Double Feature: Attack of the Soul-Sucking Brain Zombies/Bride of the Soul-Sucking Brain Zombies (The Russel Middlebrook Series Book 3) (10 page)

Otto went home the next day.
I
couldn't go with him to the airport, which sucked, but we'd said our good-byes the night before.

My parents actually bought the dummy-thing. That meant there was at least one bright side to the whole situation with them: they were smart, but not so smart that I couldn't somehow keep seeing Otto on the sly.

That Sunday, we had a meeting in the family room.

"We're very disappointed with you, Russel," my mom said. "Very, very disappointed."

Well, I'm very disappointed with both of you, I wanted to say. Very, very disappointed. So I guess we were even.

"As long as you're living in our house," my mom went on, "you're going to have to live by our rules."

How have I not lived by your rules? I wanted to ask. They'd said Otto couldn't stay at their house, and so I'd made other arrangements—despite how unreasonable my parents' demand really was. It sounded to me like they didn't just want me living by their rules. It sounded to me like they didn't want me to be gay.

"We're a family," my mom said. "And somehow we have to learn to get along. So we're all going to have to make sacrifices."

Let me guess, I wanted to say: your sacrifice will be the almost unbearable burden of having a gay son. And my sacrifice will be to stop seeing Otto (or any other boy, ever, for that matter).

But I didn't say this either.

My mom and I stared at each other. I knew what she was thinking, but I don't think she had any idea what I was thinking. That's the thing about gay people and straight people. We gay people understand them a lot better than they understand us. After all, we
have
to understand them, in order to live. But most straight people don't even
try
to understand us. They have no reason to.

Finally, I said, "Fine. We'll all make sacrifices."

I knew as soon as I said it that this was the truth. I was going to be making a sacrifice, but not the one my parents thought. Oh, I was definitely going to go right on seeing Otto, which was my right as a human being. But now I was going to have to lie about it to my parents. In a way, they were just as much about the past as Kevin was. And if I was going to embrace my new future with Otto, I was going to have to vanquish them too. But in this case, my weapon of choice was going to be little white lies.

Anyway, that meant my relationship with my parents was changing, maybe forever. They were still my parents, and I loved them. But I wasn't a child. They still had some say in my life, but not about this. In this case, they were dead wrong. So I guess that's what I was sacrificing: some of my faith in them, and maybe even what was left of my childhood.

But later, to my surprise, my dad knocked on my door.

"What," I said.

He stuck his head inside and said, "Can I talk to you for a minute?"

I was sitting at my computer. I nodded.

He came in and sat on the bed. Suddenly his hands were just the most fascinating things to him. He smelled like parmesan cheese.

"Russel," he said awkwardly. "I just wanted to say that I know how hard this must be for you."

"You do?" I said. I admit it, I was totally surprised.

He nodded. "And I wanted to talk about your mother too."

"What about her?" I said warily.

"She loves you, Russel. Very, very much."

Oh, sure, I thought. She "loves" me—just so long as I conform to her image of exactly who I'm "supposed" to be.

"She'll come around," my dad said. "She doesn't think she can, but I know she will. She loves you too much not too. But I wanted to ask a favor of you. She doesn't know I'm asking, and it's not fair of me to ask you. It's not fair of her to need me to ask you. She's not perfect. Then again, who is?"

"What favor?" I said.

"Give her some time."

I thought about this for a second. Then before I knew it, I found myself nodding. "Yeah," I said. "I can give her some time."

Was it just possible, I thought, however unlikely, that my parents weren't quite the terrible monsters that I had made them out to be?

*   *   *

Sunday night, Min stopped by. I guess my mom hadn't yet heard that she was bi, because she let Min come in and see me, despite my being grounded. (Or maybe my mom thought that, Min being bi, there was still a chance she and I could get together!)

"So," Min said.

"So," I said. I felt bad that I'd been keeping her in the dark lately—that I'd just assumed she would somehow judge me if I'd told her the truth about Kevin and Otto.

So I told her everything.

She listened to it all, but there was something not quite right about her reactions. I couldn't put my finger on it, but it was almost like she'd heard it before. Maybe Gunnar had filled her in.

Finally, when I was done, she said, "You've had a busy couple of weeks."

"Yeah," I said. "Sorry I haven't kept you up-to-date."

"Uh, I haven't exactly kept you up-to-date either."

"You haven't?"

Min nodded guiltily. "Girl problems. It's a pretty complicated story."

"What girl?" I said. "When was this? I had no idea."

