Double Feature: Attack of the Soul-Sucking Brain Zombies/Bride of the Soul-Sucking Brain Zombies (The Russel Middlebrook Series Book 3) (8 page)

"Indiana Jones is good," said Otto, playing footsie with me under the table. "I used to like those simulator rides, like Body War or Star Tours. But they just don't hold up. You ride 'em once, and then it just feels like you're being jerked around in the back of a truck."

"There's this ride called Poseidon's Fury?" said Gunnar's cousin Myron. "At Islands of Adventure in Orlando. You go into this temple, then down into the city of Atlantis. And at the end, they turn this huge room into a tiny room really, really fast! It is so cool!"

"Tower of Terror!" Gunnar repeated. "It's
clearly
the best! I can't believe you guys can't see that."

Weirdly, this talk of amusement park rides was depressing me. I wasn't sure why, because ordinarily I loved amusement park rides. I reached for the relish tray, but the baby corn was all gone, and that made me sad too.

Next we talked about gay teen movies.

"They all suck," Otto said.

"Except for
Beautiful Thing
," Em added.

And that was pretty much all we had to say on
that
topic!

Finally, we even had sort of a Thanksgiving-esque conversation about everything that had happened to all of us lately, and what we were grateful for.

"It's been an amazing year," Min said reflectively. "Think about it all. This time last year, we hadn't even started the Geography Club."

"And I hadn't met Em," Gunnar said, smiling at her.

"And I hadn't met Russel," said Otto.

"You'll meet someone too," I said to Min, worried she might feel left out not having someone in her life.

"Uh-huh," she said, taking a big drink of her ice water.

Suddenly Gunnar said, "I don't want this to end."

Em looked around the tabletop. "Too late," she said drolly. She was right. Like six Very Hungry Caterpillars, we'd chomped our way through every little morsel of food. The turkey, of course, had been picked completely clean.

"I don't mean dinner," Gunnar said. "I mean this." He nodded around the table. "Us. I really like things the way they are right now. I don't want to just graduate from college, get a job, and buy a house in the suburbs." He glanced out toward the dining room. The conversation of the adults sounded like an otherworldly moan. Gunnar softened his voice. "I look at my parents' lives, at how boring they are. They don't have friends—they have dinner party guests! I don't want to ever be like them. Do you think we have to?"

"No!" said Myron. We all looked at him. "We can have whatever lives we want. If people have boring lives, it's because they
choose
to have boring lives. If their friends are stupid, it's because they
choose
stupid friends. We don't have to end up like our parents. We
don't
."

Myron was only eleven years old, but he was surprisingly precocious. No one could have said it better.

And it was right then that I realized why I was suddenly feeling so sad. It wasn't the conversation we'd been having, not even this latest, serious part about growing up and turning boring. It was because right then, at that table at least, my life was perfect. I had told Declan McDonnell the truth about high school—that I hated it. But that was just the school part. The rest of my life was pretty amazing. And right then, I was with a guy I loved and who loved me, and friends I loved and who loved me too. Like that night on the lake in the rowboat with Otto, life at that moment was absolutely perfect.

But it wasn't going to stay perfect for long. For one thing, I'd have to go home to parents who I now knew didn't love me the way I was, or accept me unconditionally. And as for the guy I loved, he was about to become MIA. On Saturday, forty-four hours from right then, Otto had to go home. Who knew when I'd see him again? And that was just about the saddest thing imaginable.

Yes, yes, it was unbelievably stupid to be sad about something that hadn't even happened yet, to be ruining the brief time we did have together. But I couldn't help it. I felt like I was going to cry. I couldn't imagine going back to how I'd been before I'd come out, before we'd created the Geography Club. It's one thing to be sad that you don't have the one thing you desperately want. It might be even worse to get what you want for a little while, only to have it taken away from you.

"Let's make a vow," Em said. "Let's promise each other right here and now that we won't ever turn boring. And if we do, we give the others permission to come make us do something completely crazy!"

We all laughed, even me, because now it would have been obvious if I hadn't. And then we all agreed to Em's pledge.

Afterward, we talked and laughed some more, and Otto kept playing footsie with me under the table. I tried to pretend I was having the same good time that everyone else was having. But inside, I felt like that turkey carcass in the middle of the table—with a big hole right in the middle of my chest.

The next day, Friday of Thanksgiving vacation, we all went back to work as extras on
Attack of the Soul-Sucking Brain Zombies
. Otto joined us, bringing the permission form signed by his parents.

"Can I ask a question?" Otto asked Gunnar, Em, and me that morning on the way to the school.

"Sure," I said.

"What's a brain zombie?"

Em and I burst into laughter.

"No one knows!" I said.

"We still haven't figured that out," Em said. "It hasn't come up in any of the scenes we've been in."

This time, Gunnar didn't say a word, just sulked a little.

*   *   *

That morning we all became full-fledged zombies for the very first time, with costuming and makeup and everything. There were about twenty-five zombie extras that day, but only six makeup artists, so they were definitely working overtime.

