"How many beat-downs have you delivered?" she said, laughing. "And just what is a bioist?"
"That would be zero beat-downs thus far, but I'm ever hopeful. And a bioist is like a racist but hates dead folk."
"Aha. Do you get guns? I'd love to see Thorny with a gun."
"No guns. He's bad enough with the Nextel. Duke carries a gun, though. And a Taser, if you can believe it."
"A Taser ? Who's Duke?"
"Davidson. He's a real piece of work, that guy. Even Zumbrowski has more personality and warmth than that guy." "Adam!"
"Sorry," he said. "I don't censor my thoughts around you."
Adam drove to Building One. Evan Talbot, his shock of faded orange hair wicking up like thin strands of
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copper wire, was standing underneath the porch awning with Tommy.
"Is Evan coming too?" Adam said. "It'll be kind of cramped."
"I don't know," she said, and stepped out into the rain. "Hi, Tommy. Hey, Evan."
"Hello ...Phoebe." Tommy took his time saying her name, but she wasn't sure that he needed to. "Can Adam . .. give Evan ... a lift?"
Adam leaned over and called through the open door. "Hey, guys. I don't think there's room in the cab. I guess somebody can ride in the bed, but I think the rain is starting to pick up. It'll be a pretty wet ride."
Tommy nodded. "I can."
"No way," Evan replied. "I ...get the ...back."
He moved to the bumper and started to climb. Phoebe watched him awkwardly make his way into the bed of the truck, his arms and legs angular and stiff. He moved quickly for a dead kid, and she wondered what the difference was--why kids like Colette and Zumbrowski seemed to move at half zombie speed, which was like moving at a quarter of regular speed.
Adam got out of the truck and unlatched the lid of the tool kit that ran the width of the bed. "I think the STD has a painter's tarp back here. You're still going to get wet, but it ought to help."
"Gee," Evan said, "I hope ... I don't catch a cold."
The right side of his mouth twitched. Zombie humor, Phoebe thought.
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Adam spread the tarp out over Evan, who waited until he was finished before drawing it all the way over his head. Adam looked at him, a vague teen-size lump under the tarp, and shook his head.
"That's just creepy," he said.
Phoebe saw that the corner of Tommy's mouth was twitching as well. He looked at her, and she had the sensation that his eyes were illuminated.
"Do you ...like to dance?" he said.
She laughed. "I guess so."
"Great. We ... are going to ... a club. The Haunted House."
Phoebe's eyebrows rose and her lips pursed in concentration. She was hyperaware of her expressions and wondered how they appeared to Tommy, whose facial movements were so minimal. She imagined her face a constantly shifting landscape of twitches and tics. If Tommy noticed her sudden self-consciousness, he did not react.
"We don't really ...dance," he said. "We just sort of...jerk."
The thin line of his mouth turned up at the corner. Phoebe laughed.
"Holy crow," Adam said. "This really is a haunted house."
They pulled into the driveway of a home clear on the other side of the Oxoboxo, an old white colonial, faded and blank-looking in the pale light of dusk, with waist-high gray grass that rippled in the light breeze. There was a wide porch that ran the
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length of the front of the building, the roof of which had collapsed on one side. She saw a huge barn set back a little farther from the road that slouched at a forty-five-degree angle. On the main house, shutters hung askew from the few windows where they hadn't rotted off completely. Most of the windows themselves were broken, leaving glass teeth that shone in the headlights of the STD's truck.
The windows were rolled up, but they could hear music, loud and fast, blasting from the house. There was dim light somewhere deep inside the house, just a few flickers, as though it were lit entirely by two or three candles.
"Is that Grave Mistake?" Phoebe asked.
"A house ...favorite," Tommy said. "Please come in."
Said the spider to the fly, she thought. Tommy got out of the truck, as did Adam. Phoebe's left side was warm from being wedged in between them; the right side, which had been against Tommy, felt no such additional warmth. She shivered when she left the truck, but it might have been the cool rain hitting the back of her neck.
