#zombie fic

[unreliablesnake]

It would've been nice (Zombie!Ghost x reader)

When you regained consciousness, you were alone in someone's bedroom. You could remember the flashing lights, the sound of gunfire, the animalistic growls and screams, but your brain couldn't put the pieces together into one picture. You had no idea how you ended up here, and you couldn't help but wonder where Ghost was. 

Once you got out of bed, your hand pressed to your temple as if that could stop the headache, you went to the living room to see if anyone was there. He had to be there. And sure enough, you saw the back of his head, the helmet still on his head as he watched the front door with his weapon in hand. 

“Ghost? What happened?” you asked while you walked around the couch. But when your eyes fell on his face, your breath caught in your throat. His jaw was apparently broken, his body was full of blood, and his eyes were almost white. “What the hell?” 

Ghost raised a hand, as if he wanted to calm you down, but you couldn't calm down. He looked like he was a dead man walking, and you couldn't even begin to imagine what was happening. But then you remembered. The reports about the dead rising, people turning into monsters. Could he be one of them?

Then again… According to the reports these were violent creatures, already lacking anything that would make them human, yet Ghost was sitting here, seemingly conscious enough to try and communicate with you. “Are you one of them?” He nodded. “But you're seemingly human enough to understand me,” you went on, earning another nod.

He shrugged, this move telling you that he had no idea what was happening either. He was dead enough to look like he was living in a rapidly decaying body, and alive enough to keep up conversations. You leaned against the wall, your arms folded over your chest as you watched him.

“Have you been sitting down here to make sure no one could come in and hurt me?” Ghost nodded. “Thank you. We should get back to the others. You think you can come with me?” 

Instead of answering, he stood up and walked over to you to adjust your tactical vest. There were so many things you wanted to tell him, so many things you had kept to yourself before, afraid he would just push you away because of the difference in your ranks. But now you were in a situation when these didn't really matter.

“I have to say this now, Simon,” you began quietly as you took his cold hand. “I want to thank you for everything you have done for me. You stood up for me when no one did, you trained me, you–”

He put his other hand on your cheek, the tenderness of this gesture sending a jolt of electricity through your body. A deep growl left his throat–probably the most he could manage with a broken jaw–but it wasn't enough to make you understand him. 

With a sigh, you gently pulled down his head so you could place a kiss on his helmet. “I wish it didn't happen to you. I wish I had the chance to tell you I love you,” you told him. 

Since he couldn't speak, the most Ghost managed was lacing his fingers with yours before pulling you against his chest. You wrapped your arms around him, enjoying the last peaceful moments with him before you had to leave this place. 

It would've been nice under different circumstances. It would’ve been nice if he wasn't locked into a rotting body. It would've been nice if you had more time together.

[thedo0zyslider]

Martyn’s from some aus :3

[richardgrimes]

would it be super random and goofy to put astrid and peter together or is it kind of a slay

[beetlesau]

!zombie Bakugou x reader, Warm Bodies

Chapter 4, woah woah chapter 4? chapter 4.

He snarled and in one motion, picked you both up off the floor, holding you aloft by the scruff of your sweater. Your feet dangled above the ground as he examined you, turning you easily from side to side. 

Laughing awkwardly in fear at his raw strength was all you could manage to do as he held you like a ragdoll. 

His eyes snapped up to your mouth, listening to the noise it created. If you weren't in this situation, you might compare him to a dog hearing a new sound. Well. like, an angry-looking dog. He cocked his head ever so slightly but his eyebrows were so scrunched, that from your angle you could no longer see his eyes. 

And then, he put you down. And you stood there. For a while. 

"Should I... run? Should I say something? Uh....." As far as you were concerned this was not standard protocol for dealing with a Dead. However, this one was the one in control at this moment so you weren't sure what "protocol" you even meant. 

After all your fear and hesitation died down, you decided to take a step backward. 

The creature, man, Dead, thing, growled and squinted at you, but did not move otherwise. 

So you figured you would test out the other direction. The one that led to the door, the exit. You slowly rotated and took a single small step. You didn't get far this time because, in an instant, his arm snapped out and pushed you back with ease. 

"Ah-ha Okay Hey easy man, easy." You held your arms up defensively and backed up further this time. You backed up to the farthest wall and pressed yourself against it for support. 

This staring contest went on for the longest time. Eventually, you'd slid down the wall into a sitting position, and then finally laid out on the floor. You were too damn tired to keep up with your fear. Maybe you'd wake up to him eating you. Maybe you could die peacefully in your sleep. 

Or maybe, he'd be standing there STILL when you woke up a whole six. hours. later. 

You rolled over at one point and woke up facing the wall. When you turned to look at your prison guard he was still there. Only now, after a much-needed sleep (despite it being on the cold hard floor) you could take him in with new eyes. And a bit less fear... A bit. 

You could see now that his skin was just dirty, not rotted. You'd made his features a lot more scary in your nightmare than what was really in front of you. 

You rolled your eyes. It was odd. You were the most cautious person alive in the world, (not that that meant much) but here you were staring down the beast, and with no more hesitation, you approached him. 

He growled a warning if you were to attempt to leave again, but was silenced by a hand on his mouth. 

"Fuck it. Absolutely fuck. it." You were going to die, and before that happened you were going to get a good look at your killer. 

You pushed your fingers to his upper lip and barred his canines. 

Not the jagged nails you'd dreamed them to be. His eyes were not glazed over, they were simply red and burning. His hair, however, was indeed a mess. There was dirt and who knows what else stuck in its tangles. 

You sighed. All this touching and closeness and he still hadn't eaten you. However, if looks could kill, you'd be dead many times over with the way this guy stared. 

You took a step instead this time to the left, towards the kitchen. He growled and went to put out his hand but you weren't having it this time. You put your own hand up to give him the one-finger "wait" gesture and hoped he would understand. With all the confidence the outside of you had, the inside was screaming to high heaven. 

"OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD" 

But you carried on, headed to the sink, and pulled out your old but clean washrags from the cabinet. You turned the faucet on and waited for the rusty brown water to clear from the line. There was no hot water of course, but anything was better than nothing. With a dampened cloth you returned to your... captor? Guest? ... you returned to the Dead standing in the middle of your apartment. 

"Uh, here. I made this for you... obviously. You saw me make it. I- Uh, I just mean it's to get you cleaned up. Here." you held out your offering awkwardly as you waited for him to take it. Or do something at all, besides look angry.

"Alright... I can do it. Here, let me." you lifted the rag to his cheek and as the cool water touched his face he finally reacted. Poorly. 

He flinched away swatting his hand at you loosely, a grimace at the waters touch. 

"Hey! Stop it! Don't be a baby I'm just trying to help like you asked me to in my sleep." you played with the rag in your hands. He gave no sign of understanding but you couldn't stop talking. You were lonely. All you'd ever had was Dead to talk to, so this felt as comfortable a thing to do as talking to your Dead pals in the car pen. 

"Crazy weird, right? When I got knocked out yesterday I had a nightmar-- I mean, a dream about you." you back peddled as if he would be offended by the word "nightmare"

You said you needed my help, but like, also said you didn't need my help? I'm not sure, after I saved you from that crate, I--"

Something you said must have triggered him because out of nowhere he was fuming. He threw his arms up and turned away from you to pace back and forth. He wasn't exactly fast, you noted. Seemed to have a slight limp, which was understandable considering, you know, his death status and all. He was growling incoherently like if he could he'd be stringing a line of expletive words at you. "Uh, was it something I said?" ignored.

"Crate?" nothing.

"Nightmare? Cause I mean in all fairness, it was." still pacing.

"saved you? Help?" bingo. 

He stopped in his tracks and bared his teeth at you in a childish way. You actually couldn't help the smile that broke over your face.

"Ummm, what you don't like that I saved you?" he marched over and towered above you, his chest heaving. "Okaay, well I did. You know that, right? You weren't getting out of that crate alone, buddy." for a moment you'd forgotten the danger of the situation you were in. You'd nearly forgotten that the person before you was not human anymore. You were reminded of that fact very quickly as you heatedly went to push his chest away from you. As soon as your hand applied pressure, he was shoving you to the ground, his fingernails nearly ripping into the arm you'd held out at him. 

As fast as it had started, it ended. He grabbed your hair and yanked your head to the side, plunging into your neck violently. Time slowed to a crawl in your mind as you could feel his teeth sink into your flesh. Eyes wide and wild, your lungs air was stolen from shock, you intended to use the last of your breath to scream, but all that came out was a whispered: "save me".

His teeth were lodged around your neck, not yet breaking the skin, but god did it feel like it. It seemed as though he was stuck there in that position. Maybe between standing between the vail of Death and a shred of humanity. fighting an instinct to rip you to shreds. 

His breathing was hot and heavy, it smelt like copper and earth. His saliva pooled in the divot of your throat. 

Then he released you. 

By the time you came out of your utter shock, you scanned the room from your place on the floor.

He was gone. For now. 

[norgbelulah]

I know this excerpt from “Whirlwind in the Thorn Tree” is way over the word limit on this ask game, but I really wanted to get both of these interactions in there—and if it had been consecutive and/or didn’t put me WAY past the limit, I’d have tried to get something similar in there with Ava. I just really love the way they start to come together as this little family of four, these three adults coming in to provide something Loretta never really got for the majority of her childhood right when she’s on the cusp of leaving it, and the bittersweetness of that:

When Raylan is there, she asks him where he was when that thing tore her arm open, why he wasn't there. She refuses to let him touch her. She doesn’t see, doesn’t care about the guilt across his face.

She hears, from the next room, Boyd tell him she doesn't mean it, would never ask that, say that, if she was in her right mind. He can't think that way. It won’t help her. But she takes heavy breaths and doesn't know what’s right or wrong or what she would do or think if she wasn't so hot. Her tears burn her and she can’t think.

Her arm is a furnace on its own. She asks him, begs him, to cut it off once a day. She knows it hurts him, but it hurts her more and he should just cut it off.

After that, she becomes consumed with the idea that she's slowly turning into one of them. That she's dying from the inside out. That her hate will consume her, she must be evil now to say such things.

“No,” he says. He’s forgiven her. “This ain't one of them movies, honey. The bite don't kill, you know that.”

But she shakes her head and says he's lying. He shouldn’t do that to protect her. Then she pleads with him, she says maybe he's right, but if she does turn, he's got to put her down.

“You’ve got to do it,” she cries. She makes him promise. “Promise,” she says, “promise.”

And he does so she'll sleep.

The fever spikes and she loses whatever strength her anger and fear had given her. They’re able to feed her, but she sleeps for hours afterwards. She can’t think to form words, can’t concentrate.

She only gets flashes of the hallucinations now, the waking dreams. Boyd comes to see her. He sits on her bed, just at the edge, grave-faced and looking tired. He tells her he was ill, on account of the poison, he couldn’t be in the room without retching. She frowns and traces the outline of a bullet hole in his chest with a shaky finger. She knows its not really there.

He looks into her fearful eyes and says quietly, “That’s where Raylan got me, when he first came back home. It just missed my heart.” He speaks more fondly than she can account for.

“Raylan?” she whispers, voice not coming any louder.

“I couldn’t believe it either,” Boyd says with a smile. “But he did warn me, with a great deal of sincerity. And I was the criminal, you understand. And I had a gun. I thanked him for it later.”

She thinks about what the old miner, Amos, said. What she thinks he was saying. She licks her dry lips.

“You’re tired, honey,” he says and gets up to leave.

She puts her hand on his and he pauses. “You love him,” she says and he sits back down.

The blood from his wound seeps slow to her eyes and she wonders if that’s how it really was when it happened. She puts her hand back on it, but he pulls it off gently and down into his lap. He looks at her like she’s too smart for her own good and says, “We do.”

She frowns again then tries to say, “If I--”

His hand tightens around hers, hard enough to hurt. He tells her, “I won’t hear you talk like that, Loretta,” in the most dangerous tone she’s ever heard him use.

She’s just so tired and so hot and she doesn’t know what she’s thinking. She thinks this must be hell, she can barely remember what life was like before. She shakes her head and turns away, too hot to even produce tears.

He kisses her forehead and leaves her to sleep.

I love this fic so much. I just think that the show gives us these characters who have so many reasons to love each other and then spends a disproportionate amount of time pulling them apart. I always want to write fic that brings them together.

