Kiss of Life (36 page)

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said to the beautiful girl beside him. They were sitting in back of the Haunted House, alone except for Mai, who had been staring into the sky since Tuesday.

"Oh, I'm ...sure," Karen said, and he heard it again, the subtle hitch in her speech that conveyed how emotional she was. How angry.

When he first heard her story about Sylvia, a girl he had barely met, he'd been secretly thrilled, his mind leaping instantly to all the different ways that the Sons of Romero could make use of not only the story itself but the wellspring of fury that was flowing from Karen. But the more she told it, the wilder she became. She had so much rage inside her that it almost scared him.

Almost.

"What do you ...think ... he thinks about?" he said, nodding to Mai, who was sitting on his rock. Tak had tried many times to recruit the boy, but he didn't seem interested in anything but the sky since Tommy had left.

"Who? Mai?"

"Yes."

"He's praying."

"Really?" There was still an edge in Karen's voice, so Tak wasn't sure if she was kidding or not." "Really."

"He ...told you that? He ...talks to you?" "He used to."

Tak looked at Mai, at the light frost that covered his body. George shambled out of the woods just then, clutching something to his chest.

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"What did you ...see when you ...died, Karen?" Karen looked at him.

"Did you see a white warm light like some of our ...family? Did you see ...the faces of those that went before ... or did you feel ... an elation, like every happy memory you have ...ever had was being ... recalled at once? I have heard ...our family ...tell stories ...like these."

Karen shook her head.

"Or did you see ... a blankness ... a void ... a void that swallowed up your screams ...without even ...the gift... of an echo?"

He held out his hand to her. She stared at it a moment, then took it. He helped her to her feet.

"Tak," she said, "we don't know what we ...saw ...when we died ...was real. We just...don't know. Kevin said ... he saw a baseball field. Green, the grass cut just so. I saw ... I saw ...Mai said ..."

She stopped for a moment, as though collecting her thoughts, or catching her breath.

"Mai said he saw God. He said that ...God ...spoke to him. He's been looking for ...Him ...since."

Tak smiled. "Really?"

She surprised him then by laying her hand alongside his ruined cheek. Her face softened, as though the anger had finally left her. She stepped forward and hugged him, tightly.

"Don't do it, Tak. Don't...give in ... to despair. I gave in ...in life ...and now I've got a second chance."

"Is that was this is?" he said. His cheek was a chiseled piece

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of ice next to hers, but he held her as tightly as she held him. "A second ...chance? Does your friend ...Sylvia ...think this is ... a second chance?"

She held him. "We have to ...believe it is, Tak. We ...
have
to."

"Why?" he said. But it felt good holding her. In fact, it felt better than anything he'd experienced since his return.

"Why," he said. "Why ...didn't I ...see?"

"I don't know, Tak. I don't know why we all saw what we saw. But we're here now. Isn't that...good enough? Maybe next time ... maybe next time we'll get to see if... if there is a God."

"If there is, Karen ...don't you see how that's worse?" he said. "It's so much worse if He exists."

"What...what do you mean?"

"If there is a God," he told her, "if there is ... he turned us away. We were there ...and he ...turned us ...away."

She held him tighter then, as if for a moment he was the rock that anchored her from spinning out into the universe. She buried her face in his shoulder, and he thought he could feel her lips moving against his neck, like she was praying. He could feel her against him. He
felt,
and the feeling was so strong that it actually made him question, if only for a moment, the nonbelief he'd carried so strongly since picking his broken body off of the Garden State Parkway and limping down the exit ramp.

"You're trembling," he said. "How is it that you can ...tremble?"

They stood like that for some time.

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CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

PETE FELT STRONG
hands grip his shoulder the moment he was swung around into the wall of his garage, and all he could think was "they finally caught up to me."

Half-winded, Pete struggled to his feet, expecting to see the slashed face of the Japanese zombie. Instead he found himself staring into the cold blue eyes of Duke Davidson.

