Kiss of Life Read Free

down. She couldn't believe this was the same man who used to belittle Adam and push him around.
    After dinner, Johnny and Joe lumbered off to watch TV. Phoebe helped Adam down the hall to the kitchen, sitting him where he could see the costumes of any trick-or-treaters. Little kids in costumes could cheer just about anyone up, and if Phoebe's attention couldn't bring Adam further into the world of the living, then maybe candy-snatching children could.
    A handful came: a Disney princess, a pirate, a lion in a stroller who giggled without cease when Phoebe dropped
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    a Krackle inside the grinning orange sphere on her lap.
    Adam was far enough away that he was hard to see in the dim light of the kitchen, but there was a pint-size vampire who spotted him when Phoebe turned back from the door to get her bag of candy.
    "That a dead guy?" he said through the screen door, nearly tripping on his cape as he pointed at Adam with chocolatey fingers.
    Phoebe considered her response, wondering where the little boy's parents were. She didn't think that anyone let their kids out without a phalanx of parental guardians swarming around them.
    "That's Adam," she explained, opening the door and dropping a couple of Special Darks into his pillowcase.
    "Hey, Adam," the kid yelled. The little vampire turned back to her. "He's dead. Like me!"
    Then he leaped down the steps, cape flapping behind him.
    She looked back at Adam and again she saw the lip twitch, which lightened her heart. The doorbell announced a new group of trick-or-treaters.
    Phoebe opened the door, and was startled to see three teenage boys in horrific zombie costumes. Except they weren't wearing costumes.
    "Trick ...or ...treat," the closest said, a strange mirthless grin on one side of his face.
    "Takayuki," she said, taken aback but still reaching automatically for the bag of candy. Takayuki had always gone out of his way to make her feel uncomfortable, and she hadn't
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    seen him since Adam's death. "How have you been?" Her voice broke, betraying her nervousness.
    "Dead." The comment put a mirthful, malevolent glint in the dull eyes of his companions. One of them was Tayshawn, who had dropped out of their Undead Studies class, but Phoebe didn't recognize the other two. Zombies were always showing up at the Haunted House, attracted mostly by the writing on Tommy's blog, mysocalledundeath.com . Phoebe hadn't been back to the house since Adam died.
    The boy next to Takayuki was wearing a long silver earring and sunglasses with dark lenses. His shaved head gleamed like a second moon in the porch light. When he smiled, he revealed teeth that had been sharpened into rough points. He was wearing a leather jacket similar to Tak's, but the cuffs were stained and spattered with red, as were the tips of the fingers on his bone white hand. There was a very tall fourth boy lurking behind them, his face cast in shadow.
    Phoebe reached into the bag and withdrew a few pieces of candy. Tak was the person who had "avenged" Adam, but his presence generated no warmth in her. Whatever it was that drove him to hunt Pete down, his motives were unlikely to have had anything to do with her, Adam, or any of the other "beating hearts" that Takayuki disdained.
    "Where are your Halloween bags?" she asked, holding the candy in front of her, feeling foolish. The dead had no use for chocolate. They had no use for her either.
    Tak looked over his shoulder. "George," he said, "come trick ...or-treat from the nice ...soft...beating heart."
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    Tak and the other boys moved aside so George could ascend the steps. The boy wore a tattered brown jacket, jeans with shredded cuffs, and a soiled T-shirt with holes big enough for Phoebe to see where patches of flesh were missing from his rib cage. He looked at her as he limped up the stairs with a big plastic trick-or-treat bag that had a garish jack-o'-lantern blazing beneath a green and warty witch. The boy was not a pretty sight. He was missing an ear and half his