Generation Dead

  He laughed and smoothed her silvery hair.

  "You're a special girl, Karen." And without thinking, he brushed her hair behind her ear with his fingertips and bent low so that he could kiss her cheek. It was an act of pure impulse, one that he was scarcely aware of doing until the cool smoothness of her skin against his warm lips reminded him of who he was, and what she was.

  "Oh," she said. "Oh, thank you, Adam."

  The glittering stars in her eyes were going nova, like they weren't merely reflecting light but, instead, projecting it.

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  "No," he said, hugging and then releasing her. "Thank you ."

  The song changed into something more frenetic, and he pressed through the dead with deliberation toward the back door.

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  ***

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  P ETE COULDN'T BELIEVE HIS good luck. Even with TC half in the bag and reeking of peppermint, they'd managed to find the place--a short hike through the woods after stashing the car in one of his old make-out turnoffs. The roads around the Oxoboxo were full of these bootlegger turns, and he knew each one.

  They'd just arrived when Adam's battered truck and the second car with Scarypants and Williams arrived. For fun he'd sighted along the barrel and aimed at the big zombie on the porch. At his head, specifically, which sat on his wide shoulders like a lump of melted candle wax.

  Pop , Pete thought, and then aimed at Karen and Adam in turn as they went up the stairs. Then TC almost gave them away with a loud sneeze.

  "Shut up, you idiot," Pete had said through clenched teeth.

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  "What?" TC said, grinning. "The music is wicked loud, and they can't hear too well anyhow."

  Pete wanted to crack him with the rifle butt, right in his grinning moon face. He turned back, and Tommy was halfway up the steps, at the center of a loose knot of people. Scarypants was with him, and their usual crowd. Also some dweeb who Pete vaguely recalled roughing up on a few occasions.

  Pete aimed at Tommy. While other kids had been daydreaming about all the wholesome fun they'd have at the big school dance, Pete had spent the week shooting cans and assorted woodland critters behind his house. He even put a round into the Talbot's chimney, just for fun. His finger was loose around the trigger.

  Head shot, he thought, squinting.

  "Why didn't you shoot 'im?" TC asked as they watched Williams enter the house.

  Pete was sweating; he felt damp at the armpits and on his neck. He and TC had shucked their semiformal wear and put on dark sweats and sneakers for their mission.

  "I didn't have a clear shot, stupid," he said, leaning back against a tree.

  "So what do we do now?" TC asked.

  "We wait."

  "But I've got to piss," TC said, whining.

  "So go piss! Just be friggin' quiet about it!"

  TC lumbered off to relieve himself, moving with all the grace of a moose.

  He returned and they waited, watching that little runt

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  Harrowwood and his freakishly tall date arrive, and then they saw some way-too-happy metalhead dude leave and walk into the woods in the opposite direction. Pete thought he looked familiar.

  "Was that a zombie?" TC asked.

  "Couldn't tell," Pete answered. "Probably."

  "Look!" TC jumped up and pointed.

  "What?"

  "They just left! They went out the back door!"

  "Who? Williams?" Pete said, picking the rifle off the ground and rising.

  "Yeah, and the goth chick! They walked off into the woods."

  "Okay," Pete said, "there must be a path back there. We'll move along the tree line until we find it. When we catch up to them, you grab Julie, and I'll bust a cap on dead boy."

  "You got it, Pete," TC said, but Pete was already moving, glancing at the house every few steps just in case any more zombie lovers decided to take a moonlight stroll.

  "Hey," Pete heard TC say as they circled, "who's Julie?"

  A muscle in Pete's jaw twitched, but he didn't answer.

  The moon wasn't helping much, its reflected light casting only a murky gloom through the bare trees, but Phoebe didn't want to ask Tommy for his hand. She didn't know what signals she wanted to send him. She was already wearing his Z-scented jacket, and that was signal enough, even though all it really signaled was that she was cold.

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  "The woods aren't made for heels," she said, pausing to slide her shoes off.

  "They are unkind to nylons, as well," he said.

  She agreed, but thought twice about taking those off.

