Dead Man Walking

It wasn’t until I died that I finally saw my life clearly – not until this morning, that is, when I woke up on a cold gurney with a Y-shaped scar on my chest, a bitter taste in my mouth and a lipstick stain on my cheek. I had a hangover that would’ve made most other men think twice about reanimating, but I’m not most men; I’m a private eye – a damn good one – and I wasn’t about to hang around with a bunch of stiffs while a case went unsolved.

See, three days ago I was sitting in my office, making plans for the few unspent bucks I had in my pocket, when this dame walked in wearing three-inch heels and a little red dress so tight you might’ve seen her soul if she’d had one. She was trouble, of course, and before all was said and done I’d caught three in the chest and a serious case of buyer’s remorse.

I let down my guard – I let myself give a damn – and I paid the ultimate price, but now there’s nothing but cold sludge pumping through these veins, and this dead man’s got a score to settle.

***

This is a combination of a few different prompts. First, there’s BeKindRewrite’s Inspiration Monday, from which I used waiting to live (in a sense) and unspent. And then there’s this week’s Five Sentence Fiction prompt, Zombie, which was the real spark that got me going. Who doesn’t like an undead detective, am I right?

The series:
Dead Man Walking // X Marks the Spot // Postmortem // Basic Physiology // Les Moelleux // Her Body Begs for Death // The Talisman // Madelaine