Better Off Undead

by James Preller

  Principal Rouster chattered on in a nasal voice, unruffled. “The bad news is that the construction will cause changes to our normal schedule. Until further notice, the cafeteria will be moved to the gymnasium. But P.E. will go on as scheduled. Just don’t confuse the meatballs with the dodgeballs! Heh-heh. The Choir Club will share a room with the Chess Club; they will both meet in the science lab. On Tuesday we’ll follow the Wednesday schedule, except for band members, who will adhere to their Thursday schedules—but only on Mondays. Lastly, the literacy center will be closed because of the asbestos problem recently brought to our attention by Janitor McConnell’s alarming rash. Get better soon, Mike!”

  The girl next to me, Desiree Reynolds, muttered, “I wonder what the really bad news is.”

  Principal Rouster continued. “The really bad news is that all bathroom privileges have been temporarily suspended. This should last only a few hours. In case of emergency, a temporary porta-potty has been set up in the main hallway. I don’t have to tell you that with seven hundred students in the school, we’ll require a high level of cooperation and an almost Zen-like self-control of your bodily fluids. Please avoid all liquids, and I strongly suggest that you tread lightly on today’s lunch special, the New Orleans gumbo. That stuff runs right through you.

  “Thank you and happy learning!”

  TALAL CLUES ME IN

  I was still asleep when Dane knocked on my bedroom door.

  Key word: was.

  Past tense.

  “Go away,” I grumbled.

  “Your friend is here,” Dane called through the door.

  I looked at my clock. It was 8:15 on a Saturday morning. I sat up, holding my head in my hands. It felt heavy, like a large pumpkin. “Who is it?”

  Dane poked his nose into the room. “I don’t know. I never saw him before. He’s wearing a raincoat. And, um, he’s carrying two umbrellas.”

  Umbrellas? The sun’s hazy glare streamed through my window. The sky was crisp blue, like an ironed shirt. For a moment, my mind still sputtering, I thought it could have been Zander. Then I remembered the coat. “His name is Talal,” I told Dane. “Tell him I’ll be right down.”

  “In your boxers?” Dane asked.

  “Just go,” I said.

  When I arrived downstairs, I found Dane sprawled on the floor, working on an endangered-species puzzle. Pieces were scattered everywhere. I asked, “Where is he?”

  Dane pointed to the side door.

  “You didn’t invite him in?”

  “He wanted to wait outside,” Dane replied.

  I went to the sink to gulp down a large glass of water. Still working on hydration, you know. Out the kitchen window I spied Talal standing near our big, sad rhododendron, its leaves turned yellow and brown. Although it was a picture-perfect morning, Talal held a large black umbrella over his head. “I won’t be long,” I told Dane.

  “Can I come?” he asked.

  “Sorry, bud. Next time.”

  Outside, I squinted in the sunlight. I said, “You woke me up, Tal. Come on inside while I make a shake.”

  “I’d rather not do that,” Talal said. “The walls have ears and eyes. Here.” He opened an umbrella and handed it to me. “Hold this.”

  “Dude?”

  “I’m serious,” Talal said.

  I studied his face. He wasn’t joking.

  “Let’s walk and talk,” he said. “It’s about that drone. Leave your phone.”

  “My phone? I need it,” I said.

  Talal shook his head. “No phone.”

  “Okay, okay.” I placed my cell on the patio table.

  Talal walked toward the back gate. I caught up with him. We were an absurd sight, carrying open umbrellas on a sunny day.

  “Do you know they can activate all the cameras inside our computers?” Talal asked. “You have a smart kitchen, right? Everything’s run by computers. We don’t have to remember to turn off the lights anymore. Cars drive themselves. Our machines automatically order kitty litter when we run low. Think about your phone. That spectacular piece of technology can record every word you say. It can locate exactly where you are. It knows what you ate for dinner and how many hours you sleep. Don’t you understand? They see what you see.”

  “Whoa, ease up,” I said. “Who are they?”

  We walked along the street, close to the curb, not on the sidewalk. The roads were quiet. We had the sleepy town to ourselves.

  Talal stopped. He pulled out a tiny computer chip sealed in a plastic bag. “I took that drone apart piece by piece,” he said. “I talked to some people, geeks I trust who specialize in this kind of thing. We know who is spying on you.”

