Kiss of Life

by Daniel Waters

  "You're trembling," he said. "How is it that you can ...tremble?"

  They stood like that for some time.

  361

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  PETE FELT STRONG hands grip his shoulder the moment he was swung around into the wall of his garage, and all he could think was "they finally caught up to me."

  Half-winded, Pete struggled to his feet, expecting to see the slashed face of the Japanese zombie. Instead he found himself staring into the cold blue eyes of Duke Davidson.

  "Oh." His voice was raspy as he tried to regain his breath. It s you.

  "Think you're pretty clever, don't you?" Duke said, shoving him back against the wall. Pete found himself wishing the Wimp was home, at least then he might get the pleasure of seeing him get his ass kicked along with his own. Duke tapped him on the side of the head like he was trying to get his attention. "Don't you?"

  "I'm ...really clever," Pete said, deflecting a second tap to

  362

  the head with his forearm. He could feel spittle on his cheeks when Duke laughed in his face.

  "I've got to hand it to you, Martinsburg." He stepped back and leaned against Pete's car, which Pete hadn't driven anywhere other than the foundation and back since his sentencing. "One impulsive act, and you throw away months of planning. A year, even."

  "Planning what?"

  Duke made as if to strike him, and Pete flinched.

  "What do you think, Martinsburg?" He shook his bald head. "The destruction of the zombie plague."

  Pete rubbed his shoulder where Duke had shoved him. "You left me your key. And then you practically came out and said you were going to be distracting Alish."

  Duke's grin grew wider, and he spread his hands in a "you got me" gesture.

  "Am I in trouble, then?" Pete said. "I figured I was doing something you wanted me to do."

  "Pete," Duke said, and reached out to grip the shoulder he'd just shoved. "Relax. You passed the test."

  "I did?"

  "Flying colors, son. You can follow orders, but you can also take initiative--you'd be surprised what a rare combination that is. You're exactly who we need. The Reverend is very pleased with you.

  "The Reverend? Reverend Mathers?"

  Duke went on as though Pete hadn't spoken. "Your pals got a real eyeful at the lab. The pictures they posted have really

  363

  polarized the issue. The war is on, Pete. The foundation, the primary zombie-advocate organization in the country, will be seriously discredited. Funding will vanish. And the undead, once they see what has been happening to them behind closed doors, are going to run wild in the streets."

  Pete doubted that. Somehow, the idea of the zombies doing anything beyond lurking in the shadows wasn't something he could picture. There could be a couple, the Japanese guy and a few of his cronies, who might do something drastic because of what happened at the foundation, but Pete seriously doubted that there would be any mass uprising. "The zombies are like undead hippies. There are only a few that are going to do anything about it."

  Duke smiled as he reached into his pocket. Pete thought that he was going for a gun, and that in a moment he'd be past the point of worrying or caring what Duke did. He only hoped that Duke put the bullet in his head so he wouldn't come back.

  What Duke withdrew was not a gun. It was the mask that Pete had worn on the night they desecrated the cemetery. Duke slammed it against Pete's chest.

  "That's where you and I come in, my friend." Duke pressed the mask against Pete's chest with the palm of his hand until Pete took hold of it.

  "The Reverend is expecting big things from you, Martinsburg. Big things. You start tonight."

  Pete looked at him and then looked down at the mask spread out on his fingers. The knobby teeth jutted out through the molded tear on the latex cheek, and Pete could feel the scar

  364

  where his stitches had been itching; he tried to erase the thought that he was staring at a warped mirror image of himself. "What are we going to do?"

  "We're going to take it up a level," Duke said. "The time is right to blow the whole idea of zombie rights and peace sky high."

  Duke took one of the yard tools hanging from hooks on the wall of the garage, a splitting maul. He ran his thumb along the edge of the blade, and Pete wondered if he knew that the maul was the tool Pete'd used to destroy the zombie that had been staying in his neighborhood. He couldn't remember his name, Evan or Kevin or something like that. The kid's family, who lived a few streets over, had put their house up for sale.

  Duke replaced the maul. "Thanks in part to you, Pete, we've got the world believing that the zombies are willing to dig up graves as part of their recruiting mission. The Hunter Foundation scandal, which we also owe to Mr. Peter Martinsburg, thank you very much, makes this a perfect time to show the living world just how serious the zombies are about swelling their ranks. And when we show them, the living will rise up and destroy the dead."

  Pete felt chills along his spine. The light in Duke's eyes bordered on fanatical, but there was something else there too. Pete thought it was pride--pride for what Pete had done.

  And maybe even affection. It had been so long since someone had looked at him with that emotion, Pete really wasn't sure.

  Duke's words scared him, but they excited him too. When

  365

  he thought that he might actually have a hand in bringing about the destruction of all zombies, and not just the couple dozen worm burgers haunting Oakvale, he felt something beyond mere rage and revenge. He felt relevant.

  Duke put both his hands on Pete's shoulders.

  "If the zombies are willing to dig up graves to get more of their kind," he said, "how hard is it to imagine them using more ...direct methods of recruiting?"

  Pete was smiling as he pulled on his mask.

