Where We Live and Die by Brian Keene Read Free Book Online Page B

and mainstream publishers who would dick around with my paycheck, my rights, and everything else. Instead, I found myself facing mortality and, for the first time, considering—I mean really considering—my own eventual death. I made sure all my shit was in order. Talked with Nate Southard and Mike Oliveri and brought them up to speed on where everything was (because if I did die, they’d be best suited to finish any uncompleted manuscripts). Checked into my life insurance policy and made sure it was up-to-date.
    And then I went to the doctor. He was less than comforting. He said it could be cancer, or it could be something called lipoma—a benign tumor composed of fatty tissue. I asked him if he could be any more specific, if perhaps he could narrow it down to one or the other. He said that he couldn’t, but that a specialist could. So I went to see the specialist. He said it was most certainly lipoma and that normally, that wouldn’t be a concern, but in my case, several of the tumors were growing toward major organs, including my heart, liver and kidneys. So he sent me to see a surgeon. It turned out that the surgeon, the anesthesiologist, and one of the girls who ran the office were all fans of my work. On the day of my surgery, the three of them brought books for me to sign. I did. Then they knocked me out and I went under the knife. They removed ten of the nineteen growths, including a particularly nasty fucker that had, according to the surgeon, grown its own circulatory system and was sending tendrils toward my heart.
    And then we were done.
    It’s human nature to go back to doing what one was doing before, but I didn’t. Instead, I became preoccupied with death. What happens after this, you know? Is there really an afterlife? Does our consciousness—our spirit or soul—continue after it leaves our body, or do we just become worm food? Is there a God, Allah, Krishna, Cthulhu, etc.? Is there a Heaven or a Hell, and if so, where would I go? I don’t know which scares me more—that there is an afterlife and I might end up in the bad part of town, or that there’s nothing after this and that all of life’s struggles are ultimately pointless. What if everything we know, every person we’ve loved, every kiss we’ve shared, every tear we’ve shed, fight we’ve had, breath we’ve taken, every laugh and shout and orgasm and idea and everything else that constitutes life just doesn’t fucking matter the moment our heart stops beating and our brainwaves go flat? Which is it? Where is the proof? I’ve thought about this all year, and I’m no closer to an answer. All I know is that I don’t want to die. I think I might have developed a death phobia. I’m terrified of dying.
    There’s one more occurrence to write about. One more example of the weirdness that has infected my home and my life. The incident with the baby monitor. That’s the biggie, and once I’ve written about it, we’ll be all up to date.
    But I still have no idea what it all means. It turned out I didn’t have a brain tumor after all, so if these things are hallucinations, then they’re being caused by something else. In truth, I suspect they aren’t hallucinations, which takes us back to the beginning—and means that I’m either being haunted, or I’m crazy.
    Before we tackle that, though, I should write about the baby monitor.
    Tomorrow. Sleep now. Tired. Mid-life crisis, maybe? Feel old. Feel older every goddamn day. Creeping toward an ultimate end.
    A sense of finality seems to hang over everything I do.
     

    ENTRY 14:
     

    Haven’t worked on this in quite some time. Caught in the perfect storm of deadlines and a cash crunch, I fucked off to the wilderness and got some things done before I snapped and started shooting motherfuckers. Cassi was the one who suggested that I do this. It was a week before Thanksgiving and I was under a lot of stress. A Gathering of Crows was three months overdue, and although my editor, Don