  I didn’t know what to say. It was all kind of unreal.

  “There’s a tiny logo printed on this chip, invisible to the human eye,” Talal said. “But when put under a microscope and magnified by the order of ten thousand, it’s as clear as day.”

  He pulled a folded paper from his pocket. It was a printout of an enlarged image: the K & K logo.

  “So?” I said.

  “So?” Talal echoed. “This proves that the Bork brothers are interested in you. They own the richest, most powerful corporation on the planet. They practically run the country. Those guys live in a compound only forty-five miles away, up beyond a crest in the Catskills.”

  “Oh, right,” I said, remembering. “I think I heard about them, maybe.”

  “They don’t like the spotlight,” Talal explained. “They operate in the shadows. But they are very powerful—real financial wizards, and ridiculously rich. They are the ones who sent the drone.” He glanced around, eyes scanning restlessly. “They are probably trying to listen to this conversation right now.”

  “That’s why you brought the umbrellas,” I said.

  “Lip-readers,” Talal said. “Their staff could videotape us without sound, then figure it out later. These guys will do anything to get the information they want.”

  “What information?” I protested. “I mean, even if what you say is true—that these Bork brothers are following me for some reason—I don’t know anything! I’m just a kid. An average, run-of-the-mill—”

  “Zombie,” Talal interrupted. “Nothing average about you.”

  I felt like he’d punched me in the gut.

  “Sorry, but that’s the deal,” Talal said. “As far as I know, you might be the only person who has died and yet still lives. That makes you different. And maybe it makes you interesting.”

  We turned down one block, then another. “Can we sit?” I suggested. “My ankle.”

  “Sure,” Talal said. He led us to a stone bench in the back of a nearby churchyard. He pulled a sheaf of papers out of his deep coat pocket. “I put this packet together last night. Sorry it’s sloppy. I didn’t have much time.”

  The pages were neatly folded and stapled along the left edge. There was nothing haphazard about the way Talal worked. The top page featured a black-and-white photograph of infant twins, swaddled under blankets, in a hospital setting. The twins are turned toward each other as if whispering a secret.

  Beneath the photo, a caption read, THE ONLY CHILDHOOD PHOTOGRAPH OF WALL STREET WIZARDS KALVIN AND KRISTOFF BORK.

  I flipped the page.

  The next photo was of the twins again. But this time they were aged men, heads close together, unsmiling, staring directly at the camera. Once again, a large blanket covered their bodies from their necks down. At their knees, four identical legs poked out, wearing matching black socks and leather shoes.

  “They look…”

  Talal turned to me. “They look … what?”

  “I don’t know. Just weird, I guess.”

  Talal nodded, not saying anything.

  I flipped through the rest of the pages. They were filled with numbers, charts, and newspaper clippings.

  “What do we do now?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” Talal said. “At least nothing right now. Let me see what I can dig up on these guys. In the meantime
, get used to sometimes going without a cell phone. Let’s not make it any easier for their people to spy on you.”

  We headed back toward my house. I had to check on Dane—he’d be worried. Talal stopped two blocks from my house. “We’ll part here,” he said. “I have a family thing.”

  “Sure,” I said. “And, um … thanks, Tal.”

  Maybe he saw something in my face. He said, “Hey, Adrian. It’ll be okay.”

  “Sure, sure,” I repeated. And after a pause, I said, “You know, sometimes I have this crazy thought, but I’ve never told anyone.”

  Talal just watched me, unmoving, waiting.

  I gestured to the trees and houses. “I sometimes wonder if all this is just a giant sim game run by a computer program for the amusement of superbeings. Do you ever think that?”

  Talal actually laughed. “All the time,” he replied with a grin.

  I limped home, my stomach oddly rumbling. Looking up, I noticed a wake of redheaded turkey vultures, at least twenty of them circling in a vortex high above me, holding steady without flapping their wings. I’d never seen that many at once before. They spiraled hypnotically, round and round, riding pockets of warm air. Maybe they saw me with their keen eyes. Perhaps they were as puzzled by it all as I was.

  I didn’t have an answer for them.

  “Sorry, birds,” I murmured. “I haven’t got a clue.”

