Laughter of the Undead Read online

  Finally, I got into bed. Tommy’s ceiling was littered with glow-in-the-dark stars, giving the room as much light as I needed, the nightlight plugged into the wall useless without power. I unplugged it anyway in the hopes that it really was only the storm and the power would be back. But it made me think of what Connor had said earlier when I said I had left the lamp on. He said I hadn’t needed to. But Tommy was clearly scared of the dark. The nightlight and stars said so. One thing I knew, that I knew to never tell anyone, was Connor’s fear.

  While the nightlight might have pointed in the direction that Connor was afraid of the dark, he wasn’t, not quite. Connor’s fear, basically, was his own blindness.

  I remembered once when, at a friend’s birthday party, he’d been given a blindfold and, because he couldn’t see— obviously, because that’s the point of a blindfold— he’d panicked. It went like that in the dark too, but only if he couldn’t see.

  I yawned and rolled over, pulling the dark blue dinosaur dappled covers to my shoulders, curling my feet under me so they wouldn’t freeze overnight.

  It hadn’t even been one night, but I missed my room. During a crisis, we always want home. And lying in a bed that wasn’t my own in a room that had once been a playroom, I missed home. I missed my bookshelf and posters.

  But more than things, I missed my family. It hadn’t been hard to ignore their absence with school and stuff, but right now, all I wanted to do was put my head in my mom’s lap while she read and go to sleep.

  I felt guilty even thinking about that. We had watched Connor’s parents die. And from what I could glean by the things Levi had said and what Garrett had said about him, he didn’t have much of “parents” either. Yet here I was, missing my mom and dad that were still alive. Unlike Connor, I had something to go back to.

  But that didn’t stop me from missing them.

  I fell asleep thinking about my mom’s work perfume and my sister’s room that always smelled like the candles she loved to burn on the shelf. I’d caught my hair on fire in one of those candles one time.

  I dreamed about it.

  Three in the morning is an awful time to wake up.

  I sat up and stared at my hands in my lap.

  I don’t know how, but it was a thought that woke me, a horrible thought that I didn’t want to think, but was at the same time glad I had thought it.

  My family. Just because they weren’t here, in the midst of this, didn’t mean they weren’t affected.

  I leaned over the side of the bed and fished in my jeans pocket for my flip phone.

  My mom knew somehow. She kept up with local news and had watched it that morning, because it was the middle of the day for her when I called, being in Taiwan. She’d cried and called me her baby, and I tried as hard as I could not to cry. She’d said to stay at Connor’s until she or Dad could come home.

  “But I can’t come home when I planned, honey,” she’d sniffled. “More of those awful cannibals broke out at the airport, so I’ll have to stay here while they rearrange my ticket.”

  Then she’d put one of my younger cousins, Lin, on and I had to talk to her for a couple of minutes in Mandarin. And while I learned Chinese along with English, Lin always talked like she’d recently chugged several Mountain Dews, so I had to do a lot of processing for three in the morning. I listened to her talk about her dog and her sisters and how her mom, my aunt, wouldn’t let her go shopping with her friends that weekend because there had been an outbreak of the cannibals at the mall. She said all of this in about two breaths. When she finally said bye and hung up on me, I was somehow more exhausted than before.

  Then I called my dad. He didn’t pick up, but I wasn’t too worried then because it was three in the morning after all.

  Lastly, I called Olive. She too was asleep and answered with “Uh . . . hello . . . but seriously? Whoever this is, it’s like the middle of the night.”

  Somewhere on the other end of the phone, a male voice said something, probably her boyfriend Magnus, but Olive hushed him so I could answer.

  “Hey Olive,” I said quietly, glancing at the door to make sure I wasn’t disturbing Connor or his brother, “It’s Izzy.”

  “Izzy . . . ” she murmured as if processing, “oh! Izzy, hi, sorry. Why are you calling me this late . . . or early, whatever, but what’s wrong?”

