Zombie II (203)

[PSI-3]

Sean tapped lightly on the bathroom door with a single knuckle. “Hellooo? Milo, sweetheart, are you freaking out in here?” The handle was rust-stained and loose and the button lock would disengage if you twisted it just so. He applied the twist automatically, without checking to see if it was locked in the first place, and peeped in.

The place was dim, with a single yellow lightbulb, dark wood and peaceful pale blue tile. There was a persistent smell of mildew that the sticky flower air freshener could not combat, similarly long-lived black stains creeping up the walls and tile, and a constant trickle like a garden fountain from the leaky toilet tank. Milo was seated on the closed lid of said toilet, curled up and breathing into a paper bag. He was in his costume and full makeup, both of which were rather minimalist and not much disarrayed. He’d only need a little reapplication of powder.

“Ah, I thought so!” Sean said. “First place I looked. Go, me!” He was in costume, but not yet in makeup. He was wearing a little paper bib with a lobster on it, which Eglantine had put on him before noting Milo had looked more terrified than usual. He removed it and regarded the lobster with a sigh. “She says these are cheaper. I don’t know. I suspect she’s winding me up. Did you get a lobster bib or something sensible like paper towels and safety pins?”

Milo put a hand up, hiding behind it, and turned away.

“We’re sort of not supposed to freak out in here. There’s a little sign over the sink saying please don’t freak out in here because we only have one working toilet backstage. Did you see the little sign over the sink?”

Milo nodded weakly behind his hand. It was making him freak out even worse.

“It doesn’t work very well. The little sign, I mean. The toilet doesn’t either. At least it flushes. Most of the time. It’s not very good with vomit, which is another reason not to freak out in here. But you already have a paper bag, so that’s all right.”

There was a trash can with a lid against the wall opposite the sink. Sean cautiously sat on it, keeping most of the weight on his feet. “I don’t want to crowd you or anything. Are you getting that feeling like the walls are closing in?”

Milo looked up and suspiciously regarded the walls. The sound of his rapid breathing sped up.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. Of course you’re impressionable. Actors are very impressionable people.”

Milo turned and rapidly shook his head, crossing both hands in front of him. That was his no, but extra. He made a sign which Sean had managed not to get confused with any of the others, since Calliope had taught it to both of them and Milo was using it as a noun, a verb, and Sean’s name. There was room for a little ambiguity there, Milo might’ve been telling him to go away, but he read it as: NO ACTOR NO ACTOR EXTREMELY NO ACTOR! (I’M NOT AN ACTOR!)

“You don’t want to or you can’t or you’re just not any good at it?” Sean said. He shook his head. “I know I asked far too much at once, but it doesn’t really matter. It’s all the same. We all feel like that, a lot, but it’s your first time so of course it’s much harder for you.” He sighed. “And you’re probably not going to believe me about how it’s normal and you’ll get past it like the rest of us. Even though we have that little sign over the sink. We didn’t put that there for you, you know.”

Milo shook his head. He stuffed a hand in his pocket and presented a card, which Sean took.

Sean finished reading and held up the card. “You made this days ago, didn’t you?”

Milo nodded, looking down.

“You know, I hid something from Ann because I wanted her to like me, and I thought you were one person and also gay and you might date me.” He waved a hand. “You already know that. The thing you don’t know is: I throw up. Every time. Usually right before I go on, but sometimes right after. And once on the stage. Into a blue pot with a fake bird of paradise in it — thank gods I was only an extra that time, but I sold it, Milo. I’m a professional. I made it part of the character. Anthony was directing and he had me pretend to do it for every show afterwards, because it was hilarious. Believe me?”

Milo slowly shook his head.

“All right, maybe I didn’t do it for every show afterwards, but you can ask anyone here about the vomit, and the bird of paradise. There is literally a bucket with my name on it on either side of the stage, but I hid them in here for Hideous Obsession. I didn’t want to throw up in the toilet. I only did that once, the play was in progress, I tried to flush and the damn thing started to overflow. I made the toilet puke, Milo, and I couldn’t even find the damn plunger. You see I’ve become very meticulous about the plunger, it’s there in the corner, but I always throw up in one of my buckets. Excepting that one time with the bird of paradise.”

Milo regarded the plunger. He cocked his head at Sean and signed ‘smile,’ but only once.

“I don’t know if that’s because I made you smile in spite of yourself or you still think I’m putting you on.”

Milo waggled a single pale hand. The ragged sleeve of his zombie shirt shifted, showing just a hint of the scars, but only if you knew where to look.

Sean leaned back and put a hand on each knee. “I’ll show you one of those buckets before you go on, and you will go on. Not because I make you, but because it’s fun and you know it, and the need for attention will get the better of you if you just let it. I still go on, every time, and I’m always eager to do another one, even with the buckets.

“I know for certain you’re not going to quit, because you kept going when I wanted to quit. This is all extremely ordinary, Milo. What happened a week ago wasn’t, and I’m still sorry about it.”

