chapter seventeen
funerals
"This is a bit over the top.." Schlatt whispers to me. I sat in a carriage, my father sat next to me. "I mean, is this your funeral or Jareds'..?" He jokes.
"Did you say something?" My father turns his head to me, I quickly shake my head. I wasn't quite sure where Schlatt was hiden in this tiny carriage, maybe behind the seats? "Ah, okay.." He looks out his window again.
The reason for the carriage, is because since my father is such a well known man in this town (and head vampire hunter), he's kinda treated like royalty. We literally don't even live that far from the graveyard, I don't get why we need a whole carriage to carry us there. Jareds' funeral is today, the weather was cloudy and rainy (perfect). Now that I think about it, I wonder if anyone saw ghost Jared when they found his body.
The carriage comes to a halt and my door is pulled open, revealing a fancy dressed man holding an umbrella. I grab the box (that held the cat) off the floor before I hop out of the carriage. I take the umbrella from the man and thank him. I wait for my father to walk to my side and then I continue walking towards the entrance of the graveyard. He had his own umbrella so I didn't need to share. Thank god, because I do not want to stand next to him.
"Y/N!" A voice calls out to me. I lift my head and see Wilbur and Alex. Wil held an umbrella over the two of them, protecting them from the rain. Alex was the one who called my name, he grasped his hand over Wil's hand (that held the umbrella) and tugged him towards me.
"They look familiar" My father squints at the two. "But, I'm not sure.." He mumbles. Luckily he was stupid. But, they did look a bit different from when I last saw them, they had gotten haircuts. "I'll be talking with the funeral director, find your seat" He tells me before walking off.
The two vampires finally make it over to me, I think they stopped walking over when they saw my father. I wasn't sure if Alex had also gotten a haircut, but he had his hair up in a ponytail. Wil's hair before had blocked his eyes, but now it was a perfect length to stay out of his face.
Alex stops in front of me and smiles. "You look so pretty! You should wear that to our wedding" He makes a stupid face at me, he was as adorable as that bat with the injured leg, which yeah, that's him too, but whatever. Wilbur goes to smack him in the back of the head (like he's been doing a lot lately) but Alex quickly blocks it with his hand. "My head is not my hand" Alex scowls at the taller vampire. He holds his hand out, his palm up. Wilbur rolls his eyes and grabs his hand. "I'm keeping a secret for him so I can do whatever I want!" Alex smugly admits.
"Oh my god, shut up.." Wil grumbles. "And yes, you are very pretty, Y/N. But that's her funeral attire, don't tell her to go to a wedding dressed in clothing for a funeral" He scoffs at Alexs' inappropriate behavior.
"It's not a wedding it's our wedding" Alex corrects him.
"Anyways, we should go into the graveyard," I tilt my head towards the entrance. Schlatt appears next to me and stares down at the box in my hand. "To bury the cat" I add.
"Oh, what? A kitty died?" Alex's face saddens and he looks down at the box. Schlatt sadly nods.
"Y/N's father kicked it.." Schlatt bluntly explains. "Poor cat didn't deserve it" He shakes his head.
Wilbur stares at the three of us (who were all staring down at the box) and clears his throat. "We.. we should go, come on" Wil let's go of Alex's hand and motions the three of us to enter the graveyard. "We'll give it a proper burial"
We all enter the graveyard together, Schlatt stayed hidden behind us, (well I thought so until I glanced back and saw he was gone). "Hey, speaking of burials-- what ever happened to that Roier guy?" I ask the two vampires. Alex seemed uncomfortable at the mention of the guy, which is understandable.
Wilbur speaks up. "Ah, he had a funeral, I guess you weren't told about it. I attended and comforted his friend, Cellbo..? Bit..? Anyways.. then I left. I didn't know the guy all that well and just wanted to make sure his friend was doing alright, they seemed pretty close" He informed me on what had happened. I would've liked to attend, Roier was a nice guy, not to mention the stuff he'd give me for free.
"Ah," I look at Alex and see how anxious he was, maybe wanting to move on from the conversation. "Let's find Jared's casket" I move on. They both nod and we follow the trail of people walking. God, I hate how everyone cares about him.