There's room for Boyd and Ava and Raylan to love each other and space for Loretta to be loved by so many parents. Canon shows us that Mags saw something in her that would be easy for others to see too. She's smart and hard and cunning. She's a survivor, which you have to be in Harlan. It makes the adults around her, who also came up how she did, want to love her more and protect her.

There's no question in Boyd's mind that he will literally ingest poison to save this girl's life. Raylan's not happy about it, but he would have done the same thing.

Loretta calls him out for not being there because she's been in a place where it felt like no one would come and she hates that feeling. But she only voices it because (she's fever-stricken and vulnerable) but now she EXPECTS Raylan to be there. And that's amazing. It's almost a gift, honestly. He's her parent now!

I always meant to evoke something almost supernatural in this fever. Like, zombies are magic. So this fever lets you see the injuries someone's sustained that could have killed them. The near misses.

Travis, the doctor, is noted to have had a cut on his forehead in Loretta's fever dreams. In the fic I haven't written yet, he has a backstory on a horse farm where he almost got his head caved in by a stray hoof.

I also like the idea that without antibiotics or other modern medicine, this fever will turn you inside out before it kills you or you recover. And like, Loretta gets it. She thinks she's going to die, and even then she's already taken in Raylan as a parent. SHE wants to make sure HE will be okay. I just love her. 😭

[starbandit]

The World In-Between (CH.3)

PREVIEW:  “I need more information from you. Why should I trust you? What makes you think I won’t throw you out there and let them tear you apart?”

WARNINGS: MATURE CONTENT, MENTIONS OF DEATH, BLOOD, WEIGHT LOSS

word count- 2.5k/unedited

Jungkook threw the bags down as soon as he got inside, with you trailing close behind. You listened closely as the door creaked shut again, and the sound of multiple locks clicked. “Turn around and introduce yourself.” The voice of the man grumbled behind you. 

You turned around slowly, your heart racing. “I-I’m Y/N. I am-was a student in Seoul.” You gulped as you looked in his eyes. 

He was dressed in jeans and a long green jacket. His hair was blonde and laid below his ears, with dark roots. He had smooth, cat-like features. The one thing that caught you off guard was the scar on his face. It ran vertically through his eyebrow, over his eye, and down his cheek. The milkiness of his eye still stared into your soul. 

“I need more information from you. Why should I trust you? What makes you think I won’t throw you out there and let them tear you apart?” He clenched his jaw. 

“I-I don’t know, sir. I promise I won’t be too much trouble,” You could feel the tears welling up in your eyes. The intense stare and threatening energy he was giving off made you extremely uneasy. You were beginning to wonder if staying back in the apartment was the right choice and you made a huge mistake coming here. 

“That's enough, Yoongi.” Another voice chimed in from behind you. Your head whipped around and you were faced with another man, one in a clean, white button down. He had broad shoulders and a neat appearance, soft hair that covered his forehead. “The two of them have been through enough, leave the interrogation for another day, please.” 

Yoongi grumbled. “Stay out of my way, little one.” He whispered in your ears as he pushed by you and Jungkook, knocking his shoulder into yours just enough to make you stumble back a little. A small chuckle came out of his throat as he disappeared up the stairs. 

“My apologies, Y/N was it? Yoongi can be a bit much at first.” The other man shook his head. “I’m Seokjin.” He reached his hand out. You nodded and gently shook his hand, your heart rate finally slowing down. “Have you eaten? I was about to make some dinner.” 

Jungkook answered before you could open your mouth. “No, we haven’t eaten yet, hyung.” Your stomach growled as soon as the words left his mouth and your cheeks burned with embarrassment. 

“Jungkook, why don’t you show your friend to the bedrooms? Send Jimin down while you’re up there, I need him to help me with dinner.” Seokjin gave you another kind smile before turning around and slinking off in the direction of the kitchen. 

Jungkook grabbed your arm and started pulling you in the direction of the stairs. He was rambling on about Seokjin, how much you were going to love his cooking, how the jokes just rolled off his tongue. You weren’t listening too much, too distracted by the sound of your heart pounding in your chest. What the hell were you doing? You jumped on the back of a random mans motorcycle, ended up in a mansion in the countryside, and now you’re gonna sleep here? If your parents, or even your roommates for fucks sake, found out about this, they would have you six feet under in less than 20 minutes. 

“Yah, who is this?” 

You snapped out of your thoughts as Jungkook stopped you in the middle of the hall. There was a man standing in a doorway, leaning up against the frame with his arms crossed and a smirk painted on his lips. He wasn’t much taller than you, with flaming orange locks and plush lips. His eyes were hooded in a way that made your mouth dry and your hands sweaty. 

“Jungkook-ah.” He rasped out. “Who did you bring with you?” The thick Busan dialect made you a little weak in the knees. 

“Hyung, this is Y/N. Y/N, this is Jimin-hyung.” Jungkook threw his arm over the other mans shoulders. “He’s not always like this, just when he wants to show off.” 

“You brat!” The man, Jimin, grabbed Jungkook by the hair and they both started play fighting, loud laughs coming out of their mouths. “Do you want to die?!” 

Soon after the fighting stopped, it ended. Breathless laughs filled the hall and you stood there with wide eyes. “Anyway, it’s nice to meet you Y/N, I’ll save you a spot next to me at dinner.” Jimin winked at you as he pushed by the two of you and down the stairs to find Seokjin. 

You followed behind Jungkook some more before stopping in front of a closed door. He gently pushed it open and revealed a nice guest room, fit with plush white sheets and a new dresser. The newspapers on the windows brought a subtle glow into the room. 

“This will be your room,” Jungkook helped you set down your bags. “You can put your clothes in the dresser and get settled.” He started to back away. “I’ll uh… I’ll leave ya to it then.” He awkwardly smiled and shut the door behind him. 

You sighed and sat on the bed, letting the clean smell of the sheets envelope you. You didn’t even realize how exhausted you were until your head hit the pillows and you were able to fully relax. You couldn’t hear any screams or the groans of the dead outside, only the slight sound of wind and birds. No crying from scared neighbors with children, no banging on your door, just serene silence. You fully relaxed into the bed and curled up, allowing your eyes to close for just one second. 

It wasn’t until you felt a warm hand on your side that you jumped up, the air from your lungs leaving in a silent scream. Your face got hot, the tips of your ears felt like they would let off steam if possible, and you could feel your heartbeat through your entire body. 

“Holy shit, I didn’t mean to scare you.” Jungkook put out a hand to grab your shoulder, the touch instantly grounding you. “I just came up to get you for dinner, Seokjin-hyung wanted you to join us.” 

You let out a few breaths, calming yourself down. “Okay, yeah, let me wash up real quick and I’ll be down there in a second.”

Jungkook nodded and made his way out the door. You let out another sigh and followed behind him, turning the corner into the bathroom. The room was nice, clean and white. The lights were extremely bright and you winced a little at the assault on your sensitive eyes. 

You turned on the cold water and cupped your hands, splashing the water on your face. When you lifted your head to look at your reflection, you almost didn’t recognize yourself. You gently dragged your fingers over your face, feeling the skin under your fingers. 

Dark circles painted under your eyes, scars from nervously picking at your skin, even how pale you had become in the weeks since going into hiding. Your eyes looked dead in the mirror, no longer full of life, no longer bright like they once had been. The bones in your face had become prominent, the baby fat that had once stuck there now gone. You couldn’t help but think about if your family had seen you, how they would pinch at your skin and tell you to eat something, to put some meat on your bones.

You snapped out of your thoughts as you heard laughter come from downstairs. You quickly washed your hands, drying them on your jeans and going to join the boys in the dining room. 

The sun had begun to set, casting a warm glow over the open room. The fireplace in the living room had been lit and the smell of homemade food hit your nose. Your mouth began watering at the smell. You couldn’t remember the last time you had a full meal, the amount of instant ramen and canned veggies you had eaten over the last few weeks had to be criminal on your body. 

The room fell silent as you approached the table and you soon realized there were more people that you hadn’t met yet. All the blood drained from your face as you stared into the seven sets of eyes that were burning holes into you. 

“Ah, Y/N, come sit next to me.” The man you had met in the hallway, Jimin, said in a rough Busan accent, pulling the seat out next to him. A smirk was painted on his face as he softly bit his bottom lip and looked you up and down. 

“Jimin-ah, don’t be gross at the dinner table, please.” Seokjin scolded softly. “Y/N, you can sit anywhere, ok?” He gave you a kind smile from his spot at the table. 

You gave a little nod and slid into a seat next to Jungkook and someone you had yet to be introduced to. Even sitting next to him you were slightly intimidated. His tanned skin was glowing in the light, the sleeves of his t-shirt were rolled up slightly to reveal just a little muscle, and an expensive watch decorated his wrist. He picked up his hand and ran it through his hair, a light sigh left his mouth as he did. You didn’t realize you were staring until he turned his head and stared back at you with a tiny smirk and raised his eyebrow. 

“Taehyung.” He introduced himself. His voice was much deeper than you expected and it shot a spark of heat through your body. 

Dinner went by with a bunch of laughter. You were introduced to the final two boys, Namjoon and Hoseok. The boys all made sure you had enough food, shoving various side dishes and portions of their plates onto yours until you were sure they would have to roll you upstairs from how much you had eaten. 

The boys left the table, going to the living room to watch each other play a game. You stood from your place and began to collect plates. 

“Yah, put those down.” Seokjin scolded from the kitchen. “You’re the guest, go rest and enjoy yourself.” 

“It’s the least I could do.” You continued to collect the plates. “That was the best dinner I’ve had in weeks, Seokjin-ssi.” You delivered the plates to the sink. “At least let me help you clean up, please.” You looked up at him as he sighed and nodded. 

“Okay, but after you have to rest.” 

“Deal.” You smiled and nodded. You and Seokjin made small talk while you cleaned up the mess from dinner. You learned he had become the CEO of a large company recently, which allowed him to purchase this house, with a little help from his parents. He emphasized to you how grateful he was, and how hard he worked to get to where he was. You didn’t doubt him for a second and listened as he rambled on about the responsibilities he had and the history of the company. 

Before long, the kitchen was spotless again. You followed behind Seokjin and rejoined the boys in the living room. They were giggling as they attempted to play a co-op game and were failing miserably. Yoongi was curled in the corner, a small smile plastered on his face as he watched the younger ones argue over what to do. That smile dropped as soon as he made eye contact with you. 

You quickly looked away, instead opting to stare blankly at the TV in front of you. You could still feel his eyes burning holes in you. It made you wonder if he stared long enough if you would catch on fire and melt into the ground. 

Yoongi’s sour mood wasn’t going to ruin your night, there was no way you would allow that. Instead, you joined in on the game, letting a few laughs out as Jungkook whispered what to do in your ear as you played against Jimin. He gave you a high five and stuck his tongue out at Jimin when the screen showed you as the winner in big letters. 

The laughter died down, and soon enough the boys were excusing themselves to bed. Yoongi was one of the first to leave, sauntering up the stairs in a broody silence. Namjoon followed soon after, along with Seokjin and Jimin. You were about to excuse yourself as well, to try and freshen up a bit in the bathroom before bed, when Hoseok stood up from his spot next to you. 

“Y/N, would you like me to show you how to use the shower?” He questioned softly. “Not because you stink or anything, oh god, I just figured it would be nice to shower before bed and whatnot.” His cheeks turned red. 

You smiled. “Yes, please.” Your knees ached as you stood up and you turned to say your goodnights to Jungkook and Taehyung before following Hoseok up the stairs. He led you to the same bathroom you freshened up in earlier in the evening. 

You watched as he turned the water on for you. “Okay, turn it left for hot water, right for cold.” He wiped his hand off on the towel hanging over the toilet. “All the way down to turn it off when you’re done. Towels are in the cabinet and feel free to use whatever shower stuff you need, ok?” He gave you a kind smile and began to back out of the bathroom. “I’ll see you in the morning, Y/N, have a good night.” 

The door clicked as he shut it behind him and you let out a little breath. The room was beginning to get steamy and you figured now was the best time to get in the shower. You set out a towel, a nice plush one that smelled like a soft floral arrangement, and stripped to get into the shower. 

