He Who Laughs Last

HE WHO LAUGHS LAST

         Take one. Take another. Take one more. One more will not hurt you.
“I won't. I will not take another!”
Yes you will dear. Don’t try to contradict me. Just one more and it will all be over.
“I don’t have to do what you say, leave me alone!”
Yes you do. Listen to me. Listen. Take them. Take them all.
One after the other they got taken. Until not one was left.
Laughter followed. Loud, echoing. Not in the human realm, but in another.


“Hey Jess,”
Silence…
“I’ve got your favourite… pizza. Come get a slice while it’s hot. I know you hate it when it gets cold and the cheese is not as cheesy.”
Silence…
“Come on Jess, do I have to drag you out of your room to eat your favourite meal?”
Silence…

Now Christine was worried. It had been a tough past few months for Jessica. Suddenly everything that had been stable in her life disappeared. What with her parents’ deaths, miscarrying and the impending divorce. The strain was overwhelming. Jessica had never been good with stress in any form. Since the college days when she and Christine met, Jessica had always preferred avoiding all the unpleasant factors of life. But the last few months seemed to have driven her over the edge

Christine approached the room that Jessica had occupied since moving out of her marital home. The door was slightly ajar and the light was off although it was nearly 8pm. Maybe she was just sleeping. It was not all that odd. She had taken to sleeping a lot since it all started. It was just her way to escape things.

Snapping on the lights as she stepped into the room, Christine looked around. Everything seemed so peaceful. Peace was what Jessica needed. It seemed to be what was working anyway. Anyway, it was much better than keeping her locked up in an institution with all sort of strangers and psychos.

Then she saw her. Lying on the bed... Looking so angelic... So tranquil. Her brown hair slightly messed up, probably from turning around in her sleep. Christine couldn’t help but walk over and kiss her forehead. That’s when she saw it. The small red prescription pill bottle. Lying on the ground near the bed. Obviously it had dropped from her open palm. It was not peace that had soothed her best friend to sleep, but death that had soothed her to eternal rest.
“Jessica…” her voice caught in her throat. Disbelief crowded her mind and she tried to shake her best friend back to life.

“You cannot do this to me… You just cannot leave! Wake up, Jessica, wake up!”
Shock, grief and anger tore at her heart. She did not know how to feel. Tears sprung to her eyes and a lump of sadness formed in her throat. With them came a sense of guilt. Guilt for not being there. Guilt for coming home too late. The same guilt that ate at her soul with deadly precision. Guilt that would last beyond that night. Guilt whose shadowy face would haunt her for many a night.

“Jessica.”

This time when she said it there was no more fight left in her voice.

In the shadows of the twilight. The laughter echoed still. Only now it was not because of the mission accomplished but because of the mission anticipated.


The funeral was a silent affair. Jessica’s state of mind in her last few months alive had alienated most of her friends and her highly religious family disapproved of the way she died. Suicide was not an appropriate death. It went against all of their beliefs.

Christine could see it in their eyes. The disapproval. The shame. It made her sick. The whispers about her condition preceding her death only served to heighten the nausea. Couldn’t they see that Jessica was dead? Gone. Forever. Who cared if she had been slightly delusional before she died. It was of little consequence now that she was dead.

Long after all the relatives were gone. Christine remained beside the fresh grave. The smell of the freshly mowed grass in the cemetery soothed the ache within. The silence comforted her as no one else had.

Looking down at the freshly turned earth in front of her. Inhaling its scent. How things had changed since the days so long ago when she and Jessica had talked, laughed and lived. It seemed so ling ago. But the sounds could be called back in an instant of thought. Now the conversation, laughter and giggles were silenced forever. The only things that were left were the memories and the love in the heart of a friend that would never die.

“Why you Jess?” she asked no one in particular, “why did it have to be my best friend? I miss you so much. So does Francis. You could have made up. Gotten back together. Things would have gone back to the way they were.”

Wiping tears from her eyes she added, “You guys always trying to set me up with someone or the other. Going out for double dates. You might have gotten pregnant again. I could have been an aunt. A godmother…”

Tears clouded her vision once again and sobs shook her body. Even the handkerchief was now useless.

“Then you had to go and spoil it all by dying… don’t you see how we need you. Why? Just tell me why?”

Now she spoke as if Jessica could hear and might answer all the questions that she asked. Were things so bad no one could help? Why was she so unhappy? Why didn’t she say anything? God knows Christine would have tried, done her best, just to make her happy.

