Dead Rules

by Randy Russell

  “No,” Jana said. “Not at all.” She shook her head and drew her lips together, admonishing Arva for such a wicked flight of fantasy.

  Jana arrived late to lunch and had rushed in without going by the girls’ room. Her appearance was the last thing on her mind. She set her bottles of water on the table being shared by Arva, Beatrice, and Christie. Everything was just like yesterday, only Jana’s clothes were a wreck.

  She tucked the back of her wrinkled blouse into her skirt waist as best she could. Her face was smeared with dirt from having wiped away her tears with the back of her hand. She tugged her hair behind her ear.

  Jana breathed in. At least her clothes didn’t smell like Ivory soap so much. She smelled like grass and dirt and sweat. She smelled like Earth. Like life.

  Beatrice stared at Jana’s face. The yellow dart fins leaned left and right, then left again.

  “A quick roll in the hay with Dreamboat?” Christie asked Jana pleasantly, getting his name wrong on purpose. “Your eyes look greener than before. They say your eyes are brighter after, you know, you’ve been doing it.”

  Jana grinned and shook her head no. In the world as viewed by Christie, a roll in the hay with Mars Dreamcote was the best thing that could happen to a junior at Dead School. Jana glanced around the room as she sat down.

  Everyone had blue-tinted faces, those who didn’t have their faces bashed in or their heads sitting next to them on chairs. A third of the students looked like refugees from train wrecks. Another third looked worse. It didn’t seem fair to Jana that when she showed up with her blouse untucked and a little dirt on her face, it caused a riot.

  “There’s blood on your blouse!” Arva pointed her finger at the place where Jana had wiped her fingers after touching Mars’s wounded mouth.

  “It’s chocolate,” Beatrice said. She looked excited. “You had chocolate on the Planet. When I was there, I couldn’t eat anything. Now that I’m here, I don’t want to.”

  “No,” Jana told her. “It’s blood.”

  “I’d forgotten about chocolate,” Beatrice said quietly.

  “See,” Arva creaked out. “I knew something awful would happen.”

  “Leave her alone,” Christie said. “Funerals are hard.” She jerked her shoulders and quietly said, “Ouch.”

  “Are you okay, Jana?” Beatrice asked. “How do you feel? Was it okay?”

  “I feel like I’ve been dead a long time,” Jana answered honestly.

  Jana screwed the cap off a bottle of water and finished half of it in one long drink. She felt like she’d been dead a long time, but she also felt like something new was alive inside her. She had a plan to come up with and to put into action.

  Arva kept talking. “I knew it,” she rasped. “I knew something awful would happen when you chose a Slider to go with you.”

  “Maybe a Slider chose her,” Mars said.

  He was standing behind Jana’s chair. He’d walked up to the table of girls without their noticing his approach. All eyes had been on Jana.

  Arva stuck her current bottle of water in her mouth and looked away. If she could have sniffed and sucked water at the same time, she would have. Beatrice and Christie beamed their best sunshiney faces and smiled at Mars.

  Jana closed her eyes momentarily when Mars lightly touched her on the shoulder. She accepted his warmth now without surprise. It came inside her like an invited guest. Instead of speaking, or doing anything at all to greet Mars, she let the warmth of the moment have its way.

  “I hope you don’t mind, ladies. There’s someone I’d like to introduce to you.”

  The kid in glasses from the library stepped forward. He’d been standing behind Mars.

  “This is Jameson. He’s just agreed to be Jana’s personal tutor. She’s having a little trouble concentrating in class these days.”

  Jameson pushed his glasses up on his nose and turned red. He wasn’t used to talking to girls. After securing his glasses in place, he didn’t know what to do with his hands. So he pushed his glasses against his face again.

  “Hi,” Beatrice said.

  “Hi,” Christie echoed, then added a shoulder bounce and one “ouch.”

  “Davis,” Mars said, waiting.

  Arva took the bottle of water from her mouth. “Hello,” she squeaked, only glancing in the general direction of the two boys standing at the table.