They followed Tommy up the creaking porch steps. The music was at a near-punishing level now, as Grave Mistake segued into a metal group Phoebe did not recognize, the double bass drum threatening to send the rest of the roof into collapse. She could feel the vibrations through her boots. The air smelled of old wood and, subtly, of decay. Rotten wood or maybe vegetation smells kicked up by the rain from the surrounding woods.
"Is he okay back there?" Adam said, nodding at the truck.
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Phoebe had forgotten all about Evan, who, on cue, yanked the tarp down, a wide grin on his face.
It was disconcerting. They didn't smile much, the dead.
She and Adam exchanged a look of mild apprehension. She knew that Adam would not allow himself to show fear, and she was pretty good at being unflappable herself, but they were now in uncharted waters.
She felt Tommy's light touch on her arm.
"The music is ...loud?" Tommy said.
"Very."
"We will ...turn it down," he said. "It takes much ... to make the ...dead ...feel."
"Must be hard of hearing, too. Do you guys live here?" Adam said above the renewed attack of an old Iron Maiden song. Phoebe poked him in the ribs. It took him a moment to realize why.
"Uh, so to speak. I mean."
Tommy smiled--it almost was a real smile. "Some of us
do."
They followed him into the house. Beyond the foyer was a larger room where a number of figures were recognizable only as vague gloomy outlines blocking whatever dim light source there was.
"Kill!" Evan shouted. Phoebe's heartbeat tripped. "The music!"
For an instant, Phoebe's mind flashed to The Return of Living Dead and the scene where the punk chick takes off all of her clothes and starts dancing just before all the zombies come
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rushing out of their graves to claw her to death as they drag her down into the muddy soil.
The music stopped, and the only sound was a hollow thump as Tommy slapped the grinning Evan, Three Stooges style, in the back of the head.
"Welcome to the ...Haunted House," Tommy said. "I'd like you to meet a few ...people."
There were a dozen kids in the large room, which was empty except for two mismatched cabinet speakers resting on the floor and a short lamp with an amber lampshade on the fireplace mantel. Wires ran from the speakers, and a thick yellow extension cord ran into an adjacent room that had couches and chairs; there were a few more kids in there, but the room was in darkness, scarcely penetrated by the amber light.
Tommy said, "Zombies, this is Phoebe and Adam. Adam and ...Phoebe, these are the ...zombies."
Phoebe waved. Adam said, "Hey, zombies," but he was too far away for her to poke him again.
She recognized a few of them. Sylvia was there, as was the big kid Mai from their little adventure in the woods. He made his fingers twitch at them. Tayshawn came out of the dark room and said hello. Karen was wearing a long white dress that looked made of moonlight. She gave them an easy wave.
Tommy answered Tayshawn's unspoken question with a nod. "But softer. For our ...guests."
Tayshawn disappeared, and a moment later a Slayer song filled the house, at a volume that was just a notch higher than Phoebe would have listened to on her iPod.
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"Where do you get the power?" Adam asked, shouting into Tommy's ear.
"Generator," he replied. "Gas powered."
"How do you get the gas? You all have jobs?"
Tommy smiled. "We do ...now. Some
of us."
Phoebe looked around the room. A few of the kids were trying to dance, just as Tommy said. Evan's shoulders were giving a sort of Saint Vitus spasm; Mai, not quite as fast, was trying to bob his head along with the music, but was catching only every fourth or fifth beat. There was a girl with only one arm who was swaying slightly, her fingertips pressed against the wall as though to draw the music's vibrations into her lifeless body.
"'Angel of Death,' huh?" Adam said, picking up the title from the shrieking chorus. He wasn't much of a music guy, and Phoebe's three thousand attempts to change that character flaw had been met with complete resistance. He liked Kenny Chesney and maybe some classic rock. "And calling yourself zombies. You guys are big on irony, aren't you?"
She wondered if it was his size that made Adam confident enough to just start talking, to dive in and throw out one-liners that had all the marks of being insensitive. But that was Adam. She wondered if she were big or beautiful or the smartest kid in the school, would she possess that type of confidence.
"It is an ironic state that we are in, don't you think?"
