But what he said was just a reiteration of what he'd said before. "Like I said. It wasn't right that he got to play while a more deserving kid had to sit on the bench. People work too hard for that playing time."
"Like you."
"Yes, like me. I busted my ass to make sure I would be on the field for game day."
"You've worked hard today, too," Angela said. "I think this was a good start. Let's go out into the office and I'll call Mr. Davidson so you can start on the community service portion of your sentencing. Wait here a moment."
Pete watched her leave the office, wondering how he was supposed to be able to survive another twenty-three weeks of this. He heard Angela's voice over the intercom asking for Mr. Davidson. He looked around the office--shelves of books, the two chairs, a low table with a pitcher of water and two cups. A print on the wall of a New England coastline, a ship in the distance.
She returned with a tall man who had a bald, lozenge-shaped head. The man looked down at Pete in his chair with all the expression and warmth of the living dead. He was wearing
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a blue windbreaker with the Hunter Foundation insignia on it, and he wore a belt which had a Nextel clipped on the left hip and a handgun clipped on the right.
"Pete," Angela said, "this is Duke Davidson, the Director of Operations here at the foundation. He will be responsible for overseeing your community service hours."
Pete wasn't sure if he was supposed to get up and shake his hand, but Davidson's narrowed stare kept him in his seat. It seemed like the tall man was licking his lips at the prospect of putting him to work.
Pete considered making a crack about the handgun, but in light of his reasons for being there, it didn't seem well-advised.
"Hi," Pete said, and he said it in a way that he hoped conveyed that he didn't intend to be any trouble.
"Two hundred hours," Davidson said. "The clock starts now."
"I'll see you next week, Pete," Angela told him as he followed Davidson out of her office. "Thanks," he mumbled.
"The term 'Operations' has a broad context here at the Hunter Foundation," Davidson said, his long strides echoing in heavy, booted footfalls that resounded off the shiny tiled floors and concrete corridors. Davidson liked people to know he was coming, it seemed. "It means security. It means care and maintenance of the physical plant. It means utilities, it means plumbing, it means grounds keeping and whatever else it takes to keep the foundation running as seamlessly as possible."
He stopped at a door, withdrew a ring of keys and keycards
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from his belt, and plugged one of the cards into a slot beside the door, which clicked open. Davidson pushed the door open and flicked on the light, revealing a walk-in supply closet, rows of cleaning supplies, lightbulbs, and packs of C-fold towels on gunmetal gray racks.
"It also means janitorial work," he said, wheeling out a yellow mop bucket and wringer. "Especially in your case."
"Pretty high security for some cleaning supplies."
Davidson reached for some of those cleaning supplies. Pete, standing behind him in the frame of the door, looked at the heavy weapon on the man's hip, a single leather strap securing it in place.
"You ever want to cause some damage to a place," Davidson said without turning around, "start a fire in the janitor's closet." "I'll keep it in mind," Pete said.
"Good," Davidson, pouring some liquid into the bucket. "Use this stuff whenever I tell you to mop out the bathrooms. If you reach for my sidearm I will break your wrist. For starters."
"I ... I wasn't going to," Pete said.
Davidson looked up at him. "Just so we're clear." There was a sink at the back of the closet with a spray hose that Davidson used to spray hot water in the bucket, sending a lemon-scented steam up from the bucket and into Pete's nostrils.
"A few glugs of the stuff will do it. I don't care how exact you are; we aren't the scientists here."
"Right," Pete said.
"There are cameras all over the facility. Most of them you
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will never see, and some of the ones you do see don't really work. I watch the monitors. My staff watches the monitors. Some of your school chums get paid to watch the monitors while they're earning college prep credits. They'll be watching you mop the floors to pay off your debt to society. I'm sure some of them would like nothing better than to catch you doing something that you're not supposed to be doing. I'm sure some of them would like nothing better than to catch you doing something that would actually get you sent to prison, instead of working out your sentence by mopping the floors and cleaning the toilets that the living ones use."
Pete thought that Davidson must hang around dead people a lot: there was sarcasm in his words, but you'd never know it from his inflection.
Pete thought that there was something else in Davidson's words as well, some message hidden beneath his flat stare and deadpan delivery, something waiting for Pete to decode.
"I'll be careful," Pete said.
Davidson tossed a pair of green latex gloves against Pete's chest.
"Careful," he said. "Yes. You be careful. Get that mop over by the wall and wheel the bucket out into the hall. We're going to take a walk to the monitor room so I can get you a jacket."
Pete obeyed without comment. Davidson followed him out and popped his card back into the slot. The lock clicked.
The corridors at the foundation reminded Pete of the corridors at his grade school: long windowless tunnels of gray, the illumination from the fluorescent lighting above dim and
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shadowy. Every other panel was out, Pete noticed, and he wondered if the foundation was trying to save on its utility bill or that maybe the dead didn't need all that light. The dead, he thought.
They only passed one office on their long walk. Pete glanced into the open doorway and saw Angela talking to his old pal Pinky McKnockers, the chubby and chesty friend of Phoebe Scarypants. There was another girl in the office, but all Pete could see of her was a billowing cloud of flaming red hair as she sat in front of a computer screen on the wall opposite the door. Pinky's own hair, a thick nest of rigid pink spikes, made it look like a huge sea urchin was sitting on her head.
