Laughter of the Undead Read online

  “Where are you going?”

  She set it down and came back, her eyes no longer glazed over but her face hard set as if she’d come to terms with her near-death experience.

  “We can’t drive with dynamite in the passenger’s seat,” she said flatly.

  “That . . . is a fair point.” This helpful insight from Connor.

  Accepting that Izzy’s idea had been a good one, I went around the front of the car and climbed into the driver’s seat.

  The car smelled like sweat and cigarettes despite dozens of air fresheners stuck into the vents and a forest of them hanging from the rearview mirror.

  Izzy slammed the door shut and she and Connor climbed into the back

  “It smells like an old gym bag in here,” Connor said, wrinkling his nose in disgust.

  “Yep.”

  When they’d both closed their doors, I put the car into gear. Garrett’s car happened to be a stick shift and lucky for me that’s what I’d learned to drive on. But it wasn’t what I was used to, so it took me a minute before I got used to it again.

  “All right,” I said. “where are we going, Storming?”

  He made a sound somewhere between a hmph and a sigh and said, “Turn left out of the parking lot.”

  There were a lot of cars still here, but not as many as there had been this morning. This gave me a little hope. Maybe some of the kids had run and gotten to their cars. There might even be some left in the classrooms, still on lockdown even though the annoying alarm had shut off hours ago.

  “Garrett is crazy,” I muttered as I maneuvered the huge parking lot, going as slow as possible to avoid running into the other cars. “Always was, I guess, but I always thought it was just talk.” I glanced at Connor in the rearview mirror. “He was on the basketball team freshman year, but then you showed up and took his place, Storming. He never forgave you for that. I know a lot of people that hated your guts, man.”

  I caught the motion of him slumping in his seat as if deflated and I instantly regretted what I had said. I couldn’t imagine how that felt, knowing he was hated and knowing people wanted him dead. First Nate, now Garrett, and who knew who else hated Connor.

  I drove in silence for a few minutes after that, so lost in my own thoughts that I made a wrong turn in the parking lot, making the drive longer than needed, but neither in the back seat really cared.

  Then, I caught the motion of Izzy putting a hand on Connor’s shoulder in a comforting way. “There were plenty of people that liked you, Connor. Don’t let a couple of people that were just jealous of you make you feel like a monster.”

  Eight

  Izzy

  March 4th - 4:26 p.m.

  "She’s right," Levi said, surprising me in this attempt to cheer up a Connor that he had been at odds with all day. “Coming from someone who people have always seen as a monster, you can’t let it get to you. Focus on who loves you, Storming, not the other way around.”

  We both stared at him, but Levi had his eyes fixed out the front window.

  "I personally used to think you were the biggest jerk on the face of the Earth, but now I think I was completely misled."

  Connor raised his eyebrows. “I have no clue how to take that. It’s like a compliment buried in an insult or vice versa.”

  “Compliment, Connor, it was a compliment.”

  “One hell of a compliment,” he scoffed, but he was obviously making light of a situation that bothered him more than he admitted. “I actually despise you, but you might not be awful.”

  I shrugged, smirking.

  Levi didn’t comment. He didn’t do anything except drive. He drove at a snail's pace between the cars, probably to avoid the ice patches all over the road from the snow.

  The viciousness of the storm had calmed since our stay in the closet, which was a good thing because not only did that mean Levi had a clear view of at least the first couple yards ahead of us, but also that the car wasn’t as frigid as it could have been, as it didn’t have much in the way of working heaters. It was cold enough in there without a snowstorm blaring out the window.

  I think now we all knew that with a car we could actually make it home. We didn’t have to “walk to the closest house” but none of us brought it up. I personally didn’t want to be home alone, not now, and I think that went for Levi too.

  "Turn here," Connor said a second later to Levi. Levi startled as if ripped from deep thought and obeyed, turning us onto a familiar street. "That one."

