Kiss of Life

by Daniel Waters

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  Maybe we could have a party for him? At the Haunted House?"

  "That's a great idea!" Karen said. "Really, Phoebe. I think having a ...party for Adam is a great thing. Being surrounded by people who love him ...can only help."

  "I ...think ... it is a good thing ...too," Colette said, "I wish ...someone ...had done ...that for me."

  Margi rolled her eyes, reaching for the orange slices. "You had to go there again. When will you give it a rest?"

  Colette looked at her, the nervous ticking smile pulling at the corners of her mouth. "I will ...never ... be ... at rest," she said, which sent Margi off again. Colette's laughter was a lot different from Karen's, which sounded realistic. Her's sounded more like a choking mirthful hiccup, like the sound someone would make if they started laughing with a mouthful of milk.

  "Hey," Colette said, still smiling, "did you guys ...see the newspaper ...this morning?"

  Margi snickered, but neither Karen nor Phoebe had seen it.

  "The ...boys ...played another prank," Colette said. "Their idea of...reprisal, I guess. Did you bring it?" she asked Margi, who was rooting around in her purse.

  "Really?" Karen asked, too innocently, Phoebe thought.

  "Yeah. It's ...hilarious," Colette said.

  Margi produced a wrinkly square of newsprint and dropped it on the table. George stared out at them from the photo.

  Phoebe laughed. "That's great! Better than marking up the school, anyhow."

  "Tak and Popeye can be pretty clever," Karen said.

  Phoebe saw right through Karen's enigmatic expression and

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  was about to call her on it when Margi asked a question.

  "Is Tak the guy with the perma-smile? And who is Popeye?"

  "You'll meet them when you come to Adam's ...party," Karen said.

  "Ugh," Colette said, "do they ...have ... to be there? I like their ...tricks, but ..."

  "Don't you want to meet the artists?" Karen said. "Besides, it isn't like I can ...uninvite them. It's their home."

  "I ...know, I ...know. They're just ...unpleasant ...sometimes. Especially to ...trads."

  "They are pretty bold," Margi said. "Speaking as a traditionally biotic person."

  "I just hope they don't go ...too far," Colette said.

  "At least they're going ...somewhere," Karen said, waving her hand. "Tak probably won't want to come, anyway."

  And that would be just fine, Phoebe thought. "Maybe we could decorate the Haunted House?" she said. "Sort of like you did for homecoming?"

  "Okay, Phoebe," Karen said. "That sounds good."

  "I'll invite Thorny," Phoebe said.

  "What about the rest of the football team?" Margi asked. "All his old buddies?"

  Phoebe thought of some of Adam's "old buddies": psychotic Martinsburg and the mindlessly violent Stavis. "I don't know ... I don't think many of them would be interested in going. Maybe Thorny would have some ideas."

  "Let's call it... a wake," Colette said. "I really ...wish ...I'd had ...one."

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  "There she goes again."

  "I'm choosing to ignore you too, Margi," Phoebe said. "What do you think, Karen? Is Saturday too soon?"

  "Saturday is good," Karen replied. "We've got all the time in the world."

  "Speaking of time," Phoebe said, looking at Karen and with a nervous pout, "there's something I need you to do for me."

  She didn't want to drag the apology out any longer than she had to. If she hadn't put off talking to him for so long, things might not have gone the way they did in the hallway. And Karen was right; she did owe Tommy an explanation, at least.

  Even so, she was almost surprised when Karen told her that Tommy would, in fact, meet her after school. She'd been so rotten to him she'd understand if he never spoke to her again.

  And she knew, no matter how things turned out, that she didn't want that.

  "Hi," Tommy said. He was wearing khaki slacks and a white-and-blue Oxford shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He looked, Phoebe thought, like one of the models out of the L.L. Bean catalogue, but a lot paler. She was in a heavy black padded coat that had fake fur lining the hood. Tommy was never cold.

  She knew he'd been watching her from the moment she left the school, tracking her with those clear gray-blue eyes of his, eyes that were the color of an early morning sky before a perfect day.

  "Hi, Tommy," she said, and took a seat next to him, even though she could feel the icy cold metal of the bleachers

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  through the seat of her skirt. "Thanks for meeting me. And thanks for going to the trial."

  "Glad ...to go ...though they wouldn't ... let me ...speak." He smiled at her, but it was a sad smile, like he already knew what she was going to say. "Are you ...feeling better?"

  She looked at him, eyes narrowing, wondering if it was going to be that kind of conversation.

  "The other ...day," he said, "you went ... to the nurse. I heard ...she sent you ...home."

  "Oh. Oh, yeah. I feel much better. Too much Halloween candy, maybe."

  She knew then that if it was going to be that kind of conversation, it would be because of her. He was way too calm and self-possessed to give into whatever emotions he was feeling.

  His eyes--eyes that had such a strange, hypnotic effect on her--were clear. She looked away.

  "I wanted to apologize," she told him, and it seemed as if she was swallowing with every third word. "I had no right to say those things, they weren't true, and I'm sorry."

  "You were ...right, though," he said. "If I could have ...moved ...Adam might...still be alive."

