Dead Jack and the Soul Catcher: (Volume 2)

by James Aquilone

  “Don’t forget our deal,” Lucifer said to us. He glanced down at his crotch and then smiled at Zara. She rolled her eyes, and Lucifer vanished.

  “Geez, the Devil’s a creep,” she said.

  We followed Beleth out of the building as the band headed east. Beleth galloped alongside his band, waving what looked like a conductor’s baton. Wherever he pointed the thing, a legion of demons popped into existence. These suckers weren’t small like the musicians. They were the size of mountain boulders and walked as if angry at the ground.

  Soon they came upon some Nazis. It wasn’t pretty. Beleth’s demons lifted up the Nazis and tore them apart like paper dolls.

  Beleth pointed his conductor’s baton at the sky and a legion of winged demons appeared. The creatures, thin and aerodynamic, their beaks like broadswords, searched the ground with hungry eyes. They descended on the camp. The discordant music mingled well with the screams erupting throughout the place. And the explosions added a nice, but chaotic rhythm. Klaxons sounded and vehicles came to life. Fires sprang up in every direction.

  “I think they have things under control,” I said. “Let’s head to the tower.”

  “I almost feel sorry for those Nazis,” said Zara.

  CHAPTER 21: This Is Your Horrible Life

  All hell literally broke out as we headed to the Obsidian Tower. Demons filled the sky and marched through the camp. The Nazis had been caught off guard, most likely because they never suspected Lucifer to get past their magic circle.

  Someone fired a bazooka and a ten-foot-tall demon in the form of a wasp went spinning out of the sky. On his way down, he clipped an antenna atop a roof, which came crashing down mere inches from our feet. The demon landed not far from the antenna, his thin insect legs broken. He managed to lift his triangular head, but slumped to the ground, dead.

  “Ever play football?” I asked Zara as we dashed around the fallen demon.

  “Can’t say I have.”

  “Then just run in a zig-zag pattern and try not to get hit by any falling Nazis or demons.”

  A Jeep roared around a building, firing a Gatling gun mounted in the back. Zara pulled up her sleeve, muttered something, plucked a grenade from her left forearm, and tossed it under a nearby truck. The explosion caught the tail end, flipping it over.

  “Or you could do that.”

  “Come on,” Zara said.

  We stuck as close to the buildings as we could and made our way across the camp.

  More demons appeared above us. The Nazis had finally mounted a counterattack, unleashing their monster army. I recognized a few of the creatures from Skull Mountain. After our little battle over the Pandemonium Device, Ratzinger had sent his soul suckers to suck up the souls of the dead. Zombie demons, gargoyles, sphinxes, and even a couple of unicorns took to the skies. Beleth and his legions met the slave troops with a ferocious force, driving straight into their ranks with claws and fangs and hooves. The Pandemonium heavens dripped with black and red blood.

  When we reached the northwestern edge of the camp, we found ourselves alone. The Obsidian Tower, black and mirror smooth, stood a hundred yards in front of us.

  “There’s no one guarding the tower,” I said.

  “Doesn’t that concern you?”

  We hung back, scanning the area. The area was deserted, while the battle raged at the other end of the camp. Beleth pushed the Nazis farther east, the explosions and tortured screams fading in the distance.

  “I think they have more pressing concerns, don’t they?” I asked.

  “Ready then?”

  “Not really.”

  We broke for the tower, a thousand feet of volcanic glass rising into the hellfire sky.

  Zara was well ahead of me, naturally. I herked and jerked like a newborn gremlin trying to learn the Charleston. It looked like smooth sailing―until that Nazi bitch came bouncing over the dirt in a Mercedes. She gripped the wheel with white fists, grinning like a maniac. I yelled something like “Look out!” It wasn’t too effective. The edge of the front bumper clipped Zara and she rolled over the hood and onto the ground.

  Before I could catch up to the fallen pixie/witch, Hellstrom had came to a stop and jumped out of her vehicle. She carried a large weapon, a bazooka perhaps. But as I got closer I realized it wasn’t a bazooka. Tentacles streamed out from slits in her uniform and undulated like drunken snakes doing the mambo.

