Better Off Undead

by James Preller

  “Um? What?”

  “If I’m the Scarecrow, you can be the Cowardly Lion or the Tin Man. We’ll have to find a girl to be Dorothy. Do you know any girls?”

  “Slow down a sec, Dane. What are you talking about?”

  He seemed especially fragile this morning, a china teacup that had to be handled ever so gently. My little brother, the person who loved me most of all, said, “I want to paint our front bricks yellow. Then we can go trick-or-treating together.”

  “I’m in middle school, Dane,” I explained. “I’m not really into getting dressed up for Halloween.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s just, I don’t know…” I shrugged. I didn’t really have an answer to that one. I knew there must be an end point when we’d all grow up and stop ringing doorbells, but I didn’t know exactly when that time would come. Was this the year I’d have to give up trick-or-treating? Maybe I could still do it a little bit, on the down low, as long as I didn’t act too into it. Ring a bell, mumble something, and look bored.

  Dane stared at me in disbelief, as if I’d just announced that pizza was illegal. He powered on. “Your friend Zander could be the Cowardly Lion. He’s chubby, and I think the Lion should be sort of soft in the middle, don’t you think?”

  “I guess,” I replied.

  “So that makes you the Tin Man,” Dane said. “No heart.”

  I looked across the table at my mother. No help there.

  “Dane, I don’t know…,” I said.

  “You have to,” he insisted.

  My mother cleared her throat. “We can discuss it later, Dane. There’s still time before Halloween.”

  Dane glanced at me as if I’d just stabbed him in the back with a fork. “Just forget it,” he muttered.

  “Dane—” I faltered. “Let me think about it, okay?”

  He didn’t look up, didn’t say a word, but I saw his face relax a little.

  “I might know a good Dorothy,” I offered. “If you don’t mind purple hair.”

  That elicited the smile I needed to see. “Really? Who?” he asked.

  “This girl I know. I’ll ask her.”

  The truth was, I used to love Halloween. Free candy, right? But these days I felt uneasy. Little-boy games were behind me. What would everybody else think if they saw me? I wasn’t sure what to do anymore. I’d have to check with my friends. It was like there was a new rule book for kids my age, but no one had a copy of it. We all had to make it up as we limped along.

  To make things even more horrible, there was a rumor in school that some sixth graders were going dressed up as, you guessed it, zombies. More specifically: me. I can’t say I was psyched about that. I imagined a bunch of kids walking around dressed as me. As if my entire existence were some kind of holiday joke. Gee, no thanks.

  I cut into my steak. It was pink inside, and blood dripped onto my plate. For some reason it angered me. “I asked for raw,” I complained.

  “You said rare,” my mother replied. “I’m sorry if I cooked it too long. I’m sure it’s just fine.”

  “It’s not fine.” I felt agitated, my temper rising. More and more, I craved raw meat. “You shouldn’t have cooked it at all. It’s not how I like it!” I pounded my fist on the table. Cutlery rattled, plates bounced. A drinking glass toppled and shattered.

  “Adrian!” My mother stood, frightened. “What is going on with you? Put that down.”

  I realized that I still had the bloody steak knife in my hand. Was my own mother afraid of me? “I just want food the way I like it, that’s all. Is that too much to ask?”

  “I can’t give you uncooked meat,” she argued. “You’ll get sick. It’s not right. It’s not … normal.”

  “That’s what you want, isn’t it?” I blurted. “A normal kid. Too bad you’re stuck with me!”

  I climbed the stairs to my room and slammed the door. Nobody tried to coax me out. No soft words at the door, no whispered forgiveness. I rolled over on my bed and placed a hand over my chest. I waited for some sound, a vibration, a thump. Something, anything. All I received was echoing silence. I remembered the Tin Man squeaking in his feeble voice, “Oil can, oil can.”

  I felt alone, an outcast in my own home.

  My stomach rumbled.

  For the first time since the accident, I felt hungry.

  CROWS

  Crows are nature’s trash collectors. But nobody gives them credit for a job well done. Imagine this:

  Some fat squirrel, hopped up on a bellyful of acorns, sluggishly moves across the pavement just as an SUV barrels down the road.