  “Um . . . well . . . ” I thought for a long moment, trying to figure out how to tell her. “You know those news stories you always used to hear about school shootings?”

  “Um, yeah, why?”

  “It happened. At Brimington today.”

  I heard a loud crash from the other end as if she’d fallen out of bed or dropped something heavy.

  “Izzy! Holy crap, are you okay? Are Mom and Dad home yet? Where are you?”

  She let out a long string of curses in Chinese, and she must have dropped the phone from her face because I only understood part of it.

  “No, no, I’m fine. Mom’s still with Yeye and Nai Nai, and Dad’s on his way back from Ohio.”

  “Where are you? Did you go home.”

  “No . . . ” I trailed off, “there’s more.”

  “More?”

  I’d caught her up on everything. Well, almost everything. I’d said I was at Connor’s house, but I didn’t say anything about Levi or the fact that Connor’s parents were dead. I hadn’t told my parents that either. I didn’t want to freak them out too much and hurt themselves trying to get to me. I was safe, for now.

  When I woke the next morning, light seeped in through Tommy’s dinosaur curtains. I blinked and sat up running one hand through my hair.

  The numbers blinking 12:00 on the digital clock on the dresser told me the power had switched back on in the night, and I was more glad of it than I wanted to admit.

  After the phone calls last night, I couldn’t sleep, thinking about my mom trapped across the world and my dad on a bus with all those other people that could turn any second. They were alive and safe right now, but what would happen in a few days? A week? Would the dead things spread? Would it get even worse than it already was? My family was safe but who knew how long that would last.

  Rubbing my eyes, I swung my legs over the side of the short bed and, and grabbed my clothes from where I’d thrown them the night before. I shed the borrowed night clothes and put my own on, which consisted of a light purple long sleeve shirt and jeans. I was going to need more of my own clothes at some point, unlike Connor, hadn’t gotten myself covered in blood, but they still felt infected. No, infected wasn’t the right word. It was as if these were the clothes I was wearing yesterday— yesterday being the worst day of my life, and so they were cursed.

  But going home for clothes meant being alone.

  I didn’t want to be alone.

  I didn’t have friends. I had people I knew who I might talk to in class but not acknowledge me in the hallways, and in that sense, I’d always been alone, but I’d never felt alone. I had my family and my books and nothing else mattered, but now? God, now . . . I may have been in a house with three other people but I’d never felt so alone. Books didn’t matter, and if that wasn’t the end of the world, I don’t know whatever could be.

  I braced myself on Tommy’s dresser, taking deep breaths until my head settled.

  "Good morning," Connor said with forced cheer. He forked a piece of bacon onto a plate as I came into the kitchen. "How do you like your eggs?"

  I blinked at him, dumbfounded. "Are you cooking?"

  "No . . . I’m painting," he deadpanned, rolling his eyes, before handing me a plate of toast, bacon, and scrambled eggs. "Here, put this on the table."

  I held his eyes for a long moment, and despite how cheery he was trying to act, behind them he was close to an edge. An edge that fell into who knows what, so I took the plate with the eggs on it.

  When I turned, Levi was in the doorway staring wide-eyed at Connor with as much surprise as I had felt. He glanced at me in astonishment, eyebrows raised. "Is he cooking?"


  "I think so.”

  “I didn’t take you for the house-wife type.”

  Connor turned, frowning, spatula in hand, apron tied on, and looking very much like a disappointed fifties housewife.

  “Listen— ” he started but didn’t manage to finish before Levi and I both started to laugh. He gave up and turned back to the eggs, rolling his eyes.

  Minutes later, we sat at the table eating the breakfast Connor had made. Tommy ate his with a blue plastic fork.

  Silence. Painful silence. Just like yesterday, we didn’t have anything to say.

  When the table started to shake gently, I glanced at Connor and like I figured, he’d started shaking his knee, and when I glanced at his face I found him fishing for something to say.