"That's funny, because if it weren't for you, there would be no story."

"Really? Why's that?"

So Min told me. And I have to say, she was absolutely right.

I also realized that I wasn't nearly as observant as I'd thought.

*   *   *

Monday at school, Min, Gunnar, and I were walking down the hallway, and we came across that poster calling for extras for
Attack of the Soul-Sucking Brain Zombies
—the one that had started this whole thing in the first place. It was out-of-date now, but no one had taken it down. As for the movie itself, there were still more scenes to be done with the extras, but I was grounded, so I wouldn't be going.

"Damn," I said. "Something just occurred to me." I turned to Min. "I owe you ten bucks."

"What?" she said.

"Don't you remember? When we first saw this poster? You bet that if we did the movie, we'd all have completely different experiences?"

"Yeah," mumbled Gunnar. "
Someone
was in a bad mood that day."

"The fact is," I said, "you were right." I thought about everything that had happened—my encounters with Kevin, Declan McDonnell, and Otto, not to mention all the crap with my parents. "
Boy
, were you right! Talk about completely different experiences!" I reached for my wallet.

Min stopped me. "It's okay. I didn't win that bet."

I looked up at her.

"Sure, different things happened to each of us," she said. "But we were together too, in more ways than one. Even when we weren't together, we were together, you know?"

I thought about this. I remembered Thanksgiving dinner, and how comforting it had felt to be surrounded by such good friends. And I thought about how nice it had been for Min and me to finally share our different experiences with each other. So I guess Min had a point.

"Oh," I said to Min. "Well, in that case, you can pay
me
!"

Min laughed. Gunnar did too.

"No," I said. "Seriously! Pay up!"

Only now did I join in their laughter. If you can't laugh when you're grounded for a month, when can you laugh?

"So what's next?" Gunnar said.

"What do you mean?" Min asked.

"Oh, you know us," Gunnar said. "Seems like we're always in the middle of something. So what's next?"

I had plenty of ideas, but being grounded, I wouldn't be getting to them anytime soon. Besides, you can't go on and on in life, never stopping, never resting. Every now and then, it's a good idea to take a little breather and say, That part of my life is over, and for the time being, we've come to…

THE END

(Or have we?)

For JoAnn Jett (aka Mrs. O'Neal),

the opposite of a zombie in every way

Body parts. A flier on one of the school bulletin boards was covered with little drawings of them: dismembered arms and feet and heads dripping with blood. They looked the way I felt. Disconnected.

My friend Gunnar had been the first to notice the flier. He'd beckoned to me and my other friend Russel on the other side of the hallway.

"They're filming a zombie movie in town, and they need teenagers to be extras, and isn't that
cool
, we should totally do it!" he said breathlessly. I hadn't seen him this excited since the night they left the gate unlocked at the sewage treatment plant.

I glanced at the words on the flier. ZOMBIES WANTED! it read.

Teenagers needed as extras for upcoming horror film,
Attack of the Soul-Sucking Brain Zombies
, to be produced in local area. Come let us turn you into gruesome, monstrous zombies!

The dismembered body parts surrounded these words.

My name is Min Wei, I'm sixteen years old, and I confess I adore monster movies. I was also keen on the idea of giving this movie some racial diversity, because, honestly, when was the last time you saw an Asian-American zombie? At that moment, however, I was in kind of a pissy mood.

"Aren't they kind of late for zombies?" I said. "Halloween was two weeks ago." It was currently the second week in November.

"They're
filming
the movie," said Gunnar. "Not releasing it."

Gunnar is the kind of person who somehow always manages to be wearing the wrong shoes. I would never say this out loud, but Gunnar might even have a mild form of autism, something like Asperger's syndrome. He is very intelligent but can become somewhat obsessive about things. He's also not so skilled at the human-interaction thing, if you know what I mean. However, he is still an extremely nice person.

"And what's a 'brain zombie?" asked Russel. Russel is my best friend. He is quite adorable, but he doesn't know it, which just makes him that much more adorable. He is also very smart, but pretty emotional, always waving his hands all over the place. When he does that, he reminds me of Kermit the Frog, except with reddish hair. He can sometimes be exasperating, because he always has to see every side to everything. Still, he's a great guy, with possibly the world's biggest heart. Russel is gay, and his boyfriend's name is Otto.

"I know," I said to Russel. "Brain zombies? That doesn't even make sense."

"I'm sure it's explained in the script!" blurted Gunnar. "Look, do you guys want to do it or not? I know Em will." Em is Gunnar's girlfriend. I'd point out that she's really intelligent too, but then that makes three people in a row that I've called smart, and I accept that that might strain credibility.

