Passing Strange (26 page)

“You were.”

“I
am
,” he said. “She’s still…alive. Sentient.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

He nodded, ashamed that he’d even considered harming her.

“I have…to hurry,” he said. “She’s…waiting.” He reached for the handle of the door.

“Please,” she said. “Before you go.” She held out her arms to him.

He could see in her eyes that she was asking
for
him, because she knew he’d never ask.

She put her arms around him, and he held her. Just for a moment.

He found Popeye and Tayshawn not far off into the woods. Neither wanted to look at him.

“Well?” Tayshawn said, finally.

Tak didn’t answer. He found he
couldn’t
answer.

“He had to…do it, T,” Popeye said with a practiced nonchalance. “We’ve got to think about…Mal. Jacinta…and the others.”

“Yeah,” Tayshawn said. “That’s us. Always…thinking…about…others.”

“Don’t be like…that, T. What…”

Tayshawn lifted his hand.

“Don’t. Just…don’t, okay, Popeye? I’ve never…hated…being dead…this much…before.”

Tayshawn started walking.

“Will she come…back, you think?” Popeye asked Tak. “If she…comes…back…we’ll have to find her and…take her…to the lake. The bleeders…would…destroy her. Maybe we should wait.”

Takayuki didn’t say anything. He had the sudden sensation that the knife in his pocket was like a flaming brand against his chest. The knife that he’d actually contemplated killing Tamara with. He’d felt her breathing; felt her pulse. The knife that he’d actually stabbed Adam with. What was he thinking?

He took it out and let it fall from his hand.

Tayshawn watched the descent of the knife, which sank, point down, into the snow.

“Tak?” he said. “Will she…”

“We…need to go,” Tak said, looking at the hole the knife had made. “We’ve got…a long walk.”

“Where are we…going?”

“They are…bringing her…to the foundation.”

“They are…probably…already…”

Tak cut Popeye off with a stare. He didn’t want to hear what Popeye’s theories were.

“There,” Popeye said, reading the look in his eyes. “I…was…going to say…there.”

“There’s only…one road…that leads…to the foundation,” Tak said. “If we…hurry…we can prepare…for…her arrival.”

He turned, and without waiting for their response, began walking.

“Y
OU HAVE ANY TROUBLE
getting out of the house?”

“Please,” Pete said, climbing into the warm cab of Duke’s truck. He realized that Duke meant his own house, not the one the zombies had inhabited. “Child’s play. They don’t care if I leave, anyhow.”

Duke laughed and took a sip of his coffee before pulling away. “Starting to clear up,” he said. “I think the kiddies will have school tomorrow.”

“Think so.” Snow was always threatening these days, but never cutting loose.

“So,” Duke said, looking at Pete. “You doing okay?”

Pete gave him a sarcastic look. “What do you think?”

“I don’t know, Pete. You seemed a little…not yourself earlier today on the phone.”

“I’m always myself.”

“You sure? Nothing is bothering you?”

“What could be bothering me?”

“Well,” Duke said, “you spent a lot of time with that zombie before outing her. I…”

“I didn’t spend all that much time with her.”

“No?”

“No!” he said. His blood was racing, and he steadied his breath, trying to reel it in. “I got her, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, you got her. I just wondered why it took you so long.”

“Oh, were you spying on me or something?”

“No,” Duke said. “I spy on the zombies. You, I was monitoring. There’s a difference.”

“You’re kidding. You actually
were
spying on me.”

Duke shrugged, taking another sip of coffee. “No,” he said. “Well, not me, anyway. We’ve got to keep those vans on the road, you know.”

“Yeah.”

“You didn’t know she was a zombie, did you?”

Pete kept his eyes steady. “I knew.”

Duke nodded. “Sure you did. Hey, don’t feel bad about it. She could have fooled anybody. She did things that the others don’t know how to do. At least I hope they don’t know.”

“Do we have to talk about this?”

“Your big victory? I thought you’d want to talk about it.”

“Right. So what are we doing tonight, Duke? Pet stealing? Throwing snowballs from the graveyard?”

“Funny. We’re going to confirm your kill. A good hunter always confirms his kills.”

Pete didn’t like the sound of that.

“What do you mean?”

“You’ll see.”

A few minutes later they were parked in the commuter lot near the highway at the edge of Oakvale. There was a single vehicle, an ambulance, parked in the far corner of the lot, just outside the glow of the single streetlight.

“What are we doing here, Duke?” Pete said, watching as the ambulance driver came out of his vehicle, looking like he’d just seen a ghost.

“Just want you to take a look at something, that’s all.”