  The tears she had been trying to blink back started to escape. Adam might be still be alive, but Tommy might have been irrevocably dead. Or she might be--there was no telling. What happened, happened, and could not be undone.

  "I'd have given ...anything... to have been able to move."

  "You couldn't have done anything," she said. "I'm sorry I blamed you. I really am, Tommy."

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  He nodded.

  "So we're both ...sorry," he said, looking up at the sound of the buses pulling away. Soon what remained of the Oakvale High football team would be taking the field for practice.

  She hugged her knees, hiding her face so he couldn't see. She wanted to get up and hug him and let him know she really meant it, but she was afraid that he'd get the wrong idea.

  She was also afraid to touch him because she was afraid that the "wrong idea" would feel like the right one.

  It was Tommy who spoke first, his voice husky.

  "You are ...haunting ...me ...Phoebe."

  "I'm sorry," she said again. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

  "Don't be ...sorry," he said. "Be with ...me. Give me ...another ...chance."

  She sobbed and pulled away as he touched her arm.

  "I can't, Tommy," she said, "I'm with ...Adam needs me now."

  He was silent, but she thought she could feel the weight of his stare on the back of her head. She dried her eyes with the back of her sleeve.

  "He died for me, Tommy."

  He didn't answer for some time.

  "You love him?"

  Phoebe looked into the trees far beyond the field. She wasn't certain of the answer to Tommy's question, not yet. She had feelings for Adam that she had for no one else. Were those feelings love, or an acute pity wrapped in the guilt she felt over his

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  sacrifice? It was so hard to be sure, especially in Adam's diminished state.

  Did she love Adam?

  Her heart told her she did, in the rare moments that her brain was quiet, but she couldn't say it out loud. Not to Tommy.

  "I...he needs me, Tommy. I can't... I can't have time for anyone else right now."

  She stood up and looked over her shoulder at him, sitting there in shirtsleeves in the chill air, as implacable as death itself. If only she knew--really knew in her heart--that what Tommy wanted was her, Phoebe, and n
ot just any willing, living girl, things could've been different.

  But she didn't.

  "It's over, Tommy."

  She turned away and started walking down the steel steps. "Phoebe," he said, and she stopped.

  "When he ...pointed ...the gun ... at you it ...felt ...like this."

  Part of her wanted to apologize again, another part wanted to scream. She wanted to scream, "Well, isn't that what you wanted? To feel? This is what feeling is."

  But a third part, the part she kept hidden, made her want to give into her other feelings and rush back to him, to take him in her arms and give him the kiss that he imagined would bring him to life.

  But she didn't.

  She walked away.

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  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  "DO YOU KNOW why you're here?" the smiling woman asked. Pete gave two froglike blinks and waited for his breath to return. Angela Hunter was one of the most beautiful women he'd ever seen, a stunning blonde in a dark blue dress whose conservative style only emphasized her sexy features. Her smile took him back to California, back to the beaches and hanging around his sisters' friends, away from Connecticut, the land of big coats, cold ground, and the dead.

  "Mr. Martinsburg?" she said. "Peter?" "I'm sorry," he said. He couldn't believe this was the same woman who spent her day with the corpsicles in that stupid class of theirs. What a waste of warm flesh. "What was the question?"

  Her smile was patient. "Do you know why you're here?" He nearly laughed. Why are any of us here, he wanted to

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  say. Why are the worm burgers here instead of quietly rotting in the ground, away from human sight?

  "Yes," he said instead. "I was sentenced to therapy and to community service for my involvement in a crime of negligence."

  She tapped the lined pad in her lap with a ballpoint pen, and he used the movement as an excuse to lower his eyes to her legs. The blue skirt fell below her knees, but what he could see of them was stunning.

  "By crime of negligence, do you mean an accident?"

  "Yes," he said, his gaze returning to her eyes. "A tragic accident. I really didn't want it to turn out that way."

  "What way did you want it to turn out?"

  He started to reply, but the answer caught in his throat. Her beauty was making him dizzy; he forced himself to choose his words with care.

  "I don't know how I wanted it to turn out," he said. "I just know that wasn't it."

  She nodded. "You know I'm not here to prove or disprove what the state found you guilty of," she said. "That isn't my purpose."

  "What is your purpose?" His hands were sweating. "Just to talk to you," she said. He thought from her tone that she was going to add more, but she didn't.

  "Just to talk to me," he said. "Is that what therapy is?" "It can be. Do you think you need therapy?" "No."

  "Why do you think the state thinks you need therapy?"

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  "I don't know," he said. She waited, smiling. He sighed. "They probably think I'm still a risk to zombies." "Why would they think that?" she said. "You didn't hurt any zombies."

  For a moment he thought of the red-headed zombie, the one that he and Stavis put back in the ground. The look on his face when he saw his second death coming. Pete wasn't sure what that look had meant, but he liked to think it meant "finally." He decided the kid had been grateful in the end.

  "No," he said. "But they know I wasn't trying to hurt a real person. Layman got in the way, and then the gun went off. I never meant to hurt him."

  "A real person," she said.

  "Right."

  "So zombies aren't real people?"

