Kiss of Life (21 page)

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rapid time with the Guy Who Can't Get a Library Card and his friends.

The floor was packed. There had to be thirty people on it, jumping and swaying with the music. Karen leaned over Phoebe's shoulder, her breath cool on her ear.

"We're here to dance, right?" she said, taking her by the hand and leading her down the carpeted steps to the floor. Colette gave an off-note cheer as they joined them, and Phoebe laughed when the eyes of both the deads and the trads bugged out as Karen twitched her short leather skirt.

The smell of Z hung heavy on the air as spotlights from above raked the crowd. Phoebe gave herself into the music, a heavy industrial song by a band she liked called the Seraphim. Then the lights cut all at once, plunging the hall into total darkness for a moment before hot white strobes flickered from all sides. Phoebe couldn't tell who was living or dead in that light; the rapid flashing made everyone's movements appear stiff and jerky. The room went dark again and then the floor lights returned, as well as the overhead spots. Lifting her arms above her head and laughing as Margi executed a few gypsy-like steps, she saw that some of the lights playing on walls and skin were butterflies, or flowers or stars.

She realized a zombie boy was mumbling something at her.

"What?" she yelled.

"I said," he screamed back, "loud enough for you?" Looking closer she realized he wasn't dead after all, he just had bad skin. She nodded and spun away.

The machine-heavy track segued into a crunky rap song

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that Phoebe didn't recognize but could understand instinctively, the bass and drum wash infusing her limbs with their energy.

Is this what it's like for them? she thought, feeling the rush and watching Colette laugh at something the Library Card Guy said. She found that she could use music as fuel, like a candy bar or an apple. Without the latter two options, was sound what the dead needed to power them? She thought of Kevin and his jerky scarecrow dancing at the homecoming dance. Here, even the most sluggish of zombies in the room appeared to be moving at normal speeds.

Above the dance floor was a sort of catwalk that led to a perimeter of booths with more of the pillowy blue furniture that was scattered around the club. There were dozens of people loitering around, many watching either the dancers or the pretty colored lights that played across them. There was a DJ in an enclosed booth at the far end of the catwalk, and below that was a platform raised up from the rest of the dance floor that had a drum set and a few stacks of amplifiers. There was a yellow smiley skull--a giant emoticon--on the bass drumhead with the words "Skeleton Crew" written in letters made out of bones.

"Oh, man." Margi slumped onto a futon after a third extended club remix song ended. "I'm all out of breath."

"Me too," Colette said. The people that could hear her over the music thought that was pretty funny.

Margi led a haphazard parade up to a ring of couches on the catwalk. She and Colette introduced Karen and Phoebe to some of their new friends.

"I can't believe how many people are here," Phoebe said.

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"How many dead people, you mean?" the boy on her left said. This was Trent, the Library Card Guy.

"No, just people," she said, not sure if he was trying to be confrontational or if he just wanted to start conversation. "We thought the club was closed when we first got here."

"Ah."

Colette said that it was sort of overwhelming, being around this many zombies. "I think the most we've ever had at the Haunted House was twenty-three," she said.

Phoebe turned toward the dance floor. She spotted one of the zombies out there looking as though he'd just crawled out of a three-year-old grave; his clothes were shredded and stained and the skin on the side of his head looked like it was flaking off. He was the only old-school zombie she'd seen, the only one that would not have looked out of place on one of the posters in the hall by the restrooms. Like George.

When she turned back, everyone was leaning in their chairs a little closer to Colette.

"The Haunted House?" Trent asked.

"Um ...yeah," she said. "That's just ...just what ... we call this house we ...hang out...at."

"Where did you say ...you were from?"

"Connecticut?" she said, like she was being quizzed. "Oakvale?"

"No way!" Trent said, excited now. "Tommy Williams?
Mysocalledundeath.com
?"

Colette, suddenly a celebrity, smiled at him without answering.

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"Wow, that's ...incredible," Trent said. "Do any of you ...go to ...the Hunter Foundation?"

"We all do," Margi answered. She was trying to look like she wasn't interested in Trent's living friend, but she
was
interested in Trent's living friend.

"Unbelievable," Trent said. "Skip has ...told us ... a lot ...about what you are ...doing there." He paused for a moment, looking at each of them with new interest, which made Phoebe want to sink into her plush cushion until it enveloped her completely.

"Did ...Tommy ...really leave ... like it says on the site?"

"He did," Margi answered.

"Wow," Trent said. "It isn't ...easy ...being young and ...undead ... in America. Lots of the ...kids ...here had a long ...distance ... to travel."

"I came here from ...Iowa," one kid said.

"I'm ...sorry," Colette said, making him smile.

"Hey," Trent said, "that stuff about ...dating ... a trad chick ...was that true?"

You would think that someone like Colette, who had to make a conscious effort to speak and move their limbs, wouldn't have been so quick to give Phoebe up, but not so. The smile left her face as Colette looked right at Phoebe. Bad enough, but Margi and Karen did the same.

Phoebe made a clicking noise with her tongue and looked away.

"Oops," Trent said. He had trouble cutting off the "oo" sound. "Um, yeah." Margi seemed to notice Phoebe's discomfort.

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"Maybe we could talk about something else? Where are the rest of you from?"

Most, like Trent and his pal who hailed from Staten Island, were from New York City or the environs.

"But who ...cares about that," he said, even though Phoebe did. "What's going to happen to mysocalledundeath ... without Tommy? Do any of you know? Just about... everyone ...here reads it."

"How?" Karen asked.

"Computers, upstairs," he answered. "Skip prints out the blogs and ...hands them out."

"It'll still happen," Karen answered. "Tommy is going to be sending his blogs in from the road. Phoebe and I ..."

The music cut out and the room went black. Phoebe shrieked.

