Passing Strange (22 page)

P
ETE, UNLIKE MANY IN
Oakvale’s teen population, felt no disappointment at the lack of a serious snowfall the night prior. He was, on paper at least, home-schooled, and therefore less emotionally invested in the vagaries of the usual Connecticut winter.

The roads were already cleared, so he pulled on a pair of old sneakers and a loose sweatshirt over the T-shirt he’d worn to bed, and went jogging around his neighborhood for an hour. He tried to run every day, especially now that he’d been kicked out of school and had virtually no chance of playing organized football ever again, unless someday Reverend Mathers endowed a college or something like that and let him on the team. Discipline was important, and without the loose discipline of school and the rigorous discipline of football, Pete knew he would have to generate that discipline internally.

The road was a little slippery, especially with the worn treads of his sneakers, but Pete felt like he was in total control of his mind and body. There was a period where that control wasn’t there, but now it was back. He ran easily up the first hill on his street and slowed his pace slightly going down the other side. His lungs worked in a steady rhythm to match his stride. He felt alive.

He watched a snowplow rumble down the opposite side of his street, the wide rust-orange blade kicking up a rather pathetic spray that was mostly wet sand cast from the plow that had gone before. Pete liked to put everything out of his mind when he ran, all of the obsessions and compulsions of life, and just focus on the act of exercising itself. Or the scenery. The beating of his heart, the way the shaded contours of the light snow revealed the topography of his neighbors’ yards. Most days, whether doing laps around the development or pressing iron in his basement, he was pretty successful in emptying his mind of thought, but this morning a concern popped like a blister in his consciousness. Something told him that the Reverend would be calling him again today.

Pete skid a little as he took the sharp corner that marked the start of the next street of Oakvale Heights, and he felt a twinge in his upper thigh. He tried to concentrate on that transient pain, but an image of the Reverend was taking shape, coalescing like a phantom of mist in his mind. Reverend Mathers had called Pete quite often over the past week, and although he suspected the Reverend had a soft spot for him, Pete had his doubts. Unlike the pain in his thigh, these doubts couldn’t be forgotten by running a few more steps or doing another set of shoulder-press reps.

Pete knew where those doubts came from. Who they came from. A perfect plane of snow draping the Taylors’ front yard made him think of her skin, and the thought made him clench his jaw and tighten his fists. Exercise was supposed to erase the thoughts, not encourage them.

He finished his normal workout, but instead of turning into his driveway and yelling what he wanted for breakfast to his mother, he started all over again.

Another hour later, his sweatshirt clinging to him like a second skin, he trotted to a stop at the edge of his driveway. Steam rose from his body in visible waves, but he wasn’t even winded. His body did what he wanted it to even when his mind did not. He was vibrating like a struck chime, but when he held out his hand to see if it was shaking, it was steady as a rock.

Early in his workout he’d run past a school bus pulled to a stop at the top of the development. He could see the fear on the faces of the kids getting on; he had no friends in this neighborhood. He hadn’t spoken to TC for a week, not since the failed attempt on Phoebe’s life. The big dummy was probably sitting in class right now, a wide grin on his fat face. Pete decided he’d look up TC before he went back to Arizona on Friday.

He stood at the edge of the driveway for a moment, listening to himself breathe. He went to get the papers from the plastic boxes, which had been spared by the snowplows that pulverized them to smithereens at least once a season. The Wimp, Pete’s name for his mother’s husband, subscribed to two newspapers. Pete did a quick scan of the front pages, knowing what he would find there. Duke Davidson had called him last night, about an hour after the cops had found her in her cell. Duke always knew these things first. Duke was plugged in. Pete started reading, and all the thoughts and doubts he’d tried to chase away came flooding in.