  Dane was taking a bath when I got home. My mother was on the computer. I clicked on the television. A commercial came on. I’d probably seen it a hundred times before, but this time I noticed the names at the end of it.

  The commercial flashed a series of short film clips, each more beautiful than the next. A fishing boat leaves a harbor, a man in a business suit gets into a cab, a rugged farmer drives a big-wheeled tractor, a cowboy saddles up, a car and a moving van pull into the driveway of a huge home, a teary-eyed grandmother watches a wedding scene in church, various citizens hoist American flags up flagpoles, rows of smiling children look up in wonder, a proud eagle soars across the sky. Final image: a logo on the side of a huge glass-and-steel building for K & K Corp.

  While all those images floated past, a man’s voice spoke in soothing tones. The words scrolled across the screen in block letters as he spoke:

  BE AT PEACE.

  THERE IS NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT.

  ALL IS GOOD, ALL IS WELL.

  THE BIRDS ARE SINGING.

  IT IS MORNING IN AMERICA.

  BE HAPPY. RELAX. SMILE.

  WE ONLY CARE ABOUT YOUR HAPPINESS.

  In smaller print, it read: THIS HAS BEEN A PAID ADVERTISEMENT BY K & K CORP.

  “That’s some frown, Adrian,” my mother said. She had joined me in the kitchen and was poking around in the refrigerator. “What’s bothering you?”

  “Huh? What?” I replied. “Nothing, I’m fine. I was watching that commercial and—”

  “Don’t you love it?” my mother said while slicing into a giant, perfectly pink, wonderfully round, genetically engineered grapefruit. “I see that commercial every day, and every day it makes me smile.”

  I made an effort to smile right along with her.

  “Be happy. Relax. Smile,” my mother repeated. “Those are words to live by!”

  I didn’t answer. Instead, I wondered why K & K Corporation was spending millions of dollars on commercials to brainwash all of us.

  They didn’t want us to worry.

  Because of course they didn’t.

  Everything was fine.

  Be happy. Relax. Smile.

  I went up to my room and sprawled across the bed. I felt a strong urge to find Gia. She had an eerie knack for knowing what was about to happen. It was time we had a talk.

  My cell dinged. It was a message from Gia:

  7:30 tonight. Flattop Hill. Go to the bench that faces the tracks. We need to talk.

  Once again, she was two moves ahead of me.

  UNDER A HOLOGRAM SKY

  Flattop Hill was a famous park in our town. Flat on top—thus the name—it overlooked the river. There was a grass meadow about the size of a soccer field, where people picnicked, sunbathed, played ball, and tossed Frisbees to bounding dogs. I guess they did other stuff, too. But you get the point. People recreated on Flattop Hill like there was no tomorrow.

  Getting to it wouldn’t be easy. It would be the first time I attempted to ride a bicycle since the accident. Because my old bike was DOA (like me, I guess), I borrowed Zander’s; he barely used it. Exercise and healthy living were totally not Zander’s cup of tea. Come to think of it, a cup of tea was not Zander’s cup of tea. He preferred soda and didn’t worry about the sugar. What can I say? Zander was a nearly round ball of inconsistencies. He worried about the future of the bees but not about the fate of his own incisors. Best friend ever.

  If I was apprehensive about getting on a bike again, my fears soon faded away. After a block or two, I remembered how much I loved the feeling of rolling past houses with the wind in my face. I almost felt free.

  But the ride was long and difficult, since I wasn’t exactly in tip-top shape. I ditched Zander’s bike at the bottom of the hill and climbed a steep path to the top. When I arrived, huffing and puffing like the Big Bad Wolf, I glimpsed Gia seated on a bench. Her back was to me. It was dusk, and a fading sun dropped into the river. Gia turned and did not appear surprised to see me approaching, as if she knew the exact moment I would arrive.

  “Hurry up, Adrian,” she called.

  “What do you expect me to do? Break into a jog?”

  “I want you to stop dragging that leg.” She smiled. “And come sit down next to me. Stop feeling sorry for yourself.”

  “You think my problem is I’ve got a bad attitude?” I felt sticky and irritable. “How about the fact that my ankle sucks and, oh yeah, I almost forgot: I died this August.”

