Kiss of Life

by Daniel Waters

  Pete did as he was asked. "Where are we going?"

  "We're going to your house, so you can pack and say goodbye to your mom. The Wimp isn't home, I hope you don't mind."

  Pete felt a nervous smile creep across his face. It pulled at the scar he still hadn't gotten fixed. "What are you talking about?"

  "Youth ministry," Duke said, pulling off the shoulder and onto the road. "Your mother took a phone call from a very well-respected and important man last night, Pete. The good Reverend Nathan Mathers. He convinced her that the direction your life was taking was not a good one, and that you needed to

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  fill the emptiness you felt with purpose. The purpose that only Reverend Mathers and his youth ministries can provide."

  Pete laughed out loud. "She actually fell for that?"

  "Like I said, we can be pretty persuasive. The Reverend especially. Just wait until you meet him, Pete. You've never seen such a commanding, charismatic presence in all your life."

  Pete heard him as though from a million miles away. He knew that Duke was laying it on thick about the ministry, but the truth was that Pete did feel as if he had found purpose in life. And Duke felt so strongly about him that he was able to have the Reverend--the Reverend!--call on his behalf. The respect these men were showing him combined with the self-respect he had from all he'd accomplished in the past few weeks was an intoxicating mixture. He saw himself reflected in the visor mirror, literally blushing with pride, his face bright pink but for the thin white line of his scar. When he felt Duke's massive hand on his shoulder in a fatherly pat, emotion almost burst out of him.

  "Welcome to the team," Duke said, the pat turning into a firm grip. "Son."

  The ride home was an eternity, almost as bad as the school day had been. At lunch, Margi had told Phoebe all the rumors she'd heard--zombie murder spree, zombie massacre--so now they were mostly silent, along with the rest of the students sitting on the bus, who all sat far, far away from them.

  "We've got to get to the Haunted House tonight," Phoebe whispered.

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  Margi chewed her lip. "You don't think the cops have been there?"

  "Even so. We've got to make sure."

  "Okay." Margi looked out the window as the bus rolled up to Phoebe's stop, and the first smile of the day appeared on her face.

  "Hey, look! It's Adam!"

  Phoebe looked out the window and saw him standing at the edge of the driveway. He waved. She ran off the bus to meet him, knocking him back with the force of her hug.

  "I thought they'd taken you!" she said, squeezing him tight. "I was so worried."

  "Re ...manded ...to ...custody," he said.

  "Remanded to custody? To your mom?"

  He nodded. "Zombies ...with a ...responsible ...parent ...are being ...freed. Others ...not."

  "Have you watched any of the news? What happened, exactly?

  He told her what he knew, that zombies in Winford--and other parts of the country--were supposedly committing crimes in retaliation for what had been done to Sylvia. George was in prison for his alleged role in the murder of attorney Gus Guttridge and his family.

  "George is in prison? Margi heard he'd been destroyed. Tak too."

  "Tak ... is ... at large. America's ...most...wanted. Not sure ...about ...George."

  "This is awful. I can't even believe this is happening."

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  "It gets ...worse," he said, leading her by the hand to her door. "It is now ...illegal ...to be ...undead." "What do you mean?"

  "Martial...law. All undead ...who do not...have a ...parental guardian ... are to be ... imprisoned."

  He told her about watching the news with Joe, who'd been called from the shop to pick Adam up. The news had shown footage of a police raid on the Haunted House, where a girl named Anna, and Kevin Zumbrowski were taken away in handcuffs. Adam told her that at one point Joe took off his work boot and hurled it at the television, on which the Reverend Nathan Mathers was exhorting lawmakers to "take control of our country ...before it is overrun with the evil dead!" Locally, Father Fitzpatrick was given much less camera time to explain why he was refusing to turn "an unnamed zombie" over to the authorities.