She looked up as they passed, and he caught the look of sudden recognition under the shellac-thick makeup around her eyes.
He winked at her.
I've still got my list, honey, he thought, remembering the expression on her face as he'd spread out the Undead Studies student list where the name "Evan Talbot" had been crossed out. She looked down at her desk so swiftly that his new boss noticed and glanced up at him. Pete suddenly took a great interest in steering the mop bucket to its destination.
"You aren't listening," Davidson said.
"Excuse me?"
"Cameras everywhere. You think punk stuff like that is going to endear you to anyone?" "What do you mean?"
Davidson stopped and turned with such abruptness that
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Pete almost plowed into him with the bucket. That's all I need, he thought, to slosh my boss's shiny black boots.
"I don't think you're getting it," Davidson said. "Do you want to get away with murder or not?"
Pete looked up at him, not sure how he should respond to that.
"You have an opportunity here," Davidson said. "Don't squander it."
"Okay," Pete said. "Okay."
Davidson regarded him a moment longer before turning on his heel.
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CHAPTER TWELVE
WHY DOES HE always have to be the welcome wagon? Phoebe thought, seeing Takayuki perched like a vulture on the railing of the slumping porch. He lifted his head enough to glare at their approaching car, his dark hair brushed back from his face. "He looks friendly," her dad said.
"That's Takayuki," Margi said from the backseat. "He's not." "I was being sarcastic." "I know."
He rolled the vehicle to a stop, then got out of the car to help Margi and her extract Adam from t
he backseat. Phoebe thought she heard Takayuki make a noise of disgust, but when she turned toward him he dropped to the ground and headed off into the woods, the rusted chains of his motorcycle jacket somehow failing to make any noise as he passed.
"Hey, Adam!" came a cheer from the house, as some of the
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zombies--Karen, Colette, and Tommy among them, all wearing absurd pointed party hats--came out to welcome him. Tommy made fleeting eye contact with her, and she recalled their conversation--all of his questions about how she felt about Adam. Turning, she waved at Mal, a zombie who rivaled Adam in sheer size, and he waggled his fingers back at her. She leaned into Adam, wondering if Tommy was still watching but refusing to look at him.
Thorny was already at the house, along with Norm Lathrop--who had been Margi's date on homecoming night-- Denny Mackenzie, and Gary Greene. Phoebe saw Gary hide a can of beer behind his back upon seeing her father.
Holding his hand, Phoebe looked for Adam's reaction, and for a long time there was none--but then she saw his mouth tic upward.
She breathed a long sigh of relief. Thank you, God, she thought.
"I didn't know Norm was going to be here," Margi whispered. "We haven't talked much since the dance."
"Hi, Margi!" Norm said, waving at her.
"No better time than the present," Phoebe said, nudging her forward.
"Phoebe," her dad said. "I need to talk to you for a minute."
Phoebe didn't want to let go of Adam, not even for a second, but she joined her father over by the car, watching as Karen and Colette each took one of Adam's arms and guided him up the rickety porch steps.
"Phoebe, was that beer I saw in that boy's hand?"
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She held her breath as Adam tottered at the top of the stairs near Takayuki's perch, then let it out when a gentle tug from Karen righted him again. She was about to say "what beer?" But she decided to go with honesty.
"I think so."
"You know how I feel about you going to parties where there's going to be drinking."
"I do. I didn't know that there would be drinking. I really didn't think there would be any trad biotic kids here except for Margi and Thorny."
Her dad looked at her and she could almost hear the wheels of his mind whirring.
"The living impaired kids don't drink, do they?"
"They're called differently biotic now, Dad." she said. "And no, they don't drink, or eat, or sleep. Except Karen. She'll eat a piece of fruit every so often, but I think she does it just to be weird."
Her father opened his mouth and abruptly closed it. "Do you know that boy?"
"Gary Greene," she said. "Thorny must have invited him-- they're both on the football team. I've maybe talked to him twice."
He nodded, looked back at the house, then at the woods where Tak had disappeared.
"Dad," she said, "I'm not going to have anything to drink. I don't drink. I'm here for Adam."
He nodded. "This is where Adam died, isn't it? In the woods here?"
She lowered her eyes, nodding. Inside they cued up an old
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Van Halen song in Adam's honor, at a volume that threatened to shake loose the few shingles that remained on the roof.
"Okay," her dad said, and he did something he didn't often do when her friends might be around: he hugged her. "You know I trust you. And I want Adam to have a good time too. If anyone gets crazy you call me, okay?"
She hugged him back even tighter. "Okay."
"Easy," he said, kissing the top of her head. "Aren't you worried that all of your zombie friends will see you hugging your uncool dad?"
"Not worried at all," she said, releasing him, "and you're not uncool. Usually."
He exhaled, and she knew that he would probably drive slow circles on the streets surrounding the Haunted House, just on the chance that there would be trouble and she would call.
She waved as he got back into the car. "We'll be fine."
