Laughter of the Undead Page 5

  Connor cleared his throat and managed, “Evan is the greatest.”

  The boy, who was apparently named Evan, stood, considering him before shaking his head and shooting the girl beside him between the eyes.

  Everyone screamed.

  “Shut up!” Evan shouted. I covered my mouth with both hands. This wasn’t a book. This was real and she’d just died. Died. I just watched someone die. The screaming muffled to quiet sobs. This was real. This was real.

  Connor’s face went white. “I said it. I said it. Why’d you- why’d you shoot her?” His voice came out a wavering tremble, an octave higher than it had been.

  “Say it louder, Storming.”

  Connor didn’t get the chance.

  Beside me, something in Darren snapped. Sense left him as he scrambled to his feet, pushing passed the boy murderer and trying to flee down the hall, screaming at the top of his lungs.

  He didn’t make it far.

  Evan shot him in the back, but Darren didn’t crumble instantly. He turned slowly as the rest of us on the floor watched. Blood bloomed on the front of his t-shirt where his heart would be.

  “You . . .” he said in a weak and scared voice before he fell backward in slow motion as all hell broke loose.

  The “they” Evan had referred to finally started. Shooting was everywhere. Screaming was everywhere.

  It sounded distant, blurred. People were running. Evan ran. I should be running, but I was rooted to the spot, having watched Liles fall to the ground in slow motion. I knew the moment his head struck the floor and bounced that he was dead before he hit the tile. The boy had shot him right in the heart.

  Time sped up. I blinked. What was happening? The speakers blared to life above us, the monotone “lockdown” followed by a ten-second buzz filled the halls, adding to the chaos. The last of my coherent thoughts went into a bitter sentiment. Took you long enough.

  My world was falling apart around me. I was lucky there was no one with a gun near me, lucky Evan had run, otherwise, I would be dead, just like the girl bleeding on the tile, and just like Darren. I wasn’t alone. Connor was frozen, too, both of us still kneeling where we’d been forced at gunpoint. As I watched, Connor unfroze and scrambled to his feet, running for his friend and falling to his knees beside him, right into the puddle of blood pooling around Darren’s dead body. Like he was in a trance, Connor pressed his fingers to the gaping bloody hole in his friend’s chest and leaned all his weight into his hands. Connor trembled as the pool of blood grew, soaking into his jeans and leaking through his fingers.

  "Get up! Get up, you asshole!" he rasped, voice sounding raw, and gripped Darren’s shoulders, shaking him wildly, his head limp on his neck like a string-less puppet. “Darren, please.”

  Then he started to cry, huge, body-heaving sobs. I stood, my legs shaking under me, and crossed the hall to him, stopping at his back as he wrapped his arms around himself, not noticing that he smeared his friend’s blood on his sleeves.

  I couldn’t describe what I felt. I wanted to throw up and break down crying at the same time, and some weird part of me simply wanted to go back to class and forget any of this had ever happened.

  I closed my eyes and dug my nails into my palms to keep from shaking. I knelt beside him and put an arm around his shoulder. Connor shook all over like he was sick, his face buried in one bloody hand as he cried, the other arm wrapped around his stomach as if he were attempting to hold himself together. When he felt my arm, he leaned against me, probably not even caring who I was. I let him cry. I wanted to cry.

  We had to move. We couldn’t stay here. We’d gotten lucky when Evan ran, but there were so many shots ringing out that someone with a gun could turn the corner at any moment.

  "Come on, we need to move," I said, gently pulling on his arm. He whirled on me, his blue and brown eyes wide and red-rimmed, Darren’s blood smeared on his cheeks like war paint. He turned away and, taking deep breaths, the sobs finally subsiding.

  "Just a sec," he muttered hoarsely, composing himself. He stretched out one arm as if to close Darren’s open eyes, fingers smeared red, but he stiffened when a laugh bubbled up from Darren’s slightly opened mouth— the Darren we had just watched die.

  Three

  Connor

  March 4th - 5:30 a.m.

