Dead America by Luke Keioskie

Author:Luke Keioskie [Keioskie, Luke]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Horror, Zombies
ISBN: 9780980606522
Amazon: 0980606527
Barnesnoble: 0980606527
Goodreads: 6953026
Publisher: Severed Press
Published: 2009-08-13T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13: I, The Jury

I wake up in Downtown Hospital. I know this because Brenda Barrett tells me. It’s the first thing she says. Not hello or how are you feeling? She must be pissed.

I can see why. The emergency room looks like the Day of the Dead. Bruised and battered New Yorkers, blood splattered bandages, cuts and scrapes. A Dead American fingers his tie, his throat a deep blue as if he died choking on a cocktail onion. A living tennis player gazes apologetically at his girlfriend as she dabs his grazed elbows and knees with a cloth. A fat woman sneezes and glances around, eyes rheumy. A dead teenage girl glares sourly as she sits beside her mother; I can see the rope burn on her neck and her mother won’t meet her eyes.

Funny, most of the people are Newly Dead. I don’t know what they’re doing here. Hospitals are for the living. There's nothing here that can help them now.

A few of the dead are recognizable from the crowd near the street market on Broadway. Some have actually lost limbs and cradle their busted arms and legs in their laps. They look as if they’re wondering if their insurance policy covers reattaching body parts. I know HMO doesn’t.

Can’t see the little necro girl with grey pigtails. I hope she’s okay.

My chin is warm with blood and I’ve got a broken nose. Brenda Barrett shoves an ice pack at me and crosses her arms. I try not to voice the irony of my ex-wife giving me cold water and the cold shoulder at the same time, and ask her why she’s here.

“You haven’t changed your medical records, Jon.” I don’t like the way she accentuates my name. Like a curse. “I’m still your next of kin.”

“It’s on my to-do list,” I say.

My nose makes it hard to breathe, so I grasp it and tug, cracking the bone back into place. Hurts like hell but at least it stops the bleeding. Brenda’s looking at me as if I just farted in church. The ice pack is as comforting as my ex-wife.

A TV set in the corner shows a Dead Rights march somewhere in Harlem by the looks. The necro protestors walk silently, holding candles and banners that say AFTERLIFE IS STILL LIFE and GOD MADE ME TO GO AND GO AND GO. They could be protesting anything but it’s probably got more to do with Cherry Hampton not reliving than the new legislation against dead marriages.

“How’s Ray?” I don’t really care but I like the guilt. When your wife leaves you for your partner – and both become your exes – you can afford to be a selfish asshole. I say.

“Fine,” and the way she says it tells me so much. We were married, and I know what Brenda Barrett means when she says fine. She used to say that about us.

“Must be hard for Detective Gannon,” I say, “sleeping with a woman who defends the biggest zombie mobster in New York.

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