  Levi pulled into the snow-filled driveway of the Storming residence. Connor’s house was a little bigger than mine, with a second floor and light gray brickwork, a black roof, and white shutters. All the lights in the windows were on so I could tell at least one person was home.

  We all got out of the car, shivering. For a long moment, the three of us just stood, staring at each other in the snow.

  “What do we do with the car?” I asked.

  Levi frowned, the downward curve of his mouth pulling at his lip rings. “I guess we just leave it here. It’s not like we can return it right now.”

  “Why don’t we just get everything sorted with my parents,” Connor suggested. “They could help us work things out.”

  “What about us?” Levi asked, gesturing between me and himself. “How will they feel about you bringing two strangers home like this?”

  “They know Izzy,” Connor said, glancing at me, “and they’ll understand when I explain. We got lumped in this together, we should stick together until things, you know, make sense. Then maybe we can figure out how to get you guys home.”

  “He’s right,” I muttered. “It might be better to let real adults help us handle this.”

  The boys nodded in agreement and together the three of us slammed the car doors and trumped up his porch steps to the door. We exchanged glances before Connor reached for the doorknob, our breath clouding in the cold air.

  When we were little, Connor and I would pretend to be dragons. All the time, not just in the winter, but the frigid air always made it easier. We’d pretend the steam came from our noses and I crossed my arms over my chest, trying not to breathe too deeply because the frigid air stung the inside of my nose, throat, and lungs.

  Connor froze, nervous to turn his own door handle. I searched his face and found a fear there as if he feared what he would find. He took a deep breath, sending up another plume of the false dragon smoke, and then he slowly turned the handle and pushed it open.

  The three of us huddled into the house, greeting the gust of warm air. Levi shut the door behind us, the last swirl of cold air falling to the ground and dissipating. We took a deep, satisfying breath in harmony.

  The breath, however, was the only sound. The house, despite the lights still on, remained still. Connor motioned for us to take off our coats and, at Connor’s direction, we hung them onto a hook next to a man’s work coat and a small child’s bright yellow jacket. The house was eerily silent.

  Connor furrowed his eyebrows, gaping at the empty house in worry.

  “Where is everyone?" I whispered, not wanting to break the quiet. Connor turned to me, but his eyes saw through me, and I suddenly felt washed with fragility, like I was inexplicably breakable. Somehow the vacant, vague terror in his eyes was as scary as the walking corpses.

  "Not sure," he murmured back. Levi let out a hard breath through his nose, his expression unreadable as always.

  Together, the three of us tread lightly into the kitchen, instinctively keeping silent for no real reason. At first, nothing seemed wrong. The kitchen was as any kitchen should be, except it wasn’t. Everything had been dropped mid moment. Just now. Like everyone that had been here had simply vanished.

  A toy train set lay on its side on the table next to half-eaten cereal. The cereal wasn’t even soggy yet. A knife lay by the cutting board where a bright red half-cut tomato sat as if waiting to be finished. Tea over-boiled on the stove, the sound of its low gurgling disturbing.

  My heart beat agai
nst the inside of my chest so hard I thought I must be vibrating. Everything about this was wrong.

  Connor turned off the stove, but the pent up heat still made the water hiss ominously.

  On the other side of the stove, there was another cutting board I hadn’t noticed a second before, a pepper on this one. But the knife was on the floor and it was covered in blood that dripped onto the light hardwood.

  At that moment the tea hissed into silence and we all stiffened as we heard a low, false laughter came from the next room.

  Dread dropped like a hardball in my stomach.

  "No," Connor muttered, his voice breaking. "Please no."

  Before either of us could stop him, Connor rushed out of the kitchen to a room out of our line of sight. We darted after him.

  Connor was frozen in the doorway, his breath coming in short panicked gasps.

  On the floor was a woman in her mid-forties. She was once beautiful, with long curly blonde hair and eyes the same color as Connor’s right one.

  Connor’s mom.

  She was dead, and those eyes that Connor shared were fixed open. Half of her throat had been eaten away and the blood from her raw skin had soaked her pink sweater to a much darker color.

