Laughter of the Undead Read online

“Kalee called me a sea monster,” I sniffled. We’d been talking about names at school that day, and when I said my name was Leviathan, this evil little girl had started to mock it, saying I was named after a monster, and I was evil. I told my mom this through sobs, and she laughed, hugging me.

  “Oh, Levi, you should take that as a compliment.”

  I’d frowned, “I should?”

  “Yes,” she’d smiled, ruffling my hair, “wouldn’t you rather be the monster than the sheep? Listen, baby, being a monster is all you make yourself out to be. It can mean being strong, and as long as ’monster’ is only a label, and you don’t do anything monsterly, what’s the harm? I named you Leviathan so that you could be strong. Yes, a Leviathan is a monster, but no one would mess with it. Sweetheart, you aren’t a monster, you’re strong, and that’s exactly what your name means to me, so should it to you.”

  I’ll give her that explanation, but you also have to remember she had been a thirteen-year-old book nerd put in charge of naming a child. Leviathan probably just sounded cool to her at the time.

  I turned away from my closet and fell onto my bed that was littered with clothes my dad must have thrown there. Laundry was my job, like every other chore, and when I went too long without being home, he would break down and do it, but never my laundry, he’d dump that onto my bed.

  I lay for a long moment, staring at my dim lamp and lazily spinning fan.

  For the moment I was numb. Entirely and completely.

  I couldn’t think, and couldn’t imagine what would happen now. Alec and his mom were dead. I had nowhere to go now, except back to Connor and Izzy. And I couldn’t imagine coming back here after I left today. This room had never been home. But it was all I had.

  I sat up, and scanned around, thinking about what I would possibly need. Clothes, I supposed.

  I got up from the bed and grabbed an old backpack, stuffing some of the clothes piled on my bed into it. I didn't pay attention to what I was putting in, but they were all black or red, so there wasn’t enough of a difference to acknowledge. I made sure there were T-shirts, underwear, and pants, but didn’t take the time to mark each in my brain. All my pants were black jeans or black sweatpants, and all my shirts were black band shirts, or that one red striped one I’m sure ended up in the bag. It didn’t matter though, who cared about appearances now that the world was descending into what seemed to be the apocalypse.

  Since I never planned on coming back here, I thought I might as well empty out my closet one last time.

  Judging by the silence outside my door, my dad had gone back to his football game. He, of all people, knew what he had done to me, and knew walking in while I had a gun wouldn’t be the smartest idea. Even someone with an alcohol-soaked brain and love for violence could put that together.

  I didn’t know what I was going to do with them, but I took down a picture of Alec and me at my birthday party a few years ago. It had been the first one I’d had in years. It was only Alec and me, but I’d never been happier, and while it only hurt to look at it, there was no way I was going to just leave it. Even if carrying this image of his face with me would make his absence weigh heavier, I couldn’t handle the thought of never even seeing a picture of my best friend again.

  I also took the one of Mom at her graduation. Unsure of what else I could do, I folded both and put them in my jacket pocket.

  My closet had a lot of clothes I hadn’t worn in years. A couple of shirts from before I’d gone “goth” and some old old jeans that now might have fit around my arm. I had been one scrawny little five-year-old. The only other things I thought I might need from the closet were a few pairs of tennis shoes, but I only grabbed the biggest pair. I had my boots, and together, the boots and sneakers would be a good enough replacement for now. They went into the bag too.

  A tux was there from some wedding years ago and my grandfather’s old graying leather jacket. It had always been too big for me, even now the shoulders were too broad. Though strangely it looked just wide enough for Connor. I couldn’t bear to part with it. I’d never gotten anything after my grandfather died besides some pictures and this jacket. I figured giving it to Connor would be a more preferable option than leaving it in this house.

  After throwing in some of the eyeliner I always wore, and black nail polish, I’d just started zipping the bag up when my eyes fell on the pile of books by the head of my bed. I didn’t have a bookshelf, but ten or fifteen books piled in the corner served as a replacement. On the top were a few ASL books I had used when learning with Alec. Under those were some books from school, like 1984, Animal Farm, and To Kill a Mockingbird— that kind of thing.

