Passing Strange (5 page)

I feel guilty—if I did something other than ask Pete to kill me; talk to him, hug him, clobber him, anything—then maybe Evan and Adam would still be alive, and maybe we wouldn’t be on the run.

But here was a chance for atonement cloaked in the flesh of Pete Martinsburg.

“Don’t I know you?” he’d asked.

The look I gave him, putting my hands on my hips, would have caused most living boys to faint from lack of oxygen to the brain.

“You’d remember if you did, don’t you think?”

He held my stare, a slow grin appearing on his lips as he licked them. “Yeah, I guess I would.
Can
I know you? Better, I mean?”

“Sure. Call me.” I said. I took a pen out of my shirt pocket and started writing my cell phone number out for him.

“What’s your name?” he said.

“Christie Smith,” I said. Christie Smith was the name of Tommy’s new girlfriend, but it was the only name I could think of. I’m not a very creative person, I guess. Thank God Wild Thingz! lets its employees wear piercings and tattoos instead of name tags.

I handed him the scrap of paper, a receipt for some gum from the mall drugstore. Zombies don’t chew gum, do they? See how tricky I can be? “Here you are, Peter.”

He took the paper, his eyes narrowing with suspicion.

“How do you…”

“I knew who you were as soon as you walked in,” I told him. “We get the newspapers in Winford, too, you know.”

I had him on the ropes with that statement—I guess he was probably wondering why I was interested, him being a murderer and all. In fact, he looked a little pissed off, like the control he thought he’d held during our conversation had suddenly been yanked out from under him. I did a risky thing, then. I reached out and traced the tip of my finger down the length of his scar.

“You missed, that’s all,” I said. “You won’t next time.”

He looked like he might hit me. Or kiss me. Or both.

“But I knew who you were before that,” I said, my finger lingering on his chin, just below his lips. “You creamed a wide receiver I was dating last year. Gave him a concussion and everything.”

He laughed, the “compliment” regarding his former gridiron feat waving away whatever complex bundle of emotions he was trying to process.

“No kidding? Well, I’m real sorry about that.”

“Don’t be. He was a wimp.”

Not a jerk, or a creep, or a dull lad. A wimp, as though to say, You, Peter Martinsburg, are a strong man. And I need a strong man.

I gave his cheek another pat.

“Call me,” I said.

He nodded, and then I watched him leave the store. He didn’t look back.

Living boys are so easy.

Except he didn’t call me, at least not right away. I guess the obvious question to ask is Waitaminute—this is a guy who stalked you into the woods, looked you dead in the eye, and told you he was going to murder you. Do you honestly expect me to believe that he didn’t recognize you?

Yes.

I looked a lot different working at Wild Thingz! than I did when I went to school with Martinsburg, for one thing. My eyes were blue, thanks to the contact lenses my father had bought me; my hair was darker, thanks to the coloring I’d put in it; and my skin was less white, thanks to
Night Shades
, a skin product from the Z line, “for that healthy, living skin glow!” I wasn’t wearing a skirt about four inches too short for the dress code (and no one at Oakvale High ever talked to me about my violating the code; too scared I guess) and I wasn’t wearing a filmy white shirt, so I didn’t have any of the easily recognizable attributes of my day-to-day appearance.

I didn’t have my Karen DeSonne costume on when I went to work, in other words.

But I think it was more than that. I think Pete has trouble seeing girls as individuals. I
know
he has a problem seeing zombies as individuals. He’d identify Tommy, maybe, because he’s got something personal for him, but if you lined up Cooper and Evan and Kevin, all he would see is “zombie.” Likewise, put Colette, Sylvia, Jacinta and me, minus my uniform (but with normal clothes on), together, all he would see is “zombie.” Maybe girl zombie, maybe not. It’s like how you can have your groceries bagged by the same guy every day, but won’t recognize him if you see him on the tennis court or at the library.

Pete might not be able to see the real me, but I could see right through him. He was part of the conspiracy that forced my people underground.

Of course I had no proof, nothing I could pass on to right-thinking breathers who would bring the truth to a world that might not want to handle it.

I was certain that I could get that proof. But then weeks went by and he hadn’t called.

