Taylor shuddered. What was she doing? Exposing the truth like this! How dare she come here and not put a permanent end to him?
Kiara caressed Taylor’s chin.
“I know what you want, but I can’t. I’m sorry. It works now. We know that her serums actually work. This metal might hold the key to stabilizing the whole process. You could rise again. Alive and not just awake…”
Kiara held the rotten-reeking mask in a shaking hand. She looked from it and back to her brother and nodded.
“In fact, I promise. I promise that if the results come back… If they can actually find a cure for the extract, I’ll come back. Spring you from your mold. Give you the medicine. Then you can live and walk amongst us again and help me take her down.”
Kiara leaned up and kissed her brother between his lifeless eyes. The dead man moaned gutturally, his tongue long gone even with all the preservations that had been done to his body to guarantee it took it ages to decompose. Leona had made certain that he would be conscious of his necrosis. That he would slowly melt away like sand in the glass, vital organs long since stilled, but one lobe of his brain managing to retain its light.
Kiara escaped out of the little door to the floral arrangement closet that this peculiar mausoleum had installed in its back. She doubled back around three blocks to evade the pirates, making her way in slicing zigzags back to the lab.
She was ten steps away when she saw it engulfed in a flaming attack.
“God! They’re on the inside now!” Kiara hoped that all her lessons in combat had prepared Kingsley well enough for this moment.
*****
Chapter 26
“Come out and show your dolled-up faces, hoes! I’ll send you back to Hell where you came from!” Kingsley plucked up a scalpel and wrapped a surgical mask over his face. He’d been a poor doctor, but he had been a doctor nonetheless.
“What the hell are you doing, kid?” Joseph bowed over the many different vials where he was breaking down Andromeda Extracts various chemical components.
“What happened to ‘I’ve got what it takes’? You just focus on antidote duty and wait for the whole pizza to get here!” Kingsley shook himself. Despite being damaged beyond repair, he felt more alive in this moment than ever before. He was ready for this. Ready to atone for all the things he’d done.
He could never have expected the people that came walking into the room just then.
“It’s impossible! You’ll likely be burned to death!” Kingsley shook his head trying to clear his vision.
Libby and Annie, the street racers who had also been some of Leona’s strong arms and had escorted him on the Mistresses business, stood side by side, dressed mostly in bandages but also in skimpy lace. Libby purred and took a puff of the Te Amo she was smoking stepping forward.
“Sugar. You should realize that dying is so yesterday. This is a new, wildly advantageous era!” She blew a smoke ring in the air and giggled maniacally.
“Yeah, Kelley’s not the only chick around these parts that can get her hands on the super-dope. We only handled all of her freaking product for centuries. We had people and they brought us back, even though that meant picking pieces of us out of the Shreveport pavement. With the wonder drugs we’ve got these days, these crazy kids didn’t need much. Just a hair or an eyelash and boom, we’re back for blood!”
“Like clones?” Kingsley cringed.
“Oh for God’s sakes. Do I look like a clone to you? I’m a raving mad bitch that’s back to get revenge on the She-Hitler, and that’s the only thing that should matter to you!” Annie plucked a Springfield XD from her bra and opened fire on him.
Kingsley spun out with a metallic tray, deflecting the bullet by sweeping out in an L-shape and Frisbee flipping the tray into Annie’s face. He then swung up with his fists and punched Libby in the gut. His hand went through her stomach and she began to blur and blaze.
“What the—?”
Libby twisted herself and stood back up, electro-charged.
“Oh it just got real today, Doctor. See, we’re not clones. We’re something far worse.” She giggled and laid a hand on Kingsley’s head, electrocuting him.
“We’re Doppelgängers.” Annie kicked Kingsley in the seat of his pants.
“Eat science, you crazy broad!” A rifle shot off. Kingsley eased himself up as he felt water droplets rather than blood ooze from Annie’s mouth. She fell forward and landed on her face. Behind her stood Reilly with the Remington smoking in her hand.
Kiara broke forward, jumped off the wall and Dexter’s shoulder as he came charging into the Lab, and did a cartwheel midair landing in front of Joseph.
“Got the metal and I brought the cavalry. You won’t believe the scene outside.” She twisted around to see Dexter and Libby going fist to fist.
“That’s for Jane!” Dexter jabbed his fist down Libby’s throat. Her eyes rolled toward the ceiling and she exploded, rocking the Lab and sending Reilly reeling into Harrison’s knees as he came tramping in.
He spun, eyes wild, and locked the doors behind him.
Joseph stared on in total amazement, then composed himself.
“Actually, I’d believe anything at this point.” He shrugged and held his hands out for the mask.
