Velveteen (32 page)

“I’m fine,” he shot back. “I’m not going to vomit.”

Velvet grinned. “I’ve actually never seen a ghost puke. Souls, sure. You’re a perfect example of that. I don’t think ghosts can, but if anyone could prove me wrong, it’s you.”

She stood next to him and looked around the farm. It was early still, and a light mist clung to the undergrowth in the forest surrounding the hilly field. Velvet couldn’t tell it from the air, but she thought it might be cold, as though her breath would have turned to fog if she’d been a living, breathing girl.

“We’re alone,” she said without glancing in his direction. “You ready?”

He exhaled heavily, staring at the placid corpse at his feet, and sat down next to the mound. Then, taking a deep but useless breath, he dropped into the space occupied by John Doe.

Velvet stood back and watched. She was filled with both hope and dread. The zombies were a necessary evil, but they were gross and creepy and she never got used to working around her undertaker’s rotting flesh suits. But Nick needed to be able to do this. Sure, she could train him to be a body thief, but with the revolution looming, she didn’t have the time for that.

Time was something everybody was running a little short of lately.

She glanced around at the walls of trees surrounding the body farm and thought of the girl in Bonesaw’s shed. Velvet needed to get back there. After her last run-in with the man, he’d be on edge, and that was never good. It made him more aggressive. More invested in his gouging and grating.

She shivered, and a second later, the corpse’s eyelids snapped open and Velvet screamed uncontrollably. Nick chuckled. The corpse’s vocal cords were gravelly, like it had
strep throat or laryngitis or worms coiled in the back of its esophagus. Velvet composed herself and nodded in his direction.

“That was quick.”

Nick sat up and shook away the dirt from the zombie’s shoulders and bare chest. The body was wearing a pair of decomposing jeans, and he brushed the rest of the mounded dirt from its legs before hoisting himself up.

“Good thing he’s got jeans on. Would hate for you to feel awkward,” he said.

She rolled her eyes. “Gross.”

Velvet started walking back toward the barn.

Behind her, she could hear the cracking heavy-footed machinations of the corpse. Nick maneuvered the thing like a pro. Velvet felt something well inside her that she thought might be pride, but then he tried to run and tripped over a garden marker. He dropped like a sack of potatoes and jarred an eyeball from its socket. It rolled across the dirt, getting coated with the dark soil like a meatball in bread crumbs.

“Ah, crap. Hang on a minute, will ya?”

Velvet bent over with laughter. “You lost something!”

He searched through the dirt for the dark little orb, but in that single moment of looking up at Velvet, he’d lost sight of it, so to speak.

“Yep,” he said. “Eyeball.”

She laughed again, intentionally morbidly, like a mad scientist. “Muhahaha!”

Nick stood up, giving up the search, and jogged forward
again. On his second step, he landed square on the missing organ, and it splattered beneath his bare foot. Velvet felt a gag rising in her throat.

“Sorry, dude,” Nick said. He stumbled down the far side of the hill to where Velvet stood at the corner of the old red barn. The doors were chained shut, and a combination padlock was looped through the chain.

“Let’s test your manual dexterity.” She flipped the lock up, and it clanged against the door, making the chain jingle.

“Um, brilliant idea, boss. Except I don’t know the combination.”

She glared. “Yeah, I know. I’m giving it to you.”

“Are you?” he asked. The tone was salacious, she guessed, but Velvet couldn’t tell whether he was trying to start something, not with the remaining eye twitching like it was inside the socket.

“Not that you’re not completely gorgeous like this, but if you’re looking for some romance, might I suggest one of these lovely Jane Does?” She stabbed her thumb in the direction of the fields.

Nick gagged a bit.

“Defeat!” she cried, savoring the victory.

He opened his mouth to retort, but a thin strand of mist flew out—ectoplasm—forcing wild guffaws of laughter from Velvet. Back in purgatory it would have been a spark, and she would have really keeled over busting up.

“Seriously,” she said. “Let’s get this open and move on. There’s another salon tonight, and I’m hoping Kipper is back from his mission with news on Aloysius Clay.”

“Who’s that?” Nick asked.

