by Kim Zarins
Mr. Bailey gives us all this constipated look, as if he’s straining to connect the trashing of his house with the bottle in his hand. He grips the back of Mace’s seat and points his nose toward the rowdy back row like he means business. “All right. We are going to behave ourselves and not give me any more trouble. I have this.” He brandishes the bottle as evidence of our collective sin. “And between this and your little prank”—he glares at Rooster’s faintly purple-yellow forehead, like it might be the reason for the dent in his bedroom door (it is)—“I can get some of you suspended. I mean it. You’ve pushed me way too far.”
Suspended. That can’t happen. Not while I’m wait-listed at Cornell and the other low-level Ivies. Yes, I have Georgetown in the bag, unless a suspension could ruin that, but I’m not sure I want to be a lawyer or a civil servant or whatever politics-happy Georgetown alums tend to do. I want a couple options before my whole life is paved in front of me. It’s already a problem that I’m not doing so well in Mr. Bailey’s class. Suspension would blow my chances.
Mr. Bailey lifts his chin with grim satisfaction. He has our attention and pauses, apparently considering what to do with us. He looks badass somehow, crossing his arms while holding the bottle. “I have an idea,” he finally says. “I need all of you to be quiet and respectful on this ride. To keep us busy, we’ll play a game. We’ll pass the time telling stories. It will be a competition. One story for each of you. You’ll all pay attention to each other—no zoning out on phones. Whoever tells the best story will get a free A in Civics, and all detention and suspension material forgiven . . . even if I find out what happened that night. And I will find out. So, play to win a free A. Or act out on this trip and be disqualified, and potentially suspended.”
We all soak this in. It’s so quiet I hear another bottle rolling around somewhere.
“All right, then. Let’s do this. Maybe you’ll learn something from each other. Remember, you all have brains—”
“And if we work together, we can solve the world’s biggest problems!” the class chants in unison, with a hefty dose of mock cheerfulness.
Mr. Bailey gives me an encouraging, pep-talk look, and then I watch his face sour as he notices the cup beside me that I’m failing to hide. There’s iron in his eyes, like he’s deciding what to do. He extends his hand for the cup, sniffs, and frowns.
He addresses everyone, while looking right at me. “You all might want to think hard on the story you’ll be telling. Jeff, I’ll talk to you later.”
My heart pounds, and I’m relieved when Mr. Bailey breaks that stare.
I’ll probably get suspended on my own, without Cannon’s help.
Kai raises a hand. “What kind of story? Our life story?”
Kai is the most popular senior there is, all quarterback awesome and sandwiched between Briony and Alison, like, all the time, yet he suddenly looks nervous about telling his life story, even though everyone would totally want his life.
Mr. Bailey does that let me carefully consider your question teacher thing with his eyebrows. “Well, you can talk about yourself as a way of introduction, but I’d like each of you to come up with a fictional story. Modern times, ancient times, based on real life or not at all—doesn’t matter. Just something really interesting to hold our attention.”
Briony sulks. “What’s the point? Jeff will win.”
Everyone looks at me resentfully. All those eyes.
“I—I’m not as good as everyone thinks,” I stammer.
Choruses of Yeah, right rise all around. Apparently, I’m supposed to be a genius just because I wrote that Morpheus story about dreams and desire and death. When it came out in The Southwarks last spring, it was like the school exploded. Teachers congratulated me. Popular kids started being nice to me, and not just for being Cannon’s friend. More like they thought I had some power to put souls onto printed pages. And I kind of thought I could. It was so magical. Writing that story happened by itself. It’s like all my years with Sandman and old myths just turned on the tap. It was the best thing to ever come out of me. The absolute best. My dad wept. He wept.
And now it’s gone. The tap’s off. I look within me, and there’s nothing there.
The bus lurches back onto the freeway.
Seated again in the front now, Mr. Bailey asks Reeve for a spare sheet of paper, so we can have a drawing of our names to see who goes first. Reluctant to lose a sheet from his clipboard, Reeve complains until Mr. Bailey offers a few extra credit points.
