Special Dead

by Patrick Freivald

  “Um...both?” Lydia’s smile held all the ferocity of a pet bunny.

  “Can’t be both,” Devon said.

  Amazingly, Lydia puffed out her chest instead of backing down. “You can totally be mean to someone mean.”

  Devon blinked in surprise. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

  “And you don’t have to be. Even if they’re mean.”

  “Turn the other cheek,” Ani said.

  “Exactly!” As if realizing the sudden scrutiny, Lydia wilted back into her chair. “That’s what Pastor John used to say, before he got all mean.”

  “Anyway,” Sam said, “the trip is canceled, and that’s that.”

  “Tell your dad to sue them,” Devon said.

  “My dad agrees with them, remember? I think the rest of the board does, too.”

  “That sucks,” Teah said, the first thing she’d uttered all day. She looked at Sam, then Ani. “When do you think we’ll get our phones back?”

  Ani suppressed a groan. “Seriously?”

  Teah glared at her. “They can’t keep it forever!”

  “Who the hell do you think you’re dealing with, here? Mr. Leoni? This isn’t slap on the wrist bullshit. Doctor Banerjee will—”

  “Fuck him! He’s—”

  “Ladies?” Mr. Cummings asked. He took his feet off the desk and folded the paper. “Can we stop acting our age, please?”

  Teah pointed at Ani. “But she’s—”

  “Right,” Mr. Cummings said. “She’s right. The good doctor is capable of things you couldn’t dream of.”

  “He’s all talk—”

  “Shut up, you moron,” Devon said. Teah stepped toward her, so Devon slapped her upside the helmet hard enough to spin her into the wall. “Was he all talk when they burned Kyle?”

  “Speaking of burning,” a guard said from the back of the room, his voice shaking. “I’m going to have to ask you girls to calm right down, right now.”

  “This is ridiculous,” Teah said, but she sat down. “They can’t take our shit and never give it back.”

  Mr. Cummings grabbed an electronic pen and wrote on the white board in bold capital letters. ROMERO ET AL. VS. OHNEKA FALLS. He turned around, clasped his hands behind his back, and smiled at Teah.

  “At this point in time,” he said, “we are not legal entities. We can’t even own property, much less have it taken from us. So yes, Doctor Banerjee can take your phone. He can even take your arm or your leg or your eyes if he wants to.” Lydia cringed from him. “The only reason we’re still walking around is because we’re useful to his research, and in that regard we’ve got fewer laws protecting us than any lab rat.”

  Teah opened her mouth to reply, but he cut her off.

  “Now, you might ask yourself what recourse we do have, and that’s a good question. The answer, unfortunately, is none. The best we can do is behave, hope they find a cure, and in the meantime try not to whine so much about it.”

  “But—” Teah said.

  “But nothing,” Sam said. “We know you miss Bill. You think we don’t miss people? Our families? The colleges we could be going to? Our friends who actually, like, died? Just. Shut. Up.”

  The door opened, and a soldier Ani didn’t recognize poked his head through. “Time to go.”

  Sam, Devon, and Ani got in their cage, while the others lined up to be chained together. As soon as they left, Devon slapped herself in the forehead—or would have, if her helmet hadn’t been in the way.

  “God, she’s annoying.”

  Mr. Cummings chuckled. “You know what we call a person who complains about someone who’s annoying?”

  Devon’s lips peeled back into what might have been a smile. “No, what?”

  “Annoying.”

  The bell rang.

  * * *

  Ani’s sixth piano lesson mirrored the fifth. Dr. Herley had her sight-read a new piece, even more intricate than the last. He started with technical critique, and as soon as she could play it through, switched to emotion. With each rendition, he asked for a different feeling, or a different variation on the same feeling. Not happy, joyful. Elated. Stately. Clinical. Depressed, then despondent, then depressed again. He’d stop her and make her start over if dissatisfied.

  “What is this?”

  “Nothing. I wrote it for this exercise. Now, play.”

  After he left, Ani held up her fingers. “Look! He literally wore my fingertips smooth.”

