Nicholas Kaufmann

It__ not as easy as it looks to come back from the dead.

Oatmeal Face, Jawless, and the other revenants dragged me out of the van by the zip tie between my hands. The sharp plastic bit painfully into my wrists."All right, all right, I'm coming," I said. "Keep your faces on."There was no reaction from any of them. Humor was wasted on the dead.

There were a few nighttime pedestrians on the block, but they continued on their way, dutifully ignoring the zombie vomiting blood out of the back of my car. Good old New Yorkers. They really couldn't care less.

You're telling me a shape-shifting demon just walked out onto Fifth Avenue and blended in with the crowd?" I asked. "Hailed a fucking cab after tearing everyone to pieces down here?

The Mad Affliction's arm shot out of the cage, grasping for me. I jumped back. His long, ragged talons swiped the air in front of me."Free me!" the Mad Affliction cried. He grasped for Bethany, but she backed away, too. "Free me and know the living nightmare that is unending madness!""You're not doing yourself any favors," I told him.

The secret parts of this city never ceased to amaze me.

What matters isn't what you are, it's who you are, right now, in this moment. What matters are the choices we make. That's what defines us. Nothing else.