Comedic Insight

I have to find the connections here.

It's my job to find the connections.

After what I saw two nights ago, I have to figure something out, as this is much stranger than even I believed.

My name is Maxwell Warwick. I am an Agent for the FBI and am considered one of their top Explainers. If that confuses you, then let me explain; it's my job, after all. Investigators are the feelers that the agency sends out to collect data and make sense of the mundane and the difficult to explain. They are responsible for things that are easy to pack away in a box and store in the FBI archives. They are responsible for closing neet little cases that can be brought up at cocktail parties and re-election parties.

Explainers are not so lucky. We solve the cases that there aren't clear explanations for. We operate in the shadows, looking for things that no one talks about. When a case can't be closed up nice and neat with a little bow, they call in the Explainers, and we explain what it is that lurks outside the public consciousness.

To answer your questions, yes, it's like the X Files, but with way more paperwork and far less "Creature of the week" content.

The truth is that people are generally scary enough all on their own. You don't need ghosts or pyrokinesis to explain most cases. If aliens exist, I've never had to debunk them, and they have managed to stay off my radar. Mostly what I do is investigate government entities that seem to think they can make up outlandish shit to deflect the FBI's scrutiny. Money missing? Oh, it must have been embezzled by a Russian hacker that just so happens to have the same IP address as your IT guy. Documents missing? It must be a Chinese asset. It can't be the file clerk with a case of kleptomania. A missing child who's up and vanished under mysterious circumstances near a lake but can't be found? Usually, it is not a dinosaur or a large animal, but the local pervert.

So yeah, it's like the X files, if the X Files were BORING.

At least it was, until three weeks ago.

My boss called me up to his office with a "Special Case". These cases are rare, I've had three in my whole ten-year career, and they usually aren't nipped up so easily. Administrator Hires scowled at me over the desk as he handed me the envelope. I was surprised to see my name already on it. I had been a much younger agent who had investigated an incident about three years ago involving a gas leak at a comedy club. This was during a time when a lot of these weird circumstances were turning out to be mob hits or "special interest groups" taking out a target and neutralizing assets. These guys didn't care if they killed civilians while they tied up loose ends.

As long as the target was neutralized, it didn't matter.

"Are we reopening the Laughing Murders, Boss?"

Hires nodded, "I don't suppose you caught last night, "Guy David Tonight," did you?"

I shook my head, "I don't watch a lot of TV, Boss."

"Seems his whole audience, Guy included, were killed in a "Gas Leak."" he used air quotes for the last words.

He handed me another file, and I cracked it open, reading over the transcripts and shaking my head, "Anyone take credit for it?"

"No, and that's odd with these guys. No one ever took credit for the Comedy club either, the Canadian TV set back in ninety-two, or the gymnasium of Walters Highschool in two thousand ten. Groups that do this sort of thing are usually more than happy to brag about it afterward. I want you to explain this to The Board, figure out who's behind this, and make it stop."

I furrowed my brow, "Do we believe that all these are connected somehow?"

Hires blew out a long-suffering breath, and I saw him look longingly at the ashtray on his desk. One of his daughters had written "ten years clean" in it, but you could tell that these were the days when he really wanted a cigarette. When I had started, he had smoked like a chimney, but he gave it up after his first and only heart attack about eight months into my career. Someone on The Board must be leaning on him hard if he was thinking about sliding off the wagon again.

"I hope so, Max. If not, we are royally screwed."

Along with the Guy David incident, there were three others from all over the United States. A musician who'd written his own suicide note and published it to Youtube. A surgeon whose last recorded testament sounded a lot like that of Guy's guest on that fateful night, Roger Carlson. The last was a funeral in the midwest for a teacher. The husband had given a rather chilling eulogy, of which only one online clip existed before the whole place had also died of a "gas leak". None of these people had anything in common. To my knowledge, they had never even met, but they had all died tragically in what was being called a gas leak.

The coroner's reports in all Six cases read like carbon copies. I almost thought it was the same guy until I realized that he would have to be in his sixties as well as working in four states and Canada. Four had been found with that same laughing rictus on their face as well. The eulogy giver, a man with the unfortunate name of Frank Flozzie, had been found behind the pulpit with an ear-to-ear grin. He had asphyxiated, laughed himself to death as his lungs cried out for air, and the others in the church had done the same. Ditto the surgeon, found against the washroom wall with the only smile his friends said he'd ever worn, and ditto Frank Carlson when they found him in the broom closet.

The Comedy Club and the guy from the Canadian studio were a little harder to explain. The Canadian studio, Eskar Production, had seen a body count in the double digits, but both Mark Ires and Kenneth Murst had survived. The firemen who came to the scene found them in a broom closet, catatonic but still alive. Some twenty years later, though, Mark had committed suicide. They found him with a gun shoved into his grinning mouth, and Kenneth had been found in his bed, asphyxiated and smiling like an idiot.

Another apparent gas leak, but twenty years after the studio leak.

