Laughter of the Undead Read online

  Someone that would love me. From that day, she had been. She hadn’t adopted me officially or anything, but I would consider Mrs. Fisher a parent before my father. Mrs. Fisher had done everything my father hadn’t. Mrs. Fisher got me into the therapy I needed, and Mrs. Fisher, along with my night job, had paid for the medicine the therapist gave me. Alec had saved me and Mrs. Fisher helped me stay saved. My father made it worse.

  But now she was dead. And so was Alec. But my father, that monster I called Dad, still lived. Where was the justice in that? I blinked up at the deep blue above me, tears I hadn’t realized I shed slipping out of the corners of my eyes and down my temples into my hair.

  Swallowing, I ran my hands over my eyes, wiping the tears on the covers at my sides, pushing back a deep aching in my shoulder.

  “Damn it, Connor.” I yanked the blankets over my legs and rolled over, ears ringing in the silence.

  I rolled over again in an attempt to find comfort and sleep, but it was my bad shoulder, and I just ended up on my back again with a pained hiss. I would never fall asleep, not like this, so I swung my legs over the side of the bed, bare feet on the carpet. My ankles and toes looked thin and pale as I stood like I’d withered to the bone. I slept in my boxers and t-shirt since jeans were impossible to sleep in and I’d prepared for bed brainlessly, I’d been hot. I was cold now and filled with a general sense of discomfort that had mixed with subdued mourning. Subdued because some part of my brain refused to accept that he was gone. The backs of my eyes continually throbbed.

  Thinking about it made me want to punch something again.

  I couldn’t stay here for another second. I left the room and wandered around the couch. I sat in front of the TV for a few minutes, thinking about nothing and touching nothing, just sitting in the dark and the silence and the cold.

  I went up the stairs and into the bathroom, closing the door behind me and flicking on the light. I didn’t have to use the bathroom, I just didn’t want to be alone, and on the clock on the mantle, I’d read the time as well past midnight, so I couldn’t wake either Connor or Izzy just to say “hang out with me”. So I choose just to be near them. To feel people alive. People I cared for and at least a little, cared for me.

  I looked into the mirror. Looked into my own eyes and at my own face, at the bruises and freckles and scars and everything that made my face my own. I didn’t want it. This face was my mom’s, but the scars and the cold features and the hard expression had been made by my dad. My dimples were my mother's, but only Alec knew I had them because he was the only person who regularly saw me smile. I learned an entire language for him, I’d lived the last six years, for him. What was I going to do now? What I’d said to Izzy hadn’t been a lie. She didn’t have to worry about me killing myself because I decided that day on the roof that no one would have to save me like that again. I’d failed that promise one time, and only time only. But I would never fail it again. I’d find Alec again someday, but, if I could help it, not for a long time.

  I looked down at the empty sink and turned the faucet on cold all the way up and cupped my hands under the frigid water letting it overflow before bringing my face down to it.

  Someone knocked, I jumped up, blowing the water off my lips before clearing my throat. “Someone’s in here.”

  “I assumed.” I recognized Connor’s voice and ran a hand over my dripping face. “Just didn’t know who.”

  “This is totally Izzy,” I responded, my voice sounding especially deep, helped along by the sleep-deprived rumble.

  “Haha, Levi,” he replied and cleared his throat. “Are you actually using the bathroom or are you just wasting time because you can’t sleep? Because that’s what I was going to do.”

  “Can’t sleep either, can you?” I muttered.

  “Nope. Not a wink. I keep getting . . . horrible images . . . every time I close my eyes.”

  I closed my own eyes and Alec’s face greeted me, empty and lifeless, “Yeah, I . . . me, too.”

  I pursed my lips and looked at the door, imagining Connor standing on the other side, looking as hopeless and broken as I felt.

  There came a deep sigh and a muffled thump as if Connor had kicked the door or rested his head against it. “I'm gonna try again, to go to sleep, I mean. You should.”

  I nodded before I remembered that he couldn’t see me, but found my voice failed me when I opened my mouth and cleared my throat instead. “You’re right.”