  The end of the world started when I stepped on a Lego.

  Not literally. I didn’t step on a Lego and then the whole world went ka-boom. The end of the world button wasn’t a red inch-long rectangle belonging to one Tommy Storming, a four-year-old who didn’t like to clean up after himself or play in his own damn room.

  The Lego was instead simply the first piece in a long lined-up domino effect of bad.

  The day was not bad because it was a Monday or, initially, because the world was ending. I could have a perfectly good bad day even without Armageddon. Though, thinking back, everything that led up to the end of the world did have an incredibly Monday sort of vibe to it.

  Other dominos of my morning included getting soap in my eye in the shower, then falling over and ramming my elbow so hard on the edge of the faucet that I thought it was either going to fall off or I would die instantly. Neither of those things happened, but I did manage to then stab myself in the eye trying to put contacts in, spill syrup down my shirt, and lose my left shoe.

  Like I said, an incredibly Monday sort of vibe.

  “Connor!” Dad’s voice echoed up the stairs as I rummaged under my bed for the elusive left shoe.

  “What!” I yelled back, finally grabbing the shoe from where it had been lodged between two shoe boxes that could have contained questionably anything.

  “Hurry up! Your bus is turning the corner!”

  “Shit! Shit! Shit!” Cursing didn’t technically help me shove my foot into my shoe any faster, but it did make me feel better.

  Apparently, my cussing made some difference because I was down the stairs, backpack hanging over my shoulder as the bus screeched to a stop outside the front door.

  “Coat,” Dad said as he tossed me possibly the biggest, whitest coat to ever exist. Someone definitely skinned a polar bear for my warmth. It’s not a sacrifice I am down with and I hate wearing the coat. But as he does every morning, he gave me that certain Dad-look, so I shoved my arms into the sleeves as he shoved me out the door.

  As I stepped onto the bus, I noticed my friends were in my seat.

  Darren, my hyperactive, tall, and lanky friend with dark skin and a terrible sense of humor, sat beside Sam, my stocky, blonde friend who had a tendency to take the bad from Darren’s humor a little too far. For that same reason, Sam had a black eye. Last week he’d been suspended for saying something plucked from that terrible humor bank to the friend of the last person in school you’d ever wanna piss off. But Sam was back, and the asshole had taken my seat, therefore, my spot. I’ve always been overprotective of my spot. Lunch table, dinner, bus . . . I liked having a place to put my ass or my things that I could claim as mine. Like we didn’t have assigned lockers in the locker room, but most people understood: “Connor’s locker. No touchy-touchy.”

  But Sam had taken my spot, the little shit.

  He may have been gone a week, but anyone could still see that my blonde friend had the shit beaten out of him. I wasn’t sympathetic.

  I gave them both the evil eye, Sam for taking my seat and Darren for letting him.

  “Sorry, dude,” Darren apologized with a shrug, not sounding at all apologetic, “the last seat open was beside Frizzy.”

  “You know the drill, man,” said Sam, reaching up to pat me on the shoulder and suppressing a grin. “We look out for each other. Unless we decide to be selfish.”

  I rolled my eyes and walked past them with a huff.

  I had to sit with Frizzy.

  Well, her name wasn’t Frizzy. Her name was Izzy. But people had called her that forever. No one felt obliged to defend her, not even me, which made me feel like a dick.

  Frizzy was a bookish girl who like
d the printed page better than people. Her hair always worn up, she was usually dressed in pastels and red rain boots. She was tiny, olive-skinned, and round-faced. A little on the pudgy side, she appeared younger than she was.

  I didn’t dread sitting with her, not exactly, but I didn’t want to sit with her either.

  As little kids, Frizzy and I were friends. Best friends. She lived a street or two away. I doubt she remembered or cared if she did. We hadn’t talked in years, and the time of our friendship had long ago faded to a distant memory, so it didn’t matter now. It was my fault we weren’t friends anymore. I’d shoved her out of my life, cutting her off entirely in middle school for reasons to this day I'm still unhappy with. But I knew the time to fix that thoroughly gouged rift wouldn’t be on this cramped bus ride. The few times I’d been near enough to talk to her since sixth grade had resulted in unsuccessful attempts on my part to start conversations. She’d ignored me.

