“Adam, you scared me half to death! I thought you were a burglar.”
He fell back against the sink, holding his arms up around his neck and panting as if he’d run a mile. “I lost my key.”
I pried the cleaver from the floor and slipped it back into the drawer. “You can lower your arms now.”
His right arm dropped to his side, but his left elbow remained wrapped over his chin. There was a bright orange stain where a piece of flesh the size and shape of a pencil eraser was missing from his forearm. “Adam, what’s that on your arm? And why are you hiding your neck?” I wrenched his hand away, exposing an angry red mark around his throat.
He jerked away. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“But if you—”
“Please. It’s nothing. Really.”
“If you’re sure.”
“I’m sure. Can I sleep on the couch one more night?” Without waiting for me to answer, he went to the family room.
“Of course,” I said to his back. “I’ll let my parents know.” But if he thought the conversation was over, he was sadly mistaken. I’d seen enough suicide victims to know the mark circling his throat was not from any chafing collar or dull shaver.
That was a rope burn.
RULE #12
TREAD LIGHTLY ON HALLOWED GROUND.
Brianna Marshall lay beneath a crisp white sheet—weak chin, college dropout, naked except for chipped black nail polish and a Harley-Davidson tattoo on her left breast. My job was to erase all traces of the twenty-year-old who arrived from the coroner’s the day before and replace her with the girl her mother wished to remember: an angelic vision dressed in a simple lilac frock. But Brianna was not that girl—not even close. A brain clot from some sort of trauma killed her, but traces of cigarette burns, old bruises, and a missing chunk of hair told a darker story. And if re-creating her mother’s distorted image of her daughter wasn’t challenge enough, she was a “post”—aka fresh from autopsy. I had my work cut out for me.
“Dad, you’re hovering,” I said. “I’ve got this.”
“Fine, I need to make a few phone calls anyway. I’ll be back in a while to check on your progress. And don’t forget to fill out your work log this time.” With that he left me alone with Brianna.
“My father’s a bit of a micromanager,” I explained.
I spread out my kit, which once belonged to my grandfather, its leather still surprisingly supple thanks to decades of exposure to skin preservatives. “So this guy, Adam, he’s been avoiding me all day,” I told her.
I removed the tub of “peanut butter”—a hardening compound filler—from the lower cupboard and slathered the creamy beige-brown paste over the incision on the side of Brianna’s head. “All I want to know is where he was last night and how he got that rope burn around his neck. Is that unreasonable? At first I thought a suicide attempt. But then there’s that hole in his arm—a piece of his skin was missing! Like a punch biopsy, only it looked like he’d put antiseptic on it—that orange Mercurochrome crap Nana used on scratches before she found out it had mercury in it. Too weird.”
I continued obsessing over the rope burn as I smoothed and blended, covering the sutures. “Don’t you think he at least owes me an explanation? I mean, if it weren’t for me tripping over him, he’d probably still be down in that hole. Fly fodder.”
I stepped back to assess my work. The application was too heavy-handed, too amateurish. Instead of reconstructing a face, you’d think I was frosting a cake. Normally this was a piece of cake, but not today. Today I’d lost my focus. Clearly.
“Sorry,” I said to Brianna. “Totally off my game today.”
Gritting my teeth, I scraped away the paste to give it another go, but my usual steadiness was gone. By the time I finished, she was as overdone as one of those pageant contestants you see on TV. I grabbed a towel to wipe off the mess but scrubbed too hard and loosened a stitch near her temple. “Aagh!” I pitched aside the towel in disgust, removed the headband holding back her hair, and slingshot it across the room.
My frustration boiled over. I took a deep breath and brought it back to a simmer. “Tell me what I should do, Brianna. Do I confront him?” I wasn’t sure why I was asking her. She had no more answer than I did.
My cell chimed from my back pocket. “Hey, Mal,” I answered flatly.
“You sound funny. Everything all right?”
“Just living the dream.” I could confide in a corpse, but telling Mal about Adam? Not going to happen. She’d confirm what I already knew—I should tell my parents. “What’s up?”
