My mind seemed clearer now, as though that shot to the forehead opened a path to insight in my mind, a chakra, a portal to enlightenment and truth. The truth shall set you free, as Kevin’s pamphlet reminded me. I have finally told the truth about my feelings, both to Phoebe and to myself, and my fleeting hope, one born of surviving what I thought was to be my second death, was that by telling her my truth I would find the freedom that the many months and the many people I’d met along the way couldn’t grant me.
But my truth has not set me free. If the telling of that truth was supposed to produce a key, the purpose of that key was not to open, but to close and lock away forever.
I am careful now not to be seen with her unless it can’t be helped, and when it can’t be helped I make certain we are not alone. It is crucial that I give the impression she is no more or less important to me than anyone else we are with. The closest that we come is half a classroom away, a quiet boy who patiently longs for my destruction just one of the many obstacles between us. Even then, I try very hard to not even glance in her direction, and some days I am almost successful. When I am fortunate enough to look at her, it is usually from a distance. The distance is safer for her and less painful for me.
Miles and miles, and the truth I carried within me seemed to beat at the bars with each step I took away from her. But my truth wasn’t the jailed—it was the jail itself. My truth imprisons me; my dead heart sits shackled and still within a cage of dry and brittle bones, never to beat again.
PURPOSE STATEMENT
THE DEAD BOY DRUMMED his fingers on the desktop, the steady rhythmic ticking of his nails sounding like the approach of a slow metal insect. Popeye had replaced his original fingernails with pieces of thin curved copper;he’d first used shortened razor blades until Principal Kim made him remove them, telling him that he’d be expelled if she saw them again. Popeye wasn’t really interested in school at this stage of his unlife, but he was interested in finding out what the far edges of his boundaries were, and so he removed the razors.
“Chadwick,” his teacher said. “Please stop the tapping.”
He considered continuing—he hated being called by his meatlife name; it triggered memory cells in his brain that he would prefer remain dead. Chadwick Sebastian Appleton; if anyone needed proof of his parents’ deep hatred of him, there it was. Not that many called him “Chadwick” when he was alive; usually it was “Chad” or “Sebby” or “Seb,” all of which he found even worse.
But he didn’t continue. He stopped tapping. The goal, after all, was not to push the limits of normal human jerk behavior—there were plenty of breather goons like TC in his class who could provide the normal, everyday irritations. What he wanted to do was to continue to shock the living with the fact of his being dead. Any beating-heart idiot could drum on the desktop;only a zombie like Popeye could empty a room just by taking off his sunglasses.
“Thank you,” Mrs. Rodriguez said. He waved a little mock salute.
There were seven dead kids in his current class. Since Saint Tommy Williams made his zombie march on Washington last year, many individual states began protecting the rights—scratch that, began allowing rights—to their undead populations. Despite Pete Martinsburg’s best efforts, Connecticut was one of the first states to pass some laws. So Oakvale High, which had been emptied of undead students—Adam Layman being the last holdout—now had more teenage corpses within its cement walls than the local cemetery.
The undead bell rang—zombie kids were given an additional three minutes to proceed to their next class. Popeye watched the dead rising—ha-ha—from their desks. Cooper Wilson; that red-haired chick; Kevin Zumbrowski, who curled his lip at him as he walked by. Zumbo could beat him easily in a footrace—in fact, the kid seemed like he was getting more spry by the day—but unlike Popeye, he always took advantage of the undead dismissal bell.
Unlike most kids, living or otherwise, Popeye never wanted class to end. He’d stay there all night if he could. Not for any lust for learning, but because being in class was the single best way he knew to offend the status quo.
That has to be a wig, he thought, watching the willowy red-haired girl walk by. Her hair was too shiny and lustrous to be real zombie hair. He didn’t like it.
A few minutes later the bell for the normals rang, and Popeye got to his feet. He heard the tendons of his neck stretching as his neck swiveled from the left to the right. He realized that he was being stared at by two kids—that lumbering imbecile TC, and some quiet mousy kid that sat behind him, forever eclipsed by the larger boy’s hulking shadow. The boy looked quickly away, as though he could feel the weight of Popeye’s return stare even through the dark lenses of the sunglasses stupid Principal Kim made him wear.