Most of us, anyhow, she thought, running back to the house. She saw beams of light from inside rake across the cracked windows as the music blared, meaning that the zombies managed to re-rig the disco ball and lighting like they'd done for the homecoming after-party. A chill passed through her and she wondered if Adam was experiencing the same sort of deja vu in returning there. She ran up the stairs, afraid that she would peek into the open area the zombies used as a dance floor and it would be a bizarre replay of that night--she would see Adam dancing with Karen, his suit jacket off and his tie a lank band of blue silk around his neck.
He was dancing, or rather he was standing as others danced
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near him. Colette and Margi twirled around him like he was a maypole, tugging at his arms and touching his shoulders as they spun.
She watched him turn his head, trying to track Colette as she circumnavigated his wide body. Phoebe couldn't read his expression, and for a moment she was afraid that he felt as if he was being mocked, but then Margi did a pirouette in front of him, her arms high over her head and her flouncy dress twitching. Adam raised his hand as though to catch hers, but she had already spun past. Phoebe decided that the gesture meant that Adam was on his way to enjoying himself, so she went to join them, trying not to blush at the immediate chorus of catcalls from Colette and Margi.
She leaned against him, her mouth close to his ear.
"I'm sorry I was away," she said. "I had to talk to Dad."
The look he gave her was a strange one, and she decided she wouldn't let anything else take her away from him that night.
A few of the other differently biotic kids were doing the zombie hop--a twitchy, jerky set of movements that looked like they were having seizures. Kevin Zumbrowski, who had recently learned how to smile, was a master of the zombie hop, and at times moved as though he was being electrocuted. No one seemed to care if his motions had nothing to do with the rhythm or the tempo of the song, especially not the dead girl beside him, whose entire dance repertoire seemed to be a dip of her right shoulder.
Tommy was talking with Thorny, Denny, and Gary Greene. Denny and Gary were each holding a can of beer. Karen was
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watching the boys talk, her arms folded and a quizzical look on her face.
Margi hip-checked Phoebe, and because she wasn't paying attention, the sudden jolt almost sent her sprawling to the floor.
"You're going to talk to him, right?" Margi said, her voice a high shout above the heavy throb of the music.
"Talk to who?"
"Tommy, stupid."
Phoebe's eyes flicked up at Adam, who managed to shuffle one of his feet forward. She gave Margi the look of death.
"What?" Margi said, sweat already beginning to wilt her spikes. "Are you?"
"I already talked to him," Phoebe said, leaning closer to Margi so maybe, just maybe, every dead kid in Oakvale didn't have to listen in. She felt weird even having the conversation, because these were the sort of details that she and Margi passed to each other almost intuitively prior to Adam dying. Now that she was spending all her time with Adam, they had to play "catch up" more.
"You did? What did you tell him?" Margi, oblivious, shouted, pausing to screech as Colette tried to dance.
"That it's over," Phoebe said, silently cheering Colette on. The upside of Phoebe's absence was the renewed closeness between Colette and Margi. "And that I'm with Adam now."
Margi gave her a quizzical look. "With Adam? Like with with Adam?"
"Well, yeah. Sort of." That was how Phoebe thought of her and Adam, anyhow--as a couple. It was like an understanding
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between them, even though neither had actually said as much out loud.
"Does he know that?"
Phoebe started to reply when a shadow fell across her. She looked up, and Adam loomed over her like a tree. She was going to ask Margi what she meant, but she'd already moved away to dance with Colette. Phoebe stepped forward and put her arms around him as the song ended.
<
br /> "Are you having fun?" she asked. The nod was slow in coming. He opened his mouth to say something but was cut off as another song began tearing through the speakers.
Phoebe put her head against his chest and pretended that the bass was the beating of his heart.
"This turned out well, Phoebe," Karen said.
They were standing in the backyard of the Haunted House, in the shadow of the slouching barn. A few songs ago Adam pointed through the unliving room window at the forest, and Phoebe knew what he wanted. She'd taken his hand and made the laborious process of helping him across the house and out the back door. Karen caught up with them just as they were going outside.
"Thanks, Karen," Phoebe said, pausing as Adam took another lumbering step toward the tree line. Phoebe bit her lower lip.
"It's too bad the new kids didn't want to come." "Yeah," Phoebe said. "Cooper told me they were still a little nervous about being in crowds of zombies because of
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what happened at Dickinson House. The fire."
"The massacre, you mean," Karen said, then changed the subject. "Those boys that Thorny brought came to ask Tommy if he wanted to rejoin the football team. They meant it, too."
"Really?" Phoebe replied, swallowing. "Is he going to do it?"
"No," Karen said, "but I think it made him feel ...good to hear it."
Adam took another step. Phoebe wanted to go back inside the house and tell Tommy that he should rejoin, that it would be good for him and for everyone who looked up to him. She didn't, though, because she had to be with Adam, especially now, especially because of where Adam clearly wanted to go. He took another step and she thought it was strange that the closer he got to his goal the faster he moved. She was frightened; she wasn't sure that she could bear going there, but she knew she had to.
"It's always nice to feel ...wanted," Karen said.
Kiss of Life Page 7
