Special Dead (12 page)

Chapter

18

Ani sat on the frozen ground five feet
from the fence, plucking at the frosty grass at the edge of the zombie yard. Tiff
stood on the other side, wrapped in a puffy blue coat, ski pants, and winter
boots. They talked about nothing—the weather, the Griffins’ kitchen fire the
week before, the upcoming Zombie Fest on Halloween—and a vein in Tiffany’s neck
bulged the entire time. She kept scratching at her arms under her sleeves.

Finally she blurted, “I’m
moving back in with Mom.”

Oh, thank God.
“Oh,
no! Did you and Chuck....”

She shook her head. “No, no. It’s
not that.”
Damn.
“We’ve got a little package coming, and what with his
trial—”

Ani raised an eyebrow. “A
little package?”

Tiff ran her hands over her
belly, licked her lips, and looked at her feet. The coat obscured any detail
she might have been trying to show. “I hope it’s a boy. I want to name him Charles,
after his daddy.”

Ani forced a smile, which
couldn’t have looked pretty around the orange rubber. “Wow, congratulations!
How far along are you?”

Tiffany’s eyes shot proud, accusatory
daggers at Ani. “I’ve been clean the whole time. Since I knew. Not even a puff
or a sip.”

That wasn’t my
question, but all right.
“That’s great, Tiff. Your mom’s supportive?”

Her head bobbed back and forth.
“Uh...sort of. She’s not very happy with the situation, but she said she’d
respect my decision, help me stay on my feet. I’m nineteen, after all. An
adult.”

Ani didn’t know what to say, so
she said, “Yup.”

They settled into comfortable
silence, separated by the high-voltage fence and an utter lack of common
experience. Tiffany’s breath frosted in the air, and she almost danced in place
with nervous energy. Ani chalked the twitchy scratching up to nicotine and
alcohol withdrawal rather than the weather, though she had no experience in the
matter. By the time Ani had started smoking, her nicotine receptors were
already dead, and quitting was as simple as...everything else.

Tiffany looked up. “So, what do
you think?”

Ani thought back to the
conversation and tried to summon whatever it was that she was asking about. “Charles
is a good name. Maybe he’ll look like his dad.”
Chuck Roberts was an idiot,
but a cute one.

Tiffany smiled, a rare enough
but welcome sight strangled by its timidity. “No, silly, about the baby.”

“Do I think it’s a boy?”

Tiffany rolled her eyes, all
outward traces of self-doubt gone. “No, what do you think about me keeping it?
Him.”

Ani shrugged. “I think it’s the
right thing.”
Even if Chuck isn’t.

Tiffany’s teeth sparkled in the
morning sunlight. “I knew you’d understand!” She bounced on her feet for a
moment, then darted to her car. “Got to go!” she yelled over her shoulder as
she got in. She slammed the door. Her tires spit gravel as she pulled out past
the picket line.

Ani watched Tiff’s car
disappear into town, then wandered back to the group. Devon and Sam chatted
near the door, Mike pulled up grass one blade at a time, Lydia and Teah walked
the perimeter, Kyle drew a Mustang convertible on the concrete slab—crude, but
recognizable—and Joe...Joe stood to the side, eyes closed, face turned up to
the cool autumn sun.

Ani wrapped her arms around his
waist and pulled him back into her embrace. His helmet clacked against hers,
jarring her neck.

“Sorry,” he said.

“My bad.”

She closed her eyes and held
him, amazed at the tiny trickle of heat that crept from his body. “Sam’s right.
You’re getting warmer.”

“I’ll say.” He shivered. “I’m
freaking freezing all the time.”

“Not used to it anymore, huh?”

Footsteps crunched the frozen
grass behind them. “Hey,” Sam said. Ani let go of Joe, and the two of them turned
around.

Sam’s eyes stabbed into her.

“What’s up?” Ani asked.

“Can I talk to you for a
minute?”

Joe knocked his helmet against
Ani’s. “I was just going to help Kyle.”

