by McKay, Faith
Her mood wasn't only due to the morning's ailments, or the confusing world. There was also the fact that she knew the girls didn't understand her, and the singing itself. It seemed the other girls had backgrounds of voice training and knew all types of music words she'd never heard before. She sang to herself while she walked the edge of the wall alone, or to help her youngest siblings fall asleep. It was something she did for fun. The man with the spaghetti song was not interested in singing for fun. He barked orders at her she didn't understand. She was quickly becoming tired of taking orders from people in this world. She'd thought it would be okay; she'd been raised a soldier. She'd assumed the life of a popstar would be more freeing than that.
She dragged behind on her way to class. No one had asked during auditions if she knew how to dance. How difficult could it be? She was trying not to think about that fancy stuff the other girls had done in the living room the night before.
Their dance instructors greeted them. The woman did a twirly thing in the air and landed before them with a smile. She introduced herself as Tammi. The man, Marvin she called him, just clapped, possibly as a greeting, or maybe as a way to detract attention from Tammi. Was clapping some kind of custom in the city?
"Ten minutes late," Marvin said.
"He's talking about Noah," Tammi explained, "the fight coordinator." The name made Jo twitch. No one said her old friend's name anymore. It was nice, if surprising, to hear his name assigned to someone else. It was bound to happen someday; Noah wasn't an unusual name. She'd get used to it, like everything else. “He's typically late, and I'll deny it if you tell him this, but you're lucky to have him. He's a real up and comer, a fresh voice. He's been doing amazing things this past year. Anyway...” Tammi went on to ramble off details about schedules and people being late and the value of time, but Jo couldn't follow her rapid speech patterns. People didn't talk like that at home. They drawled on some times, or barked out quick orders, or were quiet and spoke only when sure you were listening. It annoyed her, most of the time. She'd wanted to be around more animated people. And there she was. Overwhelmed. Confused. Out of place.
And then Noah walked in and looked right at her. He stopped. Time stopped. The world stopped. Everything stopped. He was looking right at her! Her friend, her boyfriend, her corpse, her delusion? He was looking right at her!
He's dead. He's dead. He's dead. Each time she thought it, it was like the world shifted under her feet, like she was readjusting to this reality while staring at a very different one in front of her. She didn't say it out loud, because she still hated that it was true, and speech made it truer, didn't it? If this was crazy, maybe it was better to be crazy.
Noah coughed and took another step forward, a devilish smile on his face. But it wasn't right. Noah never smiled like that. Because Noah is dead, she reminded herself.
"Ahh, and here's Noah," Tammi said, and then rambled on about something else Jo didn't bother following. Tammi kept one hand on Noah's shoulder. He seemed at ease. Like he was part of this world.
She stared straight at him, waiting for him to disappear, or explain himself, or for his existence to make sense. For him to lurch forward and bite at Tammi's hand, like the decaying version of him she saw in her dreams. One of the negatives of joining Deadly Divas had been giving up her goal of joining the military, finding his walking corpse on the other side of the wall, and putting it to rest at last. She'd listened at the wall, heard the groaning, and been sure that one of them was him.
But then he spoke, proving beyond a doubt that he was there, and still in his first life. "Ladies," he said, with another glance at Jo. She tightened her grasp on her forearms. Her crossed arms were keeping her together.
Someone explained something about their dances involving fight scenes and the tight collaboration between the three instructors. Someone explained something about this being important. Someone explained something about doing something very soon. Jo didn't know. Jo didn't care.
Noah went to lean against the wall, giving Marvin and Tammi time to go over some basic something with them for the afternoon. Her mind was numb. Her body followed instructions. Her eyes stayed locked on Noah.
GERRI
Jo was staring at Noah like she'd never seen a boy before. Gerri didn't know much about the survivalist compound out by the wall, so maybe Jo really hadn't ever seen a cute guy before. Still, he wasn't that cute.
