One of Bobbi's eyebrows cocked. "Like what?"

"Using the power of Life-Transference is tricky and I've only done it a few times. By accident, and under duress," I added.

They waited.

I explained.

"You mean, that using this power in the reverse can bring things to the surface that might have stayed in their graves?"

I nodded, but it was more and maybe I hadn't been clear enough. "It is also like a dinner bell to other AFTDs. By doing this, I'm alerting the C-Ms."

Clyde frowned, the skin between his brows staying in a frozen ripple of flesh between his eyes. I was so ready to fix my zombie.

"It's no big deal if a dead chicken starts pecking in your front yard here," I said and her eyes strayed to the grim day, the rain pounding her grandfathered lawn into a sodden swamp as her equally illegal fire spewed fumes into our atmosphere.

"Somehow, that's not a comfort," she said and Clyde actually covered his mouth with his hand. I laughed, he was so on board with the chicken humor.

"Okay... listen, it's just a precaution. Me using this power might or might not alert the undead media. I'm just sayin'."

"So," Bobbi cocked her head and palmed the soft point of her triangular face. "Other Cadaver-Manipulators might know you're doing something."

"Yes," I said, relieved.

I knew it was rare to be a five-point, it'd almost not been worth mentioning. I liked to think that the potential for bullshit happening was as far out as a Hail Mary pass on the football field.

Although, I'd caught far more Hail Marys than sheer chance allowed.

"Well Parker is not a problem, so who cares?" she said, lifting her shoulders in a shrug.

Yeah, Parker wasn't a problem. Clyde and I shared a look.

"I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to be insensitive...." she said, looking between the two of us. "I know you're worried about him, Caleb."

It was the height of irony that my nemesis was now someone that might need a hero.

Namely, me.

I nodded, ducking my head to hide my expression. There were too many mixed emotions for me to engage any of them. Instead, I ignored the whole tamale and concentrated at the task at hand.

"Parker would know I was using." I looked at both of them. "And so would anyone that was say, a four-point or greater. That is the concern. That I would call another C-M to our location."

"What's so bad about that?" Gale asked but it was Clyde that answered. "It is not good that another as powerful as our Caleb make an appearance whilst I am vulnerable and we are tied in this..." He waved his shriveled, vaguely mummy looking hand and I finished, "reverse Life-Transference."

He nodded.

"I want you to try anyway," Gale said.

"You know I want to but I just had to let you guys in on it. What could happen."

"The potential for evil will always lurk at the edges of what is good... what is wholesome," Clyde mused.

"What is right," Bobbi finished.

I nodded in agreement, they were correct on all counts.

Then I laid hands on Clyde. Everything receded to a pinpoint of consciousness and the only noise was a warm rushing in my ears like blood.

But it was death.

Death came like a wave to shore, sweeping me away and with it, my bearings were gone.

All that mattered was the corpse under my hands, his flesh called to mine. My death power that was only barely held in check came online. I released it and, with a sigh, it slipped out of its prison and swam through the conduit of our union.

It crashed into Clyde and his mouth dropped open, slack with the crush of it and my hands involuntarily convulsed against his. Our grips tightened, my hands bleeding to white with his hold and I watched as color came back to skin that had been ashen moments before.

Then his eyes filled in, losing their glittering obsidian velvet to brown. Finally the flecks of green that made them what they were flickered to life.

When I was done he let go of my hands. "Now show me your mouth, Clyde," I requested.

He smiled and like an amateur dentist I was happy to report that all his teeth remained perfect, whole and white.

His tongue was pink.

I kept my shudder of relief to myself.

Gale and I smiled at each other and Clyde sat up, his clothes magically restored to order. I wasn't sure how I had wardrobe control but that was for a different day. Right now, my Clyde was a guy again. Gone was the rot.

"I feel like a new creature!" he sang in his rich timbre, running perfect and whole hands over his restored figure.

We were all grinning like fools when Gale said hesitantly, "Is that what I think it is?"

I looked at where she was pointing through the window, the hand-rolled glass added to the disquieting image that wavered and rippled in our line of sight.

There was a chicken in the yard. A quite obviously dead chicken.

Our smiles faded. None of us were diggin' on the coincidence of the very thing I had joked about manifesting so neatly.

We walked to the door and opened it.

I stepped out onto the stoop.

There were a million chickens. Or at least about fifty. They were real creepers too. They came to stand on the lawn and stared at me expectantly. A few dove and pecked, tearing earthworms out of the wet ground and slurping them down with unnervingly disgusting consumptive noises.

"Caleb," Gale said in a shaky voice. "God, I can feel them... they're so..."

"Vacant," I supplied in a flat voice. These dead were different. I didn't like it. At. All.

Bobbi nodded in tacit agreement. Clyde stood behind her, a head taller and wrapped a beefy (and perfect) forearm around her waist.

He hissed at the flock and the one who had appeared first cawed like a crow, its rotting eyes fixing on Clyde, recognizing him. The sound of it thrummed deeply within that power still roiling underneath the surface of my being.

It was a rooster.

Just then, the Js rolled up to the front door. The birds, instead of acting like live birds and getting out of the way stood there staring at the approaching car and stayed.

Jonesy plowed over one, feathers and chicken zombie guts getting in the spokes of his wheels like plaque in teeth.

He'll be flossing that out of there for forever, I thought, my gaze coming to rest on the chickens standing like feathered sentinels in my zombie's yard.

Wow... just wow.

