All Good Children (27 page)

“Does he sell cars?”

She laughs. “Everyone sells cars out where I live.”

“I mean cars that work. Cars you can drive across the state.”

She shrugs. “He mostly takes them apart to make more living space. Once in a while he fixes an engine. Not a lot of people drive the old cars because the gas and permits are so expensive.” She selects a section of my hair with her fingers.

“Permits?”

She nods. “You need a permit to drive them because they pollute so much.”

I swear.

She cuts my hair in silence for a minute. “What's up with you, kid?”

I catch her eye in the mirror and she straightens up, her scissors held high. “My cousin lives far away,” I say. “We have to drive to her house, and I thought maybe we could find an old car.”

“Why don't you rent a car?”

I don't say anything.

“How far are you planning on driving?”

“Far.”

She squints. “Will anyone be staying in your apartment while you're gone?”

I shake my head, pulling the hair out from between her fingers.

She finds that section again, looks back at the mirror, and asks, “How long will your place be empty? A few days? A few weeks? Months?”

I shrug.

“How big is it?”

“Two bedrooms, a big living room, a small kitchen.” I try to think of a selling point. “It has a nice view.”

She laughs and repeats, “It has a nice view. Well, that's good to know. How many months are paid in advance?”

“Whatever's required, I guess.”

“Most places need a six-month deposit. That's why I live in a car.”

“Then I guess the next six months are paid for.”

Her eyes go dreamy in the mirror. “You're sure about this? You're not kidding? I know you're a joker. Don't joke about this, okay?”

“I'm not joking.”

“In that case, I'm sure I can find you a car that works.” She smiles and snips my hair faster than I've ever seen. “We'll find you a very nice car with a full tank of gasoline. I'll throw in an air freshener. And one of those little dogs on the dashboard that wags its head when you brake.” She laughs a big hearty laugh. She pats my shoulder and repeats, “We'll find you a very nice car.”

“I'll need it before Christmas Eve.”

“That won't be a problem.”

I take a detour to Pepper's old house on my way home.

My heart is gone from her doorstep. But I'm still carrying her keys.

It's unsettling inside, dark and hollow. I walk straight to her bedroom and close the door. I stare at the nail where my painting used to hang. I turn around and catch my dim reflection in a mirror: gray clothes and a black face. I could be anybody. I could be a zombie. With nice hair.

I don't know what I'm doing here. I rummage through her closet but find nothing new. I look under her bed and behind the dresser. I sniff the clothes in her hamper, bury my face in a jacket that smells like the chemistry lab. There's an earpiece in one pocket, a storage chip in the other. I plug it into my RIG.

I can't access the documents without a password, but photos scroll freely before my eyes. I moan out loud to see myself with tomato sauce on my chin, smiling. The next photo shows Dallas holding my pizza out of my reach. There are almost fifty shots of us—in the skate park, on the school grounds, on the football field. There's even a recording of our game against the Devils—not the one where I screamed but before that, when Dallas went wicked. I can't look at that.

There's a recording of Pepper's dance rehearsal, so premium it hurts to watch. She's so beautiful, the motion of her hips, the concentration on her face. She looks away and smiles, shining like a sun. The camera pans to the doorway where I stand with my eyes glued to her, grinning like a recall.

All the time I'd thought I was playing it cool. Yet there I am on camera with my eyes soft and dreamy and my tongue hanging out. There's no way she couldn't have known how I felt about her.

It's cold in her empty house. I pull my arms out of my sleeves and hug my naked chest. When the recording ends, I watch it again. I project it onto my hand as if I'm holding her, but that just makes me sad. “Goodbye, Pepper,” I whisper.

I crack open the door of her bedroom, half expecting an ambush of cops and nurses in the hallway. But there's no one in the house or on the street. I lock the door behind me and drop the keys in the mailbox. I won't be coming back here.

Mom's crying when I get home. Ally's at the kitchen table coloring, and Mom's sobbing on the couch. I sit beside her, but not too close because it unnerves me when she cries. I break into her sadness as gently as I can. “Hey, Mom, I found us a car. From Kim, my hairdresser. Her son fixes cars. Supreme, huh?”

She looks at me and nods. Her eyes are red and her face looks ten years older than yesterday. “That's great news, honey.” She tries to smile, but it's contorted with her sadness so it just looks pained. I recoil, and a sob bursts out of her. She puts her face in her hands and rocks back and forth.

“Did someone else die?” I ask. “Is Xavier okay?”

“He's fine.”

“Did Dallas call? I know he says he doesn't want to go but he's just scared. He'll change his mind.”

She shakes her head.

“Did Rebecca tell us not to come?”

“Stop, Max,” she whispers. “It's nothing like that.” She pats my knee and opens her mouth to speak but nothing comes out. She wipes her eyes and shakes her head.

“Are you sick?” I cringe as I say it.

She laughs. It takes me by surprise so I laugh too. Her eyes are shiny bright and she sounds like a girl my age. “No! I'm not sick.” She laughs some more, then sighs and shakes her head at me.

