- "One can only imagine the rage and the grief he felt. But there was another feeling. One that scared the hell out of Riley. One that made him question everything."
- — The man remembering the slaughter.
Dead Won't Leave is the fourth comic book in the Modern Warfare 2: Ghost series published by Wildstorm Productions as a companion to the main series game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which was released in the same year.
Plot[]
Back in Lisichansk, Ukraine, with only half an hour left until three o' clock comes, the terrorists start spotting figures in the playground of the school and start getting antsy. The man reassures them that they won't go near the school so long as the children are there and again continues his story.
Riley had come back home to find his entire family dead. He knew he was supposed to be sad, or at least mad. But instead, he laughed.
He pulls out a gun from a drawer and prepares to kill himself. However, as he puts the gun in his mouth, he is unable to pull the trigger and vomits. He grabs his cellphone and calls Major Hawkins, his interviewer. A different man answers and informs him that Hawkins has been killed.
Desperate for revenge, Riley returns to Sparks' room at the inn but finds it empty. Riley sees Sparks' pills on the ground and is reminded of how he himself reacted when he was given these pills.
His shrink had said it was for any anxiety or panic attacks he may have in the future but Riley refuses, saying that he's perfectly fine. She insists but Riley takes offense and knocks everything off the shrink's desk. He calms down from his fit before he does anything worse.
Riley receives a call from Sparks, and is informed that his shrink is also dead. Riley asks if he's being set up to which Sparks replies that he set himself up. Riley takes the hint and runs out of the room before an explosive round fired by Washington could blow him up.
Riley escapes to a bathroom in another bar where he remembers his dead mother's request to see his father. He visits his father at the Christie Cancer Hospital. His father has just discovered the frame against Riley and believes that he was there to kill him. Riley, enraged by this accusation, agrees that he should kill him and almost rips off the life support cables from his father, until his father says that's just what he wanted; that he was sick of the treatment necessary to keep him alive. His father proposes that Riley kill him in exchange for an answer that he had obviously come to him for. Riley agrees and asks about his laughter at skulls.
His father reminds him of the time when he brought him to a "Bone Lickers" concert. During the performance, his father left Riley alone to talk to a prostitute, and used drugs as payment. Riley, not enjoying himself at all, follows his father and the prostitute to a bathroom. He finds his father with the prostitute in one of the stalls and at one point they both stop moving followed by a curse from his father. His father drops the syringe and the prostitute barfs out a lot of blood. Riley whimpers that notifies his father that he's there. His father exits the stall, and points out that she was just a whore and drug addict who was bound to die this way. He then observes that she died smiling, starts laughing and prompts his son to laugh too.
Back in the present, Riley leaves without euthanizing his father, forgetting their bargain. After a few minutes, Washington and Sparks arrive to ask about Riley's whereabouts. His father refuses to cooperate and starts laughing which causes Washington and Sparks to shoot him. Outside, Riley hears all of this but he refuses to give in to his urge to laugh.
Gallery[]