“You and Evan free tonight?”
I glanced at the block of wood temporarily supporting Brianna’s head. “Nah. I don’t know about Evan, but I’ve got a pillow to finish.”
“A pillow? Okay, as your only friend, I’m not about to let you stay home on a Friday night to embroider a pillow. We’ll go do something.”
“Like what?”
“I’ll figure something out. Let Evan know, okay?”
There was a click. “Mal?” She’d hung up on me—but at least she hadn’t given up on me. Lately she’d been spending most of her time with her other friends, but maybe things between us weren’t as shaky as I imagined.
I finished Brianna’s face, then went to my room to work on her headrest. Around nine o’clock Mal texted.
MAL: Pick you all up around 10:30. Wear dark clothing.
ME: Pick me up? You don’t drive. And when DON’T I wear dark clothing?
She never responded. I left a note for my dad telling him I was going out with Mal and went downstairs to wait. As usual, she was late.
“Where’s Evan?” were the first words out of her mouth when I opened the door.
“Upstairs teaching Adam how to slaughter alien hordes. On the computer,” I added, in case there was any confusion.
“Oh,” she said with a shrug, but her fallen expression made it clear she was bummed Evan wouldn’t be joining us. I’d have called her on it, but she’d deny it.
She escorted me out front, where three girls waited in a gleaming new four-door. Those girls. The ones who painted lipstick and nail polish on a dead rat, stuffed it in my gym bag, and pretended it was a joke. Mal’s omission felt like a betrayal, and I wondered what she’d bribed them with to include me, her social ball and chain.
“You didn’t tell me we were going with anyone else, and besides, the car is full.” I said, hoping to finagle my way out of what was sure to be a night of me shadowing Mal.
“It’ll be fine.” She motioned for me to crawl in the back. “It’s just Aslyn, Melissa, and Vega,” she said, as if that made a difference.
It did. It made it worse.
Melissa, sulky and looking good in green (though her nails could use some reshaping), grudgingly scooted to the middle of the back seat to make room for me.
The first stop was a drive-through, where they all ordered fries with lots of ketchup, followed by a cruise around town to kill time—why, they didn’t say. I played along as if I were in on the secret, but a tense knot was growing in my stomach. The whole time they blathered on in banshee voices about shopping sprees, new cars, dating, and other things I couldn’t begin to relate to. It wasn’t like Mallory’s family was any better off than mine. They owned a small, struggling dry cleaner in one of the local strip malls. She was just better at faking it.
We ended up back in my neighborhood, I assumed to drop me off. I assumed wrong.
“It’s midnight,” announced Aslyn. “We’re late.”
I turned to Melissa. “For what?”
“It’s a surprise,” said Vega.
Surprises never bode well. The dead rat was a surprise. So was switching out my flask of hydrochloric acid for formaldehyde in chemistry class. And all in the name of good humor, only I was never the one laughing.
We passed my house and kept on going. I had a sinking feeling I knew where we were headed. The car slowed and drifted to a stop on an unlit road beside a fami
liar stone wall smothered in ivy. Ahead sat three more parked cars, all empty. The girls’ voices fell to a guarded hush. My hunch was right. We were at the far end of the Lassiter property. This had to have been Mal’s idea.
“Everybody out,” ordered Vega.
“Mal, why are we here?” I whispered.
“Because if we go in this way, we won’t alert the neighbors,” she said. That’s not what I meant and she knew it.
She took my hand and gave me a toothy smile. “It’s the perfect setting. It’ll be fun.” Translation: You’re so screwed. It wasn’t like I could stay in the car while they all went to do whatever it was they were here to do, and I wasn’t about to walk home by myself this late at night. So, against my better judgment, I let Mal lead me through a gap in the wall where the stacked stones had fallen. We pushed through a thicket of oleanders crowding the other side and emerged into what was left of the walnut grove. The smell of ash still lingered in the leaden night air.