  He was faintly luminous in the poor light.

  "Did I ever tell you how I died?" he asked.

  She shook her head, not sure if he could see.

  "It was a car accident. My father was driving. A drunk driver ran a red light and ...plowed into us. He survived, but he killed my father." He made a noise that was either a humorless laugh or a sigh; Phoebe couldn't tell in the darkness. "Me too."

  "I'm sorry," Phoebe said.

  "Dad was killed instantly. I took a little longer. One of my ribs had broken and punctured my lung, so I ended up ...drowning in my own blood."

  "Oh, Tommy," she said, "that's horrible."

  "No picnic," he said.

  She felt his hand slide over hers, and he led her to a stone bench alongside the path. She let him guide her.

  "It happened at night, at an ... intersection in front of a big church. I could see the steeple through the shattered windshield. We'd spun around a couple times and ended up in line with that steeple. I looked up at the steeple and ...prayed that my dad was still alive. I remember praying for that because I knew I was a goner and I didn't want my mom to be all alone."

  Phoebe, mixed signals or not, squeezed his cold hand. Tommy had never seemed so vulnerable before.

  "The first thing I thought when I ...came back," he said,

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  "was that God got it wrong. I was thinking, no, God, not me. My father. You were supposed to save my father."

  "Faith must have been happy that you came back," Phoebe said.

  "She's ...well-named," Tommy said. "Dallas Jones was ...famous ... by then, and she says she knew I would ...come back."

  "Faith has faith," Phoebe said. "What about you?"

  "Coming back," he said, turning to face her, "explains ...certain things. And it makes others ...more of a mystery. I'll try to tell...you ...someday."

  Phoebe felt herself growing warm. She turned away and looked off into the dark woods, but her grip on his hand tightened.

  "Why do you think that... zombies ... like you and Karen are so different from the others?" Phoebe said. "I mean, why are you able to run and play football, and Karen can dance and drink coffee, and poor Sylvia has trouble walking? Your death was as violent as anybody's."

  "I thought it was obvious," he said.

  "I guess I'm slow, then," she said. "What?"

  "Love."

  "Love?" She wished that she could see more of his face than his faintly glowing eyes.

  "Love. I live with my mom, who loves me. Karen has her parents and her sister. Evan's parents loved him ...unconditionally. That's the whole and only difference between us and kids like Colette. Her parents skipped town when she came back."

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  "Yes," Phoebe said, at once amazed and embarrassed that she'd never really made the connection. "Sylvia? Tayshawn?"

  "Sylvia was at St. Jude's, along with Colette and Kevin, and now she's at the foundation getting augmented. They are taken care of at St. Jude's, but I wouldn't call it love. Tayshawn stayed with his grandmother in Norwich ...for a while. But it didn't work out."

  Phoebe's pulse was racing through her as she struggled for a response. She wanted to say something to Tommy, something that would make things better for him, but the only response she could come up with was one she was not ready to give.

  She thought that Tommy might have sensed it, too.

/>   "I ... I just ...thought," he began. "I thought that ... if ...I...could get a girl... a real girl... to love ...me ... to kiss ...me ... I'd come back ...even more."

  And there it was again, Phoebe thought, turning back toward him. "A girl," he said. Not "Phoebe." A girl.

  "Tommy ... "

  "I know," he said. "Believe me ...I...know ...what I'm asking."

  He turned and looked at her with his strange eyes, and she thought that she could see all the pain and hurt deep within them. All the pain and hurt of someone whose life had been taken too soon. Before he could experience any of the things that young men experience.

  "I just thought," he said, leaning closer to her, "if I ...could ...kiss ...you ..."

  She opened her mouth to answer, but then there was a crash

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  in the woods behind them, and she felt herself being lifted from the bench by strong, unyielding arms.

  She had been about to kiss him, Pete thought. That cheating bitch Julie had been ready to give herself over to that maggot-infested corpse.