  "There was a call this morning," Connor muttered finally, between bites of his egg. "It was one of those robocalls. It said school will be closed for the remainder of the week"

  He acted differently. Forcefully cheerful. Yesterday, he had either been ferocious or emotionless, but now he was trying too hard to be okay. I almost wanted to tell him he didn’t have to be okay. No one had to be okay, not after losing both your parents, your best friend, and your way of life all in one day. But I didn’t say that.

  But I did spot his necklace. It was a chain, an old copper chain, with two rings on it. The rings he had taken from his parents’ bodies last night. He acted cheerful enough, but every minute or so, his hand would go to the necklace and touch the rings.

  "Gee, I wonder why?" Levi muttered darkly, taking a sip of his orange juice. Somehow, Levi hadn’t changed, his eyeliner un-smudged and his hair unruffled even though he must have slept on it.

  Unlike Connor, he’d remained emotionless the entire time, except for the nervous moment when he grabbed my elbow to steady me right before we attacked the undead girl.

  It was almost like any emotion he had was buried under layers of sarcasm and a blank face. Even now he ate his food with quiet resignation, face giving away nothing. Perfectly emotionless.

  And then he wasn’t.

  Levi jerked as if remembering something that terrified him. His eyes widened, and horrified, he whirled on Connor.

  “Do you have a phone charger?” he managed, almost stumbling over his words, yanking a touch screen out of his jacket pocket. “Mine died.”

  “Sure, there’s one in the living room.” Connor frowned, grabbing my plate before I was finished. Levi nodded, practically vaulting over his chair and stumbled into the living room. Glancing at Connor, who still had his eyes on his work, I pushed my chair back with a screech and followed Levi into the next room.

  I saw the charger before he did, and he practically ripped it out of my hand, plugging his phone into the wall so forcefully that I thought it would break before it charged anything. He stared at the blank black box for a solid minute before the nothing that happened overwhelmed him, and he jumped up, pacing like someone waiting for a death sentence.

  “Dammit!” Levi cursed after another two minutes dragged by and the phone still sat there.

  “What’s the matter?” I muttered, tracing his pacing with my eyes. I flopped onto the couch to watch him.

  “Alec,” he said between gritted teeth, eyes still focused on the floor between his feet.

  “Who’s Alec?” I scrunched my nose, his answer not clarifying anything for me.

  “He’s . . . he’s my best friend,” he stuttered, halting in front of the phone, which had finally buzzed to let us know it was coming back to life. “I’m an idiot for not trying to text him again. I texted him yesterday, but he never replied, and then we couldn’t leave Connor and there was all the death and the storm and my phone was dead so I couldn’t charge it because there was no power and I forgot everything. Fuck! What if something happened to him?”

  “You could call him,” I offered, gesturing to the home phone in its receiver behind me.

  Levi glanced at it but shook his head, turning back to the floor. “Calling him is pointless. Alec is deaf. Even if it vibrated, he’d never hear anything I said.”

  I pursed my lips, nodding and remembering what Garrett had said. “Your best friend’s a charity case.” Had he really been referring to the fact that he’s deaf? What a jerk.

  At that moment, Levi’s phone blinked to life. He practically dove at it, typing frantically, then stopped staring at it for several minutes that ticked by like molasses. When his face showed that he’d received no answer, he typed again. Then more time passed, and more typing and more time before Levi snapped.

  “Shit!” he screamed and threw his phone across the room, the cord ripping out of the plug. Levi collapsed against the wall, burying his face in his hands.

  “He could have left it in another room?” I suggested, empathetic worry creeping in to mix with every other emotion that already plagued me.

  Levi shook his head. “He always has it on him. It’s the only way his mom can get his attention and the only way he can talk to some people.” Determination crossed his face. “I’m going.”

  “Isn’t that dangerous? I mean, I understand, but the storm? The ridiculous storm is still going crazy out there. That and the . . . dead things might have multiplied. You should be careful.”

  “I’ll take the assault rifle and Garrett’s car.” He got to his feet, lanky body unfolding and he disappeared down the hall to the room he had slept in.

