Copyright © 2011 by Daniel Waters
All rights reserved. Published by Disney • Hyperion Books, an imprint of Disney Book Group. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Disney • Hyperion Books, 114 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 100115690.
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Table of Contents
Also by
How's Life
Doll Parts
My Dead Heart
Purpose Statement
Acknowledgments
About the Author
ALSO BY DANIEL WATERS
The Generation Dead Series
Generation Dead
Kiss of Life
Passing Strange
For everyone on The Wall at mysocalledundeath.com—
Stitches would not exist without you
HOW’S LIFE
“SO…HOW’S LIFE?”
Margi looked at her friend. Colette was smiling, as much as she could smile. The left side of her face still didn’t work very well; her lips curled upward on the right side of her mouth, but on the left they were still a thin, tight line. Still, Margi thought, even this was a remarkable improvement. A month before, Colette hadn’t been able to move any of her facial muscles at all.
“Funny you should ask,” Margi said. “Right now, it is actually kind of suckish.”
“Still…beats…the alternative.”
“Tell it to Adam,” Margi said, looking out the window, out into the woods where Adam had lost his life just a few weeks ago. Margi was on edge; she’d been putting this day off as long as she could, but now it was here. She and Colette were in the Haunted House, an old abandoned farmhouse on the edge of the Oxoboxo woods, where the differently biotic of Oakvale congregated. They were alone in what had at one time been the living room. Margi could hear low voices and shuffling from upstairs, but as yet she hadn’t seen any of the other zombies who stayed at the house besides Karen, who’d traveled over in the van with them from the Hunter Foundation.
Colette hesitated before responding, and Margi felt ashamed for adding to her already considerable misery.
Then again, Colette always hesitated before responding.
“Phoebe…looks…pale.”
Margi had to stifle a giddy laugh that was fluttering around in her chest. But that’s the way life, or “life,” was for her and her friends lately, a constant stream of moments where you weren’t certain if you should laugh or cry. Colette’s commenting on anyone’s lack of pigmentation just added to the absurdity.
She, Colette, and Karen had taken the blue van back to the Haunted House after another depressing Undead Studies class. Phoebe was normally one of the most enthusiastic contributors to the class, but since Adam’s death, she had sat in silence except when called upon. The class itself was down more than a few members, with Tayshawn having quit and Evan being reterminated, and newly dead Adam not having made an appearance since the tragic event. The class—and life in general—was suckish, just like she’d said.
“Phoebe spends all of her time with Adam now,” Margi said. “Not that I blame her, or anything. But it has been a couple of weeks since he died, and he can’t really talk or walk yet. That’s got to be awful for her. For both of them.”
Karen breezed into the room, bearing a large stack of blankets. “These are for you, sweetie,” she said to Margi, dropping the stack on the edge of the sofa. “In case you get cold.”
Margi thanked her. Karen’s smile, unlike Colette’s, was natural in form. Her lips were a shade too pale and her eyes were like diamonds, but Margi thought she was the most beautiful girl she knew. She was wearing a sheer white blouse, short plaid skirt, stockings, and patent leathers. If anyone needed some blankets against the cold it should have been her, but zombies didn’t feel the cold.
Karen’s smile fluctuated a fraction, became a shade less warm and happy, as though she could sense that the bond between Margi and Colette was of a sort that excluded her; but Margi allowed that she may have imagined it, because surely the dead girl couldn’t have that kind of precise control over her expressions.
“Well, then,” Karen said after a moment. “I’ll just leave you two…alone. Ta! I’m off…to see Mal.”
“See you,” Margi said. When Karen left, Colette told Margi that since Adam’s death, Mal had spent most of his time perched outside on a large flat rock overlooking the lake, staring into the sky. Day and night he sat there, looking at clouds and stars, so motionless that birds would alight on him.
“Does he ever say anything?” Margi asked. “Or does he just sit there?”
“Just…sits. Karen…claims…to have conversations…with him. But I…think…she is the…only one…talking.”
“Wow,” Margi said. She pushed her hand into the stack of blankets. The temperature was cold inside the Haunted House, nearly as cold as outside but without the added windchill. The zombies “living” there had no need to run the heat, if in fact it even worked any longer. She’d worn her favorite puffy black jacket and her matching pink hat and mittens, though, and was warm enough.
“Are you cold, Colette?” she said. “I mean, it really is kind of cold in here.”
“I’m not…cold. Thanks…for asking.”
“Sure,” Margi said, but was doubtful. She knew the dead weren’t able to register sensation like the living, but how could she not feel cold in this gray, bare room?
“Well,” Colette said, the half smile returning to her face. “Shall…we?”
“We shall,” Margi said. “But, um, first—does the plumbing work? I have to pee.”
The right side of Colette’s mouth ticked up. “You…wouldn’t…rather go…outside?”
Margi made a goofy face at her. “Har har.”
“It…works. At least…the shower…does. We don’t need…the toilet.”
