. They were in the middle of a field or something. The air was the freshest he"d ever smelled. It was somewhere between crisp forest and wheaten pasture. He forced his stomach to settle, breathing deeply. He pulled Jade closer against him and pushed the hair away from her face tenderly, kissing her temple.
She woke up and gasped. "What are you doing, Brett?"
Jade utterly undid him, her eyes were so beautiful, like emerald fire.
"Kissing you," Brett said, thinking that"d been pretty d.a.m.n obvious.
"Don"t," she said, shoving at him.
What the h.e.l.l is this? She was crawling into his mouth five minutes before...
Yeah? What happened? He looked around, sitting up, his hand clamped around her tiny wrist. She wasn"t going anywhere till he figured out what the f.u.c.k was going on.
He saw a group of freaks comin" their way and hauled Jade up, shoving her behind him protectively.
They had makeshift weapons. Some he recognized, others he didn"t. His eyes searched the kids and the creepers that Hart had somehow managed to bring with him. Where was that d.i.c.k hole, Frazier... where had that b.a.s.t.a.r.d lurked off to now?
"Are you G.o.dd.a.m.ned delusional, Mason?" Jonesy asked as he moved toward him, his fist raised to deck him when Hart interrupted, "No, let me."
Then Hart was barreling into him and he was fighting for all he was worth.
For himself.
For the girl he wanted more than his own life.
All I could think of was Brett with his hands on Jade. It didn"t matter that she"d dumped me, that most likely she dumped me under the influence of the enhancer.
He. Had. His. Hands. On. Her.
I pounded a good one in his face and he kicked out in a move so novice, I could"ve deflected it in my sleep. But I was all rage-driven and felt it graze my nuts and I grunted, my hands cupping my package.
He shoved me off and kicked me in the ribs.
I flipped over and used the instep of my foot to take out his knee. He shrieked in agony.
That move hurt like a b.i.t.c.h.
Clyde grabbed the back of Brett"s shirt and mine and jerked us off our feet, four hundred pounds between the two of us, like we were a couple of bowling b.a.l.l.s instead of two almost full-grown men.
Zombie strength. But his eyes blazed human p.i.s.sed off at that moment.
"They come!" shake-thrash-teeth rattle, "We do not have sufficient time for fisticuffs!"
What?
I turned my head and saw that while I was all over the top of Brett, the fragment had begun to wade into our zombies, hacking at them as they came, their primitive weapons plenty effective.
And we only had five zombies here.
I recognized what the Skopamish looked like to the fragment. What had Queen Clara called them?
The Red Men.
The Chief turned and looked at me for a command. I gave him the one I knew best, my b.a.l.l.s throbbing like I"d be sick again.
Kill them, I thought.
He turned smoothly, in a move so ch.o.r.eographed it looked like he was dancing, reaching for the tomahawk that was no longer there.
Oh s.h.i.t.
The weapons. All the weapons had been lost to the travel.
We were completely defenseless.
Clyde lowered us to the ground and the Indians gave a shrill war cry, the three against many, their bare hands the only weapons at their disposal.
It might be enough, they were the walking dead after all.
Parker"s bodyguard zombies started taking the fragment apart by hand, beating them as they came for them. The flesh of their knuckles sloughing off even as Parker"s will re-knitted it to perfection before our eyes.
But there were simply too many.