The more local
Winford Sentinel
ran her story as the headline above coverage of a car accident and a recap of a heated town meeting involving a proposed condo complex. The lead in
The Hartford Courant
was a cheerily partisan puff piece regarding a “Zombie Walk and Rally” that Oakvale’s own Tommy Williams was trying to organize. A second article talked about a van full of volunteers, living and dead, who had been run off the road while on the way to join him. There was a small box with the headline “Zombie Prisoner Found Dead,” but unlike in the
Sentinel
, there was no photo.

Pete read the headline out loud. “Great headline,” he said, shaking his head. “Zombie Found Dead. Brilliant.” He was gripping the paper so tightly he tore a section from the front page.

He started to read the article on the Zombie Walk.

While standing at the edge of his driveway, he read as much of the piece as he could stomach, scarcely noting the chill despite being soaked with sweat. When he got to the part about “the brave pilgrim, the self-sacrificing leader of the ZRM, or Zombie Rights Movement,” he hawked and spit, then tossed the entire paper into the slushy mix pooling at the driveway’s edge. Let the Wimp find another paper.

He turned back to the
Sentinel
. The photograph of Karen was a mug shot. She was in her prison blues, staring out at him with her unnatural eyes. She had a slight smile on her pale lips, not quite sardonic, not quite sad.
I know you, Peter Martinsburg
, she seemed to be saying. He could almost hear her voice.
I know you and I forgive you.

Karen DeSonne, 16, was found in her holding cell at the Winford police station, the victim of an apparent suicide. Ms. DeSonne was being held for fraud, criminal forgery, and various other crimes. It is alleged that she was also wanted for questioning in the disappearance and alleged murder of August Guttridge and his family.

“Alleged murder,” Pete said aloud. “That didn’t take long.”

Mr. Guttridge was the lead defense attorney in a recent court case concerning the accidental shooting of a boy who returned as a living-impaired person, and his disappearance is alleged to be in retaliation for his role in that case.

Pete glanced down at the photo. He was taken almost wholly unawares by the sudden pressure behind his eyes, and he snorted again, but not to spit. He cursed and tossed the paper to the ground, but when he went back with the intention of retrieving Karen’s photo, she was already soaked through, just a clot of ink.

Pete pinched the bridge of his nose, ignoring the cold but not the dull ache in his head as he went back inside.

T
AK’S FIST CRASHED THROUGH
the glass, and when he withdrew it from the box, there was a small shard sticking out from the back of his hand. “Tak, what the…hell,” Popeye said. “There’s a big rock…right over…there.”

“And I have…quarters,” Tayshawn added. They were at the corner of Karen’s street, clustered around the newspaper box Tak had just smashed. Ignoring them, Tak reached beneath the last of the glass clinging to the frame and withdrew the newspaper from the display. His hand flexed as he read the headline a third time, and the motion forced the glass splinter out of him like toothpaste squeezed from a tube. When he hadn’t heard from Karen soon after the near miss with Martinsburg, he knew something was wrong. He’d been the only one to catch sight of her driving Pete’s getaway car. After catching up with Adam and Phoebe for a few minutes, feigning ignorance of the huge knife she’d found in the snow, the Sons of Romero went back into the woods and, unbeknownst to the beating heart and her man, took up their positions again in case Martinsburg made a return trip.

But then, days later, he heard her say his name as clearly as though her voice were a small stone dropped into the well of his mind, and he knew that something had happened. Something dreadful.

I’ll always know
, he’d told her.

“Zombie Prisoner Found Dead,” the headline read, above a photograph of Karen in a blue prison jumpsuit. Was that some stupid breather’s idea of a joke?

He could feel Popeye peering over his shoulder.

“I’m sorry…Tak,” he said, and put his hand on Tak’s shoulder. “Maybe we can get…that freak…that…”

“She’s still…alive,” Tak said, his voice a dry rasp.

“Look, Tak. I…know you…liked…her, but…”

Tak, still clutching the newspaper, whirled and grabbed the front of Popeye’s jacket, driving him into the wall of the bus shelter behind him. There was a hollow thump as Popeye’s head struck the wall. His glasses went askew on his face, his lidless eyes appearing to protrude more than usual.

