When we got into the office, I finally tore my gaze away from my shoes and looked through Mrs. Ibrahim’s opened door and I saw a Salem city policeman in there with her. My head swam.
“Are you okay?” Mrs. Schoen asked.
Of course I wasn’t. Even as barely socialized as I am, I knew I couldn’t say that. “I’m fine,” I said. It was becoming my personal mantra.
She nodded like she understood. “Well, go ahead on in.” She motioned me toward the door to the office. Almost against my will, I shuffled in that direction.
Mrs. Ibrahim motioned for me to sit down as soon as I entered. The cop, who had been standing behind her desk, walked around and closed the door as I slumped into the chair. He walked back and stood with his arms crossed over his chest. He held a manila envelope in one hand. I stole quick glances at him. Tall and beefy, with dark hair that stood up like a brush, he also had one of those ridiculous cop molestaches. Is it a rule that you have to have one before you join the force? Do women officers and those with a testosterone deficiency get waivers? He met my gaze and I went back to staring at the floor.
I needed to think of something to say when they confronted me about the drugs. Maybe I could claim I didn’t know that Vitamin Z was illegal? Would they buy that?
“Courtney,” Mrs. Ibrahim said, and paused. I caught my breath and looked up at her. She looked so sad. She must have been so disappointed in me. “This is Officer Rey, Courtney, and he needs to speak to you.”
They shared a look. Oh, man, he looked really unhappy, too. I would’ve thought he’d be super-psyched to bust a teenage drug dealer, like he’d get a bonus that month or something.
He cleared his throat. “Hi, Courtney,” he said. I was surprised by how high his voice was. “Were you friends with William Luunder?”
I sat up straight. This wasn’t about me? This was about . . . ?
“Do you mean Willie?”
He looked at whatever he had in the folder and frowned, then he made a note with the pen from his breast pocket.
“We didn’t know he had also been called Willie, but yes, that’s him.”
I tried to conceal my sigh as I sat back in the chair. This wasn’t about me and my second job. This was about Willie. What had Willie done to get himself in trouble?
“Wait a minute,” I said as things began to sink in. “Did you say, ‘were you’?”
Mrs. Ibrahim blanched and coughed. The cop frowned even more deeply.
“That’s right,” he said. “I’m really sorry to tell you this, Courtney. William, Willie, died in a zombie attack sometime last night.”
“That can’t be right,” I said. “I talked to him just yesterday morning.” I felt like I couldn’t draw a deep enough breath.
“You talked to him this morning?” Rey asked. “Monday morning?”
“No,” I said, “yesterday. Sunday.”
He exchanged a glance with the principal. Then he turned back and cleared his throat again.
“Right,” he said, “and the incident I’m describing happened sometime last night. Or early this morning.
“You said you spoke with him yesterday?”
I was too busy concentrating on the word “incident.” I sometimes made fun of Willie, but he wasn’t dumb enough to get caught up in some damned incident. Officer Rey had to ask me again.
“Uh, yeah,” I answered. “I talked to him yesterday around, like, nine in the morning.”
“Did he seem depressed to you?”
That stopped me short. Depressed? Yeah, he was depressed as hell. But I didn’t get what him feeling mopey had to do with anything. I asked why that was important.
“We have reason to believe that William’s death was a suicide.”
I actually felt my mouth fall open. That made no sense whatsoever. It just couldn’t be true. I tried to say that, and my voice refused to work.
“A murder-suicide, actually,” Officer Rey said. “His mother and father also died in the attack.”
My head swam. I dropped my books and I think I started to slump forward because the next thing I knew, the cop was kneeling right next to me and Mrs. Ibrahim stood behind her desk.
“Should I get the school nurse?” she asked Rey.
“I think she’ll be okay,” he told her, and I wondered if that was the truth. I felt tears welling up in my eyes and there was no way I wanted to cry in front of these two. Unfortunately, I didn’t think I had a choice.
