“Well, here we are,” he said. “Too bad I don’t get to walk you to your door. I kind of like it.”
“Well, this is sort of the same thing. Only it’s...your door. And we’re walking away from it.”
“Yeah, it is.” He licked his lips.
I leaned in slightly. “Good night Gage,” I whispered and turned around.
“Kenzie wait,” I heard him say. I stopped at the bottom of the porch steps and he followed me down. He took a few steps in closer to me and was now out of reach of the porch’s light so I couldn’t see his face clearly. What I did see was the silhouette of his hands as they cupped my cheeks and his head as it dipped down and pressed his lips against mine. As we broke apart I felt myself smiling before he turned to walk up the steps and back inside.
chapter eight
It was my idea to go to a haunted house the weekend before Halloween. There was one at a nearby fall festival, and I asked Gage to go. So what if all our friends wanted to tag along? The more the merrier, right?
We pulled up to the festival grounds just after dark. Matt, Paige and I were in the backseat and had to wait for Elizabeth and Jacey, who refused to un-link arms to crawl out of the middle. Gage, whose car had broken down and been sent for repairs, had borrowed his mother’s van for the drive, despite Elizabeth’s constant complaints that it looked like a “mom car.” No kidding.
As we approached the main entrance, Jacey nudged me and pointed in the distance. It took me a minute of squinting to see the three teenage girls snapping pictures from a distance. I hadn’t gotten much of this yet, but knew most Immortals were the subject of gawking wherever they went. Grandpa says it was the same for pre-Immortal celebrities, like actors and musicians.
The house was one of those typical festival attractions that have been around for years. Of course, the ones in The Necropolis, I soon discovered, were much more elaborate than the ones in Rochester. Halfway through, the blinding combination of strobe lights followed by darkness caused me to lose Gage. There was a moment of silence before the next monster attack — a man in a mask I recognized as Leatherface thanks to Luke’s love of classic movies.
The man in the Leatherface mask was carrying a powered up chainsaw that buzzed just loud enough to drown out our screams. In a moment of adrenaline induced fear, I buried my head in the nearest available shoulder. I thought it was Jacey’s since she had been to my left before we got in, but as I looked up when the strobe lights flashed again, I saw that it was Matt’s.
Luckily Paige had also lost her way in the chaos so I didn’t have to compete with her for arm space. I didn’t even see her as I gripped Matt’s arm or as he smiled and laid his hand over mine as we proceeded forward.
We stopped by a food booth after the haunted house. Matt and Paige talked softly, Jacey turned her head away from them, and Elizabeth attempted to flirt with a worker to get a free drink. Gage and I ate in silence.
Jacey and I were the first to finish and headed back to the van alone. Jacey was still sipping on something out of a plastic cup; it had been sweet tea back at the booth, but I presumed from the smell of liquid that mysteriously appeared when the workers’ backs were turned that it was now a bit more.
“Did you have fun?” I asked.
She nodded and took another sip. “I did have fun. You should pick the group outings more often.” She emphasized the word group as if she would rather not hang out with these particular people. I didn’t bother to tell her that that night I would have preferred not to hang out with most of them either.
“Hey Jacey, I said, “Is it awkward hanging out with Matt? Especially with him dating Paige now? If it bothers you, I don’t have to invite them next time.”
She shook her head. “Not really. I’ve gotten used to him flirting with other girls. Hell, he did that when we were dating. He says they come onto him, but it’s not like he doesn’t enjoy it. Besides, he’s not really into Paige.”
“What do you mean? If he doesn’t like her, then why is he dating her?”
“He does like her.” She took one last swig of her drink. “But he’s not super crazy about her or anything. He’s just having fun. They both know it’s not going anywhere. She’s sort of...a placeholder.”
“Placeholder? Like, he’s just waiting for someone better to come along?’
She nodded.
“But...who? Does he have some fantasy woman he’s holding out for?” When Luke was younger, he had had a particularly interesting fantasy about someone named Wonder Woman.
Jacey scoffed. “Forget it,” she said and squished her now empty cup. “Placeholder isn’t the right word.” She threw the cup onto the curb and it hit the concrete with much more force than I had expected.
The next weekend was Elizabeth’s Halloween party. “Be sure to wear a cute costume!” she said to me as she bounded out the door after biology. With all the preparations she’d been talking about lately, I was surprised she came to class at all.
Back when my parents first got married and some people actually read for fun, there was a really popular book series about a wizard boy named Harry Potter. Mom used to read the books to Luke and me before bed as kids; we had always loved them but had yet to find anyone who shared our interest. Naturally, when I told Jacey the idea the week before the party and explained the series to her, she scoffed.
“Have you ever been to a Halloween party, Kenzie?” she said.
“Well...no.”
She sighed. “Tell you what. Show me the costume you’re thinking of wearing, and I’ll tell you what you should do.”
So I messaged her a picture of me in a tight black sweater, skirt and stockings with black flats. It was exactly the kind of costume my friends back home would have worn for Halloween, but Jacey had replied with a picture of some costume I didn’t recognize. It was all black too, but there was far less of it.
