Dead Set: A Novel

by Richard Kadrey

  “What are you smiling at?” asked Absynthe.

  “I like the Aeon Flux boots,” she said.

  Absynthe put her hands together with her index fingers steepled like a gun and made shooting noises with her mouth. Zoe grabbed her chest and fell against the wall like she’d been shot. When she was done dying, she leaned against the wall looking down the cul-de-sac at the other girl.

  “Listen, I didn’t mean to freak you out or anything yesterday,” Absynthe said. “About the kiss thing.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Zoe. “It’s fine.”

  “We still friends or whatever?” Absynthe asked. The question surprised Zoe. It was funny thinking of Absynthe as uncertain about something.

  “We’re cool,” Zoe said. “I’m much more tweaked about other things today.”

  “Then come over here and tell me about it.” Absynthe sat on the steps in front of an old fire door and patted the space next to her. Zoe came over and sat down.

  “So what’s the big deal about today?”

  Zoe sighed. “Aside from being grounded, I need to see someone and get back to school before my mother gets here later.”

  “Is this about your mystery man?”

  “Which one?” said Zoe, and laughed ruefully.

  “There’s more than one? Damn, girl. Here I was thinking I was corrupting a little suburban girl and you’ve got a secret harem.”

  Zoe leaned back against the pockmarked surface of the fire door. “I wish it was that simple. There’s one guy I’m worried about helping and another I just have to deal with to do it. And I want to finish this all up today so it’s over with and I don’t have to see him anymore.”

  “Then why don’t you just go? Do the deed and get back before your mom’s any the wiser?”

  Zoe shrugged. “I wasn’t before, but now I’m a little weirded out by the guy.”

  “Did he hurt you?” asked Absynthe. There was real concern in her voice.

  “No. He never did anything but what I asked him. But he’s always been a little weird and yesterday someone warned me about him.”

  “Maybe you should take the advice and forget about this guy.”

  “That’s the problem. I can’t. He has something of mine, and I really need it. I don’t know what I’ll do if I didn’t get it back.”

  Absynthe puffed the cigarette, dropped it on the ground, and stubbed it out. “Then do it fast and do it now. It’s daytime and people aren’t as crazy as they get after dark. Don’t chitchat, just do what you have to do and get out.” She leaned forward on her knees and clasped her hands together. “I can wait for you. If you like.”

  “Thanks a lot,” said Zoe. “I’m probably blowing this way out of proportion. Like I said, he never did anything to me and he could have. I’m just being a big chicken.”

  “ ‘Hope is the thing with feathers,’ ” said Absynthe.

  “What?”

  “It’s an Emily Dickinson poem about not being afraid, even in the middle of a shit storm.”

  “Wish I had feathers like that.” Zoe hadn’t pictured Absynthe as a big reader or someone into poetry at all. And if she did read poetry, not Emily Dickinson. Bukowski maybe. She set the thought aside as one more thing to ask her about when she had Dad and was free of Emmett. “It’s been a weird few weeks, you know? Even weirder since we came here.”

  “Please.” Absynthe let out a sarcastic laugh. “Don’t go playing innocent with me. I know your dirty little secrets now.”

  “No, you really don’t. But I might tell you. Tomorrow. When it’s done.”

  “You sure you’re going to be all right? Endings for stuff like this can get kind of messy.”

  “Don’t worry. It’s all settled except for this one thing.”

  Absynthe lit another cigarette. “Tell me what you want when you want. I’m all ears.”

  Zoe snapped the rubber band on her wrist.

  “When it’s over, I will.”

  Before she ditched school, Zoe went into one of the bathrooms, locked herself in a stall, and got out the straight razor. When she’d cut herself before, it had always been with skinny little double-edge blades she’d shoplifted from the mall. She’d never used anything like the straight razor, and the sight of it now—big in her hand, a tarnished metal blade with a bone grip—made it even more intimidating. It still carried a faint scent of her father’s aftershave. She didn’t want to do anything to spoil that, but she knew that this was the price she’d agreed to.