  “Are you leaving now?” I protested, jumping up to follow after him. I turned the corner at the same time as he did on his way back, nearly colliding with him.

  “Yes,” he nodded, determined, “right now."

  “Wait.” I caught his arm as he tried to charge past me. “Levi . . . ” my voice caught on some emotion in my throat and I had to swallow it down, “but . . . you will come back, right?”

  The tension in his shoulders eased and he turned to face me full on. “Of course.”

  I swallowed again. “No matter what you find?”

  He nodded. “Even if everything’s fine, I’ll come back and tell you before I decide anything else.”

  I pursed my lips, not wanting him to go. Scared of what would happen if he went. “What if I came with you?”

  He thought for a moment, but then shook his head painfully slowly, and when he spoke he lowered his voice. “You saw Connor, cheery as hell in a situation like this tends to mean two steps away from snapping. We can’t leave him alone. Tommy or no Tommy, he’s still likely to do something to hurt himself. I heard him down here making eggs at two in the morning. He didn’t sleep. You need to watch him.”

  He must have read that I still wasn’t satisfied because he put a hand on my shoulder.

  “Izzy, I’ve driven through the snow before, we’ve killed the things before, I have a gun, and all I’m doing is checking if my friend is all right. And if he’s fine and everyone is fine, it might actually be safer for us to go to him because we don’t have adults and three kids can’t do this on their own. ”

  He looked as if he had more to say but stopped himself, so instead, he said, “But I will come back.”

  He squeezed my shoulder, not letting go until I met his eyes and nodded.

  Connor didn’t argue. He was all smiley and “you do you” but his eyes were dead. Even so, I could tell what he was thinking. Thinking about Darren, who he hadn’t even had the chance to save.

  Eleven

  Levi

  March 5th - 11:12 a.m.

  The battered black car screeched to a halt in front of the small house.

  My feet made no sound as they struck rock-strewn driveway, the only thing my over-sensitized ears could hear was the rasp of my own nervous breath.

  There was no one on the street, no sound of children playing in the snow. No neighbors shoveling clear of their driveways. Nor old woman shouting nervously for their cats or small dogs, as a normal afternoon would have sounded.

  I cleared my throat, and though the sound had come from me, it almost made me jump out of my own
skin, such a loud sound in so much silence. I jumped again a moment later as a far-off dog barked nervously. It set my teeth on edge and kept them on edge as I pulled the assault rifle out of the back seat. I felt safer with it on.

  Alec’s front porch steps creaked menacingly as I climbed them. I didn’t bother knocking, I never did. The house stood as silent as the rest of the neighborhood. No movement, no noise. My boots clacked on the hardwood flooring. I knew Alec’s house as well as my own. Maybe better. I spent more time hiding out here than at my own.

  It was too quiet, only the distant sound of the TV playing pointlessly in the living room, but I couldn’t hear Alec’s mom in the kitchen or Alec’s stepdad, an older man named Marcus, talking at the television. No one said “hey, Levi” when I walked in like they normally would have. I was as much a member of this household as Alec.

  I cleared my throat. "Mrs. Fisher? Alec?" I called, knowing that he couldn’t hear me even if he were here. My overwrought nerves had sent rationality packing. No response. Not even the dead laughter I had been half-expecting. Breathing as quietly as I could, I put one hand on the barrel of the gun to push it behind me as I peered around the corner into the kitchen. Finding nothing, I walked into the small room, heart thrumming in my ears.

  I nearly tripped on a dead body. I shrieked and backpedaled, slipping on what I realized with horror a moment later was blood. I landed hard on my back, head thwacking against the cabinet.

  Black spots danced in front of my eyes and my head swam for a moment before I realized the body belonged to Mrs. Fisher, Alec’s mom. Half of her face was gone, replaced by raw blood-matted flesh, her good eye open and staring me down. Her neck had been mauled too, and down her chest, her shirt that had been white yesterday morning now bore vicious tears and a good soaking of her blood.