Kiss of Life

by Daniel Waters

  "Who?" she said. "Alish?"

  "First ...guess," Colette said. She turned on the radio so that they could listen to the Restless Dead CD that they had listened to only fifty-three times that week.

  "Ugh ... I hated it working in the lab," Margi said. "But Angela is more than a little creepy too."

  "What do you mean?" Phoebe said, leaning forward so she could hear over the bass-heavy drone pouring from the speakers behind her head.

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  "Well, she's perfect," Margi said. "Just look at her. Nobody is that perfect."

  "Except...me," said Colette.

  "I stand corrected. But really, how could she possibly be the daughter of leathery old Alish? He must have conceived her in his sixties."

  "Conceived her ... in a state ... of scientific inquiry," Colette said. They all broke up.

  Phoebe was the first one to control her giggling. "I just don't know what he's really trying to do. It seems so random."

  "He told Tommy once that he was looking for a cure," Margi said. "Tommy got pretty mad. He said he didn't have a disease."

  "I don't...know." Colette's expression was wistful. "I ...wouldn't mind ...being ...cured."

  Margi put the car in gear and rolled down the hill to the gate.

  "Okay, Duke," she said, waiting for him to trigger the release so they could leave the compound. And then whispering, "Speaking of creepy."

  "Yeah," Colette said, "if anybody should be ... a zombie . .."

  The gate clicked open and began to separate in the center.

  "Creeeeeeeeeeak," Margi said. "So Pheebes, are you hanging out with us today? It's a beautiful gray Saturday. I had my mom buy some expensive coffee, which is perfect for a day like this. We can go through my recent MP3 downloads."

  "I can't, Gee," Phoebe said.

  "Can't, or won't?" Phoebe knew that Margi had been

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  aiming for a gentle chiding tone, but she could hear the irritation in her voice.

  "I've got to check in on Adam," she said. The silence from the front seat told her how everyone felt about that excuse.

  "He's ...moving ...better," Colette said after a time.

  "Yes."

  "And talking ...too."

  "He's really making some progress," Phoebe said.

  "Well." Margi pressed the accelerator a little too hard. "How about I pick him up too?"

  "I ... I don't think that is a good idea right now," Phoebe said, wishing that Margi would back off, knowing that she wouldn't.

  "Why not?"

  "He's still very self-conscious," she said. "Can we take a rain check?"

  Margi looked at her in the rearview, and it was obvious she didn't buy it. She opened her mouth to reply, but Colette beat her to it.

  "I was ...that way ... at first ...too," she said. "Tell him ...when he is ...ready ...he's always ...welcome."

  "Thanks," she said, deciding that she'd go see Adam when she got home and maybe talk to him about what had happened. Putting off the inevitable hadn't worked so well with Tommy, and she didn't want a replay of that scene.

  She regretted her decision soon after knocking on the Garritys' door. Jimmy opened it.

  "He's at karate, pretending he's a real person," Jimmy

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  said, his contempt for her clear in his dark eyes. "Go the hell home."

  "Tell him I stopped by, please?" she said.

  Jimmy's laugh matched his personality. "Yeah, right," he said. "I don't talk to corpses."

  He slammed the door, and Phoebe could hear Adam's mother yelling at him from a room deeper in the house. She sighed and crossed the short stretch of lawn that separated their houses, then went inside hers. Her mother, still in a sharp, blue business suit, was moving around the kitchen and pulling things from various cabinets and drawers.

  "Hi, honey," she said, reaching high into the cabinet where her father--who did most of the cooking--had arranged the spices. "How was your day?"

  "Filled with wonder," Phoebe said, giving her a kiss on the cheek. "How about yours?"

  Her mom smiled and leaned into her daughter's hug. "I don't know about 'filled with wonder,'" she said, "but it could be worse. Your father is going to be a little late, so I told him we'd get dinner ready."

  "Sure," Phoebe said, looking at what her mother had spread on the counter: bread crumbs, heavy cream, tarragon, egg noodles. "Tarragon chicken?"

