Generation Dead

by Daniel Waters

  "Yeah," he said, dropping the volume of his voice. "The STD is letting me use the truck."

  "The beat-up brown thing? That's pretty big of him. What happened?"

  "Mom's been working on him. I think she pointed out that it was a little unfair for us to have six vehicles and I was the only one who didn't get to drive one."

  "Yeah, your yard looks like a used car lot. Or a 'well-used' car lot, as my dad says."

  He heard the amused lilt in her voice and he closed his eyes so he could imagine her expression, one green eye peeking out at him beneath a swath of jet-black hair.

  "He must be pretty ticked. We're like a bad cliché." He could picture Mr. Kendall arriving home from work and frowning as he looked over from his front steps at this weeks' crop of rehab vehicles littering the driveway and yard.

  "He's okay, really. If we ever get ready to move, he'll probably ask the STD to clean things up until the house is sold."

  "Don't ever move, Phoebe," he said. "You might be the only sane person I know."

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  She laughed. "Then you're in more trouble than I thought. Seven fifteen?"

  "It's a date," he said, and hung up. A date. The idea of Phoebe moving left him with a weird feeling, a feeling that had nothing to do with Phoebe being the only sane person in his personal cosmos.

  "Layman!" his older and frailer stepbrother, Jimmy, called from the other room. "Get off the flippin' phone! I'm waiting for a call."

  "Okay," Adam said, and started his breathing again before heading down the hall to his room.

  "About time," Jimmy said, shoulder checking him on his way to the phone. It was pathetic, Adam thought. Jimmy was half his size, but Adam had to pretend that he was intimidated by him to keep the peace in Casa de STD.

  Adam lay on his bed and opened Wuthering Heights , the first major punishment of the school year, one that he was supposed to have endured over the summer. He closed it again after two paragraphs. There were a lot of things bugging him about his home life and the first week of school, and it took a few moments to identify which one was bothering him at the moment, but then he had it.

  Phoebe cared as much about football as he did about the Bronte sisters. What was it about that dead kid?

  "Is that a new dress?" Adam asked, observing Phoebe with a scrutiny only a childhood friend could get away with. He forced himself to say something, because if he didn't, he knew

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  he'd be sitting there slack-jawed, his eyes goggling at her. The dress went down to her ankles, but somehow accented her gentle curves despite all the fabric. She had on her calf-high boots and a light gray vest, and her jewelry was all silver or silver-colored. He thought she looked like a gothic cowgirl.

  Phoebe might dress a little weird, and sometimes she went overboard on the makeup, but there was no disguising how beautiful she was. She had wide hazel-green eyes that were mirthful no matter how funerary her clothing appeared, and her long dark hair softened her somewhat angular features and framed them in a way that made her face look heart-shaped from a distance.

  He realized he might be blushing.

  Her glance was quizzical, and he hoped she hadn't sensed the growing shift in how he felt about her. There was a hollow feeling in his stomach even though he'd filled it with eggs and sausage not a half hour earlier. The hollow feeling grew when he realized that the new dress probably had more to do with Tommy Williams than it did with him.

  "It most certainly is," she said, brushing strands of her long black hair away from her eyes. It was one of his favorite mannerisms. "Thanks for noticing."

  "And black, a completely different look for you," he said, taking refuge in the light banter that was as natural as sleep to them.

  "Har-har. See, karate has made you more observant, too." "All part of my never-ending quest to be more of the person I always was."

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  "Excellent. I applaud your dedication," she said, and he felt her light touch on his arm. "And how was your date with Emily last night?"

  "Emily?"

  "Brontë. Wuthering Heights?"

  "Oh yeah, her. We've kind of hit a rough patch, me and Em."

  "Too bad. I always thought that she could help you ...you know ...become the person you always were."

  "That's just it," he said, mock-punching the dashboard. "She keeps trying to change me!"

  They had a good laugh over that, and Phoebe, catching her breath, leaned her head against his shoulder. A clean hint of scent, some island flower that Adam could not identify, wafted from her jet-black hair, and the laughter died in Adam's throat.

  "So," he said, "you're hanging out after school today?"

  "Yeah. I thought I'd get some stuff done in the library."

