Kiss of Life (11 page)
Authors: Daniel Waters
Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Children's Books, #Juvenile Fiction, #Fantasy & Magic, #Children: Young Adult (Gr. 7-9), #Children's Books - Young Adult Fiction, #Friendship, #Young adult fiction, #Love & Romance, #Social Issues, #Mysteries & Detective Stories, #Emotions & Feelings, #Death, #Death & Dying, #All Ages, #Social Issues - Friendship, #Schools, #Monsters, #High schools, #Interpersonal relations, #Triangles (Interpersonal relations), #Zombies, #Prejudices, #Science Fiction; Fantasy; Magic, #Goth culture, #First person narratives
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"There is no past. There is ... no future," said Smiley, "there is only ...the ...endless present."
Smiley walk walk into darkness into forest no path straight into darkness right leg Smiley quick gone in darkness.
"When you are ready ... to hate ...I'll be waiting for you ... in the present."
Gone. Not hate.
Not.
Hate.
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CHAPTER FOURTEEN
"DID YOU SEE
the plastic surgeon yet?" his father asked from the opposite coast. Pete sneered into his cell phone. He would rather his dad call up and say, "Does your face hurt? It's killing me," than have one more question about the plastic surgeon. "No."
"Why not?"
"I just haven't wanted to."
Since his injury, Darren had called almost every other day to check to see if Pete had gotten the surgery. That was the most attention he'd paid Pete since abandoning him and his mother. Even the summers he spent at his dad's place didn't provide as much contact with his father as the scar did.
"You should get that fixed."
"Yeah." But if I got it fixed, you'd stop calling me, wouldn't you? "Well," Darren said, "I've got a conference call in five
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minutes I have to get ready for. How's the community service going?"
Darren never asked about the therapy; just the community service.
"Fine. I'm on my way to work off hours thirty-one through thirty-five," Pete replied. The sound of the admin assistant's voice on Darren's pager told Pete that his father had already mentally disconnected from their conversation.
"That's great," Darren said, with all the enthusiasm of a zombie. "Gotta run. Get your scar fixed."
"Yeah."
"Bye," Pete said, but his father had already hung up. He saw a zombie through the windshield of his car, a pasty-looking freak in a blue jean jacket.
"Was that your father?" Pete's mom asked from the driver's seat. She hadn't let him drive since his arrest.
"Yes, it was Darren," he said.
"Oh. How is he?"
Pete didn't answer. Duke Davidson opened the front door to the facility as soon as his mother pulled in front of the building. Pete got out when she stopped and said good-bye over his shoulder.
"Ready for more custodial work?" Duke said, smiling thinly and waving to Pete's mother as she drove away. "I'm going to have you do the bathrooms today."
"Great," Pete said. He was looking behind him at the zombie, who seemed to be shambling down the hill toward the security fence. "I have to get my head shrunk first."
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Duke laughed. "Don't stare." "What?"
Duke handed Pete his security badge, which had a small unsmiling photograph of Pete on the right-hand side. "I said, 'Don't stare.' Angela wouldn't like it if she thought you were trying to intimidate the residents."
"Intimidate ...?"
"That's Cooper Wilson. He stays here now. He was one of the survivors of a zombie purge in Massachusetts a few months ago. Maybe you heard about it? The Dickinson House Massacre, they call it."
Pete shook his head. He noticed that Duke, who normally kept a brisk pace as he roamed the shiny halls, had slowed to talk to him.
"There's a girl who came from there. Melissa."
"That the one in the mask?"
Duke looked at him, grinning. "See, you do pay attention. She wears the mask because she was horribly disfigured in the fire."
"That's rough." Pete's hand drifted up to the stitching in his face.
"You ever catch up to the guy who did that to you?" "What?"
Duke stopped, and Pete looked up at him, jerking his hand away from the stitching.
"Do you know who did it?" "I know who did it."
Duke nodded. "There's some zombies in town," he said,
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"they like pulling pranks. Petty vandalism, stuff like that. Some of them are into roadkill." "Roadkill?"