The hot water felt so good you couldn’t help but relax under it. Thoughts about what you had seen that day flashed through your mind, the countless bodies on the roads, the screams from the treelines leaving the city. You thought about your roommates, were they even alive? You hadn’t heard from them in days, did they leave the hotel or stay where they were? What kinds of horrors had they seen? While there was nothing you could do now, you couldn’t help but feel a little guilty. Survivors guilt maybe? You shook your head, no, not survivors guilt, they weren’t dead, for all you knew they could be frolicking through fields of flowers. 

You quickly washed your hair and scrubbed your body before getting out of the shower. You didn’t want to take forever, and thinking about your friends dying wasn’t doing you any good. You were hopeful that a good night of sleep would snap you out of it. 

Soon enough, you tucked yourself into your bed, allowing the blankets and pillows to envelope you once again. For some reason, Yoongi’s words replayed in your mind as you began to fall asleep. 

“Stay out of my way, little one.” Little one…

[mothman-can-write]

ALSO now that punk is all posted my brain is letting me think about my next multichap and im starting on my zombie fic :)

[snowywinterevenings]

WIP Tag Game

Post the last line of your WIP and tag as many people as there are words in the line.

@brokenphoenix99 tagged me in the last line game, but I’m going to post several lines from the zombie fic that has eaten my brain. Open tags for all who would like to participate!

When he returned to their bedroom, he found Obi-Wan had curled into the spot he had left and buried himself under the covers, never one to wake early when he could sleep in on the weekends. They were supposed to go to Leia’s baseball game in a few hours, and he supposed they could, one last act of normalcy before everything went to hell, but it would be better for them to get out of the heavily populated capital before there were roadblocks and violence spilled out into the streets. It wouldn’t take long. Once the general population was aware of the danger they faced, everything would fall apart.

But it didn’t hurt to pause and take in Obi-Wan bathed in the golden warmth of morning sunlight for a few moments. It didn’t hurt to settle on the bed beside him and brush fingers along the silver that dusted his temples and blended back into coppery strands. A few seconds spent cupping Obi-Wan’s cheek as he stirred to wakefulness and gave Cody a sleepy smile would cause them no trouble. If this was the last time they woke in their bed, Cody wanted to savor it for as long as he could.

“Good morning, my dear.”

“Good morning.”

The words caught a little in his throat, grief for something they had not yet lost spilling briefly along the surface of his thoughts. Obi-Wan tilted his head, brow furrowing in concern, and Cody turned his head to kiss the hand that settled against his cheek, closing his eyes and breathing in deeply, committing the moment to memory. They would come back when it was all over. The little home they had built, the home in which they had planned to spend the rest of their lives, was not lost to them.

“Is everything all right, Cody?”

His answer was interrupted by the insistent buzz of his cell in his pocket. Thinking it might be one of his siblings or one of the Skywalkers returning his call, he fished it out only to see a familiar name on the screen that made his blood run cold for the first time since Kix had reached out. He ignored it, tucking it back in his pocket and squeezing Obi-Wan’s hand, ignoring the frown on his husband’s face.

[everlarkficquestions]

Hi! I’m searching some fics or one shot about Everlark in a zombie apocalypse, or in an apocalypse in general. Thank youuu

Hi laurasbogs-stuff,

If you go to the link below, or to directly to our main page and search "zombie", it will bring up a plethora of previously answered asks with lists of zombie and apocalypse fics!

everlarkficquestions.tumblr.com/search/zombie

Enjoy!

[clzombiewrites]

Chapter 6 - Blood, sweat and tears

Hi! I just published "Chapter 6" of my story "Blood, sweat and tears - Mick Schumacher x Reader".

I hope you like this chapter! Sorry for the very long wait, I didn't have much time or inspiration these last months, but here it is! Next chapter will be very interesting, so stay tuned!

[animaestr0]

The Second Chance - Chapter 10 - AniMaestro - Original Work [Archive of Our Own]

I wrote another chapter to my Zombie Apocalypse Fic! its a little (read a lot) fruity, and I think you'll like it :D one of the comments described it as it being like the anime Erased, if Erased had a zombie apocalypse theme instead of the whole murderer thing.

[richardgrimes]

rereading fringe & the dead cause it's my favorite fic to ever exist and i remembered "ah man this character is gonna die :///" then i realized i'm probably killing this character in mine too so.

[beetlesau]

Chapter 9 That's the sound a heart makes

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lubb-Dub is what the internet said was medically accurate, don't @ me

link to previous chapters below

"Katsuki?" you shook him lightly at first, then with rough panicked motions. His body was slack and unresponsive. 

"Shit... shit! What is going on!? Hello!?"

You had no idea what to do. He didn't have a pulse, it's not like you could check that.

And he didn't have a heartbeat, you couldn't imagine CPR would work, but that didn't stop you from giving him chest compressions a couple of times over. 

When that didn't yield results all you could think about was how you needed to get his body back to the house. It was unlikely that it would help, but you were a bit short on solutions.

Now there was the problem of how heavy he was. Or maybe the problem was how weak you were. Even with your adrenaline rush, you could only move him a few feet before the burn in your legs made your muscles cramp up. 

"Think. THINK." you paced a moment, hands compressing your skull in an attempt to focus harder. 

"Oh god..." 

You weren't strong enough to move him, but maybe if you had help. 

If Katsuki was conscious right now he'd be fuming at the idea running through your head. 

"Well, you can't get mad at me right now, can you?" you spat back at your imagined argument with him. 

You needed help. And the only moving bodies close by would be the Dead back in the new community area. 

Maybe they're rehabilitated just enough to help me... or they'll eat me. You didn't bother to weigh the pros and cons as you sprinted back to the houses. 

Out of breath and sweating when you arrived back, you shook the fence and shouted before reaching the gate.

"Help! Hey! Come out here, please! I need your help!" the yelling and rattling alerted the small residents as they slowly trotted their way down the fenceline with you, meeting you at the gate.

"PLEASE. Listen to me," you begged that whatever improvements they'd made allowed them to understand the urgency and sincerity in your voice. "Bakugo is in trouble. I NEED you to come help me carry him back home. I NEED you to not EAT me, Okay? Please." Oh god, please. 

You took a deep breath as your hand lingered on the latch before opening it. 

"You could run away. You could forget about the Dead. You could find a new place to live, far away that even if Katsuki did come back he wouldn't find you. This was never meant for you. You deserve to be alone."

"NO!" you screamed before pulling the latch and letting the gate swing open. You didn't have time for any intrusive thoughts. And besides that, you knew without a doubt you never wanted to go back to how things were. You didn't want to go without Katsuki. Which is how you knew that the freed Dead would help you. They HAD to help you. There was no other way.

You turned to lead the Dead to his body before they had a chance to pass the threshold. "Follow. Me." you didn't ask, you commanded. 

And they listened, whether to eat you or to help you didn't matter now. 

It felt like the run-back took years longer than the run-away.

You hadn't looked back to see if they were running along with you, you could hear them. They weren't nearly as fast as Katsuki had been. Their sounds were simple ragged breaths that didn't hold any of the bite you'd experienced earlier that day. 

Finally, there he was, right where you left him. His body is motionless on the ground.

You hoped that he'd be awake by the time you got back. Just a false alarm. Maybe he'd be gone, searching around for you. Or he'd be sitting up there, nursing a headache. Something, anything. 

You were gasping, kneeling beside him. You held his hand in yours as you waited for the distant panting to catch up to you. "It's okay, Katsuki, I brought help. Everything is going to be--" you were cut short by a pair of arms grabbing and pulling you away from behind. "No! Stop! You have to help him!" you were knocked off balance and fell back. Above you was the Dead that grabbed you, cocking her head to one side as she looked you over upside down. 

"What are you doing!?" you croaked up to her as she reached down to grab you again. Only instead of a forceful grip she was almost gentle. She pawed at your shoulders trying to get a handle under your arms. She was trying to pull you away.

You turned your attention to the others that had made it to the scene a couple moments after her. They were doing the same, only to Katsuki. One didn't have very fine motor skills as he tried to capture the body's ankles. One of the more capable ones grabbed Katsuki's left arm while the last had a grip on the waist of his jeans. 

You looked back up at the Dead that tried to keep you out of the way, "I can help." you shook your head, an acknowledgment to her that you understood they were here to help. 

Her head swayed a moment before she took a shuffled step back from you.

Standing, you took place at Katsuki's right shoulder, hooking one arm under his and the other under his waist. 

The hustle back had you overheating and worried your companions' bodies might give out on them too. 

------------------ ------------------------

You sat in a wooden chair across from the couch Katsuki was laid out on.

After you'd directed the others to place him there, they kind of went back into a blank mindless stare. 

After the first day, they drifted off back into their respective yards, or just nearby. You didn't bother locking the gate again. If they could show that much humanity, you felt wildly uncomfortable treating them like exhibits at a zoo. 

Katsuki wouldn't be happy about that. He'd tell you that it was stupid and unsafe. You would welcome the earful if he would just come back. 

On the second day, you grabbed the comforter from his bed and sat over him in your chair. You'd hardly leave him a moment for anything save for food or a bathroom break. 

You'd fallen asleep after trying to keep your eyes open the night before.

When you came to, he was still there.

"Bakugo?" no reply. 

"Katsuki." silence.

Your eyes were becoming cloudy from the tears and sleep. Mindlessly, you stood and slotted yourself between his body and the cushions that made up the back of the couch. You were out of plans, you were just so tired and alone. 

You sat in a tub of water. It was warm and inviting. You slid your body further into the slow pulsing waves until all of you were submerged. You listened to the sound of your own heart beating in your ears.

Lubb-Dub-Lubb-Dub.

 Everything was peaceful and weightless. You opened your eyes to see through the crystal clear endless ocean above you. A silhouette appeared, and you could see a familiar blonde with piercing ruby eyes. A dozen or more arms slid into the water to embrace you, his arms. They swathed around every inch of you as they hoisted you out of the water and into his warm beating chest. 

Lubb-Dub-Lubb-Dub.

The ocean around you caught fire and the smell was sickly sweet, But in his embrace, you felt no pain.

Lubb-Dub-Lubb-Dub.

On the third day, he awoke.

Lubb-Dub-Lubb-Dub.

Covered in sweat and heat, his eyes jolted open as he gasped for air.

On the third day, He awoke with you by his side, where he knew he'd want you to be for the rest of his life.

On the third day, Bakugo Katsuki awoke with a heartbeat.

Lubb-Dub-Lubb-Dub.

[ghost-bxrd]

Prompt:

After Jason’s resurrection he finds that his body works… wrong somehow.

Some days he forgets to breathe until he wants to say something and finds there’s no air in lungs. Other days his body goes eerily cold until someone points out that his lips are blue and he needs to warm up.

And some days his heart stops beating in his sleeps.

It’s fine, really. It always starts again eventually a short while after he wakes up. And yeah, of course it was a bit scary the first couple times it happened but it’s not like his resurrection and Pit-dip came with an instruction manual, so this is probably pretty normal stuff, all things considered. He is kind of the definition of “undead”.

The real trouble starts when he forgets to mention those little details to the Batfamily when he stays over for the night.

[queenimmadolla]

𝐅𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐤 𝐋𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐌𝐞

(A Lisa Frankenstein, Eddie Munson AU)

next ┊ 𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

Summary: After a series of unfortunate events in your life, and lonelier than ever, you often turn to a dead guy and his tombstone for comfort. Never in your wildest, fucked up dreams did you imagine he’d turn to you for the same thing, but you find yourself hiding a living corpse, bringing him further to life, reaping some justice, and cutting off a lot of body parts all while trying to fit in and falling in love.

a/n: Part One is here! Just want to say thank you to my friends for hearing me rant and rave about Lisa Frankenstein for weeks now, though I’ve been unbearable with this concept in my head. This will be the longest chapter, just to establish some stuff, but we’ll get to the slaying! Hope you love Undead!Zombie!Eddie as much as I do. Happy reading! (p.s.,there will be some romantic smut in a later part)

Chapter warnings: a bit steve harrington x reader, some eddie munson x other female, death of a family member, brief description of SA (bordered with RED DIVIDERS if you’d like to skip), mistreatment of Reader, suicidal ideation (reader just has dark humor), implied murder, very campy, very cunty.

THEN, 1986.

  “Where you head’n too so in a hurry, boy?” Wayne Munson asked, sat on the couch with a mug of steaming hot coffee in one hand and the television remote in the other as he watched his nephew bounce around the trailer, grabbing all of the the items he let haphazardly around. 

