Laughter of the Undead Page 2

  He liked the title he got from the way he presented himself and unlike some of us, flaunted it. I didn’t care what people called me. I dressed how I dressed because I wanted to. I didn’t hate the label, but neither did I parade it. The name came because I liked to wear black. Because I didn’t like my hair. Because piercings made me feel badass like I could stand up to people I couldn’t have before— one person in particular. It was a stupid sentiment.

  “Delayed?” Derek furrowed his eyebrows. “Delayed how?”

  “Does it matter, Derek?” Lena said from beside me, her own hair a deep burgundy. “Where’s Alec?”

  “Sick,” I muttered, shrugging.

  It didn’t sound like he was the only one, either. Kina, Zach, Barry, Brian, and Garrett were all gone, too, our goth numbers dwindled.

  “Where are the others?” I asked.

  “I saw Kina when I first got here, but she was,” Lena trailed off and bit her lip, “she acted a little . . . off. She left with Zach earlier.” She frowned at me with worry etched between her brows. “They said they were sick, too.”

  I searched my friend’s eyes, sensing something wasn’t quite all there in what she said, but the bell rang before I could press her. I stood, nodding as I swung my bag over my shoulder.

  “Later, guys.”

  10:03 a.m.

  The morning trickled by like molasses. The gray sky outside made everyone slow and gloomy, and on the whole, uninteresting. Nothing substantial happened until chemistry, where the worst day of my life started.

  As I was in most places, I was hated in the Honors Chemistry classroom. And, like in most of the Honors classes I’d ever been in, the general consensus fell to my not belonging.

  And the head of the “Chemistry Hates Levi” club was my lab partner, a girl named Molly.

  I understood why they mistrusted me. I was Levi Graves, the Dark Lord, the Delinquent, the scariest guy in school. Why was I in an Honors class? The answer to that question was because, while I was never the top of any class, I had a 4.0 GPA and I’d never taken a standard class. Why? Because the moment I graduated, I was getting the hell out of Brimington. I needed a scholarship to go to college, and I needed to go to college to get away from him. I may have had to work harder to stay in Honors, but I was graduating in the top twenty of my class and going to the opposite side of the country, with Alec, and never going to that shit shack I called home again.

  That’s what kept me going, what kept my head on straight in that class and in all the others like it.

  I ignored the reproachful faces of the pretentious as I slung my bag under the table and collapsed in my seat.

  I checked my phone, reading a text Alec must have sent me during swim class.

  It was a picture of the top corner of his forehead, and one eye, and the wall behind him, “How’s Hell without me, Your Darkness?” scrawled across his forehead poorly enough that he must have written it out with his finger.

  Ever since he learned people referred to me as the “Dark Lord”, Alec had made it a point to refer to me as nothing other than related jokes since. My contact name was something along the lines of “Lord of Darkness” in his phone.

  I snorted to myself and texted him back.

  Me: Pretty good. I’ve only punched one person today.

  Alec Fisher: You did not. Tell me you did not.

  Me: It’s fine, dude, I didn’t get caught . . . yet . . .

  He sent me an eye roll emoji and I set my phone face down on the table as I heard the telltale clack of Molly’s usual heels. I glanced up as her pink purse slammed onto the table beside me. I leaned back in my chair and gave her an irritating smile as she set down the binder she carried instead of a backpack.

  “Morning, Molly.”

  She sneered at me and stalked back up to the front of the room to grab the morning work we had to do at the beginning of every lesson.

  “Thanks,” I said, taking mine but only receiving a glare in return.

  “Just don’t cheat, reprobate.”

  It annoyed her when my smile didn’t fade. “That’s a new one. I’ll put it on the list.”

  I could hear her teeth grinding in irritation as she doubled over her paper, supposedly so I couldn’t copy off it.

  I rolled my eyes and worked on my own sheet until the bell rang.

  Mrs. Derry’s Honors Chemistry was one of the most boring classes I’ve ever had the displeasure of attending. Mrs. Derry herself was nice enough, but she had no sense of pacing when it came to speaking, so she either talked way too fast or way too slow.