"Hey, Y/N?" Wil lifts his head. I hum, wordlessly asking him what. "Can we talk after all this funeral shit?"
"Uhh, sure" I reply. "It might take a while though.." I trail off.
"I don't mind" He cuts off my thought. "I just need to have a small chat with you" He adds. Alex squints his eyes at Wil before moving on and walking over to the crowd of people.
Me and Wilbur quickly follow him. "Ugh, and he gets my favorite flowers on his casket?" I scowl at the sight. "I wish people knew how much of a dick he was"
"It'll be fine. He's dead. That's really all that matters" Wil sighs, making his way over to Alex and motioning for me to follow.
"I also can't believe my first boyfriend is dead" I blurt out, staring at his closed casket. People wouldn't want to look at a face like that anyways.
Schlatt appears behind the three of us. "I can't believe we got symphony number nine before Jareds' death-- just saying!" He raises his hands up to his chest. Alex starts laughing so loud it makes the crowd of people glare at us. I gently shove him with my elbow to get him to stop. "Whoops.. some people just don't get my humor I guess.." Schlatt shrugs, hiding behind the two men.
"Uh.. sorry!" Wil apologizes to the people. "Let's go find an open spot to dig a grave" He tilts his head to the left, the three of us agree and walk off.
"Oh! There's a space next to my grave, come on!" Schlatt rushes ahead of us, his transparency made it a bit difficult to see him due to the gloomy sky. We all slowly followed, all soundlessly deciding not to run. "Y/N, listen.. listen to me, Y/N" Schlatt comes back over to the three of us. "When I was alive, I didn't run-- I don't run. That's my number one rule! Alex can confirm--"
"I can confirm, he does not run" Alex cuts Schlatt off, he nods his head. His tone was dull, like he's had to confirm this millions of times before.
"Yes, see? And now that I'm dead and can't really walk. I can fly around at whatever speed I want, and right now, I'm running. So you have to run now too!" Schlatt rambles. I really hadn't expected this whole rant to end with him telling me to walk faster. "You guys too! Fucking slowpokes.."
"How the tables have turned" Alex sighs and rolls his eyes. Nonetheless, he listens to Schlatt and starts walking faster.
We eventually make it to Schlatt's grave, the shovel from when I dug up his body was still resting against his stone. "So, we just bury this box?" Wil questions, staring at the box in my hand.
"No, we fucking throw it into the Atlantic-- dude what do you think?!" Schlatt slaps a hand on his face. "Alex, start digging" He commands him.
"What?! Why do I have to dig? Why can't Y/N dig?!" Alex points at me. We all look at him and he nods. "Okay, Y/N doesn't have to. Hey, Wilbur. Start digging" He points to the shovel.
Wil scoffs but passes his umbrella to Alex before grabbing the shovel and shoving it into the open lot of grass. "Don't make the hole to big, it's a tiny box" Schlatt reminds the tall vampire. Alex holds the umbrella (he was handed) over his friend so the rain doesn't soak him while he digs. Even though Wil was slouching, Alex still needed to stand on his tippy toes for the umbrella to stay over Wilbur's head.
Alex giggles at the shovel getting stuck in the mud. "Don't worry, Wilbur. I'm paying you by keeping your secret safe" He pats the latter's shoulder. Wil huffs and continues digging when he gets the shovel unstuck from the mud.
"Oooh, secret? I wanna hear?" Schlatt grins, Alex steps past Wil and whispers the secret to Schlatt. I notice an immediate look of embarrassment make its way onto Wilbur's face, but he quickly looks to the ground to avoid eye contact with anyone. Now I wanna know the secret, but it's probably a big secret if he looks so embarrassed about it, so I won't ask. "That's so funny! Oh my god! No way you said that!" Schlatt screams out laughing, he clutches his stomach and floats around.
"It's not that funny" Wilbur grumbles and shoves the shovel into the mud one more time to make it stay standing. "Okay, hand me the box" He holds his hands out, I carefully pass him the box. I'm honestly glad I'm burying this cat instead of attending Jared's funeral, I couldn't care less about that guy anymore.