  Mars took his hand away and stepped back. A trail of warmth lifted from Jana. She scooted her chair sideways to look at him. His face was clean and his hair was combed. There wasn’t a bit of blood or even a slight bruise on his face.

  But the blood had been there. The dark stain was still on his faded jeans. Like he’d cut out his own heart and stuffed it in his pocket.

  “Things to do,” Mars said. He threw one hand open and tilted his head, as if to say there was no getting around it. His blue eyes slid over Jana before he turned and walked away, leaving Jameson behind.

  Without the slightest limp from having had his leg sliced, Mars left the cafeteria. He’d never sat down. He hadn’t gone through the line. Mars got his water from the fountain in the hall and used his cafeteria time for other things.

  Jana watched Wyatt rise awkwardly from a table of Sliders by the windows. He glanced at her with a flash of his one good eye, but wouldn’t catch her gaze. He seemed to be frowning. It was hard to tell for sure, because half his face was shaped into a permanent frown. Leaning to one side on his damaged leg with every step, Wyatt followed Mars out the cafeteria doors.

  Jameson sat in the empty chair at the table.

  “Haven’t we run into each other before?” Jana asked. She looked at his straight brown hair and cowlick. It was a small distraction compared to Beatrice’s yellow dart fins.

  Jameson did not reply.

  “In the library,” she tried.

  Jameson nodded. He started to say something, then changed his mind.

  “I’m Jana Webster,” she continued, knowing how shy boys like Jameson could be around girls. She didn’t add “of Webster and Haynes.” It was just her for now. Jana intended to see that it didn’t stay that way for long.

  Jameson walked Jana to fourth period.

  Arva approved. You could see it on her face.

  Jana stopped off at the girls’ restroom while Jameson waited outside. They had a few minutes between classes. No one knew how many, because the clocks were screwy. And cell phones didn’t work, so you couldn’t check the time. Maybe they started class when everyone got there. There wasn’t anyplace else to go.

  She checked the stall doors. There were no toilets in the stalls. Each stall was outfitted with a simple oak chair you could sit on. It was a place to sit and think, if you were in the habit. Or a place to be alone, when you needed to cry.

  Thank heaven they had paper towels. Jana ran water on two towels and washed her face in the mirror. She ran her hands over her hair. With careful fingers, she felt the uplifted lock of hair on the back of her head, the small crack of skull underneath.

  She folded a corner of the wet paper towel and washed carefully around the corners of her eyes. Jana saw her mother in her own face. Just like that and for only a second, her mother appeared then vanished. Had her mother known love when she was sixteen or had she been too beautiful?

  Jana knew love. You couldn’t love without being able to forgive. It sounded like one of Arva’s rules, but it was true. She forgave Michael the minute she left the funeral. He was weak without her. He was devastated by the loss.

  Her mother was a different story. If she knew love, she knew the love you take, not the love you give. Jana wished her mother had been someone she could talk to. But she wasn’t a listener. She made regular pronouncements and requests and took it for conversation. She used people to talk to. Jana’s mother never talked with anyone.

  Marilyn Webster was a born user. Using alcohol and drugs, and people, was all she knew how to do. She used her beauty to take the things she wanted. She was good at it. Jana had to get Mich
ael away from her mother.

  “What’s with the teachers?”

  “They’re dead,” Jameson said. “Is that what you mean?”

  “Got that,” Jana said. “But do they have to be so boring? It’s like they hate what they’re doing.”

  “Best in their fields. They rotate through for a year and then they’re gone. Some are rather fascinating, but you’re right, most of them don’t know how to teach. I guess they provide examples of people who have done things well. Maybe they’ve done things we were planning on doing.”

  “How would we ever know?”

  “You can ask them questions if you like,” Jameson said. “Most students just sit through class, though. We’re all trying to deal with being dead, I suppose.”

  Jameson only looked at her when he was certain she wasn’t looking at him.

  Jana asked him about the original guidebook in the library. “So, you understand what it says, then? And there are rules for Dead School?”

