Dead Beautiful (34 page)

“That’s the way I felt when my parents died,” I said softly.

My grandfather nodded. “Existential crises happen to everyone. With humans it’s emotional rather than biological. This is the real Gottfried curse—the fate the Undead are faced with—and when they are unaware of what is happening to them, they can be very dangerous. Imagine an Undead girl trying to kiss a boy. She would accidentally take his soul and kill him.”

Which was why Dante wouldn’t kiss me, I thought.

“With the medical and technological advances over time, the Undead became rare, as fewer children died and more of those who did were buried. Slowly, the school began to integrate living children into its student body. Gottfried needed money, and accepting normal students, or what we refer to as ‘Plebeians,’ was a secure way to keep the school running.”

Plebeians.
I had seen that word before, in Benjamin Gallow’s file. “But wasn’t it unsafe for them?”

“At first, yes. There were a slew of ‘accidents,’ all caused by the Undead. The school opened and closed, and was soiled by scandals that were artfully covered up by the faculty as natural disasters or epidemics. They only stopped when a new headmaster took over and revolutionized the school, training faculty in defense and burial rituals, designing more proactive course work, and instituting a stricter code of rules and regulations, which has now become the
Gottfried Academy Code of Discipline.
All of the rules have practical safety applications. For example, the banning of romantic relationships was designed to prevent accidental
Basium Mortis.
”

“But it’s still unsafe.”

“Although the Undead are rather rare these days, there’s still a chance of encountering the Undead at any school in the country. Plebeians are far better off encountering them at Gottfried, where there are trained professors and rules. Moreover, the only way to truly teach the Undead not to kill is to expose them to the living, so that they learn to value others not only in theory, but through their friendships. An Undead is far less likely to take the life of a friend than a stranger.”

I stared at the food growing cold on my plate and considered Dante. I still couldn’t wrap my mind around the idea that he was dead.

“One of the last safety precautions the school took was to dig tunnels that ran through Bertrand Gottfried’s original catacombs. As you recall, the Undead cannot go underground. In the chance of an attack, professors could direct the Plebeians to the tunnels, where they could seek refuge.”

“So all of the professors know about the … the … Undead?” I still had trouble saying the word, as if speaking it out loud made it more real.

“Yes.”

“And the... Pleb—”

“Plebeians.”

“Right, the Plebeians know about the Undead?”

“No. It has long been Gottfried’s policy not to explicitly tell Plebeian students about the existence of the Undead. It was feared that teaching living students about the Undead would create natural segregation and discrimination. The classes at Gottfried address issues that are pertinent to
all
students, not just the Undead.”

“But the Undead can tell the difference between the Undead and the living?” I asked, thinking about Cassandra and Benjamin. Had she known that Benjamin was a Plebeian?

“Of course. They were once living themselves; they can recognize the changes one goes through after reanimating because they experienced them firsthand. They also have special classes, in which they are taught about what they are and what it means for them.”

Advanced Latin, I thought.

“But more important, they are drawn to life. That is perhaps their only ‘sensation,’ if you could call it that. So it is a safe assumption that they know the living from the Undead.”

“And Gottfried is the only organization in the world that knows about the Undead? No one else knows?”

“There are others. Gottfried is one of three sister schools, each founded by one of the three original nurses who worked with Bertrand. Most of the Undead were listed as disappearances rather than deaths, because the bodies were never found. So when they reanimate and wander home, their loved ones aren’t usually aware that they’re dead. If they are still in contact with their parents, they might inform them; though more often they prefer to keep their condition to themselves.”

“But why? I mean, why is it such a big secret? Why not tell someone? Like the police. Or the government.”

My grandfather laughed. “And what would you tell them? Imagine trying to explain the theory of the Undead to someone else. They would think you were insane.”

He had a point.

“And even if they believed you, it’s difficult to tell the Undead from those who are alive. Can you imagine the kind of damage the police could do if they started blindly arresting children? If the outside world found out, it would be the start of the biggest witch hunt in history.”

