Gerald Dean Rice's Blog, page 111

I, Keveny - Part 3

Zombies, shamblers, the living dead. Whatever you wanted to call them. I spotted one with a familiar slump of shoulders and his mouth hung open.

 

"Is that is that—"

 

"Yup. You. You are amongst the cursed. At least your body is. Stay Home with us until it's time to move."

 

"Move where? Isn't somebody going to do something about my murder?" I spun out of Daniel's grasp and faced him.

 

"Who?" Daniel asked. "There's a new world out there, K. You should be glad you're not a part of it anymore. The police and anyone else who might have cared about you dying are about to be very preoccupied."

 

"This isn't right. This isn't right!"

 

"Calm down, K. Just chill out here with us." Daniel put a hand on my shoulder. "Pretty soon it'll be time to move-"

 

"I don't know what that means." I shrugged him off. "I care. Somebody killed me. And if nobody living is going to do something about it, I will." I turned and stepped off the porch. Daniel called out to me, but he sounded as if he were a million miles away. I turned back, but 'Home' was gone, engulfed in a wall of fog.

 

"Whoops," I said.

 

I was unsure and tried to head back but couldn't. I took a step but hit face first into something solid and invisible. I pushed at it, but it wouldn't budge at first. Just as my hands began sinking into it everything scrambled.

 

Suddenly I was flying, my stomach doing flip-flops. I was looking up at the sky, buoyed up by a carpet of air, fighting as if struggling would help to control this direction. But realizing I was stuck I turned over to see the ground below.

 

There was that familiar set of shoulders and the posture.

 

"You," I said, feeling the tether between me and my former body.

 

Even being dead, I was going to be tied to this body for a long time. "What are you doing down there?"

 

The fog had dissipated. I floated down until my feet cushioned onto the ground. I took a few tentative steps. It wasn't like back at Home. Here it was real, but it was as if he weren't. My footsteps didn't have enough weight to them and when I looked at where I'd just walked it was obvious. No footprints. I looked up at the shambling corpse.

I, Keveny - Pt 2

"Okay. I'm shot, right. And I know I'm done for. Bleedin' like a dog, but I know I got at least three or four of 'em first. But I got clipped in the leg and the arm. I can feel the blood gushin' out of my thigh and I almost faint before I can get my belt cinched around it. I drag myself into some old house. They're coming. I hear them."

 

"What are you talking about? Hear who?"

 

"Assassins. Keveny, I killed a lot of people in my time, this day was coming. I knew it. But anyway. I'm in the outskirts. I got two choices, both of 'em crappy.  I either die and I come back as one of those things or I let them kill me and who knows how they do it. So I chose C. I said a prayer and ate my nine. And here I am."

 

What Daniel was saying was insane, but somehow I knew it was true. The man was dead and it agreed with him. He seemed much happier.

 

"But if you're dead, what am I?"

 

"Told you. Dead. See, I must have missed my brain because brain trauma leaves you a little foggy when you cross over. I never met anyone who didn't remember anything at all. I wonder what that means."

 

Daniel scratched his head.

 

I felt the same.

 

"Maybe poison. That might make sense. And I haven't met anyone who said they were poisoned."

 

"But what-how-why would someone kill me?"

 

"C'mon, K. You might not have been as into the dirt as me, but can you honestly say nobody wanted you dead? Just think of who-maybe that might help."

It was a short list, but it was a list. Couldn't help but wonder who it might've been if it were true.

 

"No. It ain't true. I don't believe it."

 

"Okay. How about I show you?" Daniel grabbed me by the shoulders and we went through the front door. The girls were gone and the fog had thinned somewhat. The big man was trying to make me look at something, but what I didn't know.

 

There were figures in the mist. Men, women, children. They were dead, except not. The word 'shambling' came into my head. I'd never used that word before, but I was certain it was the right one.

Library

I'm at the library right now.  Where are you?

I, Keveny - Pt 1

No promises.  I may not be able to finish this zombie story.

 

I didn't know how long I'd been walking. There air was thick and white with fog. I couldn't see more than three feet in front of me from the cloudy stuff swirling around. And everything was so quiet.

 

The mist parted just ahead, making a sort of mock path. I followed until a porch came into view. Standing there a moment and looking, I eventually could make out the front of the house the porch was connected to.

 

It was an old house. Familiar-looking, but I'd never been here. Two girls were sitting on the steps. They looked alike. Well, not alike, but similar. They had different eyes, different noses and different mouths, but something about them was the same. Couldn't put my finger on what it was.

 

"Is Daniel here?" I asked, stopping on the steps. One of the girls giggled. Why was Daniel in my head? We weren't close friends or anything, in fact, we weren't friends at all. "Well? Is he?" The other one giggled. She pointed to the open front door. Was that open before? They both giggled.

