Generation Dead (31 page)

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who was picking at a cluster of green grapes. They were in the far corner of the cafeteria and facing the wall, which was painted an industrial gray.

"Nice view," Phoebe said. Margi ate a grape.

"Can we talk, Margi?"

Margi shrugged.

"Look, I know that Colette upset you," she began, not really knowing where to start, but Margi was already shaking her head.

"It wasn't what she said. It's what I did." "What you did?" Phoebe said. "What we did. I turned her away, too."

Margi sniffed. "She was right, what she said." Phoebe nodded, putting her arm around her friend's shoulders.

"When people die, you always are going to wonder what they went through, you know? You wonder what they were thinking. If they think that you let them down."

"And now I know," Margi said. "But I knew it all along."

"Margi, this is different. You get a second chance. You can talk about it with her, if you want."

"Yeah," Margi replied with little enthusiasm.

"She doesn't blame you for her death," Phoebe said. "Or me, or anyone. She's just upset with how we reacted to her return. But she'll forgive us, I know she will. She'll see that no friend could ever understand something like that."

"Yeah."

"Yeah, really? As in, 'You are so wise and correct, Phoebe,

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as usual'? 'I'm so glad that you love me and I love you and we're great, forever friends'?"

"Yeah," Margi said, wiping her eyes. "All of that."

"We haven't talked for like two weeks," Phoebe said, and gave her a sisterly squeeze. "I miss you, Margi."

"Me too," she answered. "You went to the funeral?"

"I did. With Adam."

"I'm sorry I didn't go with you guys. It's so horrible, what happened to Evan. I can't even believe it. He seemed like a nice kid."

"It was sad. His parents looked ...they just looked lost, you know?"

Margi nodded. "I'm sorry I dropped out of the class, too. I'm so good at doing stupid things."

"I bet you could talk to Angela or Principal Kim. I bet..."

"I'm not so good at undoing stupid things. Angela called my parents after I dropped out, and they figured that the class probably wasn't doing my mental health any good--my already fragile mental health. You know how they are, Phoebe. They never got the whole goth thing and the music and all, and my sister Caitlyn is such a girlie girl, with the Barbies and the pink dresses and everything." She was quiet for a moment. "I guess I've been spending too much of my time staring at the walls in my room, and my parents got worried. They want to send me to therapy and everything."

"Again?"

"Again. It worked so well the last time; look how well I'm adjusting."

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Margi picked out a grape and popped it into her mouth. Phoebe took two.

"How is everyone?" Margi said after a time. "I mean, Tommy and the others. How are they dealing with Evan's death?"

"Today will be hard," Phoebe said. "A few of us are working a shift at the foundation tonight, and tomorrow is the first class after he was ... he was killed."

"I wonder what they are thinking. The zombie kids, I mean."

"Tommy and Karen didn't talk about it much."

"They wouldn't." She gave a little laugh. "Did you see what she was wearing today? Another little plaid skirt, a white blouse, and kneesocks. And I swear to God she's got patent leather shoes on, doing the Catholic schoolgirl routine again."

Phoebe laughed with her. "She's crazy. It's like dying has given her a license to act however she pleases, to do whatever she wants. Death seems to have frightened some of the kids, but I think it's freed her in some way."

"She had another apple, Phoebe. I swear to God. She was eating it. What is up with that?"

"You're kidding."

"No, I'm serious. Where does the food
go
? I mean, I thought their bodies didn't like,
work
or anything anymore. I thought the scientists figured it was a mold spore or something living in their brains, and that..."

"A mold spore? Where did you hear that?
The Enquirer
!"

"No, seriously, I heard that..."

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A shadow fell across them, and Pete Martinsburg slapped the table with an open palm. They both jumped.

He placed a wrinkled and torn piece of paper onto the table, smoothing it out, taking great care not to damage it. He leaned over and stared at each of them in turn. Phoebe drew her black sweater tighter around her shoulders.

"Hello, dead girls," he said, taking a black Sharpie out of the pocket of his jeans.

"Leave us alone, moron," Margi said, all traces of the unsure, fragile girl gone.

