by McKay, Faith
She didn't even give herself time to consider what Gerri meant by that question, that she was asking about Noah. It didn't matter. Whatever the implications, there was only one answer. "No." She felt naked.
Gerri curled up on the sofa next to Jo, not touching her again, and said, "Okay. We're here." Sadie and Dee nodded.
It didn't matter that they didn't understand. It was enough.
DEADLY DIVAS SITE
THE FIRST DEADLY DIVAS SINGLE, COMING SOON!
Tell us what you hope to see!
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Something awesome!
Them all dead. This is an abomination... {read more}
Hawt girls.
I hope they die.
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Clothes, shoes, hair!
Dead zombies. Do you really think they can kill stuff? They seem a little... you know...
Chapter Ten
SADIE
They were learning the choreography for their first music video, at the same time they were learning the choreography for their first concert, at the same time they were learning to sing the songs for their album, at the same time they were doing everything else Meghan managed to fit into their schedules. They were overworked, overloaded, and too tired to even complain about it properly. Dee gave it a good try, though—especially when they were at voice training, with Sir Grumps-A-Lot, as Gerri had taken to calling him. It had really caught on, since the trainer had never told them his actual name. He never reacted to the nickname. He probably thought Gerri would stop if he ignored her, but Sadie didn't think that worked with Gerri. Or Dee. Or any of them. None of them were exactly lacking in the stubborn gene.
Voice training had advanced to tweaking their parts in Warriors to make it the best it could be, and learning what felt like a new song each day. None of them were anything Sadie would have picked out herself, but they didn't have much say in that, or anything else for that matter. It was one thing to suspect that popstars didn't have much say in their own careers; it was another to experience it. Still. This was what she'd wanted, and once she'd proven herself as invaluable to the team, she was confident she could leverage herself into a better position. At the very least, she'd have enough power to excuse her brother from the draft. At the best, she'd launch her own solo career, singing the songs she liked and spreading the messages that mattered to her. But she had to pay her dues first, and she was going to do it with a smile, or, well, not a lot of griping, anyway.
"Are they ready?" Willa had come in. Sadie had already grown accustomed to the way she never looked anyone in the face.
Sir Grumps-A-Lot threw his arms in the air. "As they ever will be."
"That's the spirit," Willa said. "As I've said, I appreciate all you're doing. I have them scheduled for the studio this afternoon." She waved a hand at Meghan from across the room, who nodded, as if Willa could see her.
Meghan clapped. "Today's the day!"
"For clothes?" Dee asked.
"No," Meghan said.
"Shoes? Hair?"
"Dee, please."
"'Dee, please' what? Please go shopping? Because Meghan, I gotta say, I was starting to think you'd never ask! Absolutely. While we're out, let's get you some stuff too. I think you'll enjoy it if you can just open up to the experience. I saw this video and it said that people can be really scared of new experiences, and I think you're like that with your clothes, and I think that if—"
Meghan clapped again. "Lunch, and then we are recording Warriors in the studio today!"
"Already?" Carrie asked. Of course. She didn't think they were ready. Maybe she thought she was being subtle, but it was obvious she thought she was the best singer in the group. She was delusional. The whole group could sing, and even if Jo didn't always recognize cues or know the proper names for things, if she heard something, she picked it up eventually. They were ready.
"Finally," Gerri said, and Sadie nodded wholeheartedly.
"Yes," Meghan said, already at the door. She led them into a room two doors down, where someone had set up a table covered with food. She'd sent them menu choices the night before, as she always did. If they replied they got a say in what they ate the next day, if not, she chose for them. Meghan thought this was some kind of punishment, but Sadie never filled hers out. She liked seeing what Meghan assigned her. It was a fun surprise, and often deviated from the menus she sent out. Today was pizza, with all sorts of vegetables she'd never seen, mixed in with some of her favorites. Back home, she usually ate beans, squash, tomatoes, eggplant, or corn when they were in season, like everyone else she knew. The pizza in front of her was out of this world. They all dug in without talking, a few precious minutes of silence as the food comforted their bellies.
"Why do you always eat rabbit?" Dee asked Gerri.
"I don't always," Gerri said.
"You pick it every time it's a choice," Dee said. "I like it as much as anybody, but we're rich now. Don't you want to try something new?"
Sadie'd only had rabbit a couple of times growing up. The novelty of fresh meat, of any kind, still hadn't worn off for her—but she saw Dee's point. Why not try some of the new things? There were little yellow squares of something juicy and sweet on Sadie's pizza. She wouldn't have thought to put something sweet on a pizza, but mixed with salty things it was absolutely perfect. Lunch was her new favorite adventure.
"I like it," Gerri said. "It's familiar. We raise rabbits back at home, and we never really got to eat it. So this is like my, I'm rich now, thing."
"You raised rabbits?" Sadie asked.
"And horses," Gerri said.
Sadie leaned over her plate in excitement. "You had horses?" She'd seen them sometimes, riding down the streets when she was downtown, but only from afar. Animals were so neat, and most of them were so small. Horses were huge. She bet they could just trample a zombie.
"Yeah," Gerri said with a shrug, but she obviously knew how cool it was. "We raised them. I rode horses every day."
