Wake the Dead (The Journals of Octavia Hollows #1)

  Wake the Dead

  The Journals of Octavia Hollows

  Book 1

  Written by

  Stacey Rourke

  Copyright 2019. All rights reserved. Published by Anchor Group Publishing. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher.

  Special Thanks To:

  Hell Yes Designs

  Cheree Castellanos

  Susan Burdorf

  Bam Shepherd

  &

  Stacy Sanford

  Find the full catalog of Stacey Rourke books at: https://bit.ly/2SIbPLz

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  Chapter One

  In some towns, the cries of the dead are louder than others. Seattle… wasn’t one of them. Maybe it was all the caffeine pumping through the veins of the residents; once the time came for them to finally rest in peace, they were really tired. Or, maybe—and far more likely an option—I couldn’t hear the muted wails of the undead because of the squealing, squirming pig strapped to my chest.

  “Bacon, just a minute, dude!” Easing my motorcycle to a stop in the parking lot of a Denny’s, I pushed the kickstand down with my heel and kicked one leg over the seat. “I get that you need a potty break, but coming to a complete stop before exiting the vehicle is kind of a crucial element.”

  Bacon was no bigger than a bull terrier, which made it easy for me to transport him in one of those infant carriers I could fasten right to me… usually. However, once he decided he needed a break, it became a full-blown pig wrestling contest to contain him. Unclipping the straps, I grabbed him by his round little belly and lowered him to the ground. While he sniffed and snorted for the best spot to do his business, I took off my helmet and shook out my windblown pink hair.

  Even after stretching out my arms and legs from our long time on the road, I glanced down to see my picky little piglet still hadn’t chosen the right spot. “You know, for an undead pig, you’re surprisingly high maintenance.”

  Bacon gave a snort of acknowledgement, then maintained locked-on eye contact while he squatted to relieve himself.

  The previous town I’d drifted through, in my ever-nomadic existence, was a quaint little burg in the mountains. While the memories of my time there became fuzzier with each day that passed, the presence of my Ride-or-Die pig served as a constant reminder of the butcher shop where I’d worked. Some people would probably say a necromancer, such as myself, working in a shop surrounded by dead meat, is sure to be a recipe for disaster. Those people… are absolutely right. It was a shit show. Accidentally falling on a frozen roasting pig and inadvertently bringing him back to life was how Bacon came into my world. Sure, I could have reversed the magic and returned him to his state of peaceful oblivion, but… he’s cute and someone would have eaten him. One look at his sweet little swine face and I knew I couldn’t let that happen.

  Other than companionship, a huge benefit to traveling with Bacon was the added warmth. My only mode of transportation was the Scrambler motorcycle left to me when my fiancé, Elba, died. Even though Seattle was having a surprisingly mild winter, our combined body heat—thanks to the infant carrier strapped to my chest I carried him in—was the only saving grace to make open air travel slightly more bearable. Sniffing the air, I caught a whiff of pancakes wafting from the restaurant and my stomach audibly rumbled. Unfortunately, not knowing how long I would be staying in Seattle ruled out luxuries like a Grand Slam breakfast. What money I had needed to be saved for a place to crash while I figured out what the hell I was looking for. Whatever it was, it would lead me back to Elba. His death was unexpected, caused by a horrible accident on the construction site where he was working. One I could have easily undone with a simple touch of my hand. See, I’m not like normal necromancers who turn the dead into mindless puppets. I possess what’s known as the Lazarus Effect, which means I have the ability to fully restore life.

  Someone out there must have known that.

  What other reason could there be for Elba’s body to mysteriously go missing before I could get to him?

  Now, I made it my quest to retrace my steps through the towns I visited—back when I first tried to outrun the pain of losing him—in hopes of finding answers. Maybe, just maybe, somewhere along the way I would find the closure my bruised and battered heart needed to finally begin to heal.