Wil stupidly trips and drops the box, it flies forward and falls to the ground. "Dude you fucking dropped the box!" Schlatt exclaims, throwing his hands into his hair. "The cat--! Wait.. Y/N, the cat isn't in the box"
We all stare at the now open box, all that was in it was some papers. "Oh fuck" I slap a hand over my mouth. And right on time, we hear loud screams come from where Jared's funeral was taking place. "Oh fuck!" I repeat.
Schlatt and Alex both start laughing as Wil picks up the box and stares at the crowd of people running around. "Uhh, something tells me the boxes were swapped.." He pulls the sheets of paper out of the box.
"Oh my god! Did your dad just open a box with a dead cat in it in front of a whole crowd of people?!" Schlatt wheezes, dropping to the ground and 'lying' on top of his own grave.
"Best prank ever!" Alex laughs. Him and Schlatt both pretend to high-five. Me and Wil both give each other a blank stare before looking back at the two.
"That wasn't a prank! We have to go get that fucking cat so we can bury it!" I scold the two. Schlatt rolls his eyes at my anger and Alex apologizes.
We all quickly got to work, I swapped the boxes, (my father had loudly shouted at me in front of a whole crowd, but I got the box back), Wilbur and Alex stole flowers from other gravestones, and Schlatt obviously had to stay by my side so he didn't do much.
"Okay, so.." Wil takes the box from me again, he lifts the lid. "Yeah, okay. There's a dead cat in there.." He breathes out. This time, he carefully crouches down and places the box in the hole. He then quickly buries it and smooths out the mud on top.
"Goodbye, kitty" Alex places a large pile of flowers on top of the mud, which, mind you, there were so many flowers it covered the whole thing so you couldn't really tell there was a body under there anymore.
"Rest well, bubba" Schlatt taps his-- oh wait never mind he doesn't have a heart. He taps where his heart should be. I take a flower from the large pile and set it on top of Schlatt's gravestone. "Thanks, Y/N.." He sighs, seemingly wanting to be annoyed but the smile on his face said otherwise.
"We should head back" Wilbur chimes in. "Uhh, could we have that talk, Y/N? Or do you need to go home?" He questions, tilting his head and trying to stare at me from under my umbrella.
I tilt my umbrella up so he can see my face. "No, its fine. We can talk!" I assure him. He smiles and nods.
"And-- not to be rude.. could you give Schlatt's ring to Alex? This talk is a bit private" Wil points down at the ring on my finger.
I glance at Schlatt and Alex. "No way!" Schlatt crosses his arms and shakes his head. "I haven't been alone with this guy in seventy plus years-- and, and Y/N.. you know what happened when I was alone with him last time?" He stares at me with wide eyes.
"He killed you--"
"He killed me!" Schlatt snaps. "He fucking killed me!" He repeats, glaring at Alex.
"I'm a vampire, man! And not to be weird or anything, but your blood is pretty good" Alex shrugs and crosses his arms.
"Aww, really? Thanks dude" Schlatt smiles at him. "That.. that means a lot"
"Yeah, really. No problem man" Alex nods, they both fake a fist bump. Me and Wilbur look at each other once more with a stupid expression on our faces.
"Y'know what? Fine, let's hang out, Alex. It's not like you can kill me twice" Schlatt chuckles and rolls his eyes.
"Yeah," Alex does the same thing Schlatt does. No wonder these guys got engaged. My god.
After handing the ring to Alex, both Schlatt and him leave. Me and Wil stand still for a moment before I speak up. "So, did you wanna talk here, or..?"
"Oh! Uh, no.. let's go to the forest behind Alex and I's mansion" Wil responds, letting me walk ahead. He takes the umbrella from my hand so he can carry it for me. I wore my crucifix so it wasn't like he could hurt me, he was even keeping a small distance under this umbrella we stood below (if that was even possible).
"Okay, let's go"
mak speaks!
This ending here is an excuse to make the story longer