  Class passed agonizingly slowly. Notes were taken, hands were raised. Mrs. Derry went on her usual random rant about this or that, and everything was normal. I texted Alec under the table between slides. It was a normal class on a normally dull day.

  At least, until the door opened.

  For that exact reason, classroom doors legally had to be locked at all times, but maybe Mrs. Derry forgot. Maybe someone unlocked it on their way to the bathroom and it never got locked again.

  Either way, such a simple thing killed Mrs. Derry.

  The gun went off before we knew what was happening. There was a moment of utterly dead silence when Mrs. Derry stared at us, wide-eyed, as blood seeped from a gaping red hole in her stomach, but then he started firing again. The moment he pulled that trigger, the world went off-kilter, colors shifted, and time slowed to an agonizing crawl.

  I knew the face of the gunman or gun boy, I should say. I knew him. His name was Zach.

  He shot Mrs. Derry again, but this time didn’t stop, swinging the barrel of what took me too long to realize was an assault rifle.

  I grabbed Molly’s arm and yanked her to the ground with me as a spray of bullets pinged over our heads. I kicked my chair away as someone screamed and pulled Molly with me under our desks.

  As much as Molly disliked me, she still gripped my arm with both hands. I put one finger to my lips in a sign to stay quiet and stay down.

  Finally, after what felt like an eternity of screaming and gunshots and dying, Zach stopped.

  I grabbed one of Molly’s hands and squeezed it as hard as she squeezed mine. We were both shaking. Her eyes were squeezed shut, but I couldn’t move my own away from a growing pool of blood a few feet away from us.

  Oh my God, what the shit, what the shit, ran over and over in my head. What is Zach doing? Has he completely lost his mind?

  Two weeks ago, Brian had mentioned something about this, something about shooting, but I had only been half paying attention and I thought he’d meant one of the other ones happening somewhere else. Not this. Not Brimington. Not him. Him, and there had to be more, didn’t there? Hadn’t Zach been whispering to the others about something he never brought to me? No. No way. How did I not know about this? I could have stopped it. I would have stopped it if I had known. How could I have not known? These people were my friends, at least, sort of.

  He just killed my chemistry teacher. Oh my god. I had to do something. What the hell was I supposed to do?

  “That’s right!” Zach’s voice rang out. “You better hide, you snobby assholes!”

  Zach knew me. Maybe he wouldn’t shoot me immediately. Maybe I could talk him down.

  “Molly,” I hissed, pulling on her arm so she would meet my eyes, “I’m going to stand up and distract him. I need you to crawl around the desks as quietly as you can, then make a break for the door and find somewhere to hide.”

  Her eyes widened behind her skewed frames, voice trembling as she whispered back, “Won’t he shoot you?”

  Apparently, there are limits to hate.

  “Let me handle that. As soon as I stand, start crawling and stay out of sight, okay?”

  She clutched my hand with both of hers, shaking her head. “No, we should stay hidden.”

  “He’ll only kill us when he finds us. This gives you a chance to get out. One is better than none.”

  She took a quivering breath. “I’m sorry I called you a rep
robate.”

  I smiled and squeezed her hand before extracting my own and pushing out from under the table. I met Molly’s eyes again and nodded before pulling myself to my feet with the lip of the table.

  When he saw me, Zach swung the gun around to face me.

  I threw my hands up. “Wait, Zach, it’s me!”

  “Levi!” He froze, blinking at me, and then lowered his gun in astonishment. “What are doing here?”

  “This is my chemistry class,” I hissed, managing to keep my voice from trembling. Out of the corner of my eye, Molly scooted away on her stomach.

  “I thought this was Advanced.”

  “Honors,” I corrected.

  “Dude, whatever. I didn’t know you were in Honors.”

  I honestly couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that this kid had been my friend. I’d been to his house, pet his dog, helped his mother cook dinner. I knew him.

  Well, apparently, I didn’t know him. He’d killed Mrs. Derry and who knew who else, and now, we were discussing the exact terminology to use for chemistry.