  Phoebe listened to the story with an increasing sense of horror, thinking of Tommy, thinking of Colette and DeCayce, who were all on unfamiliar roads somewhere within the country. Worse, Tommy would probably delete all messages from her unread and unlistened to.

  "Have you heard from Karen?" Phoebe refused to believe anything other than that Karen was safe.

  Adam shook his head.

  "Hopefully she's with her family," she said.

  "Hopefully."

  "We've got to get to the Haunted House." "They ...raided ...it."

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  "We have to be sure. Come on, let's call Margi, she should be home by now."

  Ten minutes later Phoebe had Margi on the phone, but Margi told them not only could she not take the car, she was grounded. Her parents, no longer influenced by Colette's strange but oddly comforting appearance, decided that she'd been spending altogether too much time with zombies.

  "I tried calling Karen," Margi said, "her mom said she didn't come home last night."

  By the time she hung up, Phoebe had a sick feeling at the pit of her stomach.

  "We've got to go to the house," she said.

  "Phoebe ...it's ...freezing. Let ...me ..."

  "I'm going."

  "Don't ..."

  "I'm going, Adam! They'd try to kill you if you went alone!"

  Adam didn't have anything to say to that, so he waited patiently in the kitchen as Phoebe went to find a heavy sweatshirt and warmer boots.

  "They ...boarded ... it up."

  Phoebe shivered, looking at the plywood sheets that had been nailed across the front door and the first floor windows. It had taken them nearly three hours to trudge through the woods to the house, and the already overcast sky was still darkening.

  She looked at the boards, which had been stickered with police crime scene tape. "Let's go around back."

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  Adam fell in step beside her. Cold and fatigue had slowed her to his pace. She swore when she saw that there was planking over the back door as well. Adam looked at her, then walked up the steps, getting his fingers under the crack between the wood and the door.

  "Watch ...out," he said. He pulled, and boarding tore free, the nails seeming to shriek as they were yanked swiftly from the frame. Adam tossed the big board, sailing it halfway across the yard the way he used to toss a Frisbee.

  "Wow."

  "Told you ... I was ...powerful."

  Phoebe'd had the presence of mind to bring a flashlight with her. Switching it on and stepping into the dark, long-unused kitchen, she thought that this was the first time that the Haunted House truly lived up to its name. She could practically feel the spirits of the undead moving in the shadows from her light.

  "They're ...gone." Adam said.

  "We need to be sure."

  They crept from room to room, finding evidence that people had been staying there--a pile of clothes, a CD, a stuffed bear with the button eyes removed--but no actual people.

  "Let's check upstairs."

  The stairs didn't seem to mind her, but they groaned in protest when Adam followed. Crime scene tape stretched across the doorway facing the top of the staircase. She shined her light in, cutting across the gloom to reveal the faces of the dead staring out from the photographs still hanging on the wall.

  "I'm surprised the cops didn't take them," she whispered.

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  She heard a light ticking noise against the thin plywood boarding the windows and realized it had begun to snow outside.

  "I think ...they are ...coming back." Despite this sentiment, he reached out and ripped the tape from the doorway.

  "What are you doing?" she asked as he walked into the room. She was thinking of the first time she'd been here, when she and Adam went with Tommy and Evan to me
et their zombie friends. Tommy had made her lie down in the darkness so she could understand what it was like to be dead.

  Tommy, she thought, suddenly convinced she would never see him again. I'm so sorry.

  "Saying ...good-bye ... I guess." The papers on the wall rustled in the cold wind that blew through the cracks in the shutters.

  She played the light over the photos, trying to make it easier for him to see the photographs. He reached out for one, but passed his fingers over it. Then he tore a sheet of paper, the Undead States of America recruitment poster, off the wall and crumpled it in his fist.

  "Souvenir." He shoved the paper into his pocket.

  "I could have folded it for you."

  "It's ...okay. I'll join you ... in ... a minute."

  They were back in the foyer, just in time to see the bright lights of a car coming up the gravel driveway through the cracks between the boarded-up windows.

