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Death and Taxis: The Origin of Cyrus Perkins by Dave Dwonch

Dave Dwonch writes,

I was only able to muster two words before passing out as I tumbled into his car.

"Hospital. Drive." And then darkness.

Earlier in the week, I thought my symptoms were food poisoning, but as the days progressed, I went from bad to worse, and what started as nausea became crippling back pain, fever and the worst diarrhea known to man. I hadn't eaten or slept in four days when I finally called the hospital help line. Two things were made clear by the nurse on the other line: I definitely did not have food poisoning, and I needed to get to the ER ASAP. She offered to send an ambulance which, for God knows why, I immediately declined. I told her that I would drive myself, proudly. She wouldn't hear any of that, and after a few quick jabs at each other she presented another option.

"Well, you can call a cab?" She said, unsure if she was making a statement or question.

"I'll do that," I said defiantly. I sat myself on the curb and waited for what felt like an eternity. It was the longest thirty minutes of my life. When the cabbie pulled around the corner he saw a zombie that vaguely resembled me stumbling towards his passenger side door. The two words and the dark.

I came to with a start, smearing sweat across his back passenger window, the driver screaming something over and over.

"Which hospital, kid? Which hospital?!" He said, running a red light, his eyes trained on me.

I pointed him in the right direction and smiled. "If I die in this cab, I'm going to haunt it," I mumbled. That's me, always trying to make a joke out of the worst situations.

I can't say my life flashed before my eyes in that twenty minute ride, but it sure did spark my imagination. What if I wrote a murder mystery that starts just like this? A kid dying in the back of a cab, the driver thrust into the role of hero? That would make a great story. I dog eared what I told the cabbie and the creative juices started flowing even before they wheeled me into the emergency room.

It turned out that my gall bladder had failed. If I had waited one more day, possibly less, it would have burst, filling my body with bile. I would have died. So I got into a car—a stranger's car and trusted him with my life. He gave me a second chance and one hell of a jumping off point for my next project. I've never met an actual capital H Hero before that day, and I have so much to thank him for. He stayed with me until the hospital admitted me.

Then he took my money.

He's a taxi cab driver, after all.

Dave Dwonch has been a comics writer and artist producing indie titles for over a decade. Recently he penned several titles, most notably Vamplets (with Gayle "My Little Pony" Middleton), GhostTown and CBR's Top 100 of 2013 series DoubleJumpers.

Cyrus Perkins and the Haunted Taxi Cab is a four issue supernatural crime noir comic series currently being crowdfunded. To support this project, visit Kickstarter,

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