Special Dead (26 page)

His question smothered the
mood.

“I’ll ask Mom,” Ani said.

But Sarah didn’t know.

*   *   *

The next morning, every one of
them tested negative for ZV. They were released from tight quarantine but not
the lab, so they held a party in the lounge. Everyone attended: the guards, Mr.
Benson, even Mr. Clark, who looked out of place in jeans and a black turtle
neck. Ani had a hard time reconciling the jovial, gray-goateed man with the
silver-clad demon who’d immolated Bill and his cronies.

He didn’t kill
them. I did. All these deaths are mine. Mine and Mom’s.

A shadow clouded her vision. She
looked up into Mike’s eyes and drowned in an emerald sea.

“Penny for your thoughts?” he
said.

“Hi.” It was all she could
manage.

He sat next to her, and she leaned
her head on his shoulder. He patted her arm. “You look so sad. This is a party.”

“I was just thinking about all
the people who aren’t here. Because of me.”

“Yeah.” He took a bite of cake
and didn’t offer her any.

About right.

He swallowed. “But look at all
the good that’s going to come of it, too. I’m not a God person, not really, but
maybe there’s a plan in all this.”

“Maybe.” Her voice was as
noncommittal as her shrug.

He put his arm around her
shoulders, and she hugged him. As her hand pressed into his chest, she shivered.

Do you have a
chip-thing, too, Mike?

She looked up at her mom. Sarah’s
head twitched to the side, the barest of shakes, and then she smiled. It might
as well have been telepathy: 
I took care of it, sweetie.

Mike rubbed her shoulder. “There
you go worrying again. I can feel it in your muscles.”

She tried to relax.

“Better, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

Chapter

36

Ani
got out of the car and smiled up at the mid-June sun, her eyes closed. She
couldn’t get used to the feeling of warmth shining down onto her face, couldn’t
take it for granted. A beep shattered her reverie.

“Get in the car, sweetie,” her mom said from the
driver’s seat. “You’ve got your precalc final in an hour.”

She got in and buckled her belt. After years
riding nothing but a bus, she felt constricted by the shoulder strap in a way
she didn’t like. As the car pulled out of the lab, she killed the radio.

“Can we talk?”

Sarah shot her a glance, then turned left. “Now’s
not a good time, sweetie.” She pulled out her phone and punched buttons with
her thumb. “I’ve got a lot on my mind.” She handed the phone to Ani.

CAR BUGGED. HOUSE. LAB.

Ani deleted the letters and typed a reply.

WHY?

She held up the screen so that her mom could see
it, deleted her question, and gave Sarah the phone.

THEY ARE WATCHING US.

WHO?

DR B. DR F.

WHY?

IDK.

Thought for a minute.
ARE WE SAFE?

NO. She showed her the last word, then tucked the
phone in her pocket. “You’ve got ten minutes tops to say hello, sweetie, then
we’ve got to go.”

Ani waved her off as she got out of the car. “I
know. Come back in twenty minutes.”

She made it all the way up the sidewalk before her
mom pulled away. The drapes in the house next door—no longer the Washingtons,
but strangers she’d never met—shied back as she glanced at them.
Yeah, yeah,
stare at the ex-zombie.
The events of the past few days left her longing
for the bath, if only to be alone for a while.

The door opened before she could knock. Tiffany
looked weird with firebrand hair and around twenty extra pounds and weirder
still with a giant smile.

“Ani!” She wrapped Ani in a squeeze more
enthusiastic than anything before prom.

“Hey, Tiff.” She disentangled herself and peered inside.
“Where are the girls?”

“Cribs.” She jerked her head toward the kitchen. “C’mon
in, I’ll get you a Coke.”

Ani popped the tab and slurped the sticky-sweet
liquid gratefully. Thirst was as alien and as wonderful as freedom or
breathing. “Thanks.” She took another sip and peered over the cribs at the
pink-swaddled bundles within. How wrinkly little troll-things could be so cute,
she didn’t know, but that didn’t stop them.

Ani wrinkled her nose and eyed the ashtray on the
counter. Tiff scooped it up and dumped it in the garbage and almost managed to
look innocent when she turned around.

“Mom. What can I do?”

Ani opened her mouth, had nothing to say, and
closed it.

Tiffany snorted. “Fine, don’t believe me.
Whatever.”

Ani stepped back into the living room and flopped
down on the couch.
To think the last time I was here, her mom was passed out
on this couch, and Tiff was upstairs drowning in her own vomit....