  366

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  POPE YE WAS actually singing "The Twelve Days of Christmas" as they approached the lawn of St. Jude's. He and Takayuki were far ahead of the other zombies, each of whom was moving even more slowly than usual since they were all hauling bags stuffed with Popeye's gear. His singing was off-key, and lacking in rhythm or melody.

  "Will you please ...shut up," Tak said. "So I'm not ...Pavarotti," Popeye said. "Sue me." "Your lack of talent I could ...put up with," Tak said. "It's your ...song selection ...that grates."

  They stopped about twenty feet from the manger, which was illumined by a pair of bright halogen lamps. Inside the manger a plastic baby Jesus was attended by Mary and Joseph, and they were surrounded by the Magi, a shepherd, two sheep, and a five-foot-high camel.

  367

  "The baby is still ...there," Tak said as Popeye completed a line about lords a leaping. He wished he had an iPod like Tayshawn, who lugged his burden a few steps behind, blissfully unaware of Popeyes singing.

  "And it better stay there too," Popeye answered. "The whole ...effect ... of this piece will be ruined if...there is any vandalism."

  Tak noticed that Popeye had begun calling their statements to the beating hearts "pieces" soon after they put up the Undead Army recruitment posters. Or maybe it was the visit from the Hunters that put delusions of grandeur in his bald head, Tak wasn't sure. But Popeye had more of Tommy in him than he realized, because he wanted the bleeders to think.

  Tak just wanted them to be afraid.

  "Set the bags ...over there," Popeye was saying. "George ...how many times ... do I have to tell you ... to pick it up ...not...drag it?"

  Tak watched Karen cross the road with George. Tak much preferred going in smaller groups when they went into Winford; he thought that for everybody they added, they were doubling their chances of getting caught. But selfishly, he thought Karen's presence made it worth the risk. She was probably faster than all of them, so if there was any trouble, she'd be the most likely to get away.

  He set his own burden down and looked at the manger, thinking about Christmases past. When he lived in
New Jersey there was a church a few streets over that put out a nativity scene year after year, and year after year the baby Jesus was stolen. One

  368

  year it was replaced with a dead cat, another time someone demolished the whole scene, going as far as to kick in the press-board walls of the stable and break the heads and hands off the statues. He remembered, as a boy, looking at a photograph of the destruction in the newspaper and wondering what sort of misanthropic idiots would commit such a senseless act. That was before he died.

  There was condensation on some of the statues, probably caused by the cool mist hitting the painted cheeks and then being bathed in the warmth of the halogen lights. The Magi were bearded, and they were carved and painted with somber, dignified expressions. Tak involuntarily lifted his hand to the space where his cheek used to be, his fingers grazing exposed molars.

  "George! Hurry ...up!" Popeye yelled. The church and the mission were at the far end of a busy street. Three a.m. was not a popular hour on a weeknight, but all it would take is the passing headlights of one car for the whistle to be blown. Tak looked back as Popeye started giving instructions to Tayshawn on how to set up. Karen was already busy.

  "How are ...you?" Tak asked her.

  "Better," she said, smiling at him as she tied a knot around one of the figures. "I'm still angry, but I ...feel better."

  "Anger is ... an energy," he said, but even as he said it he knew that something had changed inside of him after their embrace. Even the meaning of the piece they were about to construct had changed for him.

  "Tak, are you ...helping?" Popeye asked. They'd practiced

  369

  the setup all week in the backyard of the Haunted House so that they could get in, do the deed, and get out.

  "Coming," Tak said, looking away from the manger.

  When he died, Tak didn't see loved ones who'd passed on before him or bright lights in the distance. He didn't feel the "warm, womblike glow" that one dead girl described. He'd listened to more than a few tales of a reassuring vision of an afterlife from the zombies that had made their return to the Haunted House, but to him the only afterlife was the one he was "living" now. He died on a busy stretch of the Garden State Parkway, where he lost control of his motorcycle in the rain and broke his neck. He came back three days later with no memory of being gone, just a blankness where so many others reported brightness, love, and joy.

  He was convinced that these people were delusional, and that these "visions" were the products of minds desperately in need of some piece of sanity to cling to when faced with the fact of their return from death.

  Karen looked up from her task.

  "Are you okay, Tak?"

  "I'm ...fine. Why do you ...ask?"

  She shrugged. "I just thought you looked ...funny. That's all."

  Tak looked back as George finally made it across the road, an enormous sack slung over his back. "I'm ...fine." "Okay."

  "Hey, look," Tayshawn said, catching sight of George. "It's undead ...Santa."

  370

  "Less talk," Popeye said. "More work. The charred sticks for the fire go here, not over there."

  "Hey, Santa," Tayshawn said, "looks like ...your girlfriend ...made it."

  Tak looked across the lawn to the mission. The girl Karen had brought to the Haunted House the other day, Melissa, was walking in their direction, her white mask reflecting the moonlight.

  "Hey, Melissa!" Karen called. Tak was glad Karen kept working while she called to her; he thought that six zombies congregating on a church lawn in the dead of night would be seen by the beating hearts as more than a gathering, they'd think it was an uprising.