“Is it my fault?”
Yes it is. It is all your fault.
“Who’s that?”
You know who I am.
Christine spun around looking for the speaker.
Oh. You can't see me dear.

The voice was cold and sinister. Like that of a soulless murderer. Then it changed. Suddenly it was softer. More feminine. Like Jessica's.

It is all your fault Christine. Why did you have to do it? You betrayed me. With my own husband. You and Francis. Behind my back. Why, you ask, why… it is because of you.

“Jessica?” Christine queried with an edge of disbelief in her voice. No. It could not be. No one could possibly reach beyond the grave.

“Feels like she is still here, doesn’t it?”

That voice cut through the afternoon silence like a hot knife through butter, making Christine jump.

“Francis. You scared me.”

“Sorry Chris, I didn’t mean to.”

“It’s okay. Did you hear anything just now?” she asked determined not to lose her cool.

“No, I didn’t. Why do you ask?” Francis gave her a questioning look.

“Never mind. What are you doing here anyway?” There was no way on earth she was going to say she had just had a supernatural experience. She would look like a total nutcase. Besides it would only freak Frankie out. And she could see that that was the last thing he needed.

“I just could not keep away. I kept seeing her face when I asked for the divorce. When I told her that I couldn’t take being married to her anymore. That it was best if we went our separate ways–” his voice cracked and tears welled in his eyes.

“Oh Frankie. You didn’t know. Don’t torture yourself… hush now Frankie, don’t think about that.” She hugged him.

Christine had been so preoccupied with her thoughts that she had not really notice how anyone had looked during the funeral. Now that she looked at Francis she could see he looked distraught. His eyes were red rimmed and he wore the expression of a defeated man. In all her sorrow she had not thought that there could be someone else suffering. If there was anyone else suffering, it was definitely Frankie. He looked so sad, so very sad.

“I wanted to make up,” he said in between sobs, “I wanted us to try things again. I loved her so much, I still do.”

Then why is he in your arms Christine? Why are you holding him?

Christine let go and asked, “Did you hear that?”

“What?”

Christine looked around. The cemetery empty apart from herself and Frankie. Nobody could have said that. At least nobody real. But it had felt so real. So close. Practically inside her head.

Maybe she was losing her mind but she could hear that voice again. Sometimes it was Jessica’s and sometimes it was somebody – something – else’s.

“I don’t know Frankie. Sometimes I hear her, feel like she is trying to tell me something. I don’t know… it just feels strange. Do you understand?” It was hard to describe but she hoped he would understand.

“I understand. I feel her around too. When I see her clothes and stuff. Her pillow still smells of her. I see her everywhere in the house. Maybe in time we won’t feel her so strongly or miss her so terribly.” Francis wiped a tear as he said it. Things were especially hard for him, waking up in the same house they had lived in since they got married four years ago.

He didn’t. He didn’t understand. Christine felt what he was talking about… but she had meant something else. She didn’t know if she was going crazy, it was just stress or she was imagining things. Whatever the cause, it was obvious that she was the only one who heard the voices.

“Chris. How about we get out of here? It looks like it’s going to rain and I don’t think a flu is going to help us any. How about a cup of coffee or something to put some warmth in our veins, it’s pretty chilly if you didn’t notice.”

“Sure Frankie. As long as you're buying,” she said trying to lighten up the oppressive mood that prevailed in the situation.

She knew he was trying to get her mind off things and she appreciated it. She might have said no if she didn’t know that a cup of coffee was as much for him as it was for her.

The laughter echoed. But neither Francis nor Christine heard. Christine.
The name sounded good. It pleased the one who laughed. So he laughed some more.

Christine’s time is coming.

Then he laughed. Not the merry laughter of a child but the psychotic laughter of a madman who derived pleasure from tormenting the innocent.

Ha ha ha…


Days passed. Troubled days for a woman that had lost the one closest to her heart. A companion that had always been by her side. It was not so much the days but the nights that followed them that were troubled. Again and again the same nightmare recurred.

She was driving. On a road on the edge of a cliff. It seemed that the sun was either rising or setting. For there was not much light in the dream. Maybe it was just foggy. Voices filled her head and she could not concentrate. It was becoming difficult to steer the car she drove. The voices were telling her it was her fault Jess was dead, nobody loved her and nobody cared if she died.