  “Bits and pieces,” Jameson said in an apologetic voice. “Different people wrote different parts at different times. They all used the language differently. Or the language changed. Some of it is Aramaic. Some of the languages we don’t even have names for now. It’s all very ancient. But yes, there are rules. Some are stated plainly. Others are parables.”

  Jana stopped walking and grabbed his arm. “Can I leave campus on my own at night? Can Risers do that?”

  “Oh, it doesn’t actually say that.” Jameson’s face reddened when she touched him. Jana took her hand away.

  “The main rule in the book is free will,” he continued. “You have free will to make your own choices here. If you make the right choices, it can be like atonement, you know? And if you make wrong choices . . . well, you can go backwards. Most Risers just try to ride it out the way things are. The status quo is in your favor, so to speak.”

  They continued walking. Jana’s thoughts tumbled quickly into some sort of understanding. “So, you can rise to the occasion or slide backwards. Is that it?”

  “Yes,” Jameson said. “Mostly that’s it. There are earlier rules too. I keep finding one more here and one more there.”

  “Okay,” Jana said. “How do I become a Slider?”

  This time Jameson stopped walking. He looked at Jana for the first time while she was looking at him. He pushed his glasses up on his nose.

  “That would be going backwards,” he stammered.

  “Let’s think of it as a place to start,” Jana said.

  She smiled. If going backwards meant she would be in Michael’s arms again, then backwards was the only way to go. Sliders could physically interact on the Planet and Jana needed to interact with Michael. Right away. Besides, she thought, it wouldn’t hurt to feel a little warmer while she figured out a way to kill him.

  Michael’s car was parked out front.

  Sherry and Nathan sat on the porch swing at Jana’s house. Nathan was worried about the voice mail he’d received on his cell.

  “At first I thought it was God,” he said. “You know, the voice at the funeral home. And when he asked what time was good for me, I thought he meant what time was good for me to meet my Maker.”

  Nathan did his lawn mower laugh, but it was all worry and nerves. Nothing was funny right now.

  “It’s not God,” Sherry said. “Will you shut up about that already?”

  “I know that now. I think it’s the guy from the bowling alley. The one who showed up out of nowhere and was giving her CPR. He must have taken her cell phone. We have to find out who that guy is.”

  “Why is Michael taking so long?” Sherry asked.

  “Her mom’s a wreck. You know how it is. She’s totally out of it. He’s putting her to bed or something.”

  “He just better not get in there with her,” Sherry said. “That’s all I’ve got to say. Why did they have to bury her with Michael’s ring, anyway? He’s not with her anymore.”

  “And you are,” Nathan said. “Everybody knows that already.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  JANA WAS EARLY.

  Her drama elective was taught onstage in the auditorium. A semicircle of student desks was arranged at the back of the stage. Only a few of the acting students were already in their places, standing near their desks. Jana recognized Henry Sixkiller instantly. Nobody but Henry had hair like that. His head was three inches of black brush that stuck straight up and straight out from neck to crown.

  Jana smiled at him. He smiled back, his Cherokee cheeks tightening into shiny apples, and walked over.

  “Hey,” he said. “I’m Henry.” He thrust out his hand to Jana. Actors can have courage onstage even when they’re not acting. It was interesting to see that the shy, note-passing kid in homeroom found his charm on the stage.

  “Hi,” she said. “Jana Webster.”

  She shook his hand. There was no heat in the touch. A ragged scar inside his grip pressed against her palm.

  “I know, I know,” he said. “Of Webster and Haynes. I sit in front of you in homeroom.”

  “Second and third hour too.”

  “Hey, you went to your funeral today,” Henry said. “Are you doing okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “No one can believe you took a Slider.” Henry made an actor’s face, opening his eyes wide and tossing his pupils from side to side. He feigned shock by dropping his mouth open and bringing up one hand to cover it.

  Jana grinned. She loved being around other actors.

  “I thought it was cool,” he said.

  “Not stupid?”