So I ended up at the party as some random animal prostitute, I don’t really even remember what. I do remember pulling a long jacket tightly over my body as I walked out the door so Luke wouldn’t see me. I definitely remember Elizabeth greeting me at the door in an outfit even more revealing, carrying a telltale plastic cup in one hand while using the other to keep her balance. I couldn’t tell whether her lack of coordination was from the six inch high heels or the amount of stuff in the red cup she had already drank.
Elizabeth didn’t have a house of her own, but her apartment rivaled even some of the nicest houses in my neighborhood. A sprawling foyer with marble floors was decorated with painted pumpkins and a Frankenstein figurine I knew had to have cost her several hundred dollars. The living room was bigger than most electronics stores I had been in and a spiral staircase wound up the back wall to an ornately carved door. The bannister was decorated with orange and gold streamers, and the entire room was covered in fog and filled with other people wearing skimpy outfits and carrying red plastic cups. I was admiring the streamers on the punch bowl when I felt a leathery hand squeeze my shoulder. I shrieked.
“Woah there, little lady.” Gage turned me around to face him. He was dressed in full cowboy gear, including a hat that covered most of his face. “I know it’s Halloween, but am I really that scary looking?”
I sighed. “Don’t do that, you jackass.” He laughed and leaned in to kiss me.
“So how does it look?” he said. “Elizabeth and Matt and me spent two hours in some party store picking it all out. And of course she made us put it all up.”
“It looks good,” I said. “I didn’t know you helped decorate.”
He nodded and grimaced. “She called me from the store and asked if we could help. Guess she’s no Martha Stewart.”
“Woah Gage, you know who Martha Stewart is?”
“Amazing, isn’t it? My mom used to practically worship her. Apparently reruns of some old show she used to have still air on TV in the mornings. She watches them sometimes on her days off. And every now and then when I’m home, she’ll watch them and forbid me from changing th
e channel.”
“And you can’t go in another room?”
“Nah, too lazy.” he said. “Want some punch?”
“That depends,” I said. “What’s in it?”
“Knowing Elizabeth, probably a little of her good friend Captain Morgan.” He stretched. “Want me to get you a glass?”
I shrugged. Why not? I was here and I couldn't think of a good enough reason to refuse. Besides, it’s not like there were going to be any negative consequences. Right?
Gage drove me, Matt and Jacey home later that night. Somehow I'd convinced myself that it would be okay to have that extra cup of punch and felt a little dizzy; I lay my head against the back of the seat and closed my eyes.
But that didn’t last long. There was a noise from the back seat. I twisted my torso around to look; Matt’s arm was around Jacey and she was giggling. She kissed him gently and laid her hand on his cheek as the kiss grew deeper. His hand crept to her waist and he leaned down, positioning them lying down in the backseat.
“Yuck,” Gage said. “What are you guys doing back there? Making a porno?”
Jacey broke away. “Shut up Gage.” She giggled again and buried her mouth in Matt’s.
Gage craned his neck to look closer. “Seriously, can you guys be a little bit quieter? I don’t want to have to...oh shit.”
He slammed on the brakes. Just a few feet to our side, another car honked and drove away, its tires squealing on the asphalt.
“Woah,” Jacey said.
“Are you guys okay?” Gage put a hand on my arm and craned his neck back toward the backseat.
“Yeah, we’re fine,” Matt said. “What the hell was that?”
“Guess I just wasn’t paying attention.” He sighed, but his hands were still shaking.
“Are you okay Gage?” I said. “Do you want me to drive?”
He shook his head. “No, I’ll be fine. But seriously you two, stop making out in the backseat. It’s way too distracting.”
chapter nine
Matt had a poetry reading a few days later and Gage talked Paige and me into going with him. It would be a first for both of us; Matt hadn’t read at many because you had to be invited, and most of them were outside The Necropolis and on school nights so he couldn’t go. But this one was on a Friday night, and spending Friday night in a warm coffee shop sounded much more appealing than spending it on a dark road dodging drivers doped up on TNV and vodka.
“I really hope this isn’t boring,” Paige whispered to me as Matt and Gage talked about something else up front. “I really like poetry, especially Matt’s. But I bet a lot of the other people reading are old and writing about stuff I don’t care about.”
“I guess we’ll have to wait and see,” I said. “I bet some of the other readers are poets too.”
“I hope so,” she responded. “Because I do like it. Most people don’t believe me when I say that.”
“Really? Why not?”
She shrugged. “Probably because I want to be a doctor, like you. People think poetry is boring for anyone who isn’t a poet, I guess.”
“So, you want to be a doctor? Me too! How much longer do you have until college?”
She sighed. “Three years. I’m just a freshman now. I can’t wait to get out of high school. Too much drama.”
“My mom says the same thing about her high school experience,” I said. “I guess some things never change.”
The reading was in a coffee house close to Rochester. It was dark, and soft jazz music played over the speakers. There was a burgundy rug spread below the two dozen tables on the main floor. Most of the chairs were occupied and people chatted amongst themselves. I had gotten so used to The Necropolis, fast paced and loud, that this was a strange contrast. I kept waiting to hear horns honking on the road outside or a crowd of people to all come in at the same time.