He laughed. "Just wanted to express my condolences."

He took the cap off the Sharpie and drew a single black line on the page about halfway down. He held the paper up to his eyes and nodded with smug satisfaction, the black line visible through the thin paper. It was then that Phoebe realized that what he was holding was the acceptance list for the undead studies class.

"You're completely heartless, aren't you?" she whispered.

He shrugged, capping his pen. He folded the list back into a tight square and put it away, leaving his hand over his shirt pocket.

"Still beating," he said. "Unlike most of your friends."

Phoebe, her eyes filling with tears of rage, tried to stand, but he shoved her back on the bench, his hands lingering on her for a moment.

"No, don't get up," he said. "I'll see you soon enough."

Adam must have seen them from across the cafeteria, because he was rushing toward them through the milling

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students. Pete aimed an obscene gesture his way and slipped into the crowd.

"Are you all right?" Adam said. "Did he hurt you?"

"No," Phoebe said, but she didn't mean it.

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***

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

A
DAM DRUMMED HIS FINGERS on the steering wheel. He fiddled with the climate controls, unable to find a balance of warmth and fresh air. He checked his rearview mirror for the thirty-seventh time. "Adam, is something wrong?" Phoebe asked. Adam didn't look at her. Even the sound of her voice was now like a sugar rush, and he had taken it for granted for years.

"Oh, I don't know," he said. "What could be wrong?"

"I know," she said. "I still can't believe it."

She thought he was talking about Evan. But the real "wrong" of the day was that the girl that he might actually be in love with had unresolved feelings for a zombie, a zombie who he was bringing her to be with.

"So we're going to the Haunted House, huh?" he said. "We're just picking him up?"

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"That's the plan," she said. She tagged him on the arm. "Hey, I almost forgot. Do you have a date for homecoming yet?"

He swallowed hard. "Yeah."

Phoebe slapped him again. "Karen? Did you ask Karen? You didn't ask Margi, did you? I mean, she would have told me, I think."

Adam shook his head. "No, and no." "Oh," Phoebe said, all enthusiasm draining away from her voice. "Whatsername?" Adam nodded. "Oh."

He wheeled into the dirt turnaround at Tommy's trailer park. Tommy was standing on the little patio in jeans and a chambray shirt. Adam thought that he looked like a well-dressed scarecrow.

"There's your boy," he said, but Phoebe had already rolled down the window to wave. Tommy waved back.

Adam watched Phoebe climb out of the truck and sort of half skip to the zombie. He thought she was going to hug him, or worse, give him a kiss, but she pulled up short. Adam swallowed and closed his eyes tightly, but when he opened them, Phoebe and Tommy were still there, together. There was space between them, but Adam thought it was less space than usual.

"Did you see the white van?" Tommy asked. He was looking at Adam when he said it.

"White van?"

Tommy nodded, and Adam thought he seemed excited

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about the van sighting. "About ten minutes ago. A white ...van turned around ... in the park."

"Must have missed it," Adam said. "I wasn't really looking for one, to be honest with you."

Adam watched Phoebe touch the zombie on the arm. "You think ...you think it might be one of
those
white vans?"

"I ...don't know."

"I don't think we passed one, man," Adam said. "I don't think we passed many cars at all."

"Oh God," Phoebe said. "You don't think they know about the Web site, do you?"

Adam turned away. In a trailer a few doors down, an old woman wearing curlers and a green house frock was pouring cat food into a silver dish from a very large bag.

"Only a matter of time," Tommy said. "I think there is ...a white van ...waiting to pick a lot of us up."

Maybe. The old woman looked up and saw Adam, and waved. No white vans in her world. Either that or she was half blind and had no idea she was living next to a zombie. He waved back.

"Adam," Tommy said, "if we see a white van ...please ...do not go ... to the Haunted House." "You got it, captain," Adam said.

Tommy moved pretty quickly when he wanted to. He reached the truck first, opened the door for Phoebe, and helped her to get inside. Adam tried not to grit his teeth as he put the truck in gear.

