Deathless Page 17

  “What do you mean by ‘came true?’” he asked.

  She described the dreams, and then told him about the news stories and the YouTube video.

  “I remember hearing about that thing in Higganum,” Dr. Clerval said. “I didn’t pay too much attention to it—I just figured it was a prank of some sort, probably teenagers with too much time on their hands. Your dream certainly casts a different light on it, though.”

  “I might have chalked it up to coincidence,” Leesa said, “except for that tri-cornered hat. And then I had the dream about the dead girl at the window.”

  Dr. Clerval took another long pull from his pipe and blew the smoke out through pursed lips. “Precognition,” he said.

  “Huh? What’s that?”

  “The ability to see future events. For some people it happens in dreams, others have visions. Have you experienced anything like this before?”

  Leesa shook her head. “No, never. Not even close.”

  “So, if you are experiencing precognition,” Dr. Clerval said, “one question would be, why now?”

  “I’ve been wondering that same thing. I was hoping you could help. Do you think it could have anything to do with being bitten by Stefan? Do vampires have any of this precognition stuff?”

  “I’ve never seen it mentioned in any texts or histories,” the professor replied. “But just because it’s not a vampire power doesn’t mean it’s not related to Stefan’s bite. Perhaps the bite triggered something already inside you—unlocking it, if you will.”

  “Well, if that’s the case,” Leesa said glumly, “it might not be the only thing it triggered.

  Dr. Clerval’s eyes widened with interest. “What do you mean?”

  “I’ll tell you in a minute,” Leesa replied. “But can we stick to the dreams just a bit longer? I can understand why the one dream has to do with a vampire, given everything that happened last semester. But zombies? I have no idea where that’s coming from. Why am I suddenly dreaming about dead people returning to life? And is it truly happening? Or is someone just digging up bodies as a prank? Even if it’s just a prank, why am I dreaming about it?” She smiled. “That’s a lot of questions, I know. Do you know anything about zombies?”

  Dr. Clerval took a last puff from his pipe and placed it carefully back into the ashtray. “Reanimated corpses have been a theme of old folk tales for centuries,” he said, lapsing into his teaching voice. “They are especially connected to the voodoo practiced in places like the Caribbean and Africa. It’s usually a witch doctor or sorcerer who brings the person back to life with a spell. In the last hundred years, zombies have become increasingly common in literature, and a bit later, in film. In these modern stories, it’s usually some kind of plague or radiation that turns hordes of corpses into flesh-eating monsters.”

  Leesa nodded. She had been right to come to Dr. Clerval. He knew at least a little bit about lots of supernatural stuff.

  “I know there’ve been lots of books and movies in the last few years,” she said. “Is there any chance some of it could be based on something real? Like the vampire stories are?”

  The professor closed his eyes for a moment and stroked his chin with the fingers of one hand. It looked to Leesa like he was remembering something.

  “When I was a much younger man,” he said finally, “and far more energetic than I am now, I took a long trip to Eastern Europe in search of vampire lore. During my journey, I heard repeated stories of someone—or something—called the Necromancer. It’s a common term, used in many tales and legends about a person who can control the dead, but the stories I heard seemed to refer to a particular being. People spoke of grandparents or great grandparents who had lived through a scourge of walking dead. Since my main interest was vampires, I didn’t pay too much attention to these tales, but I still remember having the feeling there might be some germ of truth to them.”

  “So you think zombies could be real, then?”

  “I believe they might have existed at some time in the past, in very local situations,” Dr. Clerval replied. “But I haven’t come across anything in the last fifty years or so that carried the same quality of truth as those stories. Nowadays, every mention of the living dead is just popular fiction. It’s as if zombies disappeared, similar to the way werewolves also seem to have vanished.”

  Leesa remembered Rave saying something about werewolves being wiped out several hundred years ago. Could the same thing have happened to zombies? But if so, why were they suddenly reappearing now, in her dreams, at least?