“Is she in there?”

Duke nodded at him, the smile gone from his face.

“Oh, so its ‘she’ now?”

Duke got out of the car, leaving his door open, letting a blast of cold air into his vehicle. Pete could hear the driver complaining about how he could lose his job, etc., etc., and Duke waved him away, saying that he’d gotten the equivalent of three weeks’ pay for the two minutes that this would take. He motioned for the driver to pop the ambulance door open, and when he did, Duke called over to Pete.

“Well?” he said. “Don’t you want to see? You’ve made the world a better place.”

Pete swore he’d show Duke nothing, no shred of emotion. He exited Duke’s truck and walked to the ambulance.

“Climb aboard,” Duke said. “Feast your eyes.”

“And hurry,” the other man said. Duke told him to shut up.

Pete climbed into the back of the vehicle, which was dark, although strands of spectral illumination were cast from some of the medical equipment. There was a low gurney that was covered with a white sheet. The sheet covered a body.

Her body.

He leaned closer. There was a faint chemical smell in the vehicle, something similar to the cleaning supplies he’d used while working off his community service at the foundation.

“Go ahead,” Duke said from behind him, “take a look.”

Pete reached out, but hesitated when he realized that some of the shadows falling across the sheet weren’t shadows at all, but dark stains.

He heard the men outside arguing, the driver urging haste, Duke warning him to shut up unless he wanted a mouthful of broken teeth. Pete tried to slow his breathing and his heart rate. There was a moment when he thought the sheet rose and fell where her mouth would be, but that was twice crazy—she was truly dead now, and zombies don’t breathe.

He took the edge of the sheet, half expecting her to reach down and grab him with a grip like frozen steel. He peeled the sheet back and looked and looked. It was so awful he had to force himself to turn away, but even then it was too late—he’d go to his grave with each one of her scars etched upon his soul.

“God,” he said. “What…what did they do to her?”

Duke laughed. “Pretty, huh?”

Pete was trying not to gag.

“What makes you think they did it to her?” Duke said, slapping him on the back. “Self-inflicted, don’t you read the paper?”

“She couldn’t…she couldn’t do
that
,” Pete said, looking back.

“Turn on the light,” Duke said. “Get the full effect.”

Pete couldn’t even answer; he just shook his head. He couldn’t see clearly in the gloom, but he could tell her eyes were open—there was a brief sparkle, as though they reflected the light from the lot beyond. The driver walked to the cab and threw a switch. White light filled the cabin, startling Pete and hurting his eyes. He could have sworn that she’d blinked.

When his eyes adjusted he went back to her, leaning over, avoiding looking at anything below her chin. Her lips were parted, as though she anticipated a kiss from him, but they looked so cold and bloodless.

He looked into her eyes. Their irises were like dull glass. He looked for her in them, but saw only a diminished reflection of himself.

He lifted his hand, intending to close her eyes, but froze when Duke spoke. “Another one off your list, Pete,” he said, his voice soft. “Another victory for One Life.”

Victory
. The word echoed in Pete’s head. He raised the sheet, unable to take his eyes away from hers until he’d gently pulled it past them and over her head.

He looked back at Duke, not even sure what he was feeling, but knowing that he needed to sequester it, to count and breathe and choke it back down. To crush it out. His throat was dry, and he realized that his mouth was open, and for some reason he imagined his lips were as cold and pale as hers. Instead of breathing his life into her, he’d inhaled death from her. He was going to die—this is what death was like.

Duke told the driver to kill the light, then waved Pete on with his big flashlight. A police car, its flashers off, drifted by in the street beyond. Pete took a lurching step forward, as though his legs no longer worked.

“So,” Duke said. “What did you and the demon talk about?”

“Talk?” Pete said. “What do you mean, talk?”

Duke drew him up short. Pete felt slightly lightheaded from what he’d seen in the ambulance, and was having a difficult time meeting Duke’s eyes.

“You spent time with her, didn’t you?”

“Just a little, like I said. Enough to figure out that she was a zombie.”

“Son,” Duke said, gripping his arm. He wasn’t gentle about it. “In most things in life, the best policy is just to keep your mouth shut.”

A range of responses, some elicited by dark emotions, passed through Pete, but he was able to choke them all back. Duke didn’t release the hold he had on his arm for quite some time.

Pete knew that he should have gone home, but instead he drove to the lake, almost as though he were on autopilot.