  "Library closes at four. Practice can go pretty late some days, especially when Coach is hacked off. And I think he'll be hacked off today."

  "Why do you think he'll be hacked off?"

  "Dead kid walking."

  "About that," she said. "How does the rest of the team feel?"

  "Oh, they're thrilled. Who doesn't want to hit the showers with a corpse?"

  "Adam," she said, and there might have been a warning in her voice.

  "I think Williams will have a difficult time," he said, being

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  careful. "Many people are still terrified of the living impaired."

  Phoebe nodded, hugging herself even though he had the heater on in the truck.

  He stepped out on the ice; why not? "You seem interested in Williams," he said, pretending to glance in the rearview mirror. "In his situation, I mean."

  She nodded. "I am. Some of the living impaired kids that moved into town this year are pretty interesting, you know? Like that girl we saw yesterday in the cafeteria."

  "Yeah, she sure is."

  "Pervert," she replied. "But really, dressing like she does, him trying to play football--I think it must take a certain bravery on their part, you know?"

  "That's what interests you? Their bravery?"

  "Well," she said, "the whole idea of the living impaired interests me. There's so many questions, so much mystery about the whole thing."

  "Like with Colette," he said, and as soon as he said it he wished he'd stuck with the Williams angle.

  "Like with Colette," Phoebe whispered, putting her head back on his shoulder. He hoped that she didn't notice how slow he was driving.

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  ***

  CHAPTER FOUR

  P HOEBE WAITED IN THE foyer for Margi after arriving with Adam at school. At least that's what she told herself she was doing, even as she peered over the top of her history textbook, watching Colette and then Tommy get off the bus. Colette moved with a dragging, side to side motion, her eyes fixed on a single point on some unseen horizon. She had trouble with the steps of the bus and then the steps leading up to the door, and Phoebe knew from previous observations that the motion required to open doors was very complex for her.

  Tommy exited after her but reached the school first. He moved more like a student who had stayed up too late the night before, drinking soda and eating pizza, than he did a "typical" living impaired person. There was a pause between the motion of gripping the door handle and the motion of opening it, but the motions themselves weren't all that awkward. He held the

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  door open for Colette and a pair of living girls, who sidestepped him in favor of another entrance rather than allow themselves to be victimized by Tommy's courtesy.

  She watched Tommy enter the building. He was wearing a slate-blue polo shirt and jeans and white high-top sneakers. He seemed to stand straighter than the other boys she saw milling around, but that might just have been a side effect of the odd way he walked.

  His shirt matched the color of his eyes, she thought.

  Margi was the second to last person off the bus, having wedged herself in the backseat with her iPod and a dark, cloudy look on her face beneath her pink bangs. Phoebe waved, hoping to cheer her. No suc
h luck.

  "Hi, Margi," she said. Maybe excessive perkiness could win the day.

  "Don't you 'hi' me," she said. "You, the traitor who abandons me to ride the doomsday bus. I wish that Lame Man had failed his driver's test. I'm going to fail my spelling quiz today."

  "Oh my. You need to relax, girl."

  "Relax, nothing."

  "Doomsday bus? Come on."

  Margi held up one bangle-covered arm. "Colette is really

  freaking me out."

  "I know. Did they sit together again today?"

  "I didn't notice."

  "Yeah, you did."

  Margi pinched her eyes and stuck out her tongue at her.

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  "They sat together. He stepped back so she could get off the bus before him."

  "Quite the gentleman, I've noticed."

  "You would."

  "Of course I would. We have the poet's eye, you and me."

  "Please. I don't want to see any of it."

  "Margi," Phoebe said, catching Margi's wrists as they waved around in front of her, "we'll need to talk to her sometime. It will be good. For all of us."

  She thought that some of the color left Margi's already pallid cheeks. "Not yet," she said. Phoebe barely heard her over the boisterous entrance of another busload of students.

  "We're going to be late," Margi said, and shook free of Phoebe's grip before giving her a weak smile. "Come on."

  Phoebe got her bag from off the floor and followed her to their lockers, and then to homeroom.

  Just eye contact, Pete thought as he leaned back in his chair, stretching and flexing his arms. That's all I need.