“Are you coming to graduation, Tiff?”

She raised her eyebrows. “When’s that?”

“Next Saturday. It’s supposed to totally be a
madhouse. All the major networks, some religious crazies, a couple of state
senators and other rubberneckers...there might be room for family members to
watch.”

Tiffany rolled her eyes. “Would you forgive me if
I took a pass? Not for nothing, but crowds suck. I think I’ll be out of town.”

“I wouldn’t blame you a bit, but I had to invite
you. Come to the party on the twenty-fifth?”

“How many people?”

“Maybe a dozen. Tops.”

Tiffany flashed her gray-stained teeth. “Yeah, I
can do that. Thanks.”

“Sure.” Ani backed up to the door. “Hey, I’ve got
an exam.”

“Yeah. You’ll be around?”

“For the summer, anyway. Not sure what’s up with
college yet.”

“Cool. Let me know.”

They said their goodbyes, and Ani stepped outside
into the sun. After another pause, she wandered over to their old house.
Everything looked the same, only covered in plastic—the dining room furniture,
the couch, her piano. She wondered if the lab was still there, lurking behind
the bookcase, and realized she didn’t want to know.

She took her time getting back to the road.

*  
*   *

At the request of Principal Leoni, she took her
tests in the Special Dead room. Apparently even a former zombie would be too
much a distraction for the other kids, and God knew Ohneka Falls couldn’t take
a hit on their School Report Card. A few easy finals—with the exception of
math, they were more reading comprehension tests than anything to do with
content—and she was done with high school. It should have been momentous,
transformative, transcendental...yet she had no one to share it with.

Devon, Sam, and Mike were smothered with family
and friends of family, with scarce moments to spare for themselves much less
anyone else. Tiff was “busy” more often than not, and Ani’s mom still spent
twelve or more hours a day at the lab. Ani played the piano—-her beloved baby
grand—amazed at how sore she got after only an hour or two, and she wandered
upstairs to her old bed. She liked sleep more than breathing, more than food.

*  
*   *

Ani pulled the white box out of the closet and set
it on the bed. Save for a thick layer of dust, her room hadn’t changed a bit in
two years.

Just like me.

She lifted the cover and folded back the white
tissue paper to reveal the bright pink fabric beneath. Hooking her fingers on
the sleeves, she pulled out the strapless mini-dress and held it against her
body.

“Did you find it?” Sarah called up the stairs.

“Yeah!” Ani folded it, lay it back inside, and
resealed the lid. “I’ll be right down!”

*  
*   *

She woke up to a batch of store-bought cinnamon
rolls and a note from her mom: “See you there.” She shoved a bun in her face,
showered, and slipped into the dress. She’d put on weight in the two weeks
since the cure but still came in just under a hundred pounds. The dress
emphasized the fact that her body was that of a waifish fourteen-year-old girl,
and her pale-white chicken legs cried out for nylons. She chose pink to match
and wondered if she’d grow any more now that she was alive.

She smiled at the car horn, touched up her
lipstick, grabbed her heels from the foyer, and tiptoed outside. She rolled her
eyes at the beat-up pickup jacked up on four enormous tires but couldn’t help
but smile. “Really, Mike?”

He smiled down at her around Sam, who scooted into
the middle. “Your mom insisted,” he said. Something about the way he said it
made her pause.

She climbed into the cab. “Mom insisted?”

“Yeah,” Sam said. “Said we ought to arrive in
style.”

She blinked. “Uh, sure.” She shut the door, and he
hit the gas. She managed to get her belt buckled before they reached the end of
the street.

The side parking lot was packed, so he parked in
the back. The school somehow looked funny without the electrified chain link,
without the guard towers. Mike got out, helped them both down, and they all walked
in together. Mr. Murphy met them at the guidance office. He’d somehow finagled
white caps and gowns for Sam and Ani, and blue ones for Mike.

“What about Devon?” Ani asked.

Sam held up her phone. “She already got hers.” On
her screen, Devon flipped off the camera with both fingers, gown draped over
her shoulder and mortarboard on her head.

“Classy,” Ani said.

“Classy girl,” Sam agreed. “Looks happy, though.”
Her face flushed, her smile genuine, Ani had never seen Devon so happy.

Well, there’s that.

They ducked into the bathrooms and dressed, then
joined the rest of the seniors in the hall. They got more nervous looks than hellos,
but Ani didn’t have anything to say to them, either. They lined up two by two,
and when the music started, they marched.

