Dead Rules

by Randy Russell

  The two Grays behind the library counter tilted their head in unison to one side, then the other, as they watched her leave. Soon they stared at their shoes again.

  • • •

  It wasn’t difficult to find the gym.

  All the Dead Schoolers were making their way to the Sock Hop. Jana walked with the others. You just had to get more demerits when the whole school was your audience, she thought. Henry showed up at her side.

  “Did you mean it?” he asked her.

  The note she’d handed him in class said Wanna dance?

  “Yes.” Jana stopped walking. “But listen, it’s an act, okay? Everything will be an act. I’m rehearsing a role.” Henry was in drama. He would understand. Besides, she wanted to touch his hair. Just once.

  “Got it,” Henry said.

  He was looking at the front of her blouse.

  “And don’t be rude,” Jana snipped. “Now go ahead. I’ll find you there when I’m ready. And remember, it’s not a date or anything like that.” She held up her left hand and wiggled Michael’s class ring for Henry in case he had forgotten.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  SHERRY SKIPPED SCHOOL.

  Once her mother had left, she’d phoned Michael and Nathan. They were at her house now, on their lunch break. Michael paced. Nathan sat on the couch and played with the golden retriever’s ears.

  “Visited?” she said. “He almost raped me!”

  “But what did he say?” Michael asked. He wore a dress shirt with a black armband around one sleeve. He could have missed school entirely today. But he thought it was important to be there, to show his courage under such dreadful circumstances, to carry on in spite of personal challenges and, in general, to be morose in front of everyone.

  “He told me not to scream and he wouldn’t kill me.”

  “What else?”

  Sherry looked at Nathan. He wasn’t much help. “He told me I had to tell the police what you did.”

  “What I did?” Michael stopped pacing. “No. Listen to me, it’s what we did. You brought the spray, remember? And it was your idea in the first place.”

  “Hey, it was a joke,” Nathan broke in. “It was just a joke that went wrong. We didn’t do anything that bad. She fell wrong. It was an accident. Like falling in the bathtub.”

  “We tried to save her,” Michael said, creating a list of good deeds the three had accomplished that night. They’d followed the ambulance to the hospital.

  “No, that was the other guy,” Nathan corrected him. “The other guy tried to save her.”

  “We did everything we could,” Michael insisted. “I called 911, didn’t I?”

  “I think that’s what pissed him off, that he couldn’t save her,” Nathan continued. “And that’s why he’s coming to our houses.”

  “I saw her too,” Sherry interrupted. “Jana was with him last night. She was hiding, but I saw her.”

  “You dreamed that part,” Michael said.

  He hadn’t told either one about his bedroom visit from Jana. He wasn’t going to. Michael was president of the district student council. The whole district, not just his school. District presidents did not see ghosts. Not if they wanted to keep their scholarships to Dartmouth, they didn’t.

  “The guy from the bowling alley isn’t the one who tried to rape me,” Sherry continued. “It was another guy. He was tall and ugly. He was all messed up.” Her voice softened to a whisper. “He had only half a face.”

  Nathan and Michael looked at each other. Then Nathan giggled, like a motorcycle trying to start.

  “Are you making this up?” Michael asked.

  “No!” Sherry said. “My dad’s taking me to the police station to look at mug shots when he gets home from work today. He’s really shook up because none of his fancy locks kept the rapist out. The house alarm never even went off.”

  Michael’s thoughts tumbled, then locked into place. Sherry was unreliable.

  “You can’t say a word to the police about the other thing, I’m warning you,” he said. “Or your father. I have pictures of you on my cell phone. I’ll send them to everyone in school if you cross me.”

  “I won’t,” Sherry promised. “I won’t say anything. Look, my dad is making me. I have to go.”

  “Pictures of what?” Nathan asked, looking from one to the other.

  Michael ignored him. He pointed his finger at Sherry. “If you tell, I will destroy you,” he vowed. “I’ll ruin your entire life.”

