Eventually, we reached the end of the official campus, but we forged on until we came to the football stadium. This late at night, it was deserted, but there was trash all around, programs and Styrofoam cups, making me think there had been a game there earlier in the evening. Someone had left the front gate unlocked.

"Let's go inside," I said. 137 "Okay," said Leah. Inside, the lights were all turned off, and the stands were empty. The air smelled of popcorn and moldy paint and frost. The chalk lines on the field glowed a pale white in the moonlight. It was strange to be in such a vast open s.p.a.ce and have there be no movement and no sound. Still, I could somehow sense the lingering presence of the people who had been here earlier, afterimages in the cinema of time.

We walked to the very middle of the field. I stepped in front of Leah. Her face glowed too, a second moon to light the dark. Her lips were the softest gray I had ever seen, and her eyes were as deep and endless as the starlit sky.

Here at last we could finally say what we couldn't say in front of Dade and the others.

"I love you," Leah whispered.

"I love you too," I whispered back.

We met in the kiss to end all kisses.

Up in the stands, the roar of a thousand invisible spectators cheered us on.

138.

CHAPTER TEN.

The next morning, my mom was reading the newspaper at the kitchen table.

"You were out late last night," she said. "Have fun?" 139 "Yes," I said. I grabbed a banana from the fruit basket. "I left my cave. Apparently my head isn't so big yet that I can't still fit through the exit."

She perked up. "Really?"

"Really." It was all I could do not to point out that her ridiculous headband made her hair look like she was wearing a shower cap.

"So," asked my mom. "How was it on the outside?"

"Nice," I said thoughtfully. "Airy."

"Well, good for you! But now I have to tell you the other story my mother used to tell me, about a fellow who wandered around aimlessly and refused to take a stand on anything."

"No, thanks, Mom," I said, withdrawing to my room to eat my banana and IM Leah.

That night, I visited Russel. It was time to finally come clean about everything that had been going on with Leah. "So," I said.

"So," he said sheepishly, his eyes downcast. "There's been a lot going on in my life lately."

"Really?" I said. "Like what?" I liked that he thought he'd been keeping secrets from me.

140 He told me everything that had been going on with him and Kevin and Otto, and finally filled me in on that night in the park with Kevin. I just pursed my face, and laughed, and scowled, and acted like I was hearing everything for the very first time.

"You've had a busy couple of weeks," I said when Russel was finished.

"Yeah," he said. "Sorry I haven't kept you up-to-date."

"Here's the thing. I haven't exactly kept you up-to-date either."

"You haven't?"

I shook my head, and started to tell him about Leah.

"I had no idea!" he said. Unlike Russel, I really had been keeping secrets.

I recounted all the times that he had inadvertently helped get the two of us together.

"Ha!" he said. "I'm a matchmaker, and I didn't even know it!"

I told him the rest of the story, including the part about what had happened with Leah's friends the night before.

He stared at me for a second.

"What?" I said, embarra.s.sed.

He shook his head. "Nothing. Nothing at all." Still, I knew what he was thinking. I'd surprised him. That was okay: I'd surprised myself too. 141 "Just one question about all this," I said.

"Yeah?" said Russel.

"What the h.e.l.l is a brain zombie?"

"You didn't-?"

"Nope. I did learn it was the janitor who was turning the kids into zombies."

"See! Told you so."

I deliberately ignored him. "And I learned that he was doing it with that stupid computer game. But I never heard exactly what a brain zombie is." "Maybe it means a zombie of the mind. Someone who becomes a zombie, or not, because of the people around him."

"Maybe so," I said, because it seemed as good an answer as any. That Monday at school, Russel, Gunnar, and I were strolling down the hallway, and we stumbled upon that poster, the one calling for extras on Attack of the SoulSucking Brain Zombies.

"d.a.m.n," said Russel. "Something just occurred to me." He turned to me. "I owe you ten bucks."

"What?" I said.

142 "Don't you remember? When we first saw this poster?

You bet that if we did the movie, we'd all have completely different experiences?" "Yeah," muttered Gunnar. " Someone was in a bad mood that day."

"The fact is," said Russel to me, "you were right." He thought for a second. "Boy, were you right! Talk about completely different experiences!" He laughed and started digging for his wallet.

I thought about everything that had happened over the last few weeks-the part that Russel knew about, and the part that he didn't.

I placed my hand on his wrist. "It's okay. I didn't win that bet."

He looked up at me.

"Sure, different things happened to each of us." I said. "But we were together too, in more ways than one. Even when we weren't together, we were together, you know?"

"Oh." Russel thought again. "Well, in that case, you can pay me!"

I laughed.

"No," said Russel. "Seriously! Pay up!"

Only now did he finally laugh.

"So what's next?" said Gunnar.

"What do you mean?" I asked him. 143 "Oh, you know us. Seems like we're always in the middle of something. So what's next?"

This was a very good question. I was quite looking forward to the answer. It would mean, of course, another beginning. Before you can introduce a new beginning, however, you must first finish what you were already doing, and that means you must clearly and definitively have . . .

THE END.

Or is it?Acknowledgments.

Special thanks to Tom Baer, Tim Cathersal, Harold Hartinger, Danny Oryshchyn, and James Venturini. Special thanks to Laura Arnold, Suzanne Daghlian, Jennifer DeChiara, Elizabeth Duthinh, Robin Fisher, Cara Gavejian, Lori Grant, Sarah Jellen, Barbara Lalicki, Molly Magill, Margaret Miller, Lisa Moraleda, Marcy Rodenborn, Patty Rosati, Joan Rosen, Susan Schulman, Dina Sherman, and Laura South-Oryshchyn.

About the Author.

BRENT HARTINGER.

is an award-winning novelist and playwright. He has worked as an extra in several films, appearing on-screen once for a full tenth of a second. He lives in Tacoma, Washington, with his partner, Michael Jensen.

You can visit him online at www.brenthartinger.com.

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