Passing Strange

by Daniel Waters

  “Please!” Pete said, his shirt riding up out of his pants as McMahon tried to haul him away. “Let me talk to her!”

  “Let him go,” Alholowicz called. “You might as well let him go. Stay put there, Takky.”

  Takayuki didn’t respond, but I stood and put my hand on his shoulder, my fingers threading their way through the spikes there.

  “He recognized the girl’s car,” McMahon said. As hale and hearty as he seemed, he was slightly winded from his tussle with Pete.

  Pete’s clothes were askew, and there was a red mark across his neck.

  “Just listen to me, Christie,” he said. He looked like he was lost. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what I did.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  HE’D STUCK PINS IN HER.

  The thought made it very difficult for Tak to concentrate on what Pete was actually saying.

  “I’m sorry. I’ve got a lot to apologize for. To you two, especially. Christie. Karen, I mean. Adam. Adam, I’m so sorry for what happened, man. Things got out of hand. Really out of hand. Karen. I can’t apologize enough for what happened.”

  Martinsburg was psychotic, Tak thought. He actually looked like he believed what he was saying—like he was sorry for what he’d done. Tak hadn’t seen anyone—anyone alive, that is—who could mask their true feelings as well as Martinsburg was doing.

  “No, you can’t,” Phoebe said.

  She looked like a sleek cat about to pounce, Tak thought. She had some fire to her; some fight. Her pseudo-goth clothing might be a disguise, but there was considerably less artifice to her than to most of the breathers.

  Pete nodded. “I know. I know. I can never make up for what happened. I can’t even think of an excuse. I was going through some bad stuff in my life, new medication, and I just lost it. I’m sorry.”

  “Adam is a zombie because of you. Karen went to jail because of you. She nearly reterminated herself because of you!”

  Pete’s eyes affected a hurt expression. “I know. I know. That’s why I’m here. Because of her, it’s got me all twisted up inside. What…what she and I had…I thought it was real. When I found out it wasn’t, I lost it. Again. And when I lose it, people get hurt. It’s almost like I can’t control myself.”

  “What do you mean, ‘what she and I had’? What are you even talking about?” Phoebe said.

  Pete pretended not to have heard her; he couldn’t take his eyes from Karen. He was so good at lying, it was clearly pathological, Tak thought.

  “And then when I read that she reterminated herself, I just…I just couldn’t take it.” His eyes were glassy, those of a little lost boy. “I…I think I was in love with you, Christie.”

  “Karen,” she whispered.

  “Karen. When I read about your re—your second death, I cried. I cried! I can’t remember the last time I cried. I didn’t even cry when Adam died.”

  “When you killed him, you mean.”

  “You should let him speak, Miss Kendall.” This from Agent Gray, the thin guy with the hard expression. Tak thought it was interesting that Pete didn’t deny the accusation, but kept nodding his head.

  “Please, Phoebe,” Angela said. “Let’s give him a chance.”

  “What do you…mean…you…loved Karen?” Adam said.

  “She’s incredible,” he said, looking over at her as she stood statue-still in the middle of the room. “I thought we had something real. She listened to what I was saying, you know? And she was smart, and funny. Most of the girls I’d been with were total airheads—but Christie…Karen…she was something else. Something out of this world. Kissing her…”

  Pete had to know that what he was saying was infuriating them. Tak was clenching his fists so tightly that the knuckles cracked. But it was Phoebe who finally snapped.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” she said, her eyes going back and forth from Pete to Karen, who lowered her head.

  Pete blinked. “She…she and I got close. I thought you knew.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about, and I’m pretty sick of listening to your insane…”

  “She pretended she liked me. You really didn’t know about this?”

  “…lying, and I can’t believe that you’re listening to him, Angela, encouraging him, after all he’s done to hurt us….”

  Pete took a hesitant step toward Karen, and Tak moved alongside Adam to bar his way.

  “Or maybe you weren’t pretending?” Pete said.

