Read Online Dead Legends (Book 1): R.I.P. Van Winkle by Joseph Coley - Free Book Online Page B

magic, whatever you want to call it. There are things that go way beyond your understanding, so just come to terms with it. We never even had a chance to contain it. The three insurgents you killed were meant to die; they had to make sure that my body would be found and sent to the United States so I could take over the undead when the time came. There was a reason why those three fuckers didn’t fight back; they were meant to die.
    “Little did they know I already had a plan. The woman that cleaned me up snuck in a Shaman to help me out; to this day I’m not sure why. The Shaman couldn’t do anything about them killing me, but he knew what they were going to do. He did give me an option to have someone live through Armageddon that could defeat my cursed body, someone that I had to choose to defend humanity. So, in my weakened state, I agreed to something that I really didn’t understand. I agreed to give them someone to kill the Horseman. I gave them the strongest person that I knew, someone that had nothing to lose. That person is you, Rip.”
    “So you want me to kill the Horseman? To kill you ? Well, what the fuck am I waiting for? I’ll get right on that tomorrow morning; until then, I’m gonna get fucked up. And by the way, I have quite a bit to lose.”
    “No you don’t, Rip. You are a worthless human being, but you have a chance to be so much more… if you’ll stop being such a dick.”
    Crayon nonchalantly tossed his friend back on the ground. Maybe he had made a mistake in picking Rip for the hero; maybe the sergeant was just too far-gone, too damaged to make a difference. The drunk man that lay in front of him didn’t look like he could help himself, let alone the entire human race.
    “Rip, let me explain something to you…”
    Rip laughed again—the laugh of a man too drunk to care. “You’ve done plenty of explaining, brother, and none of it makes any sense!”
    “Before they cursed me, I made the deal with the Shaman. He made a potion; a potion that would make you invisible to the Horseman until you woke up. The only catch was that I had to get you to willingly drink the potion. I had to give you that elixir to make sure that you would sleep, Rip. Without it, you would have died of starvation, or the Horseman would have killed you in your sleep.”
    “Hell, that don’t sound so bad, Crayon,” Rip said. Ever the badass, he could handle saving humanity; he would kill the Horseman and let Crayon’s soul rest.
    Crayon looked away solemnly. “The only catch is that the person that kills the Horseman will die themselves, completing the curse. If you kill the Horseman, you put my body and soul to rest, and you will end the zombie plague… but you will die in the process.”
    Rip slowly gazed up at his longtime friend. The haze of booze made it a little more difficult to concentrate, but the unmistakable words that Crayon spoke hit home through the cloud of inebriation. Many things in his life had given him a reason to reevaluate, but the cold, hard fact of death was something he was familiar with and didn’t shy away from. Certain death, however, put a completely different spin on things. Faced with the unimaginable, he could shut off the outside world and do terrible things to others in order to protect the ones he loved and cared for, but dying—well, Geoffrey Irving wasn’t ready to die. Dying was something for cowards.
    “What are you talking about, Crayon? I can kill the Horseman, but in turn, I die? Is that what I’m hearing?”
    Crayon lowered his voice. “It is for the greater good, Rip. You have to end the plague and give humanity a chance. It’s the only way to save everyone. You have to be a hell of a lot less stubborn than you are now, that’s for damn sure.”
    “Go fuck yourself!”
    Crayon stood. He was beginning to regret his choice for the savior of humanity. The man was most certainly capable of handling the rigors of survival and the protection of those who were