Dead Weight: A Short Story

By Ken Stark

Hal Mitchell is living a nightmare.
Trapped in a body he can no longer control, his entire world has shrunk to a microcosm.

Unable to turn his head, he sees only what is directly before him.
He hears others talking, but cannot utter a word.
His mind is fully active, but its only use now is as a means of escaping to imaginary worlds for a few precious moments, before the pain ravaging his useless body brings him back.

It's as if he has become his own coffin, and he has been buried alive.

As he longs for a death that could never come quickly enough, he must suffer through every horrible minute of his torment alone.

Utterly, desperately alone.

But tonight, Hal Mitchell might not be quite so alone as he thought.
Maybe the nightmare is just beginning.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ken Stark
• Release date: Sep 10, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005665579

Ken Stark

Multi-award-winning author, Ken Stark, was born in Saskatchewan, but has called Vancouver home for most of his life. He was raised on a steady diet of science fiction and disaster movies, so it seems right that his first published book series be about the zombie apocalypse. In his spare time, Ken tries to paint like Bob Ross and play poker like Doyle Brunson, but results suggest that he might have got it all backwards.

Book preview

OTHER TITLES by KEN STARK

STAGE 3 SERIES

Post-Apocalyptic Zombie Thrillers

STAGE 3

STAGE 3: Alpha

STAGE 3: Bravo

HORROR NOVELS

Gaia’s Game

Arcadia Falls

SHORT STORIES

Jitters

Killing Joe Prince

AUDIOBOOKS

STAGE 3: A Post-Apocalyptic Zombie Thriller

Audible US | UK

Stage 3: Alpha

Audible US | UK

Stage 3: Bravo

Audible US | UK

DEAD WEIGHT

The news hit me like a sledgehammer to the back of the head.

I thought I'd been prepared for the worst, but I was wrong. After the verdict, all I could do was take solace in the fact that for as long as I lived, nothing would ever be quite as bad as that horrible moment in the doctor's office, frozen in time.

Turns out, I was wrong there, too.

It's called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Doc Whiting said with about as much dire import as if he'd been commenting on an uptick in the stock market. ALS for short. Most people know it as Lou Gehrig's Disease. I could go into all sorts of scientific jargon, but what it boils down to is this. In a healthy body, the brain moves muscles by sending an electrical signal through an upper motor neuron to the brain stem, and down the spinal cord to a lower motor neuron linked directly to the muscle itself. In patients with ALS, those motor neurons break down over time. It's like trying to turn on a light when there's a short in the wiring.

I have a vague idea that I tried to speak just then, but no words came out. At least, I don't think they did.

I'm afraid it's a progressive disease, Hal. There is a drug called Riluzole that might help to slow the progression, and other treatments have proven effective in alleviating pain and spasticity, but there is no known cure.

Now I'm sure I did speak, albeit clumsily.

H-how long? I managed. Barely.

Worst case, two years. Best case, maybe five. But listen to me carefully, Hal. Those are just statistics. Twenty percent of patients with ALS live long, fruitful lives. You remember Stephen Hawking? The man was diagnosed with ALS in 1963 and given the same prognosis. He went on for another sixty-five years, and changed the world.

As a vegetable.

"Oh, hardly that! Yes, he eventually lost control of his body, but his mind remained as active as ever. And so will yours, Hal. The disease will progress, but you will still be you for as long as you live."

He said it like it was supposed to be good news. Clearly, he didn't understand. Neither did I at the time. It's only as I look back on that moment frozen in time that I see how wrong he'd gotten it. Worst case, five years, best case, ten? Believe me when I say that I am in a supremely righteous place to be able to call bullshit on that. Most people see life as if they're moving through the calendar. The more days and months and years you can tick off, the luckier you are. That's not just bullshit, it's bullshit times bullshit to the power of bullshit. When I look back on it now, two years would have been a godsend. Hell, two weeks would've been more than enough.

Have you ever had a dream where you're buried alive? Well, that's my waking nightmare. My body is the coffin, and I spend every second of every minute of every day desperately trying to claw