"So what are you talking about, now that you're a rich person?" Dee asked. "Horses cost, like, a lot of money."
"We rented them out for getting around the city when people wanted something even more special than a car," Gerri explained. Sadie couldn't imagine something richer or fancier than riding around in a car, especially one with air conditioning and new paint. "Or for moving carts or events. Lots of people rent out horses. That is our business—that's how we make money, and most of it goes to the horses themselves. Just like how we raised rabbits, but didn't eat them ourselves. It was part of the business."
"Still, it must be so cool," Sadie said.
Gerri smiled. "Yes."
"What are they like?"
"Big," Gerri said, and Sadie laughed. "Beautiful. Brave, except when they're not. We got in a lot of trouble together."
The grin on her face made it impossible for Sadie not to ask, "What kind of trouble?"
She shrugged, but the grin grew wider.
"Oh, come on!" Sadie begged, because she knew Gerri wanted her to. Gerri was going to tell her story whether Sadie said anything or not.
"Well, okay. There was this boy."
"As all stories begin," Sadie said.
"He was at our place renting some of the horses for his sister's wedding that weekend. We were flirting. I thought it was going well. He seemed alright. I was brushing the horses. He was telling me about how there used to be animals bigger than horses—I swear, everyone who comes around tells me that and acts like I'm supposed to be so surprised by this new information. And like, really, do they know? No. Who knows what to believe about the world before, right? And it isn't like it matters anyway. We live now. You know?" Sadie nodded. "But he's going on about it, and I'm waiting for him to move on, and then he said it was cute that I spent time around horses. He started talking about how he could take me out sometime and teach me how to ride. I told him I knew, but of course, does this guy listen? What a prick. So, I tell him again tha
t I know how to ride, and he tells me that's cute—always telling me how cute I am—and then tells me about all the jumps he's done and how maybe he'll show me sometime."
"Son of a corpse," Sadie said.
"I know," Gerri said. "So his dad comes to get him and they're getting into their car—of course they drove a car when it was a twenty minute walk to their house—and, well." Gerri fought a smile. "Whisper was already ready to go."
"Whisper?" Sadie asked.
"My horse. So their car is going down the road, real slow—it's not paved out there, you know, lots of dust—and Whisper and I just got going, and we jumped right over the hood of their car."
No one spoke. Sadie was too occupied picturing it. "Oh my god," she finally said.
"That's terrifying," Carrie said. "What if your horse had been hurt?"
Gerri rolled her eyes. "I knew what I was doing."
"It's just so reckless," Carrie said.
Gerri smiled like it was a compliment.
Sadie swallowed the last of her pizza and said, "Um, so," took a sip of her soda and continued, "what happened with the boy?"
Gerri shrugged. "He didn't talk to me anymore. Told everyone at school I was crazy."
"I'm sorry," Sadie said.
She flipped her hair. "I'm not. There are other boys."
Dee raised her glass, and with a mouth full of pizza, said, "Cheers to that!"
Even Carrie raised her glass.
GERRI
Recording the song was actually kind of amazing, once it was done. Finally hearing them all singing together was a stand-out moment. They got an earful of the final recording from the band—who she was now convinced they were never going to meet—and the percussion loud in her ears was just, everything. Meghan had a lot to say about appropriate studio behavior, or whatever. All it meant was, "Don't dance, Gerri. If you have fun it'll threaten my idea that seriousness equals success." The girl had problems.
Gerri went home that night with her own song stuck in her head. How many people could say that?
The next day was just as busy. She kept expecting there to be a lull where she could rest. It didn't happen. Once they made their way through the morning workout, which Gerri barely remembered because she'd been basically asleep through the whole thing, it was straight to the gym with Noah.
Weapons training in school was not like weapons training with Noah. In school they'd been taught the basic ways to take down a zombie, the benefits of blunt versus sharp weapons, and how to avoid being bitten. It was everything they needed to know before entering the military, where they'd be taught to use guns. Gerri had shot a gun once, and they'd given her some handouts to study in school, but that was as far as her knowledge went. It was rare to see a gun. Working guns were sent to the wall, and even then, they barely had enough ammunition and working weapons for the military. Since the Deadly Divas were going to be trying to recruit people for the war, she'd assumed they'd be given the best guns to be symbols for what a good soldier looked like. Noah didn't have a single gun in his weaponry.
"Why?" Gerri asked again.
"Because you're not real soldiers," Noah said. "And because even the real soldiers have the problem that they keep shooting each other."
"Accidents happen," Gerri said. "I don't see why we're being punished for their mistakes."
"Accidents, right," Noah said. "Putting a knife through a corpse is effective. If you were ever out there in the real world, you could run out of amunition, and then where would you be? This is valuable stuff you're learning here."
"Out in the real world? Where do you get this stuff? I'm never going to be out in the desert. Joining this band keeps us out of the draft without having to get pregnant."
"Do you want to look like a badass?"
"Yes."
"Well you're going to look a lot more impressive taking down a zombie with this," he held up a machete, "than by shooting a gun from across a stage. A good shot is great, but it's quick. You're in the entertainment business now. Get used to it."