———

Since Milo was so good at being a brainless dead man, Tiphanie had decided to swap over one of the mad scientist’s motive rants, which was meant to be directed at her deformed assistant Herve (played by Sean), and direct it at the nameless zombie instead. Just to see how it went. The only thing they had to do was teach Milo how to take a stage slap, which Sean sort of sneaked past Tiphanie as clarifying how she wanted a man with no brain to take a stage slap. (Milo was supposed to be a method actor with an unspecified amount of experience.)

“Tiffie, do you want to him to sell it or not?” He clapped his hands and knocked his head back, demonstrating. “Does a zombie even feel something like that? You’re not going to have Darla really slap him, are you?”

Tiphanie had begun rubbing her temples as if she had a sinus headache the moment Sean said her name. “Sit down, you jealous bitch.” She indicated a folding chair. They were in the rehearsal hall, formerly the dance studio, from when the place had been an opera. There was still a big blank wall with a cracked mirror and a barre, which made it like Ann got to watch them rehearse too.

“Maybe he feels it emotionally or something, I don’t know,” Tiphanie went on. “Your non-boyfriend is fantastic and I don’t want to crush his instinct with too much direction. But neither will I have poor Darla slap him in his real human face — causing him real pain! — and expect him to stay in character.” She glanced aside at Milo. “Unless you’d prefer that, zombie?”

Milo subtly shook his head. That was all the information he needed. Darla wasn’t really going to slap him and if he wanted to stand there like a statue or just barely react, that was fine.

“Right! Darla, take it from your entrance, only it’s not Herve cleaning up, it’s your creation making another godawful mess. Zombie, do your thing.”

They had a folding table with a few props on it to play with. Tiphanie seemed to think he was a physical comedian who might like to practice, instead of just nervous and clumsy with no glasses. And curious. He could manage being curious about a bunch of prop science stuff he’d seen a dozen times before, it was all in how you thought about it.

He was ignoring Eloise’s speech and trying to work out how they made the funny green liquid in the test tube glow but not spill, when Darla snatched it out of his hand and flung it aside. “Look at me when I’m talking to you!” she snarled.

All of a sudden… It wasn’t like those flashbacks in the movies. The screen didn’t go all wobbly and fade out or anything. There was still a converted dance studio with a big mirror where he’d been rehearsing and Ann had to practice being murdered about a million times, but it wasn’t real. It was just like a fake set with actors on top. The real thing was happening underneath where you couldn’t see it. He had been kneeling on the floor, drawing on the wall beside his bed in the workhouse, and one of the sisters had just snatched the stub of black crayon away and screamed at him. And it was like he was psychic all of a sudden, because he could also feel all the other stuff that was going to happen, just waiting in the wings to crash over him like a wave. She was going to grab him by the shoulder and shove his hand in a bucket of cold water with soapy cleaner and a brush in it, and she’d make him clean the wall and watch all the eyes he’d drawn over come back. And then he’d go to the infirmary forever.

Above that, in the not-real set he was trying desperately to tell himself was real, he felt a pair of tears spill out of his eyes (He thought maybe he shouldn’t, maybe he ought to turn or hide them, look for a tissue in his pocket, but he couldn’t care about any of that stuff that wasn’t real.) and he just froze.

Darla/Eloise’s eyes widened. She turned from him without delivering the stage slap and continued her speech. She ended in a crumpled heap on the floor, in tears, and the people watching in the folding chairs stood up and applauded.

She picked up her hand, he saw that because he happened to have frozen with his eyes open in her direction, and warded them away. “I have to stop. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I thought…” She began to sob. “I’m sorry, did I really hurt him? I’m sorry!”

Then someone — he knew it was Sean but he didn’t care about that yet — put an arm around him and held his hand and started talking to him. He couldn’t answer, but it didn’t matter. Sean walked him into a dim little office with a window and a closed curtain. There was a scratchy couch with loud orange plaid fabric and they sat on it. Someone said, “Can’t you just get him to break character?” and Sean replied, “This isn’t a character. Please, just get him a soda out of the machine. Orange. He likes orange soda. And something to eat. Does Eggs still have those chocolates?”

He wanted a ginger ale, but he didn’t care. He remembered that part. Everything else was a little hazy. He wasn’t paying attention. He was waiting for the bad stuff to happen.

It didn’t, though. People brought him sodas and Sean sat with an arm around him on the loud sofa in the quiet office. When he felt secure enough to try communicating again, he counted three empty soda bottles on the cushion next to him, and one half-empty box of chocolates. He tapped Sean’s shoulder and signed: SORRY.

“What?” Sean said. “Oh, gods, no. I’m just glad you’re talking. Where were you? No. I know you can’t tell me. I’m so sorry, Milo. I never thought that would happen to you. It doesn’t usually… Not unless you’re really good. Well, I mean, really into it. You’re not really a method actor and you didn’t tell me?”

Milo shook his head.

“Yeah.” Sean squeezed him for a moment and then let go. “Oh, I’ve been hugging you. I didn’t ask… Maybe I did, but you couldn’t tell me not to. I’m sorry. I just… It got too real didn’t it?”

Milo shook his head. Then he frowned and bobbed it from side to side. It wasn’t too real, it was… different real. Then it was back and forth between two real things like a swing, then he was eating a chocolate and it was kind of like he finally put his feet down and stopped. Yeah, this is real. He was pretty sure, but he was really tired.

