Kiss of Life (37 page)

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the setup all week in the backyard of the Haunted House so that they could get in, do the deed, and get out.

"Coming," Tak said, looking away from the manger.

When he died, Tak didn't see loved ones who'd passed on before him or bright lights in the distance. He didn't feel the "warm, womblike glow" that one dead girl described. He'd listened to more than a few tales of a reassuring vision of an afterlife from the zombies that had made their return to the Haunted House, but to him the only afterlife was the one he was "living" now. He died on a busy stretch of the Garden State Parkway, where he lost control of his motorcycle in the rain and broke his neck. He came back three days later with no memory of being gone, just a blankness where so many others reported brightness, love, and joy.

He was convinced that these people were delusional, and that these "visions" were the products of minds desperately in need of some piece of sanity to cling to when faced with the fact of their return from death.

Karen looked up from her task.

"Are you okay, Tak?"

"I'm ...fine. Why do you ...ask?"

She shrugged. "I just thought you looked ...funny. That's all."

Tak looked back as George finally made it across the road, an enormous sack slung over his back. "I'm ...fine." "Okay."

"Hey, look," Tayshawn said, catching sight of George. "It's undead ...Santa."

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"Less talk," Popeye said. "More work. The charred sticks for the fire go here, not over there."

"Hey, Santa," Tayshawn said, "looks like ...your girlfriend ...made it."

Tak looked across the lawn to the mission. The girl Karen had brought to the Haunted House the other day, Melissa, was walking in their direction, her white mask reflecting the moonlight.

"Hey, Melissa!" Karen called. Tak was glad Karen kept working while she called to her; he thought that six zombies congregating on a church lawn in the dead of night would be seen by the beating hearts as more than a gathering, they'd think it was an uprising.

Tak watched George, who started walking toward Melissa as she waved, the board that she wrote on under her other arm.

"Let's ...hurry up," Tak said. "This isn't supposed ... to be ... a party."

"You're supposed to be ...helping, George," Popeye said, managing to sound irritated as he set up one of the gaunt, shrouded figures he'd constructed out of old denim and pieces of the shutters they'd peeled from the Haunted House. Their garments were made from black garbage bags.

"Let him be, just get it ...done," Tak said, starting to arrange the figures according to Popeyes design.

The work itself didn't take very long, even with Popeye crabbing at George and Tayshawn every few moments. Melissa walked over to watch them, and George tried his best to contribute by moving the figures according to Popeyes direction. Takayuki thought that he might actually be trying to show off

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for the masked girl. They'd arranged five figures, all smaller and less substantial than the comparatively robust figures of the manger scene. Rather than robes of purple and red, Popeyes figures were all in black, and their stick figure limbs and bodies were visible in the rents of their clothing. Whereas the figures in the manger were all gazing with reverence at the pink-cheeked infant in his straw crib, four of the five Popeye figures, their bony shoulders stooped, were gazing forlornly at the charred remains of a campfire that had gone out. Two of the figures were on their knees, and each wore an expression of abject despair as they stared into the ashes or, in one case, their hands. The faces themselves were spare, Popeye having drawn them with a black marker on beige sackcloth.

The fifth figure stood slightly apart from the circle at the fire. Its back was stooped like the others, but there was something in its carriage, a subtle tilt of the hooded head, that set it apart. It was looking into the direction of the manger scene, and its posture suggested either hope or defiance, or both.

When it was done, Popeye made everyone stand back to look. "Let me explain ...my work ... to you," he said, speaking to Melissa, but really to the whole group.

Pompous ass, Takayuki thought, but he also thought Popeye had done a bold and powerful job. The figure looking over at the manger--what was it thinking? Was it leading its people, or considering abandoning them? Did looking at the manger bring it hope, or a more complete sense of despair?

Popeye never got the chance to tell Melissa about his work, not even the title, which he'd told Tak was "The Thirteenth

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Day of Christmas." They heard the gunning of an engine followed by a squeal of tires, then they were bathed in red, white, and blue light. The zombies froze, standing as still as the figures they'd just spiked into the earth.

"Oh no," Karen said, rising to her feet.

"Don't move! Police!"

Two police cars had stopped in front of the church lawn, and more sirens whined in the distance. He realized that one of the cars must have been close by, watching them and waiting for backup, as there were only one set of tread marks on the road. The policemen were out of their cars, standing behind the open doors with their guns drawn.

"Get on the ground now!"

Tak knew that the others were waiting for his cue. There was so little cover, and so much ground to cross to get it, but he didn't think getting arrested was an option.

"Tak?" Popeye said. A third car, and then a fourth, sped to the scene in the moment that Tak took to decide, blocking the road.

"On the ground now!" The first cop yelled. "This is your last warning!"

"Tak?"

"I ..."

He didn't get the chance to speak.

He saw George moving at the corner of his vision, moving with a speed he didn't know George was capable of. The dead boy lurched forward. It looked to Tak like he was trying to move in front of Melissa.

The police didn't see protectiveness in the gesture. They

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saw only a shambling zombie lurching toward them, its arms raised and forward, as though grasping for their necks.

Without another word, they opened fire.

The explosive sound of the guns split the night. Tak watched invisible fingers pluck at the back of George's jacket, but the dead boy continued down the hill, closing in on the police. Melissa fell to the ground, her board flying out of her hands as she hit the grass. He heard Popeye swear, and someone went over backward onto "The Thirteenth Night of Christmas," splintering some of the despairing figures. Tak heard the humming of bees and felt--although the feeling was far away, as though through a thick haze of painkiller--a sting. He looked down in amazement as a second bullet slapped against his chest, puffing out his shirt, and causing a thick trickle of dark sludgy ooze to drip out.