Popeye waited for TC to walk by, gesturing expansively with his copper tipped fingers toward the door, as though he were the maître d’ at a fine restaurant and TC a frequent—and frequently ridiculed—customer. TC glowered at him as he walked past.
The slight boy hadn’t moved from his spot. When at last he looked up at Popeye, Popeye could see the fear in his eyes.
“Can I help you?” Popeye said, and the words came out smooth, barely a hitch between them. Practice, practice, practice.
“They,” the boy said, and there was a long enough pause between this word and his next that Popeye wondered if he were secretly dead and just hadn’t notified anyone yet.
But then when he spoke, Popeye got the idea that the fear he saw on the boy’s pale face was not of him.
“They are going to attack you,” he said, his voice a quiet whisper, like he didn’t want their teacher to hear. “Today. After school.”
Not fear of him, Popeye thought, itself unusual. But fear for him.
They stood there a moment, the boy clutching his math text and a sketchbook to his chest; he realized the kid was in his art class as well, the one class of the day that Popeye actually put some effort into. He realized that he even sat at the same table as the kid.
Popeye opened his mouth, and the boy’s eyes flicked downward, perhaps taking in the filing job that Popeye had done to his teeth.
“Is there a reason why you boys aren’t headed to your next class?” Mrs. Rodriguez asked. “Chadwick? Derek?”
Derek, Popeye thought, the question on his lips answered. He’d never bothered to remember any of the beating hearts’ names. Unlike Mrs. Rodriguez, who apparently just loved the word “Chadwick.”
“No…problem,” he said, turned on the heel of his boot, and stalked out of the class.
At first he didn’t realize that Derek was hurrying behind him. He looked over his shoulder at him and Derek was so startled he nearly dropped his sketchbook.
“We have study hall now,” the boy said.
Popeye didn’t answer. He didn’t want anyone in the hallway to think he was having a conversation with a beating heart.
“I…I wanted to tell you that I really liked your last piece in Miss Quin’s class,” Derek said. “The painting with all of the figures? With the reds and the oranges?”
Popeye continued walking, but maybe he slowed, just a step.
“What did you call it?”
Popeye glanced to the right, and then to the left. People were trying hard not to pay attention to him.
“Vision of Hell Number Fifty-Three,” he said.
“Yeah, that’s it,” Derek said, having pulled even with him. “Are there really fifty-two others? Can I see them?”
“No,” Popeye said. The little breather looked hurt, which normally would have made Popeye happy, but the kid was flattering him. Beyond that, he’d tried to warn Popeye that trouble was coming his way. “No, there…aren’t…fifty-two…others.”
“Oh,” Derek said. “Oh, okay. I just really love that painting, you know? It…it makes me feel…I don’t know. Strong, or something. Powerful.” He was looking at his feet, as though embarrassed by his sudden confidence.
“You can…have it,” Popeye said.
&nb
sp; “Oh, really? No, I couldn’t. I…”
“It is yours,” Popeye said. “Just…shut up…about it.”
“Oh. Yeah, okay. Thank you. I’ve…I’ve got to run to my locker before class, okay?”
Popeye waved him away, like he was shooing a puppy out the door. The kid could have the painting;Popeye was done with it. But maybe it would make more sense to rip it into strips before giving it to him; the kid could learn a number of valuable lessons from that.
Study hall. Popeye was the only zombie in this one, and took his usual seat in the center—the dead center, ha-ha—of the classroom. Best possible position to freak out as many beating hearts as possible. He’d made a girl cry just by ruffling the gills he’d cut into his neck. She didn’t attend the study hall anymore—Popeye was rather proud of the fact that the school had instituted a whole new class because of him, an offshoot of the whole stupid Undead Studies class. This class was for living kids that couldn’t deal with the presence of the dead in their daily lives, spoiled pampered breather kids who would begin to twitch and shake and have some sort of seizure just being in the presence of the dead. He thought—
“Hi there, Mr. Friendly,” an overly perky, yet sarcastic voice said, landing on the seat beside him with a solid thump. He didn’t have to turn to know that it was her, the chubby pink one, who was there to ruin what was already a less than optimal day.