The voices told her to block her ears if she did not like them. That the car could steer itself. She was nearing the edge but she still raised her hands. She tried to block out the laughter. But she could not. Nearer still to the edge. It is okay to let go the voices told her and her body obeyed. She screamed no and she tried to control herself but she could not. It was as if she had lost all power over her own limbs. Then she went over the edge. The ground came closer and closer. She was about to hit. She was screaming at the top of her lungs. Then…

Christine woke up with a scream. Sweat drenched her body and she felt as if she had just run a marathon. All her muscles and joints ached.

“What is happening to me?” she asked the darkness in her room.

No answer came so she assumed the darkness did not know. In fact she had almost expected it to answer. Over the past week so many strange things had been happening. That voice that she had first heard at Jessica’s funeral had spoken to her again and again. It told her bad things about herself. Sometimes it sounded like Jessica speaking. When it did it often accused her of cheating with Frankie.

Christine had never looked at Frankie in such a way, ever. At least not since him and Jess got married. Before Jess and he met and way before the two got married they had gone out a couple of times and called it quits. They had remained friends over the years. That was it.

Even as Christine tried to convince herself of this she felt guilt nudging at her. Maybe the voice knew what she had struggled so long to forget. She and Frankie had never actually had an affair but there was one incident that might have seemed highly questionable had Jessica ever found out.

About two years ago Jessica, Francis and herself had gone on a two-week trip to a beach resort. Almost immediately they touched down. Jessica got an emergency call from work and she had had to go back but only for a couple of days, so she had insisted that they remain and that she would join them in exactly two days time.

“That always happens you know,” Frankie had said after she left, “we plan something special but she always gets called away. By her mother, by work sometimes even by you.”

Picking words was a tricky issue, “I’m sorry if I’ve ever been the cause of any difficulty between the two of you. I assure you it was unintentional.”

“No need to apologise Chris. It’s not your fault. It’s not anybody’s fault,” The last words seemed filled with bitterness, “It’s just that sometimes it feels that everything else is more important than our marriage.”

At that point Christine had wanted to hug him but she knew she did not have the right, even as his friend, to comfort him. So that night in an effort to cheer him up they went to a bar at the hotel. One drink had led to another and soon one thing led to another. They had not meant to do anything and they didn’t, but to the casual observer spending the night in the same room, and bed, looked like definite infidelity. Yet all they had done was make out a little then pass out. The next day they swore to God and each other that they would forget that night and never mention it again to each other and especially not to Jessica. It would upset her for nothing and it would be difficult to explain anyhow. Jessica might think that there was something going on between them.

That day so long ago. How could she ever have found out. How could anyone have ever found out. Frankie and she had never broken their oath. At least she hadn’t.

“Oh, Jessica, I’m so sorry. That day was a mistake. It meant nothing. We didn’t do anything. We loved you too much. Forgive me.” Those tears that seemed to always lurk beneath the surface somehow found their way out and Christine started to cry.

How can you ask for forgiveness? You backstabbing slut. You don’t deserve any. You're worthless. Nobody loves you. Nobody wants you. You ought to die.

“Are you okay Christine?”

That seemed to be the question everybody was asking her these days. Perhaps they were justified but all it did was make her sick because she had the voice in her head answer, I want to die.

Christine did not see what her family, friends and workmates saw. A once healthy and happy girl who was once chubby now rail thin, once peppy and now looked permanently exhausted, who was one good-humoured and happy now irritable and very depressed. Most of them had tried to talk to her but she just pushed them away. Some had suggested professional help but she had tartly replied that perhaps they were the ones who needed “help”, that she was just fine, in perfect frame of mind and that they ought to mind their own business.

Then again they did not see what Christine saw. Demons in her head. Her best friend accusing her of unfaithfulness. Voices, which she had started to fear, were her own, telling her that she ought to die. Visions that tormented her night and day. Visions that drove her to the edge and made her want to jump. Sleepless nights, loss of appetite, nausea, depression, et cetera. This was just a little of what she was going through. Now Christine understood what Jessica had tried to explain those last weeks they had spent together.

Now her boss was asking her if she was okay. Christine’s job performance had gone down hill since Jessica’s death, now it was so bad she had known it was only a matter of time before she was told to pack her bags.

“Christine I think you ought to take a break… you know… from the work scene. A month. Two months. Just as long as it takes to become yourself again. You know you are a valued employee so I don’t want to lose you. But I am willing to let you go for a while. I hope you understand. It’s in your best interests as well as ours…”

Christine did not hear the rest of the speech. The words were blurred in her ears. All she could hear was the voice.