  “And now he’s literally throwing dirt on Karen’s grave and you just sit there and…”

  “Christie? Karen? Was it all a joke to you?” Softer, now.

  “…letting him run his mouth, while…”

  “Karen?”

  “He’s telling…the truth.”

  Her voice, soft as it was, silenced the room. Phoebe stopped in mid-rant. One could hear a pin drop.

  A pin.

  Another crack, and Takayuki wondered if he’d broken his own finger.

  “What?” Phoebe said, turning the full heat of her gaze on Karen.

  “He’s telling the…truth,” Karen said, meeting Phoebe’s eyes.

  Pete affected a rueful expression.

  “I’m sorry you heard it like this,” he said, obsequious. Placating. “I really thought you’d all know.”

  “I saw the…Guttridge…tape and…knew it…was him. I wanted…to expose…the fraud.”

  “Expose the fraud,” Phoebe said.

  Karen didn’t answer.

  “I guess part of me always knew what she was,” Pete said, going on as though he were part of their conversation. “Who she was. A zombie, I mean. I think subconsciously I knew, and that’s why I let her know the things I did. I think I felt so guilty about everything…accidentally killing you, and then doing all those things to frame the zombies. I knew it was wrong. Deep down I knew it was wrong, and I think part of me was looking for a way out. Karen became that way out.” He sighed. “I really think I loved her.”

  “Yeah, you loved her so much it made her dead again,” Phoebe said. Tak could hear the bitterness in her voice. Certain things were adding up in her head.

  Pete made bloodhound eyes at her.

  “When I realized that she didn’t love me…that I didn’t lose her, because I never really had her…I went crazy. I did. Even though I think my subconscious mind was in on the joke, I went nuts.”

  Tak couldn’t take it anymore. He had to speak, although he wasn’t sure exactly what he wanted to say.

  “Pins. You stuck…pins in her.”

  “I did. I did,” Pete said, sniffling. “Like she was a human voodoo doll. It felt like I was sticking them into myself.”

  “Oh, please,” Phoebe said.

  “I don’t expect you to understand,” he said, rubbing at his eyes. “I don’t even understand myself. But I died with her a little in that jail cell.”

  Tak stepped toward him. Adam placed his hand on his shoulder.

  Alholowicz cleared his throat.

  “Martinsburg’s confessed to staging the murders with Duke Davidson, who we already have under arrest. Your story corroborated just about everything he told us. He’s even told us where we could find his lawyer.”

  “And what…will happen to him?” Adam said, pointing past Tak’s shoulder at Pete.

  Alholowicz cocked an eyebrow. “Him? He’s free to go. He’s cooperated fully and answered all our questions.”

  Gray jumped in before even Phoebe could protest. “He gave us Guttridge. He’s willing to testify against Davidson, who he says was the organizer of all the anti-zombie propaganda and incidents. We’ll get Davidson on about a dozen solid charges, and hopefully he’ll give up some of his coconspirators.” He smiled. “And the good names and reputations of you and your dead friends will be restored.”

  Tak glared at him.

  “Isn’t that enough?” Alholowicz asked.

  “No.”

  “Well, it is going to have to be. Because that’s all yo
u’ll get.”

  Tak kept glaring. Maybe dropping the knife had been a mistake.

  “I’d say it worked out pretty well for you, Takayuki. I’m pretty sure that the ambulance personnel would have no trouble picking you out of a lineup.”

  “So you’d charge me…with…what? Corpse theft?”

  “That’s a start.”

  “Arrest her, too,” Tak said, indicating Angela. “Wasn’t she…supposed to get Karen…for dissection? And her parents had…no recourse. Sounds like kidnapping…to me.”

  “How about reckless endangerment? Attempted murder? The driver had a broken arm and a concussion.”

  Tak realized that Alholowicz was enjoying the argument, but he couldn’t stop himself.

  “He shattered the leg of one of…my friends. Broke…his…arm. I have witnesses…the driver…did it…on purpose.”

  “That’s crap. But if you want to bring them in, that would be great.”

