Pepper’s back at school on Friday with a bandage around her ankle and a patch beneath her sleeve. When I ask if she wants to eat with us, she says, “I prefer eating with my girlfriends,” and limps away.
“I bet they taste good,” Dallas whispers. That phrase is our new password. He’s such a premium actor, I needed a code to prove that he’s not a zombie. Whenever we meet or message, one of us says, “Zombies eat brains,” and the other says, “I bet they taste good.” If we answer properly, we can let our guard down. If we don’t—I don’t want to think about that.
“Spending time with her fellow dancers may improve Pepper’s skills,” Dallas says.
I nod. “Perhaps we should spend time with our fellow footballers.”
“I believe there is a practice after school today.”
“That will present a fine opportunity.”
We turn to each other and nod. We take our humor dry these days.
Zombie football is no fun. It’s hard to describe what’s different about the team, but it’s easy to feel. There’s no energy or emotion. It kills me to feign disinterest as a thousand pounds of zombie pile on top of me over and over again.
“We might have to quit the team,” Dallas whispers at the edge of the field.
“I can’t. I love football.”
“That’s why we should quit.”
I conduct a zombie survey in search of inside information to improve my faking. I tell my teammates I’m exploring the role of sports in adolescent bonding. I call it “adolescent bondage” but the irony gets depressing when no one cracks a smile. I record their answers to questions like, “How do you experience tackling as a social interaction?” and “How does it feel to score?”
“I’m proud to carry out the play,” everyone says. Everyone except Brennan, who mutters, “You know how it feels, Max.”
I pocket my RIG and ask, “Does it feel like it always felt?”
“Only for some of us.”
“You weren’t at school Tuesday,” I whisper. “You missed the vaccinations.”
He shakes his head. “Nobody missed those vaccinations. I’m allergic to eggs so I took the shot at the hospital.”
“The hospital where your mother works?”
He nods. “They have medical staff in case of emergencies.”
“Good decision,” I say.
Coach Emery walks over and pats Brennan’s shoulder.
“Time to go, son.”
The whole school comes out for Monday’s football game— more fans than I’ve ever seen. It’s drizzling and windy, but students crowd the bleachers. They sit in uniform side by side, gray and greasy like zombie sardines. Parents claim their own section. My mother sits behind Dr. Richmond, bundled up and biting her lip, waiting for the worst.
Kayla climbs to the top of a zombie pyramid and shouts, “Go, Scorpions!” with a big vacant smile on her shiny face. Brennan turns away—Kayla split up with him this weekend. She says fifteen is too young for romance. He pretends not to care.
The Blue Mountain Devils descend from their bus in silence, heads high, helmets cradled in their arms like rifles. “Looks like the other quadrants have been vaccinated,” I whisper.
Dallas nods. “My father says it’s happening everywhere.”
The Devils are devils no longer. They don’t look our way while they warm up, don’t say a word on the cold muddy field. It’s like we have no history.
The game is freakishly quiet. There’s still the thud of feet, clash of armor, scream of whistles, but there’s no shouting, no laughing, no swearing or grunting. We make the plays with a vague dedication, like we want to do what’s right but we’ve all forgotten why. We’re big and strong, we run fast and hit hard, but nobody cares. We’re just taking a ball and putting it somewhere else.
Whether we lose our ground or gain ten yards, each whistle is followed by a feeble clap from the spectators. The bleachers gleam with wet bared teeth that pass for smiles.
Dallas fakes it well. I don’t. Not at all. I just don’t want to. I want to run.
I intercept a pass by leaping four feet in the air and landing in a sprint. Zombie Devils are easy to dodge and shove. I guard my ball like a stray dog and run it for twenty slippery yards. The wind roars in my ears. My heart pounds in my head. I feel like I might rise from the ground. I tear into the end zone and slam the ball to the earth. I jump up, kick my cleats, and turn to the friends who are supposed to be running over to congratulate me.
They stand scattered across the field, yards away, smeared in mud. They’re identical but for the numbers on their jerseys. Dallas leans on his left leg, clapping out a rhythm with the rest of them. I don’t know why the sight hits me so hard. It’s like my team is part of the background—they blend with the dead grass and cold skies, the naked trees beyond the bleachers, the rows of staring, vacant eyes. I’m yards away from them and the space between us forms a void instead of a path.
A scream flies up and out of me from some hollow place I didn’t know I carried—a long drawn-out fury that rises in pitch and intensity until it pierces the clapping from the field and the stands, then tails off in a guttural growl as my breath runs out.
I can’t bear the thick silence that follows. I drop to my knees and rest my butt on my cleats, rocking and moaning in the end zone like my baby just died. Mud soaks into my skin and I want to melt with it, lay myself out on the field like compost.