You see. Nobody wants you. They hate you so much. He is not giving you a break he is firing you. He has your replacement already lined up. Just waiting to move into your office. Hit him hard, go ahead, and hit him. He deserves your hate. Hate him. Tell him you hate him.

Before Christine knew it she had stretched out over his mahogany desk top and hit her boss, hard.

“I hate you, I hate you,” she screamed like a mad woman. She clawed at him with a vengeance. Knocking over his pencil stand and half full coffee mug. As its contents spilled over the desk and onto the both of them the mug rolled over to the edge of the desk and fell off. It hit the floor and shattered, spraying white glass over the floor.

Needless to say her boss was taken by complete surprise. A usually mild tempered woman who had always strived to keep peace and negotiate differences striking out like a barbarian.

“Control yourself! Control yourself! Get off me!” reaching out for his panic button he alerted security.

Mary, his secretary, burst into the office and tried to pull Christine off her boss as they rolled on the floor. Apparently she had jumped clear over the desk and attacked him.

“Have you gone crazy?” Mary shouted at Christine while trying to pry her off. Glass from the broken mug cut into Christine’s palm as she broke free from Mary’s clutches and toppled back to the floor to continue with her struggles with the boss man.

Two guards, panting from their run to the office, finally managed to pull her away from the boss. Christine still struggled and tried to hit out at the burly men who held her firmly in their grasps.

“Escort this woman off the premises. Alert the security in the lobby never to let her pass ever again. As for you young lady,” he said looking Christine squarely in the face, “I never want to see your face in this building or anywhere else on the face of this planet for that matter.”

As Christine was dragged out of her boss’ office she heard him say, “What a mess! Mary! Get a janitor up here A.S.A.P! Mad bitch!”

The laughter echoed. Through all the halls and offices of the 10th floor of the building. Up and down the elevator shafts. Growing louder and louder still as the woman was dragged kicking and screaming out of the building.

Ha ha ha…


“Ben, what has happened to our daughter? She has always been so healthy. Now she looks like the face of death,” whispered Alice to her husband.

Christine’s health, both physical and mental, had degenerated to the point where she could no longer take care of herself. Her parents, Ben and Alice, had brought her to live with them for fear that she might die if she did not have twenty-four hour care. It was either that or committing her to an institution.

“I don’t know dear. I’m afraid I just don’t know,” he sighed, “I hear her at night sometimes, talking to herself, crying. I’m scared. And for once I don’t know what to do about it.”

They moved away from the hall outside her room and to their own bedroom. Things had turned upside down and inside out over the past few months. Their once perfectly normal daughter seemed to have lost her job, her friends, her health, her sanity, her life! Christine could no longer take care of herself. They still remembered that day long ago that she had moved out of home.

“I can take care of myself just fine Mom. I’ll be okay. It’s not like I’ll have a complete breakdown or anything,” she had joked.

Having a “complete breakdown” wasn’t a joke anymore. Christine no longer talked to anyone, no longer laughed or made jokes. She just stared at the walls. Ate what was put in front of her. Not even if someone was talking to her did she look at them nor give any sign at all that she even knew they were in the room with her.

Not that she had many visitors. Just one. Only Francis the husband of her late friend came to see her. He was so patient, sitting by her and telling her about life and work, talking to her about current events and movies and general stuff. Francis was the only friend she had left. But she did not even turn to look at him.
Everyday he came out of her room and said, “I know she can hear me and maybe one day when she is the mood, she’ll respond.”

His support meant a lot to Ben and Alice. Just having someone that cared about their daughter around the house lifted such a load off their shoulders. Life was pretty fickle, so were family and friends. They always ride along with you and the day when you really need them they just poof and disappear. It was nice to know that there were people who did not poof when they were needed.


Wake up dear. Wake up.

Christine woke with a start at those words. Her parents had gone to bed ages ago. Looking at the clock on her bedside it flashed 5:47AM. Christine knew it was not really her mom or dad. It was him. The voice. There was no way to describe it but she knew someone else was in her head and he controlled part of it. He had told her so many bad things and she had believed him. Or maybe it was herself. She did not know anymore. Sometimes the voice sounded like a demon, sometimes like Jessica, sometimes like Frankie, sometimes like her mother or father or even herself. Sometimes she saw them and sometimes she didn’t. Sometimes she knew what she saw was real and sometimes she didn’t. So she just stopped talking altogether.

