She inhaled the air around him. The scent was mostly spicy but with a strong hint of something citrusy. Lime, maybe.
"I love that stuff," Purple-Margi said. "I bought my boyfriend a bottle. Jason wears it all the time."
"Thank you," Tommy said, turning to Phoebe. "How does it smell?"
"I like it," she said. He bought a bottle.
The clerk's friendliness toward them lifted some of Phoebe's paranoia, as did the idea of undead hygiene products. But the more she thought about it, the more it creeped her out.
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Okay, so the dead didn't sweat anymore, and obviously they weren't rotting or there would be some real problems. Maybe odor-causing bacteria couldn't live off their skin, or something.
"Mom said I had to take you to a ...chick flick," he said, and she realized that they were at the theater.
"Mmmm. Strays and Surfboards or Mr. Mayhem ," Phoebe said.
" Strays it is."
Tommy paid for the tickets and bought her a tub of popcorn and a soda. Faith had warned Phoebe in the car that he was going to be paying for the whole thing and not to cause a scene because "you could be causing enough of a scene already." The freckled kid manning the popcorn station looked like he was swallowing a frog when Phoebe turned and asked Tommy if he enjoyed liquid butter substitute on his popcorn.
"I used to love liquid . .. butter substitute," he said. Phoebe laughed. Tommy didn't seem to mind when she forgot about him being dead.
There weren't any dead characters in the movie, a light romantic comedy about a woman dogcatcher who kept impounding the adorably incorrigible chocolate Lab puppy of a guy who designed surfboards.
Phoebe thought the movie was boring, and the idea of sitting in the dark next to Tommy and eating popcorn began to strike her as patently absurd. If you had your life to live over again, Phoebe Kendall, she thought--you'd probably spend it watching the madcap antics of Ruffles the dog and patiently await the release of Strays and Surfboards II.
The movie's obligatory bedroom scene brought memories
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of lying on the dusty floor of the Haunted House in pitch-black darkness, for some odd reason. Phoebe was thankful they played the scene for laughs; Ruffles leaped up on the bed during the festivities, and surfer boy smashed a lamp trying to evict the loveable scamp.
Phoebe glanced at Tommy during the scene. He stared ahead, unblinking, as the dead were prone to do, and she wondered what either of them was doing there.
They went back into the too-bright light of the mall around nine o'clock. The few people who had been in the theater stumbled blearily into the foyer, lurching not unlike the more traditional zombies of movie history.
"Did you like ...the movie?" Tommy asked.
"The dog was cute," Phoebe said.
He murmured agreement, a long sustained sound. "Me ...neither."
"Tommy," she said, "is this like football for you?"
Tommy cocked his head to the side, just like Ruffles had when he saw the dogcatcher lying on his spot of the surfer's bed in that awful movie.
"What... do you mean?"
"I mean, being with me. You joined the football team so you could prove a point, not because you had any great love for the game. Is that what being with me is like?"
They walked past a clothing store. There were fewer people in the mall at this hour and, it seemed, less attention coming their way. Maybe night people were just more accepting of the differently biotic.
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"Who said," he replied after a moment, "that I don't like football?"
He was joking, surely. Or was he? It was hard to read the humor of differently biotic people, much like it was hard to read real meaning in e-mails sent late at night. He was about to say more but then saw something in the next store and nodded in that direction.
Phoebe followed the line of his vision toward the bookstore, where Margi was reading a book from a stack set on a display table near the front. She saw them at the same time they saw her.
"Hey guys," she said, putting the book down and trying as best she could to be casual--which was one thing that Margi never was. Normal for her would have been to chatter nonstop.
Phoebe looked at the title that Margi had been leafing through. And the Graves Give Up Their Dead, by Reverend Nathan Mathers.