  Anyone else would be bleeding, and their muscles would ache.

  Her mom set down her book, Social Vectors in Epidemiology, and looked at Ani’s fingertips. “So he did. How’d it go?”

  Ani grinned. “Awesome. Really, really great. The man’s a genius.”

  “That’s good, because all I heard was the same damned thing over and over again for two and a half hours.”

  Ani pouted, an exaggerated jut of her lip for comedic effect. “You couldn’t hear the differences?”

  “Maybe the first six hundred times, a little. Now do your homework. Five-week grades are tomorrow, and you’ve got a trig Regents in three weeks.”

  Ani gave her piano a rueful gaze. “Okay.”

  Chapter

  28

  A week later, Mr. Cummings was in mid-rant about how retirement planning was impossible if you might live forever, when the phone rang. He stopped, looked at it, then picked it up. “Hello? I’m in the middle of a lecture.”

  He listened for a moment, bobbing his head along with the voice on the other end, then hung up and looked at Ani. “You’ve got an appointment with guidance. Apparently it’s more important than my class.”

  The living kids tittered, and he waved them down. “Oh, stop. Where was I? Oh, right. So unlike me, you kids at some point are going to get too old to work and will maybe want to move to Florida or just sit around and do nothing, right? So that takes money, and you’re never going to earn enough unless you invest it.”

  A soldier Ani didn’t recognize opened the door, followed by two more. Mr. Cummings’s sour glare did nothing to dissuade them as they unlocked the cage, attached a catchpole to Ani’s helmet, and led her out of the room. The door closed behind her on Mr. Cummings’s next line. “So assuming you’re not stupid—”

  The guards walked down the hall behind her, so she couldn’t see them. They reached the ramp to the main hall and she turned left, but her head didn’t twist with her body. “Uh, guidance is that way.” She pointed to the left.

  A pair of hands grabbed her wrist even as she was shoved into the wall by the helmet.

  “Hey, what gives?”

  A needle stabbed into her arm, and she watched in horror as black, thick fluid oozed out into the waiting tube. She froze, horrified and violated. Coming to her senses, she flexed her arm, crushing the phial against her bicep. Plastic or something like it, it didn’t break.

  “Hurry the fuck up,” one of them said.

  “HELP!” Ani screamed as they forced her hand against the wall, twisting her shoulder in the socket. The phial clattered behind her on the ground. “MISTER BENSON!” She wanted to fight, to lash out, to hurt them—and she knew that she could. But they’d shot Kyle for less, and burned him for not much more. “MOM!”

  “Shut that bitch up!”

  “With what? She’s already gagged.”

  Her head jerked to the left, putting her face to face with the open barrel of a pistol. The round-faced man behind it had bloodshot gray eyes that darted between her face and something behind her.

  “Be quiet,” he said.

  She forced her body to relax, wincing as the disembodied hands drew a phial, then a second, then a third. In the distance, a siren wailed.

  The man raised the pistol, Charlie’s Angels style, and disappeared behind her. She tried to turn around and found she couldn’t. They must’ve wedged the catchpole on the railing.

  She dropped to her knees, put her hands on her helmet, and waited. A dozen soldiers rounded the corner, ten with assault rifles
, two in silver with flamethrowers. The blue-eyed baby-face from lunch knelt next to her.

  “Where’d they go?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. Not toward the office.”

  “How many were there?”

  “Three that I saw.”

  “How much blood did they take?”

  In the distance, she heard popping noises. It took a moment to realize what it was: gunfire. She looked in his blue eyes and could see he was as afraid as she was. Maybe more.

  “How much?”

  “Three samples. NO! Four. They took one, then three more. Four total.”

  He spoke, and it took her a moment to realize it wasn’t to her. “Subject is unharmed. Three hostiles known; four phials taken. Please advise.” In the distance, the gunfire stopped.

  He patted her shoulder, then rose to his feet and turned around. “Remand the subject to the main classroom, then report to Mr. Benson at the security office.” Ani hadn’t realized they had a security office, but in retrospect it made sense. “Two hostiles neutralized, at least one at large. Stay alert.”