  On the bottom, was a book I’d forgotten about. It was my favorite book. It had been Mom’s favorite when she was in high school. She used to read whatever she was reading at the time out loud to me so that one had been one I’d heard on repeat.

  It wasn’t meant for little kids, but I’d been too little to understand what was happening in it anyway. After she died, all her books got donated to a local bookstore called “Book Nook”. It had been years before I’d found it again, at that same book store for fifty cents. I’d bought it, brought it home and read it that night. Some of the parts baffled me that my mom would read that to a five-year-old, but others I remembered. I could understand why she’d liked it, and it made me feel closer to her, so I read it over and over. It was one more connection to her that I had, but I couldn’t leave it here, not with my dad who would probably burn my room as soon as I left.

  So it too joined the bag. I zipped it up and took a step back so my back hit the door as I glared around my tiny room.

  “I’m done with you,” I whispered to the room. The curtains swayed as if in response. As if in farewell “goodbye.”

  I swung the backpack over my shoulder and grabbed the gun from where it was propped.

  My dad stood in front of the doorway arms crossed when it swung open.

  “I’m leaving,” I said firmly. He didn’t move. I pointed the gun at him with one hand.

  "First you think you’re a vampire and now you’re a runaway?" he sneered. "I should never have agreed to raise you, you ungrateful little shit."

  "But you raised me so well," I said sarcastically and jabbed the muzzle of the rifle into his stomach. "Move. Now, Dad."

  He obliged and I brushed past him, leaving him standing in the doorway. I didn’t look back as I drove away.

  I drove with my foot heavy on the gas pedal, pushing it all the way to the floor, going sixty when the signs screamed at me to go twenty. Everything that had happened ran over and over in my head.

  I drove recklessly, nearly running into cars parked alone in the road, abandoned. I swerved, nearly hitting a parked red car. I slammed on the brakes and the car came to a screeching halt, front end inches from the red car’s door. Outside the window, the wind started howling again. I let out a deep sigh and leaned my head against the steering wheel and stared down between my knees at the frayed carpeted floor.

  That’s when it fully hit me and I accepted today. I accepted yesterday. I accepted everything.

  Alec was dead.

  Mrs. Fisher was dead.

  I threatened my father with a gun.

  Molly had died because of me.

  And most of the people I had ever known were either ready to be buried in the ground or walking above it, laughing.

  I wrapped my jacket tighter around myself as I listened to the wind.

  For the first time in longer than I could remember, I let myself cry.

  Fourteen

  Izzy

  March 5th - 3:45 p.m.

  I had only a general idea of how to get to the police station. I’d been in it before, on a field trip in kindergarten and again a couple of years ago driving by with my dad, but that didn’t make finding it any easier now.

  In the end, it took me a good twenty minutes to actually get the three of us there. Even though the cars might have suggested it, there was a severe lack
of the laughing-people-monster-things. And a lack of people in general. Even at this time a day normally there would be people all over, driving and walking and riding bikes, but they were all just gone.

  When I drove into town for a moment, a process on the road of being lost, most of the stores had their windows broken, the mannequins and displays that had once showed off their product empty and laying on the glass sprinkled sidewalk.

  “Where the actual hell is everyone,” Connor muttered, staring at the broken windows with just as much worry as I felt. I shrugged, turning the wheel to make a U-turn.

  “This isn’t where we need to be anyway.”

  Finally, we found it. A moment of elation passed between us, even echoing in Tommy in the back seat, even though he didn’t know what was going on.

  But it wasn’t a long moment of elation because a second later we used our eyes. Not a single police car sat in the lot, and with every window in the building broken, it was just as bad as all the strip mall shops we’d passed.

  “Shiiiiiit,” Connor hissed, long and drawn out, hand going to his seatbelt buckle. I pulled into the empty parking lot. We met each other’s eyes.