"Some of you have been waiting an eternity for this, I know," the brash confidence of the voice cut through the darkness. "And you will now know that eternity was not spent in vain. Marking their record seventeenth appearance at Aftermath, please join me in putting claws and paws together in welcoming the band that you've been clamoring for, dead or alive.... Skeleton Crew!"

At the stroke of a razor-sharp opening chord, lights came back on. Phoebe looked below and saw Dom standing in front of a microphone. Next to him stood a short, shirtless, rail-thin boy who wore bright orange surfer shorts that ended below his knees. The thin boy was leaning on his microphone stand like he needed it to prop him up. Bee stood on the other side

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of the stage thrumming the low string on his bass guitar.

"Aftermath! Make some noise!" Dom yelled as Warren, hidden somewhere behind a ring of cymbals, began to play an escalating roll on his snare and double bass. Phoebe thought the greeting uninspired, but it provoked a healthy reaction from the crowd.

"Good ...day ....everyone," the thin boy said, his voice somewhere between the somber intonations of Peter Murphy and Morrissey, "My name ...is ...DeCayce ...and we are ...Skeleton Crew."

He's the dead one, Phoebe thought. Dom hit another blaring chord and the dead boy leaped three feet in the air without flexing his legs as Bee and Warren erupted into song.

Phoebe was dead tired on the ride home, although Margi was still bopping around in the driver's seat, reliving each moment of their club adventure with minute detail. On the train she was a bundle of energy, even when Karen and Colette seemed to be holding their strength in reserve.

"He was so totally into you, Colette," Margi said. This idea more than anything else seemed to be the wellspring of Margi's energy, and as such Phoebe didn't get tired of hearing it, even though she'd already heard it at least two dozen times.

"I ...don't ...know," Colette said. Her denials became weaker each time Margi repeated the statement. Phoebe smiled; it was good to see Colette so moony.

"Yeah, you do," Margi said. "Totally."

The "somebody" was DeCayce. When their set was over

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Dom had brought his band over to talk to the girls. As raw as DeCayce was onstage, he seemed very shy in person, and barely added to the conversation--which was mostly Dom bantering with Karen. Trent and his crowd drifted over, and the more people that were around, the more Phoebe noticed DeCayce retreating into himself. Trent was going on and on about what a groundbreaking band Skeleton Crew was, as Colette leaned over and said something that only DeCayce could hear. Whatever it was, it must have been pretty funny, because DeCayce laughed like the idea of laughter was new to him. They were inseparable for the rest of the night; Phoebe would catch glimpses of them talking animatedly, off by themselves in the hidden corners of the room.

Animatedly, Phoebe thought. Wrong word. Definitely the wrong word.

"Hey, Colette," she said. "What was it that you said to DeCayce that made him laugh so much?"

Colette turned back to her, smiling. "That... annoying boy ...kept saying the word ...'groundbreaking.' Not good ...word choice ...for a zombie."

"We couldn't even find you when it was time to go," Margi said, her pink-shadowed eyes glancing up at Phoebe in the rearview. "Just what were you doing, huh, kid?"

"Stop it," Colette said. She was smiling. "We were ... dancing."

"We were," and here the pause Margi took was three times as long as any that the New Improved Colette took,
"Dancing.
Is that what you call it?"

"Stop it!" Colette said, nudging her.

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"Careful, Colette." Karen said. "She's liable to ...kill us all. Besides"--and here Karen leaned forward in her seat--"she's just jealous."

"Of course I'm jealous," Margi said. "Who wouldn't be jealous? Did you see the way he was looking at her? Just once, I'd like for someone to look at me like that. Just once."

"I don't know," Phoebe said, "Bee seemed pretty interested in our pink-haired girl."

"Sure," Margi said, "all I get is the bass players."

"Big Christmas sales at Wild Thingz ! tomorrow," Karen said as Margi pulled into the driveway of the DeSonne home. "A great chance to stock up on all of your Z brand cosmetics."

"Colette will be needing some of those now that she has a boyfriend," Margi said, pretending to think aloud. "But I just don't think Santa is coming for her. She's been naughty."

"Will you ...stop," Colette said, clearly not wanting her to.

On their way to drop Phoebe off, Margi and Colette started making plans about going to the mall, the people they needed to buy Christmas presents for, and what those presents would be. Phoebe sat in the backseat and willed herself invisible just so she could listen in on their conversation and the easy friendship it represented.

"What about ...Norm?"

"What about Norm?" Margi replied.

"Don't...snap. And don't be ...mean ... to Norm."

"Being encouraging would be mean."

"You know he's going to get...you ... a present."

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"Tell him to save his money." "It doesn't...work that way."

Phoebe was happy for them, but she was a little sad too. It sounded a lot like the conversations
she
used to have with Margi.

"Well, it needs to work another way. Norm is a really nice guy but I don't feel
that way
about him. I don't feel the way DeCayce, the sexy undead rock star, feels for you."

"Don't change ...the subject."

"Who's changing? It's the same subject."

"I just ...think ...you might want to get him ...something. Something ...small. A CD."

"Then he'll read all sorts of deep meaning into the song titles and it'll be even worse than it is now."

"No love songs."

"All songs are love songs," Margi said. A car passed them going the other way and Margi checked her rearview to watch it recede. "What do you think, Phoebe?"

"Colette is right," she said, shocked that her veil of invisibility had been penetrated so easily. "A CD. No love songs. Maybe the Skeleton Crew CD?"

"Great idea!" she said. "Colette can probably get me a case of free copies!"

Adam was in the yard working out when they rolled up the driveway. She saw him revealed briefly in the bright swath of light beaming from Margi's headlamps, turning on his heels from left to right, his fists rotating from his hips to strike unseen assailants.