Overwhelming Quiet

Chapter Four: Exhaustion

Could Walt Whitman write a poem about how Kenji Kazowksi ended up throwing up in an alleyway on the Fourth of July?

As Kenji spat out a chunk of the burrito he had earlier, he chuckled. "Peak patriotism, honestly," he said to the ground.

Laughter and jumbled words grew louder and louder as a young couple stumbled into the alleyway. They looked at him and snickered, probably assuming he was as hammered as they were. If Kenji wasn't as nauseous and exhausted as he was, he would've surely been red with embarrassment. He coughed and knelt on one knee.

The guy kissed his girlfriend—or whomever—on the cheek and she looped her arms around his neck affectionately. Oh, yeah. How romantic. Kissing next to a guy who just puked all over the ground.

Another woman rounded the corner. She was a little older than the couple and could walk in a straight line without stumbling. Her hair was rough and messy and so was her makeup. She wore a dark pink tank top with black skinny jeans. A large silver sun-shaped pendant sat against the skin of her chest. There was an unwavering familiarity to her, but how would he have known her?

She smiled at the couple like she knew them. "Having fun?"

The drunk girl laughed and pointed at her boyfriend. "His fucking ex was there and she was with such an ugly guy." She laughed again. The girl spoke so quickly that Kenji couldn't follow where her story was going or what exactly the ex had said that made her want to spit in the girl's face. Through her ramblings Kenji came to the conclusion that if the girl had been just a little drunker, there would have been a nasty brawl.

The woman laughed along with her and laid a hand on the girl's shoulder amicably, although Kenji suspected they didn't actually know each other.

What happened after that shouldn't have surprised Kenji as much as it did. It had been months since he witnessed his last demon attack. The last time was around Christmas.

He had been walking along the train tracks around sunset when he passed by a house with a rusty green pickup truck in the driveway and gnome statues of varying heights lining the walkway to the door.

He stopped when he heard a man's scared shout. The front door swung open and out ran Jon Sutton, a sixty to seventy-year-old man who owned a small antique store in the center of town. Jon was known for being kind of a dick. Customer service was not meant for someone so easy to provoke. Last spring he put up a sign that read, "We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone," and another one that said, "No One Under 18 May Enter the Premises"

But a grumpy old man still didn't deserve to die the way he did. Scared and in pain, draped across the lap of a young man as he sucked the life out of him. The newspaper reported that he died of a heart attack.

Elderly were primary targets for demonic attacks. No one would really think twice if a 75-year-old woman suddenly dropped dead, right?

Kenji pushed himself off the ground and reached for the army knife in his back pocket.

The woman who had sank her teeth in the drunk girl was being forced back by her boyfriend. Kenji understood instantly that the guy wasn't going to make it out alive. The demon shoved him with the force few humans could possess. His back collided with the wall and Kenji thought he heard a bone or twelve break from the impact.

Kenji went for the ear. Then the throat. She dodged his attacks easily and readily. There was an eager smile draped across her face. Maybe from the excitement of being met with a proper fight. She probably had thought he would be an easy kill. He had lost a lot of weight after moving out of his mom's home. Food wasn't as accessible anymore and much of his muscle mass had diminished in the past year. He was skinny but far from frail, and even if his muscles weren't as compact, they still held the memory of how to block with swiftness and attack with force. Nonetheless, Kenji spryness was tarnished by the sickness in his stomach and the fogginess in his head. He had lost coordination and his movements were growing less focused. Every swing of his arms were making him more and more dizzy.