  Wayne always told him to pick up his things, but like the rambunctious boy he was, there was no breaking out of his messy habits.

  “I got people to see, pops. Things to do. Trouble to ‘cause, cops to anger, you know the drill.” Eddie didn’t even need to turn around to know his uncle was scowling but he was proven correct when he turned to throw his father figure a shit eating grin over his shoulder, “Kidding, old man. Mom had me baptized when I was a baby, remember? I can do no wrong, like Achilles.” 

  “Wha’?”

  “Ugh, dad. If I have to explain the joke, it ruins it. I’ll be back by dinner, alright?”

  Wayne fixed him with a pointed look, “You best be on your best behavior, you hear me?”

  “Always.” Eddie gave a mock salute before dipping out the front door, still grinning as he tossed the keys of the van and caught them midair. 

  While he wasn’t necessarily going to cause trouble, he certainly would be providing the fun grass, powder and pills that were often behind it. Eddie knew Wayne was aware of what he did, had implied so when talking about how he knew Eddie was a good kid, just living in the wrong circumstances sometimes. Always said he wanted nothing but the best for his boy and for Eddie to realize he was meant for more than what this particular town forced on him. 

  Made Eddie’s chest tight, but seeing things like the broken patio board—Eddie had accidentally stomped through it after seeing a spider—reinforced Eddie’s belief that he’d much rather help out any way he could than let his uncle bear the financial weight of providing for him. 

  The van roared to life, after sputtering for a good seven seconds, and Eddie revved the engine a little. As he let her warm up, something in the side mirror caught his attention. 

  Someone. 

  Sheila. His neighbor in the trailer across the street. She was hauling a box to a car, looked rather heavy and Eddie would have dropped everything to scramble over and help her, had it not been for Mr.Brawn at her side. 

  Eddie watched as the guy, who stole the girl he was in love with right out of his arms, grabbed the box. The two lovers exchanged words which ended with them laughing at something as she followed him to the car.

  He slid the box into the packed car as she climbed into the passenger seat, and before Eddie knew it, he was watching her drive away, right out of his life forever.

  Eddie hadn’t even realized he was clutching his steering wheel so tight, his knuckles were straining against the skin, hot tears pooling at his waterline but he refused to let them fall. He’d shed more than enough tears over her, over what could have been.

  They started off so promising; throwing flirty waves from their bedroom windows, occasionally at school, before she approached him for weed. After that, came the whirlwind romance and Eddie hadn’t considered himself a romantic before—hadn’t had a whole lot of opportunities to make that discovery but he was so fucking romantic. A big sap. And he wasn’t ashamed of it. 

  Until she’d graduated, and he hadn’t. Again. Turns out, not trying at academics all year and then aiming to ace finals wasn’t enough. 

  Suddenly, all the bullshit naive plans they had to run away somewhere far from Hawkins weren’t possible. At least, Sheila couldn’t with Eddie. 

  He lost her to a guy in another band, had made the mistake of taking a piss after he and Corroded Coffin performed to their tiny ass crowd, and had come back to see her talking to the keyboardist of the band that had gone on before them. She looked entranced, leaning forward to hang on to whatever the fuck he was saying. When Eddie had gone over to ask her if she was ready to head out, fully prepared to tuck her under his arm and way from the keyboardist, she’d insisted and told him to his face, in front of his apparent competition, that she was gonna stick around a little longer and he should head out without her.

  He’d spent the entire night pacing in front of his window, glancing out of it every five minutes and every time he heard a pair of wheels turn onto the dirt road. Eddie got his confirmation when his car happened to be one of them. He’d watched, heart splintering, as the keyboardist got out of the car and walked around to open her door for her before they disappeared into her trailer. Eddie knew her dad worked nights. Knew what she and that musician were doing and he’d thrown up the entire contents of his stomach at the imagery before passing out.

  Eddie woke up to Sheila hovering above him and framed by the glow of the bathroom light like some angel. She’d dumped him right there and left the spare key he’d trusted her with on the table.

  And now, she was living her dream with someone else while Eddie got to stick around this shitty town with these people who could barely stand him for no reason (and yeah, okay, maybe he’d poke their buttons). In truth, while he was a little heartbroken over her, it was the fact that she still got her happy ending that hurt the most.

  The girls around Hawkins might have been interested in maybe hooking up with him, but they weren’t interested in being Eddie’s girl. Weren’t interested in falling stupid in love with him, making plans to start a life together. Didn’t want him in their plans.

  Eddie Munson was lonely. And it sucked.

  With a heavy sigh, he cranked on the radio, fingers twisting the volume dial up to the most obnoxious level before shifting the gear to drive.

  “It’ll get better, Munson. Love ain’t no stranger.” He mumbled, sucking on his teeth and pulling out on the road.

  If he had known then where it would lead him, where the night would take him, he would have at least hugged his uncle. It would be the last time he saw him, and it would be the last time Wayne Munson saw his nephew alive.

  Three days later, he’d be identifying and weeping over his boy’s body in the morgue after reporting Eddie missing when he didn’t come home.

  NOW, 1989

  “Where are you going? It’s almost time for breakfast.” Chrissy called out, head poking out from her bedroom as she watched you race down the hall.

  “Not hungry! I’ll be back soon!” You called over your shoulder, the large sheet of craft paper wrinkling in your hand as you took the stairs two at a time before bounding down the short entryway.

  You’d almost crossed the foyer and then slammed yourself back against the wall as you saw Laura, Chrissy’s mom, fiddling with something at the table. She had the radio on, some garbage self help tape spewing nonsense to her, and that condescending smile on her face.

  Yeah, you’d be avoiding her, lest you wish to be verbally and eloquently belittled. How Chrissy came out of her toxic womb to be such a good person, you’d never understand. 

  When Laura crossed into the kitchen, you sprinted for the door, fumbling a little with the knob in your urgency, but once you got it open, you were out, running across the walkway and the fencing around the house until you were in the woods behind it.

  Only then did you feel safe, the trees a welcome reprieve from your living situation, the magnifying glass this new town had you under, and from the world in general.

  You’d come from a small town before Hawkins, so you were used to small town living. But these people were so judgemental. You hadn’t even grabbed a box from the moving van before your neighbors were casting you snide looks, noses turning up and backs to you as they watered their yard and lounged about.

  Four months later, nothing had changed. If anything, they were more open with their disdain for you, commenting on your demeanor (and you were a cool fucking person), outfits, hair, body. It was annoying. They were annoying. EVERYTHING was annoying. 

  You didn’t even want to be there but you had no real choice. You’d graduated high school a couple of years ago and despite the popular teenage notion that you’d simply pack up your things, go to college and be successful at whatever career you wanted, life did not happen like the movies. The freedom you’d been promised by your own delusions never came. That bitch came with a hefty price tag and you weren’t exactly jumping into a safe of gold coins like Scrooge McDuck with your minimum wage job. 

  You’d gotten into several schools of your choice, but scholarships wouldn’t be nearly enough to cover it, and you’d literally have to sell your entire body to science if you wanted to be able to afford the loans you were being offered, since their interest rates were higher than the standard human beings’ lifespan. 

  So, living with the ‘rents was checked off on your list of things you didn’t want to continue doing past your high school graduation. And hey—you were only 19 years-old! You were still young! Just save up a few years, and maybe one day you’d be able to think about taking a loan. You had time. What could possibly go wrong to throw your plans off?

  Your mother was murdered.

  Yeah, that was a bummer. Could’ve been worse, you supposed. You could have died with her, when your home had been broken into, and sometimes you wish you had. Alas, you were still breathing, albeit extremely traumatized. But only good ol’ mom was six feet in the ground, in an entirely different town, because your father had also moved on a mere few months after her death, with the worst woman to leave flaming footprints on the earth’s crust, and they’d eloped after like six dates before moving you to a town where you knew no one.

  Thinking about it actually made you sick and feel a little delusional. 

  The only real good thing about your entire soap opera of a year was the community college you’d been able to enroll in. You had no real idea what you wanted to do in life, had no real drive for career paths, but you were doing something, and that something kept the she-devil that was your stepmother off your back. Most of the time. Some of the time. She couldn’t say you were a deadbeat yet.

  Chrissy, your sweet to a definitive and insensitive fault step-sister had pushed you into going with her for registration. Convinced you it was the perfect way to make some friends. It was hard to say no to Chrissy, she had a way with people and could make the meekest soul feel like they were capable of anything and everything. She could always see the best in people, and she was outgoing. Your time in Hawkins had been brief, but you’d easily gathered Chrissy was popular, a former cheerleader (and she’d successfully tried out for the community college team) and beloved by all. While part of you felt a little jealous at her confidence, you admired her more. She was never intentionally mean to you, either. She made the occasional comment, but it seemed like Chrissy had more so a filter problem, rather than spitting anything out with sugar coated hostility like her mother. Chrissy was...nice. After everything you've been through, you could use a little nice in your life.

  And sometimes nice was also the woods behind your house, as it led to the Hawkins’ Cemetery. 

  Morbid, sure, but you couldn’t help yourself. After a particularly nasty encounter with Laura the first week of your Hawkins sentence, and feeling lonelier than you’d ever felt before, you’d gone for a walk, tears decorating your face with wet trails as you tried to physically hold yourself together, arms wrapped around yourself. 

  You’d arrived at the cemetery, and because you couldn’t pay your mother a visit, you decided the only decent thing to do was visit other lonely souls.

  You’d stopped to pay your respects to just about every tombstone and plaque, but one in particular caught your attention.

  Tucked away in a corner and separate from the other graves, under a weeping willow, was the most damaged tombstone of them all. Parts of it were broken off, a lot of the information pertaining to the individual underneath it was seemingly grated off. You had no idea who it was, the only remaining legible letters were MUN and you figured it was he simply because you’d taken some paper to the tombstone for etching and ran a black crayon over it. You’d been able to make out the word ‘he’ on the paper and deduced it had once read may he rest in peace. 

  The state of his tombstone surprised you, given how recent the date of death was. While his birth date had also been worn away, the year of death—1986–had been left. It was 1989. No way his grave should’ve looked like that.

  Apparently, even the groundskeeper avoided his part of the cemetery. The grass around his grave was overgrown, and pitiful. So, you’d gone home, grabbed the lawn mower, and pushed it all the way over. You’d ended up disgusting, covered in grass, dirt and sweating like a cheater on a Sunday morning, but his grave was looking better. You’d taken to caring for his grave after that. A bunch of your trinkets and things you'd seen that you immediately thought he’d like surrounded him now and you’d even planted some bluebells. 

  He also made surprisingly good conversation, even though he never talked to you. His presence, while mostly imaginary to you, was comforting. 

  So, during any free time you had, you were sat against his tombstone, chatting about your day, life, whatever you wanted. Felt like he was always listening, no matter the subject and it was really lovely to be heard.

  When you arrived at the cemetery, it was practically vacant, with just the red headed girl you normally saw. You didn’t see her all the time, she was just one of the faces you saw the most, and that was only a handful of occasions. For the most part, Hawkins didn’t seem keen on remembering the dead. 

  “Hope you haven’t been lonely without me,” You greeted as you approached his tombstone, ducking under a few low hanging willow branches that still brushed over you anyways. You’d have to ‘borrow’ Laura’s shears soon, the willow tree was hauntingly beautiful around his grave, but you wanted its branches and leaves to frame his grave, not conceal it, “I missed you.”

  It was a little odd, but you did. 

  When you weren’t at his grave, you were thinking about him, trying to put a face to MUN, wondering what his life had been like. Did he have any loved ones? What had his interests been? How had he died? Had he felt as lonely as you did?

  “I know, I know.” You settled onto the grass in front of his tombstone, securing the craft paper to his tombstone with some masking tape, “I was just here last night.” You imagined he would say.

  “I just can’t stay away from you. You have a very intriguing aura: I can’t see it because you’re dead, and that makes me want to know you more.” You pulled a black crayon from your pocket and went about scribbling on the paper, over where you knew MUN would be etched in stone, “I’ve said it a million times, and you’ve probably turned over in your coffin repeatedly because of it, but you’re the only one who understands me. And you’re the only one here that I care about—probably in the whole world actually, except maybe Chrissy but I know her friends think I’m weird, and I don’t want to drag her down with me.”

