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.