Dallas jogs to my side and shields me from the rain. He shakes my shoulder and says, “What are you doing, Max? Get up.”
I sway in his shadow.
Coach Emery squats beside him. “You can’t be here, Richmond. Go back with the team.”
Dallas shakes his head.
The coach wraps his fingers around Dallas’s mask and stares him scared. “Your father is in the stands watching you right now.” He rises with a fake smile. “Go back with the team before you’re both caught.”
Dallas nods and walks away, leaving me exposed.
Coach Emery performs a first-aid check: airways, circulation, scrapes and abrasions. “Stretch out your legs,” he says.
I can’t move. I’m too depressed. I’d rather be a zombie than feel like this.
My mother is suddenly all over me, looking for wounds. I shift onto my ass and let her take me apart.
“He has a very bad sprain,” the coach tells her. “Could be broken, judging by the pain.”
“I’m a nurse,” she says.
The principal walks up, hands on his hips, bald head glistening. “This is a strange situation.”
“A very bad sprain,” Coach Emery repeats.
Meanwhile I’m sitting like a stone while Mom prods my extremities. Mr. Graham stares down at us, unhappy. Mom pinches my Achilles tendon.
“Ow!” I pull my leg away.
“Yes, it’s badly sprained,” she says. “But the bone’s not broken.”
“Are you telling me he screamed like that because of a sprained ankle?” Mr. Graham asks.
Coach Emery chuckles. “These tough kids. They tackle each other all day without complaint, but pull a muscle too far and they cry like little girls.”
“Should that happen?” Mr. Graham asks. “I didn’t think that was supposed to happen.”
“With purely physical pain, yes, it can still happen,” Mom says like she’s being interviewed. “But, as you can see, it’s very short-lived.” She points to me, quietly slumped in the mud.
“Brennan! Richmond!” the coach calls. “Help Mrs. Connors take her son off the field!” Mr. Graham surveys me as Coach Emery helps me stand. “Right now!” the coach shouts. He turns to Mom. “He’ll have to take a break from football until this heals. No Halloween dance either. Have him study from home this week and keep him off his feet.”
Brennan and Dallas close in on either side of me. They sling my arms over their shoulders and wrap their hands around my waist. I fall short between them, childish and broken.
“Don’t put any weight on your right ankle,” Mom says. She stares at my feet, firmly planted on the ground. I lift my right heel and lean into Dallas.
“You’ll be all right, Max,” Mom says.
“Of course he will be,” the coach says. “Just give him time to heal.”
Dallas squeezes my ribs and I hop along between them. Brennan doesn’t say a word, doesn’t even glance at me. For all I know, he’s a zombie. It’s getting hard to tell us apart.
“I can borrow a car from work tomorrow,” Mom tells me. “We could take your canvas for cutting.”
I look up from my RIG. “I’m going to keep it as a tent.”
She frowns. “Campsites are so unsafe, Max, and it’s an ancient tent. We’d need a stove and a cooler—”
“I mean for my art exhibit. I’m going to paint the whole tent.”
“That will take weeks.”
“Nah. It’s mostly tags and bombs. They don’t take long.”
She hovers in the doorway of my bedroom, shifting from leg to leg. “You mean graffiti?”
“Yeah. Layers of it in different styles.”
“Do you think that’s wise?”
“It’ll be glorious, Mom. It’s all coming together.” I return to my homework—five hundred years of dates to memorize and half the animal kingdom to classify.
Mom leaves the room, biting her lip.
“I thought you hurt your ankle,” Ally says as I walk her to the park.
“I’m a fast healer.”
“So you’re going to school tomorrow?”
“No. Next week.”
“Did you get suspended again?”
“No way. I’ve been good. I’m just supposed to stay off my feet for a few days.”
She stares at my shoes, so I tap out a dance. She giggles and hops. I twirl her on the pavement like a princess. “Stop,” she whispers.
A woman watches us from her living-room window— a vague pale shape in an unlit room. She could be anyone. We continue in silence.
The reformed gladiators, Zachary and Melbourne, are at the park again. Their mothers stand behind the swings, chatting, pushing their children through the air.
Ally walks to the oak tree. I shield her from view. Peanut darts down and devours the seeds while Ally whispers soothing words, “You’re such a pretty girl, such a good little mama.” She chats and giggles and blows kisses and gives this squirrel all the love she would have spent on friends if they hadn’t been turned into zombies.
“What on earth are you doing?” a woman shouts behind us. Peanut scurries up the tree. Ally drops the seeds on the ground and covers them with her skirt.