Sort of. Without the seniors, the band lacked most
of their first strings, and “Pomp and Circumstance” suffered for it. The beat
dragged, and with it, the seniors’ feet. When she and Sam stepped out into the
sunlight, Ani gasped.

Every inch of lawn crawled with people, and the
crowd spilled out onto the lawns across the road. Huge, makeshift gantries
sported TV cameras, boom microphones, and small satellite dishes. News vans
lined both sides of Academy Street, and helicopters circled overhead. Ani
squinted against the late morning sun and followed the feet in front of her.

They reached the bleachers beneath the old maple
trees, and Sam turned left. Ani went to the right, taking her seat on the top
riser, behind Mike. The heavy white gown stuck to her shoulders—she wasn’t used
to sweating, and the sun and crowd exacerbated the heat of the day.

The school board sat in the front row with the
administrators and visiting politicians. Dr. Banerjee gave her a curt nod as
her eyes lit on him, but he didn’t smile. She waved anyway. Dr. Freeman
returned the wave from her right, and to her left the chair sat empty. Ani
frowned.

Where are you, Mom?

She pulled out her phone and, using Mike as a
shield from the crowd, put the thought to text.

Fourteen people sat in a special section reserved just
for them, right behind the bigwigs. The only thing they had in common—a return
to life after a waking death—made them celebrities, but Ani knew none of them.
The teachers sat at stage left, across the aisle from the former zombies. Mr.
Cummings and Mrs. Weller-Cummings were notably absent, on their honeymoon in
the Bahamas.

Superintendent Salter addressed the board and the
audience, then Principal Leoni. She frowned again at her mom’s empty chair.

Halfway through a musical interlude by the chorus,
Ani’s phone buzzed.
THERE SOON. GET READY TO RUN.
Ani’s eyes snapped up
as Mike flipped open his own phone, and she read the same message over his
shoulder, also from her mom. She looked across the sea of graduates to Sam, who
snapped her phone closed and looked straight ahead.

Devon, in the front row, either didn’t get the
text or ignored it. Ani leaned forward and whispered in Mike’s ear. “What’s
going on?”

He shrugged without taking his eyes from the
chorus. Always a terrible liar, she read the tension in his face but couldn’t
do anything about it.

Her phone buzzed.
THREE MINUTES.
The kid
next to her grimaced at the phone and shook his head in admonishment.

The chorus finished to polite applause, and Kate
Jackson took the podium, her hair as perfect as her makeup. She greeted the
board, the administrators, and the audience, then launched into her valedictory
address.

“Carpe diem. Seize the day.”

The phone buzzed in her hand.
NINETY SECONDS.

“They say that opportunity knocks but once, but
this isn’t true. Opportunity never knocks; you have to hunt it, chase it, wrest
it from the clinging hands of an uncaring world.”

Devon shot to her feet, drawing the eyes of the
crowd. She took a step toward the podium, then two, and groaned. Kate turned,
her puzzled expression shifting to cruel distaste.

“I didn’t mean now, Devon.” The line drew laughs,
but Ani leaned in to Mike.

“Look.”

Behind the bigwigs, the special guests twitched
and lurched in their seats. One, a gray-haired man in a navy suit, grabbed Dr. Freeman’s
arm. As she turned to him in surprise, Devon reached the podium.

THIRTY SECONDS.

“Mine,” Devon said, reaching for the microphone.

Kate put her hand in Devon’s face. “Step off,
bitch.” The audience gasped.

Devon lunged. Kate screamed over a sickening
crunch. Kate flailed, her missing fingers spraying crimson blood over the
nearest seniors. The man behind Dr. Freeman yanked her backward over the seat
and fell on her. Dr. Banerjee whirled, a pistol appearing in his hands. He shot
the woman groping for him in the head, and she collapsed over the back of his
chair as he stumbled away from her. The crowd panicked.

Devon leaped onto him from behind, teeth tearing a
stringy hunk of bloody flesh from his neck. Screaming, he put the pistol to his
temple and fired.

The risers shuddered as Mike scooped Ani into his
arms and turned. His truck skidded to a halt behind the bleachers, Sarah at the
wheel, and he leaped into the bed. Tires flung dirt as he reached out, his
fingers tangling in Sam’s gown as she fell to the ground. He dragged her up
even as he pitched backward from the sudden acceleration. Ani grabbed Sam’s arm
and heaved her up next to them, her shoulders screaming at the effort.