Kiss of Life (2 page)

11

she'd do everything she could to bring him back.

She led him to a seat in the kitchen and started getting things ready for dinner. Phoebe didn't know what she could do to hasten Adam's "return," but she did what she could to keep the Garrity household running as smoothly as possible as each member dealt with their grief.

She cooked spaghetti for Adam's stepdad, Joe, and Adam's other stepbrother, Johnny, when they came home from the garage reeking of cigarettes, sweat, and crankcase oil. Unlike Jimmy, the remaining Garritys were kinder to Adam in death than they had been in life.

Mr. Garrity, Adam's stepdad, who he used to call the STD for short, surprised everyone by the way he'd responded to Adam's death and return. Prior to Adam's death, Joe had treated him with all the affection one reserved for the proverbial redheaded stepchild, seeing him as an inconvenient interloper in a house already cramped with two other teenage male bodies. It was as if Joe did not want to spare the extra percentage of his wife's love. The STD exhibited a complete change of heart after Adam's death, which seemed to galvanize him into a frenzy of parental activity and responsibility. He drank less. He insulted less. He threw reporters off his front lawn, then pursued them in one of the many rusted hulks clustered in and around his driveway, literally chasing them out of the neighborhood.

He began to refer to Adam as "my son" instead of "my wife's moron kid." Adam did not appear to mind Joe's new name for him, but Phoebe wasn't sure if it was because it was something he'd longed for, or because it was too much effort to

12

correct him. Confusing as his epiphany was, Joe's new 'tude was refreshing in an age where many biological parents refused to let their undead youths return home.

"Where's Mary?" Joe asked, a line of sauce trickling from the corner of his mouth like stage blood. He'd gotten so used to Phoebe's presence that the whereabouts of his wife were no longer the first thing on his mind when he got home.

"Grocery shopping." Phoebe refilled Johnny's soda on her way to get herself some spaghetti.

Joe's tanned and weathered face crinkled around the eyes, his fork halfway to his lips, and Phoebe was aware of his scrutiny.

"You're a good girl, Phoebe," he said. "I can't tell you how much we all appreciate what you're doing for my son. He does too.

There it was again. Joe called him "son." Phoebe turned back to the stove and dug her lime green fingernails into her palm until the pain allowed her to push her emotions back down. She couldn't believe this was the same man who used to belittle Adam and push him around.

After dinner, Johnny and Joe lumbered off to watch TV. Phoebe helped Adam down the hall to the kitchen, sitting him where he could see the costumes of any trick-or-treaters. Little kids in costumes could cheer just about anyone up, and if Phoebe's attention couldn't bring Adam further into the world of the living, then maybe candy-snatching children could.

A handful came: a Disney princess, a pirate, a lion in a stroller who giggled without cease when Phoebe dropped

13

a Krackle inside the grinning orange sphere on her lap.

Adam was far enough away that he was hard to see in the dim light of the kitchen, but there was a pint-size vampire who spotted him when Phoebe turned back from the door to get her bag of candy.

"That a dead guy?" he said through the screen door, nearly tripping on his cape as he pointed at Adam with chocolatey fingers.

Phoebe considered her response, wondering where the little boy's parents were. She didn't think that anyone let their kids out without a phalanx of parental guardians swarming around them.

"That's Adam," she explained, opening the door and dropping a couple of Special Darks into his pillowcase.

"Hey, Adam," the kid yelled. The little vampire turned back to her. "He's dead. Like me!"

Then he leaped down the steps, cape flapping behind him.

She looked back at Adam and again she saw the lip twitch, which lightened her heart. The doorbell announced a new group of trick-or-treaters.

Phoebe opened the door, and was startled to see three teenage boys in horrific zombie costumes. Except they weren't wearing costumes.

"Trick ...or ...treat," the closest said, a strange mirthless grin on one side of his face.

"Takayuki," she said, taken aback but still reaching automatically for the bag of candy. Takayuki had always gone out of his way to make her feel uncomfortable, and she hadn't

14

seen him since Adam's death. "How have you been?" Her voice broke, betraying her nervousness.