  Standing over her was a middle-aged man. He had Connor's black hair, but his was flecked with gray. He had Connor’s face, save for the age lines. He had to have been Connor’s father.

  But he wasn’t now.

  Not anymore.

  He giggled. One lens of his glasses was missing and the bottom half of his face dripped with his wife’s blood.

  I covered my mouth, choking on a sob. I couldn’t take my eyes from Connor’s mother, Mrs. Storming, lying there, her head propped against the wall at a horribly awkward angle. She was dead. My first-grade teacher. The Mrs. Storming that always made me pancakes when I came over and always gave the best book suggestions. She was dead.

  Then Mr. Storming gave another cackle and my tear-filled eyes moved to him.

  Slowly, the man’s gaze lazily drifted toward us. Both Levi and I tried to pull Connor back from what had once been his father.

  “Connor!” I managed, pouring effort into holding him away from the monster that wasn’t his dad anymore. “Don’t!”

  He shook us off and I stumbled. I glanced at Levi, whose expression was hard, his eyes fixed on Connor’s father.

  "Dad!" Connor croaked, refusing to move. "Dad, please, it’s me, Connor!"

  The monster leered at him, giggling and shuffling, not toward or away from us, just shuffled as if it were unsure of what it should do. Almost like it was thinking.

  “Dad . . . ” Connor’s voice was tiny and sad, breaking in a heartwrenching way.

  It lunged, eyes unfocused, its gurgling laughter rising to a high pitched giggle. Connor fell back onto the floor, scrambling on his hands but not taking his eyes from his father.

  "Dad!" he screamed, throwing his arms in front of him just as Levi lifted his assault rifle and shot it in the head. The figure blinked once, it’s laughter cut off instantly before collapsing, blood spurting all over the bathroom sink and mirror.

  There was a brief moment of silence before Connor exploded.

  "You shot him!" Connor screamed in outrage, scrambling to his feet, "You killed my dad!"

  Connor lunged at Levi, much like the monster had lunged at him, and punched Levi in the jaw so hard he fell to the floor. Levi didn’t retaliate, barely even showed a reaction besides putting a hand to his jaw tentatively. For once, he wasn’t even glaring.

  "CONNOR!" I shouted, my own voice shaking. I grabbed his arm and pulled him back, putting a hand on his chest so he couldn’t move and was forced to look at me. "He had no choice! It wasn’t your dad anymore. It would have hurt you, Connor. Levi just saved your life. All of our lives."

  He glowered down at me for another long moment, and I thought for a second that he was going to explode and throw me off to attack Levi again. He was bigger and stronger than either of us and if he wanted to hurt Levi, I couldn’t stop him.

  But I wouldn’t have to.

  As I watched the anger melt from his mismatched eyes, he dissolved, slumping against the wall.

  "They’re gone," he sobbed. I exchanged glances with Levi, who still sat prone on the ground. His face was unreadable, but there was almost sadness in his eyes as he pushed himself up, placing a hand on Connor’s shoulder.

  “I’m sorry,” he said hoarsely. Connor nodded but was still crying, covering his face with his hands as if he could hide the fact.

  I took a step back and let Levi guide Connor by the shoulder into the kitchen. At Levi’s direction, Connor sat in one of the kitchen chairs, clenching his fists on the table in front of him, his sobs reducing to an occasional hiccup. Levi made eye contact with me before turning to grab one of the water glasses from the counter and started filling it with water from the fridge dispenser. Shaking a little, I took a tentative step closer to the table, placing my hand over his clenched fists, hoping the touch was comforting and he couldn’t tell how badly I was shaking.

  He didn’t move. I sat in the chair beside him, putting the other hand on his back. I wasn’t sure if I should try to hug him, or talk to him, or just sit here quietly, letting him know I was here.

  Here for him if he needed me to be.