This was from Karen, who had glided over to them. Like a ghost, Phoebe thought. Now who was being ironic?
"You have to admit, the whole idea of the dead coming back
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to life is somewhat ironic. It is sort of the reverse of the ... goth culture thing, wherein the living ...romanticize things dead and of the dark."
Phoebe felt her cheeks flush and wondered if their crimson hue could be detected in the amber light. She couldn't tell if Karen was purposefully making fun of her or just pointing out reality as she saw it.
Karen was the only dead girl Phoebe knew that she could say without hesitation was beautiful. Colette, pretty in life, had lost more than a little of her luster in death; her dark eyes were now shrouded and her soft brunette curls looked brittle and mousy. Karen, though, was stunning. The dress she wore was spaghetti strapped and ended just below her knees; her bare shoulders were flawless, as was all of her skin, really. Her voice was free of the glottal hitch that the other dead kids exhibited, and contained all the appropriate inflection and nuance lacking among most of the dead. She was barefoot, and even her feet looked ethereal.
The differently biotic, Phoebe thought. Karen's eyes were white diamonds even in the murky light.
"I'd give up irony for reality any day," Karen said, her eyes seeming to bore deep into Phoebe's head.
Karen blinked. She leaned over and kissed Phoebe on the cheek and turned away. It happened so fast that Phoebe didn't have time to react. She watched Karen cross the room to Sylvia, who was standing motionless against a wall. She took Sylvia's hand and tugged her into the dark room. She realized that Karen's dress reminded her of the one Marilyn Monroe wore in
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that movie where she stood over the subway grate. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes! Seven Year Itch ? Somehow the cool imprint of Karen's lips brought heat to Phoebe's cheek.
"What was that all about?" Adam said. Phoebe shook her head, words failing her.
"You would ...think," Tommy said, "that Karen ...would have it the ...easiest...among us."
Phoebe nodded, waiting for him to continue.
"The reverse ... is true," he said. "Ironically enough."
"She's amazing," Phoebe said.
"We have more ...people ...joining us every day."
"Yeah," Adam said. "I noticed that. There seem to be more zombies around than before. I had no idea so many kids had died around here."
Phoebe watched Tommy look up at him. "Most...did not die ...around here."
"Oh, really? Where do they all come from?"
Tommy might have been smiling; it was difficult to tell in the light. "They come ...from all around. And there are ...reasons ... to come."
Tayshawn cued up a Misfits song, "Dust to Dust," one of Phoebe's favorites, and the sudden shred of guitar cut through their conversation like a saw blade.
"Would ...you ...like to see ...the rest of the house?"
"Okay," Phoebe said. "Adam, are you coming?"
"No thanks. Hey, Evan, you have any snacks here? Chips or anything?"
They all stared at him, and much to Phoebe's horror, Adam
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made the corner of his mouth twitch up in a perfect parody of a differently biotic smile. Evan made a sound like the bleat of a small foreign car horn, the DB version of laughter. She wasn't sure what she wanted to kill Adam for more--the unsubtle way he cut her loose with Tommy, or the risks he was taking by offending their hosts.
But Tommy was smiling. "Let's go."
She followed him up a creaking staircase that ended in gloom.
"Uh, Tommy," she said, "you know I can't see in the dark like you guys."
"Right," he said, and offered his hand. It was cold and smooth.
She shivered, partly from his touch, and partly from the thought that in a few more steps she would be in total darkness, with only his hand to guide her.
"So," she said, sounding nervous even to herself, "you said that some of you ...your friends stay here?"
"Yes," he said, his back now visible only as a vague grayish outline. "Some ...parents ... do not approve. Mai stays here. Sylvia. Careful. This is the last step."
"Not you?"
No," he said. "I ...stay ...with my mother. We live in a mobile home ... at Oxoboxo Pines Mobile Home Park. Turn here. There is another flight of stairs."
The darkness at the top of the second set of stairs was complete. The music throbbed through the darkness, but they no longer had to shout to be heard.
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"Really? With your mother?" She thought she was being led along a corridor that must have run parallel to the stairs. She was afraid that if she reached out with her free hand, there wouldn't be any walls. His hand, which seemed to be warming in hers, was like a tether that anchored her to a swiftly crumbling reality.