  "Am I boring you, Mr. Martinsburg?" Ms. Rodriguez asked. No one other than Stavis and that blond bim-bette Holly, who had dated Lame Man for a while, dared laugh.

  "I'm not bored, Ms. Rodriguez," he said. "I'm just a little sore from yesterday's practice. I'm sorry I distracted you."

  Ms. Rodriguez shook her head and went back to the board to discuss some thrilling quadratic equation or whatever.

  I bet you were distracted too, you old bag, he thought.

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  It isn't every day you get to check out guns like mine.

  He turned quickly toward the windows, where Lame Man's freaky chick sat, and there he had it: contact. He gave her the look that always worked with Cammy's empty-headed friends, and if Morticia Scarypants didn't just melt away, he knew at least that her heart would trip a couple beats faster.

  She looked away, just as quickly.

  Got you, he thought, making a mental note to follow up on her later. He took a full inventory of her, half hoping that she would glance back and see the look of open appreciation on his face. She was one of the only girls in the class wearing a dress, and her sleek black hair really was striking. It fell past her shoulders, and she was pretty good at using it to keep her pale face in shadow most of the time. Pretty green eyes, but not fake contact-lens green. Her hair reflected the light falling through the windows.

  Ms. Rodriguez called on the dead kid a few minutes later-- the dead kid who would soon be putting on a nice new practice uniform and some spanking-new pads and helmet. New gear, old dead kid. Pete wanted to puke. He tapped his desk with his pencil and didn't stop until the dead kid answered--correctly, as luck would have it. That would make two questions more than Pete had been able to answer, and the school year wasn't even a month old yet.

  He thought that Scarypants was looking over at him again, which was great, just great. It would really frost Lame Man if he were to tag her, even if the big dummy was too emotionally stunted to realize his true feelings for her. Pete thought maybe

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  he'd tell Adam he'd quit with her if Adam would wise up and get his head back in the game. Maybe.

  Pete lingered when the bell rang, figuring that if Scarypants engaged in a little more eye contact he'd go ahead and make his play right there between classes. He saw her stand up, and he liked the way her skirt cut in at her waist--she had a nice little figure under all of those layers.

  She was taking her time as well, but it wasn't Pete Martinsburg, slayer of college girls, that she was waiting around for. It was the dead kid.

  Huh, Pete thought.

  She just won't shut up, Adam thought as he nodded his head to every third or fourth point that Holly Pelletier was making, and yet she wasn't really saying anything.

  Holly must have noticed the insincerity of attention, because she moved close enough for him to smell the strawberry scent of her gum. Or maybe it was her lip gloss that he was smelling, or her hair spray. Adam realized that there was a time when the smell, and Holly's proximity to him, would have activated certain chemicals and drives in his body, but now all he could think was how artificial the scent was. He knew that if he were to bend down and kiss Holly, as he'd done many times before, it wouldn't be strawberry he would taste but some chemical version of strawberry. And for the first time, the idea of kissing Holly was not exciting; it was faintly nauseating.

  What the hell is happening to me? he thought.

  Holly never made full eye contact with him during her

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  hallway monologues; she was too interested in who was walking by. Adam was having trouble maintaining focus as well because he'd seen Phoebe lingering by the bulletin board in front of the office down the hall, waiting to talk to him before he headed into practice. He almost missed the sudden wave of disgust that clouded Holly's traditionally pretty face. Adam turned and saw what she was sneering at: the pretty dead girl, she of the risqué hemlines.

  "Ugh," Holly said. "I feel so bad for you, having to practice with that dead kid. Imagine if that went out for our squad?" She pointed at "that," not caring who heard her.

  "Imagine," Adam said, watching the girl pass. She didn't move like a dead girl, that was for sure. Adam realized that her clothes had distracted him from another difference--she had a slight, barely perceptible smile on her lips. A bemused smile, one not so different from the one he often caught on Phoebe's face. Most of the other zombies he'd seen wore blank expressions, as if their facial muscles had hardened into place like old caulk.

  Holly watched the girl pass, her fake strawberry lips curling. "It's so gross. Imagine having to touch her? I feel so bad for you. I hope the zombie gets cut from the team. There shouldn't be a dead Badger on the field. That would be so wrong. Can you imagine?"