  Tak turned from him, aware of how closely everyone was watching him. Everyone but Karen and Pete, who were looking at each other as if seeing each other for the first time.

  “Let’s focus on the positive,” Angela said. “Right about now my father will be telling Tommy the good news. You won’t have to be in hiding anymore.”

  “Really,” Tak said.

  There were conversations to be had, documents to be signed. A few hours later the agents told Tak that he and his friends could go.

  Tak thought about the word “friends.”

  He put his arm around Karen and led her to the door.

  Pete stepped in front of them, blocking their exit.

  “Look,” he said, speaking to Karen. Her scarf had slipped a bit, and crisscrossing lines of gray were visible on her cheek. Deep lines. “I just want you to know, I’m sorry about everything. Everything.”

  “Get out of…our way,” Tak said.

  Pete turned toward him. “And I’m not angry at you anymore for maiming me.” His hand went to the scar and traced its length with his fingertip.

  “Come with me, Karen,” Phoebe said, holding out her hand.

  Pete whispered a name that Tak couldn’t catch, but it wasn’t Karen. Then he said, “I love you.”

  Karen broke away from Tak and Pete and went to Phoebe, leaning against her as if her strength had finally given out. Phoebe took her by the hand and led her out of the encounter room. Tak was aware that Adam was standing beside him.

  Pete’s eyes ticked back and forth between them. He tapped his scar with the tip of his finger.

  “I was angry when it happened, of course,” he said. “Furious. I wanted revenge. But that’s all behind me now. I just wanted you to know I’m not looking for retaliation.”

  Tak wasn’t sure if he was speaking about the scar or about what happened with Karen. He didn’t care.

  He leaned in close, his voice a low whisper. He imagined that his breath, or what passed for it, would be unpleasant to Martinsburg.

  “I didn’t go…far enough,” he said. “I am…going to kill you.”

  Pete straightened up, a flicker of fear in his eyes. But the flicker was soon replaced by another emotion entirely.

  “You’re all wet, Tak,” Pete whispered. “You are so out of your depth, and you haven’t even touched bottom yet.”

  Tak’s face betrayed nothing, even as what Pete was saying registered to him.

  “Be springtime soon,” Pete said. “Birds. Bees. Fishing season.”

  “Time…to go,” Adam said, his hand a reassuring weight on Tak’s shoulder.

  Tak had his friends drop him off at the edge of the woods not far from the lake. Even if Martinsburg or any of his henchmen decided to pursue him, they wouldn’t have an easy time finding him in the dark icy water of the Oxoboxo.

  Karen held his hand for the duration of their short ride. He didn’t want to let go when Phoebe pulled onto the shoulder. He wouldn’t allow himself to feel as though he’d regained her only to lose her; all that mattered was that she was still in the world.

  “Tak,” she said, holding him tightly once they were out of the car. “You saved me. You knew.”

  I’ll always know, he thought. But he didn’t answer. There wasn’t any need.

  He wished he could wipe away the hint of apology that had crept into Karen’s diamond eyes. There was nothing to be sorry about, as far as he was concerned. People are who they are, and they feel what they feel. But he did lean in close and whisper something in her ear, something that Phoebe or Adam couldn’t hear, and when he let her go she was smiling, but she was starting to cry, too.

  “Tears,” he said, amazed. He watched one trickle down her cheek.

  “Just like a real girl,” she said, leaning against Phoebe as she put her arms around her shoulder.

  “We shouldn’t stay here much longer,” Adam said. “You never know.”

  Tak nodded. “Good luck,” he said.

  “You, too,” Adam replied, extending his hand. “See you…soon?”

  Tak had offered him his own hand what seemed like so long ago, on the opposite shore of this very lake. This time he took it from choice, not desperation.

  “Maybe. If Tommy has some luck.”

  The hug from Karen had been expected, the one from Phoebe was a pleasant surprise. Since he’d returned he hadn’t been hugged—or even touched—by as many girls as he had been in the past few days.