"Dead." The comment put a mirthful, malevolent glint in the dull eyes of his companions. One of them was Tayshawn, who had dropped out of their Undead Studies class, but Phoebe didn't recognize the other two. Zombies were always showing up at the Haunted House, attracted mostly by the writing on Tommy's blog,
mysocalledundeath.com
. Phoebe hadn't been back to the house since Adam died.

The boy next to Takayuki was wearing a long silver earring and sunglasses with dark lenses. His shaved head gleamed like a second moon in the porch light. When he smiled, he revealed teeth that had been sharpened into rough points. He was wearing a leather jacket similar to Tak's, but the cuffs were stained and spattered with red, as were the tips of the fingers on his bone white hand. There was a very tall fourth boy lurking behind them, his face cast in shadow.

Phoebe reached into the bag and withdrew a few pieces of candy. Tak was the person who had "avenged" Adam, but his presence generated no warmth in her. Whatever it was that drove him to hunt Pete down, his motives were unlikely to have had anything to do with her, Adam, or any of the other "beating hearts" that Takayuki disdained.

"Where are your Halloween bags?" she asked, holding the candy in front of her, feeling foolish. The dead had no use for chocolate. They had no use for her either.

Tak looked over his shoulder. "George," he said, "come trick ...or-treat from the nice ...soft...beating heart."

15

Tak and the other boys moved aside so George could ascend the steps. The boy wore a tattered brown jacket, jeans with shredded cuffs, and a soiled T-shirt with holes big enough for Phoebe to see where patches of flesh were missing from his rib cage. He looked at her as he limped up the stairs with a big plastic trick-or-treat bag that had a garish jack-o'-lantern blazing beneath a green and warty witch. The boy was not a pretty sight. He was missing an ear and half his nose, and his hair looked as if it had been washed with sewage. He
studied
as if
he'd
been washed with sewage.

But the scariest part of him was his eyes. They were like no other zombie eyes she'd ever seen. No matter how flat or glassy the eyes of the differently biotic were, there was always at least a glimmer of intelligence within. Not so with George. There was nothing in his eyes. Nothing at all.

Holding her breath, she forced herself to hold his non-stare. Some of my best friends are dead, she told herself. This boy may be more dead in appearance, but he's no less a person than they are.

He looked at her, or looked through her, she couldn't tell, and opened his bag. She dropped in a piece of candy, but the noise that it made when it landed was not the familiar paper on paper sound wrapped candy made. She glimpsed inside the bag and saw a round wet lump of red and gray fur, and a curling tail.

She shrieked, jumping back.

The dead pretended to laugh. "Can Adam ...come out ...and play?" Takayuki asked.

Her heart was beating wildly as she looked over her

16

shoulder to where Adam sat with his back to the wall. He looked like he was trying, but failing, to speak.

"No," she stuttered. "We're spending the night at home, thank you."

Takayuki cracked his knuckles, making sure she could see the ones that were no longer covered with skin.

"Someday," he said, "he will...want... to be with ... his own kind."

"He is," she said, regaining her composure. Tak was just another bully, and she was sick of bullies. "I'm his kind."

"Sure," Tak said as he and his companions began to fade into the night.

"Happy ...Halloween."

17

CHAPTER THREE

I PEAKING WITH
the dead was always disconcerting, but speaking with Karen

DeSonne was positively otherworldly. Karen's eyes were like diamonds; Phoebe swore she could see refracted rainbows in them when they were out from under the fluorescent wash of the school's lighting. Even in darkness they seemed to twinkle like far off stars.

Phoebe started eating and was about to ask Margi if she would trade her peach for a yogurt, when she saw Karen from across the crowded cafeteria, her long mane of platinum hair bouncing with each clipped step. Phoebe looked down at her food with sudden interest, even though she knew staring into her salad would not ward off the conversation to come.