***

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There was a slim boy with long black hair standing on the porch when they arrived at the Haunted House. He was wearing a black leather coat with thin, rusted silver chains dangling from the pockets, and there were patches bearing the names and logos of various punk and metal bands stitched into the leather. The patches looked dirty, the jacket worn to a gray smoothness at the shoulders and elbows. He seemed to be studying his scuffed black combat boots, and his hair hung down in a dark curtain, obscuring his face.

"That is ...Takayuki," Tommy said, climbing out of the truck. "Try not ... to let him frighten you."

Adam returned Phoebe's confused glance with a shrug. They got out of the truck.

Adam watched her catch up to Tommy and call a perky hello to the boy on the porch. The kid didn't move, apparently too interested in the dull gloss of his boots. But his head snapped up like a cobra's the moment Phoebe set foot on the porch steps. Phoebe gasped, and Adam saw why.

The boy was missing a large section of his right cheek. There was a thin band of flesh on the right side of his mouth and then a glaring absence of skin that revealed his teeth all the way to the back molars. At first glance it looked as if he were smiling, but it was clear from the way the dead boy's black eyes regarded them that he was not.

"It is a mistake," the dead boy--Takayuki--said, the missing cheek giving his speech a strange lisping quality, "bringing the beating hearts here."

Tommy stepped in front of Phoebe. "They are ...my

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friends," he said. "Keep your ...insults ... to yourself."

"We cannot have ...friends among the breathers," Takayuki said, and Adam could see his grayish tongue through the hole in his cheek. "How many reminders do you need?"

Karen stepped out of the Haunted House and onto the porch. "Phoebe, Adam!" she said, half skipping past Takayuki. "'Scuse, me, Tak. Good to see you!"

She made a great show of hugging Phoebe. Adam wasn't the best at reading undead body language, but it was clear from the subtle shift in Tak's shoulders that Karen's actions--or Karen herself--had an effect on him.

"Tak makes a heck of a greeter, doesn't he?" she said. "Don't you, Takky? We should pick you up an application from Wal-Mart."

Tak returned to staring at his boots.

"Come on in," Karen said, taking Phoebe's arm and waving at Adam. "Everyone is dying to see you."

Adam watched them go in, and he watched a look pass between Tommy and Tak. He drew closer and saw that the dead boy was skeletal beneath the heavy leather jacket. Both the jacket and his black T-shirt had random holes in them, and there was an unpleasant smell in the air around Takayuki. The other zombies did not have a smell that Adam had noticed, except Tommy and Karen, who wore colognes or used shampoos. It wasn't rot or decay that Adam smelled, but more of an unknown chemical.

He made a point of bumping the dead boy with his shoulder as he walked by.

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"Oops, I'm sorry," Adam said. "Smiley"

"Smiley" fixed him with a baleful glare. His left arm shot out with a speed akin to Master Griffin's, and the dead boy's fist opened as though he were welcoming Adam inside the door.

And then he really did smile. The effect was horrific, as muscles high on his cheekbone strained to lift the ragged remnants of skin still hanging on to his face.

Now why did I go and do that? Adam thought, sidling in through the doorway, keeping one eye on the swift zombie. Like I don't already have enough enemies for life.

He turned toward the main room of the Haunted House in time to see Phoebe hug Colette.

Good for you, he thought, glad that Pheeble wasn't frozen with fear after her encounter on the porch with Smiley. Colette sort of smiled back, and Phoebe brushed some lank gray-brown hair out of the dead girl's eyes. Tayshawn was there, as was Kevin, the big dude Mai, and the girl with one arm. There were some new faces (none as striking as Tak's), about thirteen or so dead kids overall.

But no Evan, he thought. The atmosphere of the house seemed changed without the little guy, the court jester of the undead community. Adam thought back to the boy riding around in the bed of his truck, rain pattering on the heavy tarp. Differently biotic kids always had a sullen vibe, but they seemed even more so with Evan gone.

"Let's get...started," Tommy said. "Thank you ...everyone for being here. I wanted to talk to ... all ... of you ...about what happened ... to Evan."