“Clay’s a lead we’re following up on. He’s probably involved in the revolution and is likely involved in your death and soul imprisonment.”

“That guy sounds really awesome,” Nick said sarcastically.

Velvet suppressed a laugh and continued. “If it is him, then Kipper can find out what exactly the Departurists are planning before their magic causes another shadowquake. That’s why it’s so urgent that we complete your tests. We’re not sure what’s going to happen or when. The departure could be happening right now.”

Nick whistled through the corpse’s loose lips.

Velvet recited the combination, and Nick spun the lock open with ease, jiggled the shackle from the chamber, and left the chain to dangle, all in record time. She ran him through some more tests, lifting tools, jumping through hoops, mostly physical stuff that Nick seemed to have no problem with.

“You know,” he said, “I realize salon has its purposes and all, but I could really go for some nachos.”

“Ooh, yeah. Or some fried cheese.” Velvet bit her lip and glanced off into the distance, lost in a great big food memory.

“I love mozzarella sticks!” Nick added. “Dipped in ranch.”

Velvet brightened. “Shut up! Everyone thinks I’m crazy ’cause I don’t like the marinara dip.”

Nick shrugged the corpse’s shoulders and winked his eye at the girl.

Her expression crinkled. “You do know that’s not cute, right?”

“Hey!” he garbled. “
You
try to be charming when your skin is sagging around you like a shar-pei’s!”

“The real test will be whether you can generate the flies.”

Nick shivered. “Now?”

Velvet looked him up and down, wondering if she’d misjudged his stamina. But rather than sagging away from the task, Nick puffed out the corpse’s chest and shrugged nonchalantly. “One fly machine, coming up.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Right now. And don’t bother asking me how it works. I could never get them to do it when I did the test.”

The boy bounded up the hill and planted himself in the groove of earth where they’d found the John Doe. He pulled the dirt up around himself like a kid on a day at the beach.

Velvet followed and stood over him, brow furrowed with confusion. “Getting comfy?”

“Yes, gots to concentrate. Shh.”

Velvet stepped back and crossed her arms. She studied the corpse for signs of an eruption, but the only thing Nick seemed to be able to do was cause a maggot to dance on the puckered flesh of the empty eye socket.

“Come on!” she chided.

“Just a second!” the zombie graveled.

The corpse tensed, and a scream bellowed from the body’s slimy lungs like a ship’s whistle. There was a low buzzing sound and then a whoosh of air, and then, suddenly, the flies buzzed around Velvet everywhere. She grinned down at Nick, who beamed with pride and nodded.

“Who’s a stud?” he said.

Velvet crinkled her nose, but she was definitely impressed. “That was good work, dude. Seriously.”

Without a clear target to devour, the flies dispersed quickly, and soon the body farm fell back into silence.

Nick bounced to his feet and planted his translucent fists on his hips heroically. Thankfully, he resisted the urge to do a douchey fist pump; that would have stripped away any admiration Velvet had developed.

“So does that mean I get to be the undertaker?”

Velvet ignored him and stomped away over the edge of the berm.

“Hey!” he shouted. “Seriously?”

She tossed a quick grin over her shoulder and slipped into the undergrowth of the surrounding forest.

The woods were dense but stretched only about twenty yards before they opened onto the grounds of what looked like a college campus. Young people bustled about carrying backpacks over their shoulders, or sat around under trees reading books and crap. Velvet felt a pang of loss at the sight. She’d dreamed of going to school for filmmaking, directing.

Her mother had definitely helped to push her in that direction. She wondered what it would be like to actually do it. To be like these young adults, bustling back and forth to classes, piecing together student films about ice cream melting or kisses that make your lips turn black.

She glanced over at Nick and thought she recognized the look in his eyes, the regret, the grief.

They were all grieving, she suspected. Logan and Luisa, too—despite their love for the Salvaging life and missions
and junk. But especially Nick. There was a sadness in him, playing out just behind the cockiness like some off-camera backstory. When she thought about it, that’s what connected them.

“What did you want to be?” he asked her, sinking onto the grass.

Velvet sat next to him, leaning back on her elbows and crossing her legs out in front of her. “Flight attendant.”

Nick spat laughter. “What? You?”