Once there, he parked his car and walked out onto the dock where he’d been with Karen just a few short weeks ago. Dawn was breaking, although the sun wasn’t yet visible in the sky. Snow covered the lake ice, and the ground and the sky were the same washed-out white, like both had been hastily spread with the same brush. The blankness threatened to swallow the bare trees ringing the lake; Pete could imagine oblivion encroaching on the horizon.

He unzipped his coat and let a little more of the cold in. He pulled the wallet from his jacket pocket and took out the Undead Studies class list. Wind pulled at the fraying edges of the paper as he unfolded it. The paper had been worn smooth, the names written in what now looked like ghost ink. Only the bold black lines Pete had drawn through some of the names with a heavy marker stood out.

The list fluttered in his hand like a wounded bird. He could see himself as though from far away, tearing the list into small pieces, and then tearing those small pieces into smaller pieces, and then watching the shreds drift down, like the snowflakes they would soon join, onto the icy surface of Lake Oxoboxo.

Watching them fall, a certainty as acute as the whiteness that flooded his eyes overtook him. It was so obvious he was amazed, ashamed even, that it had taken him so long to figure it out.

He knew where the Oakvale undead were.

“W
ELL,” THE PARAMEDIC
said, reaching across the dashboard to switch off the radio, “there goes the neighborhood.”

Beside him, his partner’s eyes narrowed. “That’s not even funny, man.” They’d been listening a report on the news about Oakvale’s favorite son, Tommy Williams.

The driver looked over at him.

“Oh hey,” he said. “I’m sorry, man. This is different, you know? Zombies aren’t even alive, you know? Dave?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Really. ’Specially the one in the back.”

Grinning, the driver nudged his partner with a crooked elbow. “C’mon, Dave.”

“All right.”

“Don’t be mad. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“All right.”

“That Davidson guy sure is creepy though, huh? Crazy eyes. I wouldn’t want to tangle with him.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Pays well, though.”

For a few moments they drove in silence at a reasonable speed through the dark, twining back roads of Oakvale.

“The thing is, I don’t think you realize what you’re telegraphing to people when you say stuff like that,” Dave said. “The comments, I mean. It’s stuff like that got us in trouble at that house last week in Winford.”

“Oh, that again.”

“You just got to think before you say things. Words matter.”

“I didn’t even mean it that way! How was I supposed to know? They didn’t look…”

“That’s what I’m telling you, Ike. It don’t matter. What matters is that you said something ignorant. You just got to stop a moment and think about where words and phrases come from, what they really mean.”

Ike was shaking his head, and he took both hands off the wheel to emphasize his point. “You are way overthinking this. They didn’t even notice!”

“Keep your hands on the wheel. They absolutely noticed.”

“Well, tell them they shouldn’t be so damn sensitive, then.”

“Jesus, Ike. It’s like…”

“It offends me when you take the Lord’s name in vain.”

Ike started laughing before Dave could reply, and then Dave was chuckling along with him.

“The problem with you people is—” he said. And then he shouted, but his warning came too late.

The boy lurched from the shoulder of the road and into the glow of their headlights. Dave called a warning, and Ike hit the brakes in the same instant that he jerked the wheel. They might have avoided hitting him if there weren’t patches of black ice clinging to the road. The ambulance fishtailed, and Dave cried out as he heard the solid thud of the van striking the boy. Ike wrestled with the steering wheel, but they were still turning. He tried to turn in to the skid, but then the wheels caught dry pavement, and the vehicle lurched off the road, bounding off the tail end of a metal guardrail and into the culvert beyond, where it cracked with jarring force against an outcropping of large rocks. The airbags deployed, but in the whirl Dave thought he saw Ike’s head bounce off the driver’s side window. The vehicle’s sudden stop left the ambulance grille down at a forty-five degree angle in the culvert.

It took Dave a moment before he realized that the whirring he heard wasn’t the sound of his head ringing, but the back tire of the ambulance spinning, no longer in touch with the earth. Dazed, he began fumbling at his seat belt. Ike’s eyes were closed, and the cracks in the glass behind him framed his head in a starry halo, but he groaned as he leaned forward on the deflating bag. Dave’s thoughts were on the boy, anyway. They hadn’t been going very fast, but the noise that he’d made when the van hit him was so loud, so solid.

Dave thought the boy had to be dead.

He was right.

And the boy wasn’t the only one.

He’d no sooner gotten free of the airbag and seat belt when his door was opened from the outside. He turned and found himself staring into the moon-white face of a ghoul.

“Sit…tight,” the ghoul said. He was wearing a leather jacket that was open to the waist, revealing a gaunt body that was mostly white, except in the places it wasn’t. The places where its skin had been removed.