  The bell rang. My heart hammered even heavier than before, a clear resounding thud against the inside of my chest. Class dismissed, I thought bitterly. Zach wasn’t fazed and stood passive-faced until the ringing was done.

  I tried not to acknowledge Molly’s retreat too obviously. Two or three others took advantage of Zach’s fixed attention and had started crawling as well.

  Someone behind me made the mistake of standing. Zach shot them and their short high scream cut off instantly. I tried not to turn around. I didn’t want to see it. I couldn’t look. Oh god, Zach.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, my hands still in the air, “Why are you . . . shooting people?”

  “Because I hate these people. These people hurt me! They’ve kicked me, called me names, and beaten me until I couldn't remember my own name! But guess what? I realized I’m stronger than them. I have the courage to do something about it.”

  “This isn’t courage, Zach,” I croaked.

  “Like hell it isn’t. Are they laughing at me now? Are they calling me names now?”

  “Yes,” I muttered and my voice broke, “they’re calling you 'murderer'.”

  “Cut the shit, Levi. You’ve been in the same boat as me this whole time.”

  “Do you see me shooting people?” I snapped, “Life sucks, Zach! I know that. And people are assholes, but that’s no reason to kill them. Everyone here hates me, but do I look like I’m shooting them because of that? You’re not the only person in the world!”

  Okay, that was dumb. Yelling at the crazy man with a gun, great planning, Levi. But he didn’t shoot me. He just stared at me with this torn, sad expression on his face.

  “Leave, Levi. I’ve known you for three years and you’ve been a good friend. I’m not gonna shoot you.”

  “What about everyone else in here?”

  “The bitches will get what’s coming to them.”

  “That’s not the right way. There are other . . .”

  “Just shut up, Levi!” he screamed. “Get out! Now! Before I shoot you dead.”

  That’s when I screwed up. I glanced at Molly a millisecond too long. She’d almost made it to the door, past the bank of desks. Zach saw her too.

  He shot her, without hesitation, point-blank in the head. My stomach and throat convulsed, roiling into a scream. I can’t throw up. I can’t scream.

  Someone to my right did scream. I wanted to crumple. I’d wanted to save her, save one person.

  And now she was dead.

  “Leave, Levi. Now, or I shoot this one, too.”

  Zach yanked a girl out from behind the first row of desks by her hair. Tears

  streamed down her face.

  “For you, not everyone will die. Just the specific ones I’m after. This little bitch isn’t one, but she will be if you don’t get your ass out now.”

  “How can I trust you?” I asked, and this time my voice did shake. The girl pleaded with her wide brown eyes in a way that twisted my heart. I almost broke down and failed the whole room, killing everyone because I couldn’t keep myself together over those pleading brown eyes.

  “Because if you don’t, I will kill everyone in this class, including you. Get out. Now.”

  I obliged, walking sideways so I never took my eyes off Zach.

  I’m so sorry, Molly, I thought as I passed over her body, trying not to look, like not looking would change the fact she’d been shot when I tried to help her escape my maniac ex-friend. And it was my fault she died. My fault.

  No. Stop. If you wallow in guilt now, Levi, you will never escape. You can’t help anyone else in that class now. This is the best, the only, way to help. I could only hope Zach would keep his word and not kill them all. I wished he wouldn’t kill anyone. Hell, I wished he had never brought the damned gun to school.

  Zach wasn’t supposed to even be here, just like the others weren’t. Kina and Zach and Barry and Brian and Garrett, none of them. My blood went cold as Lena’s words echoed through my head. Kina left with Zach. The same Zach who I’d just watch murder my chemistry teacher. They all must be in on this. My heart ached as I pieced it together. Maybe Garrett I could have predicted, but not this, not them. They all must be shooters like Zach. But they were my friends. I’d spent time and heart and emotion on them, and now . . . now, they were monsters. My friends were gone.

  I suddenly, jarringly, thought of Alec. Sick on the same day our friends used it as an excuse. But Alec could never take part in this. He could never kill anyone. It had to be a coincidence. Alec would never, could never. Not Alec.

