Richard Kadrey - Dead Set

“Mom did all this art before.”

“She stopped a little while before you were born so she could be a stay-at-home mom,” he said. “We wanted you to have a kind of home neither of us had.” He fell silent for a minute. Zoe sat up and looked at him. He was frowning. Deep lines creased his forehead, and crow’s-feet at the corners of his eyes darkened his expression.

“You know, it could have been me who stayed home,” he said. “I wouldn’t have minded being a house husband. But I’d played with computers and was good at it, so when a friend started his own company, a job just landed in my lap. And your mom ended up being the one who stayed home.”

“That’s funny. I thought what you did, working all the time, was the sacrifice.”

He laughed at that. “Did you see any of the album covers your mom designed? She had a really savage talent,” he said. Zoe could hear the pride in his voice. “She’d stroll into the offices of these little labels and all the tough-guy wannabe artists would try to intimidate her. She’d just stare ’em down.”

“I remember,” Zoe said. “Some of those old covers were really good.”

“If I’d worked less I could have spent more time with you, and let your mom do more of her own art.” He shrugged. “But I didn’t. That’s one of my biggest regrets.”

The sun was getting lower, burning a deeper, redder shade of orange as it slid toward the horizon. Below them on the beach, the amusement park was lit up like a birthday cake.

“Let’s go on the carousel,” her father said. He took her hand and they ran across the street, down a wooden staircase, and across the light, clean sand to the park.

There weren’t many people on the rides, and no ticket sellers. No one was in charge to tell them to stay behind the yellow line or to wait until the ride stopped, so they both leaped onto the carousel while it was still turning. Zoe chose a white stallion, trimmed in gold and crimson. Her father chose a snarling sea serpent, painted in lurid pinks and purples. After the carousel, they rode the spinning teacups and then the Ferris wheel. At the top of the wheel, Zoe could see Iphigene laid out below her. Behind the long street that ran along the ocean, row upon row of giant apartment buildings stretched into the distance as far as she could see. At the far end of the long street, off to her left, was a huge white marble building. It looked like a strange combination of a fairy-tale castle and a cathedral.

“What’s that?” she asked, pointing to the building.

“That’s City Hall.”

“Dead people have a city hall?”

“We prefer the term postlife .”

It was the kind of dumb joke he used to make back home, and hearing him say something so ridiculous felt really good.

Next, they went on the roller coaster. It was enormous, bigger than any coaster Zoe had ever seen in the living world. She was a little nervous getting into the front car, but her father was so happy and confident that she went anyway. The coaster was like the one at Coney Island, old and made of wood. It clacked and creaked the whole time their little car crept to the crest of the first drop. Near the top, Zoe looked down and the city was nothing but a bright toy at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. She closed her eyes and grabbed on to her father’s sleeve. He put his big hand over hers and they stayed like that the rest of the way up.

Then the clicking stopped, and they began to fall. Zoe’s stomach rose up into her throat. Then she heard something new. It was her father screaming at the top of his lungs, the big, insane whoop that people always made on roller-coaster drops. She felt her father’s arms go up into the air as the whoop went on and on. Zoe opened her eyes a crack at the bottom, just as the roller coaster whipped them around the first corner. She let go of her father’s sleeve and tried to whoop, too. He took her hand and held it up with his, and they whooped together, screaming like idiots, with pure joy as the sun came down slowly over the sea.

Something unclenched inside Zoe, almost without her being aware of it until the feeling had begun to pass. For the first time in what seemed like a million years, she felt all right. She might even have called the feeling happy. She smiled and it wasn’t the rueful half smiles of her recent life, but a real one. She and her father were together, side by side, and she felt whole and healed in a way that all the words and doctors and pills in the world couldn’t have fixed. And she saw that he was happy, too, just to be with her. And that was enough.

Later, as they strolled along the boardwalk, Zoe asked, “Where do you live?”

He nodded toward the apartment buildings. “Back there a few blocks.”

“How many people are there here?”

“I don’t know. The buses bring new people all the time.”

They stopped and leaned on the rusty metal fence separating the boardwalk from the beach. The sun was just falling below the horizon, and night was spreading like a dark tide across the sky. A few yellow stars flickered faintly high above.

“I hate to say it, but it’s time for you to go,” her father said.

“Can’t I stay a little longer?”

“When I came down to the beach tonight, it was because a little voice whispered in my ear that I should go to the bus stop at the boardwalk. Now that voice is telling me that I have to take you back.”

“You can get on the bus, too. Come back with me.”

“I can’t leave here yet. It’s not my time.”

“I don’t want to go.”

“You have to go. I want you to go,” he said. “This is a place for the dead, not a living girl. No matter how beautiful she is, or how wonderful it is to see her.”

Zoe looked down at her feet. “Walk me back?”

“Try to stop me.”

Zoe looped her arm in her father’s and held on to him tight all the way to the bus stop. Lights had come on in the restaurant and the bar. The movie-theater marquee was lit up. The street looked like something from a pleasant dream of the perfect small town.

A bus was already waiting when they reached the end of the boardwalk. Zoe’s father pulled her close and kissed the top of her head.

“Go and live your life,” he said. “Be happy. Be crazy. And always remember that I love you.”

“I love you, too, Dad.”

At the bus’s entrance, her father said, “Your mother doesn’t know about any of this, does she?”

Zoe shook her head. Her father nodded and smiled. “It’ll be our secret,” he said. “But when you get home, promise to kiss her for me.”

“I will.”

He held her hand as she got on the bus. Zoe found a window seat and pressed her palms against the glass, as if she could reach through it and touch her dad’s arm one more time. The bus engine rumbled to life. Her father blew her a kiss as the bus pulled away. Zoe closed her eyes. She thought she was going to cry, but she felt the ground open up and the powerful sense of falling. Then the surging tides that had carried her to her father and Iphigene swept her away.

Zoe gasped when she came down, back into her body. But she was happy. Excited even. A few small tears lingered on her cheeks. She took a long, deep breath and wiped them away.

“So, was it what you wanted?” asked Emmett.

“Oh, man. It was a million times better than I hoped for. I feel like I’m flying.”

“Good. Not everyone is so chipper when they come back. I’m glad you are.”

Zoe felt Emmett bustling around her, loosening the straps, unhooking wires. Suddenly the blinders came off her eyes and she could see again. The old store looked wonderful. Even Emmett looked wonderful. Everything was perfect. She didn’t even need the aspirin Emmett had given her.