Still Not Dead, page 26
“I’m afraid that won’t be happening,” a voice says, seemingly out of nowhere. Our heads snap to the right, and we see a horrible man step over the fallen tree trunk and walk toward us, his gun pointed in our direction.
“You must be real proud of yourself, huh?” HorribleCop says. His gun is pointed at my head. “Aren’t you, DINTON? Outwitting all these bigwigs, thinking you’re such a hotshot…”
I don’t say anything.
“You let my sister die, you little shit!” The gun jolts as he says that, and I’m feeling like death could come at any moment. For me or Paolo. “Karen was a good person, and all she wanted was for you to give her your spit or whatever the hell it is you freaks do. Then I was gonna drive her off to Arizona, where she could start a new life. But that was too much to ask, huh?”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I say, trying to reason with a psycho. “But it’s more complicated than that.”
“You ain’t sorry,” HorribleCop says.
“What is he talking about, D?” Paolo asks.
“You shut up!” He shifts the gun a few inches toward Paolo’s head. “You’re supposed to die today anyway,” he says, “so this will work out fine. Two boys, dead according to plan. I don’t care whether or not this is what the government wants for you, ’cause this is what I decide.”
I feel Paolo shaking next to me.
“You don’t want to do this,” I say. “It won’t bring her back.”
“The hell I don’t! Who wants to be first?” HorribleCop asks, shifting his gun between us. “Never mind. I’ll pick.” His gun lands on Paolo.
“NO!” I shout.
“Yes,” HorribleCop says. “I choose yaaaarrrrrggghhh!”
I have no idea why he’s gone full pirate until he falls to the ground.
Then I see Veronica behind him, holding her stun gun.
“V!” Paolo shouts.
“Come on, come on, we gotta go,” she says. “There’s more on the way.”
Paolo and I are up on our feet and moving with Veronica away from HorribleCop, who’s saying, “Gahhoooh,” as he helplessly swings an arm at us. We sprint through the woods. I take a peek backward, and in the distance there are flashlights, lots of flashlights, slicing through the trees in pursuit.
“Go figure that when I finally use this thing, it’s in my backyard,” Veronica says. “Are you guys all right?”
“I mean, I think I might be traumatized, but it’s nice to see you,” Paolo says.
“I’m in a similar camp,” I say.
The rain has slowed to a slight drizzle at this point. Veronica is leading us through the woods, dictating every turn. “Whoa, babe,” Paolo says, trying to catch his breath. “It’s almost like you know where you’re going.”
“I know you guys like to think this is your private secret spot or whatever, but I’ve been hanging out in these woods my whole life, too.”
“Veronica,” I say as we all skid down a small embankment, “I thought you were the one who gave up our location. I thought you were the spy.”
“This might not be the best time to talk,” she says. “There’s a lot of people chasing us.”
We run on. A sharp branch scrapes my thigh and cuts through my jeans.
“I know,” I say. “But I wanted to say I’m so glad it wasn’t you. Thanks for not giving me up to your mom.”
“I can be a dick,” Veronica says, “but I’m not a total dick. You’re my friend, D. There’s no way I was gonna let my mom and her cronies kill you.”
Her use of the word friend is not lost on me.
“Hell yeah, V!” Paolo says, tripping over a root, then catching himself before he face-plants. “I’m proud of you, sister.”
“Though I gotta ask,” I say, knowing this truly isn’t the best time but unable to help myself. “How come you never stayed long in the city? Like, why bother coming if…you know?”
“Good God, D,” Veronica says. “Do we have to go over this again right now?”
“I kinda agree,” Paolo says, narrowly ducking under a tree branch.
“I told you,” she says. “I’m weird! I wanted to see you, but I didn’t want to wake up and brush our teeth together and feel like we’re in some kind of relationship or something. So I split, okay? But that wasn’t because I was spying!”
So, once I survived, Veronica was still attracted to me but just couldn’t really deal with the idea of us being together in any kind of committed way. I’ll take that. “All right, cool. Sorry to be annoying.”