  "Tarragon chicken," her mother replied.

  "That's fowl," Phoebe said, continuing one of the little goofy family traditions that seemed to hold the internal world together while the external world was making no sense at all. Her mom smiled.

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  "I know," she said, "and no fuss about it being Thanksgiving in a couple days. More bird won't kill you."

  "Unless, of course, it is avian flu--rich bird."

  "Miss Morbid," her mother said, "you mind getting things started while I change? Or do you want to change first?"

  "I never change, Mom," Phoebe said. She meant it as a joke, but she could tell by the look that crossed her mom's face that she didn't take it that way.

  "Is something wrong, Phoebe?" her mom asked, stopping her bustling to move loose strands of ink black hair out of Phoebe's eyes. "Are you okay? Was it the article?"

  Uh-oh, Phoebe thought. "What article?"

  "It was in the paper. Some undead people went around Winford last night killing people's pets."

  "Can I see?" Phoebe asked. She didn't bother to correct her mother's terminology.

  Her mom opened the recycling bin and withdrew the paper for her.

  "I'm going to get changed," her mom said. "The chicken breasts are in the fridge. They might need to be defrosted a little more."

  "I'm going to read this first, okay?" Phoebe said, scanning the front page of the Winford Bulletin. ZOMBIES KILL PETS, the headline read, and Phoebe was glad that she hadn't corrected her mother. There was a photograph of a young mother holding two distraught children. The caption beneath the photo said that the Henderson family was mourning the loss of the Airedale Brady, who was "attacked and killed by zombies" sometime during the night.

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  There was also the photo of George from the Undead States recruitment flyer.

  "Oh my," Phoebe said.

  The article suggested that the zombie in the poster was considered the primary suspect in the rash of pet killings that had happened over the past few weeks, and she instantly thought of the wet furry lump that had been in George's trick-or-treat bag on Halloween.

  Her mother's voice startled Phoebe. "Terrible, isn't it?"

  Phoebe looked at her mom, who'd changed into jeans and a loose T-shirt. "I can't believe it."

  "Do you know that boy? You know so many of the living impaired people in Oakvale."

  Phoebe looked back at the paper; she thought she knew all of the living impaired people in Oakvale.

  "Yes."

  "Really?" her Mom said. "Shouldn't you go to the police?"

  "I ... I can't believe he would do this, Mom," she said, although she really could.

  Her mother got the chicken out of the fridge, cut the plastic wrapping, and slid the three split fillets onto a white cutting board. She began trimming them with a knife.

  "Is he a friend of yours?" she asked. She wasn't looking at Phoebe when she said it.

  "Not really, no," Phoebe said.

  "Well," her mother said, plating the breasts and covering them to prep them for a brief spin in the microwave, "let's hope that it wasn't really him, and that something else is going on.

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  Coyotes, maybe. It wouldn't be good for your friends if this crime was committed by living impaired kids."

  Phoebe wanted to argue the point. She wanted to say how stupid society was if they would blame a whole group of people for the actions of a small minority, but in the end she held her tongue, because she knew her mother was not speaking judgmentally, and that she was right. This was going to make trouble for
differently biotic people through out the town. Phoebe had visions of a parade of cop cars leading up to the Haunted House, their lights flashing on the dead faces that gathered at the cracked windows to watch their approach.

  "What goes better with tarragon chicken?" her Mom asked. "Carrots or peas?"

  "Dad likes peas," Phoebe said. "Peas it is."

  Phoebe had trouble sleeping that night, so rather than fight it she lit incense and a few candles, then straightened her room. Her restlessness annoyed Gargoyle, who raised his furry eyebrows as she bustled around.

  "Oh, Gar," she said, sitting down on the edge of the bed to mollify him by scratching behind his ears. "I would never let mean old George eat you."

  Gar's eyebrow twitched once, then he settled back down to sleep. Phoebe went and sat at her computer. The article, and its accusations really bothered her.

