Alexander Death (The Paranormals, Book 3) Read online

  Alexander Death (The Paranormals, Book 3)

  Title Page

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Alexander Death (The Paranormals, Book Three)

  by J.L. Bryan

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright 2011 Jeffrey L. Bryan

  Smashwords License Statement: This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Seth found the little bird in the manicured grass under one of the old, moss-heavy oaks in the front yard. It cocked its head as he approached, then spread its wings and attempted to fly away, but it couldn't get airborne because one wing was bent and crooked. It flailed and rolled through the grass, trying to escape him.

  “It's okay, Bird,” Seth said. He dropped to his knees and crawled to the bird, thinking this would scare the little creature less than if he walked towards it at his full height. Seth paid no mind to the grass stains on the knees of his white Easter pants.

  Seth studied the bird. It was blue, so, by Seth's logic, it must have been a bluebird. He wondered what had happened to the bird's wing, if an animal had attacked it or if it had just fallen and forgotten how to fly. Or maybe it never could fly. It looked very small, like a baby.

  “What are you doing, Seth?” Carter ran out of the house and across the front yard toward Seth. “You have to hurry!” His approach startled the bird, which screeched and rolled around again, flapping its useless wing.

  “Shh!” Seth said. “You're scaring him.”

  “Don't shoosh me!” Carter said. He was ten years old, while Seth was only six, and Carter thought being older made him boss of everything. “Mom wants you to come in now, 'cause it's time for church.”

  “I'm coming,” Seth said, but he didn't move from his hands and knees.

  “What's that?” Carter stood beside Seth and looked at the bird with the flailing wing.

  “He's hurt,” Seth said. “We have to help him.”

  “We can't,” Carter told him. “If the mom bird smells a person on the baby, she won't take care of it anymore.”

  “Doesn't look like she's taking care of him, anyway,” Seth said. “He's stranded.”

  “We have to go.”

  Seth heard his mother in the back yard, calling for him.

  “We can't leave him here,” Seth said. “Something will eat him.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  “I can keep him in my room until he's better.” Seth reached for the bird, but it hopped back from him, opening its beak.

  “Mom won't let you do that.”

  “Are you gonna tell on me?” Seth asked.

  “I don't have to. She's going to notice a bird, Seth.”

  “Seth! Carter!” their mom called in the back yard. “Come here right this instant!”

  “Let's go,” Carter said. “We're gonna get in trouble.”

  “Wait.” Seth crawled toward the bird and slowly reached out with both hands.

  “Leave it alone, Seth,” Carter said. “It's probably got germs.”

  “He doesn't have germs!” Seth said.

  “How would you know?”

  “You don't know everything, Carter.”

  “Seth!” their mom called again.

  “I know you're gonna get grounded if you don't come on,” Carter said.

  “Wait...” Seth crawled closer to the little bird, which seemed to be losing its energy. “Almost...” He scooped up the bird in both hands, taking care to avoid the broken wing, since it probably hurt. The bird bit him anyway, drawing drops of blood from Seth's thumb with its sharp beak.

  “Told you it would bite, dummy,” Carter said.

  “No, you didn't. And I don't care.” Seth stood up, holding the bird in both hands. Carter gaped at the grass smears on his pants.

  “Oh, you're gonna get in trouble...” Carter said.

  “Am not.” Seth looked at the tiny bird quivering in his hands. “I'll help you,” he whispered. “You can live on my dresser. That's like a tree.”

  “Seth, you can't bring that bird...” Carter began, but Seth tuned him out.

  Something was happening. Seth felt his hands grow hotter and hotter. The bird chirped and squirmed in his fingers, and now Seth could feel heat flowing out from his palms. He didn't understand what was happening.

  Then the bird hopped to the edge of his left hand, extended both wings, and jumped. It fell for a moment, but it flapped furiously and straightened out its course, skimming over the grass. Then it climbed up through the air in a wide, slow spiral, to perch on a dark, thick limb overhead. It tweeted a few times, and Seth thought it sounded happy.

  “Okay, we can go now,” Seth said. He turned to walk toward the car, but Carter caught him by one shoulder. Carter was staring up at the bird.

  “Seth, what did you do?” Carter whispered.

  “Nothing,” Seth said. “He's okay now. I'll tell Mom about it.”

  “No!” Carter said. “You can't tell anyone.”

  “How come?”

  “Seth, that bird had a broken wing. When you touched it, the wing straightened out and healed up. I watched it happen.”

  “So?”

  “So that's...weird. Really weird, Seth. Nobody can do that.”

  “I can!” Seth said.

  “You have to keep it secret.”

  “You're just jealous 'cause you can't do it,” Seth said.

  “No, Seth.” Carter turned Seth to face him. Carter had light brown hair and green eyes—he looked more like a Mayfield, from their mom's family, than a Barrett. “I'm serious now. People will treat you like a freakazoid if they find out you can do that. It's not normal to heal things with your touch.”

