Passing Strange (4 page)

There was a pause, but gawd bless her, Phoebe knew exactly what I was getting at.

“They’ve got George,” she said, carefully. “The police Tasered him, and it seems to have…shut him off. He’s not…animate.”

I don’t remember what I said then, or if I said anything, but I did remember George heading off down the hill in front of St. Jude’s, toward the police, drawing both their fire and their ire. Doing so gave the rest of us just a little bit wider of a window to escape.

Poor George. My hole-y heart was breaking.

Eventually I said something about how sad that was. Then I said something like, “Wow, a lot happened while I was watching TV last night.”

Phoebe caught on, such a smart girl. “We really need to talk, Karen. It seems like ages since I’ve seen you.”

“I know what you mean! But I had to call in sick to school. I just haven’t been feeling myself lately.”

Phoebe laughed. It was good to hear her laugh, even if our conversation was a little forced. I wondered if she’d be laughing if she knew I’d just plucked a bullet out of my face.

“Actually,” she said, “you might not want to go to school. Technically you aren’t allowed to go anymore.”

“Adam’s still going, isn’t he?”

“Yes. But we’re trying to keep it quiet. So far, Principal Kim has let him, even though she could probably get in big trouble. Should we meet at the mall?”

“Probably not the mall,” I said. “How about I let you know?”

“Okay,” Phoebe said, and I could tell from her tone she thought I was hiding something from her. “I’ll get Margi to drive us over.”

I hoped she wouldn’t ask me if I was working, in case someone really was listening in on the call. Kind of dumb, really, because you’d think if “they,” whoever “they” are, were bugging my phones, they would also be able to figure out that I’ve been passing as a human and working in the mall at Wild Thingz! for the past three weeks.

“Okay, then.” I paused, not because I’m a slowpoke but because I didn’t really want to hang up. “See you later.”

“Karen?” she said, that hitch back in her voice. “I…I’ll see you.”

Phoebe has such magnetism.
Such
an attractive quality. I didn’t want to let her go, not after what I’d just gone through.

But I had to.

“Okay, sweetie,” I said. “’Bye.”

I’m a little in love with her, I guess. But so is everyone else.

I
WENT BACK TO WORK ONLY
one night after being shot full of lead. Who says American teens aren’t as dedicated a workforce as generations past? (Or should that be “generations passed,” yuk yuk). By way of clever disguise, I placed a small Band-Aid over the bullet hole in my cheek.

I was trying to pass everything off as my personal vision of “normal,” despite what had happened. Dad called, like he always does on his way home, and I offered to get something in the oven like I always do, and he said that’s okay, Karen, the way he always does—I always offer, even though I know my mother has placed a taboo on me preparing food of any sort. She doesn’t want me touching the oven, microwave, or coffee-maker, either, for fear that I’ll contaminate them with my deadly death germs. She’s never told me this directly, of course—she’d have to speak to me for that to happen. But I get the idea that she doesn’t even want me in the kitchen.

Dad always calls me on my cell, now, even though there’s a perfectly good wall-mounted cordless phone just inside the kitchen door.

“I have to work tonight,” I said.

“I remembered,” he said, sounding weary. Sometimes work made him that way, sometimes having a living dead daughter did. “Karen, were you home last night?”

“Home is where my heart is,” I said, Creative Truth-dodging 101. “Why?”

“Some pretty disturbing things happened,” he said, “involving differently biotic people.”

He’s so cute; he still can’t say “zombie” around me without getting all embarrassed. He summarized the evening’s events for me: alleged murders, a videotape, desecration of a church(!), shots fired.

“Oh my gosh,” I said. “Those poor people!” I didn’t indicate whether or not I meant the Guttridges or the differently biotic people. Instead I asked Dad who the zombies were.

“They weren’t positively identified,” he said. “I didn’t see the video, but on the radio they said that the killers, and this one zombie that was arrested, were pretty, ah, ‘zombified.’ Like with visible wounds and such.”

“And such?”

He cleared his throat, the sound like a roll of static on my cell phone. “Like with parts missing.”

“Oh my.”

“I’ve heard rumors that others have been rounded up across the state,” he said. “Some released to legal guardians, some not.”

Rumors. Stories not making the local or national news.

“Maybe work isn’t such a good idea tonight, Karen.”

It was touching that he could still feel concern for me. I’d have loved to say, “Sure, you’re right, Dad. I’m going to stay with you and the moms and little Katy and we can have popcorn and play Parcheesi and it’ll all be just swell!” but of course I couldn’t. That nagging feeling of responsibility kept creeping in. Responsibility to my job, to the undead everywhere who’d one day learn from my example, but mostly just responsibility to myself.

“I think work is a better idea than ever, Dad,” I said, but humble-like. I didn’t want to oversell it.

“You’ve been banned from school, too,” he said. “Your principal called.”