  The gym smelled like Pine-Sol and socks.

  The bleachers on one side of the gym were folded against the wall. On the other side, the seats filled up quickly. Girls sat with girls for the most part. Boys sat with boys. Sliders stood in small groups at one end of the gym.

  The Stretchers were tied in gurneys that were arranged in a long row on the side of the floor where the bleachers were left against the wall. Their feet pointed to the middle of the gym. Grays had cranked the top half of the gurneys partially upright so the Stretchers could watch. Two microphones were bent over an antique record player on a table.

  The setting was just right for her all-school performance debut, Jana thought.

  The overhead lights blinked, then dimmed. The speakers crackled and a song began to play. It was “Hawaii Five-O” by The Ventures. The sound of rolling guitars crashed into the gym walls. Students, milling around, bumped into one another trying to stay off the dance floor.

  “It’s like 1975 around here,” Jana said to a Riser standing nearby.

  “More like 1969. My dad’s uncle had all these records. They didn’t have CDs and downloads then. They had to stay home to listen to anything. Or drive around in their cars and play eight-tracks. He said you could play one of those about ten times and then it started messing up, so he bought the records.”

  Jana saw Beatrice across the gym. She was easy to spot in a crowd. It was like someone had drawn an arrow pointing to her head. Beatrice sat on the second row of bleachers with Arva and Christie. Henry Sixkiller was sitting just below them. He saw Jana at about the same time she spotted his hair. He got up, carrying his shoes, and made his way around the gym floor. Soon he was standing next to her.

  “Wait till they do a slow one,” Jana told him. “Then let me do the work. You just stand there.”

  “Okay.”

  “And don’t touch anything.”

  The Ventures ended. “Get Back,” a Beatles song, came on next. Students slid in their socks into the middle of the dance floor. Some of the girls danced with each other.

  Pauline was the center of attention. The senior danced with two boys at once, one in front of her, and one behind. She turned her top half to face one while her bottom half faced with the other. At one point, the boy dancing with Pauline’s top half took her hand and twirled her around from the waist up. Both boys had to duck in turn when her hair, permanently swept straight out to one side, came around.

  Risers danced with Risers and Sliders with Sliders, Jana noticed. Most of the boys just shuffled their feet. She watched Wyatt at the Sliders’ end of the gym. He was taller than most of the other students in Dead School. No one had a name for the dance he did. He stood in place and rocked from side to side, using his good arm to roll imaginary toilet paper around his wrist.

  Mars was dancing too. It surprised her, for some reason. The girl he danced with was the one with the pierced belly button who Jana had seen standing next to him in the hall. She wasn’t right for him. They didn’t dance alike at all. Jana’s mouth tasted like strawberries as she watched him dance.

  She thought of the times she’d danced with Michael. When they danced, they became one person. They gave themselves to each other. Just like when they kissed. His lips were hers. Her lips were his. When she and Michael kissed, they owned each other, but not themselves. Two people becoming one person was the way Jana had always imagined true love.

  Mars wanted to save a life. So did she, Jana thought, but more than a single life. She was trying to save an ent
ire relationship. Two people. She just had to kill somebody to do it.

  The slow number came next. “Easy to Be Hard” by Three Dog Night. Most of the kids left the center of the gym and regrouped along the sides. The Risers who had been dancing stood in front of the bleachers. Jana tugged her blouse out of her skirt. She opened all but one button. She nudged Henry, who took her hand and walked them to the middle of the floor.

  When he stopped, Jana bent her head forward then flipped her hair back. Jana the actor pushed herself against him. She ran her hand over his hair. It felt like a sable brush. She pushed herself away, stood six inches in front of Henry. She opened her mouth and ran her tongue over her lips, then danced as dirty as she knew how. Students on the gym floor stopped dancing and turned to watch her.

  Murmurs ran through the crowd.

