POISON KANDIE
(Stories)
The Crow: So Afraid
By: THIRTEENTWO
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Sweet and Sour KandieBook View/ Sign Home
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There's a man who has seen something he wishes he hadn't. He's so afraid. When they shoot him and he trips, he pretends to be dead. Just lays in the muddy gutter and doesn't move. He holds his breath and prays they will assume he's dead and leave him alone. They don't.
"Check his pulse," one of the men say. "Do I look like a fucking doctor to you?" replies the other. Neither of them can find a pulse, but that doesn't mean anything. They wouldn't know quite where to look or how to find it. But they can't let this guy get away. They have to be sure. The first guy hands the other a knife. "I'll stick this in his eye," he says. "Then we'll know." "His what?" the second man says. "You are sick." The scared man was turned over. The knife was very big so it didn't go in deep enough to kill outright, but it ruined the scared man's eye. He was so afraid for his life, he didn't flinch. He didn't react. He just laid there like nothing had happened. "I guess he's really dead." the first guy said. The scared man couldn't hold it in any longer. He had to breathe. He had to scream. He was hurting so much. He couldn't hold his breath any longer, but before--- "You're just a freak," the second replied. He pulled out his gun and fired a shot into the scared man's head, right between the good eye and the ruined one. "Now he is, let's get out of here." He wasn't afraid anymore...or ever again. His body was found in the alley early the next morning. It was tagged, identified, and buried. His funeral was a closed casket. He should have been cremated, but the funeral director talked the family of the deceased into a more expensive goodbye, one that included a grave and a casket. But the dead don't always stay that way. The scared man, who wasn't scared anymore, came back. He scratched and clawed his way out of the grave. If anyone had been there when he emerged, they might have thought they were transported into a night of the living dead movie. Or maybe they were being punk'd. The scared man crawled out of the ground and leaned against his tombstone. His name was Peter. Maggots and worms crawled out of the ruined hole that used to be his eye. He picked the squirmy, squishy things out of his eye socket and left the cemetery. Meanwhile, in the alley where Peter died, the guys were back. They had another victim this time. A girl this time. She wasn't a good person, but she didn't deserve the things they did to her. "I just want to check," the first guy said. "You're gonna make me puke," the second said. "Ever since that one guy, you want to check this person and that person. You keep this shit up and I'm taking you to a proctologist." The first guy opened his mouth to talk but the second, realizing his mistake, told him to just shut up and get it over with anyway. The second just hoped this one was dead, because that one last week...he didn't want to think about. The way she screamed...no, he wasn't going to think about it. The first guy wiped his knife off on the woman's torn clothing, which didn't happen to be on her anymore. He put the knife up and spat on her. "Did you really have to do that?" the second one asked. The first didn't respond. He was too busy looking at something the second couldn't see. Something he couldn't see at first because it was in some shadows. He reached for his gun but what he saw made him drop it. It was that guy again. The one they murdered a few weeks ago. The first to lose an eye. Only, the guy didn't seem to be dead anymore but he was still missing an eye. The extra hole in his head made it look like he had 3 eyes though. He tried to get his gun, but it was gone. The first guy pulled his knife and backed up against a wall. "You really are sick," Peter said. "And we're here to help." "We?" the first guy said, looking around. "I think---" The woman stood up, gun in hand, eye hanging out of the socket, and smiled. The others came out from behind dumpsters, out of shadows, one climbed down a fire escape. They all had one thing in common. Just one. But what they had in common wasn't about what they had, but what they didn't have anymore. "Yes," Peter said. "We." At the same time, they all attacked the first guy. They tore at his flesh. They gouged out his eyes with dirty, rotting fingers. They pulled him apart, piece by piece. The second guy just stood there. He was too afraid to move. So afraid. When there was nothing left, the people disappeared. Back into the shadows, behind the dumpsters, up the fire escape and down into the sewers. They all had one thing in common, but Peter was different. He had something extra. "I don't know to thank you or kill you," he told the second guy. "Maybe I would have survived...if." The woman handed the gun to Peter. She left. "I just seem to remember...pain, being afraid...thinking maybe I would get through it afterall and then..." "Look--" the second guy tried to say. "BANG!" Peter screamed. Peter backed the guy up into a corner. He pressed the barrel of the gun against the second guy's temple. He pulled the trigger, there was a click, and then nothing. "No more bullets," Peter said. "Guess it's the fun way for you." |
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