“She’s…still…alive,” Tak said, his face inches from Popeye’s.

“Okay! Okay!” Popeye said, raising his hands above his head. “No…worries! She’s…still alive.”

“Tak,” Tayshawn said from behind him. “Ease…up, Tak. Come on…man.”

Tak could see twin reflections of himself in the black lenses of Popeye’s glasses, each tiny mirror image a mask of hate. His lips were curled back in a snarl over teeth that were visible all the way to the molars on the torn side of his face. Bones and leather creaked as he released his friend.

“She’s…alive,” he said. “She…is.”

“Okay, Tak,” Popeye said, straightening his glasses with his ridiculous webbed hand. “Okay.”

She had to be. The bullet holes disappeared. She said she’d slashed her wrist nearly to the bone, and that had healed. She could survive whatever happened to her in jail. She had to. She couldn’t be dead; really dead.

I’ll always know
, he’d said.

But he didn’t.

Tayshawn waited a few moments before speaking. “What are we going…to do?”

Takayuki looked beyond him as a delivery truck went by. He flexed his hands until the knuckles popped. There was a thin gray line where the piece of glass had been.

“Layman,” he said. “We’re going to…talk…to Layman.”

After a long trek, the three of them were standing at the edge of the woods behind Adam’s house, this time making no real effort to hide themselves behind the big bare oaks and thin birches.

“His bedroom…is there,” Tak said, indicating a window that faced the woods about eight feet from the ground. The Garrity’s backyard sloped sharply away from the foundations before flattening out before the woods. He and his companions did not tire, but often had trouble negotiating slick hills. Tayshawn, who wore a battered pair of high-top sneakers rather than the combat boots his companions sported, fell frequently.

“Remind me…why we’re…here…again?” Tayshawn said.

“Layman…may know…what…happened,” Tak answered. “He may know…where…she is.”

“How will…we…get him…to come out?” Popeye asked.

“Ring the…bell. Pretend we’re…selling…magazine subscriptions.”

Tayshawn’s sarcasm went ignored by Popeye, who tapped Tak on the elbow with his ridiculous webbed hand. The fishing line stitches were completely pulled away from his thumb now, the rubber flapping down like the fin of a dying fish.

“Hey,” he said, “let’s…wake Phoebe…up…instead.” His yellow grin was full of malice.

“Aw, leave…her…alone.”

Popeye turned to Tayshawn. “Oh, that’s…right. I’d forgotten you were…big pals…with the…breathers.”

“She’s not…so bad.”

“Not so…bad? She got…Adam…killed…didn’t she? And Saint…Tommy…all messed…up.”

“You don’t…know…what…”

“Will you both…shut…up,” Tak said.

“I vote…we wake…the beating heart,” Popeye said, gripping his arm. “Let’s…scare…her, and make…”

“You don’t…get…to vote,” Tak said, pulling his arm free and turning to his companions. “You don’t…get…to decide.”

Popeye held his ground for the first time since they’d met. “I just thought…I thought…we could show…the breathers…”

Tak took a step toward him, and Popeye flinched.

“You just thought,” he said. “You just…
thought
. The problem is you…
we
…didn’t think at all. Those…stupid…pranks…we pulled. What were…we thinking? What were we…thinking…with those…tricks, Popeye?”

He turned away from his friend, but not before he could see the impact his words had on Popeye’s expression. The impetus to “do something” may have been from Tak, but all of the actual ideas—the graveyard posters, the installations at the mall and on the church lawn, had been Popeye’s. His art was something—the only thing, maybe—that Popeye professed to care about.

“Why…are you…being like…this?”

It was Tayshawn, not Popeye who’d spoken.

“We were…trying…something,” Tayshawn continued. “We wanted…people…living people…to see us…see us as…we really…are. I thought…you were…down with…that. Hell.. . it was.. . you who…got us…going.”