My blood turned cold. The twenty or so figures gathered in the gloom were the same people who’d made my life a living nightmare all last year. Some stood shoulder to shoulder, hands in their pockets. They could have been mistaken for grave statuaries if not for their hushed whispers. Others perched on a toppled tree like gargoyles, heads bowed and knees bent. They all thought they were so cool, but I knew better. Up until a few weeks ago not one of them would have ventured here on their own.
Most wore ripped T-shirts smeared with what I assumed was ketchup; flattened tomato-red packets littered much of the ground at my feet. “Here,” said Aslyn, tossing me one. I shoved it in my pocket, now understanding the reason they ordered fries.
“You’re late,” crooned a voice I’d learned to loathe.
Dana Blackwell.
Back in sixth grade she was this skinny girl with knock-knees and buckteeth, but thanks to her parents’ ample bank account and the miracles of modern dentistry, she was now a model for a minor fashion agency and a “total smoke show,” according to Evan. Rachel was forever pointing her out to me in the online JCPenney catalog, saying, “See what the right clothes and a touch of makeup can do?”
I always wanted to respond with “And see what dressing down stiffs can do?” No one gives a crap what you look like when that’s your job description.
I elbowed Mal. “Okay, now can you tell me why we’re here?”
“Zombie tag,” said Vega. “Right up your alley.”
“Zombie tag?”
“It’s only a game,” said Mal. “Relax, okay?”
Relax? Yeah, that’s going to happen.
They gathered around the entrance to the Lassiter family cemetery. Adam and I had seldom ventured near here, not because of the graves but because of the rat and snake-infested woodpile just beyond it.
I nodded toward the iron-girdled graveyard. “Out of respect, wouldn’t a park be better?”
“Hey, Morticia, what’s the problem?” taunted Jake Najarian. “Aren’t graveyards your regular stomping grounds?” This from the genius who copied off my geometry exams all last year. The problem was he’d nailed the truth. I’d spent as many hours in cemeteries and graveyards as most of them had spent glued to their games—not that I had anything against video games. I just had the reflexes of a sloth.
Vega, who was apparently the ringmaster for tonight’s festivities, went on to explain that first we had to select who would be it. Someone suggested we draw straws, but Aslyn dragged me from the back of the pack. “I say we pick Lily. She was made for the role!” This solicited a wheezy chortle from a short, nerdy guy dressed in what I guessed was supposed to be an undertaker’s suit, although I couldn’t recall anyone in my family ever dressing in tails.
Of course they all agreed I was the perfect candidate. I’m so sorry, Mal mouthed at me. I told myself to be a good sport. It could be worse. I could be getting a root canal. But I also wasn’t stupid; they were mocking me as much as including me. “What do I have to do?”
Mal beamed and flipped me a thumbs-up.
“Close your eyes,” said Vega, “count to one hundred, and then come find us. Home base is . . .” She spun around. “We need something small. Jake, give me that pack of condoms in your back pocket. Come on, I know you’ve got ’em.”
With a proud smirk, he slipped the plastic-wrapped rubbers onto a nearby tree stump, and several whoops went up accompanied by a few awkward snickers and snorts.
“Your goal, Lily, is to tag each of us before we can tag the condoms and shout ‘safe.’ Anyone you catch before they reach home base becomes a zombie and has to help you hunt down the others. But if you don’t manage to tag anyone before they call ‘safe,’ then you’re it again.”
“Yeah,” said nerd-with-tails, “and don’t forget to moan and groan and walk all stiff-like, you know, like . . . like the living dead.” His eyes bugged out, channeling his inner Boris Karloff.
“Da-da-da-doom,” sang Jake, very melodramatically.
I should have walked away, but I didn’t have the courage—the gumption, to use Nana’s word—to say no. Reluctantly I leaned against the tree stump, buried my head in my arms, and began counting out loud. I wanted to get this over with.
“Slower and louder,” called one of the girls.
Behind me, feet swished through dried grass. Guarded whispers and ghostly murmurs filled the air. I imagined it was the Lassiter dead, begging me to stop this charade, this treason. I asked for their forgiveness, but it wasn’t them I feared. It was the ones skulking in the shrubbery and tramping through the bone-dry irrigation channels. I knew what the living were capable of.
“ . . . ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one hundred.” My eyes opened. I was alone in the stillness of the orchard. Everyone else had vanished into the moonless night. For a moment I wished it could stay that way, but then the panic set in. What if this was another joke? What if they ditched me to go off partying somewhere else? Mal wouldn’t do that to me, would she?
“Moan!” commanded a deep voice from the far-off oleander bushes. They did know oleander leaves and blossoms were poisonous, right?
I refused to moan, but as a concession, I stuck my arms out in front of me. Muscle memory from months of wearing braces took over, and soon I was swinging my legs all lock-kneed and looking like something out of a B-rated horror flick. My bleached-flour skin nearly glowed, making the whole act even more convincing.
I swayed and lurched toward the rustling oleanders, but then had a brain flash. They wanted the base. If I stuck close to it, I’d have a better chance of tagging someone.
“We can’t he-e-a-r you,” shouted Vega from the opposite direction. There were giggles, followed by “Stop that!”
I stalked a twenty-foot perimeter, never letting the tree stump leave my sight. More voices baited me, but I’d devised a strategy to lure them out. Crouching beside the tree split by lightning, I waited.
There was a patter of running feet; someone was making a break for the Trojans. I leaped up, but my foot snagged on a vine and I was down for the count.
“Safe!” Another pair of feet dashed through the grass, followed by another shout-out. Soon it was a stampede. If I didn’t get up and tag someone, I’d be the diseased, flesh-eating zombie all over again.
I pushed up onto my bruised knees and discovered I was an arm’s length from the odd granite stone I’d seen lying at the foot of the tree the day Evan, Mal, and I had snuck onto the property. Its edges were too sharp, its face too free of lichen, for it to have been here more than a few years. More than that, its placement was too deliberate. Ignoring the shouts and pounding feet, the taunts and laughter, I flipped the stone over.
No. That can’t be right. It can’t. But the deeply chiseled words were unmistakable: OUR BELOVED SON, ADAM N. LASSITER, followed by birth and death dates. The name could have been a coincidence, but not the dates. Trusting that my memory of Roman numerals was correct, the deceased would be almost nineteen today—if he hadn’t died five years ago.
Stil
l not convinced, I dug into the soft earth and let it sift through my hand. Bits of black ash and bone clung to my skin. If this was the grave of my childhood friend, then who did I unearth from the fallout shelter?
RULE #13
TAG, BAG, AND DOCUMENT EVERYTHING.
The next morning I found a note taped to my stapler. It was from Adam.
Please call again about my father’s remains.
I ripped it off, shoved it into the shredder, and savored the grinding of the blades. Let him call the coroner himself.
I’d been a fool for listening to my bleeding heart; Adam couldn’t possibly be the boy who once breathed me back to life.
It wasn’t as if we hadn’t tried to have Neil Lassiter’s body brought here. Rachel called the coroner’s office at least three times, and each time she received the same answer: the release had been delayed. It wasn’t all that unusual in a criminal case, but now I was convinced there was more to Neil Lassiter’s death than the police officers let on. More importantly, who did I find trapped in the shelter, and why did he care so much about retrieving a body?
There was one way to find out. I dialed Marty at the coroner’s office, and a man answered on the fourth ring. I didn’t recognize his voice. He must have been new. I gave him Neil’s name, and he put me on hold immediately. The rapid click click of my pen exposed my impatience.
A woman finally came on the line. “This is Racine. How can I help you?”
“Hi, Racine. This is Lily McCrae with the McCrae Family Funeral Home. Is Marty there?”
“Marty no longer works here.”
Odd. “Well, I’m calling to arrange a pickup for Neil Lassiter.” There was an awkward pause on the other end. “Racine?”
“I’m afraid the deceased made very specific arrangements with Eternal Memorial prior to his death.”
Through gritted teeth I explained that there’d been a mistake and that his son wished to have him brought here. She insisted that no relatives were listed. More proof Adam was lying. There was another very pregnant pause, and at that point I knew something else was up. “So EMS picked up the body.”
Mortal Remains Page 9
