Page 20 of The Undead

Sylvia, after so many years and so many little skirmishes, knew when to leave the field in his possession. She ate her salad in silence and gave him a kiss on the cheek as she went into the living room. The stereo began playing—his favorite, Patrick Ball’s Celtic harp—and Adam sat listening to it for several minutes before he could remember what it was he’d decided to do about. Michael. He’d decided not to decide.

The phone rang, a discreet buzzing sound in the other room. Adam sat unmoving, watching the second hand sweep around the green-and-gold clock on the for wall. It was sharper than a scalpel, shaving life away from Sylvia so gradually and painlessly that she didn’t even notice.

But Adam did. Vividly.

“Hello?” Sylvia’s voice came to him. There were black tendrils of nervousness in the sound, and he stood up and walked to the door. She had her back to him, shoulders hunched as if expecting a blow. “Hello? Is somebody there?”

He heard it, very dearly. Her heartbeat stuttered, skipped, and started up again, very fast. Adam crossed in three long strides and took the phone out of her hand, listened.

To the sound of a gentle click as the connection broke.

He hung up and looked at Sylvia, at the pallor, the fear imperfectly disguised behind her smile.

“Wrong number,” she lied to him with a pathetic lack of confidence. “Just some guy who had the wrong number.”

But she dearly did not believe it, and neither did he. And neither one could say what they did think, because there were some things too terrible to talk about, ever again.

Chapter Five

Partners

There are sacred traditions in every household, be it Christmas Eve or Fourth of July picnics or Super Bowl Sunday. We’d developed our own peculiar one: Movie Saturday. Regular as clockwork, every other Saturday, people showed up at our door with presents of munchies and colas and beer. It wasn’t always the same group, but it was fairly stable; Katy Shaugnessey was a regular, and so was Carl Voorhees, and so was Adam Radburn.

Particularly Adam Radburn. But I wasn’t sure at all, until I saw his convertible pull up to the curb in front of the house, that he would ever be back. Back he was, with a bag of Bob’s Jalapeño Chips in one hand and a jumbo plastic bottle of Coca-Cola in the other. Just like usual. I watched him walk up the sidewalk, gleaming in the moonlight, and I thought he walked a little slower, not certain of his reception, either.

We exchanged a kind of odd look on the doorstep, awkward and wary, as if I knew that he knew that I knew—what? I finally reached out and took possession of the chips and cola for lack of anything better to do.

“I’m glad you made it,” I said, and Adam nodded. And that was all there was to it. Some hurdle had been passed, even if neither one of us could quite identify what it was we’d jumped. I had an inkling that it had been nasty, all teeth and claws.

“I saw Carl at the Stop N Go down the street,” he said as he shrugged out of his leather jacket and hung it in the hall closet, just as he’d done a hundred times. From the living room, somebody laughed loudly enough to echo down the hall toward us. “Guess he forgot the Sprite again.”

“More likely he parked at the Stop N Go and went next door to Joe’s for a nice fifth of bourbon, but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.”

“Carl?” Adam blinked, amazed and ridiculously innocent. We both grinned like loons, and for a moment all the past few days went away. “If I were a betting man—”

“—which you are,” I supplied. He tried a wounded look, which didn’t work and was quickly abandoned.

“—I would bet a buck he comes in with something alcoholic.”

“Okay, you’re on,” I said, and we knocked fists in absence of beer glasses. I didn’t need to show him the way, at least; he started for the kitchen all by himself. “Katy’s already here, and she brought her friend, Linda, you remember. Vince from the path lab may stop by, but he’s throwing darts tonight. How are you at making nachos, anyway?”

“What’s a nacho?” Adam asked. I had to look twice to be sure he was joking.

“Chips, cheese, a microwave, even you can do that if I’m foolish enough to trust you near the food,” I said. “Speaking of that—”

“—I already ate,” Adam concluded. “As always. Honest, Mikey, I can’t eat this shit you people live on.”

“Yeah, well, sez you. I hate health-food fanatics.” I kissed Maggie as she rounded the corner and nearly ran into me with a glass of something dark and fizzy. “Hi, baby.”

“Hi yourself, who’s the tall stranger?” Her smile at Adam was warm and totally unshadowed by my mixed feelings. “Oops, sorry, the tallhandsomestranger, of course. How ya doing, Adam?”

“Well, of course,” he said, and kissed her cheek, just a quick brush. “I hear you’re experiencing a nacho deficiency.”

“Only a temporary shortfall, as the economic experts say. Mike’s going to take care of that, aren’t you, Mike?”

It wasn’t really a question. I winced.

“Of course, how could you doubt me?”

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