  SPLAT!

  It is not a pretty sight, right? Most folks see that and think—ew! Road kill, smashed squirrel, bloody mess flattened near the curb.

  This kind of thing happens all the time. The car’s tire represents the circle of life. Believe me, the statistics on flattened squirrels would break your heart, assuming you had one. The good news: It’s not a problem! (Except for the squashed squirrels, naturally.) You’d think we’d have dead squirrels piled up all over town. Stacks and stacks of them. But that’s where the crows and vultures come in. They love dead squirrels! For these carrion eaters, it’s fine dining with a faint aftertaste of rubber.

  CROW #1: “Look, here comes an SUV.”

  CROW #2: “Come on, baby! Daddy’s starving!” SCREECH, SPLAT!

  CROW #1: “Yes! Flattened!”

  CROW #2: “Let’s eat!”

  When something’s dead, normally it would be unpleasant to look at. Over time, the carcass would become a breeding ground for festering diseases, white maggots, all sorts of creepy stuff. Bad news for you and me. Fortunately, crows can’t get enough carrion! They love dining on dead animals and, in the process, making our lives a lot better by tidying up.

  So I say, “Come on, everybody. Let’s give a long slow clap for our friends the crows and vultures.” Clap, clap, clap.

  As a semi-dead seventh-grader, I’m glad those crows haven’t come after me. Good thing my little brother is a part-time scarecrow. I remembered the recent sight of vultures swirling overhead. Maybe I wasn’t so safe after all.

  Today I found a dead squirrel outside my house. A fresh kill, blood still leaking from its nose, but otherwise not too shabby. I prodded it with my foot. I glanced up the road, down the road. No one in sight. Just me and that squirrel.

  Do I dare? Or do I dare?

  I stepped away, horrified.

  What was happening to me?

  What was I becoming?

  I knew that middle school would be a time of changes, but I thought that would be like, I don’t know, my voice getting deeper. A breakout of back acne or something. But this was ridiculous. I was literally thinking about scarfing up a dead squirrel from the street.

  Then I stopped thinking altogether.

  Some other, deeper instinct told me what to do.

  Moments later, I dragged a sleeve across my mouth and fled into the house, my back to the street.

  WORKING THE CASE

  “Any progress on the case?” I asked Talal.

  We were sitting in a downtown laundromat, amid rows of rattling washers and dryers. It was Talal’s idea of a relatively safe place from drones and eavesdroppers. Only two people were inside, a red-haired woman in a rumpled sweater, an e-cigarette dangling from her lip, who carried in three trash bags full of clothes. She went about her routine as if she’d been there before, giving us only the briefest once-over when we entered. A man sat in a chair, his long legs extended, black work boots untied. He was staring, transfixed, into the glass circle of a dryer as clothes tumbled round and round. His hair was uncombed, and a thin scar ran from the corner of his mouth to his chin. He muttered to himself without ever, it seemed, so much as glancing our direction.

  “I’m following a few leads, but—” Talal shrugged, suddenly silent.

  “You think it’s safe to talk here?” I asked.

  Talal scanned the laundromat once more. He lifted his hands helplessly
as if to say, Who knows.

  “So? Anything at all?” I asked.

  “You’ve read up on them, right?”

  “Yeah, I did my homework. But for such powerful men, there’s not a lot of information out there.”

  Talal nodded. “They like to stay clear of the spotlight. So tell me,” he said, “what’s the one thing about Kalvin and Kristoff Bork that sticks out to you?”

  I thought it over. I wanted to say something insightful, impress Talal with my piercing intelligence. I didn’t feel too confident. “Well, for starters, they are unbelievably rich. Forbes listed them as the two richest men in the world. They donate a lot of money to causes they care about, sometimes to genuinely good charities. Mostly they pour millions of dollars into helping certain politicians win elections.”

  Talal nodded. “That’s correct. In return, congressmen, judges, and senators owe the Bork brothers a favor or two. That’s how the world works.”