I turn to meet the angry eyes of Melbourne’s mother. She’s young and plain, with shapeless clothes and brown hair pulled back. She stands with her hands on her hips, waiting for an explanation. “We’re not doing anything wrong,” I say.
“You can’t tame these animals! There’s a disease going around spread by these creatures.”
“It’s spread by mice,” I say.
“What’s the difference? They’re all the same species!”
“No, they’re not.” I stare at her zombie-style. “They’re not even the same family. Mice and squirrels have been evolving separately for forty million years. They’re in different suborders of Rodentia.”
She huffs. “Just stay away from them! Don’t be training them to come near my child.”
I glance at her little zombie on the swing. He wouldn’t care if a hundred squirrels took a dump on his head. “Like that would be so awful,” I mutter.
“What did you say?” she yells, her face ugly and twisted.
“I said that would be awful.”
She looks me up and down, scowling, before she leaves.
Ally brushes off her bottom. “Let’s go now.”
“Sure. Peanut will find these seeds later. She’ll know they’re from you.”
Ally nods, takes my hand, walks home without twirling once.
Dallas comes over on Saturday for Halloween fun at the Spartan. “I can stay till eleven! I told Dad we’re working on science.” He smiles with all his heart and dances with his arms above his head.
“How was the dance last night?” I ask.
“The dance? Oh my god, the dance. How was the dance?” He laughs, sighs, collapses on the couch.
“Yeah. How was it? Did you dance with anyone?”
“Think about it, Max. It was a dance full of zombies dressed in costumes. What do you think it was like?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking.”
He leans forward and clasps his hands together. “How can I describe it? It was like wading through a river of shit, Max. No, actually, it was like standing in a gymnasium of shit for three hours while people flicked elastics at my head and stuck thermometers up my ass and I asked for more. That’s exactly what it was like. That’s what you missed.” He leans back, smiles. “It was glorious. I can’t wait till the Christmas ball.”
“Whoa. Are you okay?”
He laughs. “Am I okay? Am I okay?”
“Seriously, Dallas. Take it easy.”
He spreads his legs and slouches into the couch cushions, lays his head back and stares at the ceiling. He mutters a string of senseless curses, laughs hysterically, then closes his eyes in a state of bliss. “Man, it’s so good to be here. You don’t know what it’s like.” He turns his head toward me, cracks an eye open. “For you it’s a job. You go to school, put in your time, come home and relax. For me…” He closes his eyes, shakes his head, breathes deeply. “It never ends, man. It’s every fucking second.”
Ally hops into the room. She’s been dressed like a rabbit since ten in the morning. Celeste painted her face and gave her whiskers. “Hi, Dallas! You said a bad word. Where’s your costume?”
He sits up and smiles, tweaks her bunny ears. “We’re going to make our costumes.” He turns to me excitedly. “Unless Celeste would do us. I’m not above begging.”
“I already asked. She’s at a party with some guy.”
“What are you going to make a costume with?” Ally asks.
Dallas smiles. “With my imagination!”
Ally takes a step back. “My teacher says imaginations get us into trouble.”
Dallas laughs so long that I just leave him there and make some lunch.
Twenty minutes later we’re eating fries at the kitchen table, swallowing the fact that we have no imaginations. “What should we make?” I ask for the tenth time.
He shrugs. I shrug. I look around the kitchen. He looks around the kitchen. I hum. He whistles. I pick up the salt and pepper shakers—boring silver and glass cylinders—and shake them to my tune. He snaps his fingers and says, “Excellent. But I’ll have to borrow something gray.”
We wear gray T-shirts, gray pants and gray ski caps with holes cut out of the crowns. “This is a waste of two good caps,” Dallas says. “No one is going to see the tops of our heads.”
“Speak for yourself. Half the building is taller than me.”
He paints a big S on his shirt and wears it with his white skin. I paint a big P on mine and wear it with my black skin. We show Mom. “Ta da!”
“That’s it?” she asks. “S and P? Is that a product?”
“We’re Salt and Pepper!” I whine. “God, Mom. We’re shakers.”
She laughs. “Salt and Pepper. That’s what your dad used to call us when we were first dating. He was so white.” She stares us up and down and shakes her head. “We were real salt and pepper. You two are more like cinnamon and garlic powder. Have you looked in a mirror?”
Dallas and I pose in the bathroom, trying to look cylindrical and spicy. “We look like recalls,” he says at last.
“It’s the hats.”
“We look way too old for trick-or-treating.”
“If we had masks, we could at least act like ourselves.”
“So we’re not just defective salt and pepper shakers, we’re defective zombie salt and pepper shakers.”
