The springs on the stadium-style seat squealed as Adam sat. Phoebe tapped his arm.
"Are you nervous?" she asked.
The shake of his head was barely perceptible.
Tommy appeared at the door of the courtroom with his mother, Faith. His appearance startled Phoebe into giving him a quick wave. She hadn't expected to see him. She should have known, though, that if anything powered Tommy, it was his conscience. He and Faith crossed the courtroom and took seats a few rows from the Garrity family, Faith pausing to say hello to Phoebe with a smile that seemed tinged with sadness. Phoebe felt herself flush.
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TC Stavis arrived next, sweaty and uncomfortable in a tight sport jacket and knit tie that was too short for his long, wide body. A large, wheezing man was with him. Stavis didn't look at anyone as he took his seat.
Pete Martinsburg had no problem looking at anyone and everyone. He entered the room with his parents and the rest of the defense team, glaring at Phoebe and Adam as he did so. There was nothing in his expression, not malice, hatred, or regret.
She held Adam's ice-cold hand and prayed that he'd be able to speak when it was his turn.
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CHAPTER NINE
LEFT LEG. RIGHT LEG. Joe help don't want help. Light all wrong. Amber. Sick. Light hot can't feel heat Phoebe sweating. Pete not sweating. Like a lizard.
Step. Right leg. Left. Face in mirror one pupil wide one smile. My face not my face right leg. All looking. All watching FrankenAdam right leg left right. Waiting to fall. Won't fall. Staring right leg walk walk.
"Bailiff," judge says. "Please help Mr. Layman to the stand." Bailiff takes arm can't feel feel only his disgust. Steers pulls right left leg turn. Sit. Sit Sit. "Please sit, Mr. Layman." Sit. Sitting.
Right arm. Right arm.
"Please raise your right arm. "Do you solemnly swear ...Mr. Layman?"
Right arm. Right arm!
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"Mr. Layman, please raise ...thank you. Do you ..." Speak. Speak. Speak. Speak. "...so help you God?" Speak. Speak.
"Miss Jensen," said judge, "please enter in the record that Mr. Layman nodded, indicating that he does intend to tell the truth, so help him God. Thank you."
Light all wrong. Amber light. Sick like flypaper film on eyes. Eyes one dilated one not. Fat man approaches bench. Guttridge. Guttridge in suit.
"Mr. Layman," says Guttridge, "please, in your own words, tell us what happened on the night of the Oakvale homecoming dance."
Speak. Speak. Speak!
"Mr. Layman?"
Speak. Speak.
"Mr. Layman?"
Speak.
Guttridge turns. "Your Honor, Mr. Layman is behaving as an uncooperative witness." Speak.
"He is trying to speak, Counselor. Give him a moment."
Guttridge throws hands in the air. Speak. Speak. Guttridge turns. Looks in eyes.
"I withdraw the question," Guttridge says. "Let me ask something simpler. Mr. Layman, we are here to determine whether or not my client, Pete Martinsburg, is guilty of murder, are we not?"
Speak. Speak. Spoke.
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"I'm sorry. I didn't quite understand your comment just then. The question is, are you aware we are here to determine whether or not Pete Martinsburg is guilty of murder."
Nod.
"Do you believe that Pete Martinsburg went into the Oxoboxo forest with any premeditation of killing you?"
"Objection. How could the witness possibly know what was in the defendant's head?"
Guttridge puts on an angry face. "Your Honor, if we have to go through the charade of a murder trial when the supposed victim walked into the room under his own power, can't I at least ask whether or not he felt he was murdered?"
"I think 'under his own power' is an exaggeration," says judge, "but I will allow the question. Mr. Layman?"
Speak. Speak speak speak speak.
Speak. "No."
Didn't sound like "no" sounded like crack crash like explosion deep inside a mountain. Someone screamed.
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CHAPTER TEN
TAK WATCHED George drag his carcass over to a squat mausoleum, following Popeye around the graveyard like an imprinted duck. George held his arms in front of him, his fingers grubby, his nails long and black. He was carrying a box of paper sheets that bore his likeness.