The tired part was like he’d hidden in the closet and had to pull himself back together, but the rest of it wasn’t. Not even how it happened, so fast like that. And it was always Ann trying to slow him down and make him stop, but this time…

Ann? Are you okay?

I’m here, it just… I don’t know. You weren’t where I was. Or when I was. I thought if I reached you, I’d break you like a soap bubble. Are you okay?

I think… Yeah?

It felt like he shouldn’t be. Like he ought to turn around and be more scared. It was too fast, too public, and he didn’t even hit his head.

Then someone tapped on the door, like Sean had tapped on the bathroom door. Like it was a cocoa packet and he wanted to shift the powder to the bottom without making it all dusty. It opened just a crack, “Sean, I’m sorry. Darla… She really needs to know he’s all right. She’s got it in her head she hurt him and there’s no shifting it. Can she just see him a second?”

Sean didn’t want to let Darla in, but Milo felt bad for her. It wasn’t her fault. She didn’t hurt him. He got hurt a long time ago. He brushed Sean off and went shakily to the door. She was standing with her hands folded, still crying. She didn’t have the lab coat on anymore. It was a knit sweater, like Calliope, except blue and it fit properly. She didn’t look up. She said he reminded her how her big brother looked when he got home from the war, and they shouldn’t yell at hurt people like that, but sometimes they do anyway, and you can’t stop them, and maybe some boys don’t ever get to come home and get better.

“…I thought, your family don’t even know you’re hurt and you want to come home, and you’ll never see them again, and I hurt you.” She sniffled. “I’m sorry. It’s really stupid.”

He shook his head.

“Are you okay?”

He nodded and signed her a thumbs up.

She snickered. “You’re still doing it. I didn’t even knock you out of character.”

He couldn’t smile at her. Well, he could’ve, but he couldn’t be sure it would look right. You know, warm and human. He winked at her.

She laughed. “Okay. You’re really amazing. Can I hug you?”

He hugged her back. He’d been hugging people for ages now, thank goodness.

Tiffie came up behind her and wanted to know if they had it sorted or if they needed to quit for the day. Darla asked to quit and Tiffie allowed it with a nod.

Sean said, “Tiffie, I really think we’d better go back to Eloise yelling at Herve, don’t you?”

“Sean, that is one of the many reasons nobody wants to let you direct,” Tiphanie said. “That was a brilliant performance. It got a bit out of hand, but that’s why we have rehearsals. We’ll do it again and they’ll use it. They are professionals!”

“I have to speak to Milo right now.” And Sean dragged him back into the office. He shut the door and said, “Milo, we need to drop this right now. I thought we were just messing around, but you did not sign up for this. You aren’t a professional. I’m going to tell Tiphanie you’re not a professional right now so she’ll let you quit, okay?”

Milo shook his head and crossed his hands in front of him. No, but extra.

Ann tried to unpack it for Sean later, at the house, over coffee. She could only feel around the edges of it, she hadn’t been through it like Milo, but he did his best to help her understand.

“It’s… It sort of felt like a do-over, darling. He went back to where a bad thing happened, but the bad thing didn’t happen. A bunch of nice people ran in and gave him hugs and sodas and chocolates instead. He wishes it really did happen that way. You gave him a gift. He won’t give that up.”

I want that memory instead, he’d told her. I don’t want the other one at all, I want the better one where I got to be safe. It should have happened the better way. I deserve it! (That with anger which had scared her, so he backed away from it.) But I can’t get rid of the bad one, he said, so I’ll take both. 

But she didn’t feel she understood that enough to explain it to Sean. She’d done okay. Sean didn’t say he had to quit. They kept pretending he was a real actor who knew what he was doing.

He didn’t get scared like that when they did the scene again, and Darla didn’t either. It was super fun.

———

Sean nodded broadly and signed at him: YES ACTOR EXTREMELY YES ACTOR. “I know that because it wouldn’t have happened in the first place if you weren’t, and because you wanted to keep going anyway, and how Ann said you felt about it. You don’t have to do it for a living, but you could if you wanted to.” He held up a hand. “And I know you don’t want to, but that’s just the audience. That’s just a theaterful of strangers who are going to watch you and judge you the whole time and throw things if they get bored. You hate that, right?”

Milo nodded sickly. He tapped the edge of the card where it said he couldn’t. Sean had it right there on paper but he was ignoring it.

Sean crumpled the card and dropped it in the trash. “Everyone hates that, Milo. But they love it too. That’s why they keep doing it. That’s why I keep doing it even though it makes me throw up. I’ve mentioned I’m shy. You thought I was kidding.”

Milo nodded.

“Well, I’m not.” He stood and spun around once like a model. “This is an act. Before I even knew I wanted to act, I designed a part for myself and I’ve been living it pretty much nonstop ever since. This is the fabulous person a miserable little awkward kid with no friends who’d rather be at home listening to the serials on the radio wanted to be instead. This is who I want you to see. I’m hiding behind it.” He winked. “But it’s not bad, is it?”

