Return of the Jed Read online

  “They’re screaming for you,” he said. “The ‘j’ in Spanish is pronounced as an ‘h.’ You have some fans.”

  I didn’t want to disappoint them. I’d wrestle with one arm tied behind my back. Literally.

  “Tape my arm to my back,” I said.

  “That’s inadvisable.” That was twice Luke surprised me. First, he knew proper Spanish pronunciation. Then he used a five-syllable word, two above his average.

  “Just do it,” I said, as my adrenaline kicked in. I refused to disappoint the few hundred people who’d come here to sit on rickety bleachers and drink many bottles of aguas frescas, asking only to see a little dismemberment.

  Luke bent my left arm at the elbow and taped my forearm to my lower back. He lifted me into the ring, where Vampiro waited on the opposite side.

  “Let’s do this,” I said to myself.

  “You’re on your own,” Brain said.

  I put my head down and charged, knowing Vampiro expected a head-butt to the stomach, which he’d easily absorb before flipping me like a pancake.

  A split second before impact, I straightened and leaned back, flinging my legs into the air. I felt them dislocate, propelling me to an impossible height. The soles of my feet were headed squarely toward Vampiro’s oversized jaw.

  Until that jaw was no longer there. Vampiro vanished.

  “Brain?” I asked.

  “No idea, boss,” it replied.

  I prepared for another flight over the rope, but apparently the control tower did not clear my landing. Vampiro ducked and snatched me out of the air, my flight canceled.

  With one hand on my neck and the other on my, uh, way lower back, Vampiro carried me to one end of the ring. I felt like a paper airplane in his grasp. I feared my fate would be the same.

  “¿Lo quieres?” Vampiro yelled. “Ya lo tienes.”

  I understood enough to get the gist of what he said. “You want him, you got him.”

  I soared, the world shrinking beneath me. The wind flowed through my mask, refreshing me.

  “This is nice,” Brain said.

  “Isn’t it?” I remarked.

  “But you know it’s not going to end well.”

  “I do. So I’m going to enjoy it while it lasts.”

  And I did. Until I didn’t.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Mexican hospitals didn’t allow at least two things—tacos and dogs.

  “Tacos, dogs, and chupacabras,” Luke reminded me before biting into a taco, producing a satisfying crunch and a small mound of ground beef dropping onto my sheets. “Either way, they wouldn’t let Tread in.”

  “The taco?” I said.

  “They didn’t frisk me. And I have some ingenious hiding places.”

  I’d awakened in the emergency room, my puppet-like body cradled by Mendoza. I saw my first doctor within twenty minutes, and in the eight hours since, had seen five others. The only thing that they agreed on was I needed further evaluation, and thus was admitted.

  “You lost, you know,” Luke said, catching me up.

  “I gathered,” I said. “Was it my unconsciousness?”

  “That played a big part.”

  My left arm lay on my stomach. The tingling in my shoulder told me Ooze was finally going to work, but I could barely move my fingers. I squeezed my eyes, fighting off tears. Again.

  I looked around and saw standard hospital stuff you never want to be part of your life experiences. White curtain. White sheets. A beeping heart monitor, its cord leading to a clip on my middle finger. An IV bag that wasn’t connected at all.

  Luke noticed my puzzled look.

  “They tried to put a needle in the back of your hand, then your arm. They gave up, saying ‘cuerpo de queso.’ I looked it up.

  “Of course you did,” I said.

  “Body of cheese. They said it as if it was a bad thing. But having a body of cheese could come in handy. Imagine having cheese for your nachos always within arm’s reach. Because it would be your arm.”

  “Luke, please, you’ve giving me a headache.” A deep, thunderous cough erupted from the other side of the curtain. Sounded like part of his lung came up. I could do that too, but it was more of a party trick.

  I took stock of the situation. I was in an unknown hospital among doctors who had no idea what I was. I could barely feel my left arm, and the only person at my bedside was a kid wishing he had a body made of cheese. Could this get any worse?