“Begone, NF,” he said.
“Oh, don’t be that way,” she said. “You know how I hate being called that.”
“I do,” he said. “Enn…Eff .” NF stood for Necro-Friendly, a derogatory name he liked to credit himself for inventing. He hoped it would catch on, but so far there weren’t many takers.
She wore a mocking pout on her face as she leaned over his desk, her absurdly large flesh bags coming far too close for comfort. Although he couldn’t really feel it, Popeye abhorred the touch of the living, which he knew was an unfortunate weakness because he could terrify far more of his living enemies if he could just bear to reach out and graze them with the dry pads of his fingertips. But he couldn’t.
“So…” she said, and again he wondered why the living wanted to emulate the dead with their pauses and false starts. “What’s new at the Haunted House? How’s ol’ Takky doing?”
“He is…on a murder…spree,” Popeye said, cursing himself for all the pauses.
“Hey!” she said, peering closely and ignoring him at the same time. “Your horns are gone. What did you do with your horns? Did Miz Kim make you remove them?”
His left hand moved to his forehead, to the raised perforation where he’d hammered in one of the two horns he’d carved by hand from a block of wood.
“Yes,” he said. “Yet another…example…of discrimination against the undead…by the living.”
“Oh, totally,” she said, her ample flesh bouncing as she tucked her chair in beneath her desk. If he could still have thrown up, he would have. “Those horns were awesome. I really liked the ring of nails, too, but I guess I can see why they made you get rid of that. Kind of pointy, after all. Weapon like.”
He stared ruefully at the black holes that ringed his wrist. He’d pounded nine-inch nails pointy-side out through his wrists the day before school, and was made to remove them by the principal before he’d even made it through homeroom.
“Now that I think of it, the horns probably could be considered weapons, too. They were pretty long. And pointy. Pointy is kind of a theme with you, isn’t it? Pointy, pointy, pointy.”
“Do you have…to sit here?”
“Not really,” she said, squirming in her seat, bracelets jangling one way, insipid pink hair flopping that way. She was constant motion. “I want to. I mean, with everything that happened, it gets lonely sometimes. All my friends…”
“Why don’t you…sit with them?”“Well, most of them aren’t around here anymore, are they? Ever since Phoebe…”
Popeye nearly cringed—would have, if his body still took reflexive cues from his mind—just upon hearing the name of her, the ultimate NF.
“Sit with…your own…kind…then,” he said.
“Oh, you’re my kind, Pops,” she said. “Believe it.”
Realizing that there was nothing that he could do to make her go away—even some of his more nauseating stunts, like lifting his T-shirt to reveal the patch on his side where he’d carved away layers of skin to reveal pink-gray muscles, like half-cooked pork, only amused her. He steeled his heart on ignoring her. She’d spent too much time with the dead, had too many friends among them, to be fazed by any of his pranks.
Derek came into the classroom a few minutes later, followed by TC Stavis. TC thumped Derek as the much smaller boy was taking his seat, knocking him forward. TC either pretended not to notice, or he actually didn’t notice—does an avalanche notice a sapling before crushing it? Derek, face red, didn’t dare call any attention to himself. Popeye had no love for the little breather, but TC’s action angered him.
TC walked by Popeye’s desk, giving him the stink eye the whole time. Popeye smiled at him as he went past.
As if, Popeye thought. Giving me the stink eye. I perfected the stink eye.
At the front of the classroom their study hall proctor, Miss Quin, was talking to Mrs. Rodriguez, who often stopped by on her way to the teacher’s lounge. Miss Quin was also Popeye’s art teacher, a young woman fresh out of college who was the school’s first art teacher in five years. From what he understood, the school had laid off the last one. He’d heard mention of how horrible it was that Oakvale High could sink money into an Undead Studies program but couldn’t afford liberal education staples like art and music.