  They manhandled Ani up the stairs to the Special Dead room. It didn’t seem to occur to any of them to let her steer herself. Once inside, they didn’t even undo the catchpole before disappearing out into the hall. Ani stood in the center of the room, unable to turn around, facing Lydia and Teah.

  “Hi,” Mike said. Jeff didn’t even look up.

  “What’s going on?” Teah asked. “Is it Bill?”

  Ani snorted. “Of course it’s not Bill.” Teah collapsed backward in relief. “Some soldiers grabbed me, made off with some blood. The good guys are hunting for the last one.”

  “Last one?” Lydia asked, wide-eyed.

  “Yeah,” Ani said. “They neutralized two of them.”

  “Neutralized?”

  “Killed,” Teah said. Lydia squeaked at the word. “Or maybe just injured.”

  “Why would they want your blood?” Mr. Foster asked.

  Ani shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  Keys rattled in the lock, then the door burst open. Hands manipulated her helmet, and the pole came off. She stifled a relieved sigh and turned around, locking eyes with Mr. Benson.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “Yeah.” She looked down at his blood-soaked right thigh. “You?”

  “Flesh wound.”

  “Ah,” she said. He didn’t volunteer any more information, so she pressed him. “Did you catch the last guy?”

  “We killed four.”

  “Then why do you look so worried?”

  “We didn’t find the blood.”

  Her mom bolted through the door and rushed her. They hugged, squeezing tighter than two living humans would have, then let go. Her mom kissed her forehead, her nose, her cheek, then hugged her again. “Are you okay, sweetie?”

  Ani smiled at the awkward, worried expressions of her classmates. “I’m good, mom. They just took some blood, that’s all.”

  They separated, and her mom looked at her arm. After a moment’s scrutiny, she looked in Ani’s eyes. “Are you sure they didn’t inject anything?”

  Ani nodded. “I’m sure.”

  Sarah leaned against the desk and sighed. “Okay, well, that’s good.”

  “What?” Sam asked.

  Her mom waved her off.

  “No, seriously,” Sam said. “What were you worried about?”

  “She’s my daughter, Sam. Isn’t that enough?”

  Sam smiled around her bite guard. “Sure, Sarah.” The name held a bite of sarcasm. “But that’s not what had you so worried.”

  They stared at each other. “True. If at some point I feel that you need to know what I’m thinking, I’ll let you know.”

  Sam looked from her mom to Ani to Devon. “Well, that’s clear enough.” She sat at her desk and stared straight forward, arms crossed.

  “Come on,” Ani’s mom said to her. “We’re going to get you back to the lab, do some tests just in case.” She grabbed her hand and led her out the door.

  “Don’t forget your econ homework!” Mr. Foster said.

  “E-mail it!” her mom snapped.

  Twenty rifle-toting soldiers crowded the hallway, led by Mr. Benson. He took the lead, limping down the hall, while Ani and her mom were swallowed into the middle of the group. They left off of the loading dock, where snow fell in huge, fluffy clumps, and climbed into the back of an armored troop transport. Ani sat alone with her mom.

  “So, what gives?”

  Her mom took a deep breath, blew it out, then took another. With a suspicious glance at the driver, she kept her voice almost too low to hear. “The Chinese are the only country in the world with stockpiles of ZV. Intelligence tells us that they have no cure and that they aren’t very happy with our attempts to create one.”

  The transport pulled out, the enormous diesel engine vibrating right through her. She peeked out one of the slots and saw six jeeps in escort, each jammed with armed soldiers in snow-and-city camouflage.

  “Okay,” Ani whispered. “How’s that new?”

  “The question is, why did they target you, as opposed to, well, anybody else?”

  Ani leaned into her mom as they took a sharp turn. “Coincidence?” She tried to sound hopeful.

  Her mom’s thin-lipped grimace told her she failed. “I very much doubt it.” She didn’t continue, so Ani waited. Eventually, Sarah licked her lips and spoke. “Look, the only thing that makes sense to me is that the Chinese know you’re the cure.”