Had Kenneth been the asset they were trying to get rid of? Who would want to kill a kid that bad? Were they tying up loose ends? Why wait so long?

Then there was Justin Moore, the Comedy Club survivor. He had escaped in the nick of time, just like the kid in the High School leak. A year later, though, he had been found in his bed at the hotel he worked at, dead from asphyxiation. They said he had been smiling, his stomach muscles bruised, and his lungs almost collapsed from his spasming laughter as he died.

They all seemed unconnected, yet the connection was their death.

The only survivor, Shahid Purro, lived in Connecticut.

Maybe he had some answers.

I boarded a plane and, twelve hours later, I was sitting at the kitchen table in Shahid's apartment. The poor guy looked rough. His eyes almost looked like someone had punched him, and I could see him furtively glancing around as we sat drinking coffee. The apartment didn't look like a bachelor pad, a woman's touch apparent throughout, but when I inquired about her, he gritted his teeth and said she had left to see her mother.

Not long broken up, I'd wager; if they were.

"I know this may be difficult, but can you tell me about that day in the gymnasium?"

He jumped, startled, this clearly being the last thing he had expected me to ask about.

"Why do you wanna know about that?"

"I'm working a case, and the events you went through are very similar to events that have happened in these cases. So far, you are the only survivor of these events, and your testimony could be key to establishing a connection."

He shook as he drank his coffee. He looked more like an old man than a kid, not even in his thirties. He stalled, and I let him. This was likely the most traumatic event in his life, and rehashing it for a complete stranger was probably not how he wanted to spend his Tuesday morning. But, I had the badge, so it was my job to dredge up these old traumas and reopen the old wounds.

What a great job I have, right?

"It was the class presidency speech. I was nervous, I hadn't slept well the night before, and I was being...well, I was nervous, okay? I got up on the stage and started talking, and people started laughing at me."

"Laughing? Why? Did you say something funny?"

"No," he shot a look at the corner before tracking back to me, "I...I wasn't a popular guy in Highschool and, well, people laughed at me sometimes. I started getting nervous, and then I saw that everyone was laughing. Their faces were stretching into smiles, and their skin was turning black, and I...I mean, I just ran. I ran and ran until I got home. I didn't even know about the gas leak until later that day. I collapsed on my front porch, and my mom took me to the hospital. I was the only survivor of the incident, to my knowledge. Most of the senior class was wiped out, and I think I was one of five graduates that year."

His description of the smiling faces had made me think about how the victims had died. All of them had died smiling, died laughing, and that couldn't be a coincidence. This kid had dodged a real bullet, that was clear, but what was the connection between all of this? They had all died laughing, died in different states and different times, but they had all died the same way. This was no coincidence.

I thanked him and rose to leave, but he stopped me and went to get something from his bedroom.

He came back with, of all things, a graduation announcement.

It declared the reunion for the Class of 2010 would be held at seven pm tonight for all graduates. The picture looked like it had been taken in the gym, but the floor was blank, and the message at the bottom almost sounded sinister, given the event that had happened there. The picture looked a lot like the file picture I had of the gym floor after the incident, bodies lying around grinning at the ceiling.

See you soon.

Given what the picture was missing, it made my skin crawl for some reason I couldn't quite put my finger on.

"When did you receive this?" I asked, flipping it over and checking the address.

"About two weeks ago. Can you...can you see them?" He almost whispered the last bit as though he was ashamed and terrified of my answer.

I flipped it back over, "See what?"

"See the...the...nevermind," he said suddenly. He made excuses then, saying he had to get ready for work, and made it pretty clear that he was done entertaining. He showed me out, and I gave him my card in case he thought of anything else. The door slammed shut behind me, and I wondered if I'd ever talk to this kid again? That was a weird thought to have, apropo of nothing, but it followed me down the hallway and out to my car.

I started driving back to the airport but turned into a hotel instead. I didn't feel like I was done with this case just yet. I took a room as I started reading through the case files. Shahid had wanted to tell me something, something important, but he'd been afraid. Afraid of what? Afraid I would mock him? Or afraid that I would believe him and something would come after him?

I went back to the statements of the two boys from the Canadian studio. The youngest, Mark, had mostly been silent throughout the interview. The other one, however, had been very vocal about a strange, dark crowd that had come in and caused the whole incident. He had denied any sort of gas leak, saying that these dark creatures were the cause of all of it.

Then, twenty years later, he had been taken off the board.

I looked at the comedian's profile, but he had never actually spoken to the police or anyone. In truth, they believed he had died in the club until they found him dead later. Could he have come across these creatures as well?

There was no other mention of these creatures in any other report, so I decided to watch Jarret's last video before his death. As the video started, he clearly looked off-camera. His face was a mask of fear and anticipation. I had seen Shahid do the same thing while we sat at his table, and the look was a little too familiar to be ignored. I kept watching, looking for clues as he played out his final dirge. The song was long and halting, his heart sliding over the strings as he belted out his final words, and, in retrospect, it should have been obvious what he intended. As I watched, I saw something pass behind him, just for a split second, and rewound so I could try to pinpoint it. Going frame by frame, I caught it, and It sent a chill down me.