  The hall was deserted when I stumbled out into it. A scream ripped from a classroom behind me. I winced. All down the hallway, doors were closed and windows dark. There was no getting into a classroom, and even if there was a teacher willing to let an innocent student in, no one would trust me. I couldn’t say “I’m Levi Graves” and hope they'd let me in. Everyone would think I was a part of this. I knew what the school thought of me. They’d pit me with the murderers in a heartbeat.

  No, never. I couldn’t. Ever.

  Maybe they called me King of the Goths and made me infamous for what I had and hadn’t done, but that didn’t mean I had to live up to those lies.

  I ran down the empty hall, passing darkened door after darkened door. Lockdown. I remembered the procedures drilled into our heads again and again. I just never thought I’d see the dark windows and hear the dead silence of the classrooms from the outside.

  Six bodies lay on the floor in the hallway. One I recognized as Brian. He had been the shooter here. I could tell by the gun still in his hand. Five people had died before he took his own life.

  Trembling, I walked over to Brian’s body, fighting down a wave of nausea. He had shot himself in the head. The rifle in his hand was too hard and too metal and too cold. Maybe the gun had been merely a weapon, but a weapon in the hand of a broken man led to death.

  I could hear bullets going off on the floor below and suddenly, the lockdown alarm buzzed to life, making my head spin faster.

  Where I stood now ended in a small break-off hall with only a flight of stairs. Against my better judgment, because I had no choice, I went down those stairs.

  When I swung the doors open at the bottom, I had to step back for a second when I saw what I saw.

  Chaos.

  I could hear gunshots going off everywhere but couldn’t tell where they were coming from. And through the stomping feet and screaming and shoving, and falling and sobbing, I could see the bodies. They lay on the tile floor like cast-aside toys. Some with their eyes open, some with their eyes closed, in different positions with different amounts of blood pooling around them.

  But they were all dead, and no one stopped to consider it. Every person had lost control and now all they could do was run.

  I didn’t know what I was doing down here, I just knew I couldn’t be upstairs. Upstairs had no way out.

  The only th
ing I could think to do was get out and get back to Alec’s, but how was I supposed to do that? I didn’t have a car, there certainly weren’t any busses running, and it wasn’t like I could stop some screaming kid and ask them for a lift.

  I couldn’t go outside and try to walk either— I’d freeze to death first.

  The only option was to try to hide.

  But where?

  For no particular reason, I decided to run against the crowd instead of with it, as if being away from the people would be safer. Of course, nothing was safe, but it was all I could think to do.

  The crowd thinned as I reached the tail end as if they were all in hiding or all out trying to get home in their cars.

  You don’t stay at school when someone’s trying to shoot you.

  But then I realized— it wasn’t just that. People weren’t just getting shot.

  All around me, among the kids screaming and among the dead lying on the floor, I could hear it.

  More than anything.

  More than the screaming, and the running, and the dead bodies, and the guns, and the bullets flying, and Mrs. Derry collapsing, and even more than Molly’s death in my head.

  The thing I heard twisted inside me with more fear than I had ever felt in my nineteen years of breathing.

  It was laughter.

  And it was coming from the dead.

  I was frozen, but my wide, terrified eyes moved down to one of the bodies at my feet.

  It had once been a girl with dark brown hair and glasses and a tiny frame, probably a freshman. The way her pink shirt was just a little too big made her seem way too human.

  But she wasn’t human. Not anymore.

  Her brown eyes were fixed open, staring at nothing, a deadness behind them threatening to drag me in, but she wasn’t lying still.

  She laughed, giggling and gurgling, in a way no living sane person would ever laugh.

  Her whole body twitched, and it took me a long minute to figure out that it wasn’t twitching for the sake of twitching. She . . . it was trying to stand.

  I backpedaled, only to run into a boy who screamed in my face before running away. The dead body he’d been standing by was sitting upright, its head limp like a baby doll’s, arms jerking like a broken marionette.