He actually worked in Miss Quin’s class, although he never bothered to do any of the class work she assigned. She didn’t seem to mind, though, accepting whatever he handed in and commenting on it with enthusiasm, which only irritated him more, as many of his works—Vision of Hell #53 included—were intended to offend the living.
At least he was able to steal plenty of art supplies, he thought.
She and Mrs. Rodriguez looked deep in conversation. Popeye turned around, and saw Stavis in the back row with his math book out and a frown of concentration on his face.
“Hey, Stavis,” Popeye said, trying to keep his voice low. TC’s dull and angry eyes rose from his paper. “I hear you are going to kick my ass after school.”
He heard Margi trying to shush him, but he kept his eyes locked on TC’s.
“That’s right, worm food,” TC said. “Twice dead.”
Popeye opened his mouth, ready to deliver another goading reply, but Mrs. Rodriguez’s voice filled the gap.
“Stavis. Appleton. Detention. After school today.”
“What? What?” TC said. Popeye turned from him in contempt.
“Why do I get a detention?” he asked. “For inquiring if he is planning on kicking my ass after school?”
“Oh, no,” Margi whispered, trying to hide behind a textbook. Light, nervous laughter rippled around the room.
Mrs. Rodriguez was old school, and not easily rattled. “For instigating. Keep it up and you’ll have a week of detention.”
“Instigating? Seriously? He…”
“Chadwick, I’m serious.”
She was immune to his glaring. Mrs. Rodriguez could maintain eye contact with him even when his glasses were off; she was a solid teacher and authoritarian, completely unflappable and unassailable. Miss Quin beside her looked a little nervous, and if it had been her he might have kept going, but he’d gain nothing in continuing the argument with Rodriguez, and so he returned to his drawing.
“Watch those two,” Mrs. Rodriguez was saying to Miss Quin. Popeye shook his head and began sketching Mrs. Rodriguez, putting her trapped on the third floor of a burning building.
“That’s one way to avoid a beating,” Margi said after Mrs. Rodriguez had left, leaving Miss Quin, who looked queasy behind her desk, in charge.
“What?”
??
?I’m saying that was a pretty clever way of getting out of the fight.”
Popeye didn’t realize he was pressing down so hard on his drawing until his pencil snapped in half.
“That’s what you…think?”
“Well, sure. He can’t smack you around if he’s sitting in detention with you, can he?”
Popeye tore the ruined page out of his sketchbook and crumpled it. “You are…an idiot,” he said.
When their class was over, TC left without further incident. Popeye watched his wide shoulders as he lumbered toward the door. Popeye got up with the intention of following him into the hall and provoking him, but Miss Quin must have heeded her colleague’s advice because she stopped him at the doorway.
“Chad,” she said.
“Popeye.”
“Popeye, what are you planning?”
He grinned, showing her his pointy teeth. “Why, Miss Quin, whatever do you mean?”
“Why are you provoking him?”
That was the first question that anyone had asked him that day that he felt compelled to answer honestly, the first one that was worthy of real thought. He didn’t get the chance, though, because she wasn’t done speaking.
“Your getting into a fight with TC isn’t going to improve things for anyone in the school, differently biotic or otherwise. Whatever the outcome of the fight, it can’t make things any better for you, either.”
“Now that’s…a point…on which we must…disagree…Miss Quin.”
“You have such talent, Popeye,” she said. “Such gifts. Your artwork is really, really special. Those portraits you did…they are among the best I’ve seen in any high school class.”
That’s because you’ve been teaching about eight months, he thought, but didn’t say. Flattery was like chocolate to him, and he didn’t care who was feeding it to him. He knew their words were empty and off -track but he liked them too much to stop.
“I’m afraid that if you continue down the path that you are on those gifts will be squandered. Wasted.”
“Thank you…for your…concern.”