They watched him walk away, and
Sam sighed. “I’m going to ask you not to be lovey-dovey with Joe in public.”
Ani didn’t know what to say, so she waited for her to continue. “I know you’re
not, but Teah thinks you’re rubbing it in.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Yeah. And irrational. She can’t
be happy with you being happy, and it’s making no small amount of drama, which
is dumping first on Lydia, who’s so fragile she can’t freaking handle any of her
own insecurities much less Teah’s, and then on Devon and me, who don’t want to
deal with it.”

Ani’s chuckle held no humor. “That’s
shitty.”

“Yup.”

Neither said anything for a
minute.

Ani sighed. “Fine. We’ll keep
the public canoodling to a minimum.”

As Ani stepped past her, Sam
grabbed her arm. “Hey, we just got word about Jeff. Swelling’s way down. Looks
like he’s going to make it.”

Ani smiled and meant it. “That’s
great! Is he awake?”

Sam shook her head. “Not yet.
They’re keeping him under until the swelling is gone, but the doctors are
optimistic.”

Ani hugged her, then stepped
back. “Thanks. Good news is good news.”

“We could use it.”

They stepped over to the
concrete slab, where Joe helped Kyle smooth and refine the lines of his
Mustang. Joe gave her a curious look but turned his attention back to Kyle. She
had never met anyone so...content.

Ani looked up as Teah yelled, “I
LOVE YOU!”

Bill walked backward toward his
car. “I LOVE YOU, TOO, BABE! AND I’M GONNA GET YOU OUT OF THERE!”

Devon rolled her eyes. “Is he a
complete fucking moron?”

“Yes,” Sam said, fists on her
hips.

Teah blew him a kiss, then
hugged Lydia as he drove away.

Ani studied Lydia, shoulders
hunched under the onslaught of Teah’s embrace, arms half-pulled in against her
body, wide eyes staring at nothing.
Is she really so fragile? Are any of us
any stronger?

It didn’t take her long to
decide that, yes, Lydia was a wrong moment away from complete mental collapse,
and that no, most of the rest of them weren’t. Ani didn’t know and didn’t want
to know what it was like to live in a state of constant worry.

*   *   *

Ani, Devon, and Sam sat in
their economics cage, crayons and paper stowed away in favor of a lively
discussion of tax hikes for the rich. “Current Events Friday” was Ani’s
favorite part of economics class. The students were split down the middle on
the topic, and for the first time passions overshadowed the fact that four of
the people in the room were dead. Mr. Cummings guided the debate with a quiet,
deliberate intensity that just screamed
this stuff really matters.

A burst of static interrupted
Devon, and they all turned to the back of the room. The identical but nameless,
faceless, flamethrower-toting soldiers both took a step forward. The one on the
left spoke through his mirrored visor. “I’m going to have to ask all living
humans to step to the side of the room, right now.” He jerked the tip of his
flamethrower to the left.

They scrambled out of the way,
eyes wide, as the other soldier unlocked first the students’ cage, then the
teacher’s. “Let’s go,” he said.

“Where are we going?” Mr.
Cummings asked. Ani noted that their shackles hadn’t been chained together as
the soldier pulled each of them up and out of the cage.

“The bus. Now.”

They shuffled out of the room
into a deserted hallway. The PA system let out a ‘ding’, followed by Dr.
Banerjee’s soft voice. “Attention, the school is now in lockdown. All students
report to the nearest supervised classroom. Teachers, please refer to page two
of the Emergency Guide.”

“Follow me,” the soldier said. “Any
attempt to wander off will result in incineration.” He took the lead, and the
other followed behind them. They rounded the corner and joined a squad of four
soldiers led by Mr. Benson, every one armed with assault rifles, standing next
to the elevator.

The soldiers fanned out to
cover both sides of the hallway, then waited.

“What’s going on?” Sam asked.
Nobody replied.

The elevator door opened, and
the rest of the Special Dead shambled out, along with Mrs. Weller. Not one was
chained. Ani’s mom was with them, her face creased with worry.