Willa came in the room, silent, her head down while she went through her phone. Everyone stopped what they were doing and turned to look at her. Well, except Jo, who stopped, but still kept staring at Noah. Girl had problems.
"Everyone needs to check their updates for directions on the first single," Willa said, no greeting needed, apparently. "We'll get moving on this tomorrow."
"Tomorrow?" Marvin asked.
"That's not enough time," Tammi said. "We need to go over their skills and be sure they know the basics if they're going to be able to tackle the real work."
"Real work starts tomorrow, Tamara," Willa said. Tammi nodded and opened up her phone, presumably to check out the updates. Guess that was the end of that discussion.
"How do we have a first song already?" Sadie asked. "We haven't discussed anything yet."
"There's nothing for you to discuss," Willa said. "It's been prepared for you. Tomorrow you'll be getting it together."
"Couldn't we collaborate on this?" Carrie asked. "I wrote a few things I thought we could use for songs..."
"That's nice." Willa turned to leave the room. None of them bothered hollering after her this time.
"How does she do that?" Dee asked.
"She's definitely got it down," Gerri agreed.
"Got what down?" Sadie asked.
"Willa is boss." Gerri said. "She barely says a thing, but can anyone argue with her? No one can ignore her." Gerri looked at Jo and rolled her eyes. "Well, almost no one."
"I'm gonna be like that," Dee said. "Queen B."
"That could be your stage name," Sadie suggested.
"Princess Dee," Gerri said.
"Queen," Dee corrected.
"Title's taken," Gerri said. "Wanna fight me for it, Princess?"
"Oh, girl, you wanna go?" Dee put her fists up.
"Oh, honey," Gerri said.
"I think we all know what Gerri's stage name would be," Carrie said. Sadie laughed.
"And what is that supposed to mean?"
"What do you think it means?" Sadie said. "Hasn't anyone ever pointed it out to you before?"
"Pointed what out?"
"You say honey quite a bit there, honey."
Gerri smiled and threw her shoulders back. "That's just 'cause I'm a sweet lady, honey."
"Mhm," Sadie said. "Sweet trouble."
Gerri shrugged, proud of the observation.
Marvin clapped again; apparently he and Tammi were done going over their new instructions. They were more intense for the rest of the afternoon, barking orders and making something as fun as dance into the most boring hours of her life. Dancing should be free and loose and exciting and energetic and just life. But the people assigned to teach her, who'd actually made dance their lives, were going over things she'd learned in those constricting classes of her early years. Lessons meant for a five-year-old, then six, seven, eight... the pace picked up as the afternoon went on, testing them faster and with less patience, but still, boring. When Tammi and Marvin passed them off to Noah, already exhausted and drenched in sweat, Gerri was ready to flee and start an impromptu parade on the afternoon streets, or hijack a helicopter and check out the tops of the wall, or anything else that would make her skin stop itching.
Noah pulled on a rope, dragging a piece of metal attached to five stand-up dummies into the room. This seemed more fun straight away.
It wasn't.
DEE
Fight class was like dance class was like voice class, which was to say, yawn. The cute boy got a lot less cute each time he told one of them to "focus" on hitting the dummies. Dee
had put up with this twice now, and that was it. She let her body fall to the ground.
"You okay down there, hon?"
"I died. Of boredom." Her head fell to the side.
"Oh, oh no!" Gerri's body shook with the force of a lightning strike, arms raised to the sky. "The boredom." She choked, and fell to the floor beside Dee.
"You're bored?" Noah asked. His voice was quiet and calm, his hands clasped behind his back. He relaxed back against the wall, no longer the jerk fiercely ordering them around—focus, try harder, dig deeper!
"Hells yes," Gerri said. "Wanna have some fun, Noah, sir?"
"That's a great idea." Noah pushed off the wall and crossed the large gym.
"Where you goin', hon?"
"To get us a good time," he said, and pulled open the wooden double doors to reveal a sliding glass door and a room full of cages. Cages of corpses.