"They chew on it. Disgusting, huh? But it's the pranks that will get them in trouble."
"I heard about a prank. Zombie recruitment posters, or something."
Duke nodded, his hands on his hips. "That's right. What do you think about that?"
Pete thought that it really pissed him off when he heard about it. Stavis called him up, acting like the posters were a big joke or something, but Pete didn't think it was funny at all. Thinking of Williams and his sick designs on Phoebe, he thought that the posters were too close to the truth--that the dead really were trying to recruit the living for their sick enterprise.
But he didn't know what Davidson was looking for from him, so all he did was shrug. Duke looked at him as though Pete didn't have to say anything, like Duke could see right through into his heart.
"Okay," Duke said, as though satisfied by whatever he saw there.
Pete felt Duke's stare the entire trip down to Angela's office.
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CHAPTER FIFTEEN
"
I'm going out, Adam," Mom said. "Do you want me to call Phoebe so you have some company?"
Speak.
"No."
"Okay," she said, "I'll be back in a couple hours."
Left leg. Right leg. Right arm. Through the window Mom looks scared looks relieved to be out can't blame her can't. Phoebe next door with homework with books with music with Phoebe miss Phoebe.
Phoebe.
Phoebe clings needs to live not cling needs to live can't live hurts. Can't live. Phoebe needs to forget forget me can't forget Phoebe needs to forget me. Tak Smiley is right. Forget.
Can't forget Phoebe said Phoebe become who you always were become. Can't become anything. Can't.
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Dead.
"Hey, stupid."
Jimmy. Stupid Jimmy. Meet Takayuki Jimmy.
"There's someone here to see you, stupid," said Jimmy.
Right leg. Left leg. Right leg. Moving faster moving better was slug now snail soon be turtle. Hope. Left leg. Hope Phoebe hope not Phoebe Phoebe needs to live can't live with me.
"I'm out of here, stupid," said Jimmy. "Don't let the maggots catch you."
Jimmy out the door past visitor visitor not Phoebe.
Master Griffin.
"Your stepbrother is a rude individual," said Master Griffin. "Not centered at all." Speak. Speak. Come ... in.
"No," Master Griffin said, shaking gleaming bald head. "Let's go outside. It's almost warm today. I'm very sorry I haven't come sooner. I'm afraid I'm not very big on newspapers or the like, a side effect of being too long on foreign soil. One of the consequences of having a rich interior life is that you can sometimes lose connection with the outside world."
Smiles. "Which is why you need to come outside with me."
Speak. "Glad ..."
"I'm glad to see you too, Adam. That's right, bend your knees a little more as we go down your steps." "Can't..."
Master Griffin shook his head. "That word is to be stricken from your vocabulary, effective right now. Remember
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what Yoda said? 'Try not.' The word 'can't' has no place in your recovery. You can and you will. Time is all it will take."
Quoting Yoda? Can't. Can't speak. Speak. Can't.
Master Griffin's eyes narrow, tone serious.
"I know that it is difficult, and I know that your body is not obeying your instructions right now. But it would not obey your instructions when you first began to work with me, if memory serves. You could not do the Bow. You could not do the Crane. There were other forms that you had yet to master. This is no different."
Right leg. Left leg. Master Griffin's hand on my arm pressure is there pressure stars in the sky breeze can't feel no shoes can't feel cold ground beneath my no shoes feet can't feel.
"Good," said Master Griffin. "We are going to relearn the forms, and your body will begin to obey you. The body will remember. You will regain control through the discipline of practice. Do you remember your forms?"
Master Griffin moves moves like water arm rigid crosses body right arm right arm right Master Griffin bends knee drops shoulder arm down lift arm lift arm lift arm.
"Again," said Master Griffin.
Again, again said Master Griffin can't move didn't lift arm lift arm lift arm.
"Again," said Master Griffin.
Lift arm lift arm lift arm look Phoebe's light is on Phoebe books and music Phoebe's hair the memory of the smell of her hair lift arm.