“Apology not accepted,” Veronica says.
The woods start thinning out, and we emerge onto a strip of pavement behind a huge, long building.
“Whoa,” Paolo says. “W-Town connects to the back of Tensmore Shopping Center? What the hell?”
I am similarly shocked. Veronica is unfazed. “So, we can keep marveling at the geographical placement of this strip mall, or we can— Whoa.” Her eyes get wider as she just now notices the color of Paolo’s skin. “You got the rash. Does that mean…?”
“Yep. Superstrain, babe,” Paolo says. “You ain’t getting rid of me that easy.”
Veronica emits some kind of emotional squeal I’ve never heard from her before as she pulls Paolo into a tight hug.
“Love you, V,” Paolo says.
“Love you more,” Veronica says.
“Uh, we should probably keep running,” I say, staring back into the woods, where the flashlights are getting closer.
“Shit,” Veronica says, pulling out of the hug. “She’s supposed to be here.”
“Who?” I ask.
Veronica’s looking all around the parking lot, a bundle of nerves. We hear footsteps approaching from the woods. “We have to run!” A second later, a minivan fishtails around the corner of the shopping center and speeds toward us, stopping short at the last second.
“Get in!” my stepmom says from the driver’s side window.
“Mom,” I say. “How did you…?”
The side door slides open, and Paolo’s mom calls out, “Come on!”
Paolo, Veronica, and I get into the minivan and glide the door closed. My dad is in the front seat.
“Dad!” I shout. “It worked.”
“That’s great, Dent,” he says, “but none of it matters if you get caught right now.”
The minivan takes off, swerving around the shopping center, through the parking lot, and into the road.
“You had the minivan fixed,” I say. “Looks great.”
“Thanks, Dent,” my stepmom says into the rearview. “It’s good to see you, sweetheart.”
“You too, Mom,” I say. I’m tearing up, and I make no attempt to hide it. I look over to Paolo, who’s staring at one purple hand in amazement while his mom clutches the other. “You all right over there?”
“I am so all right, dude,” he says.
I lean my head back against my headrest. We got Paolo the virus. He’s going to live. At least one more day anyway. I exhale. “So where are we going right now?” I ask.
My stepmom and father look at each other, then back to Paolo’s mom.
“Um,” my dad says. “We’re not exactly sure yet, Denton.”
“Oh,” I say. “All right.”
We keep driving.
Here’s what you can expect to experience at your high school graduation:
You will arrive late. In a stretch limousine. This will not be some kind of ostentatious statement or joyride; rather, it will be the result of much discussion with your best friend, his sister/your sometimes lover, his mom, your stepmom, and your dad about the best way to make it to graduation without getting kidnapped by the government.
You will have spent a long night hashing everything out at the Econo Lodge (a location chosen both for its reasonable rates and the slim likelihood of running into anyone there). “It has to go public in a big way,” your best friend’s mom will have said, “or we’re all screwed.”
You will have seen your best friend, now purple and covered in red dots, start to say something in response to this and then stop, and you will have known he was about to make a joke involving the word pubic but then thought better of it.
Now you will stare out your tinted limo window, all of the aforementioned people spread out around you, as your restless legs butterfly in and out, in and out.
You will look at your best friend, sitting next to you, who is supposed to die today. Sure, he has the virus, but you will still be worried. “I’m not scared,” he will say, as though he can hear your thoughts. “If I don’t live through today, then it wasn’t meant to be. And then I’ll finally get to meet Marilyn Monroe, see if we’re as compatible as I think we’ll be. Either way, I feel good knowing I’ve got you here looking out for me.” These words will not make you feel less nervous.
As the limo pulls into your high school’s parking lot, you will experience a rush of memories: track meets, waiting for Taryn, cold hands around a hot chocolate, your classmates woofing as they rattle the bleachers with their feet. It will all seem so long ago.