Wind whipped through Tak's smile as he ripped off a thick band of electrical tape and slapped another sheet onto a tombstone. He stepped back to view Popeye's creation.
I want you , the flyer read, over a murky picture of George he'd taken at the Haunted House. George's head was cocked to the side, his ragged corduroy jacket open, revealing a shredded T-shirt that gave glimpses of his rib cage. The flash of the camera had put a maniacal glint in his eyes, and he looked like he was smiling. He was pointing at the camera, his obviously broken pinky askew at an impossible angle, some of his
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knucklebones visible beneath skin that looked ready to slide off his hands. The words FOR THE U.S. ARMY! were in the same red, white, and blue lettering below his picture.
And beneath this, in a smaller blocky type, SPONSORED BY THE UNDEAD STATES OF AMERICA ARMY.
Tak thought the flyer was genius. In addition to plastering the cemetery with the flyers, Tayshawn and other trulydeads-- zombies who had no interest in rejoining beating heart society--were putting up still more of the copies at local funeral homes and at Oakvale High.
When they were done, Popeye and Tak met beneath a stone angel, waiting for George to catch up.
"Does he ...have any copies ...left?" Tak asked.
Popeye nodded. "We've got a quarter box, maybe. You know, there is ... a real... recruiting station a couple miles up."
"Let's do ...it," Tak said. Popeye had fewer gaps in his speech when he was in the act of making one of his art pieces a reality. "We have a few hours ...until the breathers awake."
Popeye called for George, who was rooting around in a pile of leaves that had collected in the doorway of a mausoleum. George lifted his head at the sound of his name and shuffled toward them.
"What has he ... got there?" Tak asked. George had the box of flyers under one arm and was holding something in his other hand.
George tripped over a low headstone and went face-first into the frost covered earth. The box of flyers tumbled open, some of them blowing across the cemetery. Popeye shook his head.
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"We haven't got... all night," he said. He and Tak went to salvage what flyers they could as George slowly got to his feet. When he rose they saw that he was clutching a dead squirrel by the tail.
"Nice," Popeye said, smiling. "Did you just ...catch him, George? Or was he already dead?"
They watched as George brought the squirrel to the ragged slash of his mouth and bit into it.
"Why does he ... do that?" Popeye asked. George was munching on the creature, bones, fur, and all, with a suspicious, greedy expression on his face, as though he were afraid that Tak and Popeye might want to take it from him.
"He thinks he's ...supposed to," Tak said.
"Dying must have ...fried his brain," Popeye said as George looked up at him, the squirrel clenched firmly in his teeth. "Now there's the picture ... we should have used on the flyers."
"Who's to ...say?" Tak said. "Maybe ...George ... is doing what he's supposed ... to be doing."
George stared back at him, and Tak thought there may have been the briefest flicker of emotion on his gray, puttylike face as he chewed, but probably not. George was the least expressive zombie that Tak had ever seen. It was almost as if George had no interest in trying to become more like the traditionally biotic boy he'd been prior to death. Tak didn't know if he walked with his arms outstretched because he had to, or because he wanted to. Nobody knew where George came from or how he'd found the Haunted House. He just showed up on
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the front porch one day, beating on the door with his arms. Tayshawn had called him George, a
nd the name stuck.
The sounds George made as he gnawed on the rodent were not pleasant. Tak watched him eat, and wondered if George would be able to talk if he tried.
"Nice table ...manners," Popeye said, speaking in front of George as though he were too stupid to understand. Tak held his comments and waited for George to complete his meal. He suspected that George wasn't as stupid as Popeye thought. George could obey instructions for the most part, and seemed perfectly willing to allow any zombie who was around to order him about like a servant. Especially Tak.
George took another bite and flung the broken body over the tombstones. It went surprisingly far. He dragged the muddy sleeve of his jacket across his face and slouched toward them.
"Had enough, George?" Popeye said. He leaned over to Tak. "Can you smell him? I think I can ...smell him. I think he has actually renewed my sense of smell."
"I can smell him."
"He smells ...dead."
