Special Dead by Patrick Freivald

kept her distance from the sluggish black spider, not
wanting to disturb its work as it wrapped a late-season dragonfly in a tangle
of sticky web. Its tenacity impressed her.
    You shouldn’t be out in this
cold, Ms. Spider.
    She heard a telltale shuffle-step limp in the
grass but didn’t turn around. The spider clambered over its prey, spinning even
as the cold leached the last vitality from its body. Arms closed around her
waist, and she leaned back into Joe’s embrace.
    “Howdy,” he said.
    “Howdy yourself,” she said. “Am I in your way?”
    “I was wondering what you were looking at. Poor
thing.”
    Conscious of her head against his cheek, she
nodded. “Soon it’ll be too cold to spin. She might not survive the night.”
    He shook. It took her a minute to recognize the
laughter.
    “What?” she asked.
    “I meant the dragonfly.”
    “Oh.”
    They stood in silence for a while. She wanted to
enjoy the moment but couldn’t help trying to categorize it. They weren’t
sharing warmth, so it had to be something else. Something more.
    “What are we doing, Joe?”
    He didn’t reply at first. “Watching a spider
freeze to death trying to eat a meal fifty times bigger than it?”
    She hugged herself closer to him. “Why?”
    “There’s nothing on TV?”
    She smiled. “Could be.”
    “You know your mom’s going to come along any
second. It’s the law.”
    She stiffened. “Let her.”
    “Seriously?”
    She pulled away, careful not to get any closer to
the fence. They locked eyes. “Of course not. The only thing that kills a mood
faster than you bringing up Mom is her actual presence.” She couldn’t help but
return his lopsided smile.
    “Good thing we’re just talking, then.”
    “Good thing. I mean, if we weren’t just talking,
what would we be doing?”
    He didn’t miss a beat. “Transposing Skrillex to
classical instruments?”
    She gasped. “You were creeping!”
    He put a hand over his heart. “As God as my
witness, I’m guilty as hell.”
    “Well, then, Mr. Admitted-Creeper—”
    “Ani?” Her mom’s voice rang out across the yard.
Joe melted into what passed for shadows under the artificial light.
    “Yeah?” She squinted against the beams of light
stabbing outward from above the lab’s main entrance and saw nothing.
    “Bath time!”
    “Okay!”
    As she headed in, she saw no sign of Joe. Not for
lack of looking.
     
    *  
*   *
     
    Ani had one foot in the bath when the doorbell
rang. She pulled her leg out of the icy, slimy liquid, toweled it off, and put
on a bath robe. Her mom beat her to the door.
    “Hi, Miss Romero,” Sam said. “Can I talk to Ani
for a couple seconds?”
    Her mom frowned but opened the door the rest of
the way. “You’re both supposed to be in the bath.”
    Sam nodded. “I will be. I just need to talk to her
for a few minutes.” Her hair fell in golden curls around her face. Ani ran her
hand over her scalp, no longer self-conscious about the stringy wisps that
remained of her own hair but not in love with the situation either.
    Ani smiled at her. “What’s up?”
    Sam jerked her head down the hallway. Ani followed
her out the door. In her mind’s eye she saw her mother’s disapproving scowl as
she sauntered barefoot into “public” in a filmy bath robe.
    The fluorescent lights bathed the hall in a
medicinal halo, reflecting off the green-and-beige tiles that snaked through
the complex in an endless series of hallways and rooms. Ani didn’t know how
many miles of underground tunnels made up the labyrinth or even how many
stories deep it went underground, but she knew the public would be stunned at
the complex beneath the unassuming collection of modest brick buildings.
    Sam didn’t say anything as they took a left past
locked doors and hermetically sealed hallways, and Ani followed, content in the
silence. A hum grew as they wandered; the floor beneath their feet vibrated
more with every step. Ani smiled at the cameras that tracked them,