“How are you so sure? I mean, a long time ago people
did
know about the Undead, didn’t they? That’s how they created all the burial rituals. And then over time we just forgot what they were for.”

“Discrimination has always existed, which is exhibited in the fact that they created the rituals in the first place. Romulus killed most of the Undead children in Rome, including his own brother, out of fear.”

“So … why did you send me to Gottfried? I’m just a Plebeian, right? What does this have to do with me?”

My grandfather studied me pensively. “Because it is an excellent school. And a safe school. The Undead exist everywhere; at least at Gottfried the professors are aware of their existence and are trained to deal with them. That, and I wished you to know the truth about the world. Aren’t you glad you know?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. I mean, yes. And no.” Of course I wanted to know the truth. The question was, could I accept it?

That afternoon I went downstairs and knocked on the door to Dustin’s quarters. The door opened suddenly. “Miss Winters,” he said warmly. “You should have rang the service bell instead of coming all the way down here.”

I shrugged. “It’s no problem. I don’t like using bells anyway.”

“What can I do for you?”

“I was wondering if there’s a video-rental store around here that’s open?”

“There is one but twenty minutes away. Would you like me to take you there?”

“Please.”

We drove through the back roads of Massachusetts until we reached a dingy strip mall with a liquor store, a convenience store, a barber shop, an ice-cream parlor, and a place that read king’s videos.

A gawky teenage boy behind the counter eyed us as we came in. I went straight to the horror section in the back.

Without much discrimination, I started pulling movies from the shelves, all about the Undead.
Dawn of the Dead, The Walking Dead, White Zombie, Night of the Living Dead,
and about two dozen others. When I was finished, I brought them to the register. Dustin trailed behind me, carrying the rest.

The boy behind the counter smiled, his teeth crooked and covered with braces. “A zombie freak,” he said, giving me a wide grin. “I love this one,” he said, holding up a movie with a ghoulish creature on the cover. “It’s a classic.”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“These are due back in seven days,” he said, ringing us up.

“That’s fine,” Dustin said from behind me. We took the bags and left.

Dustin set up the DVD player in the Red Room, and I arbitrarily picked a movie from the pile and put it in. Images of the Undead flashed in front of my eyes—people rising from the grave, cemeteries overrun by staggering corpses, women screaming as they ran to their houses, chased by zombies; men trapped in their cars, swarmed by the Undead. Over each zombie face I mentally superimposed Dante’s, trying to come to terms with what he was.

I didn’t leave the Red Room for days. I went from one movie to the next, falling in and out of sleep to the blue light of the screen. Dustin left plates of food outside the door, but I barely touched them. A few times a day my grandfather came in to check on me, hovering awkwardly over the couch before giving up. Every so often I would venture down the hall to get a glass of water from the bathroom. Otherwise, I stayed put. The mansion creaked and groaned as the days grew darker. Gusts of wind rattled the windows. I couldn’t eat or sleep. Dante continued to call every night, but I wasn’t ready to talk to him. “Tell him I’m busy,” I told Dustin when he appeared at the door holding a silver platter with a call note. I couldn’t talk to him. Why hadn’t he told me? And what was I going to say to him?
Hi, Dante, I know you’re the walking dead and that you have a secret desire to kill me. How was your day
?

Nighttime was the hardest. I called Annie, but I couldn’t tell her about Dante because, where would I begin? So I told her about the mansion and about Eleanor, and she told me about my old friends, who seemed more and more alien to me now. With my parents gone, friends far away, and Dante Undead, I felt so lonely that sometimes I thought I couldn’t bear it. I felt betrayed and used and alone—completely and utterly alone. Now that I knew what Dante was, I couldn’t fathom how I hadn’t seen it before. I wanted to believe that Dante was the kind of boy I’d always dreamed of, the kind of boy who was too perfect to actually exist. And he didn’t. Or at least not exactly. Every night I stayed up until the early hours of the morning, curled up on the couch, staring into the darkness until I cried myself into a fitful, haunted sleep.