T
HE ARIZONA CAMPUS
was a pretty cool place, Pete thought. Except for all the gorgons. If it wasn’t for the gorgons, he really might like staying here at the compound.

Oakvale, Connecticut, might be infested with zombies, but the One Life compound was overrun with ugly girls. Ugly, overweight, and just plain unpleasant girls. Gorgons.

One of them was coming his way, her bare arms and legs the color and texture of a canned ham. Most of these girls were from the Midwest, it seemed, where they’d apparently never learned that the sun can burn. Especially in Arizona.

“Hi, Pete,” she called, lifting a pudgy arm in a shy wave. Pete bit back his disgust and returned the wave. He didn’t want it getting back to the Reverend that he was unfriendly. He knew he was the Reverend’s favorite—the gorgons knew it too, which was why they were all so interested in him. Well, that and his awesome physique, which was now accentuated by a nice, even base tan. The gorgon giggled and kept walking, leaving Pete to bronze.

He closed his eyes, letting the sun bake him. That was something he’d missed after spending the summer with “Dad” in Cali; the rich hue he’d developed began to leach away as soon as he got back to Oakvale. He’d started to worry that he’d fade so much he’d look like one of the crypt things crawling around Oakvale like maggots on roadkill. The deadheads. The meat puppets.

The demons. The Reverend wanted him to call them “demons.”

He heard giggling, and cracked an eyelid to see a beastly figure standing over him, her hands folded behind her lumpy body as she watched him soak up the rays. Pete propped himself up on his elbows in a sort of half crunch, so that the gorgon could get an eyeful of the definition on his abs.

“Hi, Pete,” she said in a small, hiccupping voice. It wasn’t really that there were
lots
of gorgons at the compound; actually there were way more men. Almost all the adults were male, as were a full three quarters of the teens and kids. But as for the girls his age, they were all gorgons. Every last one of them. Overweight or spaghetti thin, without a healthy complexion among them.

There wasn’t anyone like that Christie he’d met at the freak store—
that
was for sure. She’d even made that little acne bandage on her cheek look sexy.

“What can I do for you?” he said, wondering if the perfection of his glistening body had stunned the gorgon into silence. She was practically drooling on him.

“The Reverend wants to see you,” she said, all breathless. For a moment he almost thought it was one of the worm burgers standing there. Maybe they’d shrivel in the sunlight, like a slug.

“Oh, he does, does he?” Pete said. “I guess I better put some clothes on.”

She giggled, hiding her mouth behind her hand. She was fat, he thought, but she’d almost be passable if it wasn’t for her hair, which hung around her face in a slack curtain. Maybe the Reverend ought to give a few lessons in proper hygiene along with all the fire and brimstone. Cleanliness and Godliness and all that stuff.

Pete asked the girl to hand him his towel, hoping that doing so wouldn’t trigger a massive coronary.

Pete might be the favorite son, but he still had to live in the crowded dormitory with all the Youth. That’s what the Reverend called the teens that lived at the compound. Youth. Kids under twelve were the Children, and twelve to seventeen were the Youth. Pete hated living with the Youth. The dorm—a big open room, with beds lined up in two rows like a military hospital—smelled like an old sweat sock filled with Parmesan cheese. And the kids—if the girls were all gorgons, the boys were all creeps. Furtive, sniveling specimens, many of whom had run away from home. The kid in the next bed—who looked like he was a year or two older than Pete—cried himself to sleep every night, and half the little bastards in the room snored.

Pete didn’t have any friends on the campus, although everyone wanted to be his friend. It was like having a room full of Thornapples, that runty never-shuts-up kid who tried out for the Badgers back home. So poor was the quality of kids at the dorm that it actually made Pete nostalgic for TC. Dumb, lumbering TC—at least that kid could hang in a scrap. At least he peed standing up. The rest of them—ugh.

Pete avoided conversation as he headed to the showers outside the main room. They were gang showers, and they were surprisingly filthy despite the fact that no one other than him seemed to consider regular bathing a priority. Pete showered at least three times a day; once in the morning after his run, once in the evening, and once after his noon tanning session. In the three weeks he’d been there he’d only gotten one sporting event going, a lame game of touch football with a dozen nonathletes who had spindly arms and legs and only played because they wanted him to like them. He blocked a kid too hard after just a few minutes of playing and ended up dislocating the kid’s shoulder. Sports—unless you counted time spent on the firing range—were given as much priority as bathing here.