  Another moment of silence.

  “Why are we talking through a door?”

  “I’m not entirely sure.”

  A heavy sigh came from the other side. “Night, Levi.”

  “Goodnight, Connor.” I heard the shuffling of feet as he went back to his room.

  Connor was right.

  Two sleepless nights had greeted me instead of dreams, and it felt like someone had tied a weight to my mental capacity, dragging it down. But not dragging down my eyelids.

  Two nights since I’d woken up on the floor by Alec’s speakers when he’d hit play on the opera, which he liked because he could feel the vibrations in the floor when they sang and he said it helped connect him to the movie again, to wake me up and tell me to get my ass to school. I shouldn’t have gone. I should have said screw it and turned the speakers off and rolled back over.

  But I didn’t. I did what I was supposed to and went to school and everything was all the worse for it.

  Two days. Two days ago, life had been normal. Not perfect. Never perfect, people hated me or were scared of me, and I couldn’t go home if I didn’t want my dad to hit me, but two days ago life was real. School had been real. How was this real? How could walking corpses that laughed be real? I was in Connor Storming’s house, staring at my exhausted reflection in his bathroom mirror. Two days ago I never imagined that I was more than just the scary goth kid to him, or that he would look in my direction. Two days ago, Alec had been alive. Alec had been Alec. My Alec, my best friend and the only thing that kept me going.

  But now the dead and dying walked, full of laughter, I stood with people I’d never known and Alec was gone. I couldn’t make sense of anything. Nothing was real anymore. Not without him.

  Looking at myself in the mirror, I again ran a hand over my eyes. I needed to sleep or the world would make even less sense, spiraling into a realm of exhaustion and fear. I clicked my lip rings against my teeth, and shut off the light, allowing my eyes to adjust before opening the door. The hall outside the bathroom was pitch black. Both doors were closed, the room where Izzy slept and the room with Connor and Tommy. From under Connor’s door, light bled onto the reflective hardwood. He wasn’t sleeping.

  Carefully, I made my way down the stairs and back into the guest bedroom, where I crawled into the king-sized bed and covered myself with the blankets. Instead of staring hopelessly at the ceiling, I turned onto my side, pulling the blanket up to my chin, and pulled my legs up, curling into a ball. I closed my eyes.

  The muffled wind carried me into a haunted, hollow sleep.

  Nineteen

  Izzy

  March 6th - 6:04 a.m.

  The things were gone when I woke up the next morning. I could tell because the house was eerily silent. Last night I had heard them, laughing and groaning through the walls. The whole night I could have sworn they stood right outside my door, and it took me hours to fall asleep.

  I had slept, though, because fear drains me. Eventually, I was able to push the terrible laugher to the back of my head and turn it instead to a gentle roaring of white noise.

  When I first woke up the ringing silence, my first thought was to wipe the blood from my arms. Then, when I saw that it was gone and I was wiping away nothing, my breath quickened.

  I wasn’t covered in blood. Why had I thought I was?

  I stared at my forearms. They were clean, tan, and as unbloodied as ever. Then why could I still feel it?

  I shook my head. “You’re fine, Izzy, there’s nothing.”

  I cov
ered my head and doubled over, breathing hard with my head between my knees. “I’m fine.”

  Eventually, the silence turned to something else. Something less bad. Pans clattered and plates clicked down in the kitchen. Someone was awake.

  Still shaking a little, I stood.

  It wasn’t Connor in the kitchen like I had assumed, but Levi.

  He sat at the table, hunched over a cup of coffee. He wore baggier clothes than he’d worn before, a shirt that was several sizes too big and awkwardly bunched around the sling secured around his shoulder and middle. He had his lanky narrow frame contorted into the chair so his legs were under him.

  I cleared my throat so I wouldn’t startle him before falling into the seat beside him. He didn’t look up, or acknowledge my presence at all.

  I propped my elbow on the table, cupping my chin in my hands, “Levi? Are you alright?”

  Levi looked up. He’d been crying. For the first time, he didn’t have makeup. His eyes looked bigger than I had thought they were, and startlingly green against the red the whites were from crying. Tears gathered under his chin.