  Zara climbed to her feet, her sledgehammer already gripped in both hands, the light glinting off its well-used head.

  Zara stared down Ilsa.

  “I knew the zombie was an idiot,” the Nazi said. “But I had higher hopes for you, Zara. You made a deal with Lucifer? Historically, that’s a terrible move. You should have sided with us.”

  “Lucifer isn’t such a bad guy,” Zara said. “Some even say he’s the hero of the Bible.”

  “Those people are called Satanists.”

  “And Nazis are better?”

  “Sweetheart, we’re not creating hell, we’re creating heaven.”

  “Semantics.”

  “You could have been perfect like me.”

  “What the hell are you? A Nazi-ken? A Krakenazi?”

  An apocalyptic crack of thunder hammered the sky. The ground shook. I looked up at the top of the Obsidian Tower aglow. In the far distance, thousands of tiny lights came streaming toward the camp. A soul sucker squawked, a high piercing call.

  The sucking had commenced.

  “Save Oswald,” Zara shouted. “I’ll handle this bitch.”

  “You sure?” I said.

  “Go!”

  “She beat you before.”

  “She surprised me. I wasn’t counting on tentacles.”

  “I don’t want this to be a thing between us. Like I abandoned you or something.”

  “We’re good.” Zara ripped off her brown Nazi shirt, exposing a sleeveless T-shirt underneath with “Fook You” written across the chest. Magical tattoos of whips, wands, swords, and potions covered her exposed arms. “This time I’m ready.”

  I headed to the Obsidian Tower as Ilsa’s tentacles whipped at Zara, grabbing hold of her hammer. Ilsa pulled the witch/pixie toward doom, but Zara had other plans. She yanked on her hammer, drawing it back with all her strength, the cords in her neck bulging, and lifted the Nazi hybrid off her feet. She landed in the dirt face first, releasing her grip on Zara’s hammer.

  I power-shambled to the base of the Obsidian Tower, hoping Zara could handle Ilsa.

  The base of the tower must have been at least a quarter of a mile around. I circled it twice, but found no entrance. In fact, I didn’t see so much as a crack or crease. The entire tower seemed to have been made of a single piece of solid obsidian. I took out my handy-dandy grimoire. What did Wally call it? LST. Location-specific textuality. If it had info about the Lucifer Tower in Syd’s Lair, I prayed it said something about entering the Obsidian Tower now that I stood before it.

  I opened the magical text, which pulsed in my hand. I thought I had flipped to a random page. But right in front of me, in bold letters:

  On Entering the East Tower

  Three Towers

  Of Bone

  Of Smoke

  Of Glass

  Earth

  Heaven

  Spirit

  Black as the abyss

  Look

  It looks at you

  Trace your origin

  To your final decision

  A fookin riddle. I hate riddles.

  I looked at my reflection in the surface of the tower. It wasn’t a great sight, even for a corpse. My Nazi uniform was in tatters, splattered with blood. My face looked deader than usual, pale and tired. The past few hours had taken a toll on me.

  My image did a funny thing. It shook its head. I wasn’t shaking my head. I checked. The zombie in the mirror continued shaking its head, as if telling me I shouldn’t enter.

  I went over the riddle.

  Black as the abyss

  The surfac
e is black.

  Look

  I looked.

  It looks at you

  That guy in the reflection was certainly looking at me.

  Trace your origin

  Trace? I touched the surface, as Syd touched the tunnel wall to reveal the Angel Gate.

  My image nodded.

  I got it. I put the book back in my pocket and traced my reflection with my right forefinger, going clockwise. As I did so, an indentation burned into the obsidian, its edges melting into lava. When I finished, a perfect Jack shape had been etched into the tower.

  I removed the Nazi jacket, pulled my fedora from my inner pocket and fixed it back on my head. Now I was ready.

  I leaned against the Jack shape and the surface gave. I pushed forward and entered the Obsidian Tower.

  When I got to the other side, the hole sealed itself behind me.

  To your final decision

  I didn’t know what that would be, but I didn’t like the sound of it.