  “What do we do?” he chewed on his lip, frowning. “What can we do?”

  I ran a hand over my ponytail, taking a deep, deep breath. “We can go in? See if there’s anyone at all. If there’s not, maybe there’s a walkie talkie? We can try contacting any of the police that are actually out there.”

  “What if those . . . things are in there?”

  “Well,” I glanced again in the rearview mirror at Tommy, who stared back at me, “we can hope there aren’t and if there are, we either run or kill them, or both.”

  Connor barked a half-laugh, running a hand through his own hair. “Well, that’s comforting, but . . . okay. I mean, what else can we do?”

  “We could just go back to your house?” I suggested.

  He shook his head slowly. “We know stuff about the creatures that other people don’t for some reason. If there is any way we can help people, don’t you think we should at least try?”

  I stared at him for a long moment, meeting his brown and blue eyes. There was so much about the boy sitting in the car next to me that was confusing. So much about him didn’t add up. What he was saying contradicted everything I’d thought about him for years and I could recognize in his eyes that he meant it. He had beautiful eyes. Dang it.

  I turned away, sure he could spot my blush, but nodded anyway. “You’re right. Of course.”

  I didn’t meet his eyes again, climbing out of the minivan. Without thinking, I started toward the building but stopped when I noticed Connor wasn’t following.

  “What gives?” I called, circling the van to find him with the back door open, talking quietly to Tommy.

  “I’m gonna close the door and you gotta stay in here,” he was gazing into the little boy’s eyes with that parent-like insistence that Tommy listen, and I could tell that Tommy was listening. “You have your toys,” he paused and fished in his pocket for his phone, opening some app. “Here, you can play this, but you gotta be quiet, okay, baby?”

  Tommy didn’t respond, but he seemed to understand in the best way a four-year-old can. He stared at the phone, immersed in whatever game Connor had given him. Connor nodded as if satisfied and kissed the top of his brother’s head before closing the car door.

  I locked it and he jumped a little at the beep it made. “Jesus,” he muttered, then turned back to the car, walking over to me. “I hope it’s safe.”

  “What is safe?” I muttered.

  “I mean, I know I'm locking him in the car, and that’s bad, but it’s not hot and there are not-so-zombie-things. It’s safer than bringing him, right?”

  “Connor,” I put a hand on his shoulder, “he’ll be fine, come on.”

  It was as bad. The front doors that had once been glass were now just portals leading into what looked like a waiting room. A long, curved desk hugged one wall and a row of chairs clung to the other. It stood empty. Walking so that neither of us made a sound, we almost scared ourselves to death by brushing arms.

  There was blood on the desk. New blood, still firetruck red. My heart kicked up in my chest, and as soon as I saw it, I could smell it. Blood.

  You never think about the smell of blood. You hear copper and sickly sweet and it’s right. I used to get nosebleeds all the time and smelling blood was a big part of that, or all of it considering blood was coming out of your smell hole, same as tasting it. The awful coppery clinging feel used to make me wonder what could possibly be so great about being a vampire.

  But you never expect to smell so much of it when it’s not your own.

  A step closer to the desk showed the source of the blood.

  Oh, God.

  Jewelry and a blueish skirt showed the pile of meat was a woman. Or what used to be a woman. There was no skin, just blood and flesh and bone, and an expression of terror etched onto what was left of her face showed us that she had been eaten alive.

  Their mouths were full of her, and that’s why we couldn’t hear them laughing.

  My heart flew into my throat and I stumbled backward with a retching sound that almost made me vomit.

  Connor took a step back too, shaking his head violently even as the things swallowed their meal and the laughter started. God, oh God, why did it have to be laughter?

  Tears welled in my eyes, my heart so clutched by terror I could hardly breathe.

  It wasn’t a police officer anymore that stood behind the counter, blood-drenched and giggling like a little kid. Neither was the suited man that stood up beside him, dead eyes not angled at us but I could still feel them noticing us.