  I was turning to grab my water bottle from the leather cargo sack on the back of the bike when a stranger in a Maine Black Bears baseball cap and sunglasses cut around the pickup truck beside me. Not bothering to glance up from his phone, he slammed into me, knocking me off balance. I stumbled back and lost hold of my water bottle. It crashed to the ground and cracked, seeping what was left of my supply into a puddle on the pavement. Making a compelling argument that chivalry was, in fact, dead, the dude kept on walking without so much as an apology.

  “I’m fine, by the way!” I shouted after him, hands balling into fists of annoyance at my sides. “Yeah, you hurry in there for that sausage breakfast. Hope you don’t choke on it, asshole!”

  “Well, I won’t order the sausage.” The man I now dubbed Captain Asshat kept on walking, not bothering with a glance back. “From the looks of your friend, it’s grossly undercooked.”

  Mouth swinging open in a disgusted gasp, my head whipped in Bacon’s direction, half expecting him to be as flabbergasted as I was. If he was verklempt with emotion, my brave little piglet covered it up by nosing at a discarded Butterfinger wrapper.

  Leaning back against my bike seat, I folded my arms across my chest and shook my head. “Behavior like that does not bode well for a city that speedballs espressos all day.”

  Peering my way with soulful little piggy eyes, Bacon farted his agreement.

  “What do you say?” Grabbing my helmet from where it swung on my right grip, I popped it back on and clipped the chin strap into place. “Ready to go find us a place to crash?”

  Pausing long enough for a contented little belly shimmy, Bacon trotted to the side of the bike and patiently waited for me to scoop him up.

  Squatting down to pick him up, I was jolted upright by a sudden buzz coursing through my leg. “What the actual hell?” I yelped, slapping at my leg in search of whatever may or may not have been trying to electrocute me. There, dropped into the cuff of my pant leg, was a burner phone I had never seen before. Odder still, it was ringing.

  Brow creased with confusion, I thumbed the button to answer it. “Hello?”

  “Is this Octavia Hollows?” a breathy male voice asked.

  Rising on tiptoe, I swiveled in the direction where the rude stranger had disappeared. “Did that guy plant a phone on me? Is this some kind of Liam Neeson Taken situation? Because, let me tell you, you cannot handle my particular set of skills.”

  “Is it her?” a woman whispered on the other end of the line, followed by a series of crackling rustles. “Miss Hollows? My family needs your help!”

  “Wha…? Th-this isn’t even my phone,” I stammered. “I think some random dude just planted it on me.”

  “This was no accident, Octavia. We were told to call this number at precisely this time.” There were muffled murmurs on the line, followed by four words that made my blood run cold. “We… are friends of Elba’s.”

  Sometimes opportunity knocks. Other times, it uses its data plan.

  Chapter Two

  I was five years old, playing in the backyard of one of the m
any orphanages I’d stayed at, when I found a baby bird in the backyard. Its sweet song—a faded trill only I could hear, tugged at my heart, prompting me to brush the tip of my finger over its silky feathers. I didn’t understand the green light that sparked from my fingertip, or how it was that I woke that little sparrow. What needed no explanation was the reaction of the other kids playing nearby. Their screams rose in unison, calling me a freak as they ran inside. After that day, that word became a part of my identity. It was my norm. However, every now and then my awkward-meter would spike in a way that drove in the reminder that there were some areas of polite society where I simply didn’t fit in. This was one of those places.

  Sitting in a pristine living room filled with overpriced furniture, I became painfully aware of the frayed hem of my pant legs and the hole in the elbow of my hoodie. That’s not even mentioning the undead pig curled up in my lap.

  “We’re so glad you could come on such short notice.” Betsy Dews, a willowy blonde I guessed to be in her late thirties, forced a smile that read fake by the way her stare kept flicking down to Bacon. “And that you brought your pig… to sit on my Lemoderno sofa…”

  Grinding my teeth, I wrapped my arms around Bacon, ready to scoop him up and storm out the door. “Hey, you called me here. Even said it was urgent, if I remember correctly. I’m sorry I didn’t have time to arrange proper piggy day care.”