Pete hung his towel on a hook, brought his bucket of soap and shampoo to the center spigot, and turned the handle. He’d have liked to have a nice cool spray to refresh him after his time in the sun, but the showers only offered one temperature. Hot. Hot like the fires of hell that Pete would no doubt be hearing about in his meeting with the Rev.

He’d just lathered up his chest when Dorman walked into the showers, a faded and threadbare Spider-Man beach towel tied loosely around his skinny waist. Pete gritted his teeth, because he knew that the kid was in there so he could get a look at Pete in the buff, the creepy little perv. “Hey,” Pete called. He wanted the kid to know he was onto his sick game. Dorman muttered a greeting. Wearing only his flip-flops, he wouldn’t meet Pete’s eyes as he walked to a different spigot at the end of the room.

Pete looked over at him. The kid had a spine like a question mark. The skin on his back was covered with bumps. Backne, Pete thought. Real attractive. He hoped Dorman used soap, because he always smelled like day-old bread. Dorman turned to get his head wet, and cut his eyes away, embarrassed, when he saw that Pete was looking at him.

Yeah, caught you looking, didn’t I, you freak, Pete thought.

“I’m going to see the Rev,” he said, liking the way his voice echoed in the tiled room. No one else dared to call the Right Reverend Nathan Mathers anything less than “the Reverend.” Half the time kids walked away, praying, when they heard Pete refer to him as the “Rev.”

“I jutht met with him,” Dorman said. He had a slight lisp, just enough to make Pete want to smash his face in. “I’m going away again. Back home.”

“That’s good, right?” Pete forgot where the kid was from. Some southern backwater where he had it pretty easy because
everybody
hated zombies there.

“Yes,” Dorman said.
Yeth
. What a freak. A skinny, fleshless creep. There was absolutely no muscle tone on his skeletal frame.

“What are you going home for?” Pete asked, leaning his head back into the spray. The temperature might be off, but at least they had good water pressure.

“I’m not supposed to talk about it,” he said.

Pete laughed. “No? We’re pals, aren’t we, Dorman?” he said.

“I’m thupposed to go hunting,” he said, blushing under Pete’s stare. He didn’t say it like he was bragging, though, which caught Pete’s attention. He almost sounded like it was something shameful.

All of the kids in the dorm bragged about killing zombies, and Pete could tell that most of them were full of crap. The kid that cried at night claimed to have personally “sent six demons back to hell,” and a few of the other bed wetters made their encounters with zombiekind sound like dire ninja battles, complete with Norris-esque roundhouse kicking and lethal karate chops that launched zombie heads from zombie shoulders. Pete didn’t believe any of them.

“Really? So you’re going out to reterm yourself some deadheads, huh?”

He looked at Pete then, and it was like the water coming out of the showerhead had dropped a few degrees in temperature.

“Yes,” Dorman said. “Yes. I like hunting the dead.” The kid wasn’t lisping anymore, Pete noticed.

Dorman’s eyes were as empty as any zombie’s Pete had ever seen. And his skin as gray. If it wasn’t for the fluidity of his movement and his speech, Dorman could be one of the demons he pretended to hunt.

“I like hunting them,” he said. His voice didn’t seem to resonate the same way Pete’s did in the room. “I really do.”

The shower washed away a thin sheen of soap suds, revealing four blue-black lines, hash marks, etched into the sallow gray flesh of his shoulder.

A dreamy, beatific look blossomed on Dorman’s face as he looked up at the sputtering nozzle and started humming a tuneless song to himself.

Once clean and out of the shower, away from the weirdo in the flip-flops, Pete dressed quickly for his meeting with the Reverend. When he got to the long corridor that led to the office, Pete stepped up his pace.

The Reverend’s desk was in the corner of the room, his back to a large open window that made him hard to see clearly in the wash of sunlight that streamed through. A large ink drawing of an angel treading on a thick serpent was on the wall to the right of the desk. The angel’s expression was impassive as he poised to stab the serpent with a long thin spear.

