Generation Dead (9 page)

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to pull her hand back, but he was too strong.

"Least, I hope the Lame Man is tagging you. Because if I find out that you are passing me over for some dead meat, I might get pretty upset. I might get pretty damn upset that the girl I had pegged for a closet nympho is really a closet necrophiliac, you know what I'm saying? And people, dead or otherwise, could get hurt."

She didn't look away even though he was squeezing her hand hard enough to bring tears to her eyes. After a time he blew her a kiss and stood up, giving her hand a gentle stroke as he let go.

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***

CHAPTER EIGHT

T
HE HITS KEEP ON COMING, Adam thought, watching Stavis rock Williams with a blindside

chop block. It would have knocked the wind out of a living kid. Williams was pushed off his feet, and Stavis used his momentum to drill him into the ground.

Williams made no sound. But then, Williams never made a sound.

The play, a halfback draw, was over before Stavis's hit. And it was nowhere near Williams.

Adam was experiencing a tightness in his chest that had nothing to do with his physical conditioning, but with the mental conditioning he'd worked on over the summer with Master Griffin.

He closed his eyes and could see Master Griffin as he met him on the first day of class; his shaved head smooth and glossy in the bright light of the dojo, the merest hint

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of a smile beneath his thick black mustache.

"We are all gifted with power," he'd said to his students. Adam watched the lithe, catlike way that Master Griffin walked around the practice mat, almost like he was gliding along on the balls of his feet.

"All of us," he'd said, looking at each of them in turn. "It is what we do with that power that is important."

Then he told Adam to try to tackle him. Master Griffin was shorter and more compact than Adam, and much lighter. Adam came at him with a wary confidence. Tackling people was what he did. He moved in low, going for the legs.

Suddenly he was airborne, but it was a short flight. Griffin brought him onto the mat and somehow cushioned his fall. Then instead of letting him go, Griffin maintained a tight grip on Adam's arm with one hand, while his free hand was cocked back and ready for a flat-palm strike. Adam looked at the rigid line of that palm and knew with certainty that Griffin could break his nose or smash his face in with one quick thrust. But he just tapped Adam twice on the chest before hauling Adam to his feet.

"Adam has power," Master Griffin had said to the class. "I have power. Each of you do. What will we do with that power?"

That had been the only physical contact of the first session, Master Griffin tossing his biggest, most athletic student like he'd toss his dirty socks into the laundry hamper. He'd spent the rest of the session teaching them forms and talking about personal responsibility.

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"Layman," Coach Konrathy yelled, "wake up and get your ass on the line."

Adam complied and "put his ass" on the offensive line. As he did he could almost hear Master Griffin's calm voice in his head, asking him just how much of his ass he was willing to put on the line for his beliefs.

The dead kid got up the way he always did--slowly-- but did not seem injured by Stavis's illegal hit. Adam tried to get into his head. What, if anything, was going on in there? Why was Williams even out here? Did he have something to prove? Was it love of the game? Did he even realize that there were teammates of his working hard to take him out of the game--permanently? There just didn't seem to be any point in offering himself up to the punishment he was experiencing.

And--the thought creeped in like rain through cracks in the ceiling--did Phoebe really have a thing for him? Why would she find him the least bit attractive? How on earth could a dead kid interest her in that way? There had to be some crossing of wires, somewhere.

Back in the locker room, the sudden silence told him that Williams was passing through. Williams didn't shower, at least he never showered with the rest of the team in the gang showers down the hall. He didn't sweat, and one could just as easily wash the mud and turf off one's face at home as in the showers.

Adam shucked off his shoulder pads and covertly watched the reactions of his teammates as the dead kid walked by. The

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open hostility of the remaining Pain Crew was pretty easy to register: Martinsburg was whispering something to his head thug, Stavis, and to Harris Morgan, who looked to be first on the recruiting list now that Adam had dissolved his membership.

Most of the team turned away, like the presence of the dead kid was an embarrassing secret that no one wanted to acknowledge. Denny Mackenzie, whose neck had been saved today by Williams when he blocked a charging Martinsburg coming in for the sack on Mackenzie's blind side, was pretending to be fully engrossed in something that Gary Greene was saying. Williams opened his locker, withdrew his backpack, and headed for the stairs.

Tommy Williams was a player on the Oakvale Badgers, but no one seemed very pleased about it. Konrathy was leaning in the doorway of his office, watching Williams make a deliberate path toward the exit.

Thornton Harrowwood had the locker closest to the door. He was sitting on the wooden bench with a damp towel wrapped around his skinny waist and was stuffing his filthy uniform into a large green duffel that was nearly as big as he was. He looked up at Williams as he passed and held up his hand like it was no big deal, and Williams slapped it gently without breaking his ponderous stride. Like it was no big deal.

Adam smiled, but then Konrathy called Thornton into his office. Adam became so engrossed in trying to figure out what was being discussed behind the closed door that he almost

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didn't see his former pals in the Pain Crew skip the showers and follow Williams out the door.

"He's talking to that spooky bitch," TC said as they crossed the lot toward the woods.

"Doesn't change a damn thing," Martinsburg said. He was twirling the aluminum bat, his wrist making swift circles. "Harris, she's your responsibility. If she tries to run or interfere, stop her."

"Aww, man. I ain't hitting no girl."

"I ask you to hit her? Just stop her." Martinsburg pointed the bat at Harris Morgan's chest. Pete outweighed the fit running back by a good forty pounds and Harris took a half step back, but it was Pete's expression more than the bat that did it.