  “Yeah, I guess the Borks expect them to look out for the interests of K & K if any new laws come up for a vote in the House or the Senate,” I agreed. “The Borks know that if they buy enough important friends, they can control things. They don’t want the government regulating their businesses, and they don’t want to lose profits by worrying about the environment. The Borks will do anything to stop alternative energies from gaining support in Washington, D.C.”

  “Yeah, yeah, they tilt at windmills,” Talal mused. “They don’t want the world to change for the better. It’s not in their short-term interest—they make billions every year by using our sky as an open sewer. But you’re missing the obvious thing.”

  I gave him a blank look.

  “There are almost no photographs,” Talal said.

  “Shy, I guess.”

  Talal pulled a rumpled paper from his pocket. It showed a blurry photograph of the Bork brothers, as if taken from a great distance. “This is one of the rare shots. Look at them,” he insisted.

  The brothers were nearly identical, with gaunt faces, thin lips, and slicked-back hair. Their heads were close together, as if the camera had captured them at the moment when one brother had whispered into the other’s ear. I still wasn’t getting it.

  The front door opened, and a deeply tanned man in a cream-colored suit entered, carrying a black pillowcase full of laundry. He rolled past a half-dozen empty machines and slapped down a handful of quarters on a washer near us. “My damn washer at home is on the fritz,” he grumbled. “You’re not planning on using this one, are you boys?”

  “Nope,” Talal replied. “We’re already gone.”

  “Don’t leave on my account.”

  “No worries,” Talal said, preparing to leave. I pulled the hoodie over my head and shuffled out.

  The man held his phone in his hand. He punched out a text and maybe, just possibly, snapped a photo as we passed.

  “They’re everywhere,” Talal said as we hit the sidewalk.

  “You think he works for them?”

  “He had long hair covering his ears,” Talal said. “Most of the time, a guy in an expensive suit like that wears his hair cropped short.”

  “So?”

  “So with long hair he can easily hide a transmitting device in his ears,” Talal said. “Plus, rich guys in suits like that call in repairmen. They don’t do laundromats, it’s beneath them. And I didn’t like the way he intentionally picked a washer that was close to us. It didn’t feel right.”

  “You might be a little paranoid,” I said.

  Talal laughed. “Just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get us.” We continued walking outside a strip of stores. Talal spoke in his normal voice, for the present time not worrying about being overheard. “My father is a surgeon. He told me that in medical school they taught him that when he makes a diagnosis, he should always think of something called Occam’s razor. Have you ever heard of it?”

  “I don’t shave,” I said, once again feeling dim-witted in his company.

  “Basically, if you hear the sound of hooves coming up behind you, think horses, not zebras,” Talal said. “Get it? Most times, the simplest answer is the correct one.”

  I thought of the lack of photographs. “Ah, the Bork brothers are—”

  “Not so loud,” Talal warned.

  “—hiding something,” I whispered.

  Talal yanked me by the arm and took a sharp right turn into a coffee shop. We stood near the espresso machine, which hummed and whirred and gurgled with a terrible racket. “Yeah,” he agreed. “They are hiding something.”

  “Okay, but what does it have to do with me?”

  Talal purchased two large chocolate chip cookies and a couple of drinks. He found a table located directly under a stereo speaker. Electronica music, all blips and drum machines, pulsed at distracting volumes. Talal cupped a hand around his mouth and said, “If we talk softly, I doubt they can record our voices in all this noise.”

  I gave him a thumbs-up.

  “Let’s back up a minute,” Tal began. “The Borks made money all their lives. Gobs of it. Oil, real estate, hotels, hedge funds, what have you. But they got crazy rich when they became data collectors.”

  “Okay, I give up,” I said, waving my hands. “What’s a data collector?”

  “Do you want the long answer or the short one?”

  “I want you to explain it as if you’re talking to a stuffed meerkat,” I said, grinning.