"It isn't Z, anyhow," Tak said, which Popeye thought pretty funny.
"George," Tak said, "Go back to ...the house. The sun will be up ...soon. Go back to the house and ...wait ...for us."
They watched him dragging himself over the old graves toward the woods.
"I might be ... an artist," Popeye said with admiration, "but that boy ... is art."
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Phoebe woke up in a bad mood. She could feel herself emitting a dark cloud of negativity; it poured from her in thick, invisible vapors.
Her terrier, Gargoyle, looked up from the foot of her bed, turned, leaped, and scampered away before her fog swept over him.
She didn't have the energy to argue with Mrs. Garrity when she said that Adam was "too sick" to go to school that day. "Dead kids don't get sick, Mrs. Garrity," is what she should have said, and then she should have asked if she could speak to Adam. Instead she sighed and walked out to the end of her driveway to catch the bus, pushing her hat down lower over her ears against the cold that seemed to be seeping into her.
The bus was seven minutes late. The first thing she heard when she stepped on was Colette's shrill, catlike laughter. Because she wasn't in the mood, she took a seat in the front across from a freshman boy with glasses. He was obviously terrified of her. Phoebe, was self-aware enough to notice that many of the younger kids regarded her with fear. Margi said they gave her the hairy eyeball because of her goth stylings and perfect skin; Phoebe was inclined to think it had more to do with her presence at Adam's murder--either that or being the cause of the murder. She looked over at the boy, who clutched his backpack and stared straight ahead.
Bride of Frankenstein, they called her. She was sure of it.
"Phoebe, Phoebe!" she heard Margi call from the back of the bus.
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Phoebe ignored her. She made sure that she was the first one off, sliding into the aisle while the younger boy remained crouched in his seat.
"Where's Adam?" Mrs. Rodriguez asked her at the start of algebra, and if Phoebe had possessed the power to petrify, she would have used it then. She mumbled that she didn't know.
"Tommy isn't here either," Mrs. Rodriguez said. "Do you have any idea where he is?"
Phoebe had to hold back the answer that came to mind, which was to ask Mrs. Rodriguez if she thought she was the den mother for the morgue.
"It isn't like Tommy to miss a day of class," Mrs. Rodriguez said. Phoebe shrugged and went to take her seat. She glanced over to where TC Stavis sat, studious in his attempt to avoid looking at her.
I'm the Gorgon, Phoebe thought, looking over at him, squinting. My stare is death.
TC leaned over his algebra book and seemed to flinch.
Later in the lunchroom Phoebe unwrapped a lackluster lunch of milk, carrots, lukewarm macaroni and cheese, and an apple with a bruise as big as the Tycho crater. Margi came and sat down next to her with such a haphazard flop that she made Phoebe spill milk on the front of her blouse.
"Hey, hey," Margi said as Colette and Karen took chairs on the opposite sides of them. "Baby's in black again."
"Well, I was in black," Phoebe said, frowning. "But now I'm in milky black." She rubbed the front of her shirt with a napkin.
"Here, let me help you," Margi said, grabbing another
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napkin and thrusting it at Phoebe's chest. Phoebe slapped her hand away, the sharp sound of it making the dead girls laugh.
"Jeez," Margi said, a wry smile on her face, "ease off on the jiujitsu. I was only trying to help."
"Yeah," Phoebe said, "thanks for that 'help.'"
"Still thinking about the trial, huh?"
"No," Phoebe said.
"Adam really freaked, huh?"
"No!" Phoebe said, her voice rising above the boisterous din of the lunchroom. "No, he did not 'freak.' Who told you he freaked?"
"Um," Margi said, looking back to Karen and Colette, but she didn't find any help there. Karen took the lid off a cup of sliced strawberries. "I heard it from Norm. Who heard it from Gary, who I think talked to Morgan Harris, who must have gotten it from TC."
"TC," Phoebe said. "A necessary link in the daisy chain of idiots."
Margi knew that she was being included as a link in the "daisy chain of idiots," so she let the comment slide. "What really happened?"
"I don't know why I even talk to you sometimes."