  “Jesus could do it,” Seth said.

  “And look what happened to him.”

  Seth thought about it. “Oh...”

  “Just keep a secret for now,” Carter said.

  “Even from Mom and Dad?”

  “Even from them.”

  “For how long?” Seth whined.

&nb
sp; “Until I tell you it's safe,” Carter said.

  “When will that be?”

  “I don't know. I'll tell you.”

  “Seth! Carter!” their mom yelled. She wasn't in the back yard anymore. She'd circled the house and now stood on the driveway in her high heels and purple dress, her arms folded, eyes glowing with anger.

  “We better go,” Carter whispered. “Don't tell anyone.”

  “Jonathan Seth Barrett!” their mother shouted as they approached. “Look at your pants! What have you been doing?”

  “I was just...” Seth pointed toward the treetops, but Carter shook his head. “Just playing.”

  “In your Easter clothes?” their mom asked. “Get inside right now. You can't go to church looking like that.”

  “Okay. Sorry.” Seth hurried toward the front door. Before he went inside, he looked at the high limb again, meaning to wave good-bye to the bird, but it had already disappeared.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Seth was in his room watching Star Wars: Attack of the Clones when the house phone rang. He was expecting to hear from Wooly—Chris Woolerton—about Seth's plans to visit Charleston and stay with Wooly's family. Seth was looking forward to hanging out at the beach with Wooly and his friends. Wooly had been the most popular fifth-grader at Grayson Academy, known for his pranks, his encyclopedic memory for dirty jokes, and the Playboy magazines he had snuck into the dormitory.

  In the fall, they would both be in sixth grade, the last grade before you moved on to Grayson's secondary school, Grayson Preparatory. Until then, they were the oldest kids, the rulers of Grayson Primary.

  Seth hurried to answer the phone.

  “This is Sheriff Frank Young,” the man's voice said on the phone. “Opawasee County, Florida. Can I speak with Mr. or Mrs. Jonathan Barrett?”

  Seth's name was Jonathan Seth Barrett, and he considered making a joke of it and saying “I'm Jonathan Barrett.” But the police officer clearly wanted to talk to his father, and his tone was dead serious. Seth immediately thought of Carter, his fourteen-year-old brother who had gone on vacation to Florida with a friend's family.

  Seth opened the door and yelled “Dad! Phone!” Nobody answered, so he sighed and hurried down the stairs.

  He found his father in his office, surrounded by the heads of dead animals—not just deer like everyone had, but wolf and bear heads, too, animals killed by Seth's great-grandfather. The office intimidated Seth, as if the whole place exuded death and despair. The desk, liquor cabinet and other furniture were hand-hewn from dark, heavy wood sometime in the nineteenth century.

  Seth's dad, Jonathan Seth Barrett III, sat at the gray IBM PC on the desk, surrounded by heaps of open file folders. He wasn't quite forty years old, but traces of gray had already appeared in his hair, along with deep worry lines on his face. The years of managing the family's diverse, worldwide investments had aged him prematurely. Like the office itself, his father was intimidating to Seth—he seemed to make the air around himself dark and heavy.

  “Hey, Dad?” Seth asked, hesitantly. His dad didn't like being interrupted when he was working, and he was liable to bite Seth's head off.

  “I'm busy, Seth,” he replied without looking up.

  “But there's a phone call.”

  Seth's dad glanced at the two phones on his desk—one was the regular house line, one of them was for business. A red light blinked on the display panel of the house phone, indicating a call on hold.

  “Take a message,” he told Seth.

  “But it's the police,” Seth said. “From Florida.”

  “Florida? What's Carter gotten into this time?” He shook his head as he picked up the phone. “This is Jonathan Barrett,” he said. Then he listened, and his face drew into a deep frown. “I'm sorry, could you...repeat that?”

  Seth wondered what his older brother had done. Carter had a pretty good nose for mischief. At Grayson, he'd once gotten in trouble for dying the pool in the aquatic center pink the night before a swim meet, which had gotten him probationary status and ultimately cost Seth's dad a bit of money. Carter said his main regret was not using enough red food dye—he and his friends had wanted the water blood-red. Another time, Carter had been in trouble for sneaking over to the Kingsroad School, a girls' prep school a couple miles from all-male Grayson Academy.

  “I understand,” Seth's dad said, furiously scribbling information on a legal pad. “We'll be there as soon as we can.” He hung up the phone. Then he stared at Seth. His face was going pale, and he had a look like he'd been punched in the stomach.

  “What's happening, Dad?” Seth asked.

  “It's Carter.” His dad stood up.

  “What did he do?”

  “I have to talk to your mother.” Seth's dad walked past him, and Seth followed him to the stairs. “Wait,” his dad told him.

  “You want me to wait right here in your office?” Seth asked.