  Once the letters appeared on the paper, you sprawled out STER and you dropped the crayon to produce a pretty hot pink marker from your pocket instead, signing your name with a little heart to go with it just above the last name you’d crafted for him.

  The odds of this dude being a Munster were slim to none, but you thought it was fitting for someone who lived in a cemetery.

  You sat back on your haunches to admire it, it was a cute piece. Would look nice on your wall and whenever you missed him and found yourself longing to be near his grave, all you’d have to do is turn on your side and you'd be able to see part of him. 

  You ripped the paper off his tombstone, and weighed it down on the grass with a rock. With that out of the way, you gave him your full attention, shuffling until your head and shoulder were leaning against the stone, “Would you wanna be dragged down with me? Be seen with me? I’m somewhat of a pariah around here. Did you have better luck when you were still kicking?”

  You figured with how fucked up his tombstone had been, probably not. You imagined he’d confirm it, too. Just out right say, ‘Nah, these assholes hated me.’

  “Yeah, looks like we’re two peas in a pod.” Then you glanced down, fingers, twirling the blades of grass over his grave, “Or, you know. Casket.”

  You let silence fall over you, broken only by the chirping of birds in surrounding trees.

  “Goddamit, why do you have to be dead?” Your eyelids fluttered close, and instead of the cold stone, you imagined your head pressed against a warm chest, rising and falling with breaths, and a heartbeat thumping strong below your ear, pushing blood throughout his body. Imagined he was alive, arms slipping around you, firm and strong to hold you together so you didn't have to anymore.

  But he wasn’t, and you were reminded when the groundskeeper shouted, “HEY!”

  You shot up, glancing around until you saw him by the entrance with a leaf blower, “YOU AWAKE?”

  What kind of a dumbass question was that? Sure, it had looked like you were asleep but you were clearly alert now.

  “YEAH!” You shrieked back to be heard, and he went back to not caring. 

  “He can see me leaning against your tombstone, but he can’t see overgrown grass, weeds, rocks, or your grave in general when I’m not here. Men, always so selective, amirite?”

  You glanced at the stone, half expecting it to respond. “Eh, what do you know, you’re just a man, too.” You reached your arm back, knuckles trailing over MUN.

  “Despite you mouthing off to me most of the time, I brought you something.” You reached into your other pocket and pulled out a necklace, lined with black pearls and a cross pendant. It had been your mother’s. While she had a pension for religion, it wasn’t something you thought about. Dying, sure, but whatever afterlife? Not so much. Felt wrong, sometimes, to carry it around with you—felt like you were disrespecting her a little bit to not believe what she did, even though she had no qualms with it when she was alive. So, you figured why not trust it with the other important person in your life?

  “Pretty, huh? It was my mom’s. She’s dead, like you. You wouldn’t happen to have seen her around, would you?” You joked, fingers stroking over the pearls. There was no risk in leaving them with your dead friend, people avoided him and you had a feeling even grave robbers wouldn’t dare step near the willow, so they’d probably be with him for the rest of eternity, “I want you to have them, take care of them for me.”

  You placed the necklace over the peak of his tombstone, smiling when they didn’t fall from their place, “Mm, you look good in them. Better than I do, I’m not big on pearls. More of a silver jewelry kind of girl. I could do gold and diamonds, though, only for a wedding ring.”

  You held your arm out, admiring your ring hand void of any actual rings, “Nothing too gaudy, of course. That’s what my earrings are for.” 

  Your eyes trailed from your outstretched fingers, to your wrist, and the watch decorating it. The time made you heave a heavy sigh, “I gotta go. Chrissy’s dragging me to a party tonight, so I’ve got to mentally prepare for that. You’ll think of me while I’m away, won’t you?”

  Trailing a finger down the stone, you leaned forward to press your lips to it in a sweet kiss. 

  “I’ll be back soon, and this time I won’t forget my book of sonnets. I know how much you love the cynical poems I force on you.”

  And though you announced your departure, you found it hard to leave him, like you always did. It took all you had to gather your crayon, marker, and your new poster (and you kept dropping all three to have an excuse to linger) and leave the cemetery behind, glancing back impulsively every couple of steps until it was no longer in view, and the moment it wasn’t you wanted to drop everything and run back to him.

  You had to remind yourself he was a stranger, who didn’t care for you, rotting in the ground. And it sucked. 

  “I don’t wanna go.” You announced, staring into the bathroom mirror you shared with Chrissy. You’d just finished your makeup, eyes heavily lined, and lashes coated an electric blue that made your eyes pop. You were always a little heavy handed with your makeup, you figured the whole point of it was to use it as you wanted. Your hair had been manipulated to hell and back, but regardless of what you did, you were unsatisfied with the girl staring back at you, “I’ll just stay home.”

  “Not on my watch!” Chrissy declared, reaching in front of you for her pink lipstick. The bathroom counter was littered with your combined beauty products, “This is the first major rager of the year, the perfect social gathering. You need to meet people, sissy.” 

  You scowled at the idea, “I have met people.”

  Chrissy tubed the lipstick bullet, rubbing her lips together as she gave you a concerned side-eye, “People who like you, sissy.”

  Ouch, there’s that brutal honesty.

  “It’s not good for you to be on your own all the time,” She set the lipstick down so she could place a dainty hand on your shoulder, big blue eyes focused on you, “I worry about you. Daddy and mom worry about you. Your doctor worries about you. You need to get out more.” Chrissy stressed, pink lips pulling into a reassuring smile before she went back to focusing on the mirror and her makeup.

  You let out a heavy sigh, mulling her words over. Definitely could have been phrased better, but Chrissy was right. You were currently the town recluse, and occupying your room and the town cemetery wouldn’t change that. 

  “That blush isn’t the right shade for you, sissy.” Chrissy broke you from your thoughts and your eyes drifted back over to your reflection, the girl looking so unsure and right back at you, “You really have to accentuate your features, compliment them, because you’re already beautiful.” 

  Didn’t feel like it.

  Your expression must have given your inner thoughts away because Chrissy turned to you again, practically bouncing, “Wait a minute, you could use my tanning bed!”

  You deadpanned at the mention of the ridiculous full on salon tanning bed that Chrissy owned. There was a dedicated mini garage in the backyard for it, next to the pool, and complete with neon lights, her beauty pageant trophies and sashes as well as her cheer trophies. The PG&E bill was always through the roof for the Tan Shack alone, and you still had no idea how Laura could afford it.

  “No, Chrissy I-I don’t think that would work on me. At all.”

  Chrissy waved off your concerns, “It’s not about the tan, or even if you can tan. It’s the experience. When I lay in that tanning bed, with those little goggles on my eyes and I can hear the buzzing, I feel myself blooming. Regardless of whether or not my skin actually tans,” It didn’t. Chrissy burned but she somehow still looked good, “I feel amazing about myself.”

  “Are you sure that’s not cancer?”

  “You’re so funny!” Chrissy laughed even though you were being serious, “Sissy, every girl deserves to feel beautiful. If I can provide you with an experience that might raise those confidence levels that are dragging across a nail-covered floor right now, why wouldn’t I?”

  Your eyebrows furrowed, trying to decipher if that was a compliment or not, but you didn’t have long to mull it over before Chrissy was framing your face with her hands. 

  “And I can. Please, let me do this.”

  You groaned, long and drawn out and awkward, before squeezing your eyes shut and slowly nodding your head. She squealed, clapped her hands together and dragged you out of the bathroom.

  After explaining how it all worked, Chrissy bid you a cheerful goodbye and left you to your own devices so she could finish getting ready for the night ahead of you both.

  You’d selected your tan level, positive you wouldn’t see any real results but maybe the ‘experience’ would benefit you and shed your fuzzy slippers and robe, leaving you in some boy shorts and a tank top as you tried to settle yourself in the tanning bed. The dip was awkward, and you couldn’t get a good grasp on the top of the tanning bed since it was meant to only open and close rather than stay in position so grasping onto it for balance as you lowered yourself in led to you conking yourself on the head with a noticeable bonk.

  You hissed in pain, rubbing the sore area as you clambered the rest to the way in. Once you’d stretched your legs out, lowered the top, maneuvered the goggles over your face and waited for the magic to happen as you were surrounded by neon blue lights.

  You heard the buzzing as the tanning bed started up. The magic happened alright. The entire tanning bed shocked you, and you shrieked as you felt the intense electric current ripple throughout your body, sparking every single pore in the worst way possible.

“I’m so sorry you got electrocuted, sissy.”

  Chrissy broke the silence as you sulked in the passenger seat, your hair a little bigger than normal and not a result of styling. After getting all five senses shocked out of you, you’d come out with a hairdo that would not usually be up to par with you, and some serious case of static electricity. You’d tried to gently press your hair down and when you saw a literal spark in it, you decided to just leave it alone.

  Your step-sister had been apologizing since.

  “It’s alright. I survived.” And you wanted to forget about it. 

  You could see Chrissy glancing nervously at you from the corner of your eye as she drove you to the party location.

  “So…how are you liking Hawkins Community, so far?” She asked, thankfully changing the subject. 

  “It’s fine. The campus looks relatively the same as the community college I toured in my old town. Classes are decent.” Pitiful. The classes were so boring and straight out of the book, but it cost you a fraction of a fraction of what you’d have to pay to attend a university. 

  Chrissy lips turned up in a mischievous smile and you internally groaned, fully expecting her next question.

  “See any cute boys?” And then, as an afterthought, “Or…girls?” Then she took her eyes off the road again, squinting at you as if she was trying to assess something, “Or…..anyone?” 

  You betrayed yourself, eyes darting to the window before they were back on her and she perked up in the driver’s seat. 

  “Okay, spill.”

  Your heart started thumping wildly in your chest as one particular guy came to mind, but you hadn’t thought about him too much. Hadn’t allowed yourself to entertain the idea of a romance with him. That’s how people got their hopes up and letdown.

  “Sissy! Sissy, come on. You have to tell me. I’m your only friend!” 

  This time, you could tell she was joking, even though she did have merit. You bit your lip as she ribbed you a bit more, the corners of your lips tugging up into a smile. 

  “Okay, okay!” Your hands flew to cover your face, embarrassed, shy and a little giddy all at once to actually be admitting you had a crush. 

  “Steve Harrington.”

  “STEVE HARRINGTON?” She repeated, incredulous and you shushed her even though it was only you two in the car.

  “Sissy, that’s so unexpected! I haven’t really seen him since high school but I didn’t think he’d be your type.” Chrissy admitted with a shrug of her shoulders.

  “He works in the library.” You sighed out, recalling your brief interactions with him when checking out a couple of books. He’d been kind, made a couple of humorous comments about the titles, and always tried to meet your avoidant gaze, which meant he was being nice to you. Coaxing you out of your shell. You actually didn't have much trouble interacting with people, you were more abrasive than you ever were shy, Steve was just a little too easy on the eyes. Made you forget how to talk, and on occasion, walk. It was embarrassing, “Always makes those cute displays with recommendations.”

  “Good for him,” She commented, sounding impressed. “I didn’t really know he was intellectual. Wasn’t, the last I heard. Had a big reputation in high school, seemed kind of mean and everyone called him King Steve.”

  You frowned, feeling the need to protect him, “Didn’t they call you the Queen of Hawkins High?”

  “Yeah, but only to make me seem pretentious.” 

  You raised your eyebrows, glancing away. Chrissy was kind, but sometimes, she could be pretentious.

  “And anyways, I’m not a student at Hawkins High anymore, so they can’t call me that. Maybe Steve really did change. Come to think of it, I haven’t heard much about him since he struck out with a series of girls. Maybe he took a good look at himself and decided a change was needed.” You could feel her eyes on you again. 

  “Does he flirt with you?”

  “No.”

  “See him flirt with any girls?”

  “Nope.”

  “Does he still make his hair all big and poofy?”

  “Looks more voluminous than poofy.”

  Chrissy hummed, “An improvement. Is he all beret wearing and drinking coffee now?”

  You tried to recall ever seeing him in a hat, let alone a beret, “No, I don’t think so. If anything, he’s introspective.”

  “He’s on the spectrum?”

  Your smile waned when you realized she was asking a legitimate question, “Oh. No. That’s—that’s not what that means. I just meant he’s thinking about what he does; how he acts, how he behaves.”

