“Buster sat on the curb in front of the college, waiting for his sister to pick him up. To pass the time, he skimmed the stories of the creative writing students. One was about a wild party and the story consisted almost entirely of a detailed explanation of a drinking game called Flip 'N Chug that seemed, to Buster, to be too complicated to facilitate the simple goal of getting drunk.”

“Buster closed his eyes, held his breath, and, before he realized that the gun had been fired, a gust of heat and wind passed over him and deconstructed the beer can atop his head, the sound of something irrevocably giving up its shape and becoming, in an instant, something new.”

“When she called her brother, Buster said that she should climb out the window of the bathroom and run away, which was his solution to most problems.”

“I don't think I can keep looking at this stuff, Buster," she informed him, handing the camera to her brother. "It makes me want to drink either more alcohol or none, and I can't imagine either possibility.”

“I know why you picked that movie,' he told her. Annie smiled and said, 'It fits our life in a few ways, I guess.' Buster pointed at the screen, which was now blank. 'It shows you that you have to stay vigilant to find a missing person, even when people tell you not to, that it's possible to bring them back from the dead.' Annie shook her head. 'I picked it because it shows that after you bring someone back from the dead, you get to kill them yourself.”

“People would call him Professor Fang, which sounded so much like a super villain that he wasn't sure he could go through with it.”

“Again,' he said and, without waiting for an answer, ran into the growing dark without fear, every single part of his body overwhelmed with the task of being alive.”