  “Just wait somewhere.”

  Seth followed his father to the old, wide staircase, built of dark oak, but he stayed at the foot of it while his father ascended.

  “Dad, what's going on with Carter?”

  His father glanced back at Seth, briefly, but said nothing. Seth watched him disappear into the dark upstairs hall.

  After a minute, Seth tiptoed up the stairs after him.

  Seth made his way down the wide upstairs hall, past the door to the third floor, which Seth never opened. The third floor was scary, full of his great-grandfather's stuff, and Seth's grandfather had remodeled it into some kind of crazy maze. Carter said it was to confuse Great-Grandfather's ghost, in case it came back to haunt the family. Seth's parents would not confirm or deny the story, and usually changed the subject when Seth asked.

  At the end of the hall, the door to the master bedroom stood ajar. Seth leaned an ear against the open crack, wanting to hear the news about his older brother.

  He didn't need to eavesdrop, though, because the first thing he heard was his mother's scream.

  “No!” Iris Mayfield Barrett's voice echoed through the house. “No, no, no!”

  Seth nudged the door open another inch. He could see a mirror on his parents' wall. In the reflection, his mother sat at the foot of her bed in her bath robe, her hair disheveled, her face in her hands. She was shaking her head.

  Seth's father stood over her, his arms crossed, looking down at the floor.

  “We have to go,” he said.

  “I can't,” she said.

  “Then stay here with Seth,” he told her. “I'll go by myself.”

  Seth's dad took a coat from the closet. He looked at Seth's mom, weeping on the bed, and his jaw worked as if he were trying to come up with something to say. Then he walked toward the door without saying anything.

  “Don't go,” Seth's mom said.

  “I have to go.”

  “I need to see him.” She stood up and went to the closet. “Let me get ready.”

  Seth's dad opened the door and looked at Seth. “I told you to wait.”

  “What happened to Carter?” Seth asked.

  His dad looked at him, then back into the room as if he expected Seth's mom to answer that one, but she was out of sight in the walk-in closet.

  “Seth,” his dad finally said, “There's been an accident. A car accident.”

  “Is Carter okay?”

  Seth's dad sighed. He was quiet for a moment, then he said, “Carter didn't survive, Seth. We have to....” His voice choked up, but he swallowed forcefully and held it back. “We have to identify the body.”

  Seth stared at him, unable to process this. Carter had been here only yesterday, chasing Seth through the house and threatening him with noogies.

  “But he can't be,” Seth said. “He can't be...dead, can he?”

  “I'm sorry, Seth.” His father gripped his shoulder awkwardly for a second, and quickly let go. “I don't know what to say.”

  “No, that's not right.” Seth backed away from his dad. He could feel the sting of tears in
his eyes as he shook his head. “That can't be true!”

  Seth ran down the hall and into Carter's room. He looked around at the baseball trophies, the posters of girls in bikinis, the electric guitar Carter had begged to get last Christmas, but never learned how to play. It didn't seem possible that he wasn't coming home. Carter had gone to the beach for a week, and then he'd be back. That was supposed to be the plan. He wasn't supposed to be gone forever.

  Seth felt something cold and hard strike him right in the stomach. He collapsed at the corner of Carter's bed, crying and screaming and overwhelmed and confused.

  It was twenty minutes before his parents came to collect him.

  ***

  Seth's dad drove a Cadillac STS, black on the outside and the inside, with satellite GPS, a built-in telephone, and a radar detector mounted on the dashboard. Seth usually enjoyed riding in it, because he could imagine it was the Batmobile.

  Tonight, he wasn't enjoying anything. He sat in the back seat and watched the interstate mile markers whip past. His parents sat in the front, not talking. He felt like he was very small in the back, and that a huge chasm of empty space separated him from his parents. Their silence, added to the fact that nobody had turned on the stereo, left him feeling completely alone. The ride was long and miserable. Rain spattered the car as they passed through south Georgia on the way to Florida.

  Though his dad drove around ninety miles an hour, slowing only when the radar detector began to beep, it was hours before they reached the Opawassee County Sheriff's Department. The glowing blue numbers on the dashboard read 3:48 AM. Barely a dozen words had been spoken the entire way, and then only when Seth's dad announced he was stopping for gas, and asked if anybody was hungry. Nobody was.

  The sheriff's department was a low cinderblock building, with a couple of annexes built onto the back. One of them had barred windows, and Seth guessed that was the county jail.

  Seth followed his parents into the grungy police station, which had a dirty linoleum floor and harsh, flickering fluorescent lights that made everybody look like walking corpses. Seth's dad spoke in a low voice to the uniformed cop at the front desk, while Seth and his mother sat on one of the hard wooden benches in the waiting area. A few feet away from Seth sat an old man with long, tangled gray hair and a matted beard. His bloodshot eyes stared into empty space, and he stank like urine.