The Good Death Box Set: A Hard SciFi Science Fiction Series

by Doug McGovern

  He’d been right to give him up for dead. Technically, he was.

  “Phenomenal! Harry, I can’t make you promises. But I’ll give it my best college try. Now, to count our losses.” Joseph went to the Vantage and pulled a Bacardi fifth from a paper bag in the floorboards. He began to spill it all within the interior of the crushed Maserati. Pulled a lighter out of his pocket, and set the thing ablaze.

  Kingsley stared slack-jawed and offended. Joseph rolled his eyes.

  “A child like you would drive any man to drink. ‘Least I don’t drive after it slips past my lips like you. If you’d thought better of it, your car wouldn’t be roasting right now.”

  “None of my business, old man. You’re halfway dead anyway.” Kingsley rolled his shoulders.

  Joseph went to Harrison and grabbed his forearm leading him carefully to his car.

  “Thanks to you, I’m not the only one. Get in. We’re going to the Lab.”

  *****

  Chapter 13

  Jane didn’t slow down to think about how absolutely brainless-insane this plan was. She just spun out to the right gas fumes burning in her nostrils.

  Her plan was simple. Lure Leona Kelley somewhere dark and lonely. Somewhere she’d be able to apprehend her for a full-on citizen’s arrest.

  Somewhere like Dad’s “kitchen”.

  There was an old storage facility on Greenwood Road. That would be roughly 20 minutes from here. At the speed she could clock it with these horses, probably more like 16 tops.

  16 minutes is still a long haul when you’re running for your life, which is why she wouldn’t run. It was time to dance with the Devil. She just had to ask nicely.

  “It’s not a party if we don’t have a place to crash.” Jane was surprised by her own tone’s levelness as she listened to it echo over the radio mic.

  “Mm, where to then?” Leona’s voice sent chills to Jane’s bones. Could she really take her?

  “Follow me. There’s a cool place to kick it on Greenwood.” Jane punched it.

  “Stand down, ladies. This one’s just for me, thanks.” Leona called all of her girls off the little red Chevelle.

  Good, mano a mano is all I signed up for. Jane chewed her lip.

  She was going to die tonight, wasn’t she?

  Dex, Lindsey, Ivy, and Harrison are going to live, though. The main thing is that they live. Dad trained me for things like this. He knew how hard this world can be. I can take her. I can…

  She wasn’t convinced by the internal pep talk. There wasn’t any backing out of it. A fine line between bravery and death wish had been crossed. She would have to walk that line now. She’d made the bed and now it was time to slide her boots up under it.

  You’re really behind the eight ball here, though, Yahtzee. She could almost hear her Dad talking in her head.

  She just hoped tonight she would make him proud.

  Dad’s storage unit was like most single fathers. Power tools, an old chopper, wrenches, screwdrivers, her brother’s bike from when he was nine. But then there was the element of a dojo as the floor had been cleared out in the center and painted in circles with yellow street paint. The perfect dance pad for kids aspiring to master self-defense in a world where their Dad was a notorious crime buster.

  Jane hopped out and basically pounced onto the rolling garage door. The kitchen was locked up with a log chain and a quick turn padlock like a barnyard gate. She knew the way to the key by heart. It was a good thing too because the Fairlane was gaining ground.

  Leona skidded on her slick Toms’ heels dead center of that yellow ring. Spun around looking for anything to use as a weapon. Dad had an arsenal that the USMC would be envious of. So many options sometimes made a choice difficult.

  Leona skipped through the rolling garage door with a girly snicker. “Here, kitty-kitty. I’d like to be friends.” She tilted her head to the side. The straight razor spun in her hand like a pinwheel.

  Jane was standing in the center of the yellow circle, feet squared, a SPAS 12 pressed to her shoulder. She grinned impishly.

  “Hiya. Drinks are on the house tonight, missy.” Jane had found a keepsake party hat from her sweet 16 on her Dad’s desk and had donned it for emphasis. Leona gaped, laughing melodically.

  “Oh… You’re precious. A shotgun against me?” Leona twisted her lips into a pout.

  “Oh, this? Just my kazoo. For singing your song, little lady. I only want to dance.” Jane tossed her short blonde hair out of her eyes.