That sort of took me by surprise. “Um, yeah. I couldn’t get on the bus.” Advanced Truth Obfuscation 201: not a lie exactly. I
couldn’t
get on the bus, being too shot up. I could almost hear the gears of his brain turning during our connection.

“Karen,” he said, “what are you trying to prove with the passing thing?”

That was a pretty complex question. I could have played tennis with him—what was he trying to prove by allowing me to do the passing thing? But instead I chose to respond with rarely applied knowledge from an almost forgotten class in Karen’s Syllabus of Human Interactions: I used Intro to Unguarded Moments.

“Good question, Dad. The easy answer is that I just want to be like everyone else.”

He waited.

“But it wouldn’t be the true answer, at least not for me. I’m sure there are tons of zombies who would give that answer and it would be one hundred percent correct—most people want to fit in, to be like everybody else. Not me. I want to
seem
like everybody else.”

“Explain that to me, please.”

“I didn’t know this when I first took the job, Dad. I just thought it was cool that I was tricking everybody. It was sort of exciting. For a while it felt like fitting in. But then I realized that it was even better than fitting in. I’m hiding in plain sight. I may seem like everybody else, but I’m really, really different. And I like that.”

He sighed. “That makes sense. Sort of.”

I could have told him more, like how passing was the opposite of my “persona” at school, wearing the too-short Catholic-school-girl shorts and patent leathers every day—the difference between purposely calling attention to myself versus purposely not calling attention to myself.

“I know, it’s hard to explain. But I’m trying to not be ‘the dead girl.’ I’m trying to just be ‘me.’”

“At work.”

“At work.”

“Karen, I think things could get very hostile for you if people find out.”

“It’s pretty hostile for me already, Dad. I might as well do something. This could be useful to other zombies some day. It’s useful for me right now.”

I could hear him thinking again.

“Come on, Dad,” I said. “Fight the power.”

So much for not overselling. But he laughed. He’d been a Reagan-era punk, after all.

“Okay. What time do you need to be there? Six?”

“Yep.”

“Okay. I’ll see you later, Karen.”

“Bye, Dad.”

I could still hear him thinking after I clicked my phone closed. He was wondering if he trusted me too much. He wondered if too much trust led to my suicide the first time around, and even though counseling and conversation has indicated repeatedly that it was not trust—or lack of love, conscience, etc.—that led to that act, you can’t always explain your feelings.

Anyhow, I went to work with a tiny bandage on my cheek to cover up the bullet hole. Dad didn’t notice it when he picked me up, but Katy saw it right away.

“Caring’s got a boo-boo,” she said, in a matter-of-fact voice, after a very exuberant hug. Did I mention how cute she is?

Dad stopped whatever he was doing—sorting bills or some such—and turned to me, the question clear on his face.

“I did it walking in the woods,” I explained. “Low branch. It’s just a scratch.”

The bandage was the first thing Tamara commented on when I got to work. She got a different story.

“Pimple that got out of hand,” I said. What a liar! One of the best things about being dead is not having acne!

I went into the back room to sign in. My boss, Craig, who usually starts giving orders the moment you walk in, looked up from his paperwork and asked me what I did to my face.

“Cut myself shaving,” I said. And then I said, “Sir,” because we have that flirty antagonistic thing going on.

He shook his head, his pierced lip curling. “Restock the Z display.”

So I started restocking the Z display. People came in, people talked to me, I talked to people. No one pointed and yelled “There she is! That murdering zombie!” No one noticed me at all, except for the hornier young men, and they only notice
parts
of me. Even when one of those parts happens to be my face, they aren’t looking for a zombie. Just a pretty girl. So I smile at them, pretending to be just that. And I get away with it. Even though the night before I had more lead in me than 50 Cent, I got away with it.

Which was weird enough. Even weirder, that very first shift after getting lead poisoning, I saw Pete Martinsburg. He came into the store, stood right in front of the Z display, and asked me—me!—if I could help him out with something.

Pete Martinsburg. Watching him, I was certain, absolutely certain, that the figure I’d seen in the blurry videotape pretending to be Takayuki was none other than our pal, Peter Martinsburg. The way he walked, the way he carried himself, the arrogant thrust of his chin. The videotape “Tak” was broad across the chest, with the same musculature as Pete. I didn’t need telepathic powers to know it was him. If anyone had killed Guttridge, it had been him, the lawyer’s own client.

It was hard not to appreciate the twisted symmetry in Pete being the one to masquerade, to “pass,” as my good friend Tak Smiley. If there was such a thing as poetic injustice, this was it.

Seeing him was like getting struck by a lightning bolt. Isn’t that how Frankenstein got his start? Getting zapped by lightning? I claim ole Frank as the original zombie. Unless it was Lazarus. But as for me, seeing Pete was an epiphany. For the first time in my second life, I felt like I had a purpose.

I put on my sultry smile and asked him if he thought I could give him the kind of help he needed.