 

I continued past them across the porch and into the house. Over my shoulder was nothing but white, as if everything outside had been erased.

 

"Keveny, my man!" Daniel smiled at me from across the room. He was as big as ever and took a few long strides and then was wrapping his long arms around me, swinging my legs around. Daniel pulled back, that big grin on his face even bigger.

 

Everything on the man was big. I winced between the paws squeezing my shoulders. "So glad you made it here. How've you been?"

 

"Okay." I was a little thrown. As long as we'd known each other, Daniel had been cold, emotionless. This was a stranger. "What's going on with you?"

 

"I'm dead, man. I'm dead." Daniel released me and the smile fell from his face. "Can't say I didn't deserve it, but I can't believe I'm here."

 

"What do you mean 'dead'? And where's here?"

 

"My man Keveny." The big black man chuckled. "Always crackin' jokes." He pointed to himself and me alternately. "We're dead, man. Don't you remember?"

 

"No. I'm not dead. What are you talking about?"

Unrandomization

This is my master-

Shake the stick that

Stirs my soul;

A scrabbling of nascent

Ghost anatomy. When sugar falls

Upward to meet snow, surely some new and

Yet unformed molecule shall meet an heartbreaking end.

Then and only then,

Shall we play.

Updates to the Website

Just looking around I see I need to do some cleanup work around here.  There's a lot of "to be published in-" and "coming soons-" and things of that nature.  I have to change that.  I'm tossing around the idea of moving my blog to Blogspot or to Google (which also owns Blogspot), but I'm not doing anything that isn't as easy to use as Webs. 

What's the Diff?

I have a BA in English so I'm supposed to know, but quite frankly, I don't really understand the difference between two words.  Every time I read both definitions I feel like I have it, then I don't.  See if you're as confused as I am:

 

sar·don·ic -

–adjective

characterized by bitter or scornful derision; mocking; cynical; sneering: a sardonic grin.

 

sar·cas·tic -

–adjective

1. of, pertaining to, or characterized by sarcasm: a sarcastic reply.

2. using or given to the use of sarcasm: to be sarcastic about ambition.

 

OK, that doesn't help much without having the definition of sarcasm.

 

sar·casm -

–noun

1. harsh or bitter derision or irony.

2. a sharply ironical taunt; sneering or cutting remark: a review full of sarcasms.

 

That's better.  So they both have bitter derision in their definitions.  But sarcasm may also be irony.  So does that mean that sometimes they mean the same thing?  The second definition of sarcasm states it may also be a taunt.  But sardonic can also be mocking.  So they do mean the same thing.  Right?

Interview with House of Horror

Here's a link to an interview I did with House of Horror.

Whew!

Well, that was fun.  I'll probably do it again at some point in the future, but I have other things I'm committed to as well.  I'm going to try to crank out this thing my publisher wants, shouldn't take too much time and then I'm off to the Great and Secret Project if I've got all my poop in a group.

 

Look to the skies.

Dry - 16

He slid Cazir into the passenger seat and Uncle Bill straddled between the two seats. Monster ran around to the back, sliding the door open to put the extra box of booze in the passenger seat. He put it in and closed the door, but not before taking a bottle of Captain Morgan for himself.

 

The first one helped, but it didn't do the trick. He opened the door and grabbed the first bottle within reach, but before he poured it over his head, took the sack off and stuffed it in his back pocket.

 

Ahh, much better.

 

Even better with the… Jim Beam—by the smell of it—gushing all over his face and head, cooled by the night air. He tossed the bottle and jogged to the driver's side.

 

Uncle Bill already had the engine going even though Monster had the keys in his pocket. No time to complain about his ne'er-do-well uncle.

 

"How far do you guess the nearest hospital is?"

 

"No clue." Monster cleared his throat. It was getting grainy again for some reason.

 

"Do you think he's… y'know."

 

"I don't know." Even worse now. Monster turned the U-Haul around and crawled to the street.

 

"So what do you think that stuff—oh my God!"

 

"What?"

 

"You. Your—" Uncle Bill was waving his hands around his face—"your whole deal is gone, man!"

 

He looked over at Cazir, who had turned a dull gray. Monster shook him and drew his hand away from the ice cold body. He pulled down the sun visor to see himself in the mirror.

 

"No," Monster tried to say, but it came out, "AUGH."

 

He pulled the sack out of his back pocket and stuffed it back on his head. It sealed around his neck and he felt the stitching reweave.

 

Monster kicked the door open and it flew off its hinges, landing thirty feet away. His head burned like never before. He threw himself from the rolling truck, knowing only that he had to get himself away from his uncle.

 

The fire was getting into his brain this time. He retreated from the truck. No, the booze wouldn't do it this time. Instinct told him what he needed. Whether it would count or not was a distant thought, he had to have it.

 

Monster would squeeze it from the very last of the townsfolk until he'd had enough of it.