  “Do you think there’s a chance what I’m seeing could actually be happening, then?” she asked.

  Dr. Clerval shrugged. “In my line of work, I seldom rule anything out. You’ve made a pretty good case for it, with the YouTube video and the old colonial hat. Of course, none of this tells us why you’re suddenly having these dreams.”

  “I know. But at least hearing you say the dreams could be real makes me feel better, like maybe I’m not imagining all this.” With first Rave and now Professor Clerval mentioning that old stories of flesh-eating corpses could have been based on real occurrences, Leesa was definitely not going to rule the possibility out. Unfortunately, that meant her dream of the girl and the vampire might also be real.

  “Is there any chance you could ask Stefan about zombies?” Dr. Clerval asked. “Perhaps the undead know something of their purported cousins.”

  “I haven’t seen him,” Leesa said. “Not since, you know….”

  “Well, I guess that’s really for the best,” Dr. Clerval said, though he sounded a bit disappointed. Leesa was pretty sure he was hoping to get another chance to meet Stefan.

  “You said there was something else you wanted to talk about?” the professor asked.

  Leesa had almost forgotten about the Red Bull can and the wastebasket. In for a penny, in for a pound, she thought.

  “Yeah, there is. I hope all this isn’t making you think I’m going crazy, Professor.”

  Dr. Clerval smiled. “After all the things I’ve seen you deal with, Leesa, I’d be a fool not to take anything you say seriously.”

  Leesa described the two incidents, admitting she could not be absolutely certain either of them had actually happened the way they seemed, but that she believed they did, especially the wastebasket.

  “Fascinating,” Dr. Clerval said when she was finished. “Telekinesis. The ability to move objects with one’s mind. Once again, that’s not a vampire power, so I think we can rule out it being caused by Stefan’s bite. You appear to be an extraordinarily gifted girl, Leesa.”

  Gifted? More like cursed, Leesa thought.

  “Maybe if I had an ounce of control over either thing I might agree with you,” she said. “The way things are right now, I don’t feel very gifted.”

  Dr. Clerval thought for a moment, then opened his desk drawer and took out a pencil. He laid the pencil down atop the desk.

  “Let’s see whether you do have any control,” he said. “Try to make this pencil move.”

  Leesa stared at the pencil. She did not have a clue how to begin. “How?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” the professor admitted. “Try concentrating on it, to the exclusion of anything else. Will it to move.”

  Leesa focused her full attention on the pencil, trying to command it to move. Nothing happened. She felt foolish.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “Nonsense. There’s nothing at all to be sorry for. I would have been quite surprised if you’d actually done it, but it was worth a try.” Dr. Clerval returned the pencil to the drawer. “You said both times this happened you were tired, and that you were angry the night you kicked at the wastebasket. Perhaps fatigue knocks out some of your logical defenses, allowing you to do something that would otherwise seem impossible and foolish. Maybe emotion plays a role as well. Perhaps this will happen again sometime soon and we’ll have more to go on.”

  Leesa glanced at the professor’s clock. “I’ve got to be g
etting to class,” she said, getting up from her chair. “Thank you for all your help.”

  “I’m here whenever you need me. And please, let me know if any of this happens again.”

  As Leesa left the professor’s office and headed down the hallway, she wasn’t sure whether she wanted it to happen again or not.

  33. ATTACK!

  Sixteen-year-old Nicky Kappes and fifteen-year-old Teri Smith would have preferred to be almost anywhere on this frigid Friday night instead of where they were right now—huddled in down sleeping bags inside a canvas tent in the Berkshire Mountains of western Massachusetts. The campground was officially closed for the winter, but that hadn’t stopped their fathers. For the past three years, the divorced dads had brought their kids here for a weekend of what they called “uninterrupted bonding time.” That meant no cell phones, no computers, no nothing—not even other people, except for their pesky little brothers, who hardly counted. Their fathers had their cell phones for emergencies, and Nicky’s dad always brought his rifle. Why, the girls didn’t know, since nothing was in season to hunt, and the Berkshires were not exactly known for harboring dangerous predators. The few bears that still roamed the mountains were all hibernating comfortably in their dens.

