The Boy Who Couldn't Die / William Sleator / 162 pages / November Challenge Zombies

When his best friend, Roger, is killed in a plane crash, Ken Pritchard is devastated.  He remembers a folktale about "a monster who hides his soul in some completely inaccessible place...He could come to no harm.  He could live forever."  Now he realizes that if sixteen year old Roger can die, he can too.  He started with psychics, then he found Cheri Buttercup, in a high rise apartment in Queens.  When she tells him she can do what he wants, but he must die first, he balks.  He also is chagrined that she will not tell him where she will hide his soul.  But since Ken, the son of rich, indulgent parents, has always gotten what he wanted, he decides he will never die and agrees to Cheri's terms.  His invincibility is proven when he is uninjured when attacked by five football players.  He convinces his parents to schedule a scuba diving vacation off a remote island which recently saw a death by shark attack.  While there he meets Sabine, a junior scuba diving instructor, who explains the terrible mistake he made.  He has become an astral zombie and Cheri Buttercup has power over him.  He must get his soul back.