  The inside of the tower seemed much bigger than I had imagined from the outside. Like the exterior, the floor and walls were black glass. A staircase spiraled up the back wall, the only thing in the room.

  I took a step forward and a spotlight shone down on me. A fanfare of music broke the silence. “Welcome, Jack, to your… hell,” a voice boomed. It took me a moment to recognize Ratzinger. That deep, cocky voice.

  “Ratzinger,” I said, “is that you, you Nazi bastard? Whatever you’ve done with Oswald―”

  “Oswald is in good hands. We are up here waiting for you, Jack.”

  “This place doesn’t have an elevator?”

  “Sorry. You will have to walk up the stairs. It will give us more time.”

  “What makes me think it’ll be a shitty time?”

  “Because you are a smart corpse. Always were. That is why I like you so much.”

  I crossed the room and climbed the staircase, the spotlight following me.

  “Now let us get back to our regularly scheduled program.” Ratzinger’s voice crackled over what sounded like a bad P.A. system. When I reached the second level, the stairs disappeared behind me. “There is only way for you, Jack. Up!”

  The spotlight cut out. The level was dark and felt infinite in size. Didn’t Oswald say the tower existed in the fourth dimension? What did that mean?

  “We are going back to the beginning, Jack. Meet some old friends. I know they are dying to see you again. Ha-ha-ha.”

  Ratzinger had gotten corny since his resurrection.

  The darkness dissolved like smoke in a windstorm. Gradually, a dirt road revealed itself. Light spread into the world, revealing bombed-out buildings, rubble, and ashes. The façade of a church somehow remained with nothing behind it, a hollowed-out building. Farther up the road, a Panzer tank burned.

  I stood in the middle of the road, the sun shining bright yellow in a blue sky.

  I recognized the place, the French village of Oradour-sur-Glane, the site of the worst massacre in dear old World War II. This was Ratzinger’s first test of his undead army. It was a smashing success.

  Shadows lengthened and stretched in the corners and hidden places.

  Something dark crawled into the road, ahead of the church and slunk toward me like a giant worm. I didn’t move. The slug lifted its head, dark blood dripping from its mouth. But it wasn’t a slug. It was a man. He pulled himself along the road with arms that had been cut off at the elbow. His legs were missing, as was his lower half. Blood and guts poured out of his exposed torso.

  The others rose from the rubble and crawled out from under wrecked cars. Some seemed to rise out of the dirt itself. All had missing limbs, missing flesh. They weren’t the undead. They were the food of the undead.

  Ratzinger had sent us into this idyllic village, which had no strategic value to the Germans. There were no soldiers here, only simple farmers.

  Ratzinger set us loose at sunrise, the sky layered in pale pink and red and yellow.

  We had never fed on living flesh before. He kept us like starving mongrels, stoking our hunger for this moment. He didn’t need to control us that day. Our hunger drove us and we feasted.

  The citizens of Oradour-sur-Glane, their bodies torn open and spilling their contents, surrounded me.

  “Is this how you’re going to torture me!” I shouted at Ratzinger. He didn’t answer.

  The villagers stared at me with dead, sunken eyes. I had seen those eyes many times in my dreams. Though what I had done here disgusted me, the old hunger blossomed in my rotten guts. My stomach clenched like a fist, my jaw flexed. I found myself staring at the glistening organs, and realized the Frenchmen didn’t want revenge. They offered themselves to me. They pressed forward, holding up their intestines and livers and hearts.

  Manger, they said. Manger.

  That was Ratzinger’s game. Get me to act like a zombie.

  You don’t have to be a zombie, Jack. Oswald was an idiot. You couldn’t decide not to be a flesh eater, just as he couldn’t decide not to be an annoying runt. His words didn’t have special meaning because they came to me in a dust-fueled dream.

  No matter what I did, I remained a zombie. I craved flesh. I had no soul. I smelled like a garbage fire. But Ratzinger wanted me to be his zombie. I couldn’t let that happen. Dust! I could kill my hunger with dust. I reached into my pocket.

  I was tapped out. Not even a granule of Third Circle.

  You were never a good zombie, Jack.