“That’s so crazy,” I said through a constricted throat. “Why would you even think that? Willie would never hurt himself like that. Why are you telling me like this?” The last bit came out in a whine. It felt so unfair. They were torturing me for no reason. Were they going to do this to all of Willie’s friends?
“Courtney, we’re almost positive it was suicide,” Rey said. In response to my hysteria, he seemed to be growing more calm. God, I wanted to smash him in the face for being so collected. “He left a note. The reason we have you in here,” he went on, “is because the note is addressed to you.”
I squeezed my eyes shut against the tears and shook my head back and forth. I started to chant, “No, no, no,” but I knew it must be true. Willie somehow killed himself and his parents and he got some zombies to do it. I stopped as something occurred to me. My sudden stillness startled Officer Rey.
“What about his sister?”
“She’s fine, Courtney,” he said, calm again. “Willie made sure that she was safe.”
The thought of Julie all alone in the world really opened the floodgates. I started to openly sob. Huge gasping breaths tore through me. I heard Officer Rey ask for the nurse then, and soon she was there trying to give me a sedative. Normally the school doesn’t hand out so much as an aspirin, so they must have been really freaked out.
I started to feel more calm. No, that’s not right. There was a part of me that still screamed inside. I just felt more distant from it. Like I could watch that part of me and it didn’t affect me personally. If that makes sense.
As I got my shit together, Officer Rey sat in a chair next to me and Mrs. Ibrahim sat back down.
“Courtney,” Rey went on, “if you feel up to it, I need you to tell us what you two talked about. It might have some bearing on what happened.”
Through the fog of whatever it was they gave me, I told them about having plans with Willie and blowing him off accidentally. I told them about hanging with Brandon and his friends and calling Willie on Sunday and the talk we had. When I got to the part about Willie’s mom harping on about the fish, Officer Rey got a weird look on his face, but he didn’t say anything.
I told them everything that happened Saturday through Sunday morning. I even told them about all of us drinking up at Brandon’s dad’s cabin and the zombie attack.
When I finished talking, the two adults were silent. I don’t know what they thought. The cop probably wanted to fit all this new information into his theory about the incident . I bet Mrs. Ibrahim wondered if she should pursue my admission that we’d been drinking illegally. Whatever. It didn’t matter to me just then.
“The part about the fish makes sense.” Rey scribbled into a little reporter’s notebook.
It took a lot of concentration to turn my head and look at him.
“What?” I asked.
“We think that William attracted the zombies into his home somehow,” Rey said. “The smell of rotten fish might have done it.”
So now zombies were like goddamned raccoons? This situation was reaching a level of absurdity that threatened to make me puke. What next? The shufflers also dug up his yard and knocked over the trash cans? I needed to get out of that room.
“Do you think, based on your conversation, that William was despondent enough to kill himself?”
I didn’t have to think it; it was obvious he was since hewent ahead and killed himself! I didn’t say that. Instead, my foggy mind clutched at something the officer said earlier.
“You said there was a note?”
“Um, yes.”
“I want to read it,” I said. Rey exchanged a look with Mrs. Ibrahim.
“I don’t know,” Rey said.
Mrs. Ibrahim cleared her throat. “He wrote it to her,” she said, “she should be able to read it.”
Rey nodded and rooted around through the notes in his file. He handed me a photocopy of a piece of ruled notebook paper, like Willie had been writing a school report instead of a suicide note.
Courtney,
I don’t want you to think that what I’m going to do is because of you, okay? And don’t be too mad at me. It’s just hard, you know? Too hard. I look around me and I don’t see a way out of all of this shit.
I feel stupid and ugly and like I’ll never get out of this town. Not like you. The worst part is my mom is always reminding me about this stuff so it’s not even like I could forget, even though I try. I think about her and how she treats me and Julie and my dad and I just feel crazy. Especially Julie. She’s the best thing in this ugly world. She’s like sunshine when everything else is dark. And mom is trying her best to ecstingwish that light, you know?
