Pete was a very fastidious eater, unlike some of the guys he played football with who sounded more like grunting swine when they ate than like human beings. TC especially. Pete polished off the first burger and watched Christie watching him chew.
“How’s your sundae?” he asked, unwrapping his second burger. She hadn’t even taken a bite yet; the soft-serve vanilla was still a gently swirled mound, as pristine and smooth as her skin.
“Oh, it’s great!” she said. She looked down at the sundae for a long moment, as if contemplating what the dessert could do to her figure. He liked that. The sundae was packed with calories, and a girl should be concerned with how many she ate.
She took the slightest nip of hot fudge off the tip of the sundae, then licked the spoon. He liked that even more.
“What about you, Pete?” she said. “Why’d it take you so long to call me?”
“I’ve been away.”
Another nip of the sundae. “Mmm-hmm.”
“I was. I’ve got tell you, I hate cold weather. Hate it. I had the chance to go out to Arizona and…”
Christie looked up at the door with something like shock, and when Pete turned he saw a lumbering form making a beeline for him.
Speak of the devil, he thought. Stavis’s face was florid beneath a Dallas Cowboys stocking cap.
“Pete,” he called, his voice loud. “Pete, man!”
Pete turned back to Christie. “Friend of mine,” he said, trying to put her at ease. She didn’t look like she enjoyed having their conversation disrupted.
“Pete,” TC said, tagging Pete on the shoulder with a blow that would have sent a less solid companion sprawling. “Pete, why the hell didn’t you call me? How long have you been back?”
“Hey, TC,” Pete said. He may have been gritting his teeth.
“I saw your car in the lot. How long have you been back, man?”
“A little while,” Pete said. “TC, this is Christie. Christie, TC.”
“Oh, hey,” TC said. Pete watched his friend take Christie in, his eyes never rising above her neck. Class act.
“Hi,” Christie said, sliding along the bench to make room. Pete knew that she knew where TC’s attention was focused, but she didn’t seem to mind.
TC slid in beside her, managing to press himself against her despite the vast amount of room she’d left him. Christie’s eyes met Pete’s, and she smiled as though to tell him she didn’t mind his friend’s boorish behavior.
“So how’s life in the seminary?” TC said, helping himself to a cluster of french fries.
“It isn’t a seminary, dumbass,” Pete replied, watching TC bring the cluster to his fleshy lips with his fat fingers. “It’s a retreat center.”
“Yeah, like a religious place, right?”
“Like,” Pete said. He glanced at Christie to see how she was fielding this new info about him. She looked intrigued.
“What’s it like? Pretty dull, I bet.” Another bunch of fries went into his mouth.
“Are you enjoying those?” Pete said.
“Huh? Oh, yeah.”
Shaking his head, Pete turned to him to speak directly to Christie.
“I was living at the One Life Retreat Center in Arizona, which is part of One Life Ministries, an organization started by the Reverend Nathan Mathers. Do you know who he is?”
If life were a cartoon, there would have been a large black question mark hanging in the air over TC’s thick head. He answered before Christie could speak.
“He’s the guy that writes those books about zombies, right? I saw him on TV once,” he said, as though to banish the idea that he might actually have read one of those books.
“That’s right. And the Graves Gave Up Their Dead and Cloaked in Human Flesh, among others. The Reverend has a school program there.”
“Dag,” TC, incredulous, said. “I thought you got off with just community service and counseling.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“Well, being there is, like, punishment, right? It’s like a reform school, isn’t it? A religious reform school?” Pete laughed. “No, dummy, it isn’t like that at all. I wanted to be there.”
He winked at Christie, who really did seem intrigued at this point. He leaned in across the table and whispered to her.
“He teaches us how to kill zombies,” he whispered.
“Seriously?” TC said, eyes widening, a fry almost escaping from the corner of his mouth. Pete, laughing, punched him with a raised knuckle to the sternum. TC coughed and swore.
“Not exactly,” Pete said, as TC inconspicuously rubbed his new bruise. “But pretty close. You might like it there, TC.”
“I don’t know. I’m not exactly the churchgoing type. And there’s no football.”
“You can’t play football with the Badgers anymore, either, you idiot. And it isn’t about forcing everybody into church every day, anyway. His ministry is more about helping you understand yourself and the way you relate to other people. The idea being that by understanding yourself you’d be more inclined to want to understand the divine.”
“Really?” Christie asked.
“Yeah. It works,” he said. “I went to church for the first time since I was a little kid.”
“No kidding,” TC said, dubious.
“Too soon to tell, but I might have even gotten something out of it, too.”
TC grinned. “That mean you can’t hang out with me anymore?”
“Nah,” Pete answered. “I just don’t want to.”
TC’s laughter was nervous, and Pete waited a beat before joining in with him.
“I’m just kidding, man. Maybe you can visit me out in A-Z, though. You might like it.” He looked at me. “You, too, Christie. There aren’t nearly enough women at One Life for my liking.” Gorgons aplenty, he thought, but no women.
“Oh,” she said with a practiced nonchalance. “Is that what would make you happy? More women?”
“It’s a start.”
“Church, and no girls? You really pitch a strong case, Pete,” TC said.
