Dead Easy (Halflife Chronicles) by Wm. Mark Simmons

Author:Wm. Mark Simmons
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Fantasy - General, American Science Fiction And Fantasy, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Humorous, Horror, Contemporary, Fiction - Fantasy, FICTION, Fantasy, Historical, Science fiction, Fantasy - Historical, General, Fantasy - Contemporary
ISBN: 9781416556046
Publisher: Baen
Published: 2008-11-24T13:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

"She can't swim!" he gasped before slumping in the demon's furry grasp.

We turned back and looked. The underwater ghost light was pointed right where one of the elves had gone over the side.

A frantic hand broke the surface of the water for a moment and then slipped back beneath the waves.

It was perfect: one less foe to fight. One less threat to my unborn son. A psychological, as well as numerical, blow to our pointy-eared enemies. So there's only one explanation as to what happened next.

I just didn't care.

Looking back later I had to reconcile my response to the logical default any other sane and sensible man would have taken.

It wasn't heroic.

I mean, I'm not that kind of guy. Not any more and maybe I never was. Once upon a time I was a decent guy, a nice guy, with a wife and a daughter and a life in the suburbs. I had already learned a number of lessons about life being unfair and how shit happens and such. It took an encounter with Vlad Drakul Bassarab V and half of the necrophagic virus that transforms the living into the undead to learn that death is just as unfair as life. And that if you think shit just happens while you're breathing then you don't know shit at all.

The problem with heroes is they approach problems as if they are puzzles that can be solved, tasks that can be completed, or foes that can be vanquished. I knew better, now. Dr. Henry Kissinger once said: "All of the world's great problems are not problems, at all. They are dilemmas, and dilemmas cannot be solved. They can only be survived."

So, not into heroics these days, and not seeing a lot of potential in the survival column, either. Let's just chalk up my impulsive "rescue" attempt as "depressed, angry guy with a growing death wish sees another opportunity to play chicken with Mr. Death." Gives the cylinder on God's revolver another roulette spin and leaps into the black waters. Don't give me that look—the one that murmurs "rationalization." Metaphysically it's more selfish than selfless, calculated even. Assuming there are such things as the Pearly Gates, they can't turn me away.What? Suicide? C'mon, Pete, let's watch the replay again: I jumped in to perform a good deed. How was I to know the giant sea monster with the glowy eye was going to chew me into Purina Shark Chum and feed me to her litter of fish fiends? Not my fault I ruined God's little game of Let's Torment Cséjthe Some More . . .

Hitting the water was like flopping into a cold concrete wall: it knocked what little breath I had left out of me. Fortunately, the nanobots were already at work reconstructing the artificial gill at the back of my throat. The only reason I swallowed so much water this time was I continued to cuss the whole way in.

I immediately started sinking like a rock. Vampires will do anything

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