Tak shook his head. “We got…George…killed…is what…we got. Reterminated. That is our…legacy.”

“You don’t…know…that.”

Tak didn’t answer right away. There weren’t any lights on in Adam’s house, not even in his room.

“I…feel…it,” Tak said.

“What are…we here for…then? The rest of…zombie…kind?”

Tak turned toward him, glancing at Popeye, who was sitting on a snow-covered rock, with his chin on his hand, facing away.

“I don’t…care about…zombiekind.”

Tayshawn lifted his arms up, knocking snow from a low pine branch.

“What the…hell…
do
you…care…about, man?”

Tak stared at him.

You, Tayshawn, he thought. Popeye. Karen, George, Adam. I care about you.

He didn’t vocalize these sentiments. Something had happened to him under the ice, some internal thawing that occurred while the rest of his body froze. He’d had long hours where he drifted along the lake bottom, thinking of those who had counted on him, those that he’d let down. Whatever abstract ideas he’d have of “raising consciousness” among breathers and creating “zombie pride” were forgotten when he thought about how George’s dead body spasmed, then shut down, upon being hit with the Taser.

He thought about the night that he’d all but invited her to join the Sons of Romero. She’d seen right through to the heart of his words, and while she didn’t accept his real invitation, she didn’t close the door on it permanently, either.

They’d been talking about God, whom neither had real reason to believe in after dying and returning. Some of the zombies they knew had stories that incorporated the divine in some way, but not Tak. He’d simply been dead, and then he wasn’t. Karen’s return wasn’t much different. But unlike Tak, she still held out a hope that He existed. She’d told him as much.

“That makes it worse,” he’d told her, believing it. It wasn’t enough that he lacked faith, he had needed to destroy it in her.

But that was before she’d been taken away from him. Long hours in the water, with the water in him, made him realize something.

Without death, he’d never have met her. And she was the best argument for divinity that he’d contemplated yet.

“We need…to talk…to Adam,” he said. “We need to get…moving. The beating hearts…will…wake up…before long.” Tayshawn had another argument ready, but he held it in.

“Popeye,” Tak said, calling to the dejected lump brooding on a fallen log. “I’m…sorry. I’m…angry. And…worried. I don’t…mean…to take it…out…on you.”

Popeye turned. He looked like a man feeling rain on his face in the desert, even behind the impenetrable lenses of his sunglasses. Tak wished Popeye didn’t need him so much, but forced himself to offer Popeye a hand up, anyway. He stopped short of letting Popeye hug him.

“We need to…get his…attention,” Tak said, nodding at Adam’s window.

“I can…get his…attention,” Tayshawn said. He bent low and started pulling handfuls of snow together.

“What are you…planning?” Popeye asked.

“I was…all-state on my…high school baseball team my…freshman…year. Played…shortstop.” He started fashioning the handfuls of snow into a ball.

“Didn’t you…die…playing?” Popeye asked. Tak was ashamed to realize he didn’t know how his friend had passed.

“Yep,” Tayshawn replied. “I had an…acute asthma…attack…right there…on the field. You know they…say…‘at least you…died…doing…something…you love’? What a bunch…of…crap.”

“You can…still…throw?” Popeye asked. Tayshawn packed the snow into a reasonable sphere, and they followed him out onto the smooth white landscape of Adam’s back lawn. “There aren’t…many…zombies…who could manage…that.”

“There aren’t…many…who were…as good…as me,” Tayshawn said, hurling the snowball. They watched it sail perfectly toward Adam’s window, where instead of splatting wetly into its component pieces, it smashed right through the glass with a jagged sound that cut through the stillness of the night.

Tak blinked.

“Nice…throw,” he said.

When there was no answer, he turned to see his companions “running away,” their stiff, inflexible limbs propelling them back down the hill toward the woods. Tayshawn’s shoes failed him again halfway there, and he fell heavily onto his backside. Tak would have laughed if he’d known how.

