Undead 11, Undead and Unstable - MaryJanice Davidson Page 0,1

man out of committing suicide. Two weeks ago, he killed himself. I’m ashamed because I didn’t see it coming. How’s that for the Lex Luthor level of lame? Who doesn’t see someone they know to have suicidal tendencies committing suicide? He practically wrote it on his forehead in red Sharpie.

I wasn’t at his funeral, by the way. Nobody was. He’d strictly forbidden one in a number of letters he’d left for me; he also left his diary. Words, words, they were all over the place. He was nagging me more in death than he had in life, which was a pretty good trick given that, nag-wise, he trailed only behind my friend Jessica. Okay, and maybe my mom.

I couldn’t stand to read too much of his stuff at a time. I’d cry, and then look ugly, and cry harder, and make my husband sad, and then we’d sad-fuck. Which was great, but sad. (Thus the name.)

Still.

The stuff I’ve read. It’s like he knew he was going to die within a few years of meeting me. But he doesn’t say how he knew. It’s all over his diary, it’s all over his suicide letters. Who writes suicide letters? He wrote me a suicide manuscript, the heartless bastard … he knows if it’s not Gone with the Wind or Pat Conroy, I’ve got zero interest. He knew he was doomed, he had a plan, but what he never said was why.

I found that kind of curious.

I never find anything curious. So I figure it’s a time-travel issue, or a me issue. Now, I’m not pulling a Mary Sue thing here, but I am the vampire queen. One of my best friends killed himself so that Evil Me from the Future (EMFTF, pronounced “emftf”) wouldn’t turn him into a horrid nasty Marc Thing.

So, yeah. I’m pretty sure it’s not all about me, but it’s definitely a lot about me.

So. Time to get to work.

Don’t get too comfy being dead, Marc.

I’m coming.

TWO

“What are you talking about, she’s dead?”

“Betsy, I’ve got a zillion things to do, what with creating life and all, so could you pay attention when I talk? Did you not see my lips moving?”

They’re always moving, I thought but did not say. Jessica was too cold except when she was too hot, and she was starving except when she was throwing up or, worse, starving while throwing up (I didn’t even want to think how that was possible). She was angry and she was joyful. She was tearful and she was enraged. She was pissed and she was venomous. She was pissed except when she was crying and—God please help us all—crying-pissed was the worst. The very worst. My super vamp powers were no match for crying-pissed.

Wrong again, I realized, remembering what I’d overheard last night from two floors away. When Jessica wasn’t eating or pissed or nesting or pissed or nagging, she was horny. Sometimes eating olives stuffed with garlic made her horny. Worst yet: she was often all those things at once, nesting and horny and pissed and horny and hungry and horny. Nobody was brave enough to touch the olive jar in the kitchen. And poor Detective Nick/Dick was starting to shamble about the place with the nine-hundred-yard stare.

“Well, look.” I was afraid to. Look at what? At her? Why? Maybe she was wearing her giant, yellow and blue circus-tent shirt in a terrifying attempt to seduce me. The thought made me want to simultaneously burst into gales of laughter and throw up in my mouth. “She is.”

I peeked, prepared for the worst. Prepregnancy Jess had nothing in the knockers department, and that was no longer the case. Luckily, seduction wasn’t on her mind right now.

We stared down at the body with more than a little surprise. “What happened?”

“No idea. I was headed to the basement and I almost tripped over the body.” Jessica patted her gigantic belly. Like the stairway wasn’t dusty and dark and claustrophobic enough without The Fetus of the Darned hogging her stomach and also most of the stairwell. “I could have broken my neck! Do you know what a fall could have done to me at this stage of my pregnancy?”

Nothing. Nothing at all; the Michelin Man had less padding. I didn’t say anything, though. I wasn’t ever going to be lauded for my genius, but that didn’t mean I was an utter dumbass.

This is going to sound terrible (even for me), but you know that series Game of Thrones? I guess the show