  “I’m a busy woman.” Leona raised an eyebrow.

  “Yeah, so I hear. You just iced the entire police department, or so they all claimed over radio cross-talk. There are two stations in my hood and like 16 in the whole city. That must have been busy work for you, though. Like at the bottom of the checklist.” Jane clicked her tongue with a giddy laugh.

  Leona chuckled deep in her chest, titling her head to the side with a fond smile.

  “I must say I’ve missed intelligent conversation. Harrison was a vegetable the better part of our short marriage and Kingsley wanted to murder his way into my pants. You, on the other hand, seem to understand me. It truly takes a woman to understand a woman, hmm?” She pressed her free hand to her breast in a thoughtful expression.

  Jane shyly dug her sneaker’s toe into the pavement. She had to stall her for just long enough to make the right move.

  Leona had been slowly stepping forward. She stopped in her tracks, astonished.

  “We are all just vipers in a large sandbox, my dear,” said Leona. “We shed our skins to become the thing that we want most. It takes a special kind of eye to see through enough layers of skin until you get to the tender one of innocence.” She looked almost sad for a short moment.

  “A woman’s intuition is often better than forensic research. Bravo, you’ve managed to drop science to me this evening. Yes, I shed my skin for love. I married for the money it takes to buy his soul. I have no idea how you could have pieced all that together, nor do I care. You see, in everything else, I don’t need a motive. I’ve shed enough skins, I only steal because I need more to feed the cancer. I only kill because blood is my poison of choice. Killing you, though, see I have a tangible motive for once in my career. You I hate. You I am jealous of. I never can truly possess the men I purchase. Harrison was the closest I ever came to a lap dog. You turned his head. Skills of an urban warrior and yet you still insisted on being a nurse!” Leona slapped a model car off Mr. Lewis’ old desk aiming it for Jane and charged.

  In instant reaction, Jane unloaded all eight rounds, one after the other. They both stood transfixed when Leona didn’t flinch. In the barrel’s smoke, Leona rolled her eyes and unbuttoned her shirt. There over her chest was a vest made of link-locked diamonds that gave the African Hope a run for its money.

  “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend. Right, sugar?” Leona popped her neck. Jane threw the SPAS12 aside.

  “Don’t spend them all in one place, honey.” She shrugged and ripped the party hat from her head slapping it up into Leona’s face. This caught her off guard long enough for Jane to jab her fist into her throat.

  With an infuriated growl, Leona spun the razor up and slashed it across Jane’s belly. She groaned and stumbled backward to where Leona kicked her limp body into her dad’s desk. A power drill was sitting nearby still plugged in after all these years. Leona grinned in gaga-eyed giddiness and smashed her palm into Jane’s eyes.

  The girl bit into Leona’s fingers in desperation, but the Crime Lord was stronger than her slender frame suggested and apparently seared to pain. Jane writhed free of her palm just in time for the power drill to come down heavy on her collar bone.

  “I’ve always dreamed of owning an ivory clarinet!” Leona shouted over Jane’s screams. The girl swung her hand wildly and grabbed the power cord. She reached around Leona’s bowed arms and pressed it into her rage gnashing teeth. The woman bit into the electric surge and stuck there until Jane kicked her away from the plug.

&nbs
p; Jane spat her own blood on the floor. “Get up, Grandmother. This party just got started!”

  *****

  Chapter 14

  She had the guts, but Leona would take the glory that night. There wasn’t any question of that. Jane’s objective wasn’t actually to beat her. That would be a bonus, but this was more or less a diversion until her friends could summon the local militia.

  She spat her blood and tossed her neck on her shoulders. There was an incessant tugging in her collarbone that was mostly numb. She knew that the injuries were somewhere in between critical and fatal without having to look at them. She’d seen the drill’s tip sink around 3 inches into her collar bone and felt the blood splatter across her face and against the back wall. It was all good. She hadn’t had a chance in Hell of making it back from this anyway.

  If she was going to bleed out, she might as well make her insignia in the blood stains. Someday someone would come back to this forsaken toolshed and remember the night that she stood up to literal, Hollywood glammed-up evil. She could take that.