Milo stood up. You have an Ann? This is Ann? Where’s the rest of you?

But he answered himself before he even finished thinking the question: You drew over it. You painted over it, like when Calliope screws up a canvas but it’s already dry. It’s still there, but you need turpentine to see it.

Oh, man. He put a hand on Sean’s arm and shook his head. Sean, are you okay?

I think most people do that, Milo. Instead of what you did. Maybe not as completely as Sean is saying, but if people don’t like part of themselves, they paint over it. Sometimes you can still see it and sometimes you can’t. I think sometimes even they forget it’s there.

Terpsichore is right, normal people suck, Milo thought. He felt bad for all those lost Milos people were hiding inside them. Geez, maybe that’s why I’m a good zombie. I was supposed to be buried by now.

“I’m adjusted, Milo,” Sean said fussily. “For heaven’s sake, don’t you start judging me or I’ll need another bucket. I’m freaked out enough already.” He shook his head. “But that’s only because I still don’t trust it. I’m like an acrobat with anxiety who never believes the trapeze is going to be there when I jump, but it always is.

“Acting is magic. You’re standing right there as vulnerable as you’ve ever been in your life, but that scary audience can’t see you. They don’t want to see you. They see the character… Or if you’re total shit, they see a clichéd construct they like to call ‘a terrible actor’ and they throw things at him, but they never see you. It’s all the attention we desperately need and none of the risk of being known. We get to vanish for three hours tonight, and the more we disappear, the more they love us. I’ll take the love, Milo. Even though I’m hiding.” He smiled. “I’ll peek out from behind the curtain at the bows, just enough for them to love me.”

Gods, he makes it sound so fun, Milo thought.

It is fun, Milo. You know it is. She approached it cautiously, she didn’t want to scare him more, And Calliope will be there having a lot of fun too.

Oh. Hell. She’d notice if it was Phil. Or whoever. She’d know it’s because I decided not to do it and she’d be sad. 

He’d already brought Calliope and her whole family backstage and they’d met everyone and learned how the effects work and played with the makeup. Calliope and Euterpe even wanted to be zombies too. Eglantine said sure, but Tiffie said makeup was expensive. (Eggs got irritated and gave them a whole bag of makeup to play with when Tiffe wasn’t looking.) Calliope and everyone were excited for him.

He frowned. But she’ll know it’s not ‘a terrible actor’ if I mess it up, she’ll know it’s really me being scared and dumb. That will make her sad too, and she won’t have any fun. None of them will have any fun if they know I’m not.

He looked Sean up and down. You can’t do it for me, can you, Ann?

No, Milo. And I’m not sorry. I want you to do it and I know you can.

…I’m getting really sick of people saying they know things about me, Ann.

Well then? She was almost smug.

Sean offered a hand. “What do you think? Ready to go be invisible and get all the love we never had in our childhoods at the same time?” He grinned. “It’s no problem if you want to keep freaking out right through the first act, but people do want this particular area to pee in.”

There was a line of three waiting in the hallway and subtly dancing when Milo and Sean emerged, Phil among them. “Oh, hey Milo. I kinda thought Sean was throwing up in there. You wanna trade places tonight?”

“No, no, no, you help Otto,” Sean said.  “You are perfectly competent with the lights and we need you. Something always goes wrong on opening night and it’s Mischief Night on top of everything. You’re going to have to get along without Milo’s electrical virtuosity, he’s working on stage. Right?”

Milo managed a subtle nod.

“Right!”

———

Tiphanie was leaning heavily against the table in the sound booth, which was a small area backstage with the edges of the silence spells delineated in tape. The checklist of items they needed for the effects had slid to the floor at her feet.

Sean, now in full deformed assistant makeup, edged inside and put a clawed hand on her shoulder. She startled and then peered at him, trying to discern his features. He spoke to her inaudibly. She shook her head. He gently but firmly pulled her out of there.

“God damn it, I do not need this tonight. God damn it! Where is my list?”

“It is still in the booth, Loretta can take care of it. Are you all right?”

“I need my brain!” she snarled. “I don’t need my legs, I need my brain! I’m directing this travesty!”

“Oh.” Sean smiled at Milo. “Tiffie gets distracted. Sometimes she pines for the ocean.”

She glared murderously. “I cannot handle you being cute at me right now, Sean. This is serious!”

Sean walked her over to an armchair (it was ugly and loud like the sofa, the Slaughterhouse people bought furniture from rummage sales or rescued it off the street) and sat her down. “Tiffie, you have been brilliantly directing this travesty for the past three weeks and you helped write it. We love you and your brain very much, but I think we will be able to stagger along under our own power for the evening. What if you sit here and watch us make fools of ourselves?”

“And let my artistic vision fall apart? Oh, gods.” She put her head in both hands. “What’s it called? My artistic vision. What did we name the damn thing?”

They’d named it Headcase. It was on the tickets and the programs.

“It’s Eloise, like you wanted.”

She frowned. “No it isn’t.”

“Tonight it is.” He clapped his hands. “Hey, listen up, everyone! Tiphanie is having a bad brain day and she really needs us to keep it together on this one and make her proud. You all know what you’re supposed to be doing, so if and when something goes wrong, please do your best to clean it up yourself or with a friend, okay?”