"I'm in the gross business," Gerri said.
He didn't say anything else about it at that point, because he knew that Gerri was right. If people could just get over themselves and accept that, things would be so much easier.
Today he had them smacking dummies around. They each had their own, and he'd set a timer each round. Somehow, they had to destroy the head. The dummies were all attached to the same metal pole in the floor, and wiggled back and forth and all around as they came at them, stilling for brief moments to trick them into complacency.
They were in the third round. Sadie had just thrown her knife and missed. No matter what Noah yelled at her, if she wasn't throwing knives, she wasn't interested. Dee had kicked her dummy so hard it had fallen off the pole, down on top of her. She was shrieking for help. Carrie was going over to assist, since she hadn't been doing much of anything anyway. She said it felt silly to try and smack a dummy's head.
"Enough," Noah yelled. "Time to test what you've learned."
"Of course," Carrie said. "Because we were doing so well with the dummies."
"Line up."
"Always no-nonsense with Mister Smiles," Gerri said.
"God, please never give me a nickname like that," Sadie said.
"You best behave then, honey."
Noah emerged from the room of corpse cages, his abdonmen covered in padded armor and a helmet encasing his whole head.
"Oh, now that's a look," Gerri said, and Sadie and Carrie both laughed. They were like Gerri's own personal laugh track. It didn't take much. "Don't you all just want to roll him down a flight of stairs and see if he'd come out okay?"
"Good," Noah said. "Since you're so inspired, you're up first."
He was trying to intimidate her. She rolled her eyes, to let him know what she thought of that, and stepped forward, ready to go.
"I'm going to start this timer, and we'll see how long it takes you to get in a kill shot."
"Am I supposed to rip off your helmet?"
He tossed her a pair of gloves, which she caught at the last second. The palms were covered in red paint. "Seriously? I'm not going to slap a zombie's head to kill it."
"Scared you can't handle it?" he taunted.
"Fine," she said. "Not because you goaded me, but because I'm a very agreeable sort of person." That set off the giggle twins. "I am!" They laughed harder. "Oh, whatever." She sighed. "If I get this paint on me, you're going to pay for it."
He made a big show of hitting the button to start the timer. She went straight for his head, so he put up his arms to block her, like she knew he would, and she kicked him hard in the junk. She was pretty sure he had a cup on, but he still yelped in pain and bent over himself on the ground. She walked over and slapped him in the head. "Dead," she announced, and walked over to stop the timer. "The timer doesn't really work if no one's there to stop it."
They got an hour break after that, complete with french fries, and lemonades, and carrot sticks with different dressings for dipping. She'd have to remember to kick people in the balls more often.
Surprisingly, he picked up his little test right after the break. Sadie went next, but he confiscated her knife, and announced that if it wouldn't work on a zombie—like kicking it in the balls, when they don't react the same way to pain—then your time was disqualified.
"What a sore loser," she said, and glanced down at his crotch. That got a glare out of him—guess she'd broken through his cool veneer after all.
Sadie hopped around like a rabbit. If he were a zombie, Gerri thought it would have been really clever. She was confusing the enemy. An old corpse would have a hard time tracking her. He lunged forward and grabbed her arm, quicker than an old corpse would have been in Gerri's opinion, and jerked her arm backwards, knocking her off balance. Not a cool way to treat the crippled kid, Gerri thought, hitting her where she's weak, but as Sadie fell to the ground she smacked the side of his head with her free hand instead of putting it behind her to so
ften the fall, getting in the kill. Dee clapped, and the rest of them joined in. It looked like it hurt like a bitch, falling flat on her back like that, but Sadie didn't even flinch. Girl was fierce as a corpse.
Jo was up next, no break this time. She didn't hold her hands out flat to slap him, but kept them in tight fists. When he reached for her, she ducked down and to the side. The third time, she punched up into his padded suit.
"I'm a corpse," he told her, a reminder to go for the head. Her jaw tensed, and she kicked a leg out faster than anyone else could have—including Noah. She took hold of the arm he'd had out and twisted it back behind him. Before anyone knew what was going on, Noah was on the ground, she had one foot digging into the back of his shoulder, and his arm twisted straight behind him. He was screaming worse than when Gerri had kicked him in the balls, possibly because she wasn't letting go.
Dee stepped in and put a hand on Jo's arm. Jo jumped, like she'd forgotten the rest of them were there. "You still have to put the paint on his head," Dee gently told her. Jo let go of his arm, touched her palm to his head, and stepped away from Noah. His arm was limp and covered in red.
NOAH
A dislocated shoulder wasn't that bad of a thing in Noah's line of work. Tammi would disagree. In fact, she was disagreeing very loudly.
"They're never going to get this down."
"That's not fair," Noah argued.
She pinched two fingers together and zipped them in a line in front of him, like she was telling him to shut his mouth. "They broke your arm. Your defense of them in light of that makes you sound like a crazy person."
"My arm is not broken," he said. "My shoulder's dislocated."
"You're in a cast!"
"I have a sling, for a few days. The doctor said I'm fine."
"See!" She turned to yell at Willa, who was characteristically unimpressed. "They sent him to a doctor!"