“’Kay. Thanks.” Margi went down the hall, removing her mittens as she walked, and found the bathroom, which seemed about ten degrees colder than the rest of the house. When she was done she flushed and then washed her hands, and although the water was ice cold, at least everything worked the way it was supposed to. She opened the door.
“Hey, Colette,” she called. “Aren’t you guys afraid the pipes…”
She cried out. Standing in front of her was a tall, gaunt zombie with madly staring eyes. He was wearing an open leather jacket, with nothing underneath, and she couldn’t help but notice that there were patches along his ribs and abdomen where his skin had been removed. His lips curled back from his teeth, which had been filed to points, in a disgusted grimace.
“Ugh,” he said. “Who let the…beating heart…in here?”
She realized that his mad stare was a permanent one, because he had no eyelids.
He was looming in the doorway, blocking much of the light from the hall. Margi wasn’t tall, but she could see another figure just beyond his shoulder. The first one turned so that she could get a better look.
The second zombie didn’t look like any of the ones she knew; it looked more like the ones from the old George Romero movies she used to watch with Colette and Phoebe. His face was a ruin, pitted and scarred, permanently frozen in a look of shock and surprise. His nose was missing. His matted gray-brown hair stood up in tufts from his skull. He wore a tattered brown corduroy shirt, and she thought that she could see bone and torn flesh through its many holes. His eyes conveyed no spark of life or intelligence; they wer
e the eyes of an animal lying dead on the side of the road.
Margi didn’t realize that she’d been backing up until her hip struck the edge of the sink.
“What’s…the matter…bleeder?” the first one said. “Scared?”
She was, but she didn’t like to be intimidated, either. Knowing that they were trying to scare her made her more angry than frightened.
“Um, excuse me,” she said, moving off the sink, seeking to thread her way through them.
The bald, lidless one pushed her back, leaving his hand on her shoulder. “What? Just because…we’re dead…we can’t…use the bathroom?”
“Use it all you want,” Margi replied, her anger piercing through the hazy wall of her fear. She hoped he couldn’t feel her trembling through the padding of her jacket. “Just get your hand off of me.”
He ignored the request. “Maybe…I want…to look in…the mirror,” he said. “I…bet you spend…lots of time…looking…in the mirror.” Most zombies had to work hard to convey emotions via their expressions, but this one had no problem radiating his hatred. The one behind him was completely devoid of expression, which Margi found much more frightening.
“You don’t know anything about me.”
“Oh, I…don’t?” he said. “Miss…pink hair. Miss black clothes and…bangles. Your favorite…possession…on earth…is a…mirror.”
“Whatever. Let me go.”
He squeezed instead. The points of his nails, which were sharpened into claws, popped through the fabric of her coat.
“You think…because…I’m like…this…I’m afraid…of mirrors.”
“I would be, if I were you,” she said, the holes in her jacket pushing her over the edge of irritation. “You’re one ugly so-and-so. Your pal with the clown wig back there is a real cutie, too.”
He straightened, smiling with his pointy teeth as though her words were compliments rather than insults.
“Bioist,” he said. “I like…the way…I look. I…made myself…this way.”
“Goody for you,” she said, drawing her pink mittens back on like they were boxing gloves. “You’ve quite a fashion sense. Now get your hand off of me before I make you wish that you were dead.”
After saying this, she widened her eyes with mock innocence, half covering her mouth with her hand.
“Oops,” she said.
“Bioist filth,” he said, hissing the epithet.
Margi was angry enough to smack his hand away.
“I’m not a bioist!” she yelled. “All of my friends are dead!”
He laughed then, and unlike his evil, sharp-toothed smile, it took real effort. The result wasn’t like real laughter at all but a harsh hacking sound, like someone in the final throes of choking to death.
“They just…wish…they were,” he said.
Margi pushed past them, rejoining Colette in the living room. Colette had gone into Margi’s backpack and fished out her iPod and had the earbuds pressed into her ears. She was trying, and failing, to snap her fingers. Colette, turning, saw the look on her friend’s face and pulled one of the buds from her ear.
“I’m…sorry,” she said. “I didn’t…think…you’d mind.”
“I don’t,” Margi said, although the idea of other people—living or dead—using her earbuds always skeeved her out. “Who are the new meat? A couple of real friendly guys.”
“Who?”
“Popeye and the son of Romero back there. What jerks! They called me a bioist!”
“George called…you…a bioist? He…actually…spoke?”
“Is George the guy with the eyeballs? He did all the talking.”
“No. I don’t…know…his name. He never…gave it. The quiet one…we call…George. He’s…nice.”
“Oh yeah, real nice. If cornering living girls in the bathroom passes for nice around here. Went to the Takayuki School of Charm and Etiquette, did they? Nice.”
“They are…Tak’s friends.”
“Figures.”
Colette removed the other earbud. “Let’s go …outside,” she said. “I think…it is…cooler…outside.”
Still fuming, Margi slipped and nearly fell on the concrete steps leading from the kitchen to the backyard. She kicked at a little hillock of snow, booting it high into the air.
“Haven’t you guys ever heard of deicer? Would it really be so difficult to spread a little rock salt around to keep your living friends from breaking their necks? Or is there a recruitment drive going on?”
