Chapter ONE
I writhed and squirmed against the padded walls of the coffin. I could feel myself being lowered into the ground and I started to struggle harder. I scratched and clawed at the inside of the lid and screamed my head off. "Derek!" I screamed. "SIMON! TORI!" My ears echoed with the sound of my nails catching and tearing on the fabric walls of my newest cell. Then all of the sudden, the sounds of my own struggle were not the only ones. A horribly familiar scratching noise came from all around me, seeming to seep through the walls of my coffin and under my skin. My pine prison began to crack and crumble in on me from all sides and suddenly I was wishing to be trapped inside again. Alone.
I felt something crawling up my arm and made the mistake of looking down to see the undead spider the size of my fist dragging its decaying body towards my face, leaving chunks of hair in its wake. It didn't take long for me to realize that this was not the only one. They erupted from every crack and seam; spiders, mice, even a few rats. Something scampered across my forehead and into my hair and I let out another scream that I couldn't believe was actually coming form me. My body started to twist and spasm again as I tried as hard as I could to get away from the critter zombies that had now almost completely filled the coffin.
I tried to smash the bugs against my skin and when they didn't die I conceded to scraping them off of me with what was left of my nails. "Chloe stop!" screamed a familiar voice. I felt two hands that I could not see grasp me by the shoulders and push me against the bottom of the coffin, pinning my arms to my side and leaving me defenseless. I screamed louder and fought harder, desperate to break free of my bonds before I was completely sealed in by the dirt being piled on top of me. I bit at the invisible hands and the voice that accompanied them swore, but they didn't relinquish their grip. I squeezed my eyes closed, my face screwing up with concentration as I tried to force whatever spirit held me from its body again.
"CHLOE! CHLOE NO!" It was a different voice calling to me now, a woman's. "Chloe you need to send it back!" she yelled. My eyes flickered open to find Tori leaning over me, her face inches from mine. "Chloe, Chloe send it back!" she said, not even bothering to try and mask the urgency behind her demand. Derek had released my shoulders and now hovered beside the bed, the look of concern he was giving me mingled with some other emotion, one that I wasn't used to seeing on Derek. Could it be fear, maybe? A fresh wound on his left hand was oozing blood. When he noticed me looking, he wiped it clean, revealing the two perfect semicircles of a bight mark. Our eyes met and I blushed, silently telling him I was sorry. He shook his head, telling me not to worry about it.
"CHLOE!" Tori snapped, redirecting my attention to the quivering clump of fur pulling itself through the open door and towards the bed where I was now sitting upright and wide awake. The raccoon lifted its face, flashing two empty eye sockets that crawled with maggots. The animal clawed at the bed ruffle and tried to pull itself up onto the comforter. Tori jumped backward from her spot beside me and backed up against the wall. The raccoon had made progress, it was now working its way across the comforter, edging unnervingly close to my feet and I pulled them away before its decaying paws could make contact. Still it kept coming.
"Stop" I commanded, trying very hard to make my tone even and confident. It stopped and looked up at me with that eyeless stare. As usual, I couldn't help but feel guilty for returning that poor spirit to this horrible body. I squeezed my eyes closed again and focused on releasing raccoon. Release, release, release, I thought over and over. I pictured lifting a transparent spirit from the mangled body that sat at my feet. Release I thought, release. The body went limp, toppling across my bare ankles. Derek reached forward and grabbed it by the neck. He walked to the door, still standing open, and threw it over the banister of the tiny balcony in front of our adjoined motel rooms. Derek came back into the room and stood with his back to the door, watching me carefully.
For the first time I noticed that my arms were bleeding as vigorously as Derek's hand, tattooed with scratch marks I assumed I had inflicted on myself. My aunt had noticed too and was looking at the worriedly. Derek's face almost matched hers to a T as he scrutinized my wounds. Suddenly the door swung open, hitting Derek full in the back and knocking him forward. He caught himself on the edge of my bed as Simon came hurtling through the doorway, his father on his heels. "We heard screaming," Mr. Bae said. "Is everyone ok?"
"Yeah, we're ok." Derek said. "Just a bad dream but we're all ok…" he let his sentence trail off, realizing that he hadn't yet given me his usual damage assessing once over. He held me at arms length and examined me carefully before proclaiming that I was in fact, alright. Aunt Lauren, however, didn't seem quite as fine as the rest of us. For Simon, Tori and Derek who were used to seeing me raise the dead, accidentally and on rare occasion, intentionally, this night's occurrence was one of the less traumatic. But Aunt Lauren had only seen me do this once before and it was with a body that had been dead only minutes; much less disgusting. However, if my aunt now thought I was some kin of super freak, she was doing a good job of hiding it. She came and sat next to me on the bed and pushed my sweaty hair off of my face.
"So," Simon said, "what did you dream?" I told everyone, what id seen and Mr. Bae watched me with a look of true interest playing across his face.
"Was this the first time you summoned in your sleep?" he asked. I shook my head, remembering the time in the warehouse a few weeks back.
"She summoned some dead bats in her sleep once," Simon explained. Mr. Bae continued to look me over.
"Ok," he finally said. "So in your dream, you were trying to expel a spirit from its body so that it wouldn't hurt you, correct?" I nodded. "I think that maybe you were being to general." He paused, trying to figure out a better way to explain himself. "I think," he began again, "that what may be happening is that when you are afraid, you send out something of a general cry for help. Because of your powers, this, signal is able to reach the dead more easily than the living. The animals that you've summoned could have been reacting to what they thought was a summons and come to your aid, so to speak."
The more I considered this, the more it seemed to make sense. I looked at Derek for reassurance, but his face gave me no answers. His eyes told me he was deep in thought, that weird look id seen earlier once again making an appearance. In other words, it was clear he was totally tuned out of our conversation.
"Now I don't know much abut necromancers," Mr. Bae admitted, "but it is a theory." He looked at me and said "I'll see if I can get you some reading material on the subject."
I forced a smile, "Thanks," I said. He put his hand on my shoulder reassuringly before he stood up. Derek snapped back to reality and looked at his dad, something else catching his eye behind him.
"Chlo, did you take any of these tonight?" Derek shook the bottle of sleeping pills that was now sitting on my bedside table. I nodded. "Don't," he said, his voice assuming that bossy superior tone I had barely heard in days. I gave him a warning look that said lets not start with that. He eased up a little bit, his eyes softening, but he was still adamant.
"I didn't like not being able to wake you up," he said. I nodded. He took the pills into the bathroom and I heard them rattling in the bottle, then the toilet flush. I sighed; well there went any chance for a good nights sleep. Mr. Bae took one last look at me and asked if I was sure I was okay before suggesting that I try to get some more sleep and excusing himself to do the same.
Simon followed his dad back to the guys room and reluctantly, Derek brought up the rear, sneaking one last look at me as he went. Tory got back into her bed and rolled onto her side so her back faced me. Aunt Lauren kissed my forehead and then did the same. I closed my eyes and tried to go back to sleep.