  I’m not awkward around most people, but having done to her what I had . . .

  “Um . . . can I sit here?” The question came out choppy like I’d said it through gritted teeth.

  Two girls in the seat behind her giggled for some reason and glanced at me, but I did my best to ignore them, figuring I had syrup on my face or something ridiculous like that.I fought the urge to wipe at my cheek.

  “Uh-huh,” she answered, nose still buried in her book, not glancing up at me. I swung my backpack off my shoulder and sat.

  It didn’t matter now, but we’d been close once. Even though I’d ruined that, and all I did for it now was steal half her seat, I still felt obliged to be nice.

  “So . . . ” My eyes darted around the bus, trying to find something to bring up in conversation or give off some kind of impression that I’m not a completely horrible person.

  She had a book. That would work.

  “What . . . are you reading?”

  Frizzy took a long moment to register what I had said. She gave a sigh that was more exasperated than strictly necessary and slowly lowered the book into her lap.

  For as small of a person as she was, her glare game was strong, and I found it impossible to hold her gaze.

  Instead of prompting an answer, I turned away, face burning.

  We spent the rest of the bus ride in silence as I glared at Darren and Sam, and Izzy returned to the pages of her book.

  When we finally pulled into school, we all piled off the freezing bus. Luckily, the school had been heated. Less lucky, it had been overheated. I started sweating the minute I walked through the door in my polar bear coat.

  “Holy Jesus,” Darren said, taking off his jacket. “Are they trying to cook us alive?”

  “If they are, then they better get out the seasoning because I’m fried.” We both snorted.

  “What are you two pigs laughing at?” Sam asked as he came through the school doors.

  “Are we pigs because we were snorting?”

  “Yes, Darren.” Sam gave an eye roll that didn’t do justice to the exasperation in his voice. “Obviously you’re pigs because you were snorting.”

  “Actually no,” I interjected, “we’re pigs because we’re wearing cha-cha heels. And the blue ones are mine.”

  “What?”

  “The blue cha-cha heels, because pink does not suit me.”

  “Connor, you are so damn weird,” Sam muttered, rolling his eyes at me again.

  “I exist solely to impress.”

  “I’m only impressed that no one’s punched you yet.”

  They both laughed. I didn’t.

  “So anyway,” I started, wanting to steer the conversation away from me getting punched, hitching the strap of my backpack more securely over my shoulder as we moved to the side to avoid the river of people streaming in through the door. “How was out-of-school suspension?”

  “Amazing. Remind me to get into fights more often. All I did was play video games and sleep. I’ll probably have a shit-ton of makeup work, but it was worth it.”

  “Is the Lord of Darkness back, too?” Darren asked, laughing.

  “Yep, The Grave is back.”

  I bit the inside of my cheek.

  I knew that what they were doing and how they were talking about him was bullying. I knew Sam was being a dick and Darren was being an asshole. I even knew that I was a worse dick and a bigger asshole than them because I let them.

  Instead of telling them to shut their faces, I just stood there.

  “So I would suggest avoiding him,” I added after they’d said a few more things. “He nearly beat you to death.”

  Sam made a face at me. “Whose side are you on?”

  I grinned. “The winning side. If you go down, I’m joining the dark side.”

  “Connor Storming,” Darren snickered, “the Dark Lord’s concubine.”

  “Wow. Concubine,” I raised my eyebrows at him, “that’s a big word. I’m proud of you. But do you know what that means?”

  Darren opened his mouth as if to answer me, then closed it again, furrowing his eyebrows. “Slave?”

  “It means ho, Darren.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah,” I nodded as Sam and I laughed, “I’ll be his bitch.”

  The first bell rang.

  Darren’s face went a funny shade of red. Clearly, he had not meant that I would be The Dark Lord’s whore. I waved as I backed away, Sam still laughing and Darren still mortified.