"I don't know," I said. I did want to be a zombie extra in the movie. For some reason, I just didn't want to come right out and say that.

Russel looked at me. "What's wrong?"

"Huh? Nothing."

The truth is, I knew exactly why I felt so disconnected. Russel had a boyfriend, and Gunnar had a girlfriend. Ironically, I'm bisexual so I would have been okay with either a boyfriend or a girlfriend. I didn't have either one, however, so I was feeling a little excluded.

"This zombie thing could be fun," said Russel.

"Yes, maybe," I said.

"We'll all be together, at least," he said.

"No, we won't," I said. "Not really."

"Yeah, we will!" said Gunnar. "Why wouldn't we be?"

"Because people are always alone," I said. "Sure, we're 'together,' but not really. We all might be doing the same thing, being zombie extras on this movie set. But we wouldn't ever really know what the others are thinking or feeling. It'd be a completely different experience for each of us."

I know all this makes me sound like a crashing bore. As I said, I was feeling a little lonely, and this was just my not-so-desperate cry for help.

"Please," said Russel. "Zombie guts are zombie guts are zombie guts."

This was a reference to that Gertrude Stein poem, "A rose is a rose is a rose," which we'd studied in class. Like I said, Russel is smart. Funny too.

"Are they?" I said. "Zombie guts might mean one thing to you, but something completely different to me. Even if we were always together, which we won't be, it wouldn't be the same experience at all. I bet you ten dollars that if we do this, we'll have completely different experiences."

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean—"

Suddenly Gunnar exploded. "
Enough with the boring philosophy talk!
Are we going to do the zombie movie or not?"

Russel and I both laughed. We couldn't make Gunnar suffer any longer, so we told him that of course we'd do the movie.

After that, Russel and Gunnar had to leave for class. I turned to go in the other direction when a voice said to me, "Nice hair."

It was Kevin Land, this big baseball jock. He's tall, dark, and handsome, if you go for that sort of thing. He'd been Russel's first boyfriend the year before, and their breakup had been an unpleasant one. For months afterward, I'd tried to help Russel mend the pieces of his broken heart. For weeks, he had sobbed in my arms, on my shoulder, and on various other body parts. Even before the breakup, however, Kevin had never been my favorite person. He's very popular, and like most people who are popular, he is a selfish weasel. I once asked him to stand up for this kid who was being bullied, and he'd been an absolute baby about it. In fact, Kevin's being such a selfish weasel is the reason why Russel had finally broken up with him.

Kevin's observation about my hair had to do with the fact that I'd recently given myself purple streaks. I could justify this by saying that I'd done it to express my individuality, but no, I'd really just wanted to shock people.

"Hey, Kevin," I said. Russel and Kevin didn't talk anymore, but I still acknowledged him, at least when Russel wasn't around. It's true that he's a selfish weasel, but I think some people have the opinion that I'm a little stuck up, so I try not to give anyone the cold shoulder.

"What's going on?" he said. "I thought I just saw you talking to Russel."

"They're filming a movie here in town," I said, gesturing to the poster on the bulletin board. "They need extras to be zombies, and Gunnar, Russel, and I are going to do it."

"Really?" Suddenly the poster had Kevin's attention.

"Wait," I said. "Why do you care?"

Kevin smiled enigmatically. "What makes you think I care?"

With that smug grin still on his face, he turned and sauntered on down the hallway.

Point of fact: like Gunnar, Russel, and Em, I'm pretty smart. I hate to boast, but I was the smartest person even in GAT, which stands for "Gifted and Talented." I've always gotten a 4.0 without even trying, and I have no memory of anyone ever using a word that I didn't already know the meaning of. Even among other Asians, I stand out as unusually intelligent.

Given how supposedly smart I am, you'd think that it would have occurred to me before that very moment that there might be a reason why Kevin Land, Big Baseball Jock, still talked to me, Chow Mein Brain. It's true that I had dyed my hair purple, but when it comes to unpopularity at Robert L. Goodkind High School, a 4.0 GPA trumps purple hair any day.

Kevin obviously still liked Russel. Being Russel's best friend, I had all kinds of inside information on him. That's why Kevin kept talking to me. It was all so obvious.

Now I had given Kevin specific information on what Russel was going to be doing in the weeks ahead. Russel, however, had a new boyfriend now, Otto, and the last thing he needed was Kevin waltzing back into his life.