"Good," said Master Griffin, "feel your focus return."
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Lift arm. Lift arm move arm focus move arm. Arm, motionless.
"Excellent," said Master Griffin. "Focus. You are the only-one that can do this."
Focus. Lift arm. Move arm bend knee bend knee drop fist. Lift arm.
Lift arm.
Lift arm!
Hand moves.
"Excellent," said Master Griffin, smiling. "Again." Lift arm.
"You know, I've missed you at the dojo."
Focus.
Lift arm.
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CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The'd just sat
Adam down in the back of the van when she felt a light touch on her shoulder. She turned and saw that Tommy, who, driven by an old-world sense of chivalry, was normally the last one on. "Hello, Phoebe," he said. "Adam."
Phoebe hesitated. Adam tried to wave in the cramped quarters. He got the arm motion right, but the wrist and fingers weren't really bending just yet. Progress is progress, she thought.
"Can I...talk to you?" Tommy said. "Alone?"
He motioned to the pair of seats behind the driver. Looking at Adam, she hoped he'd shake his head, or reach for her hand, but instead he nodded.
"Okay," she said, crouching as she slid into the seat before Tommy. He had to lean so the other students could climb in, and she was acutely aware of her pulse as he pressed against her. He was so solid and unyielding; his arm like a rock against her.
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"I've
been thinking about what you said ...Phoebe," he said, shifting back as Kevin climbed aboard.
"Oh?" she replied, glancing over her shoulder as the rest of the class settled in their seats. Her skin was tingling from where Tommy had leaned against her. Karen had taken Phoebe's usual seat and was leaning against Adam, whispering something that brought a phantom smile to the corner of his mouth.
"I've thought ...about a lot," Tommy said. "I want you ...to know ... I still have feelings ...for you."
"Tommy," she warned, turning to face him as the van started up. "Let's not do this here, please?"
Thorny and Margi were complaining loudly about some experiment gone awry in their biology class. Colette's shrill laughter filled the vehicle.
"I'll be ... brief," he said. He was whispering, at least. Even so, she couldn't help but risk a self-conscious glance over her shoulder. Karen was still talking to Adam, but he was looking right at her.
"I just wanted ...to ...thank you."
"To thank me?" She was conscious that he hadn't taken his eyes off her from the moment they sat down. If he was angered by her darting eyes he didn't show it.
"For trying," he said. "With me. It was ...a ...brave ...thing to do."
"It wasn't an act of
charity,
Tommy," she said, anger raising her voice. "I was just as ..."
She didn't get to complete her sentence, because Thorny shouted to Tommy from the last row of the van..
"Hey, Tommy!" he called. "What do you think, would
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you let us dissect you for a differently biotic class?"
"Why ...not?" he said, trying to smile. "Learn more than ...with ... a fetal ...pig."
Phoebe looked away, out the window at the trees whose yellow and red leaves were muting to brown. Won't be long, she thought, before they started to fall. Last year there were storms in mid-October that knocked all the leaves down. She remembered raking them up into wet piles, sad that her favorite season had been compromised by the fickle New England winds.
Adam was looking at her. She wished she knew what he was thinking.
The van arrived at the same time as a sputtering compact car that followed them around the turning circle in front of the foundation. Phoebe could see Melissa riding along in the passenger seat, her coppery hair high enough to press against the car's roof. The girl turned toward the van. She had a different mask on today, still a blank white but this time with the corners of the mouth turned up in a slight smile.
The car pulled to a stop, and the driver got out of the still-running vehicle to trot around to help Melissa out. Phoebe could see that it was Father Fitzpatrick, the Catholic priest that had performed the funeral service for Evan Talbot. She would have liked to have said hello to him, but by the time she'd helped Adam out of the van, he was back in his car, speeding off. Must have some souls to save, Phoebe thought.
Melissa waved to her, holding the whiteboard in front of her like a shield.
"Hey, Melissa," she said, watching the girl hitch from side