“Go,” she said. The soldiers
leapfrogged from doorway to doorway, weapons raised as if expecting attack at
any moment. As they reached the front doors, a roar erupted from outside, human
voices raised in visceral, ugly triumph.

The doors opened to reveal
their short bus backed right up onto the first couple of steps. Military jeeps
packed with soldiers flanked it to either side, complete with hull-mounted
machine guns. Their bus driver opened the emergency back door and waved them
down. “Let’s go!” Behind the bus, the throng of protesters was a hundred
strong, and several cars screeched up to join them, swerving up onto the
sidewalk and yards. Some of them had guns.

The driver didn’t wait for them
but instead ran to the front of the bus. The dead shambled as fast as they
could down the stairs and accepted the assistance of the soldiers in getting up
and on. Kyle was last, with Mike and Joe helping pull him up. He was no sooner
in than Mr. Benson slammed the door and the bus lurched forward.

Ani stumbled, banging her face
guard on the back of the seat. Their driver’s voice boomed over the PA. “Get
down and stay down. The windows are bullet-proof, but we don’t want to test
them.” They hunkered in the aisle, like an old 1950s “duck and cover” drill.

“What’s going on?” Lydia
hollered.

Ani’s phone rang.
ROMERO, S.
She hit “send” and then “speaker.”

“Mom?”

Everyone jumped as a machine
gun chattered next to the bus.

“The District Court just ruled
against personhood, with no injunction. Unanimously.”

Ani locked eyes with Devon.

“We’re screwed,” Sam said.

“I can’t imagine it’s an
oversight by the Second Circuit,” Dr. Romero said, “but we’re pushing the Supreme
Court for one. We hope it’ll be hours, no more.”

Kyle tapped her shoulder. “So
what does that mean?”

“It means that killing us isn’t
murder. Not even manslaughter. It’s just....”

“Destruction of government
property,” Joe said. “Misdemeanor stuff.”

The driver called out over the
roar of the straining diesel engine. “Assaulting soldiers is still a felony. We’ll
get you back to the lab in one piece, hopefully without killing anybody.” The
machine gun boomed again, right next to the bus.

“What about that?” Sam said.

“Warning shots.” The bus
lurched, bucked, slowed, then accelerated again. “And they’re working.”

“Jesus,” Devon said. “They must
have been waiting.”

Ani couldn’t help but agree. “Somebody
tipped them off.”

Huddled on the floor next to
them, Sam grunted her agreement. “Heads are going to roll for—”

“No!” Lydia cried. She ducked
her head when they looked at her. “That’s mean.”

The bus lurched again, throwing
Ani against the left seat, and then veered the other way, tossing her across
the aisle.

“Shit!” Kyle said, flipping
onto his back, his knees in the air. In his chains, his ability to catch himself
was next to zero, and his neck bent almost to breaking as he slid against a
seat. He wriggled to his side and grabbed onto the welded metal bar.

The engine whined, and the ride
smoothed out. The bus driver picked up the CB microphone. “We’ve got chopper
cover now, kids, but stay down. It’ll be a few minutes before we’re back home
safe.”

They huddled on the floor,
clinging to the seat posts, no one daring to let go.

Ani realized that she should be
terrified, but summoning the emotion proved difficult. On an intellectual level
she knew that she might die and so might her friends—and Joe—but the intensity
wasn’t there. She’d felt more alive at Six Flags, plummeting down the roller
coaster.
Dull.

The bus screeched to a stop,
and Mr. Benson hopped onboard. “We’re home, kids. Get inside, chop-chop.”

They scrambled to their feet,
Mike hauling Kyle up with one hand, and stumbled off the bus. The lab door
stood open five feet from them, their view of the outside world blocked by the
orange bus façade. Without waiting for further instruction they shambled
inside, and the door slammed shut with a hydraulic hiss.

A few minutes later, Dr. Romero
met them in the lounge, where Mike had already broken out Jenga and played half
a game by himself.