  It could have been worse, Nicky and Teri knew—they could have been forced to share a tent with their eight-year-old brothers instead of with each other. But thankfully, the boys were in tents with their dads.

  The six of them had spent the last couple hours sitting around a blazing campfire, taking turns telling scary stories. Most of the stories were pretty lame, but Teri’s father raised some goose bumps with a tale of a crazed psychopath who preyed on campers, dragging them from their tents back to a cave where he slowly ate them alive. By the time he was done, the youngsters found themselves peeking over their shoulders into the darkness.

  “When do you think we’ll be old enough so we won’t have to come out here anymore,” Teri asked Nicky. “I hate not being able to text, or talk, or even email my friends.”

  Both girls had their flashlight turned on beside them, illuminating the inside of their tent while they talked.

  “Me, too,” Nicky said, reaching one arm out of her sleeping bag and into her backpack. “That’s why I snuck this into my pack this year.” She pulled out her cell phone.

  Teri gasped. “I can’t believe you brought that. Your dad will kill you if he finds out.”

  “I know, right? But no way am I going all weekend without at least texting Adam.” Nicky’s fingers began pecking at her phone. “Not when we’ve only been going out two weeks. I don’t want him to forget about me.”

  “I can’t believe you’re dating a senior. That’s way cool.”

  “I know. And he’s sooo cute, too.”

  “Shhhh…what was that?” Teri asked anxiously. She pushed her shoulders up out of the sleeping bag and propped herself up on one elbow. The frigid night air immediately seeped in through her sweatshirt.

  “What was what?” Nicky asked, shoving her phone back into her pack.

  They listened in worried silence. Something was moving around outside, like footsteps on the dead leaves, but not quite footsteps—an animal of some kind, maybe? A dark shadow crossed in front of the moonlight that painted the front of their tent, growing larger as it moved nearer. The shadow seemed human in shape, but it was making an eerie, moaning kind of sound, like an animal in distress.

  Nicky aimed her flashlight at the zippered front flaps. “Dad, is that you?” she asked quietly, thinking one of their fathers was out there trying to frighten them. The shadow was much too big to be one of the boys. “Mr. Smith?”

  Whoever was out there began pawing at the entrance to the tent. Nicky grabbed her pack and scrabbled for her phone.

  “Dad? Mr. Kappes?” Teri said urgently “Stop it, please. This isn’t funny. You’re scaring us. I mean it. Stop!”

  The zipper began to slowly rise, moving up unevenly in fits and starts, as if whoever was outside could not quite get a proper grip on it. Terrified, both girls shined their flashlights at the entrance. When the zipper was half way up, a face poked into the opening. The girls screamed.

  The face was more horrible than anything either of them had ever seen. One eye socket was empty, surrounded by an ugly red and yellow fibrous scab. The thing’s grayish skin seemed to be rotting away, exposing pieces of bone and skull. Its lips were gone as well, revealing hideous yellow teeth. Dark yellow saliva so thick it looked more like mucus dripped from the upper teeth. The awful moaning sound grew louder as the creature continued pulling at the entrance flaps.

  Suddenly, the thing disappeared, jerked away from the entrance by Mr. Smith.

  “Get out here, girls, now!” he shouted.

  Nicky and Teri scrambled from their sleeping bags. Nicky yanked the zipper on the front flap all the way up and the two girls tumbled out into the darkness. A gunshot echoed through the night, first one, then another and another.

  More of the hideous creatures lurched across the campsite, each one as frightening and ugly as the one who had tried to get into the girls’ tent. Kappes was shooting at them. His bullets thudded into the creatures with a wet, sickening sound, but the gunfire seemed only to slow them, not stop them. The two boys were huddled behind him, and Smith was wrestling with the creature he had pulled away from the tent.