Margi crossed her eyes. "Because I'm such an insightful listener?"
Phoebe turned to look at Margi, who had now added a wagging tongue to her crossed eyes, completing her performance art piece of congenital idiocy. The dead girls kept their silence, as though they could sense the storm brewing inside Phoebe.
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And then a strange thing happened; looking at Margi's display, Phoebe felt the dark cloud dissipate. "Oh, Margi," she said, laughing.
"See?" her friend said. "That's why you hang out with me." "That must be it."
"Come on, Pheebes," Margi said, leaning over so that Phoebe could feel the points of Margi's spiky hair tickling her cheeks. "Talk about it. Let it out. We're your buds."
"I know you are," Phoebe said. Karen and Colette looked as though they would breathe a sigh of relief if they could. "You really are."
The questions came at a rapid clip, tumbling on each other like a free-verse poem. "What did he say?" "Is he okay?" "What did Pete say? "Was it really so bad?"
Phoebe held up her hand. "Did they really say that Adam freaked?"
Margi nodded. "Kinda."
"I didn't hear anything," Karen said, holding out the cup of strawberries so Colette could try to smell them. "No one talks to me. I just assumed ... it went badly because you looked like you wanted ... to kill everyone."
Phoebe sighed and rolled the bruised apple on the table with her fingers. "He didn't 'freak.' Martinsburg's lawyer asked a million questions, and was being as condescending as he could. Adam tried so hard, but he just couldn't speak."
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"Oh, man," Margi said, "poor Adam." "I felt so bad for him," Phoebe said.
Karen looked like she wanted to say something, but she put a slice of strawberry on her tongue instead. "What did he do?" Margi asked.
"He tried to answer a question. He did answer it, but his answer wasn't...understandable. And it was loud."
"I still ... do that," Colette said, "sometimes."
"Really?" Margi said. "I thought that was you trying to sing."
"Shut ...up." Colette shot Margi a dark look.
"It doesn't matter," Karen said.
"What do you mean?" Phoebe was stunned.
"Well, Phoebe," she said, "of course it matters to Adam, and to you. But it wouldn't have mattered how ...eloquent ...Adam was on the stand. That boy wasn't going to get punished, no matter what."
"He got community service," Phoebe said. "And he has to get counseling."
"Big deal," Karen said, selecting another slice of strawberry. "Counseling. And they didn't even let Tommy speak. It wasn't ...easy for him to go, you know."
Phoebe looked
at her to see if she was being accused of something, but Karen's strange eyes were guileless. "I would have liked to see him get a tougher penalty too."
"Like a beating," Margi said. "Or worse."
"Some would agree with you," Karen said. "Only they would not be ...joking."
She smiled and licked the strawberry juice from her lips.
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"Are you okay?" Phoebe asked, watching Karen slice into an orange with the edge of her fingernail.
"Well, that's a funny question, isn't it," Karen said, husking the fruit with a sudden violent twist of her hands. "Considering the circumstances."
"You seem like something is bothering you," Phoebe said. "Is it something I said? Or is it the trial?"
Karen looked up at her, and for a moment Phoebe could swear she saw a coppery light in the glittering retinas of her eyes.
Karen lifted the orange to her face and inhaled deeply. She was even weirder than usual, Phoebe thought. She came to school wearing jeans and a heavy sweatshirt with a school logo on it, instead of her usual skirts or dresses. Short skirts, and short dresses, ones that showed a lot of her ice-white skin, even now when the weather was getting colder.
The light left her eyes. "I'm sorry, Phoebe," she said. "I'm a little off today, aren't I? But why is that, do you think? Don't you need hormones and blood sugar and all those chemically things to be moody?"
"Must be the ...formaldehyde," Colette said.
Margi's cackle cut across the whole cafeteria.
Karen turned toward Colette and broke the orange in half, offering it to her.
"I'm so glad you're ...progressing," Karen said. Colette refused the orange, and when neither Margi or Phoebe wanted a piece she set it on the napkin in front of her.
"Speaking of progressing," Phoebe said. "I was thinking that we should do something nice for Adam to try and cheer him up.
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