You will file out of the limo. You will see eight news vans, logos of major channels on their sides. They came, you will think. This might actually work. You will head down to the football field, where the sound of a man’s voice will reverberate through the speakers. He’ll be giving a speech, peppered with tone-deaf old-man jokes (“When I was your age, I was thinking about two things: girls and sports”), and you and your best friend will simultaneously realize it’s Harold of Harold’s Bagels. This is worth repeating: the keynote speaker at your high school graduation will be Harold of Harold’s Bagels.
You will stop at the side of the bleachers, out of view of the tightly packed masses, looking around for any ominous government presence. You will see your classmates sitting on the field in purple robes and caps. You will have forgotten that purple is one of your high school’s colors. Of course it is. Your stepmom will be sticking to your side like a bodyguard, ferocious and focused, and you won’t mind at all. “You sure you don’t want to write down what you’re going to say up there?” she will whisper, no doubt remembering your impromptu self-eulogy. You will tell her not to worry, that you’ve got this. But you will appreciate that she has your back.
Harold’s speech will seem to be wrapping up, with a whopper of a bagel metaphor (“Your lives are going to be filled with variety—maybe some sesame seed, some poppy, perhaps some plain moments, too—but by the end hopefully you will have experienced a little of everything”) and a closing offer of fifty percent off all bagels this week for MHS seniors. This will receive a huge response, because apparently your classmates love nothing more than a good deal on a bagel.
“Now!” your best friend’s mom and your stepmom will say at the same time, the two of them serving as a human shield as you all rush down to the podium, right as Principal Barisch is announcing Lindsay Feldstein, the class valedictorian. Your stepmom and best friend’s mom working together will strike you as remarkable, since, as recently as a few days ago, your stepmom believed that this other woman had kidnapped you and indirectly caused your death. Life is unpredictable, you will think to yourself, and this will remind you of what you want to say when you reach the microphone in approximately nineteen seconds. You and your best friend will cut ahead of Lindsay—who’s completely confused by the sudden appearance of a purple Paolo and a random dude with a shaved head—and stand at the podium, your mothers on either side of you.
Looking out at so many faces from the life you used to lead will give you a surge of energy, like the person you are now is fusing with the person you used to be, and you will think maybe everything is going to be all right.
This thought will be immediately followed by an overwhelming screeching from the PA system, as if the universe is saying, Don’t be so sure about that. Everyone in the crowd will cover their ears until you adjust the microphone on the podium and the banshee squeal stops.
You will look to your best friend, who will be looking back at you with a yeesh face, perhaps also thinking that maybe this is all a Very Bad Idea.
Well, it’s too late now. You will give your best friend the most confident nod you can muster: Let’s own this shit.
A slow smile will spread on his face, like, Oh, look how the student has become the teacher.
You will raise your eyebrows, like, Damn right I have, sucka.
He will look at you, like, Do you think we could get some of those half-price bagels right now? I’m hungry.
You won’t respond to that.
You will turn to the crowd, thinking, All I have to do is be honest, and everyone will understand.
While we’re on the subject of honesty, I have to admit: I’ll be very surprised if your high school graduation is anything like this.
I apologize for misleading you.
I put my hands on the podium and begin to speak.
“Hey, everybody,” I say. “I know this is a surprise, but, um, it’s me, Denton Little.” The crowd doesn’t know how to respond—they look like they think this might be the start of some comedic skit intended to liven up the ceremony—but I hear a yelp from the rows of graduates behind me that I’m pretty sure is Taryn. “My deathdate was the same day as prom, but—”
“He didn’t die!” Paolo shouts a little too loudly, so that the PA again emits that horrible screech until I shift the microphone. We’re off to a strong start. “Sorry,” Paolo says. “He didn’t die. Is what I said.”
The audience doesn’t gasp exactly. They seem to be suspended in a state of confused murmuring.
“But today is Paolo’s deathdate,” I say. “You might notice he’s purple with red dots, which, if you happened to see me at prom, is also how I looked. That’s because of a virus that alters your DNA and nullifies your deathdate.”