"Here's ...Karen," Colette said, after peering into Phoebe's yogurt as if she couldn't believe she'd ever eaten anything that looked like that. "She's on ...a ...mission."

18

Even with her head down, Phoebe was aware of boys from the surrounding tables craning to get a better look at Karen and her micro skirt and high boots. At one time it was considered impolite to stare at the dead, back in the days where the term of choice was "living impaired." Impaired no longer, the differently biotic could be gawked and leered at just like any other teenage girl. Phoebe wasn't sure if Karen liked the attention or thought it perverse, but if she had to guess, she'd go with liking it.

Halloween had been pretty much a nonevent at Oakvale High. In years past there might have been jokes about the differently biotic already being in costume, but no longer--maybe because Halloween seemed superfluous in an age where the dead walked the earth. But a subtle shift was taking place among the students in adapting to what some called "the second chance" and still others called "the undead plague"--an acceptance. There were still those like Pete Martinsburg who feared or hated the differently biotic kids, but most regarded them with no more interest than they would anyone else.

That was the reaction they had for most db kids, anyway. The reaction they had for Karen was special, and no different than they had for any other girl as flat out
hot
as she was. Phoebe thought of the grisly quartet that had stood on Adam's doorstep last night and couldn't believe how far ranging the differently biotic experience could be.

"Phoebe," Karen said, her voice breathy, as though it had taken her effort to cross the room at such a speed. "Hi, Margi. Colette."

"Hey, K," Margi replied, lifting her diet soda in a silent

19

toast. The usual clinking of her dozen-odd silver bangles was muted by her newest fashion fad, which was to twist thin wristlets out of electrical tape. Colette waved.

"Phoebe," Karen repeated, and Phoebe lifted her head. "How much longer are you going to ignore Tommy?"

"We're fine, K," Margi cut in. "Thanks for asking. And yourself? Really? No, I didn't watch the game last night. Colette and I handed out six bags of candy. We were both Hannah Montanas. I'm afraid I did not know that you were such a fan of NBA basketball. Isn't that interesting, Pheebes?"

Phoebe watched Karen swivel toward Margi, imagining her diamond eyes flashing into life like twin lasers.

"I'm not in the mood, Margi," she said. "I just had to endure about an hour of...interrogation about whether or not I ...defaced the school last night."

"Did you crack?" Margi said. "Did you sing like a canary?"

"Funny. I don't even know who did ...it."

"Yeah, you ...do," Colette said, frowning.

"What did 'they' do?" Phoebe asked.

Karen and Colette exchanged a glance before Karen answered.

"They ...spray painted the side of the school." "What did they spray?"

'"Adam Layman ... no rest, no peace.'" Karen's crystalline gaze was steady and unflinching. "Over a drawing of a ...tombstone ...and an open grave."

Phoebe frowned, thinking of the boy with the stained cuffs and hands.

20

"Did they use red paint?"

Karen nodded. A tense silence followed until Colette broke it a few moments later.

"I guess they ...will be ...talking to me ...next."

"Could be," Karen said. "They already spoke to Tommy and Kevin. Strange how they don't even ...consider ...that a trad may have done it."

"A trad ...didn't do it ...and you ...know it," Colette said. Karen shrugged

"You know who did it?" Margi asked. None of the other girls answered her.

Karen sighed, turning back to Phoebe. The sigh sounded realistic even though Karen didn't need to breathe.

"Phoebe, don't you think you've left you and Tommy ...unresolved?" she asked. "Don't you think he ...deserves ... a conversation at least?"

"Deserves," Phoebe said. She didn't feel good about avoiding him, but that didn't mean that she thought that he "deserved" anything.

"He hasn't ...been himself...since you stopped talking to him."

Phoebe poked at her wilted salad. She didn't like the hitch in Karen's speech. Karen wasn't like most differently biotic people. She could usually converse without any of the pauses and stops that marked typical zombie speech patterns. Phoebe had noticed that with "highly functional" db kids like Karen and Tommy, pauses meant they were feeling emotional, or as close to emotional as the dead could be.