  “Not stupid,” Henry said. “It was brave.”

  “Thank you,” Jana said.

  “It’s Mars Dreamcote, then? Second day in school and you’re already hooked up. Guess I wasn’t fast enough.”

  “You never know,” Jana said. “The next new student may be the one. I love your hair, by the way. How do you get it like that?”

  “Toaster,” Henry replied.

  Jana lifted her eyebrows.

  “I stuck a fork in one.”

  Mars stood in front of her desk.

  “Let’s go, Webster,” he said. He handed a slip of paper to Henry, who sat in the desk next to Jana’s. “Give that to the teacher for me, Sixkiller, when she gets here. I’ll owe you one.”

  Henry nodded.

  Jana stood from her desk, once again enveloped in the warmth of being close to Mars. She hated to miss her first drama class, but Mars was going to help her find her way to Michael. And that was more important than school. Any school.

  Mars walked Jana to the basement swimming pool. They were alone now. The Risers who dove from the high board only used the pool two days a week.

  Small lights over the locker-room doors barely lit one end of the room. The remainder was dark. Jana stood alone in the edge of the dim light and waited. She felt cold surrounded by the darkness. She ducked her head slightly and let her hair fall forward in an effort to keep her face warmer.

  Except for two feet at one end of the pool that caught and reflected the dim light on its surface, the water was black.

  Mars came out of the boys’ locker room in red swimming trunks. He turned on the underwater lights. He left the overhead lights turned off. Lit up from underneath, the water was deep and pretty. Jana stared at it. The pool looked like a three-dimensional movie screen, waiting for her to move across it, inside it.

  He stood next to her. Standing near his body was like standing in sunlight for Jana. She wanted to run her hand along his bare shoulder, down his muscled arm, until their hands met. Jana shook her head. If she touched Mars that way, it would only make her want Michael more. If she kissed him to swallow his warmth, it would only make her desperate to kiss Michael again.

  “Aren’t you getting in?” she asked.

  Mars nodded. “We need to talk,” he said. “This is our only chance at school.”

  “Okay. It’s kind of spooky here.”

  “Do you swim?”


  “I’m clumsy at it,” Jana admitted. “But I float real well. I’m buoyant.”

  “You’re not afraid, are you?”

  Jana waited. “Yes,” she finally said. “I’m afraid all the time.”

  Mars let it soak in.

  “What are you afraid of, Webster? Me?”

  “No, not you. It’s everything.” Jana bit her lip. “I’m afraid of everything. Aren’t you scared to be here?”

  “Maybe,” Mars said. “Sometimes.”

  “I guess I’m afraid of being alone.”

  “Being dead is like that.”

  “That’s it,” she said. “Exactly that. I’m afraid of being dead.”

  Jana turned to look at him. She’d said too much and wondered if he noticed. When Mars looked back at her, his blue eyes sparkled in the reflected light of the pool. Like lenses that magnified existing light and color, his eyes were small blue mirrors. Jana saw her face in his eyes. There was one of her in each blue eye.

  They were both afraid, she realized.

  Mars looked away and Jana felt a chill.

  “Jameson told me you want to be a Slider,” Mars said. “That’s not the way to go, Webster. You don’t want to go in that direction.”

  “Don’t tell me what I want,” she warned him.

  “I know what you want,” Mars told her. “You want Michael.”

  “I’m in love with him. He’s in love with me. Michael wants to be with me, Mars. And I need him here. Does that bother you?”

  “Some of it does,” he admitted. “I don’t think you should kill him.”

  “Why not?” she asked. “You’re the one who is all about murder, aren’t you?”

  “Okay, okay,” he said. “I wrote those messages in your notebooks. I wanted you to know . . . to remember. You didn’t just fall, Webster. I was there. I saw everything.”

  “Yes, I did just fall,” Jana insisted. Her words echoed off the tiled walls.

  “I’ll show you later.”

  “What were you doing there, anyway?”

  “Just walking through,” Mars said, “remembering what it was like to go bowling.”