  It got quiet for a few moments.

  ”Well,” Chrissy broke the silence once more, “He might be there tonight. I’m not sure if they’re still friends, but Tommy Hagan is hosting tonight, and once upon a time, they were inseparable.”

  You made a sound of acknowledgment, upper lip twitching in disgust. You knew Tommy, saw him around campus. He was a big jerk, you’d witnessed him throw some guy’s backpack in the trash and pour his drink on it. You wish you’d known it was his party you were going to in advance. Tommy was a nasty piece of work, so his friend group was the same. Out of all of them, though, Carol got on your nerves the most. 

  She didn’t pay you a whole lot of attention, but when you were walking in with Chrissy—and this is Chrissy, so she acknowledged everyone—and she said hi, Carol would just look you up and down before pursing her big mouth like she’d sucked on something sour. One day, you’d like to give her your fist to suck on.

  ”Patrick McKinney is bringing three kegs and I heard Reefer Rick is bringing his whole inventory.”

  “Reefer Rick?”

  “Yeah, he’s the local drug dealer now. I mean, he’s always been but he used to have somebody sell for him while he supplied, but he died.”

  Your eyes widened while your pupils dilated, mind conjuring up some image of a poor dude being murdered for drugs and then the supplier just taking over, not fearful at all of meeting the same fate, “He died?”

  Chrissy nodded her head, looking thoughtful, “Yeah, Eddie Munson.”

  Munson.

  You sat up in your seat, fully alert and invested in the conversation now, “Eddie Munson? Is he buried under the willow tree in the cemetery?”

  You stared at Chrissy, willing her to think faster as she squinted and pursed her lips, “I think Tina mentioned something about someone peeing on a tree over there, so I think so.”

  Your mouth dropped open, expression utterly horrified that someone could do that, “That’s beastly, what the fuck?”

  “I know,” Chrissy sighed with a shake of her head. “I didn't know him all that much, bought some weed off of him a couple of times and he seemed a little scary—appearance and mannerism wise—but he seemed nice when you had to interact with him. He didn’t deserve that.”

  “How did he die?” You asked, voice small and heart shrinking. You didn’t like where this was going. Didn’t like it one bit.

  “Well, the official determination, if I remember right, was like a drug deal gone bad or something, but no one really believes it. He was known to have weed on him, kept the harder stuff somewhere else. Everyone knows he was murdered. They did a number on him, it was all everyone could talk about because Sydney Porter couldn’t even get her dad—he worked at the station—to show her pictures. He told her they messed Eddie up bad. People here really didn’t like him. No one knows who did it though.”

  You sunk back into your seat, mind troubled and stomach turning. This whole time, you'd been tending to and caring for the grave of a murdered guy, taken from this world simply because people didn’t like him. He must have been so lonely. So scared. And they killed him.

  Chrissy was wrong. People in this town knew who killed him, because one of them, or some of them, had to have been his murderers.

  Your fingers curled into tight fists, painted nails digging into the flesh of your palms. Chrissy noticed the change in your demeanor.

  “Oh, sissy. You’re such an empath. Don’t be so sad, I know it’s a horrible story, but he’s resting now. In peace.”

  “No, he’s not. They fucked up his tombstone. He can’t even be dead in peace.” You huffed, furious on his behalf.

  “How do you know?” Chrissy asked, raising a perfectly plucked eyebrow. 

  “I go there a lot, it’s nice. Quiet. A little creepy, but that adds to its charm, makes it relatively peaceful. I’ve been visiting all the graves, but I was drawn to him the most. Etched his tombstone. He’s my favorite.”

  Despite the horrors you’d learned, the thought of Mun—Eddie, still brought a wistful smile to your lips. Maybe your presence was enough to settle him, bring him a little bit of peace this town and the people in it refused to give him.

  “H-He’s your favorite…?”

  “Yeah. I feel this….connection with him. From the very first time I visited. Now, I leave him gifts, flowers, pretty stones, poems I wrote, a book of sonnets I stole from the library.”

  “You….should talk to your doctor about this, Sissy. That’s really weird. That’s really weird, sissy.”

  You fought to not roll your eyes. As much as you cared about Chrissy, and knew she cared about you, she didn’t understand you. 

  “Well, since people ruined his grave, I thought it might be nice to clean it up and make sure he’s not forgotten.” You snapped, “It’s not like I call him my boyfriend or anything.”

  Chrissy eyed you skeptically, “Well, then that’s nice of you, I guess. Just don’t go around telling everybody about that, or you’ll be known as the Ghost Whisperer.”

  “He hasn’t talked back to me yet.”

  Chrissy laughed, and freed one hand off the wheel to lightly slap your arm, “See, now that’s funny. If you do tell anyone, end it with that joke. You’ll be a riot.”

  You smirked, staring out the front windshield. You’d let her think it was a joke. For now.

  You made a sound of displeasure as Chrissy pulled into a clear space on the grass and parked. She jumped out to dance over to her friends, some wine coolers cradled in a plastic bag she clutched.

  You allowed yourself a full minute to stew in your misery before getting out of the car and following after her. As you neared her group, you quickly realized that was a bad idea. 

  “Oh my GOD! Vickie, you fixed your teeth! They look so good. I wasn’t gonna say anything because I thought you were happy with the overcrowding, but now that you fixed it, I can’t look away!”

  Yeesh. You beelined away from them and wandered around the crowded front lawn, dodging rowdy friend groups and couples until you spotted a cooler.

  Maybe a drink would calm you down.

  You squatted down and popped the lid, digging around the ice but all you spotted were Pepsi and Squirt cans.

  “The liquid fun is inside.” A guy’s voice came from behind you and you rolled your eyes. You were so not in the mood to be hit on right now. 

  “What?” You asked, tone bored, but you didn’t want to make him seem helpful so you grabbed a Squirt.

  “Alcohol. He keeps it inside.”

  You slammed the cooler shut and popped the tab of the can, rising to your feet, “Yeah, I figured that mu—shhhh.”

  Oh, shit. 

  Steve Harrington was standing before you, eyes alight with mirth as he smirked down at you.

  You swallowed hard, hoping to god your tongue hadn’t gone down with the movement. See? Here you went getting all stupid around him.

  ”Funny seeing you here.”

  You laughed nervously, “Yeah. I—uh, mhm.” You forced yourself to take a drink of your soda to keep from making an even bigger fool of yourself.

  “Sorry if it’s weird of me to just walk up to you. I was chilling on the side of the house and thought I saw you, but I’m a little nearsighted and I didn’t bring my glasses.”

  You pulled the can away from your mouth as your brain registered the lack of metal frames on the bridge of his nose. He looked handsome with and without them, that wasn’t fair. It was still throwing you off. 

  “It’s—It’s okay. Uhm, no harm done.” You shrugged your shoulders, hoping it looked cool and not as stiff as you felt. You even added in a smile with some teeth for a little razzle dazzle.

  “I actually came over here to tell you your books are significantly overdue.” Steve deadpanned, tongue playing with his canine tooth as he scrutinized you and you shrunk, smile falling from your face. You had got to get better at following up on your due dates.

  “Oh.”

  He scoffed, face breaking out into a grin as his shoulders shook with his chuckles “I’m kidding.”

  OH, THANK FUCK. 

  “Oh,” And then, because every god probably hates you, you started snorting with laughter. You cut that shit quick, clearing your throat as you took another sip of your beverage.

  “So,” Steve took a step closer to you, “Are you enjoying─”

  “Hey!” Carol stepped right up to Steve, practically leaning all over him as her ruby red lips spread into a seductive smile, eyes lidded and no doubt a few drinks in with a drink for Steve in her hand. For the billionth time that night, you rolled your eyes, trying not to gag at how desperate she was. You knew Tommy had recently dumped her, the entire town knew and now she was clearly trying to get into Steve’s pants, “I found the keg.”

  She could eat shit, his pants were yours.

  “Oh, Thank you.” Came Steve’s bleak reply and part of you thought he might have actually wanted to talk to just you. Now, you were really annoyed she’d interrupted.

  “Hey, Carol.”

  Carol looked surprised that you’d even dare speak to her, raising her eyebrows, “Hey. Hi— sorry, how do we know each other?”

  “You’re my lab partner.” You were unimpressed, you expected her to be a better mean girl. 

  “Yay me.” The smile she directed at you was anything but friendly, reminding you of the one Laura would make after you did something in public she didn’t like, but she couldn’t yell at you until you were home. Carol swirled the liquid in her cup around, head tilting as she offered it to you, “You wanna sip, partner?”

  “Carol.” Steve warned and she tutted, flicking her wrist.

  “You’re right, I don’t know why I assumed she partied.”

  “I’ll take a beer,” You could handle alcohol, had cleared your mother’s wine cabinet after she was murdered, so this would be no big deal.

  Carol looked annoyed but handed you the cup, and to make sure you wouldn’t gag and vomit, you threw it back, throat opening as you swallowed the liquid as fast as you could to refuse it as much time on your taste buds as possible.

  When you lowered the cup, you realized you’d made a mistake and glanced into it at the small amount left behind, watching as the ground in your peripheral view began to shift.

  Steve seemed to realize something was wrong, quickly taking your cup and ingesting what was left. His suspicions were confirmed and he spat it out on the grass before scowling at Carol, “PCP? Really, Carol? What the fuck is wrong with you? Why the hell would you give that to her!?”

  “Oopsie.”

  But it was too late for you. You dropped the soda can in your other hand and lifted your hands to your face, watching the lines around your palms and fingers begin to move, swirling around and you backed away from them, watching as everything around you began to come undone.

  “Hey!” You heard a voice next to you and someone started rubbing your back, you hadn’t even realized you were crouching. You craned your head up to see Chrissy and you frowned. Her voice was so different, distorted. She sounded more like your dad than Chrissy. 

  Her face was both far away and right in front of you, you reached a hand out to test the theory, see if it really was close. Chrissy caught your wrist, frowning at the state you were falling into.

  Chrissy started asking you questions, about what you’d taken, what you drank but her voice was too loud for you, and the purple behind her head was distracting. Still, you nodded your head.

  At your confirmation, Chrissy’s frown intensified and she helped you to the ground before darting over to chew Steve and Carol out.

  You couldn’t stay on the grass for long, the blades of it stabbing you and sending pain shooting up your palms and into your bones so you crawled some distance away before you managed to push yourself up and stumble towards the house. It was hard.

  Everything was moving. You heard a loud sound and glanced around wildly until you were staring up at the sky, mouth dropping open to see green clouds and lightning. 

  You had to get away, the need to escape, be safe was urgent but it felt like the closer you got to the front door, the farther away it went. Your breathing was heavy and panicked as you kept stumbling forward, arm outstretched and finally you reached it.

  You yanked it open and nearly fell inside, tripping over your feet until you hit the back of the couch and used it to sink to the floor.

  You heard your name being called and lifted your head, eyes crazed as you tried to find the source. Fred Benson approached you, the skinny boy squatting to be eye level with you.

  “You okay?” He asked and you reached forward, grasping his face in your hand and squeezing to make sure he was a real person.

  “You.” Was all you said, booping his nose but still suspicious of him. Was he real?

  “Uh, yeah. It’s me. It’s Fred, we sit next to each other in ASL class.”

  He looked like Fred. You still didn’t believe he was human, squinting as your hands grasped at the back of the couch.

  “You don’t look so good,” Fred pushed the frame of his glasses up his nose, brows furrowed in concern, “Let's find somewhere for you to sit down for a minute. Or maybe a while. Man, what did you drink?”

  He stood up, offering you a hand and you took it but didn’t pull yourself up. Fred heaved with all his might and managed to get you on your feet but he realized just walking you wouldn’t be enough, and so did you because you draped yourself over him, one arm over his scrawny shoulders.

  Fred cursed under his breath but held your weight, leading you out of the populated living room and you watched a couple furiously make out on the couch cushions as you passed.

  “I hate parties. I don’t know why I came—well, actually I do. I never got invited to these in high school, so I guess I’m living out my fantasy now. In all honesty, I’d much rather be watching Weird Science. So far tonight, I’ve seen three cheerleaders throw up and a baby being conceived.”

  “Uh huh,” Was all you could get out, watching people swirl past you like shooting stars.