I was one of the last people out of makeup. Wardrobe had dressed me in a T-shirt and white long-sleeved shirt, all shredded and bloody, and geeky, computer-nerd pants covered with some kind of fake dirt that smelled like chalk dust. Then they'd plastered my face with a base of green makeup (more olive, really) and used something called spirit gum to paste these fake scabs and boils all over my cheeks and forehead. And they'd oiled my hair and messed it up again, and given me this set of rotting, yellow teeth, which I could slip in and out of my mouth, but which made it so I could still talk. Finally, they'd glued half of this plastic calculator to me, so it looked like someone had jammed it into the side of my head.

In short, I looked like a walking, slowly rotting corpse. True, they'd pegged me for a computer nerd (again), but I guess I couldn't have everything.

The first shot took place right outside the front doors of the school. The school bell was supposed to ring, and then all we zombie-students were to come staggering out. The doors had been rigged to burst off their hinges so it looked like we were doing it.

Kevin was there, waiting with the other extras. He'd been made up as a full zombie now too. They'd put him in a torn, moldy-looking letterman's jacket, and he carried a blood-spattered baseball bat (which was appropriate, given that he did play baseball). His makeup was like mine, except they'd also made it look like he'd had his neck ripped open and blood had dripped down onto his shirt.

"You look great," I said, before I could stop myself. "How'd they do that to your neck?"

He stared at me with a completely straight face. "Whaddaya mean? Do what? Hey, what's taking them so long with the makeup anyway? Aren't you getting tired of waiting?"

I smiled.

"Hey, I see you got some new clothes," he went on. "A big improvement over what you usually wear."

"Thanks," I said. "Thanks a lot." It was still weird to see Kevin in full zombie makeup, but what was interesting was how quickly I got used to it.

He narrowed his eyes. "Something else looks different about you. You get a new haircut? And your teeth. You get them whitened or something?"

I laughed. Kevin could be funny. I glanced around for the guy who had been hitting on him that Sunday, but I didn't see him anywhere.

Kevin tilted his head to one side and made to scratch his torn-up throat. "Man, my neck is itching. I think I have a rash or something. You see anything?"

At that, I admit I cracked up. It felt so good just to laugh. I still hadn't shaken that horrible emptiness I'd felt at Thanksgiving dinner the night before, and I guess I was desperate to forget all that.

Then I happened to look to one side. Otto was done with his makeup now too, and he'd joined us on the set.

He was looking right at Kevin and me. They'd made Otto a zombie-jock too, like Kevin, except he was wearing a cracked and bloody football helmet and carrying a deflated pigskin. They'd turned his real scar into a fake injury, so it looked like half his face was falling off.

"Wow, you look great," I said when Otto joined Kevin and me.

"Yeah!" Kevin said. "That scar looks really real."

"It
is
real," I said. "Otto's a burn survivor."

"Really?" Kevin said, not missing a beat. "Hey, that's great!" I wasn't sure if Kevin was talking about the fact that Otto had survived the burn, or that he'd been willing to come and be an extra in a horror film. But either way, I was impressed that he hadn't gotten all flustered.

"Thanks," Otto said.

"Kevin?" I said. "This is my boyfriend, Otto."

"Oh," Kevin said, but he didn't say anything else. Now he
was
flustered. That was ironic.

This is stupid, I thought. I should just say something. But I couldn't think of anything to say. I guess I was flustered too. Otto didn't say anything either. It was a three-way fluster.

We just stood there with no one saying anything. How long was this awkward silence going to continue? It occurred to me that I could tell Otto that Kevin had once been my boyfriend too, but if anything could have made that moment even more awkward, that was probably it.

It was the movie director who finally broke the interminable silence. "Okay!" he called. "Let's have a rehearsal!"

Thank God! I thought. It was like Aslan from
The Chronicles of Narnia
had breathed on us, turning us from stone into real people again.

"Okay," the director said. "You're full zombies now, right? Let's see you act like them. Stiff legs, arms outstretched, the works! We'll be rerecording the zombies in the studio, but growl anyway—it'll help you get into character."

We all moved into position.

"Rolling!" the director said, even though we knew it was just a rehearsal. "And
action
!"

The fake school bell sounded. Together, we zombies shambled forward, groaning and lurching. At the first touch of the lead zombies, the front doors exploded off their hinges, flying off to the sides.

As we were crowding out onto the steps, one of the zombie-jocks slammed against me with his shoulder, groaning gleefully.

"And...
cut
!" said the director.

Otto immediately turned to the "jock" who had knocked against me.

"What was
that
about?" Otto asked.

"Huh?" the jock said.

"You almost flattened my friend!"

"We're supposed to," the guy said defensively. "The director told the jocks to pick on the nerds."

"When?" Otto asked. "I didn't hear him say that."

"Before," he said. "In one of the other scenes."

Otto thought for a second. "Well," he said firmly, "if the director wants us to do that kind of thing now, he'll tell us."