  He wiped at his face, blinking hard. “No. Not really.”

  I nodded. Of course, he wasn’t.

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  I’d never expected to watch Levi cry. Levi was the scary one. Levi was the tough one. Levi was the Dark Lord and the lone person at school anyone had ever genuinely been afraid of. But Levi Graves was crying in front of me.

  He started to shake his head, staring down again into his black coffee, but then he stopped himself, “Actually . . . yeah.”

  I shifted, “Anything you need.”

  Levi took a shaky breath and looked up at the ceiling, another tear rolling down the side of his face as he tried to blink his eyes clear, “Can I just . . . talk about him?”

  “Him” must have been Alec. I nodded and Levi buried his face in his hands.

  “It’s only been a day, Izzy, and I miss him. Because I know he’s gone forever and I'm never going to see him again. Izzy, I miss Alec.” Levi’s shoulders hunched even farther. “Alec . . . he was . . . he is the reason I'm still alive, and it should have been me. It should have been me and not him.”

  “It shouldn’t have been anyone,” I said gently, not sure if I should put a hand on his shoulder or not touch him. I knew Connor took touch as a comfort, but Levi might not.

  Levi banged his fists down on the table. “Why! Why is Alec gone?”

  I didn’t say anything, and Levi shook, good hand rubbing the shoulder in the sling, “He’s gone. And there’s nothing I can do about it, but I should have done something. I should have left earlier. I should have gone home immediately.”

  “Levi— ” I tried to interject.

  “It’s my fault he’d dead, Izzy!”

  “Levi— ”

  He collapsed back in his seat, tears running freely down his face.

  I cleared my throat, “Levi . . . were you . . . in love with him?”

  His eyes went wide and he looked up at me sharply. “With Alec?”

  I nodded. Levi looked up at the ceiling again and laughed gently. “No, I wasn’t in love with Alec. He was just . . . my best friend, and my whole family. I loved . . . I love him, but I love him because he was my brother.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to assume . . . ” I trailed off as he met my eyes and smiled tiredly.

  “No, you’re right.”

  “I’m . . . right?”

  He took a deep breath and sat straighter. “Yeah, I’m gay.”

  That confirmed a lot.

  He laughed again, that same light, unforced laugh, “That’s so weird.”

  “What is?”

  “I’ve just never told anyone that I’m gay besides Alec and the few people I’ve . . . ya know . . . ” he put up his one good hand and made half of a quotation mark, “dated.”

  I almost smiled and mimicked his hand motion. “Dated?”

  “It was always a secret.” He shrugged with one shoulder. He paused and thought about something for a second. “Can I tell you something?”

  “Of course.”

  “Do you want to know why I got in a fight with Sam Goodard last week?”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Everyone wants to know that.”

  “I got in a fight with Sam because he’s a dick.”

  “Well, I knew— ”

  “And because he tried to punch me when I broke up with him.”

  The gears in my head started turning. “Wait, wait, wait. You dated Sam Goodard? Like Connor’s friend . . . why?”

  Levi opened his mouth as if he were going to reply, but cut himself off mid-sentence when we heard a groan as Connor rounded the corner.

  Connor walked in like he was drunk and his glasses barely covered the dark circles under his eyes. His hair was a mess and unbrushed, and with the gray shirt and sweatpants, he looked barely out of bed, like he would fall asleep if you leaned him against a wall.

  He looked at us through narrowed eyes, as if the sleep still lingering there made the two of us blurry.

  “I miss a party?”

  “A depressing one,” Levi said, turning back to his coffee.

  “Sounds lit.” Connor nodded, falling into the chair on the other side of Levi. “So what are we doing today?”

  “Hopefully, not dying for a start,” Levi said.

  “I like that plan,” I muttered. Connor gave an exhausted smile.

  “Two days in, only about a million left to go.”

  I sighed. “I need the keys to take the car.”

  They looked at me, both of them wide-eyed. I shook my head. “I'm just going home so I can get some things.”

  Connor frowned, rubbing a hand over the back of his head. “Like what?”

