Only The Dead Don't Die | Book 4 | Finding Home Popovich, A.D. (any book recommendations txt) 📖

metaphysical library, the Akashic Records? Mom used to astonish him with her beliefs on quantum spirituality, saying people existed everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

Blue-fiery letters whirled around his head. “Believe,” a magical voice whispered. “Father of our New Hu. A wonderful future awaits. If only you remain firm and correct and navigate the correct path through the maze of deceit. Beware, for evil lurks behind every erroneous decision! Farewell kindred spirit, and remain true to your heart . . .”

He threw off the tarp. “Is this for real?” Justin shouted to the sky.

His overactive imagination went bonkers, suddenly envisioning a GIF of a Dalai Lama-like monk chanting, “Hey dumbass, have faith. Shangri-La is out there somewhere—waiting for you if you get your shit together and go for it. No matter how impossible it seems.”

“Ye-ah, right. Okay.” So maybe spirit guides actually existed, only he had been too dense to accept it.

A jet whizzed across the skyline, streaking the sky with white. Another vision or was the jet occurring in real-time? No wonder Twila and Scarlett seemed confused at times.

“Son, what the hell was that?” Dean poked his head up through the hatch.

“Uh, uh, a jet! Drones at the wall,” Justin finally realized. Had they spotted the bus? “Stop under the overpass!”

The bus braked hard. He held onto the rack, afraid he might sling-shot over the border wall. Meep! Meep! The Roadrunner’s voice jib-jabbed, eroding what was left of his sanity.

The air brakes let out a reluctant belching-puff. They stopped under the overpass, hidden in shadow. But if that had been a reconnaissance jet, it was only a matter of time before a SWAT team came for them. Justin rushed down the rear ladder a second before the backdoor flew open.

Dean’s burrowed brows greeted him. Another jet roared by. “What’s going on? Surely Last State’s not bringing in the cavalry for a hippy-dippy bus of dissidents,” Dean rambled, scanning the sky.

“Heck no. Usually, jets monitor the Gulf of Mexico for rogue militias.” Last State wouldn’t waste their precious jet fuel. “Something hu-mon-gous,” he enunciated slowly, “must be happening!”

Luther jumped out the rear exit, followed by Scarlett.

“Scarlett, we could use your input,” Dean said, not budging from his binoculars.

With closed fluttering eyelids, Scarlett stood there with her fingers pressed to her forehead. He and Luther eyed each other pensively, waiting.

She let out a long gush of air. “All I see is a dark chasm of nothingness.”

“Meaning what?” Dean prodded.

“I used to see the void when the Ancient Ones blocked me from accessing the Akashic Records. But, the Akashic Records have been erased. The future—humanity’s future. No longer exists,” Scarlett gloomily revealed with obvious acceptance. Had she given up?

Justin wanted to blab out to them—to the whole world, “But it does!” A wonky feeling warned to shut the heck up. As if someone was listening. An abrasive hum wore on his edgy nerves. Just the bus cooling down, he decided. It made all kinds of funky noises. But this sounded—otherworldly.

Scarlett held her finger to her lips and looked up at the undercarriage of the overpass. She heard it too? They followed her line of sight. She shined the flashlight at the concrete underbelly. Justin closed his eyes and hoped for an image that showed him what was going on. A swarm of blackbirds rendered him blind.

“Mommy!” Twila yelled from the rear exit.

Justin waved his arms frantically at hundreds of beady blood-red eyes drilling into his mind. “The birds!” Justin bellowed.

“Just an illusion,” he barely heard Scarlett say as the blackbirds’ shrieks invaded his consciousness.

Could they both have the same vision at the same time? He retaliated with his mind and shoved their pecking invasion back. How can this not be—real, he marveled as Dean lead him onto the bus.

Feeling like he had just teleported into The Birds, live on-set, Justin steadied his nerves and fought back the fanic trying to take over. Once on the bus, their uncertain faces quizzed each other, wanting answers. “What the heck just happened?”

“The Ancient Ones’ minions found us,” Scarlett started. “But, if we all saw them. That must mean they now know all of us are part of the Grand Plan to Save Hu-manity.”

Dean cleared his throat tentatively. “I, for one, didn’t see a blasted thing. But the terror on your faces dern near gave me a heart attack,” Dean confessed with a tone of resonate evil.

“It’s not safe here!” Twila warned. And then she went into her freaky statue state. Scarlett caught her before she fell.

Luther quickly locked the rear door and stared at it as if waiting for the blackbirds to bust through. “Lordy, Lordy, Aunt Matilda, what in hell did you get us into?”

“What did your aunt tell you?” Justin demanded, wondering why he was suddenly mad at Luther.

Luther flopped onto the futon. “I forget—”

“Concentrate,” Scarlett pushed.

Luther closed his eyes. Suddenly, his hands flew to his head. “‘See someting dark a comin’ for ya,’” Luther rasped, sounding just like her. “‘Ya betta run, boy. Run! Like it be da devil chasin’ ya.’”

“O-M-G!” Ella gasped.

“Anything else?” Dean asked.

Luther’s eyes widened. “Pi-za,” his toned turned ghastly. “Piz-za. Pizza.”

“You got me on that one.” Dean chortled uneasily. “I’d say, you’re on the mend.”

“Not funny.” Ella girly-punched Luther in the arm. “Hey, I can make pizzas,” Ella said between giggles. “One of those survival food buckets is a pizza kit. With freeze-dried mozzarella. We have a little salami left.”

“Boom! Ol’ Luther the Great just manifested pizza for his friends,” Luther zinged back.

“So, the birds don’t exist,” Justin mumbled in confusion.

“I always assumed,” Scarlett said, “the blackbirds were a symbolic warning from my higher-self.”

Whatever that means, Justin grumbled to himself.

Twila poked her head around the curtained bunk bed with the wide-round eyes of a possessed