“Hey,” Pete said, feinting with another raised-knuckle punch, making TC flinch. “At least it’s warm.”
“Okay. Sold,” TC answered, probably just not wanting to get hit again. “So, are we going to hang now that you’re back?”
“I’m only back for a few more days,” Pete said, trying to see if the news disappointed Christie. “But yeah, we’ll get together.”
“We should kick Lame Man’s ass while you’re here,” TC said around a mouthful of fries that had cooled, untouched, in their cardboard carton.
“Layman’s still around?” Pete said. “I thought the zombies were confined to their houses or something.”
“Yeah, but the maggot farm is still going to school, if you believe it. I thought it was against the law or something, but nobody seems to want to do anything about Layman.”
Agitated, he started choking on his wad of fries, and it took a few minutes of violent coughing for him to regain his wind.
“We’ve got something planned for him,” TC said, his face bright red from his near-death experience. “You want in?”
“Nope. You’re on your own with that one. I do anything to him, and I could end up in prison. You better watch it, too. You almost got dragged in as an accessory.”
TC waved the concern away with his greasy mitt of a hand. “Whatever. He’s got it coming.”
“They’ve all got it coming. Which reminds me—you haven’t seen any of his other corpse buddies around, have you?”
“It’s like they vanished, man. I haven’t seen a zombie since before Christmas, other than Lame Man. It’s been great.”
“Hmm. None of them, huh? Where do you think they went?”
Christie shivered. Pete wondered if all this zombie talk was scaring her.
“Underground. Like worms.” Here he wiggled his fat fingers, still glistening with fry grease. “Back to their graves. Hey, did you see the footage of what happened to your la
wyer?”
“I saw it,” Pete said, the corner of his lip twitching.
“One of them was the guy that cut you, wasn’t it?”
Another twitch, just short of a smirk.
“Yeah.”
“Bet you’d like to get back at that guy, huh?”
“I don’t think about it anymore,” Pete said.
“Don’t worry, Pete. We’ll get him, too.”
Pete didn’t answer right away.
“Glad we could catch up, TC. But maybe you can let me get back to talking with Christie here, okay?”
“Huh? Oh. Oh sure, yeah. Listen, I’ll…”
“I’ll call you, TC.”
TC blinked. “Okay. Yeah.”
“Nice meeting you,” Christie said, waving at his back as he walked away.
Pete lifted his hands like “what are you gonna do?”
“Sorry,” he said. “No manners.”
“He was pretty happy to see you,” Christie said. “If he had a tail it would have been wagging.”
“TC’s a moron. But he’s a loyal moron.”
“Like a dog.”
“Yeah, just like a dog.”
“Do you think he’s serious about getting back at Layman?” she said, shaving a layer of vanilla off the sundae with the edge of her plastic spoon. “That’s the kid that you…”
Pete nodded. “Yeah. He’s the kid I zombified. But TC won’t do anything without me around to lead him.”
“But you don’t want to get back at them? The zombies, I mean?”
“Oh, I didn’t say that. I’ve got something really special planned for Layman and his creepy girlfriend.”
Christie leaned in toward him, smiling.
“And just what would that be?”
Pete laughed, watching her as she brought the spoon to her pink lips.
“I can’t tell you. If I get caught, you could get arrested as an accessory.”
“Is that all I am to you?” she said, pretending to pout. “An accessory?”
He regarded her closely. “You really should come out to Arizona with me.”
“Oh. So you were serious about that.”
He looked at her, thinking it over. Young girl, attractive, lousy relationship with her parents, dropout, directionless—if she wasn’t perfect for One Life Ministries he didn’t know who was.
“Yeah, Christie,” he said. “You should come with me.”
“It sounds kind of interesting.”
“It is. It really is. Life changing.”
He looked down the remains of his meal: the half eaten burger, the few fries that had escaped TC’s greedy fingers.
“I’m done. Let’s blow.”
“Okay.”
Christie asked him not to drive to her house but to let her off at the edge of her neighborhood. She said that her father was a violent man, and said it in a way that implied regular, repeated violence to her, as well as the prospect of similar treatment for him, and once again Pete thought that she needed to go out west with him. He liked her, which was something he couldn’t say about any of the other girls he’d been with.
None of them, at least, since Julie.
The interior of his car was warm. The heat seemed to be coming off of him as much as it did from the vents on the dash.
She turned to him.
He leaned forward and kissed her.
CHAPTER TEN
I WALKED HOME THROUGH the woods. The neighborhood where I’d had Pete drop me off wasn’t the one I lived in. The whole way home I couldn’t stop thinking, I just made out with Pete Martinsburg.
It was gross in so many ways. I guess it’s a good thing that zombies can’t throw up.
After his initial kiss, which kind of took me by surprise, I resisted, and of course that only got him going even more. He was that type; the type who believed that no was just a more challenging stage of yes.
Toward the end—and although in my head it seemed like an eternity, it really didn’t last long—I managed to give him the impression that I was enjoying it. I guess I can act. And then he sat back like the conquering hero, like he’s such a good kisser and a stud that he broke down all my resistance. I’m sure that when he came up for air he thought I was the one left wanting more.