  I gestured to myself, my outfit that was one hundred percent Connor, yet again pulling the sleeve over my shoulder. “Clothes that fit me for one. And other stuff that I’ll need if we plan on holing up here.”

  “Speaking of,” Levi sat back in his seat, arms crossed over his chest, “are we planning on holing up? I heard over the radio this morning that a lot of people in this area are leaving, going for the country and stuff. Most of them already have. They’re thinking about issuing an evacuation. I figured that what’s left of them was wandering around last night. Looks like we’re it.”

  Connor and I exchanged glances, both picturing the mannequins lying outside the stores and the broken glass in front of all the abandoned shops.

  “So,” Levi continued, “are we heading for the country, or are we staying here? Based on what you two saw, those things are here, hiding somewhere I guess. But they are there.”

  “If we stay, we will be alone,” I muttered. “Is there anywhere safe we can go? Would the country really be safer?”

  Connor made a face. “Maybe. Maybe not. Who’s to say the things won’t be just as bad there as they are here?”

  But Levi was shaking his head slowly. “School, Brimington, was the biggest break out of these things, like ever, until yesterday, at a park in New York. Then that one was nothing compared to an airport in New Jersey.”

  Connor and I looked at him. “How did you know that?”

  He shrugged. “The radio in my room turns on as an alarm, and when it goes off, I listen. This was two days ago, but it’s getting worse and people are looking at it harder than they have, but nothing can control it. Half the cities in the US, in the world, have issued some kind of evacuation, but there’s nowhere left to go.”

  “Have they,” I swallowed, “have they mentioned the bug?”

  Levi’s hazel eyes met mine for a long moment before he shook his head. “Not a word. They think it’s a disease.”

  “Then I say we stay,” I said finally. “We know how to protect ourselves and other people wouldn’t listen to us. People don’t like acknowledging things outside of their own ideas, so we’ll stay here as long as it’s safe.”

  “Food?” Levi said, and th
e word was a question more than anything.

  “There’s enough here to last a few weeks.”

  “Then what?”

  I closed my eyes, pinching the bridge of my nose. I don’t know, I thought, I don’t know.

  There was a hand on my shoulder and I didn’t have to open my eyes to know that it was Connor. “We’ll burn that bridge when we get there.”

  Levi snickered, “I don’t think that’s the proper way to use that metaphor, Connor, but I like it.”

  I went back to my room to change, Connor said he’d give me the keys when I came back, but when I got back down the stairs, Connor and Levi were both dressed, armed, and carrying a sleeping Tommy.

  I gave them a dirty look. “You guys don’t have to come with me.”

  “Yes, we do,” said Levi. “I went out alone and that was dumb as hell. You’re not going out by yourself with all those things.”

  Connor nodded, adjusting his hold on Tommy. “We almost died when it was the two of us. If all of us go, we should be safe . . . er”

  I pursed my lips, crossing my arms over my chest. “You know what? Fine. But you’re staying in the car with Tommy while I go in. Deal?”

  They exchanged looks. “Deal.”

  I don’t need an entourage just to get some stuff, but despite my protesting, I appreciated that they were worried for me. I guess I’d proved vaguely useless when actually fighting, but I had killed one on my own, even if I’d broken down after. I’m not useless, but the fact that they were worried about me warmed my heart.

  Apparently, Garrett’s car had evolved since we’d ridden in it. The car we’d rode in to get here from school had been the little black beater. It was now a huge mom car. I wondered what its next Pokemon evolution would be. A giant truck? A spaceship?

  I frowned, but before I could ask, Levi brushed past me, saying, “It’s Mrs. Fisher’s”

  “Oh.”

  Connor knew where I lived. He used to come over so often that the memory was too embedded to be forgotten.

  I sat in the back with Tommy in my lap, asleep.

  My house was a little smaller than Connor's. Only a little. We had one bedroom less but just as many bathrooms and no upstairs. My house was short and squat, with dark red bricks that built the outside and tall frost-covered windows on the front that made it look like eyes trapped in perpetual shock.