Generation Dead (35 page)

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even if they are brief when I no longer feel like a zombie. There are times when, for an instant, I forget that I've died and I no longer breathe and my heart no longer pumps blood throughout my body.

I forget these things when I'm with her. I think that if I could dance with her, just once, I might feel like I was alive again.

She could feel tears building up, but she blinked them away and forced the air in and out of her lungs in a steady rhythm.

No pressure, Phoebe, she thought, and an escapee from her tear ducts plopped onto the space bar of her keyboard. She laughed and wiped at her eyes.

There were a few posts under the Comments section of the day's blog. The first was a single word from a poster by the handle of BRNSAMEDI666, who wrote a single word, all caps: SELLOUT!

Why should traditionally biotic people have all the fun, Phoebe thought, recalling the naked anger on Smiley's-- on Takayuki's--face as she and Adam entered the Haunted House.

On cue, another post from PinkytheGhost arrived.

R U
& Lame Man still fighting?

Phoebe frowned, signed off, and put her computer into idle mode before sitting on her bed next to Gar, who rolled over in anticipation of a belly rub. It seemed easier than trying to respond to Margi's question.

***

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"You're late," Pete said, letting Stavis into his room through the garage. He had the whole basement floor of the house--a raised ranch--to himself, while Moms and the Wimp occupied the top two floors. There were three usable rooms in the basement: his bedroom, his exercise room, and his recreation room, which had a thirty-six-inch plasma television, another gift from dear old Dad. Stavis walked to the short refrigerator in the corner and popped open a can of beer. He didn't ask for permission.

Pete lifted the rifle he'd stashed behind the couch and pointed it at Stavis's head as he turned around.

Stavis swore and stumbled back against the fridge, spilling a good quarter can of beer on himself and the floor.

"Easy, stupid," Pete said, lowering the rifle sight. "You spilled all over yourself."

"You scared the shit out of me, Pete!"

"Take it easy," Pete said. "Enjoy your beer."

Pete watched him take a long pull off the beer, and he tried to keep from laughing. Stavis's normally beady eyes were as round as hockey pucks.

"Throw me one of those," he said, hoping to distract Stavis before he wet himself.

"Where the hell did you get that thing?" TC asked, carefully handing Pete an unopened can as though he were afraid a sudden movement would get him plugged. "Is it your step-dad's?"

"Hell, no," Pete said after taking a long drink. "The Wimp doesn't believe in guns. Thinks they should be criminalized, that sort of thing."

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"What is it? Where'd you get it?"

"It's just a .22. There's a guy up the street who uses it to shoot the raccoons that come up through the woods to raid his garbage."

"Did he sell it to you or something?" Stavis asked.

Pete smiled at him. "He doesn't know it's gone."

TC downed the last of his beer. "Wow," he said, and Pete told him to help himself to another one.

"It's just me and you this time," Pete said. "Harris is wussing out."

Stavis slumped onto the sofa. He pushed the Xbox to the side of the coffee table and set his drink down.

"That last one was pretty gross," Stavis said, and Pete watched him rub a beefy hand over his close-cropped hair. "Who'd have known those zombies had so much gunk left inside of them? It was like you whacked a rotten watermelon or somethin'."

"Or something," Pete said. Stavis looked flushed, and beads of sweat had popped out on his forehead. "You're with me on this, right?"

"Oh, absolutely, Pete," he said, and belched loud enough to shake the dust off the plasma screen. "You know it."

"I need to know, TC," he said, "because I'm going to take another one of them down. Williams. He's got it coming."

"I know, man, I know. I'm with you."

"They aren't people, TC. You know that, right?"

"Who knows what they are," TC said.

"No one, that's who. I saw on the news that they think

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some kind of parasite crawls into their brains and controls their bodies after death."

"It might be hairy," Pete said, drawing on his beer. "They've got this house where they all hang out, over on the other side of the lake."

"Like ants," Stavis said, belching again.