I wondered what it was like for him. Were my lips cold, less responsive than a living girl’s? I tried to think of beaches, of kittens, of warm fuzzy sweaters—but did he feel how cool I was when he touched my skin? Did he notice that sometimes I forgot to breathe, or did he think passion was making me breathless?
Ick.
Walking home through the woods, the places where he’d touched me felt like they’d been splashed with acid. Of course I couldn’t taste anymore—except sometimes strawberries when I ate a whole bunch of them—but I had this weird sensation in my mouth, akin to the feeling you’d get from biting on tinfoil. That’s how attracted I was to Pete Martinsburg.
This was going to be harder than I thought.
But now I had even more reason to play girl detective, more than just getting to the bottom of his previous crimes. He was planning to do something to Phoebe and Adam, and whatever it was, it was something I couldn’t allow to happen. I couldn’t tell them just yet, though. Not until I could prove that he framed my friends for the Guttridge murders. Until I could do that, zombies would never be free. My people would remain underground.
The house was quiet and everyone asleep when I finally made it home. I crept upstairs to look in on Katy, hoping that there weren’t any monsters walking around in her dreams.
The next day, my father asked me if I wanted to go for a spin. Mom and Katy were out shopping.
“Sure,” I said.
“Okay,” he said, tossing me the keys. “You drive.”
And it was just like falling off a log. Or like riding a bicycle, whichever. Actually I think we dead folk would have a tougher time with the bicycle.
I used to be a good driver. My reflexes were a bit slower now, but I managed.
I thought maybe we were going to have a deep conversation, but we didn’t talk much at all. He mentioned work and I mentioned work, and we sort of pretended I was normal.
When we were headed home, a squirrel ran out in front of the car, and I was quick enough to hit the brakes and avoid squishing his furry little head. Maybe a little too quick; the road was icy, but luckily we didn’t shimmy or swerve.
Dad frowned at me. “Next time, kill the squirrel.”
“I couldn’t do that!” I told him.
“Better him than us.”
I smiled.
“Squirrels don’t come back,” I told him.
Dad turned red. He really was forgetting I was anything but normal.
“Damn shame,” he said before the silence could grow too thick.
When we got home he told me he thought it would be okay if I took the car out every so often.
“Are you sure?” I said. “That’s illegal in about half a dozen ways.”
He shrugged. “Fight the power.”
I asked him if Mom was okay with it.
“I think she will be,” he said, without elaboration. “Just give it some time.”
He pushed the front door open. It wasn’t often I entered our house through the front door. Upstairs we could hear Katy shouting with joy and running down the hall to welcome us.
“She’ll come around,” he said.
Time, I had. Or so I thought.
The first time my father let me take the car out, it wasn’t so I could go to work, but so I could go visit a friend. Other than Adam and Secret Agent K. DeSonne, Melissa was the only zombie in the Winford/Oakvale area that wasn’t underground. The poor girl had come out on the lawn in front of St. Jude’s just before we got shot to pieces, and likely would have been shot herself had the priest there, Father Fitzpatrick, not thrown himself across her body. That story should be told: a human—a trad, a bleeder, a beating heart—threw himself in harm’s way to protect a girl who was already dead.
People should know about that type of love.
Melissa wasn’t in on the plan that night. I mean she wasn’t part of the group that was setting up the art installation, a Son of Romero. I think she just came outside because she was curious about what we were doing. And about George. Call me crazy, but I detected a certain chemistry between those two when we had an open house for the Hunters over at our old crib. She wears a mask to cover her scars, and George’s face is so zomboid the only expression he wears is “scary,” so how could I tell?
Well, Auntie Karen knows. I can sense these things.
Oh, poor George. Poor Melissa, to have to see what they did to him.
Father Fitzpatrick refused to turn Melissa over to the cops, even though lots of people in his own church weren’t happy with him, just like they weren’t happy that he performed the funeral service for Evan Talbot. Eventually the police who arrested George issued a statement that they didn’t believe that Melissa was involved in the crimes against the Guttridges, and the case cooled as a media story. I guess whoever is pulling the strings figured it was a huge mistake to go toe-to-toe with a Catholic priest. I think they didn’t want the attention, or for the details of what happened to Melissa at Dickinson House to get out. It wasn’t enough that the poor girl had to endure being a zombie; now she had to live with the disfigurement that she received when bioists torched her home and retermed almost all of her friends. The flames took away her ability to speak, and she hides her face behind masks. Her hair was all burned off, and she wears a red wig. But that story, in short, would be too likely to generate sympathy for our cause. So they froze it out.
St. Jude’s Mission is in the heart of Winford, in the basement of the squat gray building that served as the rectory for the cathedral next door.
I’d never been inside the cathedral before, the steeple of which towered far above any of the other buildings in the town. I parked the car on the street and stared up at the stone Christ high above, His arms wide and welcoming. An elderly couple had just begun the trek up the lengthy flight of steps that led to the massive wooden doors. They were hunched and leaning on each other for support, wearing heavy wool coats that they’d cinched to keep the chill out. The man had a battered gray hat covering his head. They looked adorable.
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