Generation Dead (28 page)

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A kid not much older than them with a Honeybee T-shirt and a paper hat on his head came over to take their order. Phoebe ordered a maple-walnut shake. She empathized with the kid, who turned beet red and stammered when he turned to Tommy.

"And ...and for ...you? Sir?"

Tommy's mouth ticked upward in the lopsided grin Phoebe still had not quite grown accustomed to and shook his head. The boy turned and moved swiftly to get Phoebe's milk shake.

"At least he's trying," Phoebe said. She was angrier than she realized; she thought Tommy's smirk had a hint of condescension in it. "Most of the people here would just as soon pour the shake over our heads."

Tommy nodded, the smile disappearing. "Do you think it would ...help ...Margi if she read ...my blog? It might help her ... to see ...that we're just...kids ...too."

A wadded napkin from the rowdy quartet hit Tommy in the back, but he either did not or pretended not to notice.

"It might. It might, actually." She signaled to Mr. Stammer. "Could I get that to go?"

Tommy shook his head. "You have a right to sit here ...with me." There was strength in his voice, the same implacable strength she felt in him when she held his hand or touched his shoulder.

"I don't want to cause trouble, Tommy. Not tonight."

He looked over at the table just as a second napkin bounced

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against his shoulder. There were muffled giggles from the quartet that soon died off under the weight of his stare.

"You know," he said, "I have been thinking of the ...blog ... as a way to give hope ... to the dead. But maybe its real value would be to bring ...understanding ... to the living."

Stammer brought the milk shake in a waxed paper cup. Phoebe was a little disappointed; part of the whole Honeybee experience was sipping the shake from a wide-mouth glass, the cold metal cup with a refill beside it.

She started to stand, but Tommy gripped her arm.

"I have one question," he said, "before we go."

His eyes betrayed nothing.

"How do you get," he said, "the walnuts up the straw?"

She laughed, and he smiled--a real smile, devoid of smirk. He dropped three singles on the table and they went outside to wait for his mother.

"No torches?" Faith said as they got into the vehicle. "No tar and feathering?"

"You sound ...disappointed," Tommy answered.

"I can't believe you guys can joke about that," Phoebe said. "It happens."

"That's why we joke," he said. "It is a way of saying ...thanks."

"Is that maple I smell?" Faith said.

Phoebe apologized and offered Faith a sip. "I'm sorry; we should have gotten you something."

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"Can't," Faith said, waving brightly colored nails. "I'm on Weight Watchers."

Faith dropped Phoebe off up the road a bit from her house, on the far side of the Layman's. The STD's truck was parked in the drive, and Phoebe hoped that neither of her parents had spotted Adam, her alibi for the evening.

"Phoebe," Tommy said, climbing out of the car, ostensibly to move to the front seat. Phoebe noticed that Faith was doing her best to appear interested in the bushes outside the window on her side of the car.

"I had a great time, Tommy," she said, her words coming out in a clipped blur. "Thanks so much."

"Phoebe," he repeated before she could turn. Her heart was beating like she'd just had a triple shot of cappuccino.

What would she do if he leaned forward to kiss her?

He remained a respectful step away.

"I...just...wanted you ...to ...know," he said, "I...wanted ... to be out...with you ...because ... I wanted to be out with you."

She smiled, and then held out her hand.

"Thank you, Tommy," she said. "Me too."

He took her hand. His skin was cool to the touch, so much so that she wrapped his hand in both of hers.

"Don't answer now," he said, "but would you go to the homecoming dance with me?"

He cut off her response by lifting his free hand to his mouth, pressing his index finger against his lips in a gesture of silence.

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"Don't answer yet," he said. "For now. ... I just want to think that you might."

When she let go and began walking to her house, her heart was still tripping in cappuccino overdrive from excitement, fear, or both. She wasn't quite sure.

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***

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

T
ommy's voice was cold and steady as he read the article. Adam watched him from across the room, and he could tell that Tommy was extremely angry.

"'The assailants used shotguns and a flamethrower at Dickinson House, a privately funded shelter for living impaired persons just north of Springfield, Massachusetts. Seven living impaired people and two employees died in the fire. A third employee by the name of Amos Burke is quoted as saying that the assailants were "two men in dark uniforms and glasses that escaped in a white van." Burke also said that "two of the differently biotic persons residing at Dickinson house managed to avoid destruction, but judging from the burns that they suffered, they probably did not want to. I swear the zombies were screaming," Burke said. "But I couldn't tell if they were happy or in pain." Burke was at the

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shelter to work off some court-appointed community service time after being caught trying to rob a liquor store in Northampton.'"

Tommy set the newspaper down in his lap. The class was quiet for a few moments.

"Thank you for sharing that, Tommy," Angela told him. "I'm sure it was not easy to read."

"I can't believe it," Phoebe said. "Why hasn't this made any news on television? My parents watch CNN for two hours every night, practically, and I hadn't heard anything about this."

Karen shook her head, and Adam watched the platinum waves flow from side to side. "This happens all the time. Zombies are getting ...murdered ... all over the country, and it...rarely ...makes the news."

"That's just crazy," Thorny said. "I can't even believe that could happen in America."

Adam wondered if Thorny was really that gullible, or just trying to act like he was. He was also wondering, in light of his recent conversation with Pete Martinsburg, where Sylvia was. He somehow doubted that her social calendar was keeping her away from class.

"What do the rest of you think?" Angela asked. "Do you think this is really happening?"

"Something ... is happening," Evan said. "How would this ...make the ...news?"

"It's why it
didn't
make the news that ...interests me," Karen said. "
The Winford
...
Bulletin
is a small paper. Why did

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it run the story and
The Hartford
...
Courant
did not?"