“What have you been writing lately?” Pard asks me in that cynical, unnerving way he has. His voice, like his smooth face, somehow missed out on puberty.
“Oh, I started something.”
The peach-fuzz corner of his mouth quirks. “And?”
“I’m working on it. It got a little away from me.”
Pale eyebrows lift in a fancy that look of contempt.
“What’s the title?”
“ ‘The House of Fame.’ ”
“Fame,” he repeats, all hollow-like. “How autobiographical.”
Rooster stops playing his uke when Mr. Bailey draws a name from his hat. I’m watching, glued, while the silence and the word “fame” take a choke hold. I’m praying that Mr. Bailey doesn’t call on me, praying my name slips out of the hat and disappears, because I know today I’ll lose Mr. Bailey’s game, my college prospects, and my reputation. Pard’s words sting. I do want fame. I want these guys to think I’m good. But they’ll either figure it out right now, or within the next six hours, that I have no story. Those sequels they’ve asked for? New stuff? I have nothing.
Mr. Bailey draws out a slip of paper.
“Kai, you’re up!”
Thank you, God, I semi-pray. The back two rows go wild. Kai high-fives Rooster. How can anyone be delighted at being sprung with telling a story? But he’s too cool to freak out.
“Awesome. Can I tell any kind of story? Like, can I tell a war story?”
Mr. Bailey waves a permissive hand. “Sure.”
Kai nods, like ideas are already starting to form. “Okay, hold on, I just need an angle. You know, like, should these be Navy SEALs or Trojans or what?”
Bryce leans into the aisle, and his forked beard hangs for all to see. Yes, Bryce sports a wicked black forked beard, which makes him look like Satan on Xanax. Or maybe he’s on the brownies Cookie had for breakfast. “Dude, do zombies! You have to do zombies!”
Kai’s eyes lose focus while all the story’s pieces lock into place. Finally, he says, “Zombies. That’ll work. I like it.”
KAI’S TALE
Okay, so there’s this war of the zombies. Lots of decapitations and body parts and awesomeness, and since it’s two armies of the dead, they’re unstoppable. They can get their hand cut off, stick it back on, and keep on fighting. Total Armageddon. And if humans get in the way, they die. So the humans pray to the gods to stop these monsters, and the gods take that whole battlefield and plunge it down into the underworld. Except the gods miss two zombies. One is helping his brother limp off the battlefield, just as the ground under their feet starts to collapse.
“Wait,” Bryce calls out. “What do you mean limp off the battlefield? I thought they repaired themselves right away. Not getting the zombie physiology recovery system here.”
“Well, the more you get your limbs severed, the longer it takes, okay?” Kai explains. “You get into overload and can’t keep up. Actually, the way it works is that if you get completely hacked up and scattered, that’s it for you. So if you start losing body parts, you either need to get to a calm place to recover, or you need a body brother to share his parts with you.”
The guys go nuts over this idea. Ooo, body brother! Tell us how that works!
“Like, if you have serious losses and can’t regrow your arm, a body brother can cut off his arm and save you. And you’d do the same for him.”
“That is so cool!” Bryce booms. “Rooster, be my body brother!”
“Dude, totally.” A
lison gets her foot thrown from its meaty pedestal as Rooster leaps up and chest bumps over Bryce’s seat.
Bryce shouts, “Yeah,” all pumped. “Man, I’d even give you my beard, if you needed it.” They’d make a wild pair of body brothers besides the size difference, with Bryce’s forked beard, black eyes and hair, and olive skin, and Rooster’s pale blue eyes, freckled Scottish skin, and mass of red hair.
“Would you let him tell his story?” Briony snaps. She smiles encouragement at Kai—not that he needs any. He’s laughing and enjoying his rowdy friends. Kai never pushes for the limelight. It just happens naturally.
Okay, okay. Anyhow, part swapping’s what these two brothers had done for each other for years and years. Arc and Palam weren’t brothers while living, and maybe they even came from countries that used to be at war against each other—who knows? But by now, as zombies, they share the same flesh. The same smell. After countless battles together, they only made it through this last one by luck.