  Levi came back a second later with the glass and a box of tissues. He set them in front of Connor without saying anything to him and motioned to me with his head.

  I squeezed Connor’s hands to no reaction and stood, following Levi to the doorway.

  “What do we do?” I whispered, my heart still pounding against the lump of indiscernible feeling that had lodged in my chest. Guilt and panic and sorrow and dread all balled up into a painful knot. I tried breathing it away, but the deep breath only helped for a second.

  “You’re asking me?” he muttered. “You’ve been the one with the real plans till now.”

  “Not really,” I muttered. “It was Connor’s idea to come here.”

  “And your plan to kill that creature, your plan to use those brooms, and you stopped Barry and Kina. Yeah, I talked to them after, but what you said stopped them. And you moved the dynamite that froze our ability to think of what the hell to do. Leaving the school was what we would have done anyway. Anything that’s taken any thought, that’s been from you, girlie.”

  I sighed and leaned my back against the door frame, glancing at Connor still hunched over the table, not having moved. “This is different.”

  “How?” he demanded. “We watched people die just like we did at school.”

  “It was personal to him, Levi,” I said back. “When we were a school, the first shot we saw, and that second shot killed his best friend. I think he’s been coping pretty well till now. His best friend, then his parents? All three?”

  Levi’s eyes widened. “I didn’t-”

  “No, how could you have known? But- just- what do we do now?”

  Levi glanced at Connor. “We can’t leave him alone. As much as I want to go home, we can’t leave him like he is now. We need to stay with him for now. In a mood like this, he might do something stupid. Intentionally life-ending stupid. Trust me, I’ve seen it. I’ve . . . been there. We need to watch him.”

  “For how long do you think?” I muttered. “We can’t stay here forever. What if he came to one of our houses?”

  “My house . . . ” he shook his head, “never there, but maybe if we took him to Alec’s? There’d be other people, adults. But . . . showing him someone else's mom . . . right now . . . no, we can’t go there, not yet.”

  “And I don’t have anyone home either . . . ” I frowned, and I too glanced over at Connor. “Then we keep him here, keep him where his home is, and stay with him. Maybe it will help. When he’s better maybe . . . maybe we can go to your friend’s. With adults.”

  Levi nodded, “You’re right.”

  We both turned to Connor then as the conversation died. I couldn’t read anything in Levi’
s face and it worried me.

  I was alone in this house with what felt like two broken boys.

  In that lapse of silence, I heard Connor muttering to himself, “Mom, dad, Darren. All dead, and we’re all going to die.”

  Nine

  Connor

  March 4th - 4:40 p.m.

  I sat at the table and stared into my water glass.

  Dead. They were dead.

  There was so much pain inside my chest that somehow there was nothing.

  Nothing except pure and utter lack. Lack of hope. Lack of will. Lack of any kind of desire to get up and figure out what I was supposed to do now. I was alone, completely and utterly alone in the world, and I was spiraling.

  Izzy and Levi stood in the doorway talking in hushed voices. About my meltdown probably.

  In a different moment, I might have felt bad for punching Levi. He had done the right thing and I had just been too blind to see it. He saved my life.

  Again. That was twice now today. Once with Garrett, once from the monster that used to be my dad trying to eat me alive.

  Absentmindedly, I rolled one of the trains across the desk. It was Tommy’s favorite.

  Tommy.

  I stood, my chair toppling to the ground, startling the other two. “We have to find my brother! I’m such an idiot. Search the house." For a moment, they just stared at me. “Come on! I’ll go upstairs. He’s four."

  Without another word, I darted up the stairs, taking them two at a time, almost tripping over my own feet and cursing at myself for being so stupid.

  I wasn’t alone.

  I had Tommy. I had my baby brother.

  The door to his room stood open. My heart was in my throat as I stepped through. Even after checking the closets and under his bed, he wasn’t there. The bathroom was empty as well. None of the closets showed any sign of being touched.

  Of course, he would be in my room. I could never keep him out of it on a good day.