  She opened her mouth in shock, drooling around the bite guard. “I’m the—what do you mean, I’m the cure?” They braked, then took a hard left.

  “Everything we’ve developed, cure-wise, has come straight from your body chemistry. You’re the best-kept secret of the Department of Homeland Security.”

  Holy shit.

  “That’s impossible. They’ve been working on a cure—”

  “—since before you were born. To no avail, until I rejoined the project.”

  “No, wait, who else knows about this?”

  She ticked them off on her fingers. “You, me, Rishi. That’s it. You just found out, and they didn’t learn it from me.”

  “So Rishi’s a spy?”

  She shook her head. “No, of course not. Rishi’s a patriot, maybe too much a patriot, but he might not have kept his notes as secure as he should have.”

  Ani thought of Dr. Freeman, smug and composed in a room full of zombie children. “Or maybe he traded the secret for more research funding.”

  Sarah hesitated. “I don’t think he’d do that.”

  Ani rolled her eyes. “If it was somebody else’s kid, and you were going to be closed down otherwise, you would.” Her mom recoiled as if struck, but Ani didn’t back down. “Seriously. You totally would.”

  She sighed. “Yeah. Maybe I would.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know. To infiltrate the school, the plan had to be in place for a long time. Months, maybe years. Rishi and I have to talk about this anyway, so we’ll talk. If it comes up, I didn’t tell you anything.”

  “Sure, Mom.”

  Chapter

  29

  By Friday they still hadn’t found the blood or any other spies. They were kept on lockdown Friday through the long weekend, while every employee was re-vetted, polygraphed, probed, prodded, and whatever else they felt the need to do. The impression Ani’s mom gave her was that everyone else seemed to be on the up-and-up. As to the soldiers who’d turned traitor, she refused to say anything on security grounds.

  The world turned white with snow on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a meteorological irony not lost on Ani. Halfway through a game of Scrabble with Devon and Sam, the door to the lounge opened, admitting a burn team. The pair of silver-clad soldiers stepped to either side of the door, and between them walked Tiffany Daniels in a bulky, navy blue sweater and jeans.

  They smiled at each other, and she waved
to the room. “Hey, everyone. How’s it going?”

  They exchanged small talk for a minute before Teah snapped.

  “What the fuck? I can’t see Bill but Fey can just walk in?”

  Tiff scowled at the discarded nickname and put her hands on her hips. “Not for nothing, but your boyfriend can sign in and visit just like me or anybody else.” Teah opened her mouth to reply and Tiffany cut her off. “And a billion pages of paperwork, a background check that takes months and months, a strip search and an x-ray ain’t exactly just walking in. For a minute I didn’t know if they were guards or gynecologists.”

  Ew.

  Teah sulked back down onto the couch. Everybody but Tiff knew that Bill was forbidden from the premises, for the same reason none of them had phones.

  At least she’s not looking for a fight.

  Ani excused herself from the game and stepped outside with Tiffany. Nobody seemed to mind, but nobody seemed to much like Tiff, either. Her years as queen of the emos did her no favors outside high school.

  They took the long way around the labs, the outer ring that always reminded Ani of a hospital. The burn team followed them as they talked about nothing—Tiff’s mom, Ani’s mom, the drudgeries of school and work. It occurred to Ani that with regular injections of her mother’s serum she was no danger, which meant the burn team was for Tiff in case she became infected.

  Fun thought.

  The prattle continued until Ani couldn’t take it anymore. Tiffany Daniels was her friend, but people fit into Tiff’s life, not the other way around. If she took the trouble to visit, it was because she needed to talk.

  “So, how’s your little package?”

  Tiffany stopped dead. “Twins.” Her curt reply held no joy, and she looked downright terrified. “I’m having twins.”

  Ani forced a smile. “Congratulations! That’s awesome!”

  She didn’t smile back. “Not for nothing, but every mom I know is miserable until her kids are, like, thirty. I don’t know what the hell I was going to do with one kid, much less two.”

  “How’d Chuck take the news?”