Read The In-Betweener (Between Life and Death) (S) for Free Online Page A

purposeful way before. I’ve certainly never seen them speak. New ones do make noise, unlike the deaders, but nothing organized that I’ve ever seen. Then again, I don’t see them much because I hole up here. I don’t go looking for them.
    Maybe they are all like that. Maybe they have card games and movie nights and organize weird raves where the party drugs are humans instead of pills. I don’t frigging know. But I do know what I just saw and, even though he wasn’t as coordinated as I might have been, what he just did was an entirely human set of actions.
    He comes back to the fence and seems more like an in-betweener for a moment. He touches the rails and his mouth opens like he’s going to start licking at it again, but then he stops, shakes his head, and surprises me by hitting himself. Not a tap or a slap or anything like that. He slugs himself in the head with his fist, hard, like maybe he’s angry that he’s strayed from his purpose.
    “Garah,” he yells again, but this time there’s a heartbreaking note of pleading in it.
    I peek out quickly to see what the deaders are doing. Now, they seem agitated by what’s going on, so there’s no way I’m going to give them a target to fixate on. And I’m not stupid enough to trust an in-betweener. They are dangerous because of what they are and they eat people.
    Before I can stop myself, I pull myself fully behind the truck and call out, “What do you want?”
    “Garah kahm. Kads! Kads!” he yells out immediately.
    “I can’t understand you,” I return, telling myself that I’m an idiot that is about to get herself killed by falling for some new form of in-betweener party trick.
    He doesn’t answer right away so I peek out, fully expecting to see him climbing the fence and ready to have himself a little Emily-flavored snack. Instead, I see him holding his head in both hands and bending over a little. He straightens after a moment, grips the fence with one fist and pokes the other hand through the rails. He extends a finger in my direction—I can see that his hand is shaking violently with the strain of it—and says, “Garah. Ya garah.”
    I still don’t get it, but he doesn’t wait for confirmation because his hand twists into the universal sign that means “come here” and he says, “Kahm.”
    Okay, that one I get. He wants me to come, something which is so not going to happen.
    Again, he doesn’t wait. His face is screwed up in intense concentration and he lowers his hand, turning it so that it faces palm down, until it is as low as he can get it given the brick base of the wall, and says, “Kads.”
    That seems to be it for his message, because his hand moves back toward his side of the fence and the pleading look is on his face again. He can’t really see me well since I’m peeking from behind the bumper of a truck, but he’s waiting. There is hope all over his pale face.
    I lean back and think. Come, I get. He wants me to come. What about the pointing finger and the Ya garah. I turn the words around in my head, changing the inflections and trying to think of the way that deaf schoolmate of mine said her words. The pointing finger was toward me. Then I realize what it means. He’s saying, “You girl.” He kept repeating the g arah word over and over, girl, girl, girl .
    Figuring that word out helps me to understand his final sign almost immediately. Kads means kids. The hand set about waist height, the desperate face. This in-betweener wants me to come and help some kids. But, why? Wouldn’t he rather just eat them?
    I look back from around the truck with a new understanding and a whole slew of new fears. First, there’s the uncharacteristic behavior to fear. Second is the idea that an in-betweener is trying to get help for someone else, and third is the very real possibility that if he can do that much complex thinking, he could also be lying in order to get a fresh meal.
    He’s just standing there, both fists tight around the