  Gia tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I’m trying to help you, but I can’t if you won’t get over yourself. So, fine, you died. But now here you are. With me. Here and now. So what’s the big deal?”

  “My nose fell off last week!” I protested. “I went to scratch my face and, plop, it landed on page fifty-seven of my science textbook.”

  “Like you’re the only middle schooler with skin problems,” Gia scoffed. “Get an appointment with a dermatologist. Oh, I’m a zombie. Boo-hoo. Guess what? I had my braces tightened last week. You don’t hear me complaining.”

  “Seriously?”

  Her mouth shaped into a grin. And then she started laughing, softly at first, then harder. I guess it was infectious. I laughed, too.

  “Your nose actually fell off in the middle of class?” Gia asked.

  “Super embarrassing,” I confessed.

  We both laughed. Life was comical when you looked at it a certain way.

  “It would have been funnier if you’d sneezed and your nose shot across the room like a spitball, boom, splat,” Gia joked.

  “Yeah, thanks,” I said. “I’ll work on that next time.”

  Gia looked directly at me. There was something new in her eyes, a kindness. “You know, Adrian Lazarus,” she said, “it looks fine now. I’d never know that your nose fell off if you hadn’t told me.”

  “Well, I don’t know about that,” I said. “It seems like you know a lot of things. But thanks for saying so.”

  Gia slid over to make room on the bench. I sat down. The sunset looked good through the radiation clouds. The reds just a little redder. The pinks a little pinker. The whole sky was like the planet itself, I mused: just a big, beautiful bruise. Like somebody had socked it in the eye.

  “My mother says there used to be more stars in the sky,” Gia said, gazing up. “Millions, billions, like salt spilled across a black countertop.”

  “Stars don’t usually get up and go,” I said. “It’s the same number as always.”

  Gia shook her head. “We changed the sky, Adrian, just like we changed the planet. You need to understand that. We’re living in the Anthropocene era
now.”

  “The what?” I asked

  “Oh, look!” Gia exclaimed. “The hologram advertisements are about to begin!”

  The night sky flared bright pink, then blue. Then the lasers began, flashing a series of astonishing holographic lights across the night’s dark canvas, proudly brought to us by our sponsors at FoodTech, K & K, EduCorp, et cetera, et cetera, and on and on.

  “Let us go then, you and I,” Gia murmured to herself, “to watch the advertisements in the sky!”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Not too long ago, billboards used to line the highways,” Gia said. “People thought the billboards were ugly, but they let it happen anyway. Money talks, right? They took this beautiful planet—a landscape of mountains, fields, and rivers—and put up huge, hideous billboards advertising junk food and cars. In most places, anyway. A few states passed laws against it. Some communities, a select few, refused to sell every last inch of beauty on the planet. But look at that sky, Adrian. Corporate has put powerful spotlights out by the mall, and they advertise in the sky for free.”

  I idly watched a few commercials for things I didn’t need. A lively commercial came on for Pretty Pillz: HAVE YOU TAKEN YOUR PRETTY PILL TODAY? Soon, it claimed, everyone would be beautiful—it was as easy as swallowing a pill. Scenes floated past of gorgeous people romping around, flashing perfect smiles. Then a long line of type scrolled across the sky: WARNING: SIDE EFFECTS OF PRETTY PILLZ MAY INCLUDE DROWSINESS, IRRITABILITY, STOMACH PAIN, DIARRHEA, NAUSEA, MEMORY LAPSES, BACK PAIN, AN INABILITY TO DIFFERENTIATE BETWEEN THE COLORS GREEN AND BLUE, LOSS OF HEARING, RINGING IN THE EARS, IRREGULAR HEARTBEAT, SUDDEN VISION LOSS, NIGHT SWEATS, SHORTNESS OF BREATH, SUICIDAL URGES, AND DEATH. OTHERWISE, IT’S ALL GOOD!

  “What a world,” I said.

  “Don’t blame our generation,” Gia said. “We didn’t make it.”

  “No, we just inherited it.” I shifted in my seat to look Gia in the eye. “So why did you ask me here?”

  GIA’S STORY

  “I’m like you,” Gia said.

  Her eyes did not leave mine.

  “Like me … how?”

  “We’re the same because we’re both different,” Gia said.