Like I said don’t blame yourself. I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. I couldn’t do it myself, meaning I couldn’t pull the trigger or whatever, but I think I know a way. I saw some shufflers out near Parker’s field across the street. I might be able to get them over here. Over—
I was thinking about what we talked about the other day. About that doctor guy who wants to talk to the zombies. Maybe if I get these ones inside, I’ll try and talk to them before they do there thing. Or maybe, if I come back as a zombie, then you could talk to me. It would be nice to talk to you one more time, Courtney.
I love you, you know. I should of said that to you before now.
Willie
I read through the note a couple of times. He said not to blame myself. Come on, how could I not? And don’t be angry? I was furious! What the hell was he thinking? If he had talked to me again, we could have figured something out. Now we’d never have the chance to do that, to talk, to figure stuff out.
Tears streamed down my face. The pill they gave me earlier was keeping me from flipping out, but it couldn’t keep back all of what I felt. Through all of the frustration, anger, and sorrow, what I felt was a gaping hollow space where Willie used to be. Big, dumb Willie. Willie who was always there without me having to think about it. Well, that just wasn’t true anymore.
“I think that’s enough, don’t you, Officer Rey?” Mrs. Ibrahim looked like she was crying, too, and somehow that helped. I wanted the whole world to feel as bad as me right then.
“Of course,” he said, and he stood up. After fumbling through his pockets for a second, he handed me a hankie. Jesus. Him being nice to me just made me cry even harder.
“Will you be okay?” he asked. I didn’t answer.
“We have a grief counselor on staff,” the principal said. I wasn’t sure if she was talking to him or to me. “For now we’re going to take you to the nurse’s office, Courtney. We’ll call your father to come and take you home.”
The nurse came in again and I let her lead me to her office. I lay down on the cot and she put a thin, scratchy blanket over me. She turned off the lights and I drifted in and out of sleep for a while. I came to at one point and my dad sat on the bed beside me, stroking my hair. We didn’t say anything for a long time.
He told me he had to talk to the principal before we could leave, and he’d be back soon to take me home.
Even worse than finding out one of my best friends killed himself and thinking I was partly to blame was that kids were between classes when I emerged from the nurse’s office. I walked out on my dad’s arm and every face turned to watch us as we passed. I wasn’t sure how long I was in the office. It must have been more than an hour. Word of what happened started to spread through the school. I knew from experience what I looked like after a crying jag, what with me wearing too much eyeliner and all.
Heads came together and whispers were exchanged. Eyes followed us. For someone who made it their mission to pass through their school years invisible, it was pretty traumatizing.
My dad must have picked up on my anxiety. He snaked his arm from me and wrapped it around my shoulders instead. He squeezed me tight.
We finally emerged into the bright sunlight outside. There were fewer kids out there, which made it a bit easier. Dad poured me into our car and he pulled through the gates.
We drove on in silence for a while, Dad trying to give me my space. He cleared his throat after a bit.
“Your principal says you can take a few days off, if you’d like.” He gave me a weak smile. “The whole week, if you want.”
I didn’t respond, just sat and stared out the window at the passing houses.
“We’ll get home and we can do whatever you’d like,” he said. “Rent a movie or get dinner from Muchas Gracias. Or you can just rest if that’s what you want.”
Without turning, I said, “I might want to just rest.”
“Sure, sure. I have more sedatives at home if you need them. Whatever you need to make you feel better, okay, sweetie?”
I nodded, still looking out the window. I didn’t know how to tell him that I felt like I’d never feel better again.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Back in the Land of the Living
The next few days passed by in a fog. I took Dad up on his offer to feed me pills to sleep. I sort of hate taking drugs of any kind, even prescriptions—which is one reason I’ve never been tempted to try any of the product I sell. The other reason, of course, is because it’s a drug made out of zombie brains. I guess I just felt being asleep was better than being awake right then. Dad came into my room periodically to check on me and tell me if people called or something. He’d arranged for my homework to be gathered. More than once, he stopped in to say that Brandon or Sherri had called. I barely roused myself out of my stupor of self-pity to acknowledge what he told me. I didn’t really care that they, especially Sherri, were trying to deal with all of this, too. It was pretty pathetic. Put me in a wedding dress and I could have played Emily Grierson in a high school adaptation of A Rose for Emily.