“Sorry,” Colette replied. “It makes us…melt. Like the…Wicked…Witch.”
Margi stopped. “Really?”
Colette gave a slow nod. “That’s how…Tak…got the skin…on his hand…burned off . Reaching…into a bag of…rock salt.”
“Seriously?”
Colette’s expression never changed.
“No.”
Margi debated bouncing a snowball off her dead friend’s head, but she realized that Colette was only trying to distract her to snap her out of her foul mood.
“Let’s walk to the lake,” Colette said.
No speech pauses at all, Margi noticed, like she’d been waiting this whole time to blurt out that one phrase.
“I don’t know, Colette,” Margi said. She wasn’t scared of the zombies that confronted her, but she was more than a little frightened of going to the lake.
Colette took Margi’s mittened hand in her own; Margi could feel how cold she was even through the thick fabric.
“Come on, it will…be fine,” Colette said, giving her hand a short squeeze.
Margi forced a smile, wondering if her difficulty in doing so was what it was like for Colette every time she tried to smile.
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s go.”
Let’s go, she thought. Let’s go to the Oxoboxo, back where I let you die.
That’s why she was here for after all, wasn’t it? She was there to discuss Colette’s death, and Margi’s role in causing that death. She shivered.
They walked straight back through the woods, the snow-dusted leaves crunching underfoot.
“You could have worn a coat or something,” Margi said. Colette was wearing a thin Rosedale’s T-shirt. “You know, as solidarity with your bioist friends. I’m cold just looking at you.”
“Not…true,” Colette replied. “You are…always…warm.”
They were still holding hands. Margi wondered if Colette could actually feel her warmth the way she could feel how cold Colette was.
“I guess that’s true. I’m sort of like a human internal combustion engine. A furnace. Even when the heat is down I end up kicking all the blankets off my bed.”
“You…always…did,” Colette said. “Remember when…we three…went camping? You slept…on top…of your…sleeping bag.”
This time it was Margi who gave Colette’s hand a squeeze. Every reminder of their past and how much of their lives they had shared was also a reminder of the great barrier that Margi had allowed to come between them—namely, Colette’s death.
She was about to reply when they entered a small clearing.
“That’s where it happened,” Margi said. “That’s where Adam died.”
They stood at the edge of the clearing. A blue jay lit upon the branch of a thin birch tree, looked at them askance, and then flew away.
“He died saving her,” she said. “He gave up his life so that she could live.”
She was talking about Adam, but she was talking about other things as well. Her and Colette. She sniffed, rubbing her eye with the back of her free hand. She’d felt like crying ever since Colette mentioned the lake, and she wished that she had done more in preparation for this day, other than merely dread its inevitable arrival.
“Let’s…keep going,” Colette said.
Lake Oxoboxo was where she had drowned. Margi remembered everything about that pretty summer day so well, like she’d relived it each day since it happened. She even remembered shopping for the suits that they’d worn that day. T
hey got them on a Weird Sisters’ outing—she, Colette, and Phoebe all had matching bathing suits that they had bought at the mall.
“Good thing we’re all different sizes,” Margi remembered saying. “Otherwise I’d have to kill ya. That’s how much I like this suit.” The suits were one piece, black, and were cut low in the back. Margi was short and buxom, Colette a little on the skinny side, and Phoebe “just right”—perfectly proportioned for the suit. She stepped out of the dressing room looking like she’d just walked out of the pages of the swimsuit catalogue.
“We look like Goth Baywatch,” Margi said as they stood in front of the dressing room mirrors. Phoebe made a comment about their having moon tans.
Phoebe had been on vacation with her folks when the drowning occurred.
Margi realized that she’d never worn the suit since. She’d never even been swimming since.
She allowed Colette to lead her across the clearing. They left footprints where Adam’s body had lain.
“In fact,” Margi said, as though Colette had been able to hear the rest of her thoughts, “I’ve only been back to the lake once. With him—Adam, I mean.”
Colette managed to raise a curious eyebrow. It looked, to Margi, like it took considerable effort.
“No, it wasn’t like that, pervert,” Margi said. “I wish. Adam’s hot. Was hot. Is. Whatever. But we just talked. Phoebe was out with Tommy or something, and Adam and I were having a pity party.”
“What did you…talk…about?”
“You, I guess,” she answered. “Mostly about how scared I was, and how guilty, and…and weak.”
Colette didn’t answer right away.
“Do you know what happened?” Margi said. “Do you know what I was doing while you were busy dying? I never told anyone this.”
Colette turned her head from side to side. Margi was about to tell her when she heard Karen’s voice winding through the trees.
“Hello, sweeties!”
Margi looked ahead and to the left, and she could see Mal on his rock and Karen sitting on a much smaller rock in front of him. She was so white, and her blouse so especially white, that Margi almost didn’t notice her against the snow. Mal’s skin was grayish, similar to the slab of granite he was sitting on. Margi felt her bracelets sliding down her wrist under her coat sleeve as she lifted her arm to wave.
Generation Dead: Stitches Page 1