“Good,” I say. “Whatever it is, you shouldn't worry, because it won't matter in a couple of weeks. We've got our wheels. We're getting out of here.”

She sucks in a big stuttering breath.

I figure it must be hormones. “I'm here if you want to talk about it,” I say, though I'd rather eat my own waste than have a chat with Mom about her hormones. I rise. “It's good about the car, right?”

She nods.

“Anything to eat?”

She grabs my hand. “Stay here for a bit.”

“Sure. I'll grab something and bring it over. We'll watch a movie or something. Okay?”

I don't wait for her answer.

I open the fridge and look for something to eat. “Hey, Ally, how are you doing?”

“Fine, thank you, Max. How are you?”

“I'm all right.” I shift bottles of ketchup and pickles, as if a grilled chicken sandwich might be lurking behind them. “What did you have for supper?”

“We had soup with bread and cheese.”

“Yeah, I guess that'll have to do.” I lift the lid off the pot on the stove. There's a bit left, so I warm it up. “I had a great day today, Ally. How about you?”

“It was fine, thank you, Max.”

“Did you leave the cream cheese out?” I find it behind the milk and pull them both onto the counter. I pour a glass, drink it, pour another. I sniff the cheese before I spread it on a bun because in this house, you never know. “You didn't mind going back to school?” I ask. “Everything went okay?”

“Everything is good at my school,” Ally says. “Every child who goes to school is lucky.”

“What did you say?” I turn around and set my plate across from her. But I don't sit down.

Ally's sitting very straight, with her head bowed toward her work. She looks intently at her page and fills in a numbered space slowly and carefully with a black pencil, her fingers moving back and forth in tiny overlapping lines.

“What did you just say, Ally?” I repeat.

She stops coloring when the space is entirely black. She sets her pencil down and looks up. Her eyes drift over the air before settling on me. “I don't remember what I just said.” She scratches a stray hair off her cheek. “I'm having trouble focusing on my work. I'm too hot.” She takes off her sweater and hangs it neatly on the back of her chair. She looks down at her page, picks up a blue pencil, colors another numbered space.

Her body barely moves, her coloring is so controlled. Her fingers jiggle. Her wrist shakes slightly. But her arm is almost still. Up at her shoulder there's no motion at all, just a dark arm at rest. I stare at the big beige patch that wasn't there this morning, and the knife slips from my hand. When the clatter of metal finally rings itself out, all I hear is my mother quietly crying in the living room.

FOURTEEN

“Whispering is wrong,” Ally says. She stomps into the living room, dressed in pajamas, holding her teddy bear by the snout. I've been living with her for one week since her shot, and I can't stand her. “You should do your homework,” she tells me.

We were right to call them zombies. They want to eat our brains.

I force a smile. “Time for bed, sleepyhead.”

She looks at me like I'm defective. “We have to tell an adult when children don't follow the rules.”

Mom rises from the couch beside me. “Max finished his homework, Ally. It's not your business to oversee your brother.”

“Work is everybody's business.”

We have to get out of this city.

Ally stares at the coffee table. She points her finger and calls the world to witness. “You used my coloring pencils!

You're not allowed. They're for my work.”

“I told Max he could use them,” Mom says.

Ally marches over to my drawing: a sunny dandelion sprouts from a crack in the sidewalk where zombie children march to school, one huge shoe with an industrial gray sole about to come down hard on it. “That's not allowed!” She grabs the paper, knocking pencils to the floor, and folds it in her greasy hands.

I want to flick her across the room.

“That's enough, Ally!” Mom says. She stops a rolling pencil with her foot. “Pick these up.”

“Okay.” Ally groans and looks confused. “What do I do?”

“Pick up the pencils,” Mom says. “We'll do it together.” She claps her hands and chants, “One for the money, two for the show, three to get ready, four to go.”

“That's silly,” Ally says.

Mom takes a deep breath.

We pick up the colored pencils together. “You could be faster,” Ally tells me. “We should always do our best.”

I'm on my knees by the armchair when she walks past and my hand shoots out in front of her foot. She trips and falls. Immediately I feel like a beast—what kind of person trips the six-year-old zombie who used to be his little sister?—but I also feel intensely satisfied. “You should watch where you're going,” I tell her.

“You should be respectful of those around you.”

I give her the finger when her back is turned. I peek behind the chair and give the spider a thumbs-up.

It doesn't look like Fred has put much effort into his web, but he managed to catch a clothes moth. It struggles from its fate while Fred works up an appetite. I wish he'd just eat it. Waiting kills me these days. Every moment is fat with hope and dread.

I lie on the floor beside the chair and try to make my mind go blank. Ally's shadow looms over me. I expect her to stomp my face. Instead she steps right over me onto Fred. His web peels off its anchors and sticks to her sock. She grinds the ball of her foot into the floor. Fred is a circle of black goo, his legs torn and scattered around his flattened corpse. Ally swats the web off her foot, catches the moth in the silk, and squashes it between her fingers.

“You have to kill bugs because they're dirty,” she tells me.

I just lie there, nodding.