  She tugged at the rubber band on her wrist, but she didn’t snap it.

  Zoe wondered if Absynthe ever cut herself, or let someone cut her. She knew kids who gave each other ritual scars, mostly because they were too young or too broke to afford professional tattoos or piercings. Absynthe, she thought, might have been fierce enough to play games like that. She might even have offered some of her own blood so that Zoe wouldn’t have to cut herself. Why not let her, if she offered? Zoe had fooled Emmett once. She could do it again. But the bell had already rung and Absynthe was gone, back to class. No option there. No option but one.

  Her arms were off-limits, she knew. Just the thought of it brought back bad, dark memories of the days before and the weeks after her father’s funeral when she’d cut herself just to feel a different kind of pain for a while. In the stall, Zoe undid her pants and quickly, without giving herself time to think about it, made a shallow slash across the upper part of her left leg.

  She took a few sheets of toilet paper and dabbed up the blood. It was only a surface cut, but Emmett said that all he wanted were a few drops, so she thought it should be enough. When the blood stopped flowing, she wrapped the red-blotched sheets in more toilet paper, pulled up her pants, and stuffed both the razor and the bloody paper in her pockets.

  When she left school the hall clock said it was one-thirty. That meant she had to be back in no more than two hours. She walked quickly down the familiar, inexplicable path that always led her to Emmett’s. Before, the walk had always seemed timeless and Emmett’s shop had always magically appeared in front of her, right on cue. This time, however, the walk felt like it took forever. Zoe grasped at every vague landmark. A pink awning on a Laundromat. A shuttered bodega. When she saw a little church with Korean characters on the roof, she started running and kept running until she saw the shop.

  She stopped for a second to catch her breath, then went and pushed on the front door. It was locked. The sign in the window said CLOSED. Zoe cupped her hands and peered through the glass. As always, it was cave dark inside, and she really couldn’t see anything but the counter and the first few record bins by the door.

  She banged on the glass with her knuckles. The door shook and rattled, warped and loose in its ancient wooden frame. After knocking for a minute or so, to her relief, Zoe saw Emmett coming from the back of the shop. He unlocked and opened the door, but only halfway.

  “Yeah? What do you want?” Emmett asked.

  “Hi. I’m here for my dad’s record,” said Zoe, still a little out of breath.

  Emmett stared like he’d never seen her before. “What? Your father made a record? Was he in a band? What was it called?”

  “No. My dad’s record. The one where his soul lives.”

  “Hey,” said Emmett, “I don’t know what you’re on, but I don’t have time for this.” He started to close the door, but Zoe caught the edge and pushed her way inside. The two of them stood across the empty space by the front counter, just looking at each other. Zoe was breathing hard and Emmett stared at her blankly.

  “Look, kid, if you know the name of the record you want, maybe I can find it for you. But I can’t stand here all day playing Name That Tune.”

  “Emmett, it’s me,” said Zoe. “Why are you acting like this?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I found the back room with the soul records. You let me use the Animagraph.”

  “I don’t know what the hell an ‘Animagraph’ is, and t
he soul records are against that wall under the Al Green poster.”

  “Not those soul records, the ones in the back room that people can’t see.” Zoe turned to the back of the shop, to the room where the Animagraph and the special records were stored. The entrance wasn’t there. The dirty beaded curtain was gone. The wall was solid.

  “What’s going on?” she asked. “Did you change your mind about the price? Do you want something else? I brought what you asked for.” She reached into her pocket and retrieved the bloody tissues. She held them out to him.

  Emmett took a step back, his eyes widening. “What the hell are you doing, kid? Are you crazy?”

  “Emmett, please. I just want to take my father home.”

  Emmett held up his hands, palms out, as if trying to hold Zoe off. “Listen, I don’t know if this is the crank or the acid talking, but I just run a shop. I buy and sell old junk that no one wants.”