  "How could you, Julie?" he said, his voice just above a whisper as he stepped to the edge of the path a few feet away. He'd sent Stavis around back of them, hoping that if they heard him stumbling they'd run right toward where Pete was creeping up. But Williams and Julie had been so into their little pillow talk that they hadn't even heard Stavis until it was too late.

  "Pete," she said, her voice shrill and scared as she wriggled in Stavis's grip. Pete watched her try to kick him in the shins or higher up, but Stavis put a knee into her backside.

  Pete lifted the rifle and sighted down the barrel, focusing on the center of the zombie's forehead. The zombie just stood there, looking at him with his empty eyes.

  "Pete, please," she said. "We--"

  "Quiet," Pete told her.

  "Pete, please, this is--"

  "I said shut up!" he screamed, and he shifted his aim from the zombie's face to hers. Her eyes grew wide, and she stopped struggling.

  "Hey, Pete," Stavis said, "the zombie ... I think the zombie--"

  "You too, Timothy Cole," Pete said. He only used Stavis's real name when he wanted instant obedience. "Put her down

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  and shut the hell up. Step over there so you don't get messy."

  Stavis hurried to comply, tripping over fallen branches.

  Pete watched her look over at her undead lover, the final insult. He was tired of them mocking him in his dreams, mocking him in his waking life. She was probably already infected with the zombie disease. And if he let her go, she'd probably infect even more people.

  The barrel of the rifle quivered, but he forced it to remain steady. She looked back at him, and her eyes were wide with fear.

  Head shot, he thought. Only way to take out the undead.

  "I loved you," he whispered. Then he pulled the trigger.

  Adam paced along the dead grass in the backyard, trying to decide if this was the right time, and exactly what he should say.

  Hey, Pheeble, he thought. Before you go and kiss this dead guy over there, you ought to know something. You mean more to me than Frisbee and lame jokes about the size of my vocabulary. You mean more to me than a thousand Whatsernames ever could, even if I did ignore you in the hallways for most of our school years together. And Pheeble, if I need to, I'll listen to groups like the Restless Dead and Zombicide and the Drumming Mummies or whatever, and I'll wear black and burn incense if I have to. I'll go have my tarot cards read and I'll pay attention to Daffy like she was an incredibly interesting and insightful savant instead of just some chattering goof. I can do it, Pheeble ...Phoebe--

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  He heard a crash somewhere in the woods down the path, and then he heard Phoebe shriek.

  He ran down the path, calling her name. At first he thought maybe Tommy did something he shouldn't have, but then he saw Phoebe standing with Tommy, and he saw Pete Martinsburg standing at the edge of the path, training a rifle on them.

  On Phoebe.

  He ran, calling her name. He ran as fast as his legs could carry him.

  He heard Master Griffin's calming voice in his head.

  Focus , he said. What will you do with your power?

  Adam reached Phoebe just as Pete pulled the trigger.

  When it was over, and Phoebe was once again surrounded by people who loved her, she would remember his moment of hesitation. It might have been that his undead limbs just did not have the reaction time that was required to come to her aid, but when she looked over at him, Tommy Williams, leader of the zombie underground, had hesitated.

  Pete Martinsburg hesitated only as long as it took to pull the trigger.

  Adam didn't hesitate at all, and that was why he fell.

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  ***

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  T HE RIFLE SHOT SPLIT THE silence of the woods. Pete saw someone step in front of Julie, and he watched that someone fold in half as if he had been leveled by a squad of invisible tacklers.

  Adam. He'd shot Adam Layman.

  "Jesus Christ, Pete!" Stavis yelled, looking at Pete, his fat face a mask of shock and fear. He took off into the woods.

  Scarypants screamed Adam's name and dropped to his side.

  Pete aimed at her another moment before throwing the rifle into the brush, and then he also started running. He ran without thinking, tripping and almost breaking his ankle on a low stump. He ran until he found what appeared to be one of the many paths that twisted through the Oxoboxo woods like drunken snakes. Breathing heavily, he slowed his pace to a loose trot, his racing mind, trying to figure out which direction he'd left the car. He had no idea where he was.

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  "Leaving... the party," a voice said from behind him, "so soon?"