  "Out...the ...back," Adam said, taking her arm.

  They heard the slam of car doors just as they were disappearing into the woods behind the house.

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  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  Phoebe 's parentswere furious when she finally got home. Joe was pretty pissed too but think he understood.

  Snow falling heavy now, well after midnight. Look up at her window and think what couldn't say. Good-bye.

  The danger is too great, now more than ever. Nothing to give.

  Long walk ahead. Right left smooth enough now, prints streak in the snow. At the Haunted House standing in front of the wall of the dead saw his message, put in pocket. oxo spaced out along the bottom of the poster. Not hugs and kisses. Message. took the poster so agent gray wouldn't find.

  Snow falling in darkness. The snow is good, covers tracks.

  Lot to think about on long walk. Phoebe, warm in bed and dreaming. The dead don't dream. Tried to think about

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  something else but without dreams too hard. Oxoboxo woods silent but for the sound of snow and left right scraping along.

  The lake isn't huge but it isn't small either. Not sure where Tak is but have a hunch, an idea. Where Colette drowned. If Tak knows the spot that's where he'll be.

  Snow-covered lake appears all at once, just beyond a last hill. A flat disk empty of trees, glowing blue white in the cloud-streamed moonlight, not like summer when all can see is an elusive glimmer through thick foliage. Crested the hill and then stepped on matted leaves slick with snow.

  Slick. Fall over backward like a rotted oak.

  Slide. Slide all the way to the icy shore of the lake, stop at the base of fallen tree. Abruptly stop. Glad Phoebe didn't see.

  Phoebe.

  Flat on back, eyes wide open, moon veiled. Snow pooling in unblinking eyes. Pain worse than death when think of her and think of her all the time. What could have been, what should have been, what never will be.

  Stay down.

  Didn't move for don't know how long. Should stay down. Should stay down from jump. Football told tackled kids Just Stay Down, should listen to own advice. After taking the bullet should have stayed down, avoided this pain pain worse than death. She we could have been together but dreams die with death and ...

  "Get up."

  The voice, like a knife blade in the dark. Clear snow from eyes and Takayuki looms above blotting out what little moon

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  remained. Smiling but not smiling, icicles in long lank hair. "Get up."

  Speak. Takes effort so cold don't know how long stayed down. "Hey ...Smiley."

  Smiley straightened, bones and tendons creak like birches in the wind.

  "Got ...your ...message."

  "I wish ...you'd ...get up." Looks down. Smiling his non-smile.

  "Wish I'd ...never ...gotten ...up."

  He shakes head and hair frozen clicks and clacks.

  "You're thinking ...about her ...again, aren't ...you? What is it about ...her, anyway?"

  "Phoebe." Saying her name hurts.

  "She's like a reverse ...Dracula ...one that beguiles the dead ...instead of the living."

  "No," Sit sit sitting up takes effort. "I...dug ...her when I was ...alive too."

  Tak, creaking, sits on the fallen tree.

  "You're ...doing ...the right ...thing. She ...would always ... be ... in danger."

  "I know." Didn't feel right, felt like death. "Where are ...the others?"

  Looks at frozen lake. "Safe."

  "Karen?"

  Shakes head. Clatter, click. Like wind chimes. Looks sad. Didn't think Tak could look sad.

  "George is ... in prison. Not ...reterminated."

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  "Unless the ...breathers ...lie," Tak said. Thought of the video of George, caged. Thought of other video.

  "What about ...the murders?"

  "We had ...nothing ...to do ...with that," he said.

  "Because you believe ... in the sanctity of...life, right?"

  "No. Because I believe in the ...sanctity ... of death. I don't believe ...any ... of us did ... it. But they ...the beating hearts ...believe we did," he said. "And that is all that matters. They will be coming for us ...for you ...and they will not be stopped ...with words. Or even laws."

  Want to tell him he's wrong. Can't.