  Tak watched George, who started walking toward Melissa as she waved, the board that she wrote on under her other arm.

  "Let's ...hurry up," Tak said. "This isn't supposed ... to be ... a party."

  "You're supposed to be ...helping, George," Popeye said, managing to sound irritated as he set up one of the gaunt, shrouded figures he'd constructed out of old denim and pieces of the shutters they'd peeled from the Haunted House. Their garments were made from black garbage bags.

  "Let him be, just get it ...done," Tak said, starting to arrange the figures according to Popeyes design.

  The work itself didn't take very long, even with Popeye crabbing at George and Tayshawn every few moments. Melissa walked over to watch them, and George tried his best to contribute by moving the figures according to Popeyes direction. Takayuki thought that he might actually be trying to show off

  371

  for the masked girl. They'd arranged five figures, all smaller and less substantial than the comparatively robust figures of the manger scene. Rather than robes of purple and red, Popeyes figures were all in black, and their stick figure limbs and bodies were visible in the rents of their clothing. Whereas the figures in the manger were all gazing with reverence at the pink-cheeked infant in his straw crib, four of the five Popeye figures, their bony shoulders stooped, were gazing forlornly at the charred remains of a campfire that had gone out. Two of the figures were on their knees, and each wore an expression of abject despair as they stared into the ashes or, in one case, their hands. The faces themselves were spare, Popeye having drawn them with a black marker on beige sackcloth.

  The fifth figure stood slightly apart from the circle at the fire. Its back was stooped like the others, but there was something in its carriage, a subtle tilt of the hooded head, that set it apart. It was looking into the direction of the manger scene, and its posture suggested either hope or defiance, or both.

  When it was done, Popeye made everyone stand back to look. "Let me explain ...my work ... to you," he said, speaking to Melissa, but really to the whole group.

  Pompous ass, Takayuki thought, but he also thought Popeye had done a bold and powerful job. The figure looking over at the manger--what was it thinking? Was it leading its people, or considering abandoning them? Did looking at the manger bring it hope, or a more complete sense of despair?

  Popeye never got the chance to tell Melissa about his work, not even the title, which he'd told Tak was "The Thirteenth

  372

  Day of Christmas." They heard the gunning of an engine followed by a squeal of tires, then they were bathed in red, white, and blue light. The zombies froze, standing as still as the figures they'd just spiked into the earth.

  "Oh no," Karen said, rising to her feet.

  "Don't move! Police!"

  Two police cars had stopped in front of the church lawn, and more sirens whined in the distance. He realized that one of the cars must have been close by, watching them and waiting for backup, as there were only one set of tread marks on the road. The policemen were out of their cars, standing behind the open doors with their guns drawn.

  "Get on the ground now!"

  Tak knew that the others were waiting for his cue. There was so little cover, and so much ground to cross to get it, but he didn't think getting arrested was an option.

  "Tak?" Popeye said. A third car, and then a fourth, sped to the scene in the moment that Tak took to decide, blocking the road.

  "On the ground now!" The first cop yelled. "This is your last warning!"

  "Tak?"

  "I ..."

  He didn't get the chance to speak.

  He saw George moving at the corner of his vision, moving with a speed he didn't know George was capable of. The dead boy lurched forward. It looked to Tak like he was trying to move in front of Melissa.

  The police didn't see protectiveness in the gesture. They

  373

  saw only a shambling zombie lurching toward them, its arms raised and forward, as though grasping for their necks.

  Without another word, they opened fire.

  The explosive sound of the guns split the night. Tak watched invisible fingers pluck at the back of George's jacket, but the dead boy continued down the hill, closing in on the police. Melissa fell to the ground, her board flying out of her hands as she hit the grass
. He heard Popeye swear, and someone went over backward onto "The Thirteenth Night of Christmas," splintering some of the despairing figures. Tak heard the humming of bees and felt--although the feeling was far away, as though through a thick haze of painkiller--a sting. He looked down in amazement as a second bullet slapped against his chest, puffing out his shirt, and causing a thick trickle of dark sludgy ooze to drip out.

  He looked over at Karen, standing among the effigies, and as she met his gaze he saw something he'd never seen in the diamond sparkle of her eyes: fear.

  "Run!" he yelled, but the word had little power, as the bullet had done something to his lung. He heard one of the spikes on his shoulder ping as a bullet snapped it off, and then another bullet hit the soft wood of the manger as he ducked behind it. He ran, and he looked to his left and saw Popeye moving as fast as his dead legs could carry him, going for the stone steps of the church. Popeye tripped, or was knocked over by a bullet, but he got to his feet quickly. Tak thought they might have a chance of getting away, if they could get up the steps and around the wall of the church.

  374

  They made it to the wall, but when he looked back he saw Karen running the opposite way. A strangled cry was wrenched from his chest as he saw her lifted up and then thrown to the turf.

  She didn't get up.

  None of the cops were following, and Tak peered around the corner and saw why.

  George had made it as far as the sidewalk. One of the cops shot at him from about ten feet away, but he was either shooting to disable or was unaware that the only surefire way of putting a zombie down was to shoot the head. One of the other cops tried tackling George around the ankles, and he went down in a heap.