  “I know, and I want to buy something from you.”

  “With that? I don’t think so.”

  “Then what do you want?”

  “Nothing from you, with your bloody Kleenex. I sell real merchandise to people who can pay for real. If someone can’t pay, I find someone else who can. And you, kid, can’t pay.”

  “I don’t understand what’s happening here,” said Zoe miserably.

  “That part I believe. Now it’s time for you to get out. I have a business to run.”

  “Please don’t do this. I’ll give you whatever you want,” Zoe said. She pressed a hand to Emmett’s chest. “I’ll do whatever you want.”

  “You don’t have anything I want,” he said, and pushed her away.

  Emmett grabbed her by the upper arm so hard it made Zoe gasp. He pulled her to the front door, opened it, and shoved her through. Zoe stood in the gray alcove between the bright street and the enveloping darkness of Emmett’s shop. As he closed the door, she felt a tickle in her ear. It was as if some invisible presence were leaning over her to whisper a secret.

  “I know you cheated me. That wasn’t your tooth,” said the phantom voice.

  She turned, but Emmett was gone and the door was locked.

  Zoe banged on the glass. She screamed and cursed at him. She kicked the door. There was no response, no help there. No way to fix things. There was nothing but ruins. Ruins that she’d made.

  She started back to school, slowly and miserably. She wiped tears from her face and the snot from her nose with the underside of her sleeve, not caring how she looked or who saw her. Then she began to run. She ran by instinct, following the blind path away from Emmett’s as she always did, but now full of fury and reckless anger. She ran against red lights. The sounds of squealing brakes and drivers’ curses were a distant, meaningless noise in her ears. The world had collapsed into a narrow tunnel of pain and loss. All she could hear in her head was a single word pounding over and over again, No, no, no, no, no . . .

  Zoe hadn’t run from her father’s funeral but now she wanted to run forever. To obliterate herself in motion. No past. No future. It was tempting. She could make it happen. All she had to do was cross against a red light and stop in the intersection. There wouldn’t be any squealing brakes. There wouldn’t be time. Just the thud of a car’s bumper into her side and then nothing. Nothing forever. How beautiful that would be.

  It was two-thirty when she got back to the school. She was sweating and shaking. Going back to class wasn’t an option. She went around the building to Absynthe’s secret corner, curled up against the fire door, and closed her eyes. She tried to sleep, hoping she could find Valentine. She took off her rubber band and threw it under some half-dead bushes with the beer cans and cigarette butts.

  An hour later, Zoe was startled by the sound of the final bell. This was followed by the thunder of feet as the first kids hit the doors and made it outside like they were going to win a prize for their speed. These sounds from the normal world shook Zoe out of her trance and she went in through a side entrance, walking against the flow of bodies. Inside her locker she found an old T-shirt and wiped the last of the sweat from her face. Then she gathered her books together and went out through the front entrance to wait.

  Her mother drove up a few minutes later, honking twice as she pulled to the curb. Zoe got into the car and smiled at her mother automatically, but without meeting her eyes.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “Hi yourself,” said her mother. “How was it being back in your classes?”

  Zoe didn’t answer for a minute. “Same as always,” she said.

  “Which means what?”

  “The only teacher I have who isn’t an idiot is Mr. Danvers.”

  “I don’t remember. What does he teach?”

  “Biology.”

  “What did he teach you today?”

  Zoe had to think for a minute. What had Mr. Danvers talked about? She hadn’t been listening, but his talks always got through, even on bad days.

  “Teeth,” she said finally. “For different species. Cow’s teeth for chewing grass. Lion teeth for ripping flesh. Snake’s teeth for injecting venom.”

  “Did he say anything about our teeth?”

  “We’re omnivores. We have a bunch of different teeth, but none of them are very good for fighting or killing.” Then she added quietly, “Which isn’t fair.”