  “I finally got hold of your dad,” Luke said.

  To answer myself, yes, it could get much worse.

  “And?”

  “He was on the graveyard shift,” Luke said.

  “Please, no zombie jokes.”

  “No, really, he was working overnight. Please note I didn’t say ‘dead of night.’”

  “Thanks.”

  “No worries. I told him you were fine, except for the arm, but he’ll be here soon. I wish we’d mentioned the luchador thing to him earlier. He was pretty unhappy to hear about all this, especially on the phone. Speaking of phones, I think that’s yours.”

  I heard chirping coming from the backpack. Luke dug past the duct tape, gripped my phone at the bottom, and handed it to me.

  I looked at the screen, and my undead body suddenly became much colder.

  I tapped the green “Answer” button and put the phone to my ear.

  “Hey, Mom,” I said in the same tone I used to greet her after getting home from school. “How’s everything?”

  Not so good, it turned out.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  As I listened to her, I remembered the only other time Mom had been so furious and so relieved at the same time. It involved attempted theft of potato chips from a vending machine, getting stuck, and then Mom rescuing me by spending $1.25 to get the chips and my hand.

  “Jed, are you OK?” Mom began. “Where are you? Do I need to catch the next plane to Guadalajara?”

  “Yes, some hospital, and no,” I answered in order, but I was pretty sure she couldn’t hear me over her heavy breathing.

  “What happened? Your father just called, mentioned something about wrestling, and that Luke called him, and said that you were rushed to the emergency room.”

  “Mom, really, I’m fine, it was an accident,” I said.

  “It didn’t sound like an accident the way your father described it, young man. He’s frantic and on his way there now.”

  “I know, Luke told me. If you can calm down—”

  “Do you have any idea what time it is? To get a call like this in the dead of night, Jed, I just don’t know what to think. I’m just so angry right now I want to reach through the phone and hug you, baby, and never let go.”

  “Mom, I’m sorry, but I’m going to be OK, honest, everything is fine.”

  “Oh, Jed,” she said. “I just don’t know what to do right now.”

  Her muffled sobs were breaking my heart. “Everything is good, I promise, Luke is here, Dad is on his way. Besides, you know me. The anti-Humpty Dumpty. You can always put me back together again.”

  “So what happened?” Mom said. “Tell me everything.”

  Over the next few minutes I told her most things, but not everything. Mendoza, lucha libre, the last match (while promising it was my last match). I left out how my body had been treated like a LEGO model, with parts constantly being snapped on and off.

  “Honest, Mom, I’m fine,” I finished. “The other wrestlers were worried when I fell wrong at the end. But I’ve had worse. Remember the sledding accident last year?”

  “As if I could ever forget,” she said. “We had to stop by the home-improvement store to buy those heavy gauge staples. I was so worried that leg would never go back on right, yet you were back to normal the next day.”

  “Exactly, and this isn’t nearly as bad.”

  “I guess as the mother of a zombie, these are the things you live with. Had I known something like this
would happen, I never would have insisted Dad invite you to go down there.”

  Wait, what? When Dad first mentioned I could come along, I was pretty reluctant. I tried to imagine a whole summer without video games, TV shows in English, and Anna (definitely not in that order).

  Dad became a one-man Chamber of Commerce for Guadalajara, showing me photos and sending me links to a dozen Mexico websites. But nothing resonated until he said the magic word—independence.

  “You can be your own zombie, or not be a zombie at all,” Dad had said.

  I’d always figured Dad convinced Mom to let me go. After all, she was the worrier, the one who had to always know where I was and what I was doing.

  “You’re the one who wanted me to come to Mexico?” I said. “But Dad was always the one pushing me.”

  “I know, and that was my idea too,” Mom said. “It was the perfect father-son thing. If I tagged along, you wouldn’t have the opportunity to discover yourself. You can’t figure out life at your age if your mom is attached at the hip.”