Velvet shrugged. “Just kidding. I wanted to make movies.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You wanted to act?”

She shook her head. “Oh, God no. I’m definitely more the directing type.”

“Well, you
are
bossy.”

Velvet ignored him. “My mother took me to the movies. Lots of movies.”

She trailed away into memory. It seemed that the cinema was all they’d had. It had been her mother’s response to every problem. Kids bullying? Let’s go see
West Side Story
. Down in the dumps? Willy Wonka will clear that up!

“Yeah?” Nick was watching her out of the corner of his eye.

“Yeah! What of it?” She punched his thigh playfully.

“Nothing,” he laughed. “You just make it sound like you’ve thought about it a lot.”

“All the time.” Her voice was small, nearly a whisper. “What about you?”

Nick turned toward her, resting his head in his palm. “I wanted to write.”

“Yeah? You don’t strike me as much of a reader.”

He chuffed. “What gave you that impression?”

“I guess I’ve judged a book by its cover.” She shrugged and shifted toward him a bit. “Jock boys aren’t typically the well-read types, you know. They’re more the groping-girls-in-the-back-of-their-trucks types.”

“I don’t have a truck.”

“That’s a relief,” she said. “So what was your favorite book?”

“The Velveteen Rabbit.”

Velvet sputtered. If she’d been drinking something, which she would have loved to have been doing, she’d have spit it across the lawn. “It is not!”

He shook his head. “Just fucking with you. No. It’s
Slaughterhouse-Five
.”

“Mmm.” Velvet bit her lip. “A boy who digs Vonnegut.”

She stopped short of letting him know that made him at least 50 percent more attractive. “Vonnegut’s not an easy guy to love,” she said instead. “He was weird, rambly, jumped from point to point, and didn’t give a crap about linear storytelling. Probably why the film version of
Slaughterhouse
wasn’t so well liked.”

Nick’s excitement was evident. “You dig Vonnegut?”

Velvet shrugged. “I prefer
Cat’s Cradle
.”

A couple passed them, their hands in the back pockets of each other’s jeans. They were the chatty, chuckling sort. The kind that Velvet would normally sneer at, but she didn’t. The moment looked kind of sweet, and she found herself smiling.

“You have a really pretty smile.”

Nick had that look in his eye again and that smile on his lips. The knee-melter.

Her eyes narrowed to slits. “You’re full of shit.”

“What? Okay.” He held out his hands, pretending she was about to assault him.

“You’ve got to stop with this. It’s not going to happen, again.”

He scooted in closer, until their faces were well within kissing range. She didn’t pull away. “Just one kiss. Then I won’t bother you. Swear to God,” he said, eyes serious.

She sighed. And then heard herself say, “Just one.”

Nick leaned toward her slowly. Her stomach twisted. Her vision blurred. He held up his hand and brushed her cheek; his knuckles slipped across her phantom skin like an electrical current. She closed her eyes as he pressed his lips against hers. Velvet loosened up, turning her hips to him and slipping her hand around his waist to pull him closer.

Soft murmurs played in her throat.

Inside her head, fireworks exploded.
Probably literally
, she thought. She wanted more. Nick was like no one she’d ever been with, and certainly different from any boy she’d ever kissed before. He was light and glowed so brightly, he seemed to have no trouble climbing out of his own darkness and letting that optimism shine on her.

In that moment he was everything.

Y
ou better get it together, girl. Before you screw up everything!

She glanced back down the path to see Nick staring at her again, following her back through the forest toward the body farm.
But how can it be a mistake when it felt so … awesome?

Hormones, that’s how. Damn things must still be swimming around in these dead bodies
, she thought.

But especially now, with so much going on, so much drama, how could she let him kiss her, again?

So stupid. Stupid and sloppy
.

No more. And not again
, she promised.

“What now?” Nick asked, jogging up beside her and beaming ridiculously.

She shot him a suspicious glare. He probably was after a little more tongue action. Actually, from the look of him,
there was no “probably” about it. He was swollen with pride over his fly hatching, over their kiss. “Salon,” she reminded him, rolling her eyes.

The boy darted ahead of her, leaping and twisting as though shooting a basket. “I’m just completely amped up from all this, you know?”