  Henry took it all in stride and managed somehow not to burst out laughing while he pretended to be seduced. In the midst of it all, Jana’s last button came open. The circle of students on the dance floor thickened as other students from the outer edges rushed in to try to catch an eyeful.

  Jana blushed, but kept on dancing. Michael was worth the embarrassment. Anyone who had ever been in love would understand.

  In the end it was only twenty demerits. The same number she’d earned for leaving campus. Jana had hoped for more.

  Dancing topless was something of a bust. Apparently it wasn’t egregious even a little bit. For all she knew, the majority of her demerits were for having hung her bra on the library door on her way to the dance. Her dance was sufficiently daring enough, however, to offend the publicity committee, and Arva left the cafeteria as Jana arrived at lunch break.

  “She took her bottles of water with her,” Beatrice told Jana. “She said she wasn’t coming back until you put on a bra.”

  “She’ll have to wait until tomorrow, then,” Jana said. “I lost it somewhere.”

  “Don’t worry,” Christie assured her. “You’ll wake up in the morning wearing one. I threw my shoes out the window once. They walked back in while I was sleeping and climbed on my feet.”

  Jana told Beatrice her makeup was pretty, that it had been just right for the dance.

  “And you.” Jana looked at Christie. “How did you get your skirt like that? Your legs looked so long and sleek.”

  “Beatrice did it for me in the restroom. She cut out three pleats and folded the waistband under. It took about three seconds. She went to sleep with scissors and needle and thread in her hands. It was just like Project Runway.”

  “Christie was wearing shorts when she died,” Beatrice said. “There’s not much you can do with that, so I thought it would be fun to see what we could do with the uniform for the dance.”

  “And all we really needed to do was cut the buttons off my blouse,” Christie said, smiling at Jana. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

  Jana grimaced, but just a little. She deserved the joke.

  “So it was summer when you died,” Jana said. “Do you mind if I ask?”

  “Shoot no. That and a bunch of TV shows are about the only things I remember anymore. And honestly, it was kind of fun. I almost didn’t feel a thing, except the speed of it all.”

  “It was fast?” Jana wanted it to be fast for Christie’s sake.

  Christie dreamed she left her body.

  She dreamed it all the time. She would lift out of herself and see her body asleep in bed. In her dreams, she traveled to other places, other rooms. She watched things happen to people. Once she watched a man walk a dog on a mountain road. He didn’t know it, but a butterfly was following him. That was a good dream.

  Another time she watched a hole open in the ground and she had to fly away to keep from being sucked into it.

  When she woke, she thought the hole was death. Christie believed she’d dreamed her grave. A grave, she decided, was just another place to sleep. And she thought that when she was finally dead she would leave her body and travel to other places too. She’d have all the time in the world.

  It was a hot weekend when her uncle showed up at the house. He was out having fun on his four-wheeler. He asked Christie if she wanted to go for a ride.

  Her mother had told her she wasn’t allowed to do anything with her uncle on the weekends because he was always drunk. He worked hard all week and drank hard all weekend.

  “Where?”

  “Around,” he told her. “It’s too hot to sit still.”

  She was hearing it for the first time, but Christie thought she heard him say that twice. Her uncle removed his ball cap and turned it around backwards.

  “Where do you know that’s cool?” she asked.

  “Lordy, girl, if we go fast enough in big circles we can make it rain. Don’t you know anything?”

  Christie climbed on the back and he took off across a field where the family down the road used to keep horses. There was no second seat on the four-wheeler. Her uncle sat lower than Christie. She sat on the rack on back and grabbed his shoulders with both hands.

  They raced to the end of the field, the four-wheeler bouncing on its fat tires. Christie held on tight. Riding the four-wheeler was a rush. The wind lifted her hair. Birds lifted from the field. Her uncle slowed down just enough to circle the telephone pole at the edge of the field to come back.

  The four-wheeler tilted up on two wheels. Her uncle leaned far to one side to bring the other wheels down in mid-circle.