  Nicky had seen enough horror movies to know what was happening. It was impossible, but the campsite was being attacked by zombies! Never in a million years would she have believed it.

  “You have to shoot them in the head, Dad,” she shouted, recalling the movies she had seen. People always shot the creatures in the head. “In the head—it’s the only way to stop them.”

  Kappes shoved the two young boys back toward the girls.

  “Take care of your brothers,” he ordered. “Get them to the car!”

  He raised his aim and shot the nearest zombie in the face. The creature crumbled to the ground. The girls and their brothers remained frozen behind him.

  “I said get to the car!” he screamed again. “And if anything comes near you other than one of us, drive out of here. That’s an order.”

  Nicky and Teri grabbed their brothers and scrambled toward the SUV, parked at the edge of a dirt parking lot nearly a hundred yards away. Luckily, there were no zombies in this direction. Gunfire continued to split the night. The boys were screaming. Nicky climbed behind the wheel and tossed her cell to Teri.

  “Call 911,” she said as she started the engine and turned on the headlights.

  The gunfire suddenly stopped. Nicky hoped her dad hadn’t run out of bullets, or worse. Two dark figures lumbered toward the car, still too far away to recognize. She prayed it was her father and Mr. Smith.

  More than a hundred miles to the south and east, Leesa’s eyes shot open.

  34. BAD NIGHT

  Leesa’s heart pounded in her chest and the long-sleeved T-shirt she slept in clung to her skin with sweat. She felt like she had closed her eyes and fallen asleep only minutes ago. The sounds of music and voices from somewhere down the hall told her it couldn’t be very late, and a glance at her clock confirmed her thought—the blue numerals read 11:24. She had gone to bed a little before eleven, pretty early for a Friday night, but she had been feeling tired a lot lately, courtesy of all the tossing and turning she seemed to do almost every night now. If she didn’t figure out some remedy for her restless sleep soon, she wasn’t sure how she was going to make it through the semester without her grades suffering.

  Going to bed early tonight had not been any big deal—she hadn’t been doing much of anything anyhow. Cali was out with Andy, and Stacie and Caitlin were on dates as well. With Rave still up in New Hampshire, Leesa had been left to fend for herself, so she’d just hung around her room, doing a little studying and watching parts of a sappy romantic comedy movie on television.

  She pulled herself out from under the covers and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Wide awake despite t
he tiredness she felt in her body, she knew she would not be going back to sleep anytime soon—not after this dream.

  The cold air immediately attacked her damp shirt and bare legs, and she felt goose bumps begin to pimple her arms and legs. Moving carefully across her dark room, she switched on the desk lamp and retrieved a new, dry shirt from her dresser. She shivered as she pulled the wet shirt off and replaced it with the new one. The cloth was cool against her skin, but a big improvement over the sweat-soaked garment. She grabbed her terrycloth robe from the closet and slipped into her moccasins, then wrapped her arms tightly across her chest and waited for her body to warm itself up.

  The warming seemed to take longer than it should have, and Leesa knew why. It wasn’t just the cold and the sweat that chilled her—it was the nightmare that had yanked her from her sleep.

  Tonight’s dream had been the most realistic and most disturbing yet. It was the raw violence of this new vision that was so upsetting. None of her other dreams had contained any violence at all. Even the vampire nightmare, as dangerous and threatening as it felt, had not displayed any actual violence. This one was different. The zombies tonight had not just stumbled around a graveyard or peered plaintively into a window. No, these creatures had attacked the campers, forcing the men to defend themselves and their children. Leesa had heard the bullets penetrating the monsters’ rotting bodies with a wet, almost sucking sound. She had seen their heads explode when the shooter adjusted his aim at his daughter’s instructions.

  And such realism! That was what made the whole thing so much more frightening. When the zombie stuck its gruesome face into the girls’ tent, Leesa had almost felt like the thing was trying to get at her. She could still hear the creature’s low, gasping moans, and swore she’d been able to smell its foul, decaying stench as well. She shuddered at the memory.