There was commotion inside Adam’s house, shouts of the living. Tak decided not to wait and see who made it to the window first, and followed his fleeing friends toward the relative safety of the woods.

Adam’s dragging footsteps cut long swathes in the white blanket covering his backyard. He stopped momentarily to look at the cluster of boot prints across from his window, which were already beginning to fill up with new snow. He followed the prints, stopping just outside the tree line. Tak watched his slow progress without comment.

“You could have…knocked, you…know,” Adam called. “My parents are…pissed.”

Takayuki stepped forward through the bare branches of the trees.

“Sorry,” he said. Popeye and Tayshawn, their dead faces almost comically hangdog, stepped out of the shadows as well.

“Hey, fellahs. I thought you went…back…to the life…aquatic,” Adam said. He paused to ask a question, as if realizing that his irritation at them shouldn’t affect his concern. “Is something…wrong? How are the rest of…our…friends?”

“Safe,” Tak replied. “They’re…safe.”

“Good.”

They hadn’t been friends when Adam was alive, but after he’d died, Tak had tried to recruit him for the Sons of Romero; he’d even invited Adam to hide with them in the depths of Lake Oxoboxo. Adam would have gone, too, if Phoebe hadn’t risked pneumonia to stop him.

“So what…are you guys…doing…outside…the lake?”

He was aware of the boy’s scrutiny, even as Popeye and Tayshawn were shuffling their feet and averting their gazes like truant school kids hauled before the principal.

Tak didn’t answer. He clenched his fist, crumpling the newspaper in his hand.

“Adam,” Tak said, his voice like a sigh, “I want to know…about…Karen.”

Now it was Adam’s turn to have difficulty maintaining eye contact.

“She’s…in jail, Tak. Something happened with…Martinsburg. She was…passing…as a traditionally…biotic…person. She…”

“She’s in…jail, is…she?”

Adam gave a slow nod. “Yeah. Phoebe…and I…”

“In…jail,” Tak said, throwing the wadded newspaper in Adam’s face.

Adam glared at him, but Tak didn’t retreat. He knew Adam was used to people—living people, anyway—backing down from him, his enormous size enough of a deterrent to keep all but the most foolhardy people from starting trouble. Tak watched him smooth the newspaper, and watched his eyes as he read the headlines.

“Where…is…she?” Tak said, his voice a guttural snarl.

Adam looked up. “Tak…”

“Where…is she, Layman? Tell…me .. . where she…is?”

“Oh God,” Adam said. “Oh, Karen…Tak, I had no idea…”

“You let them…do this,” Tak said, the last word escaping as a horrible hiss through the rent in his cheek. “You stood…by and…did…nothing.”

A reply started to form on Adam’s lips, but Tak wasn’t done.

“Karen!” Tak said, shouting her name. He raised a long bony finger—literally bony where the skin was missing from the knuckle—and pointed it in Adam’s face. “You let them…do this…to Karen!”

Adam raised his hand from his side, in what Tak would later think was probably a gesture of sympathy, or helplessness, but at the time, Tak only saw it as one thing: an excuse. He lashed out, throwing himself at the much larger boy, actually making him stagger. Adam struck out, more to ward off the frenzy of the assault than anything else.

His blow struck Tak on the collarbone, and Tak went over backward, his body thudding on the snow-covered ground.

Tak imagined that Adam had been aiming for his face. His teeth, to be exact, the ones that were always visible. He struck out with a booted foot, hitting Adam in the ankle. Adam over-corrected, trying to keep his footing, and hit the ground, getting a face full of snow. Tak growled like a wounded animal and scrambled toward him.

Adam rolled onto his back, sweeping across with a crooked elbow as Tak closed in. Tak knew that Adam had studied martial arts, but he still considered him an inelegant fighter. He came in quick and low, but Adam’s elbow thumped solidly on his head, and Tak flew away from him like a discarded doll.