  “You… You sniveling whore!” Jane began and reached behind her and plucked a huge steel Louisville slugger from off the shelf. She swung and brought it down heavily on Leona’s back. The older woman groaned and slipped in Jane’s flowing blood. She landed on her face and crunched her teeth. Jane pressed her foot into the back of her head.

  She wiped her hands in her blood and rubbed them over the bat to make it slick. She flailed Leona with a ruthless onslaught of rhythmic blows. Bone and diamonds chipped and cracked under her lumberjack swings.

  “You make me sick, you selfish witch! Strong people don’t let pain turn them into the picture of evil! You harness that pain and you use it to liberate the world of more of it! You feed that cancer until that kamikaze inside you can make you move mountains!” The bat slipped out of Jane’s hands midair swing. It shattered through one of the high and tiny windows that let dim streetlight into the garage.

  Leona cowered on the ground, moaning like she was dying. Jane panted where she stood and began to slide down the wall.

  You got to keep it together, kid. She’s down, but not out.

  It was the last thing that Jane thought before Leona did a freestyle spin on the floor and pushed herself to her feet. Her lips quivered with the pain of cracked shoulder blades. The diamond vest had sustained the most damage. Diamonds are the hardest substances in the world. Yet Jane Lewis had broken through the sockets that fit them to the bulletproof vest and had chipped them into many fine pieces. Thus, she had kicked Leona in her wealth. Which would prove to be the final nail in her coffin.

  “I have to say in all honesty, I underestimated you.” Leona dug the diamonds away from her chest. Jane tried to inch away but tripped in her blood. Leona caught her by her hair and shoved the diamonds in her teeth. She pinned her mouth closed with her elbows, making her choke on the blood-slickened diamond grit. It cut into her gums and filed her teeth. Worst of all, it irritated her throat to swelling. She was pretty sure she was having an asthmatic reaction to Leona’s attack.

  Jane’s bloody hands scrambled around the shelf behind her. She felt herself growing dizzy and heard her own voice moaning. It felt like this was happening to someone else and she was a million miles away from it.

  In all her father’s great arsenal, all Jane could find was his old Nirvana CD collection. He had always said that musical warfare was the battlefield’s straw-breaker. She bent her shaking hand back and broke a CD in half, swinging down and slicing Leona’s lips with it.

  Leona hissed as blood welled on her mouth. She reeled and slapped Jane hard across her face. Jane spat diamond dust in the air, coughing, drowning on dry land.

  Jane reached behind herself again and felt a stack of playing cards. She shuffled the deck in one hard slingshot motion, watching them burst into Leona’s face. Leona hissed, her rage igniting in greater intensity by the second. She let out a cougar shriek and pounced Jane, who swung her fist into her teeth.

  Leona reeled, reached into her bra, pulled out a penny-whistle and blew into it. Jane felt herself go numb from her head down to her toes. It was a welcome feeling despite the sheer terror of it. The pain she’d been in before was unbearable.

  Leona caught Jane as she began to slide forward. There was a dart sticking out of her heart, three inches long. They both looked down at it as Leona began to fondly stroke Jane’s hair.

  “You should be proud. I’ve never had to use that before on anyone. It’s the cerebral fluid of the same lizard that was used in making the euthanasia serum Dr. Kingsley attempted and failed to use on Harrison. The scientist that formulated it had no idea exactly what to expect from it. He just told me it would make ‘death look dreamy.’ I honestly came here to kill you. Bravo, Jane Lewis. You’ve merited yourself a more creative end. Death is too easy. I’ll have to make a lab rat out of you. You and Harrison both. It’s a fitting end for Harrison’s hospital crush, I’d say. He never did look at me the way he did at you…”

  With a sentimental whine, Leona scooped Jane up into cradling arms and carried her out the garage doors. Jane looked towards the sky. The stars and the streetlights were the last things she could mentally register before she blacked out cold.

  *****

  Chapter 15

  “The extract was created by mistake! Harrison wanted to have it removed from his company’s research files. He’s made his millions on financing and manufacturing wonder drugs, FYI. Well, the extract his wife used to euthanize him was a failed experiment of different compound serums his research teams are compiling into an autoimmune disease cure-all!” Joseph switched on the lights to his lab. It was in the basement of Shreveport’s cancer research center.