  She set the media player on her desktop to cycle randomly

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  through the thousands of songs stored on her hard drive. The first one that came up was by the Restless Dead, a group that always made her think of Adam.

  She had three real e-mails among the advertisements and spammage. One from Margi, exhorting her to not be a lame-o and go to Aftermath. The second one was from Margi, telling her not to be a lame-o, and to go to Aftermath with them. The last one was from Margi, and it asked her to puhleeze not be a lame-o and go to Aftermath with them.

  Hey, Margi, she typed in reply to the third e-mail,

  I'm sorry I have been such a lame-o. I'd love to go to Aftermath with you tho I wish that the train could pick me up at my house becuz in truth yr driving scares me to death. True and final death. See you in school Mon. and we'll make plans. Say hey to Colette fur me, love Pheeble.

  She surfed for a while, popped on and off MySpace addys of bands as the media player selected them. The Restless Dead appeared again after about a half hour, and Phoebe wondered how the "randomizer," or whatever it was, could pick two songs from a band that maybe had twenty total among thousands in such a short span of time.

  She popped onto mysocalledundeath.com and reread

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  Tommy's last entry, the one where he gave a mission statement of sorts. He talked about hitting the road in an effort to "advance the cause of zombie rights." By traveling, he said he had hopes of connecting with zombies who might not have access to technology, and sharing their experiences with the "wired" readers of mysocalledundeath.

  He didn't mention Phoebe by name, but he did say that a "traditionally biotic friend" was going to be assisting with the management of the Web site in his absence, and he expressed a hope that "subscribers of mysocalledundeath would join her, Karen, and himself in expanding both their online community and their presence in the world at large." Phoebe thought about the word "presence" and what Tommy meant by it. He chose his words so carefully; she often suspected that the pauses in his speech weren't due to typical zombie lack of control but because he wanted to make his meanings clear to his listeners. She was thinking this when a hand fell on her shoulder, startling her so much she almost knocked one of her lavender-scented candles over.

  "Easy," her dad said. She could smell the wine that he and her mother had been sharing in the living room earlier that night. "Didn't mean to scare you."

  "Okay,"

  "It's pretty late," he said. "I know." "You okay?"

  "I'm okay. Just can't sleep. Nothing to worry about." "Okay, then."

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  "Really."

  "I believe you."

  "Dad?"

  "Yes, Phee?"

  "Is it okay if I go to a club in New York with Margi and some girls?"

  Her father's sigh sounded like one of those forced sighs that Karen made when she was trying to show how trad biotic she could be.

  "New York, as in New York City?"

  "Yes, Dad."

  "I don't know. Let me think about it. It's an underage club, isn't it?"

  "Absolutely," she said. "You trust me, right?"

  "Absolutely." He leaned over and kissed the top of her head. "Hey, it's that undead club, isn't it? Afterbirth or something like that?"

  "Aftermath, Dad!"

  "Oh yeah. So you're bringing Adam and Colette there, is that it?"

  "Just Colette," she said. "And Karen. Girls' night out." "No Tommy either?"

  "No Tommy. How did you hear about Aftermath, anyhow?"

  "I read too, you know. Like I read about what happened to all these pets that disappeared." "Oh."

  "Pretty scary," he said. Across the room Gar buried his

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  muzzle into his forepaws as though he understood the jist of their conversation.

  "The world can be a scary place," she said, "but that doesn't have anything to do with how much you trust me, right?"

  "It has everything to do with how much I trust you," he said, kissing the top of her head. "I'll need to talk it over with your mom. I can think of a thousand reasons why it is a horrible idea to have a group of sixteen-year-old girls going to New York City by themselves."

  "All of which are overcome by your trust for me, right?" She debated telling him that Karen would actually have been eighteen or nineteen if she were still alive, but decided it wouldn't help.

  He patted her shoulder. "I'll let you know in the morning. Why don't you get some sleep?"