  "The girl ..." said Tak. "Phoebe. She watched you ...die ...once. Do you want...her ... to go through that... again?"

  Don't. Want her don't want her to suffer through that. Don't.

  "What... are you going ... to do?"

  Tak showed his teeth. "Go ...underground. Bide ...our ...time."

  "George? The others ...?"

  "We will ...liberate them. Or ...avenge them."

  Blanket of snow around Tak's shoulders.

  "I want you ... to come with me, Adam. With ...us."

  Underground. Underground, like the grave.

  "I...love her, Tak."

  Saying it out loud to Tak made something snap inside chest. Cold inside cold outside cold like the grave.

  Tak half-skull grin not mocking or malicious.

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  "If that were ...true," he whispered, "you would come ...with me."

  Tak stood, offering hand. Two gray-white knuckles where Tak was missing a patch of skin, and a row of long tarsal bones, like the bars of a prison in hell.

  Took it. Rose.

  And then heard her voice on the wind. Adam.

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  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  "ADAM," PHOEBE SAID.

  The dead boys turned. She was standing at the crest of the hill, just above the long trench Adam's body made when he'd slid down. She was shivering in black sweatpants and her heavy faux fur--lined coat, a gray scarf trailing from her neck. "You weren't planning on leaving me, were you?" She didn't need telepathetic powers to read his mind. Something woke her in the dead of night, a feeling that compelled her to go to her window where she'd sometimes watch him as he tried to master the poses and exercises that Master Griffin had set before him. She'd looked down and saw the long slashes of his footprints in the porch light, already half filled with snow.

  Once she realized what Adam was planning to do, she'd pulled on her boots and warm clothes and rushed out the door with her flashlight. At first, his tracks, his dragging feet

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  cutting long runnels in the snow, were easy to follow, but as the snowfall increased, the trail became harder to discern in the poor illumination. Eventually she stopped trying entirely and moved to where she thought he was going, which was the lake.

  Just follow your heart, she'd thought.

  "Phoebe," Adam said, "it...is ...freezing."

  She started down the hill, choosing her steps with care, not sure if she wanted to hug him or determinate him.

  "You think?" Her teeth chattered and she hugged herself for warmth.

  "You have ...to go ...back."

  "I'm not going anywhere without you." She slipped a little but caught herself, and soon was at the bottom of the hill with the snow-cov
ered boys. The flakes fell on Adam's cheeks and hair and didn't melt. She looked up at him and saw what she needed to see in his eyes, something that drove the chill out of her body.

  "Phoebe," Adam said, drawing out both syllables, "things have ...changed."

  She clapped her mittens together, telling herself that her fingers weren't tingling and her face wasn't numb. "Have they changed, Adam? Have your feelings changed?"

  He couldn't meet her gaze. "No ...never."

  "Then why are you planning on leaving me?"

  "You are ... in danger."

  "When have I not been in danger, Adam? Do you think I entered into our relationship lightly?" "No."

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  "Why would you leave me then? Without even saying good-bye?"

  Adam looked back at Tak, who brushed his frozen hair back, an almost sympathetic look on his asymmetrical face.

  "My ...anger ...with you ... is spent," Tak said. "I really ...don't want ...any more ... of my people ...hurt."

  "They aren't your people," Phoebe said. "That thinking is exactly the problem. They're just people."

  Tak raised his shoulder, which Phoebe saw was missing one of its metal spikes. "Semantics. If everyone ...agreed ...there would be ... no issue. I'm bringing my ...the zombies ...underground. Somewhere ...safe. I thought... we thought...you would be safer ... if Adam ...came with ...us."

  She turned back to Adam. "Is that what you thought?"

  He raised his arms skyward. "Yes. I...want you ...to ...be ...safe. Is ...that...so ...wrong?"

  Phoebe noticed that the pauses between his words were longer than usual, which meant that he was getting upset--or that the cold was affecting him. But then again, she was freezing, and at the same time her blood was boiling.