Generation Dead Read Free

basement.
    "Colette." It was the first word Phoebe had said to her since the one failed conversation. The memory of her tears still felt fresh in Phoebe's mind.
    Colette turned, and Phoebe liked to think that it was the sound of her name and not just sound that caused her to turn. She regarded Phoebe with a fixed blank stare. Phoebe considered sliding into the seat next to the dead girl. Her mouth opened to say--what? How sorry she was? How much she missed her?
    She lost her nerve and moved toward the back of the bus, where Margi was, whatever words she'd hoped to say caught in her throat. Colette's head turned back slowly, like a door on a rusty hinge.
    Margi was engrossed in her iPod, or at least she was pretending to be. Colette was like a dark spot on the sun to Margi; she never spoke about her or even acknowledged that she existed.
    "Did you hear that the bass player for Grave Mistake died?" she said. "Heart attack after overdosing on heroin."
    "Oh?" Phoebe said, wiping her eye. "You think he'll come back?"
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    Margi shook her head. "I think he's too old, like twenty-two or twenty-three."
    "That's unfortunate," Phoebe said. "I guess we'll know in a couple days."
    Tommy Williams was the last one on the bus. There were plenty of open seats.
    Tommy stopped at Colette's seat. He looked at her, and then he sat down beside her.
    That's weird, Phoebe thought. She was going to say so to Margi, but Margi was intent on her iPod and trying furiously not to notice anything about their dead friend.
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    ***
    CHAPTER TWO
    P ETE MARTINSBURG ENJOYED the subtle hush that settled in the locker room when he and TC Stavis walked in. He liked the way Denny McKenzie, their pretty boy senior quarterback, stepped aside to let Pete pass when he approached. He liked the way the newer kids cut their eyes from him when he looked their way.
    As the reigning Alpha, he knew that there was no better place to reassert that position than in the locker room before football practice.
    "Lame Man," Pete said, making a big show of clapping his hand on Adam's back as Adam sat lacing up his cleats. Adam was the biggest kid on the team, with a few inches and a lot more muscle mass than even Stavis, so a display of force with him was a good way of showing everyone what the social hierarchy of the team was. "What's the good word?"
    He felt the larger boy's shoulders tense as Adam
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    shrugged. "Same old same old, Pete. How about you?"
    "Same here, horny as hell," Pete said. "You gonna set me up with that freaky chick you hang out with, or what? Morticia Scarypants?"
    "No."
    Pete laughed. "One night with me and she'll be wearing bright colors again."
    "You wouldn't get along."
    "Oh, so you're actually admitting you're friends, now?"
    Adam didn't reply, and Pete enjoyed the flush that came to the big guy's ears and neck. It was all about finding the weak spots.
    "Who's Morticia Scarypants?" Stavis asked. "Are you talking about the new art teacher?"
    "No, you moron. Phoebe something, one of those goth chicks. Our boy Lame Man likes them pale and scary."
    Stavis frowned, which Pete knew meant he was concentrating. "Is she the skinny one with the long black hair, kind of like a Chinese girl's, or the short one with the knockers and too much jewelry?"
    "The first one," Pete said, enjoying that the conversation was making Adam look like he'd just bitten into a jalapeno sandwich. "Why? You interested?"
    "Sure I'm interested. I got a thing for boots, and she wears those heeled ones all the time. And dresses. Hell, throw in the short one, too. A twofer."
    The look Adam gave Stavis would have silenced anyone else in the room, but Stavis was too dumb and too big to notice or care.
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    Pete socked Adam in the shoulder. "Easy, big man," he said.
    "You guys are pretty funny," Adam said. "A riot."
    Pete smiled. "Don't you think that the whole gothic thing doesn't really make a lot of sense today? I mean, why would you walk around pretending you're dead when you could actually