  I’d known since the first day on the road that this trip was more than just a summer vacation. I had no clue Mom felt the same way.

  “So this wasn’t just about experiencing a different culture,” I said.

  “Do you really think I’d let you go to a foreign country just because it would broaden your horizons?” she said. “Maybe if you were eighteen, sure. But at thirteen? There had to be much more at stake.”

  It all made sense, of course. Mom always was in charge of the house, letting Dad do just enough stuff (the Man Van, for example) to let him feel in control. There was no way I’d be in Mexico if Mom hadn’t wanted it to happen.

  “Jed, let me tell you a story about myself. It happened in the Dark Ages, when phones were the size of toasters, and people kept secrets rather than putting them on Facebook.”

  I pictured dinosaurs roaming the Earth as Mom continued.

  “I was eighteen, and it was the summer before college. I’d received good grades even though I absolutely hated high school. I had stringy hair, ugly glasses, and a terrible sense of fashion. I was picked on as a freshman and sophomore, so I tried to fade into the background during my last two years. I’d rather people ignored me than make fun of me. I didn’t fit in at all.”

  I knew the feeling.

  “Over the summer I had a lot of time to think. I’d been accepted at a college more than four hours away, but almost everyone in high school was staying in town. I wasn’t going to know anyone, a frightening thought. Then I realized no one was going to know me. I didn’t have to be the quiet loner if I didn’t want to. I could reach deep down into myself and see who I really was, rather than who people expected me to be.”

  “You could be who you were, not what you were,” I said.

  “I found that I was outgoing, funny, and a pleasure to be around,” Mom said. “I made friends easily and had lots to offer. Those four years were among the best I ever had … until Dad and you came along, of course, making for even better years. And to this day I wonder if I’d have discovered who I was if not for getting away from it all, where I could be anyone and anything I wanted.”

  I let that sink in. This was Mom’s gift to me, my version of her college journey.

  “And during all that time in college, not once did I land in the hospital because of a stupid stunt,” Mom said, interrupting my good feelings. “Promise me one thing, Jed.”

  “No more stupid stunts,” I said.

  “Good, OK then. You know I’m still worried, that I think about you every day, and that your dad and I talk about you every day. But this is your time, your journey. I hope you find out who you really are, or at least take a few important steps toward that truth. No matter what, I love you.”

  “I know Mom, and I love you too.”

  I tapped the red button on my phone just as the curtain whipped open, revealing a face as red as that “Disconnect” icon.

  “Hi, Dad,” I said, wishing I could disconnect too.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Dad’s face was a mix of concern and fury, but with the edge going to fury.

  “You want to tell me what’s going on here, Jed?” He glared at me from the foot of the bed, waiting for an answer.

  I wasn’t sure what to say, so I said nothing. I stared back, almost wishing I were dead. Then I saw something I’d never seen before.

  His bottom lip trembled.

  The realization hit me harder than Vampiro’s Flying Elbow of Doom. The one man who cared for me more than anyone else in Mexico was angry, frightened, and hurt. And it was my fault.

  I’d kept him in the dark the whole time. I’d wanted to be independent, making my own choices. Besides, he was busy at the job. He wouldn’t care.

  But he did care or he wouldn’t have invited me along, even with Mom insisting. He wanted me to experience the world, and to grow while doing it.

  I repaid him by going behind his back. Would he have forbidden me to be a luchador? Probably. Would I have joined anyway? Maybe.

  But I never gave him a chance. I went on as if my choices didn’t affect anyone but me.

  “Dad, I’m sorry.”

  His face softened as he brushed past Luke and stood over me.

  “Geez, Jed, what were you thinking? Your mother is frantic, you know.”

  “I do,” I said, telling him about the phone call.

  He leaned over, slipped his arms under me, lifted, and squeezed. I circled my right arm around his shoulders, which were bigger than I remembered. My left remained pinned between us, the tingling increasing under the pressure.

  It was OK if Dad didn’t want to let go for a while.