"Yeah, like ants. They'll all be there, too, so I need to know you got my back. If Scarypants or anyone else tries to get in the way, you have to take them out for me."

Pete got jumpy just thinking about it. Williams was like some kind of unofficial leader of the dead kids, sort of like Pete himself was the unofficial leader of most of the school. If Williams went down, it should be pretty easy to get rid of the others, and in getting rid of the others, maybe he'd be able to get rid of Julie, too. She just wouldn't leave his head. It was as if she'd walked out of his dreams and into his waking life. He'd seen her twice since the incident in the hallway.

"I got your back, man," Stavis said, and leaned over to clink his can against Pete's.

Loser
. "That's good, man. You know I appreciate it."

Pete looked at Stavis and sipped his beer and considered telling him all about Julie: how he met her, what they did, how she died. He thought about telling Stavis these things, and then Stavis belched loud enough to peel paint off the walls.

Pete sighed, all impulses to relieve himself of his innermost secrets gone. "Cool. We still riding together? I'll pick you up around seven thirty."

"Seven thirty," TC agreed.

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Pete grinned. "You still going with Sharon, right?" he said. "You know she's a pig."

"Oink, oink," TC said, and Pete laughed as TC launched into an increasingly obscene imitation of snuffling sounds.

"And you know we aren't going to have time for any of that stuff, right? We've got to dump the girls and get over to this zombie house before their party is over, you got it?"

"Aw," TC said, disappointment clouding his sweaty face.

Pete waved it away. "Don't worry about it. I'll get you a makeup call. Maybe a real girl, one of my friends from Norwich."

"Awright!" TC said, leaning over yet again for the can-clinking thing. Pete obliged.

TC crushed his can, his thick, stubby fingers wadding it up like a tissue. "Hey, you steal bullets, too?"

"Naw." Pete chuckled. "I got a box at Wal-Mart."

"Wal-Mart," Stavis said. "That's freakin' classic."

"Yeah," Pete said, reaching for the remote. He'd bought a whole box, but he planned on using only one.

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***

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

P
HOEBE, IN HER HEART OF hearts, wanted to wear black. She and Margi had sworn they would never attend any of the ridiculous dances and socials that the school sponsored throughout the year. But on the other hand, they both harbored a secret desire to at least be asked by someone to go. They'd made a half-hearted pact that if they ever went, it would be in dresses of flowing black taffeta, complete with veils; Weird Sisters to the end.

Phoebe turned in front of the mirror hanging from her closet door, admiring the way the sleek fabric--a silky, almost shiny white--cut in and hugged her middle and fell along her hips.

She turned back to face herself, pleased that she'd gone with the white dress in the end. Black looked great on her, but something about going on a date with a dead kid while wearing a dress appropriate for a funeral just didn't feel right. She

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didn't need the attendant barrage of comments from her parents, either. The worst comment she'd had to endure thus far was one from her dad about the neckline of the dress, which of course was lower that he would have liked. Phoebe was thankful that he kept whatever Bride of Frankenstein jokes, which were surely buzzing around his skull like angry hornets, to himself.

Phoebe scanned herself from head to toe before settling on a staring contest with her reflection. Her skin was pale but not sickly; it was not as free from blemish or as even in tone as Karen's, but it didn't have the bluish cast that hers did in certain light, either. Phoebe was slim, and although her figure, again, was not as stunning as Karen's, it was at the very least attractive. Chasing after the Frisbee in the school yard had helped shape some dangerous curves, she thought, and her arms and legs had some nice definition that they would have lacked had she spent every free hour writing goth poetry.

She looked deep within her eyes, which were a warm greenish-hazel color. She liked to think that they were flecked with gold, and if the candles in her room flickered just so, they were.

She was pretty, she realized. Maybe even very pretty.

The thought made her breath catch in her throat. When she broke contact with the pretty young girl in the mirror, she reached for the fuzzy purple notebook and pen that she kept at all times on her nightstand, opened to the first blank page, and began to write.