Dave shrank back in his seat. The thing facing him had bulbous frog eyes that stared out with insane intensity. Dave realized that this was because it didn’t have any eyelids. Rows of fishhooks had been pushed through its ears and the corner of one eyebrow. Some of the grinning teeth had been filed into points. It waved to him with a partially skeletonized hand, and Dave had to suppress a manic laugh that was forming in his throat.

“Good…boy,” the ghoul said. He slipped on a pair of dark sunglasses, shark mouth widening still further at the paramedic’s obvious relief.

“My friend is hurt,” Dave said, keeping his voice soft.

“So’s…mine,” the monster said. “Tayshawn?”

“I’m all…busted…up, Popeye,” came the call from the street. “I can’t…feel…my legs.”

“Could you…before?”

“No.”

The one called Popeye laughed, a low, dark sound.

“Seriously, though…I can’t…get up,” Tayshawn called.

“I’m a paramedic,” Dave said. “Let me help him.”

The zombie thought that was even funnier. “Send more paramedics,” he said, laughing. “Sit there. You can…check on…
your
…friend.” Dave looked back at Ike, who let loose another groggy moan. His fingertips came away from the side of Ike’s head wet with blood.

“He needs a bandage.”

“Lucky for…him…you’re in…an ambulance,” Popeye said. Dave heard fumbling from the back of the ambulance, then felt the vehicle rock as someone climbed onto the rear bumper and began pulling at the doors. He also heard the sound of a body being dragged along the street. “We’ll be out…of your…hair…in just…a minute.”

The dragging sound grew closer, and then the boy that had run out in front of the ambulance hauled himself along the road into view. One arm was bent at an awkward angle, and his left leg was broken in a way that didn’t require medical training to diagnose. Part of the boy’s femur was poking through his jeans toward the upper thigh.

“Jeez,” Popeye said, glancing down at him, “you…
are
…all busted up. You’re a…mess.”

“Told you,” the other answered. “I’m gonna…need a…hand.”

He should be screaming or in shock, Dave thought.

“What do you want?” he said.

“Just…your…cargo,” Popeye said, crouching to haul the other to his feet. Dave winced when he watched him drape the broken arm across his shoulders and help stand him up. Behind them, the ambulance doors clanged open.

* * *

“Karen?” Tak called, peering into the gloom.

The ambulance lights had winked out at the second impact, the one with the rocks. The gurney bearing her body had rolled back, and one milk-white arm had slipped out from under the sheet and hung down, her long nails nearly grazing the floor.

“Karen?” Slumping, he felt his heart ice over. He pressed his head against the door frame. He said her name a third time, whispering.

There was no answer.

He’d been wrong. He’d been wrong all along. The mistakes he’d made began to flash through his mind, a swift parade of recrimination and stupidity. People weren’t symbols. Lives weren’t allegories. He felt as though his skeleton wanted to tear itself free from his dead flesh.

“Please,” he said. He prayed. He was actually praying. “Please.”

Just because I didn’t see You doesn’t mean You aren’t there, he thought. Just because it’s dark doesn’t mean we’re alone.

“Please.”

He lifted his head.

The body on the gurney sat up. He could hear a rattling, like the sound of loose bones.

“Karen?”

Her voice, when it came, was a raspy and echoing croak.

“Yes.”

“Karen!”

“Give…me…a…minute to get…myself…together.”

He looked at her then, at her face, and despite her wounds, it was as though the frost were melting in his chest, as though sunlight were streaming in through the wounds on his body, making him warm again. It was like spring had come.

“I knew it,” he said. “You’re…alive.”

Her eyes flashed a brilliant crystalline blue that cut through the darkness, and he knew that she was smiling.

He’d held Karen’s hand and led her away from the accident. She’d wrapped the sheets from the gurney around her head and body, swathing herself like a mummy, so that only one pale arm, crisscrossed with dark bloodless scars, protruded. He wasn’t exactly sure what she’d done to herself, only that she’d tried to make it as convincing as possible.

A few feet ahead of them, Popeye was half carrying, half dragging Tayshawn along, his broken leg trailing behind him. Tak wished it would snow so that the rather obvious trail they were leaving would disappear.

“Where are…you…taking…me?” Karen asked.

Tak frowned. She sounded awful, her voice harsh and halting. He heard something rattling in her chest when she spoke. “The lake,” he said. “We’ll be…safe…in the lake.”

“No,” she whispered, stopping her awkward progress. “We have…something…to do.”

“Karen, you really aren’t in any…shape…to do anything but…hide. We…”

“Tak,” she said, placing her index finger against his lips. “Trust…me.”