  “Betsy, bigger picture.” The deep shadows under her husband, Brad’s, green eyes made it seem that managing even that flat tone zapped what little strength he had. Sure, the guy was handsome in a country club golf pro kind of way, but he looked like he hadn’t slept in weeks.

  “I’m sorry, please stay,” Betsy apologized, rubbing her palms against her pant legs. “I really don’t care about the couch. That comment was an old habit brought on by our rather extreme situation.”

  At a cursory glance, she looked like any other soccer mom who filled her days with yoga classes and mimosas—or whatever the hell her kind did to pass the time. Only upon closer inspection did I notice the cracks in her well-polished façade. The Dolce & Gabbana silk top she wore was actually inside out, and the fake lashes of her left eye were loose enough to flutter at the corner every time she blinked. A woman like her wouldn’t let such obvious faux pas go unnoticed, which spoke an ominous opus that something was seriously wrong here at Casa de Dews.

  Relaxing my hold on Bacon, I let my gaze sweep over the interior of their sprawling colonial manor and tried to figure out what possible reason they could have for seeking me out. “You said you knew Elba?” I prompted.

  “We only met once, at a dinner party in the Hamptons.” Settling back in his armchair, Brad’s blinks grew longer, his speech slow and slurred. “He said you were the girl to call for,” freakishly long yawn, “odd matters.”

  Elba landed a job with a framing crew thanks to his father, a respected roofer. His mother worked as an elementary school teacher, and always paid way more out of pocket than she should have had to for supplies for her class. To summarize, these were not weekend in the Hamptons kind of people. “I don’t want to offer up too much about myself, because it may send you running and screaming into the street. So, to sidestep that, I’ll just ask if he happened to mention why he thought I would be the gal to call?”

  Trying to physically shake himself from his haze of exhaustion, Brad leaned forward with his forearms on his knees.

  As if sensing what he was about to say, Betsy squirmed in her seat.

  Raising both hands, palms out, Brad cleared his throat. “He said—ahem—that you… can raise the dead.”

  Fighting to maintain my impassive façade, I casually scratched Bacon under the chin. “That’s a pretty crazy claim. You actually believed him?”

  The frazzled couple exchanged a telling look that screamed their unease.

  “Not at first,” Brad dragged a hand over the back of his neck, rubbing the collar of his powder blue polo shirt. “Then… he showed us the articles.”

  Instantly, I bristled. “Articles?”

  Betsy’s voice dropped to a hushed whisper. “About what happened… at North Star High.”

  For a beat, my vision tunneled.

  North Star High, the school I attended as a teen, where I became one of many caught in the middle of a school shooting. Eight were killed by the enraged shooter. Young and stupid, I utilized my freakish gift and brought them back. I had no way of knowing that when people die in such a terrifying way, they reanimated into enraged beasts. Those innocent kids had to die a second time because of me, and it has haunted me every day since. More so, since the news articles covering it made me into an urban legend that rivaled the Loch Ness monster. It was my deepest, darkest secret. Meaning, if what the Dews’ family said was true, Elba had broadcasted my greatest shame to strangers. If he could do such a thing, did I really know him at all?

  Bringing his hands together in a soft clap, Brad’s red-rimmed stare beseeched me. “Honestly, we thought the guy was a kook, touting fake news crap. Three Moscow Mules into the evening later, we took your number as a goof. Something we could laugh about on the way home. It was only in the light of the last year of our lives that we’ve become believers in the impossible.”

  A pained whimper seeped from Betsy’s lips, tears slipping from her lashes.

  Hand stilling beneath Bacon’s lifted snout, I couldn’t help but ask, “What happened?”

