Generation Dead Read Free Page A

be dead and walk around?"
    "It's more than that," Adam said.
    "Yeah? Like what?"
    "I don't know. Music. The look, whatever."
    "The look, huh?" Pete said. "The look sucks. She ought to get some color in her cheeks and start wearing normal chick clothes. She looks like a freakin' worm burger, you know? One of those zombies."
    "Then I guess you shouldn't waste your time on her," Adam said.
    "Just the opposite, man. I want to convert her before it's too late. Besides," he said, smiling down at Adam, "you know and I know she's a virgin."
    Pete laughed and sat down beside him, and from the corner of his vision saw that runt Thornton Harrowwood looking over at them. The kid hadn't played freshman or sophomore year.
    "Can I help you?" Pete said to him, sounding anything but helpful. The kid gave a frightened shake of his shaggy head and looked away. Pete chuckled to himself and turned back to Adam.
    "You work out this summer, Lame Man?" Pete knew that
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    something had changed over the summer with him and Lame Man, but he had no idea what it was. He, Lame Man, and TC had been the three amigos, the Pain Crew, all through high school, and now they'd barely had a whole conversation since they'd started football practice again. "Little bit. I took a karate class."
    "It shows, it shows. Looks like you dropped a few pounds and got a little more cut."
    Adam nodded. "Thanks. You want to sleep with me?"
    Pete laughed and peeled off his own tight shirt. He'd worked on his body over the summer as well, and the results showed in the definition across his chest and abdomen, and the lines were deepened by the rich tan he'd cultivated. He made the tight muscles along his arms ripple in case any of the wannabees were looking.
    "I would, but I'm still sore from the summer."
    He folded his shirt and then folded it a second time when the first fold didn't look right.
    "Don't you want to hear what I did?"
    "Sure," Adam said, sighing. "What did you do this summer? Go visit your dad again?"
    "Yeah. I was in Cali all summer, nailing college girls at the beach."
    "Sounds great," Adam said, yawning.
    "Yeah, it was," Pete said, trying to ignore his disinterest. "It was like an endless supply, man. Drinking, partying, and sex, sex, sex. Talk about an endless summer."
    "Wow."
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    Adam didn't see his frown, because apparently his sneakers were more interesting than Pete's stories. That hacked Pete off, because this time the stories were true. Partially true, at least. College girls had been populous and friendly to him this summer. But Pete left one key detail out of his oft-told tales; most of the college-age girls he'd hung around were friends of his Dad's newest girlfriend, Cammy--herself a college-age girl. Whatever. Adam's silence was beginning to frustrate him. It took him three tries to fold his T-shirt the way he wanted it.
    "Is it just me," Pete said to the room, "or is this stinking hellhole overrun with dead kids this year?"
    "Not just you," Stavis said. "There's like fifteen of them this year. I counted."
    "Good for you," Pete said, punching Stavis in the meaty part of his shoulder. "Keep up the good work and maybe you'll pass math this year."
    TC's grin was a lopsided slash on his round, doughy face.
    "There are more dead kids this year," Adam said, without looking up from his laces. "There was an article in the newspaper that said this was a good school for the living impaired. Some of them are bussed over from Winford."
    "Just what we need," Pete said, "a bunch of corpsicles shuffling around. Maybe this place really is hell."
    "Hell on earth," TC said, shoving his sneakers and pants into his locker. The kid was hopeless, Pete thought. An overweight slob whose flesh hung from his barrel-shaped frame.
    "Dead kids are getting up all over the country," a sophomore running back named Harris Morgan added.
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    Not all of them, Pete thought, giving him a sidelong look. Julie never came back.
    Harris caught his look and panicked. Harris had been sniffing