  “Say hi to our friends,” she said, his battered leather coat creaking in her embrace. “Tell them we love them. Take care of them.”

  “I will.”

  Walking away, he didn’t look back. He never did.

  But there was a moment that he clung to, a moment that he’d captured and replayed with each step toward the frozen lake. It was the moment that she’d opened her eyes in the ambulance; the moment he thought someone had answered his prayers.

  It would be springtime before long, and he was endlessly patient.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  ALHOLOWICZ AND GRAY dropped Pete off at his house. He could see his mother through the bay window, her arms folded across her chest.

  “Well, Pete,” Alholowicz said, spitting his name out like someone had switched out the sugar for his coffee with salt. “I guess we should thank you.”

  “Yeah,” Gray said. “Duke Davidson and Attorney Guttridge. Not bad.”

  “Best I could do,” Pete said.

  Gray turned around in his seat and focused his eyes, which were as gray as his suit and his name—Pete thought they were the color of a gun—on his face. “Yeah? I don’t think they could have planned this all on their own. Duke and his red-neck pals.”

  Pete looked out the window. He saw the Wimp join his mother, put his arm around her shoulder.

  “Like I said, I wouldn’t know anything about that.”

  “Yeah,” Gray said. He flicked a business card at Pete, bouncing it off his chest. “We’ll be in touch. Give us a call if anything else comes to mind.”

  Pete took his time retrieving the card from the floor. One corner was bent from where it had struck him.

  Alholowicz cleared his throat, coughing. “Now get the hell out of my car,” he said. “You’re stinking it up to high heaven.”

  His mother was overly affectionate and tearful, but he could tell he’d made her happy. It wasn’t something he did often, so the signs were easy to recognize. The Wimp gripped his shoulder and gave him some song-and-dance routine about how proud he was of Pete, how he’d done the right thing. The old anger rose up, but Pete fought it back. His training served him well; his mind was once again in control of his body. He could no longer summon up the energy to look contrite as his mother blubbered and the Wimp went through the motions of seeming like a father figure.

  When they were done he asked for a sandwich and some lemonade, then excused himself to take a shower.

  He ran the water as hot as it would go, knowing it would be some time before the furnace kicked in. He took off his clothes and then looked at himself
in the mirror, his eyes involuntarily going to his scar as they always did. Then he thought of her, but not the her of illusion—the her that had seemed so full of life and energy. Instead he thought of her as she lay under the sheet in the ambulance, of the scars that marred her dead flesh, of the terrible wound at her temple. How could she have done that to herself? What could someone be carrying, what inner strength or inner weakness could a person have, to inflict that type of damage to herself?

  The scar on his face seemed to lengthen and then fork as it slid beneath his jaw. Slashes appeared on his bare chest and arms, lengthening and widening slowly, as though some invisible being were carving them with an unseen knife. His temple opened up as if something beneath the skin were burrowing its way out, and a greenish black liquid began to bubble and flow glacially down the side of his face. He blinked and his left eye was gone, a dark tear falling from the socket. Air escaped from his neck with a sound that matched the hissing radiators as they worked to heat the water that flowed through the pipes and up through the showerhead.

  “How could she?” he thought, watching lines open on his belly, on his cheek.

  Steam began to obscure his reflected image, and when he disappeared completely he turned away with the intention of washing himself clean.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  GUTTRIDGE LOOKED LIKE A different man when they led him away from the lake house in handcuffs. He’d shaved off his thick beard and lost about twenty pounds. But Pete thought his eyes were especially different. They met the camera only once, by accident, and what they revealed was a man lost to the world. They didn’t show his wife or children on camera, but she was quoted as saying, “It was wrong, what he did. I knew it was wrong, but he’s still my husband.”

  Alholowicz made a statement to the press; his partner didn’t appear. He talked about having received credible evidence regarding a conspiracy to implicate zombies in a number of crimes, but he didn’t say what crimes and he didn’t reveal either his sources or who the zombies suspects were. He said that they were still on the lookout for other conspirators—his word.