What an absurd request, he thought. She was the only thing on earth or beyond that he trusted.

She told Tak that Popeye and Tayshawn should leave. He didn’t argue and neither did they.

“Before…you…go,” Karen said, and motioned Tayshawn over. She lifted the sheet that she’d pulled over her head enough to expose her lips. Seeing her throat, Tak could see why speaking was such a difficulty for her.

“Thank…you,” she said, kissing Tayshawn on the corner of his mouth before letting the sheet fall back into place.

“Anything for…a friend,” Tayshawn said. He was smiling.

“Yuck,” was Popeye’s comment.

“Thank…you, too…Popeye.”

It pained Tak to listen to her voice, which sounded nothing like her. Popeye waved to her with his webbed hand, as though he didn’t want to get within range of her hugs and kisses.

“Oh, sure,” he said. A stitch popped free on his thumb, and the webbing dangled by its last remaining threads.

“When can we…expect you?” Tayshawn asked Tak.

“Couple…days,” he replied. He wasn’t certain, but he didn’t think Karen’s business would keep him on the surface very long.

“Okay, then,” Popeye said. “I guess…we’ll…see you.”

Tak nodded. Popeye expected more, but Tak had nothing more to give. He watched them lope away until they were no longer visible through the trees. Karen took his hand.

“It might be…faster…if I…carried you,” he said.

Without a word, she looped her arms around his neck, and the sight of the scars running up and across her pale flesh made him clench his teeth. Her feet were bare, and although she couldn’t feel the cold, he was determined not to let them come into contact with the snow again.

She felt weightless in his arms. He thought that he might be leaving the earth himself.

He didn’t stop until he laid her down on the futon in the Haunted House. He placed her gently on the cushions, carefully tucking the sheets over her bare arms.

“They look…ugly…don’t they?” she said.

“You’re healing,” he said. “I can…tell.”

“Jigsaw girl,” she said. “Putting myself…back…together.”

“You’ll be…fine,” he said, trying not to sound as though he needed to convince himself.

“Who knows…if I’ll…be able…to heal…all this. Maybe it…is too…much.”

“You’ll heal. Wait…here,” he said.

He went upstairs and got her backpack and the blanket that the beating heart—Tamara—had used to “defeat” Tayshawn.

Karen was sitting up. She’d removed the sheet from her head, and now it lay bunched up on her naked body, so he could see more of what she’d done to herself.

“Karen…” he said, the bag slipping out of his hand.

“Not so…pretty…anymore, am…I?” she said with a rueful smile. “But this wasn’t…all me. They wanted…to be…sure.” His mouth closed with a click of his teeth. It was the closest he’d come to showing emotion since his death.

“When I was…in my…cell…one of the…police…kicked…me. Used…the knife. Then he unholstered…his weapon. Pointed it…at my face. ‘Headshot,’ he told…his…partner. ‘Only…way…to be…sure.’ My eyes were…open. So was…the door…to the…cell. I could…have…tried…to run.”

“Beating…heart…bastards,” Tak said.

“Officer…Pelletier…stopped him. They fought. Argued. Had me…moved…to the…morgue.”

“I…will…kill…them all,” he said.

Karen looked as worried as her face was able to convey.

“Oh, don’t be mad…Tak. They weren’t…all bad. Before…I did…it…Officer…Pelletier…came and…apologized to me. People…aren’t…all bad.”

“They should…die. All…of them.”

“Don’t be that way,” she said, touching his hand. “It isn’t…worth it.”

Was the raspy quality already fading from her voice? He spread the blanket over her, then placed the bag on her lap. A tiny scar above her lip vanished before his eyes.

“Oh, you have…my bag?”

“I…do.”

“My clothes,” she said, rummaging in the bag and pulling out a rumpled T-shirt. “My cell phone. Dead…like us.

Wish…I could…call…my parents. They’d…freak, though.” She spread out her top across her lap. “Tamara…found you…?”

“She found us,” Tak said, turning as Karen pulled the T-shirt over her head.

“Is she…okay?”

His back was still turned as he answered. “She’s…okay.”

“Great. Here’s what . .. I need…you to do. I need .. .”

“Whatever…you need,” he said. “I will do.”

She smiled at him, and the purity of her smile touched him, even through her mask of scars.

“Oh, Tak,” she said, reaching over to him, gripping his hand with hers, “I’m so glad you…rescued…me.”

He patted her hand with his, while reaching out with his scarred hand to brush the back of her neck. His fingers caught and entwined in the tangles of her hair.

“Takayuki,” she whispered. “There is something you need to know about me.”