  “I was so worried, Son,” he whispered. “I wish I’d spent more time with you. Maybe we never should have come here.”

  His arms loosened and eased me back to the bed. “But for now, you just need to tell me what’s going on. And don’t leave out a thing.”

  I didn’t. I started with the bus accident, meeting Mendoza, training as a luchador. I told him about my luchador name and described my mask, letting him know that for the most part my identity was a secret.

  I noticed some pride in my voice when I talked about my victories and how the team had accepted me. I gave him a blow-by-blow account of my win over Vampiro when Vampiro had refused to stick to the script. But I skimmed through the bout that landed me here, knowing the details would hurt Dad.

  “So here I am,” I said. “Recovering. And I just want to go home.”

  “We’re going to get you out of here pronto,” Dad said. “These doctors have no idea. None.”

  A strange voice intruded. “I would disagree with that.” A small man in a large lab coat appeared out of nowhere. He held a clipboard in one hand and what looked like a test tube in the other.

  “Dude, you might want to say something before decloaking like that,” Luke said.

  “Sorry, I have a habit of sneaking up on people,” he said. “Not my intention.”

  He put the clipboard on a chair and extended his hand. “I’m Dr. Armendariz. Yolo Armendariz. And what if I were to tell you that not only do I have an idea, but I’ve seen a case like this before?”

  “I’d say my medical expertise is probably better than yours,” Luke said, “because I know for a fact there are no cases like this outside of various movies. And even they got it wrong when it comes to brain-eating.”

  “Yes, of course,” Dr. Armendariz said. “But what if I were to offer you proof of such a case?”

  He held up the test tube and waggled it. The oily fluid inside coated the glass, and it looked vaguely familiar.

  No, it couldn’t be.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Dad looked at the tube, then at me. He knew as well.

  When I was ten, Dad and I decided to do an experiment. He took me to a batting cage, put a helmet on my head and a bat in my hand, and positioned me at the plate. Most kids would t
hink it was the start of a great father-son outing, but I was terrified.

  First, I hated projectiles traveling toward me at a high rate of speed. That was why I’d hated baseball and quit Little League after just one pitch. Dad thought it was because I didn’t give baseball a fair chance. Luke thought it went back to a primal zombie fear of being shot in the head.

  I just knew projectiles hurled toward me at high velocity made me extremely nervous. And when I got nervous, I Oozed.

  Dad knew he just as easily could have twisted off my hand and collected the Ooze that gathered at the point of separation, but he thought it less cruel to take me to a batting cage for our experiment, which required Ooze.

  It worked. Within five minutes, we had a few ounces worth. Over the next few hours, we microwaved it, baked it, froze it, and blended it. We even put a few drops on a steak, just to see how it would react to flesh not my own. Dad actually made us stand back a few feet, in case the T-bone started to moo.

  Through it all, it remained Ooze. It didn’t heat, it didn’t freeze, it didn’t ignite. It reacted to absolutely nothing, and was as dormant as Luke around vegetables.

  By the time we were done, we’d learned how to spot Ooze pretty easily. Even though some substances resembled Ooze—baby oil, for one—we had a knack for knowing Ooze when we saw it.

  We could be fooled, but certainty settled over us when Dr. Armendariz held up the tube. It sure didn’t look like baby oil.

  “You recognize this then,” he said. “Good, that saves us all the ‘That can’t be what I think it is, prove it’ time.”

  Dr. Armendariz grabbed my sheet and tore it off the bed, motioning me to get up. “You’ve not only been discharged,” he said, “the records have been destroyed. It’s as if you’ve never been here. Now get dressed and come with me to my office.”

  “Hold on, Dr. Armenhammer,” Dad said. “If you think you can just tell us what to do without any explanation—”

  “I will explain to you that a team of federal officials are on their way here now, very curious about a boy with detachable arms. It’s up to you. You can chat with them, or you can come with me, and I can tell you a very interesting story.”