Jonesy cranked open his door and gave a look of profound disgust. "What is this trumped up shit, Hart?" He looked at me like I'd lost my mind. "I mean, what?" he began, flailing his hands around as John came around the front of the car to inspect the entrails now wrapped in the grill and tire wells.

"You've been done with probation for three and a half seconds and you raise goddamned chickens?" he asked incredulously.

John clucked at me. "I expected more, really," he said with a small Mona Lisa smile. Straightening, he plucked a feather out of the grill and sent it flying like a small spear into the air. It stabbed the ground directly in front of the original chicken... that I now knew was a rooster.

"Hey look, Terran," Jonesy began and waggled his eyebrows and John frowned. We both knew something inappropriate was going to happen but Jonesy was too unpredictable to fathom so we waited for the bomb to drop.

"You got a cock in your front yard!" he yelled into the still neighborhood, bent over at the waist and laughing until tears streamed out of his eyes at the lone rooster surrounded by hens.

John's small smile became a grin and Clyde frowned.

"I do not see the source of your amusement," Clyde said in his droll way, giving me a look that said is he really saying this?

Yes, yes he was, I thought and Clyde sighed in annoyance. Jonesy sorta got old Clyde riled up.

"I think, young sir, you're missing the greater point," Clyde said, trying for logic. That only made Jonesy whoop harder.

Huh.

"Knock it off ya pudwacker," I said.

John rolled his eyes, shoving Jonesy into the side of his car and the pulsealarm started to wail. "Hey Terran, ya dick!" Jonesy said, fumbling his thumb onto the pad and disabling the alarm.

John stepped forward, keeping a wide berth around the chickens.

"What's going on?" he said, then added, "I mean... besides the basic fact you have a couple coops' worth of zombie chickens."

I couldn't help it, I gave a snicker at that and Jonesy said, "See?"

And Clyde looked at me, giving a deserving frown my way. I sharpened up, telling the Js what happened.

"Ah... okay, Hart. You're off the hook. I thought you'd become an imbecile and started raising barn animals." Jonesy looked around dramatically. "Speaking of which, where the hell's Alex to razz about that happy crap?" Seeing no one else to abuse with his sarcasm he huffed.

"Okay, you need a ride and now you have to clean up the farm, man."

I smiled. "I think I can handle a few chickens."

Jonesy looked at the roaming fowl, getting a look of distaste again. "They're freakin' creepy Hart."

And zombies were so normal.

John laughed and then mumbled "Sorry" to Clyde.

"It's quite alright, young man. I am willing to be magnanimous this day as I have been restored." He graced me with a grin of pride and gratitude and I felt a little heat rise to my face. Clyde's pride in me mattered. I know it was weird, him being a zombie and all but Clyde had become like... family. Truthfully, he was in a way I hadn't gotten straight. Too many issues, not enough time to solve all the mysteries.

"Yeah man, you look a buttload better," Jonesy said. John tried to soften the horror of Jonesy's compliment. "You look good, Clyde."

"Thank you Mr. Terran." His eyes swiveled to Jonesy's. "And I think... thank you as well."

"You betcha! You're our number one zombie, Clyde. We can't have you running around rotting. Makes Caleb look bad." He was so earnest but I could tell Bobbi had reached her end.

"Thanks Jonesy, why don't you wait in the car?"

"Am I being dismissed?" Jonesy asked in surprise, his dark hand splayed against his muscular chest.

Gale appeared to ponder her answer.

For like four seconds.

"Yeah," she said and Clyde gave a smirk.

"Well damn! Okay, ingrates. I was the chauffeur and..." he looked over at my car. "Hey! You didn't even need a ride." Jonesy turned accusing eyes to mine.

"I was thinking we could meet here, Jones."

His eyes rolled in his head, just two spots of white in his black face. "Whatever," he said, giving a subtle adjust of his package and John about died.

Jonesy was so him. There was no stopping him, he was like a force or something.

"What about these stupid chickens?" he said and went to kick out toward the rooster for emphasis and Gale yelled, "Jonesy, watch it! The yard is slick..."

Jonesy was graceful. More than anyone I knew but even he couldn't correct himself on the saturated lawn. His foot slipped from underneath him and he did what everyone does, he tried to break his fall with his arm, the sidewalk roaring up to greet him.

He didn't break his fall, but the sidewalk broke his arm.

And it had been an okay day. Kinda.

Terran and I rushed over there and Jonesy was groaning about his arm, holding the elbow.

One of my dead chickens came over and pecked him right on the hip.

"Shit!" Jonesy hollered.

I turned and the rooster backed off, its eyes meeting mine, then with a slurping noise that was disgusting even to me it sucked the one drop of blood it had managed to rob Jonesy of into its beak.

Clyde's eyes met mine.

These weren't just regular zombies.

"I'll pulse the ambulance," Gale said, running into her old-fashioned house.

John looked at the chickens then at a writhing Jonesy and said, "He would have to break his arm."

"Shut your pie hole Terran!"

We smiled at each other, sirens becoming gradually louder as they drew nearer.

I glanced at Clyde and he was slightly green around the gills at the sight of bone protruding from Jonesy's forearm. I thought that was the height of irony, Clyde was a little squeamish. Nice.

I wondered what the EMTs would think when they came on the scene. Fifty zombie chickens, a kid with a busted arm and chicken guts in the grill.

Another day in the life of Caleb Hart.

CHAPTER 3

now

Jonesy's sour look stayed on his face while the rest of us kept laughing.

"Very uncool, chumps. I mean, it was a spiral, ya doofuses. I could have been Maimed. For. Life," Jonesy said, folding two good arms in front of himself, one in the soft cast that he still had to wear.