"Mathers?" she said. "Good reading, Margi?" She scanned the back cover copy and began to read it aloud: '"In this thought-provoking and controversial book from one of the nation's preeminent experts on the living impaired phenomenon, Reverend Nathan Mathers draws equally from ancient theological texts and today's headlines. Mathers offers a solid argument that the existence of the living impaired is a warning sign of the coming Apocalypse, and he outlines what Christians must do to prepare themselves for the event.'"
"Well, I'm sold," Tommy said, but Phoebe was waiting for Margi to say something.
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She didn't, for a while. Instead she flicked her pink spikes out of her eyes and avoided eye contact with Phoebe. "I think there's a lot of fear," she said.
"This is ...progress," Tommy said, looking over the rest of the wares on the display table. "Look, there's a few of ...Slydell's books. " The Dead Have ... No Life ,'" he read. '" What Parents Need ... to Know About Their Undead ... Youth. ' My mom ...has that one."
"You aren't really quitting the class, are you, Margi?" Phoebe asked her.
Margi looked away. Phoebe was more nervous asking her that question than she was walking hand in hand with a zombie.
"I need to, Phoebe," Margi whispered, so that Tommy couldn't hear. Not that he would have; he was already turning pages in a book some lawyer had written: Civil Law and the Dead . "1 can't take this."
" This ?" Phoebe said, bordering on shrill. "Margi, I...."
"I gotta go," Margi said. She mumbled something about having to meet her mom. Phoebe didn't try to stop her.
"Tommy?" she said.
"Hm?" he said, taking his nose out of the book to respond. "Did Margi...leave?"
"Yeah," she said, and Tommy put the book down.
He looked at her for a moment. "Mom said I should get you ... a milk shake. Mom says ...you like ...milk shakes."
"I love milk shakes," she said, wishing that he were easier to read.
They went to the Honeybee Dairy, one of the last
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non-chain storefronts in the mall. Honeybee Dairy was just about Phoebe's favorite restaurant; she'd spent many a time having burgers and shakes with Adam and Margi at the original one in Oakvale.
Colette, too. Colette used to go with them.
They sat down at the long counter on shiny silver bucket stools that were cushioned with red vinyl. They chose the counter because it was empty. A few of the booths had customers: a quartet of rowdy teens, a young couple Phoebe recognized from the movie theater, a trio of blue-haired ladies. All eyes seemed to follow them as they sat down.
"I wish I could help you ...with Margi," Tommy said. "I can ...understand ...what she is feeling."
"Can you?" Phoebe said, but what she thought was, Can Colette?
He said that he could. "I've heard it from people ... on my Web site. The dead ...lived once ...but the living ...have not yet died."
"You speak of the dead as though they are all the same," she said. "Is it really that way? You're still different people, right?"
"But bound ... by common experience."
"Really? Did all of you see ...experience, whatever ...the same thing when you died?"
He started to answer, but then stopped. Phoebe thought that maybe this common experience wasn't really so common. How could it be when Karen could practically run a marathon and win a beauty pageant, and Sylvia needed a ten-minute head start to make it up a flight of stairs?
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A kid not much older than them with a Honeybee T-shirt and a paper hat on his head came over to take their order. Phoebe ordered a maple-walnut shake. She empathized with the kid, who turned beet red and
stammered when he turned to Tommy.
"And ...and for ...you? Sir?"
Tommy's mouth ticked upward in the lopsided grin Phoebe still had not quite grown accustomed to and shook his head. The boy turned and moved swiftly to get Phoebe's milk shake.
"At least he's trying," Phoebe said. She was angrier than she realized; she thought Tommy's smirk had a hint of condescension in it. "Most of the people here would just as soon pour the shake over our heads."
Tommy nodded, the smile disappearing. "Do you think it would ...help ...Margi if she read ...my blog? It might help her ... to see ...that we're just...kids ...too."
A wadded napkin from the rowdy quartet hit Tommy in the back, but he either did not or pretended not to notice.
"It might. It might, actually." She signaled to Mr. Stammer. "Could I get that to go?"
