When I invited Kenny over, homework wasn't on the agenda, parkas were or at least the taking off of a certain orange one was. I even had the entire afternoon planned in my head, a little corny, but a plan nonetheless.
School's let out; I invite Kenny to a homework session at my house. He's failing math, and although he doesn't mind being held back, it would really suck if he wasn't in the same class as us next year. We all also fucking hate the younger students, so that helped the cause too.
As we're walking to my house, Kenny draws his hood tighter. Is he nervous? I grab his hand, flash him a reassuring smile and lead him through the snow. Upon our arrival home we're both rosy cheeked and panting, possibly a little snot too.
"Let me just…" I mumble and drop the keys. Kenny laughs at my idiocy and I blush heavily as I fumble with keys, finally opening the door to the warm inside.
Shedding my coat and hat, I head towards the living room, Kenny follows, not taking off a thing.
"You gonna take off your coat?" He shakes his head no. I sigh. Knowing that Kenny uses the orange parka as a kind of security blanket, I don't push the matter, but I want to see what was underneath, now. So I force the matter.
"Take it off Kenny." He shakes his head again and mumbles something along the lines of 'No Stan'. I don't except the answer and tackle him to the floor. We wrestle. I, having the advantage of being properly fed come out on top, orange parka in hand, looking like a WWE champion.
I look down triumphantly at my defeated opponent, but that soon fades. The blonde boy is shivering, no shirt was worn underneath the parka and a few bruises could be seen.
"What's wrong?"
"Cold." He replies through shivering teeth. The house wasn't cold, that was for sure, he was. The parka was all that kept him warm, no matter the temperature. I see tears forming and realize that without it he must feel very alone.
I learn closer to him, letting out heat intertwine and kiss him on the forehead.
"I'll keep you warm." I whisper lovingly. He stares back, shock in his blue eyes, but that transforms into gratitude and he snuggles up in my arms…
Problem is, things didn't go exactly as I had hoped, which mostly followed the lines of that shitty soup opera. The parka was removed; I just wasn't prepared for what was underneath. I guess I had just expected the real event to be rather mellow, not the major shock I ended up receiving.
The beginning pretty much started out the same. School had been let out, I asked him to come over. Kyle and Cartman had other crap to do so luckily they didn't tag along. On top of that, Kenny had been dozing of all day, so he needed help catching up.
We didn't talk much as we started the long walk through the snow and at around the half way mark flurries began falling from the sky. That was when Kenny drew his hood tighter and I prepared my most reassuring smile, ever. That's also when the coughs started and the spaceship fell from the sky, disguised as a giant flurry.
Thankfully Kenny had taken a step back due to the cough and the UFO missed by an inch. I remember mumbling something along the lines of; "Didn't Death already use a flying saucer?" while looking up. The flurries had gotten heavier, distorting the sky, but behind that veil, there were four other UFOs all planning to crash down on Kenny. Oh shit, I had thought as I grabbed the hacking boys hand and made a wild dash to my house, forgetting all about the reassuring smile.
Somehow the UFOs never managed to get us, maybe it was due to the fact that I was with Kenny and it wasn't my time to die or maybe Death had just gotten lazy, knowing his efforts would be fruitless, possibly even losing his touch. The attack didn't seem like the normal deaths, sudden, and random. This time was like Death wasn't simply playing a game, but out for blood.
Anyhow, we managed to get to my house without a scratch, though our lungs were probably preparing to go on strike with the way we were wheezing. Kenny was even worse, he had been coughing the entire run and they weren't those weak pathetic ones, they were the throaty coughs. The ones where it seemed the person would cough up their own lung and he did coughing up something. Blood.
The blood was the main problem, the other problem was the blood wasn't red, it was black. Knowing my parka wearing friend needed to get inside now, I didn't bother with the fumbling of the locks. Instead, I practically ripped the door open, ushered him inside and shut it quickly behind me. Aliens were something I really didn't want to see at the time, especially if they planed to probe us.
Throwing Kenny the closet clothe he could use to wipe the blood; I quickly stripped myself of my coat and hat. Maybe now the plot could follow its predetermined course.
"You gonna take off your coat?" I asked, half joking, half concerned. He shook his head no, of course, but also mumbled something along the lines of "it's a parka", before bursting into another set of coughs.
When the coughs finally subsided, the clothe was nearly completely black. Kenny was staring at the new batch of blood, terror filling his eyes. He didn't even look up as I approached, didn't even seem to notice when I knelt in front of him.
"You okay?" I whispered, reaching out my hand to comfort him. He swatted it away and mumbled "fine" through his black stained parka. Quickly unzipping the top of it he continued in a clearer tone.