“Peter,” the Reverend said. “Please sit. Are you well?”

“I’m fine, sir.” Pete took a chair in front of the big desk.

“Your time here is at an end, Peter,” he said. “You’re going home. For now.”

“What?” Pete said, his voice almost a cry as he half came out of his seat. “I just got here! What do you mean I’m going home?”

“Peter,” the Reverend said, his voice stern. “Your emotions.”

Pete slumped back, fighting his frustration. In the three weeks he’d been on campus, he’d met personally with the Reverend six times, and each time the Reverend spoke at length on the necessity of mastering one’s emotions. Pete inhaled deeply before speaking.

“I don’t love the idea of going back, sir. I’m not happy in Oakvale, living with my mother’s jerk of a husband, and…”

“Peter,” the Reverend said, the features of his face all but obliterated in the light streaming from the high window.

“You don’t write like you’ve mastered your emotions,” Pete replied, too quickly.

The Reverend looked at him over his steepled fingers for a long moment before replying.

“Explain what you mean by that statement,” the Reverend said, the outline of his robes and his dark eyes the only things visible in the wash of light.

Pete’s nerve faltered, and his reply was weak and stammering. He thought he sounded like Dorman. Something about looking into Reverend Mathers’s eyes, which were dark and penetrating, made him acutely aware that being in his presence was a rare gift.

“Well,” he began, “I just meant that…that your feelings are pretty clear when it comes to the undead scourge.”

“And how would you describe my ‘feelings?’” His eyes flashed with a baleful fire as he said the final word. Pete glanced quickly at the snake-destroying angel, but found no help there; its bland expression suggested that the divine being had mastered its emotions at the dawn of creation.

“You…you write very…
passionately
…about the real meaning of the zom…of the undead scourge, and what should be done about it.”

“Which is?”

“‘The undead need to be driven out of the material plane,’” Pete said, “‘by force and by fire. And the way behind them must be sealed by prayer and righteousness.’”

If the Reverend was pleased by Pete’s ability to quote word for word from his works, he didn’t show it. He unlaced his fingers and leaned forward on his desk, rendering the deep lines of his face visible as he spoke.

“You are confusing
displaying
emotion with
creating
emotion,” he said. “I write the way I do in
The Undead Plague
not to purge myself of any ‘feelings,’ but to cause
others
to feel.”

He paused for a moment, then leaned back and let the light streaming from the window obliterate his features. “You also confuse ‘feeling’ with ‘fact.’ The undead are a certain sign of the apocalypse. The Bible is incontrovertible on that matter, and feelings have nothing to do with it. This is why we must do everything in our power to get our message across, as our society is so steeped in sin that they permit abominations to walk among them, to
mingle
with them, rather than obey the Lord’s commands and do what they should be doing. Which is destroying the abominations.”

He kept fading in and out of the light; the effect was almost hypnotic.

“If I employ emotionally charged language with my readers, it is only because I am concerned for their lives and their immortal souls. Unfortunately, people have a tendency to respond more rapidly and more appropriately when frightened or angry than they do if shown care or concern. Fear and hate are stronger motivators than love. And, you’ll find that people respond more to feeling than fact.”

He leaned forward again, the features of his face once again solidifying out of the curtain of light.

“That is why I write the way I do.”

His eyes seemed to be boring into Pete’s head.

“Am I making myself clear on this point, Peter?”

“Yes,” Pete said. “Yes, sir.”

“Good.” The Reverend did not look overly pleased, because even pleasure was considered an emotion that should be suppressed. “As to why it’s time for you to return home to Oakvale. As you know, the undead have been driven underground by the actions of you and Mr. Davidson. It is now illegal in the state of Connecticut to be undead in public and unaccompanied by a legal guardian. We believe that the Oakvale undead are in hiding, and that they never left the town. One was reterminated in Winford the night of yours and Mr. Davidson’s excursion. Another has been given sanctuary by the local Catholic church.”

Pete thought he detected a slight twitch of the lip, a slight sneer, on the Reverend’s face as he imparted this last bit of information.

“And then there’s the leader of the demons, Tommy Williams. He has gone to Washington where he seeks to trick the American government into believing that he and his rotting kind are an oppressed people, deserving succor instead of destruction.”