Tommy shook his head. "You have a right to sit here ...with me." There was strength in his voice, the same implacable strength she felt in him when she held his hand or touched his shoulder.
"I don't want to cause trouble, Tommy. Not tonight."
He looked over at the table just as a second napkin bounced
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against his shoulder. There were muffled giggles from the quartet that soon died off under the weight of his stare.
"You know," he said, "I have been thinking of the ...blog ... as a way to give hope ... to the dead. But maybe its real value would be to bring ...understanding ... to the living."
Stammer brought the milk shake in a waxed paper cup. Phoebe was a little disappointed; part of the whole Honeybee experience was sipping the shake from a wide-mouth glass, the cold metal cup with a refill beside it.
She started to stand, but Tommy gripped her arm.
"I have one question," he said, "before we go."
His eyes betrayed nothing.
"How do you get," he said, "the walnuts up the straw?"
She laughed, and he smiled--a real smile, devoid of smirk. He dropped three singles on the table and they went outside to wait for his mother.
"No torches?" Faith said as they got into the vehicle. "No tar and feathering?"
"You sound ...disappointed," Tommy answered.
"I can't believe you guys can joke about that," Phoebe said. "It happens."
"That's why we joke," he said. "It is a way of saying ...thanks."
"Is that maple I smell?" Faith said.
Phoebe apologized and offered Faith a sip. "I'm sorry; we should have gotten you something."
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"Can't," Faith said, waving brightly colored nails. "I'm on Weight Watchers."
Faith dropped Phoebe off up the road a bit from her house, on the far side of the Layman's. The STD's truck was parked in the drive, and Phoebe hoped that neither of her parents had spotted Adam, her alibi for the evening.
"Phoebe," Tommy said, climbing out of the car, ostensibly to move to the front seat. Phoebe noticed that Faith was doing her best to appear interested in the bushes outside the window on her side of the car.
"I had a great time, Tommy," she said, her words coming out in a clipped blur. "Thanks so much."
"Phoebe," he repeated before she could turn. Her heart was beating like she'd just had a triple shot of cappuccino.
What would she do if he leaned forward to kiss her?
He remained a respectful step away.
"I...just...wanted you ...to ...know," he said, "I...wanted ... to be out...with you ...because ... I wanted to be out with you."
She smiled, and then held out her hand.
"Thank you, Tommy," she said. "Me too."
He took her hand. His skin was cool to the touch, so much so that she wrapped his hand in both of hers.
"Don't answer now," he said, "but would you go to the homecoming dance with me?"
He cut off her response by lifting his free hand to his mouth, pressing his index finger against his lips in a gesture of silence.
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"Don't answer yet," he said. "For now. ... I just want to think that you might."
When she let go and began walking to her house, her heart was still tripping in cappuccino overdrive from excitement, fear, or both. She wasn't quite sure.
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***
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
T ommy's voice was cold and steady as he read the article. Adam watched him from across the room, and he could tell that Tommy was extremely angry.
"'The assailants used shotguns and a flamethrower at Dickinson House, a privately funded shelter for living impaired persons just north of Springfield, Massachusetts. Seven living impaired people and two employees died in the fire. A third employee by the name of Amos Burke is quoted as saying that the assailants were "two men in dark uniforms and glasses that escaped in a white van." Burke also said that "two of the differently biotic persons residing at Dickinson house managed to avoid destruction, but judging from the burns that they suffered, they probably did not want to. I swear the zombies were screaming," Burke said. "But I couldn't tell if they were happy or in pain." Burke was at the
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shelter to work off some court-appointed community service time after being caught trying to rob a liquor store in Northampton.'"
Tommy set the newspaper down in his lap. The class was quiet for a few moments.
"Thank you for sharing that, Tommy," Angela told him. "I'm sure it was not easy to read."
"I can't believe it," Phoebe said. "Why hasn't this made any news on television? My parents watch CNN for two hours every night, practically, and I hadn't heard anything about this."