  Christie should have ducked, but neither one of them saw it in time. A steel cable, used as a guide wire on the telephone pole, was anchored in the ground two yards off.

  The two of them rode under the angled cable. Well, mostly. The cable caught Christie across her forehead and snapped her neck. She lifted out of herself, just like she did in her dreams. She watched the four-wheeler scoot on along without her, her uncle scrunched down in the seat.

  Christie’s body sat on the ground beside the telephone pole. She didn’t stick around to see the hole they placed her body in. Christie traveled to far-off places instead.

  “I ended up here,” Christie said, cringing. “I was hoping for Paris.”

  She told Jana that she hadn’t felt a thing. That it was like a sudden stop and that she didn’t remember hitting the ground. “I can push my head all the way back if I want to, but I don’t like doing it in front of other people. I think it’s rude. A lot of us are like that. When this room relaxes, body parts hit the floor.”

  Jana would have laughed, but it was likely true.

  “Mars Dreamcote can lay his head over to the side anytime he wants,” Beatrice told Jana. “Either side. He can rest his head on his own shoulder.” She smiled upside down.

  “Really?” Jana asked.

  “He used to sit like that in class when I first got here,” Christie said. “Anyway, don’t cry for me. There are lots of worse ways to die. Just look around the room.”

  “And it did wonders for your hair,” Beatrice said.

  “I know,” Christie said happily. “It really did. Plenty of bounce.”

  Jana saw how Christie’s death fit in with Arva’s view of things. Christie’s uncle had been drinking. If Arva had been there when the uncle showed up, Jana was certain she would have said, “Better not.” And Arva would have been right, Jana had to admit. Still, you weren’t going to get anywhere if you never did anything.

  “Speaking of bounce,” Beatrice said, “you’re lucky one of these didn’t fall on you at the dance today.” She pointed to the yellow yard dart fins at the top of her head.

  “Or two!” Christie added quickly. Both girls burst out laughing and Jana had to smile.

  “Maybe if I’d been dancing with Brad, one would have,” Jana said.

  Beatrice stopped laughing. Her face softened and she smiled warmly at Jana, her little upside-down smile stretching into a real one.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I’d almost forgotten his name, and I never want to forget that. What we did may not be a lot for some people, but it was special to me. It
was the first time I’d ever felt like an adult. You know what I mean? When he touched my breast, when he closed his hand over it, I felt like a woman instead of a girl.”

  • • •

  Jana didn’t even consider going to drama class.

  Students she didn’t know said hi to her in the halls, especially the boys. Jana was popular now. Neither Wyatt nor Mars had been in the cafeteria for lunch. She feared she might be unpopular with both of them for the time being. No, she thought, Wyatt would have gotten a kick out of her performance. It was Mars she worried about.

  She found her way to the basement swimming pool on her own. This time the overhead lights were on. Two Risers stood near the diving board. Jana walked to the edge of the pool. The surface of the water looked like light blue satin.

  Jana pulled off her shoes and socks. Mars sat on the bottom of the pool. She felt cold and didn’t want to be. She took off her skirt, practically bruising her fingertips on the ridiculously tight buttons that held the waist closed. She left her skirt where it fell. She carefully removed Michael’s ring and placed it inside one of her shoes. Leaving on her blouse and school uniform granny panties, Jana jumped into the pool feet first.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  JANA JUMPED IN AND WENT UNDER.

  Water covered her in warmth. She came back up and quickly took a breath of air. She swam to the middle, where Mars was waiting below. Jana pointed her toes straight down and, with a push of her arms upward, dropped beneath the surface.

  She released air in a series of rising bubbles and swam toward Mars. He was watching her. He waved one arm, then the other, rising into a crouch, his knees folded under him. He brought his hands to his sides, and in one powerful push he shot straight up toward the surface, passing Jana in her slower descent.

  Jana rowed her arms through the water, bringing her legs under her. Her feet touched bottom. She pushed gently away, upward, and rose to the surface.