AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You will be tested, Diviner. He will test all of you in time.” The ghosts were very close. Their fetid breath was nauseating. Henry feared he might be sick.
“He whispers to us so sweetly in our graves. He asks us why. Why should we have to die? All of that living, only to rot in the end. So unfair. We would have more. More life. And now, because of you, we shall take it. You’ve made us strong.”
“We haven’t done anything,” Evie said. To the others, she said, “Get ready.”
A constant whine, getting louder, as if all the souls in hell were singing.
“What… what are they doing?” Ling asked.
“He will make you see things,” the ghosts said.
The sound, louder still. Memphis’s body shook from it.
“Memphis?” Isaiah said, scared.
The ghosts seemed bolder. “Chaos is born. The time is now. We are ready. You have made us possible. You did this.”
“We gotta do something!” Theta said. Her whole body felt as if it were being squeezed.
“You did this,” the ghosts repeated. They made no move to attack the Diviners. “The time is—”
“Now!” Evie called.
The surge traveled through the Diviners and out like a wave. In the seconds before the blast hit them, the ghosts smiled and sighed, as if welcoming their destruction. And then their atoms were scattered into the ether. The light carried on the wind. Fluttered into trees and singed the new leaves. Dusted the rooftops of parked cars whose lights and windshield wipers had gone haywire. Left divots in the lot.
At the first surge, euphoria swept through the Diviners. And then they were on the floor, dazed, waiting for the inevitable crash into sickness that followed the thrilling high from all that death. Jericho’s body quivered. He could not get warm. “This is what you do?” he asked, horrified.
“We have to get rid of them,” Ling answered, but she could not look him in the eyes.
“It’s us or them,” Memphis said and spat out blood.
“I suppose you think it would be better to let them rampage through the city?” Evie didn’t like being judged, and she especially didn’t like being judged by Jericho. “You’ve got no room to talk. Not after what happened.”
The comment landed, Evie could see.
Jericho looked away. “It was the serum.”
“Was it?” Evie muttered.
Slowly, the Diviners rose to their feet. There was a fiery hole where the stage had been. The remaining patrons stepped closer, drawn to the spectacle. “You did that,” a woman said, eerily echoing the ghosts.
“What if they turn that power on us?” her date asked.
“I want no part of that,” Jericho said.
“I don’t think we get to be conscientious objectors for this fight, Jericho,” Evie said. Her head pounded. The dizzying good feeling had passed. She felt queasy, like her insides were coated in something that would not wash off. She gulped down a few breaths of night air. “Tomorrow night. We meet at the memorial, and we tell Jake Marlowe to shut down that machine.” She shouldered past Jericho, stumbling toward the exit, where she knew she would be sick.
MONSTER
Hopeful Harbor, NY
Sam Lloyd woke with a headache to beat all headaches and a dry mouth that tasted like day-old sardines. “My kingdom for a toothbrush,” he said. “And some aspirin.” His eyes hurt as he looked around the unfamiliar room. The place was small and dungeon-like, with very few furnishings apart from the bed where he now lay. He took it in bit by bit: A chair. A table. A toilet and sink. Thick brick walls. In the corner, a radio broadcast a rousing piano concerto that did nothing to help the banging in his head. No windows. The only way in or out of the room was a heavy steel door with a We’re not foolin’ around type of lock.
“It’s either the world’s worst motel or swankiest jail cell,” Sam muttered. He gave his face a small slap. “Stop talking to yourself, Lloyd. That’s how they get ya. Dammit. Did it again!”
Sam pushed himself to a sitting position, feeling the ache in his muscles as he did. He was shackled to the bed. He tried pulling against the bindings, but this only brought home how weak he still felt. Whatever juice those creepy fellas had shot into him had really knocked him sideways. He had no idea how long he’d been out. What day was it? What was the last thing he could remember?
Evie. Bits and pieces were coming back now: He had been walking back to see Evie at the hotel. He’d been thinking about her, feeling all goofy, which was why he hadn’t seen the two Shadow Men until they ambushed him and stuck a needle into his thigh. His legs had gone numb, and then the rest of him. He remembered being thrown into the back of a car and then… he couldn’t remember anything after that.