We slump out of the bathroom, ready to call off the whole adventure.
Ally hops away from the window and shouts, “Hey! Salt and Pepper! What a great costume!”
And we’re back on the scene, giant candy bags in hand.
We head down the hallway, knocking on doors. “Is Xavier trick-or-treating tonight?” I ask Mrs. Lavigne.
“No, he’s still not feeling well.”
“Still?” I let slip a note of concern. Dallas jabs me. “That’s a shame,” I say. “It’s important to feel well every day. If we don’t feel well we should see a medical practitioner.”
She closes the door in my face.
On the second floor, we run into Lucas. He’s alone, dressed like a box of cereal. Dallas eyes his costume and mutters, “We could have done that.”
“Hello, Maxwell. Hello, Alexandra,” Lucas says. “I like your costumes.” He stares from me to Dallas like he’s trying to figure it out.
“Thank you,” Ally says. “I like yours too. I’m going to trick-or-treat at your house.”
“It’s that one.” Lucas points to the apartment directly under ours. There’s a wreath on the door made of dried vines and pine cones. “I’m going upstairs. Good night.” He doesn’t ask to join us. He’s perfectly happy to walk the halls in a cardboard box without a friend in the world.
After we tap every door in the Spartan, Ally looks in her candy bag and says, “I have enough. It’s heavy.”
We drop her at home, where she dumps a feeble collection of chocolate and candies on the kitchen table.
“Let’s visit the rich houses,” I say.
“Better goodies,” Dallas agrees.
We head outside into the most disturbing Halloween of my life. All the young kids walk in orderly fashion, alone or with parents. They wait their turn to knock on doors. They say, “Thank you,” after every treat. And they never—not once—look inside their bags to see what they got. They are clear and present zombies.
The older teens yell and laugh and push each other around. Six boys dressed as mutilated bodies shout, “Boo!” as they pass us. “What the hell are you two supposed to be?” one asks. “P and S? What’s that?”
“Salt and Pepper,” Dallas mutters.
“What, unit?”
“Salt and Pepper,” Dallas repeats.
“Salt and Pepper?” the kid says. “What have salt and pepper got to do with Halloween?”
They mock us and walk on. They yell “Boo!” at a ten-year-old girl dressed as a giraffe. She pouts and says, “With every year, we should grow more responsible toward ourselves and those around us.”
They roar with laughter and call her names. Feeb. Defect.
Recall. I want to join in.
Dallas sadly surveys their costumes. “We could have done that,” he mutters.
Two teenagers spray-paint a billboard on the corner, covering a pharmacy ad with sloppy tags. I ache to join them, but Dallas holds me back. “They’d spray-paint your face, Pepper.”
The name stabs my heart. I don’t want to be reminded of Pepper. Yet here I am dressed in a pepper costume. The subconscious is cruel.
“I saw Pepper dancing this week,” Dallas says. “She didn’t seem like a zombie.”
I turn on him. “Was she at the dance last night?”
“No. I saw her at lunchtime with her group.”
“Why would you go looking for Pepper?”
“I wasn’t looking for her. I just saw her.”
“And?”
“And she didn’t dance like a zombie.”
“I thought her ankle was busted.”
He shrugs and says, “Could be, but I wasn’t watching her ankle.”
“She doesn’t even like tall guys, you know.”
He smiles his dazzling ultimate smile. “She thinks I’m the best-looking guy in school, remember?”
I snort. I have nothing to say to this friend who’s trying to get his tall white mitts on my brown zombie girl.
“Oh my god,” he whispers. “Max, look! It’s Tyler. What is he wearing?”
Tyler Wilkins is twenty feet away from us and closing fast.
He’s alone and dressed like a caterpillar. He wears stretchy polyester pants striped black and green, with a skin-tight green T-shirt that shows off his nipples, and a black ski cap that sprouts long spiral antennae. His hair is tucked under his hat so his bony face is blindingly bare. The tip of his nose is painted black like a pup’s.
I crack up. I can’t help it. I double over and pretend to be coughing. I can barely breathe, I’m laughing so hard.
Dallas steps in front of me to block Tyler’s view.
“Hello, Dallas. How are you?” Tyler asks. His antennae wobble when he speaks.
Dallas starts to lose it. “I’m well, Tyler. How are you?”
“My doctor says I should be fine, thank you. Is that Maxwell behind you?”
“Yes, it is,” Dallas squeaks.
I straighten up a little and wave.
“Salt and Pepper,” Tyler says. “Very clever.” He nods twice. His antennae sway back and forth. “Happy Halloween.”
Dallas and I flee down the street and break into laughter that feels like it’s never going to end.