It shouldn’t have happened the way it did. I mean, we didn’t want to kill Brian Keene. It just so happened that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Brian was a nice enough guy once you got to know him. Beneath that cold, hard exterior of a mid-list horror author bitter because none of his other books made it bigger then The Rising hid a pretty cool guy…as long as you got him drunk enough. And we all liked him well enough, so it came as quite a surprise that it went down that way.

The book signing started like any other. Keene, the king of the castle, sat behind a mountain of his paperbacks, dispensing words of wisdom on the title pages for a long line of rabid fans. His trusty sidekick and bodyguard, Big Joe, stood watch behind him. Despite his size and stature, Big Joe easily blended into the background, lying in wait for his services to be used against any fan who got too crazy.

Being as how it was book signing in Pennsylvania, the usual gang of FUKU message board members were there. They were scattered throughout the store, turning Keene’s book covers face out, or crowding up the front of Keene’s table so other people get through.

That’s the way it remained for awhile, until the inevitable question was asked that comes up at every appearance.

“Hey Brian, what was up with the ending to The Rising?”

It never matters who asks it…it’s usually just some rabid fan boy making a snide remark, or a FUKU member being a smart ass. It’s almost like a game we play: Who is going to ask Keene at THIS signing? We’ve all done it before, so we’re all guilty.

Keene usually responds with a forced smile, and a nod of his head, explaining how it was his intent to leave the ending up to the reader, allowing them to draw their own conclusions.

But this time, it was different.

This time, Keene exploded.

His face turned  a bright shade of red while his body started to tremble. He gripped the pen in his hand so tightly that it broke and spilled black ink all over someone’s limited edition No Rest For The Wicked. The table he sat behind started to shake violently. Paperbacks fell off, causing a sort of mid-list horror avalanche on the folks standing in front of it.

The moment steam started to come from behind his eyes, people began to duck for cover. His shaking became more intense, affecting the rest of the store as well. It sounded as if an earthquake was taking place.

With one last breath, Keene looked at the person who asked, with eyes filled with fire, and yelled at the top of his lungs.

“I. FUCKING. HATE. ZOMBIES!”

And then, he exploded. Literally.

Tiny bits of Keene covered the store. Everything from supernatural romance to children’s literature now had a touch of Keene on it.

Everyone stood in the shocked stillness for a minute or two until one lone voice in the crowd broke the silence.

“That…was fuckawesome.”

Everyone leaving the store that day would take a little bit of Keene home with them. Some of those pieces you can even find on eBay nowadays. Big Joe himself is said to be living a life of luxury from all the Keene bits he collected and sold to fanatical collectors.

No one really knows what kind of internal combustion caused him to detonate into a million pieces. Perhaps it was just years of pent up frustration from that question, finally coming to a head at that exact moment in time. Maybe it was something else. The world will never know…

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Today is Brian Keene Must Die day. Brian will be killed in dozens of horrifying ways in blogs across the blogosphere for a very good cause. I decided to join in, because what the hell, it’s my birthday, and what a good birthday present this is! If you enjoyed this entry, or any of the others (which can be found here), please consider making a donation to the Shirley Jackson Awards.

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