  “Gotcha,” Talal said. “Okay, the core of the K & K business is collecting information on people. They were the ones who figured it out first. We live in a digital age. Information is gold. Then they sell that information to other, smaller businesses. For example, one day you go on a website and click on a sneaker you like. You don’t buy it, you just look. You are thinking about it. Daydreaming. The next day, an advertisement for that same sneaker pops up on your phone. That evening, outside your bedroom window, a hologram image of that same sneaker scampers across the night sky. How did they know?” he asked. “It’s all data collection. Numbers, algorithms, computers. The day you clicked on that sneaker, the Borks put a target on your back.”

  “It all connects,” I murmured. “We’ve been so stupid.”

  “What?”

  “Just something Gia said,” I replied. “It all connects. We began by asking the wrong question. You asked me what’s the one thing about Kalvin and Kristoff Bork that sticks out? Occam’s razor, remember? The obvious thing. We should have been asking that question about me.”

  Tal understood immediately. He leaned forward on his elbows. “You’re right, Adrian. You’re the key to this mystery, not them. And what makes you so special? You are the zombie boy who somehow survives without a beating heart. You should not exist, and yet here you are.” He chomped into his cookie. “If I had ten balloons, I’d bet every single one that the Bork brothers are dying to know how you do it.”

  A feeling of dread sank in my stomach like a bad burrito. I looked away, lost in thought.

  “What are you thinking, Adrian?”

  “I want to meet them,” I decided.

  “The Bork brothers?” Talal raised his eyebrows, pushed the fedora back on his head. “Not easy. They are very reclusive.”

  “You said they don’t live too far from here. Less than an hour away,” I insisted.

  “It’s not like we can knock on their door like we’re selling Girl Scout cookies,” Talal said.

  “True,” I agreed. “But you’ll think of something.”

  HIVE MIND

  Zander persuaded Gia and me to attend the first meeting of a new school club, the Animal Protection Society, set to take place at the beehive in the organic garden out back. Zander was so excited about the meeting, we couldn’t refuse. Talal begged off, citing medical reasons. He claimed he was allergic to after-school activities.

  “Are you worried about bee stings?” I asked Gia. “I mean, you know—”

  Gia grinned. “That’s not a problem anymore. Besides, Ms. Fjord say
s it’s highly unlikely the bees would sting us, as long as we don’t do anything stupid.”

  We met Zander at his locker. “Until yesterday, I had no idea we even had a hive on school grounds,” Gia said. “It’s so cool.”

  “I know, right?” Zander agreed, bobbing his head as we pushed open the back doors. The day was exceptionally clear and warm for mid-October. The leaves on the trees put on their brightest colors, and the warm sun shone down on our heads.

  “Gorgeous day, I love it!” Gia exclaimed. She stretched her arms out and performed balletic twirls on the grass. Gia appeared fully recovered from the sharp pains that had crippled her during the train derailment.

  “Beekeeping is Ms. Fjord’s hobby,” Zander explained. “When she got hired at school over the summer, she offered to bring one of her hives here.”

  “Isn’t it dangerous?” I asked.

  “Nah,” Zander said. “Just don’t do anything stupid to agitate the bees, and they’ll leave you alone.”

  “Okay, I’ll try not to be stupid.”

  Gia patted me on the shoulder. “Good luck with that, pal.”

  Ms. Fjord was already working in the garden, dressed in jeans, bright rubber gloves, and a floppy sun hat. When she saw us approach, Ms. Fjord smiled brightly and gave a huge, hearty wave across the field, as if we were a passing airplane and she’d been stranded for weeks on an inflatable raft. I half expected her to shoot off a flare gun.

  “Is it just us?” Gia asked Zander. “We’re the entire Animal Protection Society?”

  “The club’s just starting out,” Zander said. “It’ll grow, you’ll see. People will wake up.” Zander pushed ahead to greet Ms. Fjord.

  “Wow, I’ve never seen that before,” I observed. “Zander’s literally running.”

  “Literally running?” Gia asked, arching an eyebrow. “As opposed to figuratively running?”

  “Don’t get all grammatical with me,” I said, cuffing her on the shoulder.

  Gia grinned back, large eyes beaming.

  Ms. Fjord had an energy that made her talk in exclamation points. She flashed a toothy smile. “I’m so glad you’ve come to meet our bees!”