"Oh." His voice was raspy as he tried to regain his breath. It s you.

"Think you're pretty clever, don't you?" Duke said, shoving him back against the wall. Pete found himself wishing the Wimp was home, at least then he might get the pleasure of seeing him get his ass kicked along with his own. Duke tapped him on the side of the head like he was trying to get his attention. "Don't you?"

"I'm ...really clever," Pete said, deflecting a second tap to

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the head with his forearm. He could feel spittle on his cheeks when Duke laughed in his face.

"I've got to hand it to you, Martinsburg." He stepped back and leaned against Pete's car, which Pete hadn't driven anywhere other than the foundation and back since his sentencing. "One impulsive act, and you throw away months of planning. A year, even."

"Planning what?"

Duke made as if to strike him, and Pete flinched.

"What do you think, Martinsburg?" He shook his bald head. "The destruction of the zombie plague."

Pete rubbed his shoulder where Duke had shoved him. "You left me your key. And then you practically came out and said you were going to be distracting Alish."

Duke's grin grew wider, and he spread his hands in a "you got me" gesture.

"Am I in trouble, then?" Pete said. "I figured I was doing something you wanted me to do."

"Pete," Duke said, and reached out to grip the shoulder he'd just shoved. "Relax. You passed the test."

"I did?"

"Flying colors, son. You can follow orders, but you can also take initiative--you'd be surprised what a rare combination that is. You're exactly who we need. The Reverend is very pleased with you.

"The Reverend? Reverend Mathers?"

Duke went on as though Pete hadn't spoken. "Your pals got a real eyeful at the lab. The pictures they posted have really

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polarized the issue. The war is on, Pete. The foundation, the primary zombie-advocate organization in the country, will be seriously discredited. Funding will vanish. And the undead, once they see what has been happening to them behind closed doors, are going to run wild in the streets."

Pete doubted that. Somehow, the idea of the zombies doing anything beyond lurking in the shadows wasn't something he could picture. There could be a couple, the Japanese guy and a few of his cronies, who might do something drastic because of what happened at the foundation, but Pete seriously doubted that there would be any mass uprising. "The zombies are like undead hippies. There are only a few that are going to do anything about it."

Duke smiled as he reached into his pocket. Pete thought that he was going for a gun, and that in a moment he'd be past the point of worrying or caring what Duke did. He only hoped that Duke put the bullet in his head so he wouldn't come back.

What Duke withdrew was not a gun. It was the mask that Pete had worn on the night they desecrated the cemetery. Duke slammed it against Pete's chest.

"That's where you and I come in, my friend." Duke pressed the mask against Pete's chest with the palm of his hand until Pete took hold of it.

"The Reverend is expecting big things from you, Martinsburg. Big things. You start tonight."

Pete looked at him and then looked down at the mask spread out on his fingers. The knobby teeth jutted out through the molded tear on the latex cheek, and Pete could feel the scar

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where his stitches had been itching; he tried to erase the thought that he was staring at a warped mirror image of himself. "What are we going to do?"

"We're going to take it up a level," Duke said. "The time is right to blow the whole idea of zombie rights and peace sky high."

Duke took one of the yard tools hanging from hooks on the wall of the garage, a splitting maul. He ran his thumb along the edge of the blade, and Pete wondered if he knew that the maul was the tool Pete'd used to destroy the zombie that had been staying in his neighborhood. He couldn't remember his name, Evan or Kevin or something like that. The kid's family, who lived a few streets over, had put their house up for sale.

Duke replaced the maul. "Thanks in part to you, Pete, we've got the world believing that the zombies are willing to dig up graves as part of their recruiting mission. The Hunter Foundation scandal, which we also owe to Mr. Peter Martinsburg, thank you very much, makes this a perfect time to show the living world just how serious the zombies are about swelling their ranks. And when we show them, the living will rise up and destroy the dead."

Pete felt chills along his spine. The light in Duke's eyes bordered on fanatical, but there was something else there too. Pete thought it was pride--pride for what Pete had done.