But since there are only two of them, Arc and Palam are no match for the human army that pours in, now that things are safe for humans. The president imprisons the two zombies for scientific study.
Lupe’s new boyfriend, Marcus, cuts in. “Wait, there are gods in this story and the president of the United States?” He blinks twice, hard, like on some subconscious level he’s shocked he asked such a dumb-ass question. I mean, Marcus is the smart one, all Harvard-bound, but this is fiction. I instinctively look at Pard, almost like the old days, but he’s facing Kai, sketching for all he’s worth.
“Cut me some slack, Marcus. I’m working it out as I go,” Kai tells him.
The lab guys run tests on the zombie brothers to figure out how they work, and the zombies remain prisoners, but they bear it the best they can. Everything changes when they see a gorgeous girl helping out in the lab. She works on the other side of the glass, doing something with test tubes. They don’t know it yet, but this is Emily, the president’s daughter. She wants a career in science rather than politics, so she works at the lab after school. Arc puts his hands on the glass, and Palam touches his heart. They are totally stunned by the beauty of this warm-blooded young woman.
Falling in love is the happiest moment of their unlives. But then things start to go wrong.
“You shouldn’t be in love,” Palam says. “A true brother would stand aside when his brother is in love. And I love her.”
“I saw her first,” Arc throws back. “And I’m not going to tell you to stand aside. We both love her, but we can’t both have her. So we’ll just have to let her choose.”
This is the first time the brothers have a falling-out. They’d been warriors bonded together for ages, but it just takes one girl to change everything.
“I don’t get it,” Alison cuts in. “She’s on the other side of the glass. So what are they fighting over?”
“Over her!” Briony blurts out.
“This is a pure power struggle,” Kai adds. “They’re fighting over the right just to want her, even if it’s hopeless.”
Month after month they pine for Emily, who works in the labs all the time but still has nothing to do with them. It’s a bitter and long year for the zombies—imprisoned, hopelessly in love, and no longer brothers at heart.
Then, unexpectedly, a zombie delegate arrives and negotiates to release one prisoner—just Arc, not Palam. So Arc is free to go to the underworld. Only he can’t leave Emily, so he disguises himself and becomes one of the lab employees. Keeping out of Palam’s sights, Arc works near Emily for years, never revealing his love or the secret of his identity.
When a fire destroys the labs, Palam escapes in the commotion. He’d been watching Emily all these years too, and he’s dying to marry her. He plans to go to the underworld, raise an army, and freak the hell out of the president until he wins Emily’s hand in marriage.
But Palam has a big shock when he smacks into Arc on his way out of D.C.
The brothers stare each other down with their mismatched eyes, because even those body parts were shared . . .
“Cool,” Rooster says, kind of hushed.
. . . and they start to fight. I mean, really fight. They draw blood, but they aren’t stopping there. It’s like they want to cut off all the body parts that they’ve shared all these years. Even if it kills them both—because killing your body brother is pretty much your own death sentence, with no chance to be revived.
All the commotion brings out the army, and the president and Emily too. Emily identifies them as the lab zombies, and this becomes the moment of truth for Arc and Palam. Arc confesses his love for Emily as the reason why he stayed and disguised himself. The president is seriously grossed out. Then Palam tells the president, “Go ahead and kill both of us, but kill Arc first, so I know he’ll never have Emily.”
The president orders the execution, but Emily breaks into tears. She can’t believe her dad would execute them just for being zombies. “They have no choice being that way,” she cries.
“But they love you!” her dad says.
“That’s not a crime either,” she tells him. “I won’t let anyone die because of me.”
The president, who looks at lot like Mr. Bailey, says, “Okay, we’ll have them compete in the American way. On live television, with cool obstacle course features and costume designs. The winner of the duel will get Emily’s hand in marriage.”
Emily’s eyes bug out. “Uh, how about just a date, Dad . . . and then we’ll see how it goes?”
The president raises an eyebrow. Clearly, that’s not an option. And so the duel is planned.
The television slot is scheduled, and lots of publicity goes into it. All the big Super Bowl Sunday advertisers, and so on.