Karen shook her head, and Adam watched the platinum waves flow from side to side. "This happens all the time. Zombies are getting ...murdered ... all over the country, and it...rarely ...makes the news."
"That's just crazy," Thorny said. "I can't even believe that could happen in America."
Adam wondered if Thorny was really that gullible, or just trying to act like he was. He was also wondering, in light of his recent conversation with Pete Martinsburg, where Sylvia was. He somehow doubted that her social calendar was keeping her away from class.
"What do the rest of you think?" Angela asked. "Do you think this is really happening?"
"Something ... is happening," Evan said. "How would this ...make the ...news?"
"It's why it didn't make the news that ...interests me," Karen said. " The Winford ... Bulletin is a small paper. Why did
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it run the story and The Hartford ... Courant did not?"
"You ask me what I ...think," Tommy said. "I think that someone is ...killing zombies."
"Really?" Angela asked.
Tommy nodded. "This has been happening since ...Dallas Jones. It has happened for years. But now it seems more ...systematic. And notice how the writer felt the need to ...discredit the witness."
Adam leaned forward. "Why isn't this story reported more widely? Nine people died."
"Two people died," Karen said, her voice a soft whisper. "Seven people died again."
"What ..." Everyone turned toward Colette, who was sitting with Kevin Zumbrowski at the back of the room. "Is ...being ...done ...for ...the two ...that...survived?"
"We were contacted," Angela said. "And are hoping that they will be sent here so we can help them."
"They were burned ...severely ...over eighty percent...of their bodies," Tommy said. Adam noticed that anger made his speech more hitched than usual.
"Can you guys really feel pain?" Thornton asked.
"We can feel pain," Tommy and Karen said, as Tayshawn and Evan said, "Yes."
Angela addressed Tommy when she spoke. "Really?"
Phoebe thought that her question was genuine. Angela's ever-present expression of warmth and empathy had given way to one of curiosity, as though a deep-seated assumption had been challenged.
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"We do not feel ...much," Tommy responded, "unless the ...stimulus ... is intense." Angela nodded.
"I was ...shot...with an arro
w ...once," Tommy said. "It hurt."
Now it was Phoebe's turn to be surprised. She hadn't seen anything about that in his blog.
"You feel more," Karen said, "the more you ...come back."
Angela turned her smile on Adam. "We're hoping that we can help those poor children just like we are doing for Sylvia," she said. "Dickinson House had a wonderful reputation for working with the differently biotic, but I'm sure that suffering this recent trauma has really set them back."
Adam wanted to ask just what exactly it was that the foundation planned to do for them.
"What?" Angela asked, and he realized that he had been staring at her.
"Adam," Angela said, "did you have something you wanted to add?" Her voice took on a slightly challenging tone.
He cleared his throat. "Um, you mentioned Sylvia?"
Angela nodded. "Yes. Sylvia is not in class today because she is participating in some tests that we hope will lead to higher functionality for her." She looked toward the back of the room, where Colette and Kevin were sitting. "If things work out well, it should lead to a higher degree of functionality for all differently biotic kids."
"Hey, that's great," Adam said.
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"We think so. But regarding the crimes that Tommy just told us about..."
Adam nodded, thankful that Pete had yet to make good on his promise. But the thought of Pete gave him an idea.
"Yeah," he said. "What I want to know is, what if there really were some kind of group out there hunting down dead kids? How would they go about it?"
"What do you mean?"
"Dead kids ...dead kids aren't citizens anymore," he said.
"They don't have rights, right?"
"Adam, you know that the Hunter Foundation is committed to the rights--"
"Yeah, I know," he said. "That isn't what I'm talking about. I mean, your social security card expires when you do, right? So no one is really keeping records on dead kids, are they?"
"I read somewhere that there may be as many as three thousand differently biotic people in the United States," Thorny said.
"Yeah, I did last week's homework too," Adam replied. "And there are two dead kids in Canada now; great. But those are statistics, not records."