"Stop her," Harris said. "Got it."

"If you plan on punking out like Layman, you'd better tell me now."

Harris shook his head.

Martinsburg looked again at their quarry, who had turned and entered the woods with Little Miss Scarypants.

"Now, what do you suppose they're up to in the woods?" he said, sending a long stream of spit through his teeth and onto the asphalt. "She gonna help him get his pads off?"

The dead kid had knocked the wind out of him at practice today. Pete had been just a few steps away from leveling the quarterback with his shoulder when the dead kid came from
his
blind side and sent him down, driving all of the wind from his lungs.

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There was one moment when the zombie stood over him while he lay flat on his back, his closed lungs struggling to draw in air. The dead kid looked down, and Pete felt a moment of breathless panic as he saw the cold gray glare of his eyes under the shade of his helmet.

Now you know what it feels like to be dead.
He could hear the zombie's voice in his head, and he thought he detected the slightest tic of a muscle by his mouth.

How do you like it?

Williams left him there on the turf. Pete's breath was slow in returning, and through it all he couldn't get the image out of his mind of the zombie laughing at him. He was frightened by that image, but fear only served to make him angrier. No one, dead or alive, was going to laugh at Pete Martinsburg and get away with it.

"We'll just come up the path," he said, "and when we get close we'll spread out in the woods. I'll kick it off. Unless they smell Stavis here."

"What?" Stavis said, looking down at his grubby and fragrant uniform.

"You could have at least showered," Pete said. "You reek." Harris laughed, nodding in agreement.

There were a few kids and their parents milling about the parking lot, but no one really seemed to notice them. Pete nodded to his two henchmen.

"Okay," he said, "it's on."

They followed him into the woods.

***

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Phoebe wasn't sure how she was going to broach the subject of her poetry with Tommy, but he saved her the trouble once they stepped into the woods.

"I have your poem ... in my locker," he said. "I realized ...that this ...could be a problem for you."

Phoebe shook her head and tried to think how she should respond. Funny how the clarity of his speech, which flowed more quickly that the average living impaired person's, was giving her speech troubles.

"No," she said, "I was surprised, I guess."

"Your friend," he said, "with the pink hair."

Phoebe laughed. "Margi."

"I did not think of the ... consequences," he said, somehow getting all those syllables out in one word. "Everyone ...knows. I am sorry."

She shook her head and took a step closer to him. He didn't smell like someone who had been at football practice for the past couple hours. He didn't smell like a dead person, for that matter, either. The crisp scent of pine and autumn leaves was all she could smell. His skin was so smooth and white; he looked like a sculpture come to life, someone's idealized version of a young man, without blemishes or flaws.

"Don't be," she said, touching his arm, which felt like smooth stone beneath her fingers. "I wanted you to have it."

He gave a slight nod, his bottomless stare fixed on her. His gaze was disconcerting, to say the least. His eyes did not track when they were talking, and when he blinked, which wasn't often, she could count to three before his eyelids touched. He

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raised his hand as though to touch her cheek, and she thought of how gentle he'd been when he'd removed the leaf caught in her hair.

He surprised her by turning away, the movement sudden and swift.

"This is ...difficult," he said, "for both ... of us. Friendship ...always is. Much less ..."

She didn't get to hear what else he had to say, because at that moment two figures moving low ran at Tommy. One swung a baseball bat and hit Tommy in the chest, knocking him off his feet and onto a rotting log. His helmet bounced twice and landed near Phoebe, who shrieked as a third figure came from behind her and leveled a bat at her throat.

"Shhh," Harris Morgan said. Then he smiled.

"So you like sports, do you, zombie?" Martinsburg said. The bat he was holding out at his side came down with a sickening crack. Phoebe couldn't see where the blow landed, her line of sight obscured by Harris and the log that Tommy had fallen over.

"Stop it!" she yelled.

"Shut her up," Martinsburg said over his shoulder as he prepared himself for another swing. Harris looked back at Pete, unsure how to translate that particular directive, and Phoebe used the moment to jump on him, swinging her fists.

She punched him once, and they stumbled, but she ended up on her back, the limbs of the trees high above spinning in a kaleidoscope of fall colors. She was dimly aware of Harris rising from her, cursing and licking his lower lip.

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Then she heard the sound of Martinsburg's bat whistling again.

It wasn't easy to rise to a sitting position, but she did. Martinsburg, grinning, was motioning for Stavis to take a turn. She tried to stand, but Harris poked her in the chest with the end of his bat and told her to sit down, swearing. She was gratified to see a thin line of blood where her knuckle had cut his lip.

She saw Stavis hefting the bat with both hands over his head.

"You have no idea how big a mistake you have made."

The deep, even voice belonged to Adam. Phoebe turned to see him looming on the path from where Martinsburg and his cronies had launched their attack. He was speaking to Harris, but he turned to look at the other two as well.

"Stay out of this, Layman," Martinsburg said. Stavis lowered his bat and regarded the new threat. Phoebe noticed that he was actually wider and heavier than Adam, although not quite as tall or as fast, but Phoebe guessed it didn't really matter when Stavis was holding a baseball bat.

"No," Adam said, and took two steps, closing the distance between them.

"I told you to pick a team, Lame Man," Martinsburg said.

"Guess I did," Adam replied, still moving right at Pete.

"Be a shame if one of your knees got busted out," Martinsburg said, but there was a shrill quality to his words, an absence of confidence that hadn't been there before Adam had appeared. "Like your gimp buddy, Manetti."