There are just three people not caught up in all the hype. They’re only thinking of their hearts’ desires. Arc prays to his favorite god that he’ll win the duel. Palam prays to his favorite god that he’ll marry Emily. Emily prays to her favorite goddess that no one will get killed and also that she won’t end up marrying anyone.
But Emily’s prayers are denied.
The players take their places. Arc isn’t dressed in street clothes anymore. He’s in a blue and silver outfit cut to show his muscular blue-black flesh. Palam wears red and gold to distinguish them, since their bodies are almost identical.
When the gun goes off, they start running all over the set, each zombie looking for a weapon that can snuff out the other. The rules are that they can’t kill each other outright, but they have to make the other surrender. And to make a zombie surrender pretty much means cutting him open and taking out all his guts.
Arc scores a lucky break, though. Palam gets his foot stuck in a pipe, and it’s pretty easy for Arc to cut him through at the hip with a machete. Palam hops around, trying to fight back, but he’s weaponless and missing a leg, and then an arm, and so on. So Palam has to surrender.
Arc rejoices in his big victory and flashes a smile at Emily up in the stands, but his moment of triumph is short. Maybe it was the prayers or maybe it was all the media hype, but one of the underworld gods had learned about the duel. Invisible to all and bearing his poisonous blade, the god slashes at all Arc’s organs at once.
Arc turns purple, and black blood comes pouring out of his ears. Even Palam, missing an arm and a leg, isn’t nearly as wounded. In fact, with some help from the pit crew bringing him his parts, Palam’s arm and leg are already reattaching themselves enough that he can crawl to Arc’s side. Even though he’s lost Emily, Palam has eyes only for Arc. To see Arc near death brings out all the old memories of saving and being saved.
Palam pleads, “What do you need? Tell me what part, and I’ll give it to you.”
But Arc shakes his head. He speaks with difficulty. “Emily? Where is she?”
Palam realizes Arc wants to speak only to his beloved, not to him, and it cuts him in a way he’s never felt before.
Emily pushes her way through the crowds and throws herself at Arc. She cries, “Arc!
No! Please don’t die!”
Arc takes Emily’s hand into his purple fingers and musters up the strength for speech. “Emily, the gods are calling me to Hell. I’m sorry I’ll never get to know you, to love you as I wanted to, but if you are looking for a good man, please consider Palam. He was the truest brother I ever had. It was only our love for you that shook up our love for each other.” Then he gasps, as if he can’t speak anymore.
Hearing this, Palam rushes back to Arc’s side and holds the body he knows like his own. “Tell me what part you need,” he begs. “Tell me! I can save you!” But Arc fades fast and dies in Palam’s embrace. Palam weeps a long time, and the eye that once was Arc’s weeps as much as his own.
Everyone waits to hear what will happen next, but Kai says, “That’s all, folks!” and we burst into applause.
The popular crowd gets all fist-bumpy, and everyone else wants to tell Kai he’s good but can’t, because Rooster and Bryce, and especially Franklin, are hogging Kai up. Franklin’s been relatively quiet so far—like it’s so demeaning being in an icky bus when he could be lounging in his thirty-five-hundred-square-foot mansion—but now he seems resigned to roughing it for the weekend. He spreads himself out, with Mouse curling into him, all the while chatting alpha-male style with Kai. It’s all so popular and cozy a portrait that I want to sneak back to the parking lot with a blowtorch and rip off the catalytic converter from Franklin’s black Boxster.
Mari, fellow writer and semi-rival, calls out loudly over everyone’s heads, “So, Jeff, what did you think?” She smiles at me, her face framed by that beanie she’s worn all winter.
It’s like a switch turned off everyone’s chatter. I do that flinching you mean me? look, as if she meant a different Jeff. Kai moves his head so Franklin isn’t in his way, and everyone’s waiting to hear what I, the future famous writer, will say.
I am not the best at speaking to a whole bus full of people.
“You should be a writer,” I tell him.
His eyebrows crawl up his face, and he still looks impossibly cool. “Really? I was wondering if the brother thing was cheesy. If I should have kept it a love story. I didn’t even fill in if Palam marries Emily. The brother thing just took over.”