CHAPTER 14
The Dead Forest

O
N THE FIFTH DAY I WOKE UP TO TWO KNOCKS
on the door. Wearily, I opened my eyes. In front of me the screen had turned to a scrambled static. Before I could answer, Dustin opened the door, holding a shotgun. I winced at the sudden stream of sunlight. “Miss Winters,” he said. “I was wondering if you might accompany me while I hunt for wild game?”

Rubbing my eyes, I gazed from the screen to the gun. It was a bizarre sight, though after watching almost forty hours of horror movies, it didn’t seem that weird. I pulled myself off the couch. “Okay.”

“Renée,” my grandfather said, delighted to see me at breakfast. “How are you feeling?”

“I could be better.”

“I hear there’s a boy calling for you,” he said over his newspaper.

I shrugged, patting down my hair, which at this point felt like a bird’s nest.

“Tell me about him.”

“He’s no one.”

My grandfather gave me a knowing look. “No one indeed. I once heard that from your mother. Two weeks later she had eloped and moved to California, with nothing but your father and the clothes on her back.”

I stopped chewing. My parents had eloped? They’d never told me that. “Well, I don’t want to talk to him. I’ve already told Dustin.”

“I see,” he said, frowning. “Might this have something do with the films you’ve been watching, and our chat the other night?”

I narrowed my eyes. “No.”

Just in time, Dustin walked into the room, armed with the long-barreled gun, a goose whistle, a bag marked
Shells,
and two brown paper bags.

“Whenever you’re ready, Miss Winters.”

“I’m ready now,” I said, eager to leave the questioning eyes of my grandfather, who was definitely not going to let Dante go unnoticed.

He clasped his hands over one knee. “What is it today, Dustin?”

“Wild snow geese, sir.”

“Excellent. Excellent. Well, have a good time. Try not to shoot any people, now. And if you do, bury them.” He winked at me, but I didn’t appreciate his humor.

Donning a pair of high rubber boots, a fur-lined parka, and earmuffs, I set out with Dustin to the grounds behind the estate. The sky was a cloudless blue, the branches of the evergreens around us heavy with snow. Dustin showed me how to blow the goose whistle, and we followed the sounds of their response calls until we reached a frozen pond.

“Be very still,” Dustin said, crouching low while looking through his binoculars at a flock of geese pecking at the snow by the edge of the water. Slowly, he took the duck gun from his shoulder and handed it to me. “Now, all you have to do is aim in their general direction and pull the trigger.”

I stared at the gun as if it were a foreign object, not realizing that I was supposed to do the shooting. “I...um... I don’t think I can... I mean, I don’t really want to kill anything.”

“As you wish,” he said, handing me his lunch bag. Putting on his goggles, he squinted along the barrel of the gun and aimed it at the pond. And fired.

The birds scattered into the air, flying frantically toward the trees above us. Without flinching, Dustin aimed again, this time almost directly up. There was a squawk, followed by a cloud of feathers. Dustin ripped off his goggles and searched the sky.

“Call!” he shouted.

I looked up. Suddenly I heard something descend through the air. My arms moved without me, and before I knew it, the dead goose dropped into my arms, a flurry of blood and down.

Dustin turned to me, a smile spreading across his face. I screamed and dropped it, shaking the feathers off my hands in a panic.

“An excellent catch, Miss Winters! Excellent!”

“Just Renée,” I said, correcting him as I wiped my hands on my jacket. “And nice shot.”

“Why, thank you,” he said, slinging the bird over his shoulder. “In my time, I was a great skeet proficient.”

I nodded, having no clue what he was talking about.

We ate lunch by the pond. Since I didn’t want to shoot anything, we ended up sitting by the water, feeding the remaining geese bits of our sandwiches instead.

“Thanks for taking me out here,” I said. “It’s a nice change of scenery.”

“It’s my pleasure. I thought you might need a bit of fresh air after all of those films.”

I let out a laugh. “Yeah. They were pretty bad.” I threw a piece of bread onto the snow.

“Miss Winters—”

“Just Renée,” I interjected.

“Very well, then... Renée. I feel compelled to tell you that movies often do not depict reality. The people in your life are still the same people you knew before.”