"We should start on that homework." He tried flashing me a reassuring smile, it looked pained. Everything about him looked pained. His skin was sickly, his blonde hair sticking to his forehead, voice trembling and then there were his eyes. Oh God, his beautiful blue eyes. They were supposed to be filled with happiness and perverted intent, but instead pain and terror filled the pools of blue. Kenny's eyes shouldn't look like that, he was the boy who evaded Death, well, nearly every month, if not week, what did he have to fear? Anyway, when did he ever care about homework?
"You're not fucking fine." I grunted, reaching my hand towards him again. He didn't swat it down this time, probably to weak to; this time he opened his mouth, prepared to protest. The protest never came, but a new batch of coughs did, wetter and throatier then before. The clothe could no longer contain the blood, so it soaked into his orange parka.
"Fine people don't cough up fucking black blood," I growled and threw him another clothe, "what's wrong?" He shook his head, not even bothering to speak. I stared at him, clad in orange stained black. All the answers had to be beneath the parka. They had to be.
I reached out for the third time, unzipping the rest of the jacket. Kenny didn't even seem to care anymore and as I pulled it off of him, he didn't resist. Too weak to resist.
When it was finally off, I realized I was right. Right about the fact that he didn't wear a shirt underneath, right about the bruises too, but there was more. Huge scars ran across his arms and stomach, nearly covering every inch of his visible body, yet none touched the head. He smiled bitterly.
"What did you think my body would be perfectly fine after getting crushed by just about everything?" He added a strained laugh. "The only place not destroyed is my face and well, my privates of course." He leaned his head back, as if he was tired, tired of the pain, suffering. Tired of everything, but that wasn't what caught my attention. On his back was an even larger scar that hadn't faded like the rest. It didn't even look as if it had healed. I looked closer, only to see a large pentagram etched into his back.
"Stan, it's not nice to fucking stare."
"Well it's hard not to stare when you have a fucking pentagram carved into your back." I don't know why I was angry, but I was. Kenny shouldn't have kept this from us, from me. Kenny probably sensed this and sighed, well coughed, but you get the point.
"When I was taken home from the hospital my mom and dad decided to drink in celebration or grief, I don't know. (cough, hack, cough) Well, I don't know all the shitty details, but somehow they summoned Satan by drawing a pentagram on my back. Satan was pissed," Kenny paused, going into another coughing fit, "so he cursed me by constantly killing me over and over again, though death would never come. Then he apparently said some shit about claiming me as one of his own, eventually." Kenny sighed again, leaning his head against the wall. He looked tired, but he hadn't explained everything.
"What's the black blood mean then?" He directed his tired eyes to me and smiled bitterly.
"It means I'm dying." Kenny was dying. Shocker.
"When?" I asked, half jokingly. Kenny merely stared at me, his eyes ponds of sadness.
"I'm already dead. Satan's claimed me."
"What?"
That was the only question I could think of when one of my best friends died right in front of me, becoming something not human. After the explanation he began puking his guts out, literally. A black beating heart, intestines, lungs. All a black mess upon the floor and soon he joined the mess. I tried holding him, finding a way to comfort him, but the terror never left his eyes and in the end he became limp and covered completely in black blood.
Looking back, after Kenny died I just sat there, crying. He wasn't coming back. He was gone, never to return. Eventually I passed out, from the fumes of the blood I guess and when I finally woke up, Kenny's body was gone. I hadn't done anything, neither had my parents, after all they had left the day before. I forget where though, my memories have become hazy, but the fact that Kenny was gone wasn't the weirdest part. At school the next day, nobody remembered him and after a few days neither did I. I had completely forgotten about Kenny, the boy I had a crush on as a kid. He had disappeared, gone form our lives, claimed by Satan.
Yet, now I remember. How could I not remember? I'm in my hospital bed, slowly dying. I've lived a good life, married Wendy in the end, lived to be about ninety and then there's Kenny. He's standing in front of me, looking the same as when he left. His parka's still black, dyed from blood I suppose, same deal with his pants too, but his face is the same. His face is always the same. He looks at me and smiles, kindly, but a little sad.
At those last moments, everything made sense. The UFOs, how they failed to kill Kenny, as if Death was loosing his touch. As if Death was angry he was being replaced and took spite. Satan claimed Kenny, he claimed the boy who couldn't die to become death itself and knowing Kenny he wouldn't loose his touch.
Heh, Death was getting old and I guess I am too. Kenny, my long lost friend, points his finger at me and mutters something. Suddenly I'm free. Free from the bounds of Earth, to go wherever I want. Suddenly I'm dead too.