There were five writers reading their work, and Matt was third. Apparently their works were all new inclusions in an upcoming edition of something called the Norton Anthology; according to the host, it was the only literary anthology that had survived the collapse, even though the collections it printed were limited.
Matt was the only Immortal reading. The first writer read what he called a “creative nonfiction essay” about his life post-collapse. He had been a prominent psychiatrist and was able to keep his private practice open; in fact, he was getting more business than ever. According to him, people are born with a predisposition to mental illnesses like depression and even alcoholism, and traumatic events — say, a worldwide economic depression and the subsequent loss of a job — could trigger that illness. So he had no shortage of pre-disposed patients after the collapse. They couldn’t pay him nearly as much as they could before, but he made more money than he had pre-collapse because he had so many more patients.
The second reader wasn’t as interesting. He just rambled on about how his life had gotten even worse after the collapse. Just like everyone else’s life. I was a little tired of hearing about the collapse and the “impoverished state of the world” as he put it. I stifled more than one yawn as he read.
Finally, Matt was up. His poetry was much better than the prose of the previous two readers, though I suppose I was a little biased. He briefly touched on the splendor of The Necropolis, comparing it to pre-collapse New York City with all of its bright lights and constant action and goings-on. But he mostly focused on his family’s charity work and that feeling everyone supposedly gets when you do something good for someone else. He said he was grateful that he had become Immortal and now had the resources to help others. And somehow he managed to do it without a trace of arrogance, something I always thought all Immortals developed eventually.
The last poem he read was a love poem, surprisingly different — and dull. I’ve never cared for all that romantic nonsense of flowers and chocolates and not being able to live without a person. Just seems kind of needy.
Paige, however, sat at the edge of her chair with her eyes wide. I stifled another yawn halfway through, but this one I felt bad about. The only words I remembered at the end were “big blue eyes” because Paige gasped a little when she heard them. It didn’t even occur to me that her eyes were brown or that mine were blue. Well, it did, but lots of girls have blue eyes, and Matt had probably written the poem before he and Paige started dating. So I really didn’t give it much thought. Maybe I should have.
chapter ten
The day before Black Friday, Jacey asked me and Luke to go to dinner with her. We were joined by Gage and Matt at a little buffet restaurant we'd never been to or even noticed before. In addition to their usual menu items they were telling turkey and dressing plates, which Matt said they never had before.
“Must be for Thanksgiving,” Luke said as we sat down.
“Why would people eat turkey on Thanksgiving?” I asked.
“Back when I was younger, Thanksgiving was a huge deal.” He took a sip of water. “Kids got off school, sometimes for the whole week, and families had traditional Thanksgiving dinners. Turkey and dressing was sort of the standard meal. Most people stopped doing it after the collapse. That’s where Black Friday came from, you know. The day after Thanksgiving was supposed to be the start of the Christmas season, so everyone went out and bought their Christmas presents that day. It turned into a huge deal.”
We arrived at the electronics store just before ten. Elizabeth was already waiting in line. Jacey wanted us to meet her there, but Luke insisted he was going with us.
“I’m not letting you guys go down there alone,” he said.
“Luke, come on. We won’t be alone. Matt and Gage will be there. We’re not babies.”
“Kenzie, I think your brother’s right.” Gage scratched his temple. “It’s going to be a madhouse down there. Safety in numbers, right?”
I sighed and grunted.
As it turns out, Gage may have been right. The entire parking lot was full, and Luke had to circle around several times before he finally let us out on
the curb. We went to find Elizabeth, who was close to the front of the line and shivering in a winter coat and boots. It had been unseasonably warm for the past few days, but of course on the first night we had to spend any time outside the temperature dropped. I wasn’t sure the people behind us would let us cut in line and I felt strangely exposed as we walked up to meet her. The only reaction we got was some guy in oversized sneakers and glasses yelling out “Hey McKenzie!” as we passed him on the sidewalk. He waved furiously and I didn’t even attempt to think about how I might know him. It felt like one of those dreams where you’re naked in public and nobody notices but you.
“Where have you guys been?” Elizabeth said as we approached her. “It’s so boring over here. I’ve been listening to a bunch of strangers run their mouths about what they’re getting people for Christmas.”
Finally, I heard it. “Hey, you kids!” A man a few yards in front of us yelled. “No cutting!” He pointed an accusatory finger at us. “Officer, they’re cutting!”
The crowd erupted. The man lunged for us but was held back by several others. Several people cried out things like “They’re behind you anyway!” and “Their friend was saving their spot!” but it went largely unnoticed. The man was a fighter. Despite still being held down, he kept moving forward until several security guards carried him off, still kicking and screaming.
By then, the entire line was chaos. There were dozens of other officers already on the scene but they were mostly swallowed up by the hundreds of people wrapped around the store. Luke grabbed my arm and pulled me out of the way just as a large man fell in the spot I had just been in. He cried out in pain, but only one officer swimming against the crowd even tried to help him.
“Let’s go,” Luke said. “I told you guys we shouldn’t have come.”
“But I want to stay!” Elizabeth protested. “This is the best part!”
The Immortals Page 6