“Oh, shit,” someone said, Milo thought it sounded like Otto.

“And be positive!” Sean added, beaming like a hideously deformed searchlight. “I think we’re just about ready to make the announcements. I need someone to help me make the announcements. A girl! Loretta, you come with me, I need you to finish up the checklist anyway, but I’m sure it’s all there…”

They were missing the sheet metal for the thunder. Milo found it resting against a box fan twenty minutes later. Then the audience were mostly in their seats and it was time to go.

“Good evening everyone and welcome to the Slaughterhouse!” Sean said brightly, if somewhat displaced. His voice boomed out from the speakers on either side of the stage. “We would like to remind our honored guests that our actors are easily distracted by shiny objects so there is no flash photography! Food and beverages are disallowed in the auditorium unless you are flinging them at us during the boring parts! Please remember that crinkling cellophane annoys those around you, so if you must eat a candy bar, keep it in the wrapper!” Everyone backstage joined in on that part, except Milo and Tiphanie.

Loretta picked up the next bit with a grin, “Those of you with delicate constitutions like my friend here will be thrilled to know that paper sick bags are located in the seat pockets in front of you, and emergency exits are to the left and right of the stage — in the direction of the blood!” Everyone said that part too, this time including Tiphanie.

“Tonight’s deranged fantasy is called Eloise,” Sean said. “Just for tonight. In honor of our dearly departed director,” he gave Loretta a nudge, “whom we have just pushed down the stairs!”

Loretta screamed and Otto flickered the house lights.

“…So tonight the inmates really are running the asylum!” He exploded in deranged laughter and backed step by step away from the microphone so it faded. He kept it up for just a moment after he’d left the sound booth, they could still hear it in the audience, then he turned and ran. “Oh, gods, I’m narrating, I have to get out there!” He blew past Milo with a hand over his mouth.

Tiphanie was clutching her turbaned head in both hands. “It’ll be the bird of paradise all over again…”

Milo sorted through the debris at the side of the stage and found the bucket. It was labeled in white paint: ACTOR VOMIT (SEAN). There wasn’t any in it at the moment. He set it upright in an obvious place.

The curtain came up and the audience applauded, with a few excited screams thrown in. He wasn’t sure if he heard Calliope or anyone from home. He tried to peek out, but he wasn’t supposed to exist yet and he didn’t want anyone to see him. All he got was a vague idea of people, paint smudges floating in the darkness. There was a fine mesh screen between him and them, in case they threw things. From the stage, with the lights, it was like a gray mist. Even with glasses, you could barely make anyone out past the Splash Zone. Hyacinth and Mordecai had insisted upon seating outside of the Splash Zone, despite offended protest from Calliope, Maggie and Euterpe.

They had built the mad scientist’s lab out of set pieces they already had. This play had been written and designed from the very beginning to be cheap, easy and replayable. The walls were fake stone from a dungeon they’d used two months ago, and the sciency stuff was a little from other labs, a little from an alien spaceship, and a little from a nightmare carnival sideshow. Sean was sweeping the floor, wearing a stained lab coat.

“It was a rainy night,” he said, almost wistfully. (That was where the sheet metal for the thunder came in.) “I don’t think it would’ve happened that way, except for the rain…”

Darla ran in, soaking wet, and clutching a football-sized object wrapped in a bloodstained sheet. “Clear off the operating table! Don’t ask questions, just do it! I need it!” She cradled the object and spoke sweetly to it. When Sean tried to speak to her, she shoved him away. “My tools! I need my tools!” She put the object on the table concealing it behind the rumpled sheet.

“Is that…?” Sean said. “My, gods, Dr. Dumont, what happened to him?”

She wouldn’t answer him. She ordered him around and told him to bring her more things. “The battery! Those wires!” She laughed sickly. “A jar. I need a jar. I don’t care what you have to dump out of it. Quickly!”

He brought her a convenient human-head-sized jar.

“Now bring me the revivification fluid!”

“Dr. Dumont… Eloise! You can’t!”

“Bring me the revivification fluid, you fool!”

“All of it?”

“All of it!”

“It was a car accident,” Sean informed the audience, as Darla worked furiously behind him. “There was a deer in the road. He swerved to avoid it, but they hit a tree. His body was crushed in the wreckage…”

She held up the jar with the fake head in it, so the audience could only see it from behind. She spoke lovingly, “That’s all right now, Ethan. Do you see?” (The characters were always going on about what they saw or didn’t see. It was kind of a running gag, or a ‘theme’ as Tiphanie said.) “That’s all right…”

“…but she saved a piece of him. They were going to be married in three weeks…”

Sean filled everyone in on their tragic love story while she was arranging the jar on a table — really hiding the jar with the fake head behind the angled mirror and helping Gerry get situated. He’d been behind the mirror the whole time, scrunched up in a ball. Sean said they ought to have Otto do it, there was less of him to hide, but Otto did not under any circumstances want to be ‘talent.’

At last, Darla stepped away for the shocking reveal and Gerry screamed for ninety seconds straight. Tiphanie said she picked him to be Ethan on the strength of that scream alone.