His response couldn’t be any more clichéd; it was total Leisure Suit Larry territory. He did this slow scan of my body, starting low and taking a long, long time to get to my eyes. I suppose my flesh would have crawled and I’d have turned red if I still had humanisms like the blush response.

“Yeah,” he said, making his voice all gruff. “Yeah, I think you can.” I felt like I was an alt in The Sims or something.

It’s not fair for me to complain, though. I went at him like a dizzy airhead blonde, and he responded in kind. I giggled and cut my eyes away, and when I looked back it was from under lowered lashes. I could almost hear his heart beating faster.

“I meant with the merchandise.” I’d clasped my hands behind me and put my shoulders back, swaying a little. His eyes didn’t stay on mine for long.

“Oh, I know what you meant,” he said. The boy had confidence, I’ll give him that. And he was still very handsome, even with the souvenir Tak gave him: a thick pink-red line that ran from his cheekbone to his lower jaw. “Why don’t you tell me about these products here?” He indicated the revolving display of Slydellco products.

“The Z line?”

“Sounds like a subway. Yeah, this Z stuff.” He took the tester bottle of the men’s body spray, misted the air beside him, and sniffed. When he looked back at me, his eyes were on mine again, and for a second I thought: he’s on to me; he knows. I even wondered if I’d forgotten to put my contact lenses in before going to my shift. But of course I had; Tamara and Craig would certainly have commented if I hadn’t. And I was wearing a Band-Aid on my cheek—that meant I was human, right? But the way Peter Martinsburg was staring at me—almost through me—I thought he knew. I bluffed my way through, anyway.

“So this is supposed to make corpses smell better?”

“The Z line was specially formulated for living impaired people,” I said. “That’s the men’s body spray. We have one for women, too. There are also skin products. There’s a foundation that makes the skin look less gray. The ‘eye de-shadow’ is popular; it removes the dark circles living impaired people sometimes…”

“Smells like burning leaves,” he said, not really interested. “What do you think of all of this stuff?”

“What do
I
think about it?” I kept my expression as blank as possible—I didn’t think he’d be as interested in me if he thought I thought about anything.

“Yeah. About all of it. Do you ever wait on any corpsicles?”

I pretended to stifle a giggle behind my hand. “Yes. We get a few. Well, we used to. After last night I don’t think we’ll see any for a while.”

He laughed, and I could see a hint of pride in his expression. He was Fake Tak, there’s no question about it. “If Williams gets his way, they’ll be all over the place.”

“Williams,” I said, trying to look like I was thinking and that thinking took major effort. “Is that the football zombie?”

“Yeah, that’s right,” Pete said, looking at me like I deserved a doggy treat or a pat on the head. “He’s gone down to Washington to try to get rights for the living dead. Martin Luther Zombie King, that’s Williams.”

I frowned, pouting my lower lip.

“Do you like waiting on them?”

“Zombies, you mean?”

“Cadavers, corpses, meat puppets. Yeah, zombies.”

I leaned in a little, dropping my voice to a whisper. “I usually get Tamara to wait on them,” I said. “They scare me, honestly.”

He nodded like I’d just passed some purity test.

“Hey, don’t get me wrong,” he said. “I’m all for making the worm burgers smell better. I just think a flamethrower would do a better job than this spray bottle.”

I feigned a shocked but amused look. “You’re soooo bad!” I said, tapping him on the arm, letting my hand linger. He smiled, proud of his muscles. He has a right to be, I guess.

“Don’t I know you?”

And here’s where I wondered if a change of clothes, eye color, and hair were really going to succeed in giving me a whole new public identity. I was glad I didn’t have to regulate my breathing, as I stared back at him evenly and, I think, provocatively.

He knew me, all right. I asked him to kill me, once.

He’d followed me into the woods one day after school, and I knew even then that his intentions were less than honorable. He caught up with me on the path going toward the Oxoboxo and said he was going to kill me. I didn’t run away, or scream, or fight, or anything, I just said, “Go ahead.” I’d even told him how to do it.

Maybe I thought he’d lose his nerve and take off, have a major life epiphany, and change his evil-doing ways. Maybe I thought he’d kill me, but have the same epiphany when he saw what a terrible thing he’d just done.

Or maybe I
hoped
he’d kill me, because I still had feelings like that, feelings that are both impulsive but also so deep inside me, so always-there that I forget about them.

I don’t know what I was thinking when I told him to do it; all I know is that he would have if Mal and Takayuki hadn’t showed up when they did (and I still don’t know
why
they did—it wasn’t like they came out to meet me every day after school or anything. Chalk it up to my secret telepathetic powers). They were so cute, scampering up the woodland path!

Tak caught up with him on the night Pete killed Adam, but I don’t think Tak’s attack on Pete had anything to do with that—Tak always said he didn’t care if the living wanted to do his recruiting for him. I think it was all about me.