  I can so imagine, Adam thought. He watched Phoebe turn from the bulletin board when the dead girl approached, and he saw Phoebe smile at her before turning back and pretending to read whatever was posted there for the eleventh time.

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  Phoebe was holding some books against a cocked hip, her opposite shoulder dragged down by a black canvas bag stuffed with still more books. "Get it? A dead Badger?" Holly was saying.

  "Hey, Holly. You'll have to excuse me. I need to go talk to Phoebe."

  Holly's sapphire-blue eyes narrowed with such speed that Adam thought she would pop out a contact. "Phoebe? Who's Phoebe?"

  "She is," Adam said, nodding over to where Phoebe stood, leaning precariously against the weight of her enormous satchel, while at the same time rubbing at the back of her calf with the toe of her black boot. "She's my best friend."

  "Her?" Holly said. "That goth over there?"

  "Yep," Adam replied. "I'll see you later."

  People moved out of his way when he cut across the hall to join Phoebe. He wasn't into pushing kids around like Pete and Stavis were, but he'd spent the past two years hanging around them, and he'd never lifted a finger to curtail their actions, either. That was something else that needed to change, he thought.

  "Hey, Pheeble," he called, a weird lightness spreading through his chest.

  "Hello, Adam," Phoebe said, looking startled. Adam lifted the heavy bag of books off her shoulder.

  Phoebe peeked out around him. "Uh, I think you might have ticked off Whatsername. She looks ready to rip the letter off your jacket."


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  "Yeah, I just dropped a bomb on her."

  "Really?" Phoebe said as they started to walk toward the library. "Did you propose marriage?" She giggled, and Adam felt the lightness move out to his extremities. "Or was it something more earthy?"

  "Ha-ha. And what makes you think it would be me doing the proposing?"

  "Good point."

  He heard his own voice slip out of banter mode, and for once he didn't care if Phoebe picked up on it. "I told Holly that we were friends. You and me."

  Phoebe stopped. "Really?"

  He looked at her. "Really."

  She lowered her gaze, but when she looked back up at him her eyes were filled with mirth. "Won't they revoke your charter membership in the cool kids club?"

  They started walking again. "Let 'em. The truth has set me free."

  She bumped into him, trying to throw him off balance, but it was like a butterfly trying to unsettle an oak tree.

  "I wish you'd taken karate a few years earlier, Adam," she said.

  "Shut up, Pheeble. Or I'll chop you." "Kii-ya!" she said, beating him to it.

  He walked her to the library, and then headed off to go practice with the living and the dead.

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  ***

  CHAPTER FIVE

  TOMMY WILLIAMS WAS THE last one to finish the warm-up lap around Oakvale Field.

  When he was a freshman, Adam had arrived back at the starting point consistently in the back of the pack, but Coach Konrathy didn't care, because Adam was about as wide as any two students and about as strong as any three. Six-foot-five freshmen were rare enough, but a six-foot-five freshman with muscles was like some exotic animal where Oakvale athletics was concerned.

  But now there was an even more exotic specimen on the field. Namely, a dead kid.

  Never before had a zombie tried out for any sport in the district. Tommy trotted--and what a weird trot, like someone was yanking his ankle from behind with each step he took-- over to the loose cluster of players near Coach Konrathy. Many of the players were covered in sweat beneath their pads and

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  trying to control their breathing, but the dead kid wasn't even winded.

  He doesn't breathe, Adam remembered. Adam was sweating freely but his breathing was pretty good. Trying to keep in shape in the off-season with lifting and karate was paying dividends. He knew he'd never be the fastest guy on the field, but there was no reason he needed to be the most out of shape. Karate gave him some techniques that were going to keep him on the field longer, and it also gave him some tricks he couldn't wait to spring on those bastards from Winford. The season couldn't start soon enough, as far as he was concerned. Normally he loved the practice and the discipline of it, but the recent tension with Pete took some of the luster away--and that was before the dead kid joined. Adam tried to avoid getting caught up in the philosophical aspects of the new addition to the team, but it was undeniable that the presence of Tommy Williams cast a hush over what was usually a pretty boisterous event.