Passing Strange

by Daniel Waters

  So I started restocking the Z display. People came in, people talked to me, I talked to people. No one pointed and yelled “There she is! That murdering zombie!” No one noticed me at all, except for the hornier young men, and they only notice parts of me. Even when one of those parts happens to be my face, they aren’t looking for a zombie. Just a pretty girl. So I smile at them, pretending to be just that. And I get away with it. Even though the night before I had more lead in me than 50 Cent, I got away with it.

  Which was weird enough. Even weirder, that very first shift after getting lead poisoning, I saw Pete Martinsburg. He came into the store, stood right in front of the Z display, and asked me—me!—if I could help him out with something.

  Pete Martinsburg. Watching him, I was certain, absolutely certain, that the figure I’d seen in the blurry videotape pretending to be Takayuki was none other than our pal, Peter Martinsburg. The way he walked, the way he carried himself, the arrogant thrust of his chin. The videotape “Tak” was broad across the chest, with the same musculature as Pete. I didn’t need telepathic powers to know it was him. If anyone had killed Guttridge, it had been him, the lawyer’s own client.

  It was hard not to appreciate the twisted symmetry in Pete being the one to masquerade, to “pass,” as my good friend Tak Smiley. If there was such a thing as poetic injustice, this was it.

  Seeing him was like getting struck by a lightning bolt. Isn’t that how Frankenstein got his start? Getting zapped by lightning? I claim ole Frank as the original zombie. Unless it was Lazarus. But as for me, seeing Pete was an epiphany. For the first time in my second life, I felt like I had a purpose.

  I put on my sultry smile and asked him if he thought I could give him the kind of help he needed.

  His response couldn’t be any more clichéd; it was total Leisure Suit Larry territory. He did this slow scan of my body, starting low and taking a long, long time to get to my eyes. I suppose my flesh would have crawled and I’d have turned red if I still had humanisms like the blush response.

  “Yeah,” he said, making his voice all gruff. “Yeah, I think you can.” I felt like I was an alt in The Sims or something.

  It’s not fair for me to complain, though. I went at him like a dizzy airhead blonde, and he responded in kind. I giggled and cut my eyes away, and when I looked back it was from under lowered lashes. I could almost hear his heart beating faster.

  “I meant with the merchandise.” I’d clasped my hands behind me and put my shoulders back, swaying a little. His eyes didn’t stay on mine for long.

  “Oh, I know what you meant,” he said. The boy had confidence, I’ll give him that. And he was still very handsome, even with the souvenir Tak gave him: a thick pink-red line that ran from his cheekbone to his lower jaw. “Why don’t you tell me about these products here?” He indicated the revolving display of Slydellco products.

  “The Z line?”

  “Sounds like a subway. Yeah, this Z stuff.” He took the tester bottle of the men’s body spray, misted the air beside him, and sniffed. When he looked back at me, his eyes were on mine again, and for a second I thought: he’s on to me; he knows. I even wondered if I’d forgotten to put my contact lenses in before going to my shift. But of course I had; Tamara and Craig would certainly have commented if I hadn’t. And I was wearing a Band-Aid on my cheek—that meant I was human, right? But the way Peter Martinsburg was staring at me—almost through me—I thought he knew. I bluffed my way through, anyway.

  “So this is supposed to make corpses smell better?”

  “The Z line was specially formulated for living impaired people,” I said. “That’s the men’s body spray. We have one for women, too. There are also skin products. There’s a foundation that makes the skin look less gray. The ‘eye de-shadow’ is popular; it removes the dark circles living impaired people sometimes…”

  “Smells like burning leaves,” he said, not really interested. “What do you think of all of this stuff?”

  “What do I think about it?” I kept my expression as blank as possible—I didn’t think he’d be as interested in me if he thought I thought about anything.

  “Yeah. About all of it. Do you ever wait on any corpsicles?”

  I pretended to stifle a giggle behind my hand. “Yes. We get a few. Well, we used to. After last night I don’t think we’ll see any for a while.”

  He laughed, and I could see a hint of pride in his expression. He was Fake Tak, there’s no question about it. “If Williams gets his way, they’ll be all over the place.”

  “Williams,” I said, trying to look like I was thinking and that thinking took major effort. “Is that the football zombie?”

  “Yeah, that’s right,” Pete said, looking at me like I deserved a doggy treat or a pat on the head. “He’s gone down to Washington to try to get rights for the living dead. Martin Luther Zombie King, that’s Williams.”

  I frowned, pouting my lower lip.

  “Do you like waiting on them?”

  “Zombies, you mean?”

  “Cadavers, corpses, meat puppets. Yeah, zombies.”

  I leaned in a little, dropping my voice to a whisper. “I usually get Tamara to wait on them,” I said. “They scare me, honestly.”

  He nodded like I’d just passed some purity test.

  “Hey, don’t get me wrong,” he said. “I’m all for making the worm burgers smell better. I just think a flamethrower would do a better job than this spray bottle.”

  I feigned a shocked but amused look. “You’re soooo bad!” I said, tapping him on the arm, letting my hand linger. He smiled, proud of his muscles. He has a right to be, I guess.

  “Don’t I know you?”

  And here’s where I wondered if a change of clothes, eye color, and hair were really going to succeed in giving me a whole new public identity. I was glad I didn’t have to regulate my breathing, as I stared back at him evenly and, I think, provocatively.

  He knew me, all right. I asked him to kill me, once.

  He’d followed me into the woods one day after school, and I knew even then that his intentions were less than honorable. He caught up with me on the path going toward the Oxoboxo and said he was going to kill me. I didn’t run away, or scream, or fight, or anything, I just said, “Go ahead.” I’d even told him how to do it.

  Maybe I thought he’d lose his nerve and take off, have a major life epiphany, and change his evil-doing ways. Maybe I thought he’d kill me, but have the same epiphany when he saw what a terrible thing he’d just done.

  Or maybe I hoped he’d kill me, because I still had feelings like that, feelings that are both impulsive but also so deep inside me, so always-there that I forget about them.

  I don’t know what I was thinking when I told him to do it; all I know is that he would have if Mal and Takayuki hadn’t showed up when they did (and I still don’t know why they did—it wasn’t like they came out to meet me every day after school or anything. Chalk it up to my secret telepathetic powers). They were so cute, scampering up the woodland path!

  Tak caught up with him on the night Pete killed Adam, but I don’t think Tak’s attack on Pete had anything to do with that—Tak always said he didn’t care if the living wanted to do his recruiting for him. I think it was all about me.

  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.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THE 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.