"Really. In here."
She heard him open a door, and pale light reached her eyes from two huge windows in the far wall. One of the windows was broken, and wind shrieked into the room as though wounded by the jagged glass shards clinging to the frame. It was very chilly in the room.
Tommy wasn't cold. He let go of her hand and walked toward the window.
"I love this view," he said.
Hugging herself against the cold, she joined him by the window. They were high enough so they could see far into the Oxoboxo woods. The clouds above were rolling gray cotton against the dark sky; somewhere behind one of the spooling clouds was the moon. There was a flash, and a forking bolt of lightning cut the sky.
"Wow," Phoebe said. She looked over at him, mainly to erase the mental image of torch-bearing peasants clustering at the foundation of the house. He was staring off into the distance with an intensity that the living could never hope to match.
"The lake is beyond those trees," he said. "On clear nights when the moon is out you can see it glittering. Like the stars, only here on earth."
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"I'd like to see that." Pheobe's voice was wavering as the cold began to seep through her skin.
"You're cold," he said. He took her hand, and it almost felt as though his hand were warmer than hers.
She wished she could say something clever and witty like Adam would have, something like Yep, did ya forget I was still alive? or All the dead boys say I'm frigid. The lines came to her, but she found she couldn't speak them like she would have if she had been with just Adam or Margi.
Tommy led her outside. "I want to show you one other room." They went back down to the second floor and along the corridor. Phoebe's sense of disorientation was now complete; she knew the big windows upstairs faced the backyard of the house, but she thought they had taken a right turn at the foot of the landing, which would put them back in that direction. The music was a dull vibration from somewhere far away.
Tommy stopped.
"Phoebe," he said, his voice echoing in the room.
 
; "Yes, Tommy?"
"Do you trust me?"
Uh-oh . "Why wouldn't I?"
"I need you to trust me."
"Okay," she said, "I trust you."
He let go of her hand.
"Good." His voice seemed to recede in the darkness. "Please lie down."
"Uh, Tommy, I don't know ..."
"Please," he said. "It isn't like that. Trust me."
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Phoebe could hear herself breathe in the silent darkness. What the heck is this ?
"On the floor?"
"Please."
She couldn't see him. She wondered if Adam could hear her scream if it came to that. And what if her scream was the zombies' cue to ambush Adam, to attack him and rip him limb from limb while she was up in the darkness alone with Tommy?
"Please," he said. "I ... I ... I ... am not...going ... to ...touch you ... if that... is what...you are ...afraid of."
He was hard to read, like all the differently biotic. Their facial expressions were minimal, their body language unreadable, and their voices flat and toneless. She couldn't see him, but Phoebe thought she detected a sadness in his words as wide and deep as the Oxoboxo.
"Okay, Tommy," she said, crouching down until her fingertips grazed the dusty floor, the movement of her body kicking up smells of old paint and mildew. "I trust you."
She lay down and smoothed out her long skirt over her legs. She crossed her legs at the ankles and folded her hands on her stomach. Her eyes were open, and an eternity of darkness swirled above her.
"Thank ...you," he whispered.
Her lips were dry. She licked them, trembling.
"I will ...return," he said. "I need ... to get ... a flashlight."
"What?" she said. "You're going to leave me here?"
"Trust ...me," he said. She could feel as well as hear
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his footsteps on the floorboards as he walked away.
Phoebe, Phoebe, Phoebe, she thought. What have you gotten yourself into now?
Patterns of purple began to pulse out of the darkness, strange amorphous shapes that radiated and spiraled toward her. She wished she'd paid more attention in biology, so that she'd have some rational explanation for the effect, some knowledge of rods or cones or corneal refraction or whatever it was that caused those violet shapes to flow toward her. The stillness of the room let her focus on the sounds from downstairs-- Michale Graves, maybe--but the music grew fainter and fainter, as though invisible purple hands were lifting her up into the darkness, faster now, carrying her through the roof and into the sky, somewhere far beyond.