  “How do you know all that?” Kingsley began.

  A grim, familiar voice cut through the quiet of the lab. “Because he’s part of the team that developed it.” Leona was standing center lab. She had Jane Lewis pinned to her chest, a needle jabbed into her heart.

  Leona smiled and pressed the syringe harder. Jane’s eyes rolled back in her head. Her eye whites took on a startling shade of teal. She began to twist and claw at the syringe. Whatever the clear liquid within it consisted of, it was causing her unimaginable agony.

  “Kingsley the Elder. My old teacher. You have been an invaluable asset to this company. Surely you don’t want to throw away our good business so easily?” She was done playing her catty games. There was a savage color to Leona’s eyes that caused Kingsley to experience chest pains. His dad just smiled, nose twitching in agitation.

  “Sorry, lady. I actually work for him.” Joseph pointed at Harrison, who slipped into the room at smoke’s volume.

  “Harris…” Jane’s voice hissed in snake-like terror. She began to make choking sounds low in her throat and beat her fists at Leona’s arms. For all her desperate thrashing, she could not get away.

  “Oh my God… You didn’t use the Hybrid on her?” Joseph broke out into a cold sweat.

  “My favorite story is Romeo and Juliet, by Shakespeare. In the story, two young lovers that were never meant to be together decided that they could not be apart. So they took the same poison. Juliet believed that her lover had taken too much of the poison and despaired. So she took a fatal dose. Only for Romeo to wake up and realize that she was dead. So he took enough and he too died. Does this sound familiar?”

  “If by familiar, you mean we know Shakespeare’s play, then yes,” said Joseph. “Literally every educated person does. Thanks for the summary, though.”

  “That’s not quite what I meant. It’s the poison, you see…” She smiled, twisting the syringe even deeper into Jane’s heart. The girl’s lips began to foam blood tinged spittle. She growled like a dying cat and scratched Leona’s arms until they poured blood.

  “Your son will share in this Shakespearean fate unless you hand Harrison over. Let’s not pretend our hands are linens, gentlemen. You and I both know that we are all equal sinners here. Lucien is a lustful cheater that
sold his soul for liquor. I am a killer with a heart that makes Hades look like a cheerful place. Oh, and you, Joseph. You are a man who actually believed you could be seated on High with God! If I recall, it was you who created these hyper drugs. You who believed in our power to give and take life at a whimsy.” Leona almost purred. Jane thrashed her head. Her eyes began to roll like a scene cut from The Exorcist.

  “You’ve twisted my words, you crab-plagued old hag! What I said was that my chemical breakthroughs had made me become the Destroyer of Worlds. Didn’t say anything about being equal with God. I was just quoting the Hindu sacred scripture like Oppenheimer did after he invented the atom bomb. Whatever I said is no longer important anyhow! The responsibility of our innovation remains the same. We have released a highly weaponizable substance into the human environment. Which is why Harrison wanted to scrap it. If it ever fell into the wrong hands—”

  “Oh, you mean like my hands?” Leona waved at him, pursing her lips into a dramatic pout.

  “I’m sorry, but who is the Destroyer of Worlds now? You greedy douchebags! Don’t pretend that you had humanitarian concerns. You scrapped it because the formulas were in your heads, not mine. The ignorant girl from the Lower Ninth Ward should never have a shot at that title! You knew I would sell it regardless of moral ambiguity! You didn’t have the guts to splatter the blood on your lily white fingers, but you wanted to reap the benefits! You were against me…” Leona shifted. The girl in her arms howled and kicked her legs in bicycling motions. Harrison groaned in horror to see Jane suffer like that. Even so, he couldn’t move to do anything to stop it. He still walked in a dreamy daze.

  Kingsley stared in dumbfounded horror at the girl who had only a couple of days ago been his assistant nurse. Her drugged state was utterly more vicious than Harrison’s demise had been. It was obvious by her horror that she was in the throes of death. There were no machines or monitors to tell him from this distance if her vitals had stopped in the same way that Harrison’s had. She stopped howling and started screaming intelligible words.