(Eglantine had said, “I don’t get it. How does a severed head even talk, let alone scream?” “He has neck juice, he’s fine,” Gerry replied, and ‘neck juice’ became a ‘theme’ with the folks backstage which culminated with Darla shouting, “Bring me the neck juice, you fool!” in rehearsal. Then Tiphanie told them to cut it the hell out or else no one was going to be able to keep a straight face for the real show. “Except the zombie,” she allowed.)

Milo touched the fingers of his left hand to the thumb, counting. It was maybe even a little more than ninety.

“Ethan wasn’t very happy about it,” Sean said redundantly, generating a wave of nervous laughter. The audience wasn’t sure if it was a comedy or a tragedy either.

Sean kept telling the story and Darla wandered on and off the stage, sometimes saying a line or two, as time passed. When he got to the part about how a dead body wouldn’t work, Milo shut his eyes and clasped his hands. Oh, gods, here I go.

“…he was harmless and, at times, even amusing,” Sean said.

Milo wandered on stage, zombily, and ran straight into a table. A whole rack of colored test tubes fell over. One person in the audience applauded right away. He thought that was probably someone from the house, but it could’ve been a stranger being sarcastic. Like when a waiter drops a dish. He shut his eyes for a moment and tried not to think about it.

There was scattered laughter and a bit more applause.

He picked up a test tube, examined the mysterious fluid in it for a moment, and then tried to eat it. They thought that was funny too.

They thought he was funny when Sister Mary Francis glued his head to the wall.

He pushed the thought away. It was getting easier. It had been worse during rehearsal, everyone was so close. It was a little room, like a classroom. But all those people liked him, and they didn’t smile and laugh when he needed help, they gave him candy and soda and hugs. Darla felt bad when she thought she hurt him, she said she was sorry and she meant it.

And these people don’t see me, he thought, gazing at their blank faces through the purple fluid in the tube. Sean is right about that. They don’t think I’m funny, I’m not even here.

Except for my friends and Calliope; They see me, they like me and they want me to have fun.

He decided he was disappointed that the test tube wasn’t candy and he let it fall to the floor. He could pretend to slip on it later. There was a book on the shelf over there that he thought he might mistake for a hat.

He had to stay on, so the head had someone to talk to, and Sean left. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught his friend, the actor, throwing up very quietly in a bucket.

Oh, good, he made it, Milo thought, frozen and staring to give the audience a chance to guess he really was listening. That guy’s a real professional.

———

There were a few hiccups and one whole spotlight fell off the scaffolding, but Milo’s invisible net caught it. People backstage kept giving him high-fives after that — he couldn’t tell them Maggie came up with the net spell, but he didn’t necessarily mind that. Sean had a minor meltdown and kept insisting he could’ve died, even though it happened during intermission and Otto had invisible tethers on everything already — the net was just extra and quieter. “If it happened a little sooner or later and the magic didn’t kick in, I could’ve diiied!” he wailed, but he snapped right out of it when Tiphanie walked over and asked what was wrong. “Oh, nothing! Milo’s a genius, this building is very safe. Can I get you another cola from the machine, dear heart?”

Altogether they pulled through with a couple minor contusions and Phil was only mildly traumatized by having to lie on the invisible net and hold the spotlight, which they needed, with oven mitts on for the rest of the show.

Sean got the last line, all scrunched up behind the mirror with his head in the jar and partially-submerged in neck juice, “She finally sees me. She’s dancing with me. We’re dancing, we’re dancing…”

…but Milo got the last word. Per Tiphanie’s direction, he wandered past the window, on the outside, free. He stopped, turned to look at the audience, and smiled. He took it slowly, from twitching at the corners like he couldn’t remember how, to fully unhinged and creepy, with teeth. That was easy. All he had to do was remember how happy he’d been when they figured out the General needed to stand on the roof and get nailed by magic again and again for the whole rest of the storm. Tiphanie said it was better than the smile Ann had done in the mirror.

The audience broke into applause at the sight of him. Milo thought a few of them even stood up, but it was hard to tell through the window with the lights. Aw, they really do love me, he thought. Well, they love him. They’re happy he gets away.

Tiphanie was really smart for how she staged it and Sean was really smart for coming up with it in the first place.

He wandered off. Less than a minute later, it was time to wander back on, in front of the curtain, for the bows. Headcase (or Eloise) had a cast of five. The four lab people all ran out from stage left, holding hands. Eloise first, then Herve, Ethan, and the zombie. All of them except Eloise had been double-cast and were wearing pieces of both costumes, in case the audience didn’t get it. Milo was less than thrilled when Tiphanie decided he wasn’t a prop and he needed a second part too, but all he had to do was sit in the background and knock over a beer mug. He had the mug and a bowler hat with him, for the benefit of the audience. Eloise’s victims, otherwise known as one quick-changing actor named Henri, ran on from the right. He had four different hats stacked on top of his head — because apparently audiences were completely stupid and didn’t like to read their programs.