I couldn't help but be reminded of how Kevin hadn't spoken up before, when this same guy had started picking on us "nerds." Sure, he'd hesitated, but then he'd joined right in. Otto, meanwhile, was completely immune to this kind of peer pressure.

Soon the cameras were rolling again, but this time none of the zombie-jocks bumped me at all.

*   *   *

Later, during a break, Otto asked me, "So who's that guy?"

"Who?" I said, even though I knew exactly who he meant.

"That guy we were talking to before."

"His name is Kevin. Didn't I introduce you?"

"Yeah, you did. But who is he? How do you know him?"

"He's just a friend." I thought for a second. "Well, actually, he used to be my boyfriend."

"That's
the
Kevin?" At camp, I'd told Otto all about him.

"Uh, yeah."

"I thought you weren't talking to him anymore. That he didn't want to come out, so that made it impossible." Apparently, I'd told Otto
all
about him. I'd forgotten that.

"Oh," I said. "Yeah. Well, we weren't talking, not until he signed up to be an extra in the movie too. Then we started talking again."

"Doesn't he worry about being seen with you?" What was with the third degree from Otto? But of course I knew.

"Um, Kevin came out," I admitted.

"When was this?"

"Just last week, actually."

Otto didn't say anything for a second. I could tell he was surprised.

"Why didn't you tell me any of this?" he said at last.

Why
hadn't
I told him any of this? At first it was because I wasn't sure if I still had feelings for Kevin, and I hadn't wanted to hurt Otto's feelings. But why hadn't it occurred to me that Otto was going to be a zombie extra too, so he'd eventually figure things out? I should have filled him in. Now I'd made him all suspicious.

"It just never came up," I said. "It's not any big deal."

This wasn't the whole truth. Then again, the issue here really wasn't Kevin. It was Otto, and the fact that he lived so far away.

Otto stared at me. "Russel," he said, "what's going on? I'm really trying not to be all clingy and insecure. But there's obviously something going on between you and Kevin that you're not telling me about."

"There's nothing going on!" I said. "It was all a misunderstanding." Why was it that telling one sort-of lie always meant you had to tell a whole bunch more?

Otto sighed. "Okay, whatever. But that doesn't explain why you've been acting all distant."

I froze. How do you respond to the accusation that you're being distant without either (a) seeming more distant, or (b) confirming that you are being distant? But finally I nodded. If there was any time for the truth, this was it.

"I'm just really sad that you have to leave," I said to Otto. "I can't get it out of my mind. You just got here! And I know it'll be months until I get to see you again. That is, if I ever get to see you again, which is going to be tough the way my parents are talking."

"Well, there's always next summer. I'll come back for camp."

"Next summer! That's
forever
."

"What are you saying?" Otto said. "You want to break up?"

"No!" I said. But I'd said it too loudly, like I was trying to convince myself along with Otto. "No," I said again.

"Then what
do
you want?"

And that was the thing. I still didn't know. Which was totally unfair to Otto. How could I be honest with him when I still hadn't been honest with myself?

For the time being, I decided to change the subject.

"I want you, of course," I said. "It's this thing with my parents. It has me all mixed up."

Otto nodded sympathetically. "It's okay. I understand." But for the first time, I wondered if maybe he wasn't telling me the whole truth either.

*   *   *

That afternoon, production assistants shepherded us into the cafeteria for another shot. They divided us into groups of about five each according to our costumes and directed all of us to different lunch tables. A fake corpse lay limply on the top of each table.

I spotted Min on the other side of the room. They'd dressed her as a cheerleader again—a
zombie
-cheerleader, with green skin and blood-spattered pom-poms. I waved, but she was staring over at the band-geek table, so she didn't notice me.

The director spoke to us all, explaining how we were supposed to pretend to be chomping down on the fake corpse in front of us. Then Brad and Christy, the two main characters, would come in and see us and say some dialogue. The scene was obviously a joke. It was supposed to be just like lunch at a normal high school, with all the jocks at one table, the cheerleaders at another table, the band geeks at another table, and the computer nerds at yet another table. Only the jocks and cheerleaders and band geeks and computer nerds are all zombies, and rather than eating lunches, we're eating human corpses. Get it?

"And make it real!" the director said. "Get right down into those corpses with your hands and faces!"

We did a rehearsal, then stood around waiting for Declan McDonnell and the actress playing Christy, and for the lighting designer to finish positioning the lights.

The only person I knew in my little cluster of computer-nerd zombies was Gunnar, which was just as well. I'd wanted to talk to him anyway.

"Here's a fun fact," Gunnar said, looking down at the corpse on our table. "The same company that makes many of Hollywood's fake corpses also makes a line of life-size sex dolls."

I interrupted him. "Gunnar, I think I screwed up."

"Now what?" The makeup artist had made it look like someone had jammed a set of Dungeons and Dragons dice into his forehead.

I told Gunnar about the conversation I'd had with Otto.

"Oops," he said. "That's not good."

I appreciated his not saying "I told you so" about needing to figure out what I wanted before I said anything to Otto.