This was what Shahid had been trying to tell me about.

Its body was like living midnight, its skin a constantly moving mass of darkness, and its teeth seemed too big ever to stretch its nonexistent lips around. Its skin seemed to move even with the video paused, and despite it having no eyes, I felt it watching me. This was what Jarret had killed himself to get away from. This was what Shahid had been searching for in the corners of his house. Had this been what had made the comedian die laughing and taken both Mark and Kenneth before their time? What even was this thing, and why did it stalk the corners of their lives?

As I studied it, it suddenly swung its face to look at me. Its teeth gleaned wetly within the video, and I recoiled as it leaned in to study me. Its eyeless face looked into my soul, and I knew that, even from the confines of this video, it could hurt me. It stepped a little closer, unaffected by the frozen world that it found itself in, coming towards me before I slammed the laptop shut and pushed it off the bed. It fell to the floor of the hotel room, the carpet stopping it from breaking, and when I opened it a few moments later, the image was gone.

I called Shahid, heading for my car as I tried to control my erratic breathing.

His phone went to voicemail. I called him three more times, but it went straight to voicemail every time. The greeting was from a much happier man, his voice full of bounce and cheer as he told me that he wasn't in right now, but if I left a message, he would call me back. I closed the phone, doubting that he would even if I had left him a message.

I knew where he was.

Hadn't he shown me the invitation?

Hadn't he as good as told me where he would be tonight?

The Highschool was dark when I pulled up in the drop-off area. The school had been closed for the night, but I found the gym door unlocked. Someone had put up a morbid black banner over the top of it that read "Welcome Class of 2010". Across the door was another banner, broken in half now as though the recipient had found it when he opened the door too. It, too, was black, the paper looking dumb and generic somehow like it had come from a standard printer in any office, and someone had taped it together last minute.

It said, "Welcome back, Shahid."

I went inside, gun drawn, but I needn't have bothered. He was alone in the gymnasium, the light from the windows creating an island for him to stand in. He hadn't noticed me, his mind off God knew where, as he stood where the platform had on that fateful day. The bleachers were pulled out, seemingly empty, but as he turned to look, I could see something oozing around in them. They didn't seem to bother him. As I watched, he smiled, stretching his arms out as though inviting an old friend in for a hug.

When I called out, he turned for the briefest of moments.

Then the darkness swooped in to take him.

It hit him like a flood, inky bodies falling on him in a tidal wave of midnight, and he was lost beneath them. He didn't struggle. He didn't even move. He just accepted it and let them fall over him as they moved him from the island of light into the miasma of shadows in the gym.

I heard my gun bark, unaware that I had pulled the trigger, but it acted as a beacon to the swarming inky hell. They turned towards me, uniform and as precise as a military color guard, and flowed at me like a raging river. I was panicking, lobbing shots at them, but I might as well have saved my bullets. The tide rose, nearly touching the ceiling, and fell on me like a clenched fist.

I swirled inside them, feeling the urge to laugh but trying to put it aside. If I laughed, they would have me, and I did not want to be had. I was blind, deaf, my mouth made dumb by the dark rush, and suddenly I was swirling before an all too familiar face. The masses looked mostly the same, sleek black heads and grinning faces, but I felt sure that this was the one I had seen in the video. Was this the alpha creature? Was he their leader? Did they have concepts like that?

He cocked his eyeless head and seemed to contemplate me. For something without eyes, I felt judged like I never had before. He wasn't judging whether I was tasty; he wasn't judging whether I was dangerous. He was judging my merit, my worthiness. This was not a brainless creature, it did not consume needlessly, and if it wanted me, it would have me. It did not fear me, no more than it feared any other creature. They were old, these things, and they were above such concepts as fear.

Thankfully, I was found wanting.

"Go away." it hissed, its voice like a serpent at the bottom of a deep well, "You are not for us, but if you interfere, we will take you where you do not want to go."

It threw me, threw me with the black masses that held me, and I sailed through the void as this alien strangeness overpowered my senses.

I awoke in my Hotel room as my phone began to blare.

It was my Boss.

"Hires, the witness from the School Incident has been taken. This isn't some terrorist group; it's a thing. It's taking people for some reason, and…"

"Warwick, what the hell are you babbling about? Whatever it is, it will have to wait. I need you on the first plane to Atlanta. There's been an incident in a local court case that fits the MO. I need you there yesterday."

I looked at the phone, breathing heavily. Another one? What the hell was going on. A court case would be a pretty public spot for something like this too. Would the creatures risk giving themselves away like that?

"Boss, I need you to listen. It's…"

"I don't have time, Warwick. I have my own fish to fry, and you have a plane to catch. Get on it."

Then he hung on me.

I slid the phone into my pocket.

It appeared I was heading to Georgia.