"You ask me what I ...think," Tommy said. "I think that someone is ...killing zombies."

"Really?" Angela asked.

Tommy nodded. "This has been happening since ...Dallas Jones. It has happened for years. But now it seems more ...systematic. And notice how the writer felt the need to ...discredit the witness."

Adam leaned forward. "Why isn't this story reported more widely? Nine people died."

"Two people died," Karen said, her voice a soft whisper. "Seven people died again."

"What ..." Everyone turned toward Colette, who was sitting with Kevin Zumbrowski at the back of the room. "Is ...being ...done ...for ...the two ...that...survived?"

"We were contacted," Angela said. "And are hoping that they will be sent here so we can help them."

"They were burned ...severely ...over eighty percent...of their bodies," Tommy said. Adam noticed that anger made his speech more hitched than usual.

"Can you guys really feel pain?" Thornton asked.

"We can feel pain," Tommy and Karen said, as Tayshawn and Evan said, "Yes."

Angela addressed Tommy when she spoke. "Really?"

Phoebe thought that her question was genuine. Angela's ever-present expression of warmth and empathy had given way to one of curiosity, as though a deep-seated assumption had been challenged.

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"We do not feel ...much," Tommy responded, "unless the ...stimulus ... is intense." Angela nodded.

"I was ...shot...with an arrow ...once," Tommy said. "It hurt."

Now it was Phoebe's turn to be surprised. She hadn't seen anything about that in his blog.

"You feel more," Karen said, "the more you ...come back."

Angela turned her smile on Adam. "We're hoping that we can help those poor children just like we are doing for Sylvia," she said. "Dickinson House had a wonderful reputation for working with the differently biotic, but I'm sure that suffering this recent trauma has really set them back."

Adam wanted to ask just what exactly it was that the foundation planned to do for them.

"What?" Angela asked, and he realized that he had been staring at her.

"Adam," Angela said, "did you have something you wanted to add?" Her voice took on a slightly challenging tone.

He cleared his throat. "Um, you mentioned Sylvia?"

Angela nodded. "Yes. Sylvia is not in class today because she is participating in some tests that we hope will lead to higher functionality for her." She looked toward the back of the room, where Colette and Kevin were sitting. "If things work out well, it should lead to a higher degree of functionality for all differently biotic kids."

"Hey, that's great," Adam said.

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"We think so. But regarding the crimes that Tommy just told us about..."

Adam nodded, thankful that Pete had yet to make good on his promise. But the thought of Pete gave him an idea.

"Yeah," he said. "What I want to know is, what if there really were some kind of group out there hunting down dead kids? How would they go about it?"

"What do you mean?"

"Dead kids ...dead kids aren't citizens anymore," he said.

"They don't have rights, right?"

"Adam, you know that the Hunter Foundation is committed to the rights--"

"Yeah, I know," he said. "That isn't what I'm talking about. I mean, your social security card expires when you do, right? So no one is really keeping records on dead kids, are they?"

"I read somewhere that there may be as many as three thousand differently biotic people in the United States," Thorny said.

"Yeah, I did last week's homework too," Adam replied. "And there are two dead kids in Canada now; great. But those are statistics, not records."

"He's right," Phoebe said. "I read something that said the documentation on the living impaired is very poor because so many of our laws were put into question all at once. There was a bill calling for the mandatory registration ..."

"The Undead Citizens Act," Angela said. "One of the first of many fear-inspired bills to be shot down in Congress. Senator Mallory from Idaho introduced it by comparing differently biotic people to illegal immigrants."

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"Many ...parents ... do not want anyone to know ...their child ...has died," Evan said. "My parents ...kept my death ...out of the paper."

"No health care, ha-ha," Karen said. "I can't even get a library card."

"You're making a joke," Angela said, "but this really is a serious issue. You can't legally leave the country. You can't vote or drive."

"They want ... to draft ...us ...though," Tayshawn said.

"That's true. There's legislation that calls for the mandatory conscription of all differently biotic persons within three weeks of their traditional death."

"How can they do that?" Phoebe asked. "Some of them are only thirteen years old and we're thinking of sending them into war? That doesn't make any sense."

"It makes great sense," Tommy said, "if one wants to get rid ...of us."

"I'm not sure the government wants to wait around for their shadow organization to take us all out," Karen said. "I guess it would ... be quicker to have us all registered and shipped to the Middle East."

Adam looked at her. "Why do you think it is a government organization?"

"Who else would have the funding or the need? If the undead rights movement succeeds, if Proposition 77 passes, it will mean that the government will be spending a considerable amount of tax dollars to ...deal ...with building the

278

infrastructure. It is probably more ...cost effective ... to buy some black suits and flamethrowers."

"Do you feel that you can help in any way? Or is the situation completely beyond control?" Angela asked.

Tommy spoke first. "I think ... we need to continue ... to remind people ... we are here. We need to challenge the perceptions ... of the living."

"We need to get us some guns," Tayshawn said.

Adam wondered if he was the only one to notice the sudden lack of pauses in Tayshawn's speech.

"Let's take a break," Angela suggested.

When class was dismissed and they started heading down the long gray corridor and out to the portico, where the foundation van--the
blue
foundation van, Phoebe noted--awaited them, she decided she would cast a spell to break up the cloud of disillusionment.

"Hey, Tommy." Phoebe bumped into him with her shoulder.

He looked at her.

"Yes," she said.

It took him a moment to figure out what she meant, but once he had it, he gave her a wide smile, and she leaned into him with her shoulder again before skipping ahead of him down the hall.