Ken Kofola Was Good at Everything by Mike Jones

In all honesty, I was positive that Ken Kofola would end up becoming a stunt man. Not the Evel Knievel type mind you, but something more along the lines of a guy who drives cars into walls for film or television. Once on a dare he ate three razor blades and a light bulb. Just swallowed them right down and chased it with a glass of soda water. Another time he parachuted into hostile enemy territory. Those guys didn't know what hit them. There was nothing that Ken Kofola wouldn't do. Except once.
    We were all sitting there on Mary Freu's veranda one afternoon: me, Marty, Deacon and Ken, when Deacon turns to Ken and says, "I bet you fifty bucks that you wouldn't resurrect the dead and then fight them."
    Ken thought about it for a minute. "You mean in their undead state? Like zombies?"
    Deacon nodded.
    "Why do I have to fight them?" asked Ken.
    "Because they'll be zombies and they'll want to eat your brains." Deacon picked at something in his teeth. "Mine too."
    This really amps Ken up, see. I mean, who the hell was this Deacon kid to think that Ken Kofola would do all that for a measly fifty bucks?
    "Make it sixty," said Ken.
    "Done."
    Everyone thinks that the hardest part about resurrecting the dead is getting them to breathe again. Not at all. The hardest part is getting them all to resurrect at the same time, like in that Michael Jackson video. It's a lengthy process, but Ken was accomplished enough to have a small army of the undead gathered in the 7-11 parking lot on Westwood and 14th by about four that afternoon. Ken started by explaining to them the whole deal – he had been bet sixty bucks that he couldn't resurrect them and subsequently beat them back to death. Well, before he could finish, these undead get really mouthy, grumbling about human rights and the Geneva Convention and all this crap. It's creeping all of us out and Ken's just getting more and more revved by the second, completely ready to do this. Finally, one of the undead steps forward: older looking guy in a brown suit with a short brown tie and chubby black shoes. He tells Ken that there's no need for violence, that love is a gift which forms a tranquil river between people. He tells Ken that everything necessary in life stems from non-violence and compassion. Man, that was it. We were positive that Ken was about to unleash. It was like all that stuff about non-violence was the most perfect cue ever to start kicking some ass. But Ken didn't move and when we looked at his face we saw that he was crying. Seeing this, several more of the undead came over and began patting Ken on the back. One elderly lady in an I-Love-Lucy style dress even went so far as to hug Ken. None of us had ever seen Ken get so emotionally moved by anything before. We kept our distance because the entire thing just seemed so...well, weird. After several more minutes of talking, the undead lined up and then one by one, proceeded to give Ken a hug. Ken was weeping by this point, blubbering about how truly sorry he was and that he understood how wrong he was to even consider doing what he was going to do to them. Then one of the middle aged undead, a rather tall guy with a crack down his forehead and soil in his nostrils, flashed the piece sign. Gradually, all the others followed suit. Just like that, the whole parking lot was filled with misty eyed (those who had eyes, that is) undead, offering a symbolic gesture of non-violence. Ken turned around slowly, like he'd suddenly remembered that we were watching all this unfold. His eyes were puffy and his cheeks glistened beneath the parking lot street lamps that had switched on. None of us knew what to say. Ken just shrugged, then cleared his gurgly throat.
    "I can't do this, guys, it's not right. What kind of a person would I be if –"
    If you ask Marty or Deacon about that moment, they'll act really distant and say something vague like "It wasn't very nice." I'm really the only one who retains a clear mental image of what happened next. The closest thing that I can compare it to is back in those days when Ken, Marty, Deacon and I used to put ketchup packets under the wheels of our cars and then slowly drive over them to see how far we could make the kitchen squirt. That was basically what happened to Ken's head while he was talking to us. Three (maybe four, I can't say for sure), undead crept up on him and sunk their rotten, crooked front teeth into his skull. That was all it took. Ken didn't even have a chance to finish his sentence. I'll always remember the way that his eyes just shot out of his head, powered by two thick streams of blood. Then they hit the ground and rolled underneath an Audi that was parked about thirty feet away. Ken didn't have a hope. After the undead bit into him, he collapsed like an ice sculpture in Saudi Arabia. Then the whole posse of undead swarmed him and we didn't really see Ken again. I mean, we saw chunks and bits of him, but that doesn't really count. It was pretty brutal.
    After that day, we didn't talk about Ken very much. No one was all that surprised when they heard that he had died trying to win a beat. They'd just shrug and say, "Well, we always knew something like that would happen to him. He was always taking risks." Still, I never would have thought that Ken Kofola would have gone out like that. Not in a million years.

About the author:
Mike Jones lives on a fortified internet compound which can be found here: http://www.jonesmike.wordpress.com