Kiss of Life (29 page)

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were supposed to do. Investigate groups of people that were getting together and committing acts of violence on dead people. But then a funny thing happened. Not so funny, really. More and more we got called upon to investigate crimes of violence committed
by
dead people."

Agent Gray turned around then, no longer looking angry, but just looking tired. "And that isn't good, Layman," he said. "It isn't good, because like it or not--and I don't like it--you and your friends don't have any rights. Zero. The laws aren't there to protect you. Which means that the laws aren't there to protect
from
you either, and the last thing we want is people going to look for some street justice.

He leaned close again, but this time his intimacy was free from rage.

"I don't want to see that happen," he said. "It's wrong."

"Steve's a patriot," Alholowicz said, fumbling the paperweight before navigating it back to the shelf. "He really is. And he loves that little niece of his."

Gray leaned in a little closer, close enough to count Adam's eyelashes

"So let's cut the crap," he said, "Tell me about this guy with half a face."

The dead were always given some distance in the halls of Oakvale High, but once the news of the grave desecration came out, students were literally turning around and running the other way. The incident was all over the news, with the families of the people whose graves had been disturbed making tearful

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pleas for the police, the government, anybody to do something about the "evil zombies" who would commit such blasphemy. One man, the scab of his grief not yet healed from having lost his wife to a drunk driver the year before, was stone-faced as he called for "the eradication of the zombie menace" on national TV.

The fear the incident had caused was so disruptive that a notice was posted mandating that all differently biotic students needed to be escorted from class to class by a teacher.

"Come on, Layman," Coach Konrathy said, meeting him at his locker before the first bell. "Show some hustle." Phoebe couldn't decide who looked more pissed off about the arrangement.

Some trad students, ones that had been in the pink of health just twenty-four hours before, were absent from school entirely. Norm Lathrop told Phoebe that there was a petition going around school to ban undead students from common areas like the foyer and the cafeteria.

"Boy," Karen said to Phoebe in the hallway as she waited for her to retrieve her books. "Dig a few ...graves and the whole world comes down on your head. Could I get ...arrested for digging out of my own grave?"

"Don't even joke. This is too weird," Phoebe said. The flow of traffic had moved all the way to the other side of the hall to keep from getting too close to Karen. "We're getting together at Margi's after school. You want to come?"

Karen shook her head. She was staring over Margi's shoulder, as though her diamond eyes were recording each and every one of her classmates who was now shunning her.

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"I'm going to try to ...talk to Takayuki ...and the boys. Find out what the story is. Tak swore that George didn't hurt the animals. Maybe they didn't do this either."

"Karen, they were showing pictures of someone that looked a lot like Tak."

"The pictures were grainy. And I know the boys had nothing to do with those flyers." "How do you know that?"

"Because I didn't make them." Karen's expression went blank. "This time."

"Karen!
You
made those flyers?"

"The first ones, yeah, I ...used the computer and the ...photocopier at the mall, when I was on break. It was ... a joke. A funny one too. This wasn't ...funny."

Phoebe didn't know what to say, she just stood there with her mouth hanging open.

"Miss DeSonne!" Principal Kim called. "You have a date with history!"

"There's my escort. At least she doesn't ...pretend these new rules make sense. See you." "See you."

Phoebe was halfway to her own class when she saw a group of boys standing around Kevin Zumbrowski. His books were on the floor, his shirt was untucked, and one point of his shirt collar pointed at the ceiling. His cheek looked dark, as though it had just been slapped, or punched.

"Hey!" she said.

The boys, she was surprised to see, had Denny Mackenzie

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and Gary Greene among them. She heard someone make a joke about the B.O.F.: Bride-of-Frankenstein. She took Kevin's arm.

"Are you okay, Kevin?" she asked. "Where's your escort?" He shook his head from side to side violently, like a dog with a new chew toy. "What is it, Kevin?"

"He ...wouldn't...take ...me," he said, making a noise like a sob.

She put a steadying hand on his shoulder, shushing him. He looked so pitiful leaning against the wall, unable to cry real tears. "We're going to be late, honey," she said. "Don't...leave me!" he wailed.

The final bell rang, and for a moment she didn't know what to do.

But then she hugged him, holding him until he calmed down. "I won't leave you," she said, holding him tight. "I won't."

"They actually gave you a detention?" Margi said, incredulous. Phoebe had gone over to Margi's after school to vent her rage. She hoped some time with Margi and Colette would help her feel sane again. "And Kevin too? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

"I know," Phoebe replied. She was thinking about Kevin. One of the teachers had started yelling at them when he'd discovered them in the hall, and had already vowed to have them both expelled, when Principal Kim arrived and told the teacher to get back to his room and shut up. "It was stupid."

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"Principal Kim is making you serve the detention?"

Phoebe nodded. She said that it would be in everyone's best interest if Phoebe accepted the wrist slap, as a complete lack of punishment might be perceived by the student body as special treatment for differently biotics. She didn't actually come out and apologize, but Phoebe could tell from her tone that Principal Kim wasn't happy about the decision. Phoebe accepted the punishment without comment. Kevin didn't say another word the whole time they were in the office, even when Principal Kim called the Hunter Foundation and asked that they send a van.

"That is so unfair."

"I regret nothing," Phoebe said. She was worried about Kevin, worried he'd go to the foundation and shut down, fearful of trads. He'd made some gains over the past few months, and it would be a shame for all his progress to be erased.