  "I will. I just want to finish something first." "Okay. Good night."

  When he was gone she focused again on her computer screen. Someone with a screen name she didn't recognize had tried to instant message her, and she told the service to block them. She read a few of the comments on the bulletin board regarding Tommy's last entry, and most of them were very encouraging and supportive of his "quest."

  She minimized the online service and opened up her word processing program. She stared at the blank screen for a moment and then typed in a title.

  Words From a Beating Heart

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  She thought a few more moments and then started to type with increasing rapidity. The sound of her fingernails tapping on the keys was always a special music to her, especially when it seemed to match the rhythm of the music she was listening to.

  Hello, she typed, my name is Phoebe. My friends call me Phoebe or Fee or Pheebes or, my favorite, Pheeble. That's what my friend Adam called me. You know, I typed "called" just then instead of "calls." Sometimes I get confused in my mind over Adam, because Adam is dead. Since Adam is dead, I sometimes think of him in the past tense and it makes me crazy that I do this, because he's dead but he's come back. He's a zombie now. We still spend a lot of time together, but the time that we spend is different from how it was. A lot of things that we used to do, like talk, and drive to Honeybee Dairy to get hot fudge sundaes after tossing a Frisbee around (my favorite thing to do with Adam) are all things we can't do anymore--not yet, anyway. All those things occurred in the past tense, so, as wrong as it seems, I sometimes think of Adam in the past tense as well. I feel really guilty about that. I feel guilty about it because Adam died saving my life.

  I have one other nickname, one that was given to me by the boy that killed Adam. He called me Morticia Scarypants. I wear black clothes and have long black hair and am very pale, and so Ym Morticia Scarypass. I listen to goth and darkwave and trance and horror punk and even a little heavy metal. I write poetry and at the time I was dating a dead boy--I was dating Tommy, actually. I think this really made the boy that

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  gave me my nickname angry with me. I think that's why he tried to kill me--although I'm not sure if he was trying to kill me or Tommy, or if he really meant to kill Adam.

  They call me the Bride of Frankenstein now, since I still spend so much of my time with dead guys.

  Tommy asked me to help with mysocalledundeath when he was gone, and he thought it would he good if I wrote a blog, that it might help connect trads like me with the zombies who read the Web site daily, and vice versa. I know that it's a risky thing he's asking of me,
just like it was risky for me to type the word "zombies" just then. I'm sure there are those of you who will read my words and think, "how dare she, a trad girl, call us zombies." I could say in my defense that my friends use the word zombie all the time, but that won't do anything to justify it if you feel that it's a word that no trad person should use.

  The thing is, most of my friends are dead, Just like the shirt says.

  Again, this doesn't give me free license to say or do anything I want just because I'm friends with dead people. I mention it only because it's the truth, and because my friends and I are still trying to work through the issues that friendship present us.

  When I started dating Tommy, I had no idea that people would hate me just for dating him. I had no idea that friends and family might react differently than I would have expected from them.

  I had no idea that some of Tommy's dead friends would object to it either. All I knew was that I was interested in

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  Tommy, and he seemed to be interested in me, so I thought it would be fun to spend time with him.

  When I first saw Tommy, he was so confident. He knew that he was taking risks. And I knew soon after meeting him that the risks he was taking were not for his own benefit but really for the benefit of undead people everywhere. I'd never met another boy who was as selfless as Tommy. I admired him greatly for it.

  There I go, writing about my friends in the past tense again.

  I already miss Tommy even though he hasn't been gone very long. I hope the road is smooth and safe for him. If you see him on his travels, thank him on my behalf for giving me the chance to "speak" to all of you. Tell him that I hope he was right, and that I hope that the words that I write will help all of us, living or dead, understand each other a little better.

  When she was done she leaned back and stretched. She tried to imagine how some of the zombies she knew--Colette, Mal, Takayuki--Tommy even, would react to what she'd written. What would Adam think, and would he even tell her?