  He turned; it was the guy who had left the house earlier, and then Pete realized where he'd seen him before. It was the zombie from that day when he'd let the slutty zombie go. The happy guy, the metalhead. Pete saw the glint of chains that hung from his leather.

  "Screw ...yourself," Pete said. The other only smiled as he approached.

  Pete turned and tripped over a rock in the path. He rolled onto his back, and the zombie leaned over him, burning the image of his ruined face into Pete's brain.

  "Did you think I would ...kill you?" the zombie asked him, his voice a reptilian rasp and his dark hair hanging down like the tendrils of a jellyfish. "Death is ...not for you. Death is ... a gift."

  Pete saw then that he wasn't smiling, even though he could see all his teeth. That's when Pete screamed.

  Phoebe fell to her knees in the dirt beside Adam's body, tearing the hem of her pretty white dress as she did. Adam had gone over as if leveled by an invisible tackier. It looked like the wind had been knocked out of him, and his big body seemed to deflate as he'd hit the ground.

  "Adam?" she said. "Oh my God. Adam, are you all right?"

  She had her hands on him now, feeling his arms and shoulders for a sign of injury, and when her fingers touched his chest, she watched a roseate bloom appear and spread in the center of his clean white shirt.

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  She screamed. "Adam? Adam can you hear me?" Tommy was kneeling next to her, his hand on Adam's shoulder as he started to shake. Adam's mouth opened and closed and his eyes rolled up in his head. He coughed, and a thin trickle of blood appeared at the corner of his mouth. Phoebe pressed her shaking hands against the stain spreading on his shirt and asked God to help her hold Adam's life inside him until help arrived.

  "He's going ...into shock," Tommy said.

  She could feel his life ebbing through her fingers.

  "No, Adam!" she said, "Don't go! Please, God; don't go, Adam!"

  Then his eyes focused and he looked right at her and opened his mouth to speak. He was trying to say something but he was choking, and she was telling him, "Shh, help will be here soon."

  He smiled at her, but then she saw the light leave his eyes. His large frame gave a massive convulsive shu
dder, and then he died.

  She held her breath. Adam was motionless.

  "Don't go," she heard herself cry, but it was like she was outside herself, like she had left her body behind the moment Adam left his. She looked down at herself, slumped over Adam, her body convulsing with sobs. Tommy knelt beside her, his face cast in shadow.

  She looked around her, but Adam--his spirit--was nowhere to be seen.

  Then Tommy touched her arm, and she was back inside her body. The stain was still spreading on Adam's white shirt, and she could still feel his life ebbing through her hands.

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  She heard voices coming up the path, but it was too late. Adam was gone.

  The dead gathered around Phoebe. Karen and Colette and Mai and Tayshawn and the ones she didn't know--the burned girl and the girl with the missing arm--they stood in a loose circle around where she and Tommy knelt beside Adam's lifeless body. She thought it was like a funeral, in reverse. The mourners were all dead, and she, the sole living person, was about to be lowered into the earth.

  She looked up at them as they stood as still and silent as the trees, and she wanted to scream at them to help her, to use whatever strange powers they had to bring Adam back.

  She saw Margi standing among the dead, her hands shaking as she punched numbers into her cell phone.

  "How can you just stand there?" Phoebe said, looking at Colette, looking at Mai. She tried to lift Adam up by getting his arm around her neck, but he was too heavy. "Why aren't you helping me? Karen, please!"

  She heard Margi talking into her phone, and she tugged at Adam's arm with newfound hope, remembering how many policemen were a short drive away, outside the homecoming dance. The Oakvale fire department always responded to emergencies with immediate attention. She pleaded again, looking up as Takayuki drifted in among his fellow dead.

  "Please!" she said, stumbling as Tommy tried to help her lift Adam's body to a sitting position. "Please help me!"

  "They're coming," Margi said through her tears.

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  Karen walked forward and knelt down, putting a cool hand on Phoebe's shoulder. Her diamond eyes twinkled like far-off stars as she placed her other hand flat against the center of the red stain spreading on Adam's shirt.