Generation Dead: Stitches by Daniel Waters

Author:Daniel Waters
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fiction - Young Adult
Publisher: Disney
Published: 2011-12-20T08:00:00+00:00

PURPOSE STATEMENT

THE DEAD BOY DRUMMED his fingers on the desktop, the steady rhythmic ticking of his nails sounding like the approach of a slow metal insect. Popeye had replaced his original fingernails with pieces of thin curved copper;he’d first used shortened razor blades until Principal Kim made him remove them, telling him that he’d be expelled if she saw them again. Popeye wasn’t really interested in school at this stage of his unlife, but he was interested in finding out what the far edges of his boundaries were, and so he removed the razors.

“Chadwick,” his teacher said. “Please stop the tapping.”

He considered continuing—he hated being called by his meatlife name; it triggered memory cells in his brain that he would prefer remain dead. Chadwick Sebastian Appleton; if anyone needed proof of his parents’ deep hatred of him, there it was. Not that many called him “Chadwick” when he was alive; usually it was “Chad” or “Sebby” or “Seb,” all of which he found even worse.

But he didn’t continue. He stopped tapping. The goal, after all, was not to push the limits of normal human jerk behavior—there were plenty of breather goons like TC in his class who could provide the normal, everyday irritations. What he wanted to do was to continue to shock the living with the fact of his being dead. Any beating-heart idiot could drum on the desktop;only a zombie like Popeye could empty a room just by taking off his sunglasses.

“Thank you,” Mrs. Rodriguez said. He waved a little mock salute.

There were seven dead kids in his current class. Since Saint Tommy Williams made his zombie march on Washington last year, many individual states began protecting the rights—scratch that, began allowing rights—to their undead populations. Despite Pete Martinsburg’s best efforts, Connecticut was one of the first states to pass some laws. So Oakvale High, which had been emptied of undead students—Adam Layman being the last holdout—now had more teenage corpses within its cement walls than the local cemetery.

The undead bell rang—zombie kids were given an additional three minutes to proceed to their next class. Popeye watched the dead rising—ha-ha—from their desks. Cooper Wilson; that red-haired chick; Kevin Zumbrowski, who curled his lip at him as he walked by. Zumbo could beat him easily in a footrace—in fact, the kid seemed like he was getting more spry by the day—but unlike Popeye, he always took advantage of the undead dismissal bell.

Unlike most kids, living or otherwise, Popeye never wanted class to end. He’d stay there all night if he could. Not for any lust for learning, but because being in class was the single best way he knew to offend the status quo.

That has to be a wig, he thought, watching the willowy red-haired girl walk by. Her hair was too shiny and lustrous to be real zombie hair. He didn’t like it.

A few minutes later the bell for the normals rang, and Popeye got to his feet. He heard the tendons of his neck stretching as his neck swiveled from the left to the right.

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