And maybe even affection. It had been so long since someone had looked at him with that emotion, Pete really wasn't sure.

Duke's words scared him, but they excited him too. When

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he thought that he might actually have a hand in bringing about the destruction of
all
zombies, and not just the couple dozen worm burgers haunting Oakvale, he felt something beyond mere rage and revenge. He felt
relevant.

Duke put both his hands on Pete's shoulders.

"If the zombies are willing to dig up graves to get more of their kind," he said, "how hard is it to imagine them using more
...direct
methods of recruiting?"

Pete was smiling as he pulled on his mask.

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CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

POPE YE WAS
actually singing "The Twelve Days of Christmas" as they approached the lawn of St. Jude's. He and Takayuki were far ahead of the other zombies, each of whom was moving even more slowly than usual since they were all hauling bags stuffed with Popeye's gear. His singing was off-key, and lacking in rhythm or melody.

"Will you please ...shut up," Tak said. "So I'm not ...Pavarotti," Popeye said. "Sue me." "Your lack of talent I could ...put up with," Tak said. "It's your ...song selection ...that grates."

They stopped about twenty feet from the manger, which was illumined by a pair of bright halogen lamps. Inside the manger a plastic baby Jesus was attended by Mary and Joseph, and they were surrounded by the Magi, a shepherd, two sheep, and a five-foot-high camel.

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"The baby is still ...there," Tak said as Popeye completed a line about lords a leaping. He wished he had an iPod like Tayshawn, who lugged his burden a few steps behind, blissfully unaware of Popeyes singing.

"And it better stay there too," Popeye answered. "The whole ...effect ... of this piece will be ruined if...there is any vandalism."

Tak noticed that Popeye had begun calling their statements to the beating hearts "pieces" soon after they put up the Undead Army recruitment posters. Or maybe it was the visit from the Hunters that put delusions of grandeur in his bald head, Tak wasn't sure. But Popeye had more of Tommy in him than he realized, because he wanted the bleeders to think.

Tak just wanted them to be afraid.

"Set the bags ...over there," Popeye was saying. "George ...how many times ... do I have to tell you ... to pick it up ...not...drag it?"

Tak watched Karen cross the road with George. Tak much preferred going in smaller groups when they went into Winford; he thought that for everybody they added, they were doubling their chances of getting caught. But selfishly, he thought Karen's presence made it worth the risk. She was probably faster than all of them, so if there was any trouble, she'd be the most likely to get away.

He set his own burden down and looked at the manger, thinking about Christmases past. When he lived in New Jersey there was a church a few streets over that put out a nativity scene year after year, and year after year the baby Jesus was stolen. One

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year it was replaced with a dead cat, another time someone demolished the whole scene, going as far as to kick in the press-board walls of the stable and break the heads and hands off the statues. He remembered, as a boy, looking at a photograph of the destruction in the newspaper and wondering what sort of misanthropic idiots would commit such a senseless act. That was before he died.

There was condensation on some of the statues, probably caused by the cool mist hitting the painted cheeks and then being bathed in the warmth of the halogen lights. The Magi were bearded, and they were carved and painted with somber, dignified expressions. Tak involuntarily lifted his hand to the space where his cheek used to be, his fingers grazing exposed molars.

"George! Hurry ...up!" Popeye yelled. The church and the mission were at the far end of a busy street. Three a.m. was not a popular hour on a weeknight, but all it would take is the passing headlights of one car for the whistle to be blown. Tak looked back as Popeye started giving instructions to Tayshawn on how to set up. Karen was already busy.

"How are ...you?" Tak asked her.

"Better," she said, smiling at him as she tied a knot around one of the figures. "I'm still angry, but I ...feel better."

"Anger is ... an energy," he said, but even as he said it he knew that something had changed inside of him after their embrace. Even the meaning of the piece they were about to construct had changed for him.

"Tak, are you ...helping?" Popeye asked. They'd practiced