Free Generation Dead by Daniel Waters Page A

with anyone like that since Julie died. Julie who died and would not, could not, come back. The rage welled in his mind.
    Still gripping her hand, he leaned in close and whispered into her ear. "Layman is tagging you, isn't he?"
    She looked up at him then, her eyes more like a cat's than ever. The color returned to her face and she tried
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    to pull her hand back, but he was too strong.
    "Least, I hope the Lame Man is tagging you. Because if I find out that you are passing me over for some dead meat, I might get pretty upset. I might get pretty damn upset that the girl I had pegged for a closet nympho is really a closet necrophiliac, you know what I'm saying? And people, dead or otherwise, could get hurt."
    She didn't look away even though he was squeezing her hand hard enough to bring tears to her eyes. After a time he blew her a kiss and stood up, giving her hand a gentle stroke as he let go.
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    ***
    CHAPTER EIGHT
    T HE HITS KEEP ON COMING, Adam thought, watching Stavis rock Williams with a blindside
    chop block. It would have knocked the wind out of a living kid. Williams was pushed off his feet, and Stavis used his momentum to drill him into the ground.
    Williams made no sound. But then, Williams never made a sound.
    The play, a halfback draw, was over before Stavis's hit. And it was nowhere near Williams.
    Adam was experiencing a tightness in his chest that had nothing to do with his physical conditioning, but with the mental conditioning he'd worked on over the summer with Master Griffin.
    He closed his eyes and could see Master Griffin as he met him on the first day of class; his shaved head smooth and glossy in the bright light of the dojo, the merest hint
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    of a smile beneath his thick black mustache.
    "We are all gifted with power," he'd said to his students. Adam watched the lithe, catlike way that Master Griffin walked around the practice mat, almost like he was gliding along on the balls of his feet.
    "All of us," he'd said, looking at each of them in turn. "It is what we do with that power that is important."
    Then he told Adam to try to tackle him. Master Griffin was shorter and more compact than Adam, and much lighter. Adam came at him with a wary confidence. Tackling people was what he did. He moved in low, going for the legs.
    Suddenly he was airborne, but it was a short flight. Griffin brought him onto the mat and somehow cushioned his fall. Then instead of letting him go, Griffin maintained a tight grip on Adam's arm with one hand, while his free hand was cocked back and ready for a flat-palm strike. Adam looked at the rigid line of that palm and knew with certainty that Griffin could break his nose or smash his face in with one quick thrust. But he just tapped Adam twice on the chest before hauling Adam to his feet.
    "Adam has power," Master Griffin had said to the class. "I have power. Each of you do. What will we do with that power?"
    That had been the only physical contact of the first session, Master Griffin tossing his biggest, most athletic student like he'd toss his dirty socks into the laundry hamper. He'd spent the rest of the session teaching them forms and talking about personal responsibility.
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    "Layman," Coach Konrathy yelled, "wake up and get your ass on the line."
    Adam complied and "put his ass" on the offensive line. As he did he could almost hear Master Griffin's calm voice in his head, asking him just how much of his ass he was willing to put on the line for his beliefs.
    The dead kid got up the way he always did--slowly-- but did not seem injured by Stavis's illegal hit. Adam tried to get into his head. What, if anything, was going on in there? Why was Williams even out here? Did he have something to prove? Was it love of the game? Did he even realize that there were teammates of his working hard to take him out of the game--permanently? There just didn't seem to be any point in offering himself up to the punishment he was experiencing.
    And--the thought creeped in like rain