  Is that you, Oswald?

  No answer.

  Was is my imagination? Did it matter? I had heard enough of Oswald to know what he would say at all times. He wasn’t that original. I thought of another thing the homunculus said after I took the Devil’s dust.

  You’ve known for a long time, but you didn’t want to admit it.

  Did he really say that, too, or had I lost my mind?

  A woman approached me. She held up her beating heart in her blood-slicked hand.

  I had to admit it looked appetizing.

  I looked into the woman’s face. Her eyes were black pebbles, her cheeks sunken and gray.

  I knocked the heart out of her hand, pushed her aside, and ran through the village as the citizens of Oradour-sur-Glane chased me, throwing their organs and limbs at me. Hunger burned me, but I kept going until I stood once again in the dark.

  The spotlight hit me.

  A staircase appeared.

  I ascended.

  When I reached the second level, faint music played from a radio. I followed the noise, wondering what new torture Ratzinger had in store for me.

  The music grew louder. Glenn Miller. My insides twisted. But it had nothing to do with hunger. A dim light appeared in the middle of the darkness.

  As I got closer, a couch and a low table came into view. An end table and lamp stood beside a Philco radio atop a scarred and battered credenza. One of its missing legs had been replaced with a brick.

  I recognized this scene, too. I stood outside the cozy little domestic setup, hiding in the shadows, as the music bopped and jumped.

  From the other end of the room, a woman emerged from the darkness. She ran toward me, her arms held out.

  “No,” I said.

  She stopped, a disappointed and confused look on her face.

  “What’s the matter, Jack?” she asked, concern in her voice.

  I lowered my head and noticed my hands. I turned them over, studied them. I couldn’t believe it. The bones didn’t show. The flesh wasn’t desiccated and burned. I ran my fingers over my face. I no longer had a hole in my cheek. My skin felt soft and supple. Blood coursed through my veins.

  I wasn’t Dead Jack anymore. I was just Jack.

  “You’re home. You’re finally home. I thought I’d never see you again.”

  “Gertrude?” She was the same age when I last saw her seventy-four years ago. Just as beautiful as I remembered, too.

  “Forgot me already?”

  “I never forgot you.” Was that
true? I had blocked out much of my pre-Pandemonium life. It was the only way to survive, but this world also makes you forget. It eats up your sweet memories. I remembered Gertie for the first time in many years when Zara gave me the water of remembering back in the Duke’s palace. The memory was so painful I had to repress it again. But with her standing before me, it all flooded back, and talking to her―even a fake version―came easily and naturally.

  “I never forgot you, Jack. I waited and waited. And now you’re here.”

  She embraced me. I expected her arms to go through me like a ghost, but her warm and solid arms clutched me tight, the first human being I had touched in decades. I had to admit it felt good.

  She led me to the couch and we sat.

  “What year is it?” I asked.

  “You really had a rough time, didn’t you, sweetie? It’s 1946.”

  Glenn Miller changed to the Lemon Sisters.

  “Who won the war?”

  “You don’t know?”

  “Refresh my memory.”

  “We did.”

  “No more Nazis?”

  She looked at me like she didn’t understand.

  “Jack, do you feel well? I’ll bring you a drink and food. Are you still drinking whiskey?”

  “This isn’t real. You’re not real.”

  “Don’t be silly.

  “I’m as real as you are.”

  I looked at my hands and nice, clean suit. “I don’t think I’m all that real.”

  “I’ll fix you up and you’ll be fine.”

  She walked over to the credenza. Next to the radio sat several bottles of alcohol and a couple of glasses, just like our old apartment in Brooklyn. She poured me a drink, then took a small plate out from one of the drawers. When she returned, she handed me the glass and plate. On the plate were chocolate chip cookies, freshly baked from the smell. I nearly cried.

  I put the plate on the couch between us and held the whiskey.

  “Gertie, I’d love to believe you’re really here, but you’re no doubt no long dead.”

  “Don’t talk like that, Jack. I thought for a long time you were dead. I hadn’t heard from you in so long, and now here you are.”

  “Gertie, I have been long dead.”