"The limousine left when the driver realized that my son was

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differently biotic," Faith told them, a hint of apology in her voice. "It looks like the kids will be in the PT Cruiser tonight."

Phoebe overheard her talking in the kitchen as she came down the stairs. Her parents stood off to the side of the kitchen, uneasily talking to Faith and her undead son, who looked uncomfortable looming in the doorway in his blue suit jacket and tie. Faith saw her enter, and her face lit up.

"Phoebe, you look beautiful, honey!" she said. "Just beautiful!"

"Thank you," she murmured in reply. She was wearing enough makeup to mask the color that rose to her cheeks, but there was nothing she could do to ward off the spots of blush that she could practically feel rising along her throat. The plunging neckline was a Pyrrhic victory at best, it seemed.

"Isn't she beautiful, Tommy?" Faith said, but Tommy just stared.

Phoebe blushed, but she stared back. The suit fit him wonderfully, seeming to accentuate the quiet strength that she found so attractive in the way it fell across his broad shoulders. The corner of his mouth twitched up in a smile.

From the corner of her eye, Phoebe saw her father open his mouth, and she steeled herself for soul-crushing embarrassment.

"I'll drive," he said, looking surprised at his own offer. "That is, if the kids don't mind."

Phoebe, taken aback by his sudden generosity, shook her head. He smiled back at her.

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"We're being rude," he said. "Can we get you a drink? Mrs. Williams? Some coffee?"

"Coffee would be great," she said, smiling and extending her hand, first to Phoebe's dad and then to her mother. "I'm Faith. I don't think you've met my son, Tommy."

"I haven't," her father said. "Watched him play a little football, though."

Tommy stepped forward and shook his hand. "Mr. Kendall," he said, and Phoebe watched their exchange with growing fascination. She realized that her father had most likely never touched a differently biotic person prior to this moment. Even her mother allowed him to take her hand.

"Tommy," her dad said. "Faith, why don't you come in for a while?"

The obligatory photo shoot was awkward, and Phoebe could see her mom's hands trembling as she snapped a few digital pictures. Very few pictures, Phoebe noted. But Faith snapped away with her camera until Tommy finally suggested that it was time for them to be going.

Her dad invited Faith along for the ride, but she remained behind to talk with Phoebe's mother over coffee and some of those biscotti that Phoebe couldn't stand but Margi loved. Rather, the biscotti that Margi loved to feed Gargoyle, who orbited the kitchen table with a greedy look on his furry face. Phoebe kissed her mother and hugged Faith. Faith winked at her when Phoebe turned and waved from the door.

Phoebe and Tommy slid into the expansive backseat of her

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father's car, and laughed politely at his lame chauffeur jokes. Phoebe wondered if maybe in some ways she'd lucked out by going with a differently biotic boy instead of a living one, because she knew that if it was a living boy, her dad would have grilled him relentlessly, developing a sudden interest in the boy's lineage, his address, his father's place of employment, what he liked to do in his spare time. With Tommy, there was a wall of mystery that her dad was too polite to breach.

"Phoebe tells me that you quit the football team," he said. "That is a shame. It looked like you knew what you were doing out there."

"Thank you, sir."

"Mr. Kendall is fine."

"Thank you, Mr. Kendall," Tommy said, and aimed a slow wink at Phoebe, making her smile.

"It couldn't have been easy for you, putting that uniform on. Knowing that you were going to have ...some resistance."

"I wanted ... to play. That made it a lot easier."

"You did well," Mr. Kendall said. "Very well."

Phoebe wished that he would drive a little faster so that they could get to the dance before he said something stupid.

"Why did you quit, then?" her dad said.

Too late, Phoebe thought.

"The world ...wasn't ready for one of ... us ... to play a school sport. At least I showed ...that it could be done."

"I think it is damn shame, and a miscarriage of justice. It must be very frustrating for you."