  Rapidly blinking to rein in her emotions, Betsy combed her hands through her shoulder-length, blonde bob. “We had our first child when we were little more than babies ourselves—barely out of high school. It was tough, but we made it work and built a life together we are very proud of. Once we finally felt settled, we decided to try for another child. It didn’t take long for us to learn my age, and other reproductive factors I won’t bore you with, were working against us. We suffered what’s known as secondary infertility. Still, we refused to give up. Year after year. Endocrinologist after endocrinologist. Just when we thought we had tried every procedure known to man and all hope was lost, we were blessed with our miracle.”

  “How can you call what happened a blessing?” Brad snapped, his nostrils flaring with agitation.

  “Because our child is here!” she lobbed back, easily matching the fire in his tone.

  Suddenly remembering they had company, both swallowed back any further comments and peered my way with matching smiles that came nowhere near reaching their manic eyes.

  “Our apologies,” they chorused.

  Suppressing a chill from that creepy-ass response, I bowed my head and scratched at the diamond stud in my nostril with the nail of my pinkie finger. “Infertility sounds like a real bitch, but I still fail to see what that has to do with me.”

  Sorrow sagged Betsy’s shoulders, aging her ten years in a blink. “Gideon was born at twenty-six weeks’ gestation. He didn’t even weigh two pounds, and he couldn’t eat or breathe on his own. But all of that, he could have beaten. It happens in eighty percent of the reported cases. Unfortunately, he developed respiratory distress syndrome, which caused his lungs to continuously collapse. He was treated with something called a C-PAP time and again, but his little body wasn’t responding to the treatment.”

  With a lump of dread swelling in my throat, I held up one hand to halt what I thought for sure to be an ugly veer in the conversation. “I think I see where this is going, and I’m going to stop you right there. I’m deeply sorry your child died, I truly am. But I can’t help you. If I did have the abilities you think I do—and I’m not saying that’s true—the fact remains that if his little body wasn’t strong enough to keep him alive the first time around, resurrection wouldn’t change that. You don’t want to watch your child die a second time. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.”

  “My son isn’t dead, Miss Hollows.” Betsy swatted at the air, as if batting the words away. “Far from it.”

  Out of polite sentiments, I opted for the blatant truth. “Then your story has an impressive
plot twist coming.” Scooping Bacon under one arm, I rose to my feet. “Look, I’m really sorry for whatever you’ve been through. It seems like a hell of a plight. That said, if I’m being honest, I don’t see how I could offer any help.”

  Elbows on the arm-rests, Brad steepled his fingers beneath his chin. “Our son was dying, Octavia. The doctors told us to say our final goodbyes. They said he wouldn’t make it to the morning. We kissed his sweet head, told him we loved him, and tried our best to stay awake… in anticipation of the very worst.”

  “We fell asleep.” Glancing down at her cuff, Betsy realized her shirt was inside out and blew such a trivial matter off with a defeated shrug. “That’s the last moment’s rest we’ve had since.”

  Choking on emotion, Brad crossed one ankle over the opposite knee and anxiously drummed his fingers against his leg. “There was one nurse in particular we bonded with; her name was Nikki. She took great care of Gideon, and us. Made sure we were taking the time to eat and rest when we could. The following morning, we woke to frantic shouts of a Code Blue being screamed down the hall.”

  “Gideon?” I asked, shifting Bacon from one hip to the other.

  Chins falling to his chest, Brad shook his head.

  “That poor nurse’s heart stopped in the middle of her shift. She seemed perfectly healthy, yet she was gone before they could get the crash cart to her. It was a horrible tragedy, made all the more… odd by Gideon’s state that same morning. One that has continued to progress every day since.”

  “Which is?”

  For a moment, they both fell silent, neither able to find the words.

  Finally, Brad smacked his hands on the chair’s armrests and pushed himself to standing. “I think to understand that, you really need to see it for yourself.”

  “C-can I bring my pig?” I stuttered, ever the eloquent linguist.

  “Seems silly to restrict the petting zoo smell to one room.” Betsy shrugged one shoulder, adding, “Absolutely, bring him along.”