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even the most striking thing about her.
    She was wearing a mask. A bone white mask that covered her entire face; it was similar to one of the comedy and tragedy masks that Mrs. Dubois, the drama teacher, had hanging in her office, except this one had no expression at all, the thin lips a carved straight line.
    "I'd like to introduce to you Melissa Riley," Alish said. Melissa was wearing a long brown skirt that went past her knees, and a heather green sweater that bunched at her wrists. She sat with her hands folded in her lap and her head bowed,
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    her eyes hidden behind the almond-shaped eyeholes of the mask. Phoebe could see pale beige dots, the ghosts of freckles, on the backs of her hands. Next to her on the couch was a whiteboard the size of a large notebook, and a black marker.
    There was a bright chorus of welcomes from the students, but Melissa did not lift her head or respond in any way. Alish waited a moment before continuing, his smile unwavering despite Melissa's apparent shyness.
    "And this young man to the far left is Cooper Wilson," Alish said, and as Alish gave a fluttery wave toward the boy, Phoebe noticed that the old man had pale brown spots on his hands as well, but his were liver spots.
    "Hey ...everybody," Cooper said, "call...me ...Coop."
    "Hey, Coop," replied most of the class, nearly in unison.
    "Yes," Alish said. "You may recall that our Mr. Williams read an article about a tragic fire at a place called Dickinson House, in Massachusetts. Melissa and Cooper were made homeless by that fire. We are thrilled that concerned parties helped them find residence here."
    He hesitated. The article that Tommy read indicated that the fire was more of a massacre than an accident, with seven zombies being reterminated in the flames and just the two on the couch surviving. Phoebe looked over at the girl and wondered what the mask hid.
    "Well," Alish said finally, "please do what you can to make our newest students feel welcome."
    "You are probably all wondering how our fair Ms. Stelman is doing," Alish continued. Phoebe and the other "veterans" of
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    the Undead Studies class snapped to attention. Sylvia Stelman was a zombie classmate who had been taken for a special "augmentation" procedure. All they knew about the "augmentation" was that it would supposedly restore Sylvia to a near-living state. They had no idea how it was performed or what exactly it entailed, and the Hunters refused to elaborate. Sylvia had been gone a number of weeks, and naturally everyone in the class was worried about her.
    "I am happy to report that the first phase of her augmentation is complete and that she's doing quite well. If she continues to progress at this rate, we should soon have her back in class."
    "That's great," Margi said. Kevin's head lolled forward and back, probably in eager anticipation of being the next in line for an augmentation. "Can we see her?"
    "Not yet." Alish's smile remained fixed on his face.
    "Well, that's our news," Angela said. "I have a new project, which we're going to have you all work on, but first are there any topics you would like to discuss?"
    "There were more killings," Tommy said. "Of zombies. In Texas ... a mob of...people ...tied two of us to the ...tailgate ... of a pickup truck. The killings were ...soon after ...a talk given by ...Reverend Nathan Mathers. They ..."
    Phoebe couldn't look at him as he told the rest of his grisly story. She knew that part of what she was feeling was akin to "survivor guilt," something she'd overheard Angela talking to Margi about: a feeling that one was somehow complicit in acts of violence that one had nothing to do with. Phoebe
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    listened to Tommy talk about how the mob tracked down the zombies and tortured them, and she couldn't help feeling as if she'd helped tie the knots.
    She'd certainly tied them around Tommy. Her guilt went beyond survivor guilt, however. There was a hopeless quality to Tommy's reporting today, and she knew it was because of the