  Unlike at school, it was me that froze this time and Connor that reacted.

  He backed up until his shins hit the chairs against the wall, and as I watched out of the corners of my eyes as he grabbed one of the chairs and hurled it across the room.

  For a millisecond it sailed through the air in slow motion, both of us watching its arch until it collided with the once-police officer, sending him down, but only making his laughter angrier.

  Time sped up, and I clicked back into motion, whirling to grab one of the chairs for myself. I couldn’t throw it like Connor I wasn’t strong enough but I could carry it across the room and lift it over my head just long enough to bring it down on the head of the thing who tried to round the desk.

  The chair splintered into pieces until I was just holding splintered wooden legs and the thing was on the ground by my feet.

  Breathing hard, I turned the impromptu weapons around in my hands so that I could stab them into the creature’s neck like we had at school, but before I could, there was a pressure around my ankle and the next thing I knew, pain spiked through my head in bright colors and I was on my back.

  It had pulled me over and now slowly dragged me by my ankle toward it across the carpet. I screamed and tried to sit up, but the yanking made it impossible, so instead, I kicked with the foot it wasn’t holding. The world remained a blurred mash of colors, but I could make out enough to find its head and kicked over and over at its forehead with my stupid useless sneaker that only made the thing angrier.

  It stopped pulling. I tried to sit up again, but now it was crawling up toward my face, dragging its legs over me, blood from the uniform wiping all across my clothes.

  I froze again as I saw its teeth, blood-stained and gnashing as its face got closer and closer to mine.

  The neck. They always went for the neck first. That’s where Connor’s mother had been bitten, and most of the bodies I'd passed back at school had been missing most of their necks.

  Well, I wanted to go for the neck too.

  I was in control of myself now but on purpose I stopped moving, stopped breathing, holding my breath until its face was right over mine, it's impossible weight crushing me. It clacked its teeth, and right as it opened its mouth wide to take a bite out of me, I drove the stakes into either side o
f its neck.

  Blood spurted everywhere, all over the carpet and all over my face. I screamed and kept screaming as I yanked at its neck to another burst of blood and buried the splintered wood in the side of its head.

  The monster fell still, the laughter gone.

  “Izzy?” I heard Connor’s voice, worried and sounding as if it were coming from a million miles away. “Izzy, are you all right?”

  I started to cry. There was a flesh-eating thing on top of me, and now I was covered in its blood, warm sticky blacker than should have been blood. Of course, I wasn’t all right.

  Connor pushed the thing off of me, the huge body thumping on the carpet beside me, but the weight being removed only made me cry harder.

  Connor didn’t say anything, but he did sit me up and scooted me back away from the body. I collapsed against him, sobbing into his shoulder.

  He wrapped his arms around me, pulling me into his lap so that I could cry. And he let me cry for a good long time. Longer than I would have liked, but I couldn’t stop, the tears just kept keep coming.

  I’d kept myself together in front of them for two days. I hadn’t broken when I’d seen a dead body for the first time or when Darren Liles had been shot. I hadn’t cried when I’d had to stab that thing that had once been someone I knew in the chest with the broken end of a broom, or when a psychopath had held a gun at my face. I hadn’t cried. But now I was crying. Crying because I was scared and finally getting so close to getting eaten alive, my fear spilled over. I hated crying.

  “I’m sorry,” I managed to hiccup. He didn’t say anything, but he put his hand on the back of my head, rocking gently, and after a few minutes too long, I felt better. I kept my face buried in his shoulder because there I didn’t smell the blood. I just smelled him. He smelled like cinnamon.

  Eventually, I gathered the courage to push myself away, mortified and shaking. I didn’t want to let him go, but I felt like I had to. He didn’t let me push away far, still holding me there. I couldn’t meet his eyes.

  “I- I'm getting blood on you,” I whispered. His face didn’t change. He unwrapped his scarf from around his neck and started wiping at my face, wiping away the blood. When I still wouldn’t meet his eyes, he turned my chin so he could wipe the other side of my face as well.