He looked over at Karen, standing among the effigies, and as she met his gaze he saw something he'd never seen in the diamond sparkle of her eyes: fear.

"Run!" he yelled, but the word had little power, as the bullet had done something to his lung. He heard one of the spikes on his shoulder
ping
as a bullet snapped it off, and then another bullet hit the soft wood of the manger as he ducked behind it. He ran, and he looked to his left and saw Popeye moving as fast as his dead legs could carry him, going for the stone steps of the church. Popeye tripped, or was knocked over by a bullet, but he got to his feet quickly. Tak thought they might have a chance of getting away, if they could get up the steps and around the wall of the church.

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They made it to the wall, but when he looked back he saw Karen running the opposite way. A strangled cry was wrenched from his chest as he saw her lifted up and then thrown to the turf.

She didn't get up.

None of the cops were following, and Tak peered around the corner and saw why.

George had made it as far as the sidewalk. One of the cops shot at him from about ten feet away, but he was either shooting to disable or was unaware that the only surefire way of putting a zombie down was to shoot the head. One of the other cops tried tackling George around the ankles, and he went down in a heap.

Tak knew this would be his best, and maybe only, chance of getting away. Popeye was almost at the wall, and he saw Tayshawn cutting across the lawn to a row of houses. Karen had taken the path with the most open ground, as though she were trying to draw fire.

She still hadn't gotten up.

He looked back. Melissa's fiery red hair was lying in the grass like a tangle of copper wire a few feet away from her, her bald head a ruin of burned and puckered skin. The frame of her white board had splintered when she fell.

She lifted her head, her tragicomic mask hanging askew, revealing the charred skin of her forehead above a fear-crazed green eye. She reached toward him.

On the far side of the field, Karen still wasn't moving.

Tak started back for Karen, ignoring the bullets from the

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one cop who wasn't in the scrum around George. He went three steps and felt something tear at his leg, and then he was flat on his face on the stone steps.

"Stop!" Takayuki heard from behind him. "What are you doing?"

It was the priest, Tak realized, the one who had given shelter to Melissa and other zombies like Mai. He was padding across the lawn in bare feet, his bathrobe flapping over his pajamas as he ran.

"Stop!" he cried. "They're human beings!"

Tak got to his feet, but the leg that had been shot wasn't working right. He thought Karen might have started crawling, but then again it might have been the wind whipping her hair and white shirt. He went another step and would have stumbled if Popeye hadn't returned to grab him around the shoulders.

"We've got... to go, Tak!" Popeye screamed. "We can't lose ...you ...too!"

Tak looked at the carnage on the church lawn. George was being clubbed with nightsticks, and then they tried the Taser. Takayuki saw his friend stiffen and jerk as the current went through him. He had no idea how a weapon like a Taser would work against the undead, but George dropped to the ground, rigid and unmoving.

And Karen ...was she moving? Was she crawling to the shrubbery that marked one of the sidewalks leading to the church? He struggled in Popeyes grip, but the boy dragged him back, and with his leg disobeying him, Tak couldn't get the leverage to fight.

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The priest was at Melissa's side. As he held her, he caught sight of Takayuki.

"Go, son!" he called. "Go!"

"Karen!" Tak yelled, as Popeye pulled him back.

"She's up ...Tak," Popeye said in his ear. "She's ...up. They will ...follow us ...instead."

Tak looked at Popeye, who'd lost his glasses in the fray. There was no way to tell in the wild bug eyes if he was telling the truth.

He fought back the desire to hobble back down the hill and fight the police, to fight until they disabled or destroyed him. His last sight before Popeye dragged him back behind the stone wall was of George, unmoving and on the ground, and of Melissa huddled in the priest's arms, her hand scrabbling for the wig she'd used to hide her scars from the world.

"We have to ...go, Tak," Popeye said, quietly.

Tak said a quick prayer in his mind to the God he thought had rejected him.

Then he muttered a curse and limped after Popeye as he ran down the back alley behind the church.

"What ...was ...that?" Popeye said. They were standing in a wooded clearing within sight of Lake Oxoboxo, a place Takayuki had picked as a rendezvous point in case they were separated during one of their social-protest runs. Something like being fired upon by the local police. Dawn was beginning to break, turning the clouds above the color of cotton candy.

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Takayuki didn't answer. He was thinking about Tayshawn and wondering how long they should wait for him before going on to the Haunted House.

"They didn't even ...give us ...a ....chance!" Popeye said. "They just...started ...shooting!"

The existence of the Haunted House stopped being a secret when Adam was converted. Tak wondered if there were police--or white vans--headed there now.

"They shot...they just started ...shooting!"

"Something's happened," Takayuki said, his voice a whisper, probably due to the bullet that had hit his lung. Nothing they'd done would have caused the cops to act like this.

"I can't believe ...this," Popeye said. "I'm lucky ... I wasn't...shot."

"You were," Tak said. "In the ...ass. Right cheek."

"Really?" Popeye said, running a hand down the seat of his jeans. "Aw, hell!"

"Let's go to ...the Haunted House," Tak said.

"I can't believe ... I got shot," Popeye said. "I just...can't believe it."

"We all ...got shot," Tak said, starting to walk. Popeye hurried up to join him.

"You ...did? Where did you get ...hit?"

"Leg, obviously." Oddly, the leg was bothering him less than it had when the bullet first hit him. He was still limping, but the limp was not as pronounced as before. "Also chest. And ...stomach."

"Damn. Damn! I can't...believe this."