  Her mother nodded. “I know what you mean. The insurance company and all these job interviews the last few weeks, I’ve wanted to bite a few people myself.”

  Zoe didn’t say anything. She just stared out the side window, watching the streets roll by.

  “Aren’t you going to ask about my day?” Zoe’s mother asked.

  “I’m sorry. How was your day?”

  “Well, Maggie at the law office finally got the insurance company to admit that losing your father’s paperwork was their fault. That’s the first piece of good news from them.”

  Zoe sighed. She imagined her father being packed away in a dusty box with other dusty boxes in Emmett’s back room. “They finally believe Dad existed. Good for them.”

  “And there’s something else,” her mother went on. “I might have a job. It’s not a dream job. It’s just a junior designer position, but it’s with a cool clothing-design company called Kitty with a Whip. Have you heard of them?”

  “Yeah. Lots of kids at school wear their stuff.”

  “The owner is Raymond, this really sweet older guy who remembered some flyers I did for a gay club he used to work at about a million years ago. And there are a lot of great young designers. I could learn a lot working at a place like that.”

  Zoe couldn’t remember the last time she’d heard her mother sound so excited. She wished she could feel happier for her.

  “That sounds really great, Mom. I’m really happy for you.”

  Zoe’s mother looked at her. “Are you all right? You mad at me for picking you up and making you study?”

  “No. I just don’t feel so good right now.”

  Her mother reached across the car and put a hand on Zoe’s forehead. “You do feel a little warm.”

  “I’m fine,” said Zoe, wanting her mother to lose control of the car and plow into a gas station or cross the center line and drive head-on into a bus.

  “When we get home, you can study in bed,” said her mother. “I’ll bring you some lemon tea.”

  “Thanks,” said Zoe, wanting to tell her mother everything, to confess it all and beg for her help, yet knowing she couldn’t say a word.

  The elevator wasn’t working again, so they walked up the four flights to the apartment. Her mother took off her office shoes and went up in her stockings. Neither of them talked on the way. They were both out of breath when they reached the top. Zoe was sweating again and felt cold.

  Her mother went straight to her bedroom to change and Zoe went to hers. She set her books at the end of the bed, took off her sneakers, and crawled under the cool covers. Her mother came in with a cup of microwaved tea a couple of minutes later. Zoe sipped i
t politely, but all she wanted to do was lie down and ease herself into the dark for a while.

  “I’ll come in and check on you later,” said her mother.

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  When her mother was gone, she pulled the covers up to her chin and closed her eyes. She wanted desperately to see Valentine. He was older, and although he didn’t always understand exactly how her nondreamworld worked, he was smart and clever. He’d largely planned and built the tree fort on his own. He was always full of plans. He’d know what to do.

  But sleep wouldn’t come. She tried breathing exercises she’d learned at the hospital—counting backward from a hundred and relaxing all her muscles one at a time. Nothing worked. She got up and looked in her dresser for the Xanax she’d taken from her mother’s purse months ago, but she couldn’t find them. She lay back down, closed her eyes, and just let her mind drift.

  Would it really be so terrible if I can’t get Dad’s record back? she wondered. She’d seen him and spent a wonderful afternoon with him. He was all right and Iphigene was kind of a cool-looking place.

  But Emmett had figured out the tooth she’d given him wasn’t hers. And someone was watching Zoe and Valentine from the mountain. Valentine didn’t trust Emmett. And Emmett had gone out of his way to tell her that he sold things only to people who could pay.

  Would Emmett do something with Dad’s record? Something that could hurt him? There were so many LPs in that back room. Who were they for? Who would make them or buy them? Even Emmett didn’t know, or that’s what he claimed. Zoe’s father said that some people got stuck in Iphigene forever. Had Zoe done something that would trap her father there forever?

  Her stomach churned like she was going to throw up, so she went into the bathroom and opened the toilet lid. She sat down with her back against the bathtub and waited. But nothing happened. And then she remembered something.