Free Dead and Dead Again: Kansas City Quarantine by Dalton Wolf Page B

around.
    “Sorry, he’s had a rough couple of
years,” he explained to the girl and her friends, who were eying Brick as if he
had a disease.
    “The fuck is wrong with you, man?”
he grabbed the taller but slighter man and slammed him against the wall of a
low brick building, completely missing the irony. “I told you not to talk to
women like that. You want me to kick your ass again?”
    “Fuck you, man. She was a bitch.”
    “You were being an asshole. Of course
she’s gonna be a bitch when you get crude like that. Women want romance, and
from a gentleman.”
     “Tell that to the thirty million
women who read that Shades of Gray crap.”
    “Hey, I don’t know if it’s crap or
not ‘cause I never read it. But that still don’t mean they’re looking for some
dude to tie them up and beat them and shit like you’re always on about. It’s
all just fantasy. In reality, they want to be treated like a person, unless
you’re rich and then they might not give a damn how you treat them, as long as
you treat them. But last time I checked, you ain’t rich.”
    “I could have been,” Brick muttered
bitterly. “I just graduated. I should already have been collecting my paycheck from
the draft.”
    “Well that plan has been sidelined
for a while, man.”
    “Pffft,” Brick spat. “You mean it’s
been suspended, forever.”
    “You don’t know that. You still got
a chance now that the last surgery is done. It’s all rehab now, man. And six
teams told you they’d give you a look when you’re ready.”
    “I missed my college tryout, Boom.
No one’s gonna take a quarterback who never started in college.”
    “Hey, you were the top prospect in
the nation and heir apparent at your school before that wreck. And you been
throwing every day with a dead leg and bum off-arm and looking good. They’re gonna
be watching for you now that you’re good to go.”
    “I don’t know…” Brick hung his
head. “Maybe I’m just drunk.”
    “You’re definitely that, man. Why
you gotta get so blasted for every occasion?”
    “Because they always want to talk
to me about the leg, and—what the fuck?” he repeated his earlier expletive-based
phrase.
    Gunshots from less than a block
away pulled their attention, followed by spine-chilling screaming from multiple
sources that matched the pipes of any horror movie vixen. In the next heartbeat
reality, normality, perhaps even sanity all hopped in a cab and took a vacation.
The girl who had shut Brick down so hard dashed at the pair of athletes without
her top, screaming, crimson blood pouring down her side as a large, fat,
slobbering white man wearing an #87 Chiefs jersey close on her heals clutching
her shredded half-top and bra in his grasping hands.
    Brick pointed and laughed. “Serves
you right, bitch.”
    “Hey, back off, man,” Boomer
shouted, kicking the man in the teeth as he closed on them. The man dropped in
a heap, but jumped back up with surprising quickness and lunged at the girl
again. In a surreal moment of horror, Boomer realized the man wasn’t trying to
feel her up as his bloody teeth sunk into her side, rending another chunk.
    “What the fuck!” the two
footballers yelled as one.
    Boomer raised one leg and extended
with every ounce of energy into the man’s midsection, straightened and with a
maniacal scream sent three punches to his head, but the man seemed unaware of
his presence and took another healthy bite. The young woman begged for help,
fighting to break free from the psycho’s firm grasp. Tears welled up in
Boomer’s eyes as the girl pleaded for his help. In desperation, he reached
around behind the man and pulled with all his might, ripping his grip from the
screaming girl. She fell to the ground, and with a heavy grunt of effort, he lifted
the attacker bodily and slammed him onto the sidewalk beside her. Bones audibly
snapped, but he made no sound, and lay there for a few seconds before he wiggled
and rolled over trying to rise again.