Most of the stupid audience were standing and cheering, if not quite all of them. A few more politely got up when Loretta darted on, still wearing her headset, and delivered a bouquet of roses to Darla. Darla split them up and gave one to everybody, victim/s first. Sean got a kiss on the head with his rose, which the audience approved with scandalized hooting noises. She pretended she was going to hit Milo with his rose — a few people booed and more laughed. She handed it to him nicely instead. He took it and pretended he didn’t understand what roses were for. He made one brief attempt to eat it, to more laughter, then he hugged her, which got a new swell of applause.

Sean darted off the stage and grabbed Tiphanie, dragging her on. “We didn’t push her down the stairs!” he hollered. Tiphanie bowed too, laughing.

Milo thought by then the audience were all standing and if they weren’t, then they really were stupid.

———

There were more flowers backstage, and cake, and champagne. Tiphanie had a really big bouquet in a vase that looked like a mermaid’s tail.

Even Milo got some flowers, pink roses with a little teddy bear hugging them. IT’S A GIRL! said the heart-shaped pillow the bear was clutching. He smirked at it. Euterpe picked this out and Calliope okayed it because she thought it was funny. I don’t even need to ask. I’m psychic. Why doesn’t anyone ask me tomorrow’s lotto numbers?

Mainly they wanted to congratulate him for not killing Sean with the light and tell him he was a very good actor. He tried to deal with that while clutching the flowers and eating cake, and staying as close to the door as possible for when his family came in. They were holding off The Big Reveal until then. Sean thought they were going to need as many people as possible to explain Milo and assure everyone he wasn’t still faking.

He wasn’t close enough to see Calliope when she burst in, but he heard her: “Where’s my undead boyfriend?”

It was kinda like looking up and suddenly noticing he was tied to a post in front of a firing squad, except all they had was fuzzy warm hearts to shoot at him. And chocolates. Erik and Mordecai brought a box of chocolates. Hyacinth had eaten half of them during the show and pinched all the rest to check the filling, but they meant well.

You know, I’d keep doing this even if it made me puke too, he thought.

It was too bad he wasn’t really a virtuoso method actor and this was the only part he was good for. But if the play did well enough for a rerun, he’d be right here waiting to go on.

Sean gave him a nudge before he even had a minute to ask why Calliope had her reading glasses on and her hair all crazy. “Shall we do it now,” one finger, for Option One, “or drag it out a little longer?” two fingers for Option Two.

This time, Milo went with Option One.

Sean carefully tested a folding chair with one foot and then stood on it. “Pardon me! Ladies and gentlemen, friends and family — and Mom. Hi, Mom.” He smiled at her. She waved a lace handkerchief. “But we’re not quite done with the bows yet! I’d like to introduce you all to Milo Rose. You haven’t met him, he makes watches in a factory. With my assistance, he’s been playing the part of a method actor, and we’ve both had a lot of fun, but it’s time to let you all in on the gag. He’s not acting. This is just him. He can hear you but he doesn’t speak. I thought he’d be just perfect for the part because this is how he lives every day, but Tiffie put the idea in our heads by accident and we decided to fool you for a while.”

Tiphanie yanked him down from the folding chair, which collapsed. “Oh, gods, this whole building is trying to kill me, but it keeps missing,” Sean muttered.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Tiphanie snarled. “Are you taking advantage of my brain, you piece of shit?”

“No, Tiffie, and I’m sorry about that, but we agreed to drop it tonight and I didn’t know which parts of you would be working. You’ve hired a person with crippling social anxiety and selective mutism to play a zombie, not a method actor. Um, I’m sorry, Milo, this is for Tiphanie’s brain.” He leaned in closer and stage-whispered to her, “Milo is a crazy person.”

“Hey,” said most of Milo’s friends and adoptive family. Hyacinth just said, “It’s a compliment,” and Terpsichore nodded.

Milo bobbed his head from side to side. Yeah. I’m not gonna dance around it, that’s being mean to Tiffie’s brain.

“Crippling social anxiety?” Tiphanie howled. “What about ‘Ann?’”

“Oh, and a split personality. It’s a bit more complicated, but for the sake of your brain…”

“Oh, my gods, are you being serious right now, Sean?”

Milo tapped her on the shoulder. He nodded and executed a cautious bow.

Tiphanie collapsed, cackling. True to his word, Sean caught her. He let her down slowly on the floor — he didn’t trust that damn chair.

“Oh, my gods, that’s fantastic,” she cried. “I love him!”

Darla spoke in a lower voice, which Milo nevertheless caught, “I knew that was really him hugging me, Henri. I told you.”

“That’s sick!” This was another female voice, approaching from a distance. Eglantine hove into view, lime green hair, bright mauvine dress and all. She stabbed a finger at them. She looked a bit like Eloise about to off her first victim with the hedge clippers. “Why are you laughing? Don’t you have any idea how sick that is? I thought you were playing a character,” she told Milo, with something like anguish. “Like you were wearing a big fluffy cartoon animal costume at Papillon Island and it was okay to play with you. I tried to feed you chocolates like a dog.”

“Don’t feed a dog chocolate,” Maggie, the General, Erik and Mordecai all said on top of each other.

“You can’t be a real person, you can’t do that with a real mental illness, that’s… that’s… that’s sick!” said Eglantine.