"My only great ...regret ... in life," Colette said, "is that I was not able ...to get ...my brother's LPs before ...my parents threw me out of the house."

Phoebe smiled at her from her seat on the floor, at the exotic way "LPs" sounded in her whispery voice. Colette was stretched out on her stomach and hanging over the edge of Margi's bed, a glossy black LP jacket in her hands. The gray was all but gone from her hair, but Phoebe thought that might have been because Margi was dyeing it.

"Why?" Margi asked, taking the jacket from her. She'd bought it at a yard sale ages ago because she liked the cover. "We don't even have a record player, and I've probably got his stuff on MP3."

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"I'm feeling ... retro," Colette said, reaching for Margi's cat, Familiar, who shied away from her.

Phoebe thought it didn't have anything to do with her records but instead had to do with her brother himself,

"Have you heard from him?" Phoebe asked. "Your brother, I mean?"

Colette shook her head. "I don't even ...know ...where he ...is," she said. "He's probably ...still on ...foreign soil. He could be ...dead, for all ... I know."

"Oh, Colette."

"Well, he could. He's past the age of resurrection too. I think he turns ...twenty-five ...this year."

"Twenty-five?" Margi said. "Might as well be dead."

Colette threw a pillow, but it went wild and knocked an unlit candle off Margi's shelf. The clunk it made sent Familiar into a corner, and the much heavier clunk that Colette made when she slid off the bed sent the cat into a frenzy.

"Will you quit it?" Margi said. "My parents are liable to think you've finally turned into an eighties horror movie."

Colette's fall had been way more than awkward; the akimbo way she lay reminded Phoebe of a big Raggedy Ann she'd had as a child, and the boneless contortions it would make when thrown. Colette was not quick to untangle the knot of her own limbs, and she was more than a little disturbing to look at, especially given the unnatural angle of her neck.

"I've got ...no ...strings," she said, finally rolling onto her back.

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"Couldn't you find him?" Phoebe asked, managing to get skittish Familiar to come into her lap, where he perched with his eyes bright and focused on Colette. "Through the Web, or something? A government agency?"

"No rights," she said, "and my ...parents ...don't, do not ...ack ...knowledge ...my horrific existence."

"We're going to see them this summer," Margi said without looking up from her computer screen, where she was scrolling through her playlists. A song from Skeleton Crew was playing at the moment. "They still live in Tennessee. I checked."

"Sure ...we ...are," Colette said, looking away. Phoebe could feel Familiar tense up under her hands as she rose to a sitting position.

"We are," Margi told her. "I've got my license and we're going. That's final."

Colette looked back at Phoebe, rolling her eyes up in their sockets until only the white showed. For a terrible moment, Phoebe thought they wouldn't return to normal.

"Whatever."

"You want to talk to your brother, don't you?" Margi said. "Of course ... I do," Colette replied.

"How else are you going to do that? The rest of your crackpot family has already written you off. Your dad is the weak link and we're going to get him to talk."

"What if...Cody ...doesn't want ... to talk to me ...either?"

"He will."

"How do you ...know?"

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"I know all," Margi said. "Sure ...you do."

"I think it's worth trying too," Phoebe said. "I think Cody would want to see you."

"He thinks I'm ...dead," Colette said, and then tried to giggle. "Oh, wait."

"I've Googled the guy a bazillion times," Margi said. "Nothing. There's some Cody Beauvoir that I guess is a lacrosse hotshot at some high school, that's all I get when I Google him."

"I wonder if Cody ...ever Googled ...me."

"He wouldn't get anything but your obituary," Margi said.

"Hey," Phoebe said, "what if we put you up on mysocalledundeath? A picture and a request that if anyone knows Cody to have him contact you through the Web site."

"That's a good idea," Margi said. "Let me get the digital camera."

"Oh ...no," Colette said, "can't we use a pre-death photo? I want him to ...recognize me."

"Anyone who knows you would recognize you," Margi said, but even as she said it she was reaching for a photograph that was framed and sitting on her shelf. It was the same photo that Phoebe had hanging in her locker, the three of them standing outside the Cineplex in Winford. Colette's eyes had a thick streak of dark eyeliner in the corner, so that she looked like an Egyptian princess, her arm was gauntleted in a dozen or so shiny bracelets. Her mouth was open in laughter.

"We should Photoshop us out, Pheebes," Margi said, sliding the photo free of its frame.

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"Then I... would look ... like an insane ... freak," Colette said.

"Welllll..."

"Look how I'm ...laughing."

"Okay," Margi said. She found her digital camera and took a photo of the photo, "the Weird Sisters stay together, then. I'll e-mail it to you, Pheebes, and you can put it up on the site, okay?"

"Absolutely."

"Do you really think ...he'll see it?" Colette said. "Someone will," Phoebe said.

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CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

WALKED THROUGH
the door into a hug from Mom. So worried, she says. Always worried, but what is the worst that could happen now?

Okay, Phoebe okay, everybody okay. Don't worry so much. "The school called," she said. "I spoke to Principal Kim and she told me what happened. About the graves."

Bananas in a bowl, cookies in a jar on the counter. Used to come home and make a sandwich. Sandwiches and ESPN after school. Miss many things, but miss sandwiches most of all. Since making up with Phoebe, anyhow.

"Adam," Mom at arms length, squeezing shoulders as though checking if real. Real or unreal? Fingers kneading, flesh unyielding. Hard. Stone cold, like rock.

"Adam, do you know who vandalized the cemetery? Was it your friends?"

"Don't...know."