“Yeah, it nullifies it, people!” Paolo says, leaning into the mic excitedly.
I give him a look like, Maybe let’s not repeat what the other person just said? and he nods a bunch, like, Good point, good point.
“So I lived,” I say, and I notice out of the corner of my eye that at least three cameramen are set up near the bleachers, filming us. This is good. “And we’re almost positive Paolo’s going to live, too. But here’s the thing: the government does not want you to know about this virus. There’s a lot of money involved in the deathdate business, and us being alive compromises that, because it means the ATG kits aren’t one hundred percent effective. I know that might sound crazy, but the reason my head is shaved, the reason I haven’t been able to be here until now, is that I’ve been hiding out because the government has been trying to kidnap me.
“They say they just want to run some tests to see why I lived, but I think they really want me dead….”
Maybe I need to redirect this speech so I sound less like a paranoid lunatic.
“Did you hear about that guy Miguel in Brooklyn who lived through his deathdate? But died the next day? Yeah, he lived because I gave him the virus. And I think he died because the DIA killed him.”
Not sounding less paranoid.
“So if you hear in the next few days that it turns out it was some kind of mistake and we actually died, do not believe it!” Paolo says, coming to my rescue. “We’ve either been murdered or locked up, and it is not okay!”
I see a shift happening in the faces in the crowd, like maybe they’re starting to believe us. There are now at least ten cameras filming us, and I wonder if this is the kind of thing they’ll show live or if they’ll use the footage in a segment later tonight. Or if the DIA will try to crush the story altogether. It doesn’t matter because my dad is also filming, with strict orders to post the video on YouTube and my Facebook Timeline and anywhere else he can as soon as Paolo and I finish speaking. I even showed him how to make a Vine edit. I had to explain how to do that, like, five times, but my fingers are crossed that the guy who created a way to avoid certain death will pull through on this one.
“I’m so happy to have lived through my deathdate,” I say, “but I don’t want to have to hide out or get a new identity or live in constant fear of being caught, unable to keep ties with everyone I love.”
“Word,” Paolo says. “What, I’m supposed to find a new 7-Eleven? With someone working the register who isn’t Alexei? Not cool!”
“Alexei rules!” someone shouts out.
“Okay, jokes aside,” I say, glancing at Paolo stony-eyed for a second, “we’re hoping this moment, being in front of all of you, can be kind of a fresh start for us. You know, a chance to be born again.”
“Not like born-again Christians, though,” Paolo says.
“No,” I say. “That’s totally not what I meant.” Lots of people in the bleachers are fanning themselves. “Not that we have any problem with born-again Christians.”
“I love born-again Christians!” Paolo shouts.
“Absolutely,” I say. I’m experiencing that familiar self-eulogy feeling of going off the rails. “I just meant, you know, that since we already had our deathdates—”
“Then this can be our new birthdate!” Paolo shouts.
“Yes! Right! And you, too, seniors. I mean, they don’t call this graduation ceremony commencement for nothing, right? We all get to, you know, commence again. Well, start again.”
“Commence is a weird word,” Paolo says.
“It really is.” I have no idea if the crowd is with us. I need to get us back on track. “It’s actually kind of funny. When I gave the self-eulogy at my funeral, I sorta lost myself, said some ridiculous things, about life, about being real—”
“You said penis!” Paolo says.
“I even said penis,” I agree. “But I don’t regret it. Because the truth is, that was the most unpredictable I’ve been in my life. And it felt good. Life isn’t supposed to be predictable. And maybe death isn’t either.”
“For example,” Paolo says, “in the past three weeks, I fell in love! Whoa. Did not see that one coming! And then it turned out the girl I’m in love with is in love with this guy.” This is not something we discussed putting in our speech. Nothing Paolo has said was discussed in our speech prep meeting. He throws his arm around me as some people in the crowd sympathetically awww. “Yeah, she’s in love with my best friend. Can you believe it? It wasn’t her fault or his fault, but it sucked, and I was really sad.”