In other words, I may be really, really smart, but sometimes I can be pretty darn dumb.

*   *   *

Attack of the Soul-Sucking Brain Zombies
was being filmed at a local high school, which had been closed for the year for renovations. Three days later, Russel, Gunnar, Em, and I went to an afternoon assembly at the auditorium of that high school, to find out exactly what was involved in our being zombie extras.

As we were sitting in the seats waiting for something to happen, Gunnar said, "Carrots and peas."

I stared at him. Like I said, sometimes he can be a little off.

"That's what movie extras are supposed to say to make it look like they're really talking," he went on. "They don't say real words, they just repeat the phrase 'carrots and peas' over and over again."

"Really?" said Em. "That's very interesting!"

Obviously, there is a reason why Em is Gunnar's girlfriend.

As the others kept talking, I looked around the auditorium. About forty teenagers had showed up for this meeting, mostly from other high schools in the area. I didn't see Kevin, which made me breathe a sigh of relief. Maybe he wasn't trying to ingratiate himself back into Russel's life after all.

I also didn't see very many girls. There were eight of us in all, including Em and me. They were all "aspiring model" types, just desperate for any chance to preen and "make love to the camera," even if they'd be making love as zombies. As for the guys, they appeared to be a bunch of computer gamers and role-playing aficionados, with lots of wispy beards and T-shirts with pictures of weaponry. None of this should have surprised me, but I was still disappointed.

Point of fact: part of the reason why I'd ultimately agreed to do this movie-extra thing was that I thought it might be a good way to meet someone. Most people really don't understand bisexuality. I hate it when people talk like bisexual people are indecisive, unable to make up their minds. It's not a question of being changeable, like a sea anemone, able to switch genders. I don't shift or waver or change, and I'm not on my way to anything other than being bi; I've always been bisexual, and I always will be. Why is that so hard for people to understand?

It's also not the case that I'm attracted to
all
guys and all girls—"anything that moves," as some people like to say. Like anyone, I'm only attracted to
some
people—some of them guys and some of them girls.

What kind of guys and girls do I like? Here's where it gets complicated. I hate the extremes: giggly girls with their catty backstabbing and frilly lace bras, and macho guys with their ridiculous swagger and stupid sex jokes. These people all seem like they're trying too hard. I like people who are comfortable in their own skin. I also like it when someone is confident and decisive and bold and generally just not afraid of making some waves in life.

Listen to me. I have this specific list of requirements for a boyfriend or a girlfriend, like I'm this fantastic catch myself.

All this was moot, of course. They say that romance comes when you least expect it. I'd come to this meeting expecting it, so it wouldn't come. Or would it? Since I knew that romance only comes when you least expect it, and I was expecting it, ironically I was no longer expecting it. So maybe romance would come. Thinking that, however, meant I was expecting it again.

Sometimes life is so confusing.

Finally, two young guys walked out onstage. They introduced themselves as the producer and director of
Attack of the Soul-Sucking Brain Zombies
. They talked a little bit about the movie itself, about how they saw it as both a satire of and homage to other monster movies. When it comes to movies, talk like this makes me nervous, because it always seems like someone is trying to make excuses for character cliches and formulaic plots.

As the director and producer talked, another girl took a seat on the aisle over to my right. She was tall but didn't slouch; had blond hair, but had pulled it back into a simple ponytail; and had smooth skin, but wore only lip gloss. Her navy jacket looked like something from the Civil War—Union, not Confederate—complete with brass buttons in front and actual epaulets on the shoulders.

The producer kept talking, but I wasn't listening anymore. I was staring at the girl on the aisle. Maybe it was the epaulets, but I couldn't keep my eyes off her.

Finally, they asked us if we had any questions. Gunnar, of course, made an inquiry about fake blood.

I kept staring at the girl in epaulets.

This time, however, she looked right at me, and smiled. Had she seen me staring at her all along? The overhead lights were still on, so it was pretty likely that she had.

Panicking, I turned back to the stage. For some reason, I felt like I should pretend I had been listening to the producer all along, so I raised my hand and asked how much we'd be paid.

Shortly thereafter, the producer and the director gave us a demonstration of the special effects they'd be using in the movie. It was all very impressive, and the audience loved it.

However, I was still thinking about the girl in the epaulets, and what exactly that smile meant. Could it be she was interested? Of course that meant I was back to "expecting" a romance, which meant it definitely wasn't going to happen.

We had at least one thing in common. She had epaulets; I had purple hair. If this had been a game show, the category would be Things That People Stare At.