Dee groaned. She got it: he was trying to scare them. She'd thought that when she became a Deadly Diva this cheesy scare-tactic elementary school stuff was, like, over. Obviously not.
What did he expect them to be scared of? It was just the other day they'd fought zombies themselves, and that was a test—way scarier than rotting corpses sitting in their cages.
"Don't worry," Noah said. "You'll need more than your shoe to take out one of these, Dee.”
“Don't underestimate her shoes, hon.”
“Wouldn't dream of it,” Noah said. “I still think you'll want something more for these. They're fresh."
Dee and Gerri sat up. More than a second's glance at the cages made it obvious: he wasn't kidding.
He loosely crossed his arms. "What's wrong, honey?"
"That's not funny," Gerri said.
"Was I laughing?" Noah asked. "The killers we put in your round three trial were meant to test your ability to handle the grosser elements, your levels of creativity in the kill, and to see how you responded when in fear for your lives. The danger was as minimized as possible. We put you in with an older, slower corpse that had many of its most dangerous parts discreetly removed, and a kill button installed in its brain."
"How does that work?" Sadie asked.
Noah pulled a trinket from his pocket. It was half the size of his pinkie and sharp on one end, flat on the other. "See this coil? Surgeons install this inside them, and with a click of a button, the killer's disabled."
"Neat," Carrie said.
"Gross," Dee corrected.
“Also, not the point,” Carrie said. “Fresh zombies? Why would anyone keep those around?” It was a good question. Everyone had seen fresh corpses before, people who'd died without anyone noticing. Not paying attention to your lonely neighbors was a dangerous thing. But, like, when that happened, you called for help and hid until it was taken care of. You didn't put it on display in a shiny box.
"Wait, so we were safe at auditions the whole time?" Gerri asked.
"Ha! No," Sadie said. "The only safe zombie is a headless zombie."
"She's right," Noah said. "But you weren't in as much danger as you could have been, and unless you feel comfortable taking on one of these fine specimens, you are still in need of training."
"Gulp," Gerri said.
"Why do we have to know how to take on a fresh zombie?" Carrie asked.
"It's always a good skill to have," Noah said. "You will be put in risky situations. Only so much of a staged fight can truly be staged when you're working with corpses. Also, the staged fights need to appear real; it needs to look like you know what you're doing. The best way to assure that is for you to actually know what you're doing. Any more objections to training?"
"Yes," Dee said.
"Fine," Noah said. "I'll make it more interesting." He opened the sliding door, and Dee and Gerri got up off the floor.
"Honey? Whatcha doing there?"
"Keeping you from dreaded boredom."
"How about we go to a nice dinner instead?" Dee adjusted her underpants. The dress she'd worn was too short for all this nonsense and was creating a world of problems that none of these people seemed to care about. Why style wasn't these people's first concern was a complete mystery to her, and she was seriously starting to doubt whether they knew all they needed to know to make her a star. "I have no end to my list of ideas for things we could do that would be better than this. We could pick you out a new wardrobe? Or, well, I could? And work on the rest of you while I'm at it. Time well spent. Much better spent than playing with dead things."
"Don't be scared, Dee," Noah said. He was unlocking one of the cage doors. He waved over at them, like he wanted them to come closer. Like that was going to happen. "What do you say? Wanna show 'em how it's done, Josie?"
Jo's nostrils flared. It was not pretty, not that Dee thought Jo cared about those things, because, even with the ugly that was Jo's shoes, Dee wasn't sure where she'd start correcting Jo's "look", if that's what you'd call it
"Josie?" Noah took a step toward her, ignoring the zombie cage he'd just unlocked. People loved to tell Dee she was dumb, but damned if it didn't seem to her that she was the only one with a brain.
"That's close enough, asshole," Dee said, one hand on her hip. "She obviously doesn't wanna talk to you. And her name is just Jo."
"Yeah," Gerri said, and gave Dee a funny look.
"I believe we're done for today," Sadie said.