Christine did not want her parents to believe that she was so beyond help that they had to commit her to an institution. Perhaps they would never come get her out even if she did get better. Sometime back she saw her mother enter the room and she had talked to her. Then her mother entered the room and the image had disappeared. All she could hear was laughter. Christine knew her mother had heard her talking. She knew her mother was scared for her and of her. Christine did not want her mother to send her away. So the next time her mother entered the room she did not talk to her she did not even look at her. Afraid that it was only a mirage.

That it was just another dream. A dream that things were better. That life was normal. Sometimes she was a little girl again. Sometimes she was a grown woman living out her twilight years in peace and happiness. Sometime she was something else but it was always something good. She heard it and sometimes she just felt it. Laughing at her and her longing for normalcy. It was either these dreams of a better life or the nightmares of death. Oh how those nightmares were infinitely better because they did not make her yearn so much for better things. They did not outline the stark contrast between what she wanted and what she had. They did not mock her and wrench her out of sleep with tears and sobs.

Now the voice was talking again. It told her to get the keys and leave.


It was the nightmare all over again.

She was driving. On a road on the edge of a cliff. It seemed that the sun was either rising or setting. For there was not much light in the dream. Maybe it was just foggy. Voices filled her head and she could not concentrate. It was becoming difficult to steer the car she drove. The voices were telling her it was her fault Jess was dead, nobody loved her and nobody cared if she died. She was just a mad bitch. A burden to one and all. A shame to her parents and family.
The voices told her to block her ears if she did not like them. That the car could steer itself. She was nearing the edge but she still raised her hands. She tried to block out the laughter. But she could not. Nearer still to the edge.

Accelerate.

She accelerated. She no longer had any control over her actions. It is okay to let go the voices told her and her body obeyed. She screamed no and she tried to control herself but she could not. It was as if she had lost all power over her own limbs. Then she went over the edge. She could see the sides of the cliff. I was at an almost perfect 90 degree angle with the ground at the bottom so the fall was pretty straight. She could see the city. Silhouetted in an eerie twilight-like gloomy light. The ground came closer and closer. She was about to hit it. She was screaming at the top of her lungs. Then…


“Christine, are you okay?”

“Yes… yes I am. It was just a nightmare.”

She looked at Frankie. He was actually there. In the bed beside her.
At first it was confusing. Elements of her dream and real life seemed so entwined that she could not tell the difference between fact and fiction. Reality and her nightmare blurred together to form a giant muddled picture that she could not make out clearly.

Christine looked around the room. It did not look like either of the rooms she had occupied in her dream. In the gloom she could not make out much about her surroundings so she reached out to her bedside and snapped on the little lamp that sat upon a small oak side table. The room was dominated with shades of peach and royal blue. An antique oak dresser and wardrobe stared back at her as she looked around. A deep blue carpet with matching curtains and drapes. Oatmeal-peach paint on the walls went well with her similarly coloured duvet that was embroidered with the same blue as the carpet and walls.

Now she looked at the man in bed with her. She knew him. He was Frankie. Her friend. So what was he doing in bed with her?

“What are you doing here…? Frankie?” Christine asked, confused.

“What do you mean honey? I live here. We both do. And we have since we got married about five years ago.” He answered patiently.

Francis could see that she still looked confused.

“Don’t tell me you do not know who I am babe. After all these years,” he joked, “No more coffee before bed for you. You could have woken up the kids and Jessica with that scream. But seeing as nobody has come to inquire I think they are still asleep.” He chuckled.

“Jessica?”

“Yes, Jessica… your sister. I hope you haven’t forgotten her too. Now come on dear lets get some sleep. We have to catch that flight tomorrow or rather today at 7am and it is 1:00 o’clock.”

He leaned over switched off the lights and kissed her then snuggled back under the sheets.

Christine did not go back to sleep immediately. The fog in her mind had cleared up and she could remember things. Frankie was her husband. Jessica was her sister. She had two children. William and Robert, Billy and Bobby. It was all just a silly dream. Supernatural experiences. Please. She snuggled closer to the man who was her husband and drifted off to sleep. The last thought in her mind before she drifted off was – I hope this is not a dream. For a split second after that thought she had a weird feeling. It felt like laughter. Not an actual noise, just a sort of vibration that jarred through a body before she returned to sleep. It gave her a chill that she didn’t get to feel because she was already fast asleep.

The laughter echoed. If not in this realm, then another.

Ha ha ha…