  Pete looked at his shoes, and then he looked at her legs and up, until his eyes met hers again, taking his time. So she would know.

  "I didn't say that."

  She nodded. "Well, what do you think? Are zombies real people?"

  "No," he said, holding her gaze. "Did they used to be real people?"

  "I don't know." Who cares if they used to be real people? They weren't anymore, that was certain. "You don't know."

  "Nobody knows, do they?" he said, moving his hands fast

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  to see if she would flinch, and then trying it again when she didn't. "I mean, that's what this whole place is about, isn't it? Studying the dead? I don't know if they used to be people. For all I know they're something else entirely."

  "Have you seen Adam since he died?"

  Pete looked away in spite of himself. "Yes."

  "Is he the same person he was before he died?"

  "I don't know."

  "You don't? I heard you used to be friends." "So?" He meant it to sound hostile, but she didn't react. "Tell me about when you were friends." "What happens to me if I tell you to go screw yourself instead?"

  Her only reaction was a blink, which Pete thought was pretty impressive.

  "I'm not sure," she said. "I suppose if you don't participate in the court-assigned therapy, you will be held in contempt and resentenced or something like that. I can find out for you if you want."

  "Why do I have to talk about Adam?" "He's why you're here," she said. "It seems like a good place to start."

  "It was an accident. He and I were good friends once." She nodded.

  Pete sighed. "He and I were on the football team together; that's where we met. He was the biggest kid my age I've ever seen. You know. He's in your class."

  "Yes," she said.

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  "We just started hanging out, him and Stavis, lifting weights and stuff. He used to be gawky, a big lummox, but he's gotten really quick since then."

  "Stavis was the boy who was with you when Adam was killed?"

  He almost snapped at her, but again held his thoughts in check. It hadn't taken her long to get inside his head, but he knew he would have to play along at least a little to keep her happy and get through this.

  "Yes. TC. We were the three amigos for a while. We were called the Pain Crew, because when we played football we could dominate the field, especially on defense. Coach played us on both sides of the ball usually, but we were together the most on defense."

  "The Pain Crew," she said. "Who called you that?"

  "Everyone," he said. "I think I made it up."

  She nodded.

  "We hung out. Usually at school. We sort of drifted apart at the beginning of this year, though. I came back from spending the summer at my dad's place and we just didn't seem to get along after that."

  "Why? Is it because you were apart for the summer?"

  "No. We didn't hang out on weekends or anything--just on game days. I made a comment about a girl he liked, and that was the start, I guess."

  "You said you spent the summer at your dad's place?"

  "Yeah," he said. "My parents are divorced. My dad lives in California, so I stayed with him."

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  He looked up and saw in her eyes that she thought she had caught something there, some little clue she could use to break his whole head open. And why the hell had he said all that stuff, anyhow, running his mouth like a little girl? He was smarter than that.

  "The girl you made the comment about. She was someone that Adam was interested in?"

  "Yeah. Holly Pelletier," he said, giving her a name of someone that Adam--and half the football team--had casually dated. The lie came easily. "I mean, they went out a few times, but how was I supposed to know he was that way about her? I didn't even say anything that bad, just that I was thinking about asking her to the homecoming dance. He flipped out."

  "Flipped out?"

  Pete nodded. "Threw his helmet and everything. When a guy that big gets pissed off, you kind of get ready for anything. He said he'd rip my legs off if I so much as looked at her funny. I said, Take it easy, no problem."

  "I see," Angela said.

  "That was about it, really. We just didn't talk a whole lot after that. I tried, but I think he was jealous or paranoid or something."

  "Was this before Tommy W
illiams joined the team?" "After. No, before. I'm not really sure." "What did Tommy joining the team do to your friendship with Adam?"

  "Nothing, really," he said. "It was kind of over by then, anyhow."

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  "What did you think about Tommy joining the team?" "I can't lie," he said. "I wasn't really happy about it. I don't think it was the right thing to do. I still don't." "Why?"

  "Because," and again Pete chose his words carefully, "because he couldn't play. I didn't think it was fair. Kids work really hard to get some playing time and qualify for the team, and this guy gets to play just because he's dead? Just because the school wants to prove how liberal and politically correct they are? It wasn't right."

  "So you're saying Tommy was given playing time just because he was differently biotic?"

  "Of course," Tommy said. "He couldn't move, he couldn't run. Last one around the track every single time. No disrespect intended, kids who can't play shouldn't be allowed to suit up. It isn't right."

  "Do lots of kids get cut from the team?"

  He knew by the way she asked the question that she already knew the answer.

  "No. Not really."

  "The one game he played," she said, "did he play much of the game?"

  "It's the principle," he said. "If you can't play, you shouldn't be allowed to play." "So it made you angry."

  "Sure I was angry," he said. "But he only played the one game, so I let it go."

  "Why do you think you were so angry?"

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  "Because it wasn't right." "What wasn't right?"

  He considered throwing it out on the table. It wasn't right that the dead could pretend they were alive. It wasn't right that Julie was dead and Tommy was not completely dead. It wasn't right that little Miss Scarypants would choose a worm burger over him. None of it was right.