I kept waking up from bad dreams that I didn’t remember. I was just left with the feeling like I needed a shower. Which I didn’t take. I rolled over and went back to sleep. When I finally got up from the bed, burning the sheets would be a priority.
Extracting myself from the bed finally happened on Thursday night. More than seventy-two hours after escaping into my room. I sat up and placed my feet on the rug next to my bed. After so long in bed, my whole body felt raw—even the bottoms of my feet resting on the long shag.
I reached for my phone to see what messages and texts I’d missed. A bunch from Sherri and Brandon, a couple from the school—probably the grief counselor—and one text from a number I didn’t recognize right away. I thumbed the message to life: Call Me, it said.
Call me? Who the . . . ? And then it hit me. It didn’t come up in my caller ID because I have strict instructions not to store it. It was from Buddha, the guy who sold me Vitamin Z. If Sherri thinks I’m a drug dealer, it’s just because she hasn’t met Buddha, who is the real deal. He’d sent the message on Wednesday during the day. He probably wondered why I hadn’t called back. I should have already gone back to him for some new product. I needed to make time to call him tonight.
First things first, though; time to let Dad know I was still among the living.
He and Beverly snuggled on the couch. Her legs draped across his and he rubbed them idly. I felt so grateful for the way Dad had been treating me that I couldn’t even muster the reserves to feel gross about their PDA.
Personal displays of affection aside, Dad started to get up when I came into the room. I told him not to. I sat in a chair next to the couch. I didn’t want the lovebirds to have to move.
“How are you, hon?” Bev asked.
“I’m fine, thanks.”
“Ar
e you?” Dad asked. He looked skeptical.
I shrugged. What was I supposed to say?
“I’m okay, I think.”
Dad accepted this and said that they’d ordered takeout from Kim Huong’s. They were going to leave in a few minutes to go and get it. He’d ordered plenty for me. If I didn’t want that, there were three days of leftovers in the fridge. Dad had kept making or ordering enough for me at every meal, hoping that I’d eventually join them. I told him Vietnamese would be great. I was starved like you wouldn’t believe. I’d pretty much only had water for the three days I was in bed.
Everyone’s attention drifted to the TV. They watched some lame sit-com. Undead and in Love or something equally horrid. The makeup on the star of the show looked completely fake. I noticed my dad was looking at me.
“Do you think you’ll wait until Monday to go back to school?”
I thought about it. “I’ll go back to school tomorrow.”
“Only if you think you’re ready.” He raised his eyebrow at me. He probably thought he looked like Mr. Spock when he did it. He actually looked like he had an uncontrollable facial tic.
“I’m ready,” I said, “and if I’m not, I can always come home, right?”
“Of course.”
“Besides,” I said, “all I need is to fall even further behind.”
I thought about the stack of homework on the desk in my room. I’d start in on it tonight and stay in all weekend if I had to to get it done. I couldn’t fall too far behind. If I screwed up my grades, I wouldn’t get accepted to an out-of-state school no matter how much money I had.
And then, without meaning to, I was thinking about Willie. Tomorrow, Friday, he would have had Auto Shop, his favorite. He’d been so good at those vocational classes. Even if he hadn’t been too bright, he’d always been really good with his hands. He could have made his way in life using the skills he picked up. At least that’s what I always suspected. Now I’d never find out if I was right because he was gone. Gone because I’d blown him off and hurt his feelings. I didn’t care what he said in his stupid note, I knew that on some level I was responsible. I felt tears welling up in my eyes.
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