  “Would you count that as escaping the teen pregnancy statistic? I know they’re out of high school, but we’re all still pretty young.” He commented as he led you up the stairs. You tripped several times and almost sent him flying down them but the two of you managed to make it. 

  Fred was heaving by the time you'd shouldered him into the hallway wall, his face and hands clammy.

  ”Good god, how did I pass P.E.?” The two of you paused there until he regained his breath while you plastered yourself against the wall, cheek pressed to it and hands stroking over the wallpaper. Eventually, Fred peeled you off of it and kept moving until he could find a place to put you.

  “You like movies right? Got any favorite directors? Or favorite films?”

  “Wall.”

  “Huh? Oh, you’re just admiring the wallpaper.”

  “Great Wall of China.”

  Fred positioned you against the wall, looking a little annoyed. You didn’t care, could only focus on the framed photo of the Great Wall of China directly across from you.

  “Oh.” Was all he said when he spotted it. “Stay right here.”

  Then he disappeared and you watched as the painting came to life, and the stones of the wall began moving, rippling. You didn’t even know stones could move like that but now it made so much more sense. 

  Fred appeared again, tugging you along into an empty room. You spotted a trash can and nearly threw Fred into the bedroom wall as you dove for it, retching everything out of your stomach. You could hear Fred gagging, but he was decent enough to make sure your hair stayed out of your way. When you were done, he helped sit you up on the bed, and nearly collapsed next to you.

  ”We did it,” he cheered with no real gusto. And you sat there, still feeling the earth orbiting. It was the most odd sensation, you could feel a spot on your brain pulsing, like a migraine but it felt so euphoric to close your eyes.

  “Here,” They snapped right back open and you glanced to your side to see Fred offering you a handkerchief. Of course Fred Benson carried around a handkerchief. How amusing. 

  “Thank you,” You gave the three versions of him you could see right then a smile and used the handkerchief to wipe your mouth, eyelids fluttering close just as the sound of thunder filled the room, and a flashing of lightning accompanied it.

  “Huh, a rainless thunderstorm, looks like the angels are bowling.” You heard him muse next to you.

  And it brought another smile to your face, “My mom used to say that.”

  At the mention of her, your brain conjured up all the happy feelings and memories of her, huddled on your couch, in your old home watching black and white horror films. They didn’t scare her, so she could tolerate them. You missed her. She made you feel so light, so seen, so—no.

  Something was wrong. Something felt very, very wrong.

  Your smile faded and you felt your belly sink as you opened your eyes.

  “Does that feel good?”

  You didn’t want to, but you looked down to see Fred’s hand on your breast. Your breathing picked up and Fred let go of you to grab your wrist and force you to touch his crotch, “Well don’t just sit there, help me out. Finish what you started.” 

  Anger filled you and you yanked your hand away, “No.”

  Fred opened his mouth as you got up, rushing away from him and stumbling back out the way you remembered while he yelled at you.

  You had to get out, had to get away. Had to be safe, feel safe. You banged against walls as you went, desperate to get out of the house, away from Fred, from everyone, and to safety. That was your only concern as the drug really hit you.

  All you could remember was seeing colors, hearing and feeling the wind against your sweaty skin, leaves blowing with it and gusting around you.

  You had no idea how you escaped the mad house, how long you’d even been walking or how you actually got there, but you found yourself in front of the cemetery, a flash of lightning illuminating the gate.

  To anyone else, a cemetery would have been the worst place to find themselves on a night like this, but you’d already been to hell so you trudged forward, feet taking you to him. Even in your drugged state, you were able to find your way to Eddie. Always would be.

  Your knees dug into the grass as you collapsed in front of his tombstone, fingers reaching forward to trace over MUN and 1986 before your body curled around the large stone, hugging yourself to it. Electric blue tears slipped down your cheeks, staining them with your mascara.

  “I wish I was with you.” You whispered, hating everything, hating this town, hating the people, hating Fred Benson, hating Carol, hating Laura Cunningham, hating how your mom wasn’t alive, hating how the one person you’d unknowingly sought for comfort was someone you’d never met before who was six feet under the ground. And you hated how you weren’t down there.

  You laid there, hugging his tombstone for hours under the thunder and lightning as the PCP slowly left your system.

  When you were able to stand up on your own, you gave the tombstone another kiss, rested your forehead against it and quietly thanked him for helping you find your way home before you left, following the path you’d made during all of your visits.

  The house was quiet when you got in, and Chrissy’s car hadn’t been parked in the driveway when you’d walked up so you figured she was still at the party. Sluggishly, you made your way up the stairs, falling into your shared bathroom. Your hand searched the wall, struggling to find the switch. Once your fingertips made contact with it, you flipped it and squinted as the room was flooded with the warm light. It was still too much for your eyes but you kept it on and walked towards the mirror

  The girl looking back at you was not the same one you’d last seen in it. This girl had blue smudged all around her eyes, faint trails of it over her cheeks and a rats nest for hair. Her eyes burned, not from the light, but from a fury within. 

  She was stuck in a life she didn’t want to live and couldn’t do anything about. As a large strike of lightning flashed from the window positioned at the back of the bathroom, towards the back of the house, you decided to put her out of her misery, picking up a blow dryer and smashing it against your reflection with a yell.

  You stood there, chest heaving as you stared at the broken reflection. Then you tossed the blow dryer onto the counter, and went to bed.

  Your dreams were much more pleasant than your reality, eyelids fluttering open to the ceiling of your old bedroom. A glance to your side confirmed your mother’s photo was at your bedside, next to your alarm clock on your old bedside table.

  “Well?” Her photo asked, shooting you that gorgeous smile of hers, “What are you waiting for? Go get him.”

  Your confusion was momentary, your mother raised her chin in a direction and you knew what would happen, you were giddy for it as you looked down to see yourself wrapped in the most beautiful wedding gown you’d ever seen.

  You rose from the bed into a sitting position, picking up the bouquet on the pillow next to you. Your dresser mirror was directly across from your bed and you took a moment to admire the beautiful girl staring back at you. Where you last remember seeing trails of tears were diamonds, glittering against your skin. Her eyes sparkled with a joy you’d never known. You bid her one last smile as you turned your head to the figure sitting on the edge of your bed, dark curls cascading down his neck, past broad shoulders with his back to you. 

  His right arm was out, palm up.

  He was waiting for you.

  You shifted until you were on the edge of your bed next to him, staring straight forward just as he was.

  Without looking, you knew exactly where his hand was, and you placed your left one over it, feeling the warmth of his skin against yours. Slowly, the two of you leaned towards each other, until your head was on his shoulder and his cheek was pressed against the top of your head, his fingers curling around your hand to ground you. You sighed, all the tension and weight of the world leaving you.

  “Sissy. . .”

  “Sissy…”

  “SISSY!”

  You groaned as Chrissy shook you awake, eyes prying through all the mascara that had crusted over your eyes. It took a couple of blinks until you regained your clear vision, gaze locking on Chrissy leaning over you. Her face was clean of any makeup, skin glowing and hair wrapped up in rollers.

  She’d gotten home later than you and had still been able to look perfect. 

  What the hell?

  “You better get up, sissy. My mom’s losing it over the bathroom mirror.”

  You were confused for a second until you remembered smashing it with a blow dryer last night—or this morning. Well, it definitely would have broken at the sight of you now, anyways. 

  You frowned but made no move to get up so Chrissy tugged your blanket off of you, giggling when the both of you realized you had your hand in your underwear. Hastily, you yanked it out, and threw the blankets back over yourself.

  “It’s okay, Sissy. Everyone does it. It’s natural.”

  “Oh my god…”

  “So, what happened last night to bring this on?” She wiggled her eyebrows and you stared at her for a second. Part of you wanted to yell at her, berate her for letting you stumble around while high on a drug you’d never taken before, the other half knew in Chrissy’s World, it was all rainbows and sunshine—at least, it had been since she’d forced her mother to respect her boundaries. Chrissy didn’t expect the worst in anyone, didn't expect anyone to take advantage of you and certainly didn't expect you to wind up walking to the cemetery and then home on a bad trip. No, in Chrissy’s World, you’d probably spent the night flirting with someone, probably Steve, maybe fooled around in his car before he drove you home.

  You didn’t see it necessary to shatter her world so you groaned instead, the full force of your migraine hitting you now that you were out of sleep’s clutches, and covered your hands with your face.

  “Ooh, your knees…”

  You glanced down to see what she was staring at and sure enough, your knees were scratched up from kneeling at Eddie’s grave, but in Chrissy’s World…

  “I fell.” Was the only excuse you could come up with and Chrissy smirked.

  “Me, too.” Her eyelid dropped in a wink just as Laura yelled upstairs for you, so, begrudgingly, you wrapped yourself in your robe and headed downstairs to receive your punishment.

  Just as you suspected, Laura had attacked you with allegations—that were true for once, you had smashed the bathroom mirror—and your dad looked like he could care less.

  “You know,” She stated, fixing you with those unnaturally blue eyes of hers, “Your dad wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt. See the good in you, but I knew. I’m an Intuitive Person, you know. An IP. They’ve got seminars for people like me.”

  Your mind flashed to How to Handle a Narcissist. 

  “Laura…” Your dad warned and Laura inhaled sharply, displeased that your dad was sticking up for you. For once. 

  “Did you know there was a tornado last night? It hailed. Wind blew the fence over. The yard is covered in debris, and now I have to focus on repairing the bathroom, too. I don’t think that’s fair.” She huffed and Chrissy spoke up from her place on the couch.

  “It was a tornado watch, mom. Not a real tornado.”

  “Actually, Chris, the weather was downright crazy last night. I mean, it was really something, I saw green lightning. Big balls of it in the sky.”

  You and Chrissy shared secret smiles at hearing your dad talk about big balls.

  “Love muffin, could you swap out being a weatherman for being a father, right now?” Laura gritted out through her chemically whitened teeth.

  “It’s a Meteorologist,” You mumbled and her head snapped over to glare at you before she was speaking to your father again.

  “Honey, your daughter is a vandal. She’s got a taste for vandalism, and she is deliberately vandalizing and destroying property. First, it was my collection of Precious Moments figurines─”

  “That was an accident, you didn’t wrap them in bubble wrap and I dropped the box when I tripped over the front steps.”

  “Mother,” Chrissy chided, hands crossing over her robe. “Be. Nice.”

  “I am being nice,” Laura hissed, glare never leaving you, “But I refuse to coddle her. She’s headed straight to the nut house with this behavior.”

  You frowned, wiping away some of the dried mascara under your eye, “Can you say that if you’re a Psych Nurse?”

  Laura had the decency to look embarrassed before whacking your father’s arm. He sighed, putting his newspaper down, “Sweetheart─”

  You clocked the twitch in Laura’s eyelid at the affectionate name your father used to refer to you.

  “─You’re gonna clean your bathroom, alright? Sweep up all that glass.”

  ”And?” Laura pushed, still staring at you.

  “And…..um. Pay for the mirror, I guess.” Laura turned her nose up, hurmphing. 

  “That’s fine, can I get ready for work now?”

  Your dad nodded and Laura looked like she wanted to protest but you turned your back to her and made your way upstairs, hesitating at the top when your fathered turned the volume of the TV back on and you heard the news reporter reporting from the cemetery, talking about a grave, under a tree, that had been struck by lightning. 

  You wondered if it had been Eddie’s. There’s no way you’d be able to check today, you’d get home from work too late, so you’d have to check tomorrow.

  You tried to stay busy during your shift at the local tailor’s. You didn’t really have a passion for it, but you were relatively good with a needle and thread. With the magnifier headlamp, you were practically unstoppable, altering coats, dresses, blouses, shirts, all with minimal finger injuries—though luminol on some of these clothing items would no doubt reveal traces of your blood.

  But hey—you now knew what it meant to work so hard you put your blood into something and you always had band-aids on you, in case anyone needed one.

  You were so invested in your work, you hadn’t heard the bell above the door chime when it was pushed open, and didn’t notice Steve leaning against the counter, watching you work until he cleared his throat.

  You jumped, head swinging around to see your crush smiling at you and you raised the magnifying glass portion of the head lamp off your face, feeling embarrassed that he’d seen you with the headgear on in the first place.

  “Hey! I didn’t know you worked here.”

  You let out some nervous laughter, mind racing for ways to make this seem cool but you came up short. “Yeah, I—employed.”

  “I can see that,” He chuckled, amused by your lack of verbal sparring.