Milo sighed and turned his head away.

“Gods, did I just really upset you?” She stamped her feet. “This is a messed up thing to do to a person, you two!”

“I don’t know, Eggs,” Otto said. “I wouldn’t, myself, but it’s his mental illness. He has to live with it and you don’t. If he wants to have a little fun with it, it’s not your place to tell him he can’t.” He grinned and pointed at Milo, “I knew you were a tech person. I knew it!”

Milo made a weak smile in his direction, but he was still worried about Eggs. He had to work with her for the whole rest of the week, and she was a really nice person.

“The world is a stage, the world is a stage,” Tiphanie laughed, nearly sobbing. She sniffled and dabbed her eyes with a sleeve. “It’s the same thing we do here every day, Eggs. You help us do it every day. We hide behind characters, or, or writing and a bunch of actors, so we can be who we really are. Don’t you… Don’t you see it?”

Eglantine pointed in the general direction of the stage. “Those people buy tickets for it and consent!”

“Free theater, woo,” Euterpe said hopefully. He glanced around.

“Either everything is theater or nothing is,” Tiphanie said with a grin. “It’s Mischief Night, Eggs. The real ghosts like to run around tonight too, you just grabbed one and got scared when you found out he wasn’t wearing a mask. It’s perfect.”

“But he says he’s sorry, Eggs,” Sean added. “Calliope is teaching him a little sign language, so he can say a few things. He’s pretty much been saying it nonstop. Please don’t be mad at him, this was my idea.”

“Really?” Tiphanie said. “Maybe we will let you direct one of these days, Sean!”

He brightened. “Really?”

“Sure. In ten years or so.”

“You took advantage of him!” Eglantine spat.

Milo shook his head and put a hand on Sean’s shoulder.

“My boyfriend has a sense of humor, Eggs,” Calliope said. “Crazy people can have a sense of humor. They’re not just, you know, helpless.”

“I don’t know what you expect me to do,” Eglantine said.

“Scream all you want and then give up and laugh,” Tiphanie said.

“Cake and champagne?” Sean said. “I’ll get it for you!”

“Your emotions are valid,” Mordecai said.

Eglantine looked him up and down. “Who the hell is this guy?”

“Milo’s father,” Terpsichore replied, without looking up from her notebook.

Eglantine looked back and forth between them, open-mouthed.

“What?” Sean said, wounded. “When did this happen? Did you adopt him? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It’s complicated,” Calliope said.

“Milo and Ann are half-kyonshi,” Euterpe said. “That’s a Wakokuhito vampire. They hop around like this, because of the rigor mortis…”

“That’s very interesting, because I am a mermaid,” Tiphanie said.

“Cool. Is it hard finding pants that fit?”

Eglantine gave up and laughed.

———

Milo timed out on social interaction shortly thereafter, and he didn’t feel right telling everyone to stop talking to him and picking up a book of puzzles like Terpsichore. He might like to try it later, but only with family. He tugged Calliope’s sleeve and she knew he wanted to go home. It was okay. Everyone who liked champagne had had at least a little, ditto cake, but there would be more cake at home for Calliope’s birthday too. They made their way to the bus stop in the foggy moonlight, hoping to catch the last one home.

Erik was skipping sideways, high on too much sugar already, and expressing his preference for this play, with the happy ending, but he’d like it better if Eloise decided she liked Herve’s head too and she stitched him back on, and Milo had to come see the haunted house and make it better for Ghost Week, maybe they could put a screaming head in it, and then they’d buy some more candy…

Terpsichore stopped in the middle of the cobbled street and clutched her notebook, “Damn it, I don’t want to leave.”

“SoHo?” Euterpe said. If she hung out a little longer she wouldn’t have to, or at least she’d have to pay for a cab.

“Yes, but only because it’s one step closer to Ansalem tomorrow,” she replied. “Oh, no…”

“Please stay, we have a room,” Hyacinth said. “Barnaby will never destroy the kitchen again.” She was only half-kidding.

Calliope shook her head. “Polyhymnia can’t do your job forever. That’s not fair. She has kids.”

“Maybe I am Polyhymnia.”

Euterpe smiled and ruffled her hair. The complicated bun at the back of her head was not disturbed in the slightest. “Aw, look how cute. She wants to be included.”

“Our big sis,” Calliope said.

“We never could fool you two.”

“Damn it, I want siblings,” Maggie said, in the same tone as Terpsichore.

“Milo’s my brother now,” Erik said.

“I don’t want him! No offense,” Maggie added.

Milo shrugged, nodding.

“I want them!” Maggie said, pointing.

“We’ll adopt you! We’ll adopt you!” the three Otises assured her, more or less at the same time, holding each other’s hands. “You’re going to our school anyway, right?”

The General emitted a low groan and clamped both hands over her face.

“That’s pretty good Glorie,” Calliope said, “but Milo is the best zombie.”

Milo spun her around and signed urgently in front of her eyes. The light was bad.

IUL (C)RIMINAL. (I LOVE YOU, CALLIOPE!)

She grinned and hugged him. “Happy birthday to me!”