  “See you guys later.”

  I headed off to my locker so I could put my polar bear coat beyond observation. While I struggled to tuck it away, Hannah, my ex-girlfriend, emphasis on the ex, appeared next to me.

  The conversation, which cloned every conversation between the two of us in the past few months, happened like this:

  “Hey, Connor.”

  “Hi.”

  “How’s it going?”

  “Fine.”

  “So, um, me and the girls are, like, going to Dave and Buster’s on Friday and I was, like, wondering . . .”

  “No, thank you. I’ve got plans.”

  “Are you, like, sure because . . .”

  I sighed, “I broke up with you for a reason, Hannah.”

  Hannah crossed her arms and pursed her lips. “And what reason would that be?”

  I sighed again, “For one, you kissed Brad, in front of me, which in case no one clued you in on yet is cheating. That, and I just don’t like you anymore. You don’t care about me— you care about my ass. It may be a nice ass, but it has left you. Deal with it.”

  She stood wordlessly for a moment, trying to find some argument, some way to cajole me, but eventually she gave up. With an indignant huff, she stormed away. I rolled my eyes.

  This Connor-obsessed Hannah was pretty. I gave her that. Her long, wavy blonde hair somehow managed to appear both overdone and completely natural at the same time, framing her sparkly green-eyed face.

  I had, at one point, fancied myself in love with her, but I blame that on seventh-grade stupidity and middle school desperation. Now, of course, I regretted it. We’d started dating freshman year when she’d finally deigned to acknowledge me after my two years of acclimating myself to be who I’d become, but since then I’d descended from the role of actual boyfriend to make-out toy.

  It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure that out, and when I did, I broke up with her. The first time it didn’t stick, because as vacant as she is, Hannah's an incredible liar, and she talked about how much I meant to her and such, so we’d gotten back together. For a month. Then we broke up. Again. And again, and again.

  I finally dumped her, for real this time I’d promised myself. I mean, how many times had she cheated on me? I’d lost count. But even now, after our real and true break-up, she used every opportunity she could find to bat her eyelashes and ask me to go places with her and her “friends”, who are actually more like groupies.

  Sighing, I slammed my locker and headed toward my first class: Swimming.

  To get to the pool, I had t
o walk through the gym, where the basketball team shot hoops and laughed like a bunch of idiots.

  I hated basketball. Don’t ask me why, but I always had. It was my dad’s favorite, though, so I played for his sake. He’d have been proud enough if I just played football, but he always gets so excited whenever our team wins and I had something to do with it, so I never quit.

  “Hey, man,” said one of the players, the game stopping. I didn’t look up until he spoke again. “Hello? Earth to Connor.”

  It was Darren, grinning at me with the ball propped between his arm and hip. I blinked at him, “Hi?”

  “What up, slut?”

  “Darren, don’t call me a slut.”

  “Would you prefer concubine?”

  The other two boys that Darren had been playing with watched our exchange like a tennis match, amused and confused.

  “You can call me concubine if I can call you prostitute.”

  “Alright, my fellow ho,” Darren laughed and tossed me the ball, “wanna play a round?”

  Hell nah, I thought, but instead, I dropped my bag and shrugged. “Sure.”

  I dribbled the ball back and forth between my hands, not watching them but the ground by their feet. I just kept dribbling, something I did during practice, but no matter how many times, they never expected . . .

  Right as I could tell the three were getting bored with me, I lunged to one side, still dribbling, pivoted around them, and, darting forward, I jumped and swished it through the hoop, scoring before the other three boys knew what was going on.

  “I remember why I hate playing with you,” Darren muttered, grabbing the ball and dribbling it himself.

  I was good at basketball. Really good. But that didn’t mean I liked it.

  One of the other two players laughed and stole the ball away from Darren, but I was faster and grabbed it back from him.

  I went for the other hoop this time, but none of them could keep up with me and I made the basket from the three-point line, the other two guys heckling Darren and oohing in response.

  I caught the ball on the rebound and tossed it to him.