  You didn’t know what to say after that so you stared, fingers twisting and pulling the thread you’d been working with, desperate for him to say something or get out.

  “Oh! Uh, I heard you guys also get rid of stains? I’ve got this one on my pan─”

  “THAT WE DO!” 

  You sighed, eyes slipping shut as your moron of a boss came bursting out of the office.

  “What can we do for you, Harrington?” Murray asked, leaning against the counter, causing Steve to lean back, smile now less than thrilled.

  “Murray…I forgot you worked here.” Steve said it in a voice that made you think he would have avoided the shop had he known who it was that was currently in charge of running it.

  “Yup, got me this sweet little gig. And no radios.” He gestured around to the shop, void of any technology save for the cash register—and he made sure it was never him operating it, “Would like to see the government try to control me now.”

  “Right, I just came here to drop off my pants, spilled something on—well, it doesn’t really matter, I just spilled something on them.” Steve placed the folded pair of pants on the counter and Murray immediately unfolded them, searching through the fabric until he found the stain by his crotch. To both your horror and Steve’s, he lifted the strained fabric to his nose, sniffing deep.

  “Mm. White wine?”

  It took Steve a moment to find his voice and close his jaw, “Crush. The soda.”

  “Same thing. We’ll get this right out, my man.”

  You and Steve shared one more look of disbelief before he slowly backed away, the bell above the door sounding as he left.

  “He’s a nice guy,” Murray commented and you shrugged your shoulders, wanting this conversation to be over, “I’m surprised you know him, little loser.”

  You shot him a glare.

  “Oh, c’mon, lets not pretend you’ve got an active social life—if I call you in for a shift, you’re available. Nothing wrong with being a loser. I was one throughout high school and look at me now. Who got the last laugh?”

  You were positive the look of pain on your face should have told Murray that anyone other than him got the last laugh. He was a forty something year old, afraid of technology, convinced the government was watching him, who tried to befriend teenagers. 

  You’d have to kill yourself if you were anything like him.

  When he disappeared back into the office, because of course you’d have to get rid of that stain for Steve, you snatched the pair of pants off the counter. Glancing around to make sure there weren’t any eyes on you, you pressed them to the side of your face, imagining yourself hugging Steve instead of the pants. They smelled like him. It was bliss.

  Then your eyes snapped open.

  Oh, god. You were a loser.

  After your shift, you’d gone straight home. Normally, you’d stop to grab a bite or something, you still had to pay for the mirror you broke so fast food was off the table for a couple of weeks, but on your dining room table when you walked into the house.

  A pizza box. Your stomach growled as you imagined the slice of cheese waiting for you.

  “Is there any left?” You asked, already making a beeline for it.

  “Should be a slice left,” Your dad mused and as you tossed the top of it open, all you wanted to do was maybe beat him with it.

  There, on the parchment liner of the pizza box, was the skinniest and tiniest slice of pizza to ever be cut. Not even the width of two of your fingers.

  “Want me to order another one, sweetheart?” Your dad asked and Laura immediately inserted herself into the conversation. 

  “She can eat it, love muffin. Besides, we’ve got vegetables in the fridge if she’s still not full.”

  “I said we should have ordered two, but my mom had a coupon she wanted to use.” Chrissy didn’t sound impressed.

  “Yes, we got a free soda!”

  Chrissy ignored her mom, “Sissy, we’re going to the movies! You could get something there, they sell pizza and nachos, right?”

  You knew she was trying to find a solution for you, but your bullshit meter for the day had already been capped. You didn’t want movie theater pizza or concessions, you wanted a  reasonable slice of this pizza, not some scrap your step-mother had saved you. It was obvious she was implying that she, your dad and Chrissy were the perfect sized family and you were simply an afterthought. Unwelcome.

  “Yeah, I’m passing on the movie.”

  Before you could stomp upstairs, Chrissy caught your hand.

  “Sissy, please? We’ve got to bond as a family, it’s crucial. If it takes two, how can I do it as one?” She pulled you into her side.

  “Really, Chrissy, I’m super tired.”

  “You’re tired?” Laura asked, incredulous. Here we go again.

  “All you do is work with a sewing machine for hours like some old spinster, I can hardly imagine that being tiring, but my Chrissy just got back from a five hour long cheer practice. They were throwing her around like raggedy ann and she stuck every landing.” 

  “Mom, stop.” Chrissy blushed, but you could see how proud she was of herself, “I’m sure Sissy pokes herself with those needles all the time, and it hurts, I’ve been prodded myself during all of my custom fittings.”

  “I have finger calluses so I don’t even bleed anymore,” You begrudgingly admitted, “I can take it.”

  “I bet you can.”

  After they’d left for the movies, you’d gone upstairs, showered, put on your comfiest pajamas and fuzziest slippers, you grabbed a bowl of chips and set yourself up in front of the TV to watch Dawn of the Dead. You had to give props to all these zombie actors, you couldn’t imagine having to act out being one of the walking undead, imagined it felt pretty stupid but the paycheck and experience must have been cool.

  You popped another chip into your mouth just as someone knocked on the front door. As you placed the bowl of chips on the table to get up, the knocking got louder, more aggressive and you hesitated, fear beginning to swell up inside of you.

  Maybe if you ignored it, they’d go away.

  You turned your attention back to the tv, picking up the remote to lower the volume and hopefully hide your presence in the house. 

  Then, much to your horror, you heard the distinct sound of a pained, gurgling groan. It sounded very similar to the ones you’d heard the zombies making on your tv, but this one was louder. 

  And it was coming from outside your front door.

  You crouched, duckwalking to the foyer where one of the house phones was placed. You’d just picked it up from the receiver when a shadow from the living room window caught your eye. You barely had time to turn your head when something came crashing through it, breaking the glass and yanking the curtains from the rod.

  Shocked, the phone slipped from your hands, banging against the hardwood floor of the foyer and you let out a scream at the same time as the person on your TV, running away from the figure invading your home. 

  You made it to the dinning room. Literally scrambling across the table to put an obstacle between you and the stranger—no, creature. Tall, caked in mud, leaves and stems, it resembled the Swamp Thing. It grunted, groans low and reverberating off the walls.

  “Uuuhhhnng…”

  This couldn’t be happening to you, you couldn’t die like this!!!! It was supposed to be by your hand or nothing!

  ”STAY AWAY FROM ME!” You shrieked, picking up the decorative plates from the table to throw at the creature. You nailed it a couple of times, watching it stumble as the fine china shattered against it. When you ran out of plates, you bolted from the dinning room, screaming as you scrambled up the stairs, and lost one of your slippers in the process but to hell with it! You had to get out of there. Hopefully, one of your neighbors heard your shrieks of terror and called the police.

  You peaked over the railing at the top of the stairs, to see the creature analyzing your slipper. While it was distracted, you locked yourself in your room and made your way to your bedroom window, pulling it open.

  “Okay, okay. I can do this, no big deal. Stunt actors do it all the time.” You climbed outside of your window, body nearly convulsing as you almost slipped down the roof, “Nonononono.”

  You tried to grip onto a couple of shingles but they gave away, slipping right off the house to shatter against the concrete walkway and you realized Laura had no fucking idea what she was doing when it came to house repairs, the dumb bitch had just laid the shingles out without securing them.

  “OH MY GOD-I’M GONNA DIE! HELP!”

  Your body slipped further down the roofing, until you were forced to grab the gutter, gagging when your fingers squelched against whatever was in it. You dangled a good six feet off the ground, and while it wasn’t exactly a ten story fall, with your luck, you’d land on your head and break your neck.

  Whimpering, you tried to pull yourself back up the roof, but it was no use. You had nothing stable to grab onto as you yanked yet another shingle clean off. You glared at it and muttered a goddammit before tossing it somewhere behind you as you went back to hanging on for dear life. 

  “Oh, no.” You mumbled, terrified as your fingertips began to lose their grip, wet with the mystery sludge from the gutter. “No, NO!” 

  You lost your grip, plummeting down but you didn’t meet the concrete. No, the Creature broke your fall and you were now face to face with it. The pressure of you landing on it, made it spit up into your face, green sludge, and you gasped before breaking out into screams again.

  Pushing yourself up and off of it as you ran around your front yard, nearly blind. You were not opening your eyes to let that bacteria infested swamp slime, water, whatever the hell it was, into your eyeballs. 

  You could hear the Creature stomping around behind you as you bobbed and weaved, could feel his presence and you could not believe you were actually gonna die fighting off a swamp monster in your front yard while blinded—in clear and plain view for your neighbors to see, by the way, and unbeknownst to you, an elderly couple was watching you, not even a little concerned about your well being or the creature chasing you around.

  “Stop it!”

  “Leave me alone!”

  “Go away, I’m just a girl!”

  The timed sprinklers went off and you were soon assaulted with them as well. With just about all your senses done for, and the sprinklers washing the guck away from your face, you made a run for the house, slamming your back against the door and locking it behind you.

  Your chest was heaving, wet body pumping with adrenaline as the back of your head thumped against the door. You weren’t done yet. That creature was still out there!!!

  You dove for the phone on the ground, hanging by its springy cord and shouted out hopefully loud enough for it to hear, “I’m calling the police, so if you don’t want your ass riddled with bullets, I’d suggest you leave! They shoot before asking questions!”

  You frantically dialed 911 but there was no ringing, instead, you could still hear buttons being pressed on the other line.

  Bleak, and accepting your fate, you put the phone back on the receiver, and turned towards the living room, where the other phone was located. 

  On the chair, next to where the table the phone normaly rested on, was The Creature. 

  You grabbed one of the lamps, ready to use it as a weapon but it didn’t attack you, just turned the phone receiver this way and that, as if admiring it. 

  Despite your fear, you took a reluctant step forward, casting the creature in the glow of the lamp you clutched and for like the billionth time that night, you gasped.

  The sprinklers had washed some of the filth off of it, too. Before, its head had been caked in a mud helmet, but now, you could actually see it’s head. It had long, disgustingly dirty curls, and wore a leather jacket, jeans and tennis shoes, all covered in grime.

  When it craned its head up to look at you, you readied the lamp, poised to throw it at it—him. It was a guy. Big brown eyes, stared up at you and he made no move to attack.

  Slowly, you lowered the lamp, and crouched down a few feet away.

  His attention returned to the phone—shoe shaped—in his hands and shakily, with stiff limbs, he put it back on the receiver.

  “It’s…It’s cool looking, right? The-The shoe phone.” 

  He glanced over at you and then the phone again as you mumbled out an explanation, 

“Our neighbor in our old town cheated on his wife and she threw all his stuff out the window at him and my dad snatched the phone.”

  “Merrrruhhhhh.” He moaned out, picking up your slipper and offering it to you. When you just stared, he dropped it and you moved the lamp to the side, crossing your legs.

  “I’ve never seen a zombie before.” You marveled, then squinted, “You are a zombie, right? An undead?”

  It took him an entire minute to choppily raise his shoulders, you realized he was shrugging. Or trying to. Every movement he made was choppy. Reminded you of how stop motion was made, except his scenes weren’t being played fast enough to have fluid movements.

  He tried to get up and promptly slipped, accidentally elbowing the mini sound system at his side. It turned on, Sinead O’Connor’s Drink Before the War playing. You’d been the last to use it.

  You watched as his head tilted in interest as Sinead began to croon out lyrics.

  “Do you like music? This is Sinead O’Connor. She makes music that heals souls.”

  He raised his wrist to his chest and you inhaled sharply as you realized he was missing the hand on it.

  “Uhm, no—I don’t think she healed your soul. I meant like, figuratively. Her music makes people feel.” You placed your hands on your own chest, trying to convey your meaning, “She’s one of my favorites.”

  A surprisingly comforting silence fell over the two of you—though he sometimes made his quiet dead guy gross sounds—as you stared at him, taking in the green-gray tint of his skin beneath the dirt all over him, cheeks sunken in. You had a feeling if you touched his skin, it’d be hard, maybe waxy and it was a bit unnerving how human his eyes were, but duh! Of course they were, he was a human. Just. A dead one. At least he wasn’t a skeleton.

  Man, Hollywood wasn’t too far off with their interpretation.

  “C’mon,” You stood up, eyes taking in the state of your home and all the dirt the two of you had dragged in, “I gotta hide you, new dead friend.”