"And you might wanna relock your scary zombie door." Dee grabbed Jo's arm and escorted her from the room. "I guess we can't all be beautiful and brilliant."
WILLA'S PHONE
Tammi: How can I teach them to dance, if they won't listen?
Noah: I'm going to need more time with them.
Marcus: These are the worst clients I've ever had to dress. I don't even want to talk to them. I'm only doing this for you, you know. Anyone else asked me? I'd be done.
Marvin: These are the wrong girls for the job. Maybe, if we had gotten them years ago, we could turn them into real dancers.
Meghan: Unless you buy me a cattle prod, you're going to have to stop complaining about them showing up late.
Willa, to The Deadly Divas Team: Suck it up. They're going to make us rich.
Chapter Nine
CARRIE
"So you are actually, in real life, not going to tell us what's going on with you and our teacher?" Gerri asked.
"Way to make it sound sordid," Carrie said.
"I didn't have to make it sound anything," Gerri said. "It is what it is. Which is?" She looked at Jo expectantly.
"Nothing," Jo said.
"You don't need that asshole," Dee said. "Hey, wanna go party?"
“Language,” Carrie admonished.
“Are you kidding?” Gerri laughed. “We're zombie killers.”
“Popstars,” Carrie corrected.
“Popstar zombie killers.”
“We're role models,” Carrie insisted.
“Right,” Gerri agreed. “For zombie killing.”
“Anyway!” Dee stomped her foot. “Do you want to go to a party, Jo? I can do your hair for you.”
Jo still said nothing, but Dee went behind the sofa and ran her fingers through Jo's hair. She dumped her purse on the ground next to her, and came back up with a brush in hand.
"Um, everyone?" Sadie asked. "Not to overthrow the conversation at hand, as thrilled as Jo is to be talking about her love life, but has anyone else checked out these updates on our phones about the new single?"
Alarmed, Carrie grabbed for her phone. "I assumed Willa was just talking to the trainers."
"Nope, us too, and there's a track in here," Sadie said. "I'm too scared to play it."
"Well, I'm not," Gerri said, and hit play. She smiled. "Percussion."
The song started out with a band of drums, rattling, booming—Carrie was surprised that she actually kind of liked it. A guitar revved up to a woman asking, "Are we more than this?" And a clap of sound beat into a group of women singing ooooooh bops and nanananas that gave Carrie a bad case of the cringes.
&n
bsp; "It's called Warriors," Sadie said.
The lyrics were about fighting and proving yourself, about being the champion in the end. It all supported the short and simple chorus, "We are warriors, more than survivors."
"It could be worse," Carrie said. She was bargaining with herself. She'd been doing a lot of that since reading the ad for the band. Her bargaining back then had been that she was sure they'd look at her songs and agree to use her lyrics. Her thinking had already changed a lot. The truth was, there wasn't anything she wasn't willing to compromise on if it meant she could sing.
"Wow," Jo said.
It was the first time Jo had voluntarily spoken since she'd all but growled at Noah, and Gerri sat up, expectant. She wasn't going to give up on this boy business. To tell the truth, Carrie was pretty desperate to know what was going on with Jo and Noah herself, but it was tacky to be so pushy on that kind of thing.
"They're really slapping the survivalists in the face with this," Jo said.
"What do you mean?" Gerri asked.
JO
"The lyrics. 'More than survivors'? The survivalists are proud of surviving, it means something. The world ended, and we're still here." Jo could hardly believe she had to explain, she was used to everyone knowing, like they knew how to breathe. "The planet was covered in people, who died, and here we are, the survivors. We are the toughest, the smartest, the best. We endure, we survive. There is nothing more than that."
"That's... depressing." Gerri said.
Jo shrugged her right shoulder. She'd always thought of it with pride.
"Just tell me this," Gerri said, and took Jo's hand. Jo snatched it back without thinking about how it would hurt Gerri's feelings, but Gerri didn't appear to be bothered. "Are you okay?"