“Okay, got to find a way to break this down, melt it or one. Ick, it’s got something disgusting on it. I’ll have to wash it first.” Joseph smiled at Kiara.
“Good job. All of you. We managed to survive the Apocalypse this far. Let’s keep that trend up, shall we?” He cracked a sliver of the mask off in his fingers.
“It’s surprisingly brittle. Not much stronger than a peppermint stick.” He shrugged.
There was a sudden thundering against the doors.
“I’m not trying to put the pressure on you or anything, Doc, but we’ve really gotta hurry. Truth is, you really couldn’t believe the like of freak show that just started up outside.” Harrison reached and dragged Annie’s body to the door. He skidded away from it and shot it. It exploded, sending vibrations through the ground that temporarily stopped the beating rhythm.
“Yeah, no, he’s right. The Balloon People are rising all around us. This is the end of the world as we know it. I so wish we had popcorn!” Reilly handed Kingsley her rifle and dug in her sneaker for a bag of Skittles she’d stowed there. Kingsley eyed her with curling brows.
“Balloon people?” He looked up at Harrison.
“The Doppelgängers. Yeah, it’s a long story and something we just found out about, like, five minutes ago. Guys, this is for real the end of the world as we knew it. You better buckle up and hang on for the ride.”
Just then all the lights blew. They heard a sound like a thousand rats gnawing through the walls and blood began to ooze from the vents.
“Ooh, buddy! It’s show time!” Reilly flicked on a flashlight. Dislocated eyeballs began to descend like hail upon them. Kingsley dove forward and wrapped protective arms around Kiara as they leapt away, landing hard to the linoleum.
Kingsley smiled at Kiara’s perplexed expression.
“Hey, I was scared. Had to have a strong woman to protect me! Don’t judge.”
He winked and she smiled, just as the building began to shake with thousands of ultrasonic voices.
The End (of Book 2)
Continue for Book 3…
THE GOOD DEATH
Book 3:
Pandora Man
By
Doug McGovern
Prologue
Torrents of human eyes were raining into the seared room, battering the floor and the walls with the roar of a rapid-fire machine gun that fired distinctly squishy bullets. They bounced in unnatural rubber frenzy, slipping in their own patina of tears and the blood, juices from the bodies of those poor souls the eyes had been gouged from.
Dr. Lucien Kingsley felt his stomach lurch. He tried to shield Kiara again as the rain of eyes was followed by a barrage of snapped-off ribs wrapped in blazing gas rags. The room erupted in smoke and
a green chemical fire that began to chew the linoleum from the floor and sterilize the medical equipment.
An oxygen tank was engulfed in the sudden spurt. It erupted and blew the walls from the lab, peeling a whole ward off the hospital. The upper floors began to slide like toasted bread onto the sidewalks. The whole building was now in cutaway view, like some grotesque playhouse, from the perspective of anyone watching this horror from the street outside. Lucien and Kiara were now staring out at the open sky as lab’s façade collapsed. The sheer terror of the pirates echoed to them as something or someone moved with the force of tornadic wind down the alley beside the hospital.
Kingsley threw himself on top of Kiara as a hole tore open in the roof’s center. Some of the pirates stomped through it, landing in huge piles of roasting drywall and debris. They stood and shook themselves, seemingly unscathed. For a normal human being, that would have been impossible. Something had been altered in these people. As they moved in for the kill, Kingsley was vaguely aware of a static emitting from them. He rolled on the ground, moving to attack— to do something. Reilly stepped up and swung the Remington around.
“Strike a pose! You’re on camera!” Reilly opened fire and got off three rounds before they closed in on her. One pirate snatched her up by her throat. Reilly’s eyes bulged and she gurgled. She dropped the Remington and it discharged barrel-up when it hit the floor. Kingsley was standing directly in its sights. It should have shot him point blank in the face. The bullet dropped like a fly before fire and rolled to his feet.
Only then did he realize that the elements had stopped rolling. Some strange force was at work all of a sudden, bending the fire and the rubble and all the people in it to the force’s will. Pirates stood suspended, blinking and mute, hands spread in the crucifix symbol. Reilly had fallen to her knees, panting, eyes fluttering as she sputtered for air. Even the flames were stilled. Kingsley’s eyes darted to Kiara who knelt panting on the ground, staring at the frozen fire. He looked to his father who stood breath bated, the vial of Andromeda extract and the test vial with the metal scrap dissolved in it pressed protectively to his chest. He looked to Dexter, who was frozen one hand up to block a pirate’s attack that never came. His hair stood on end. Kingsley followed his gaze.
His breath was snatched as he saw that the newborn fire in the collapsing hospital had been doused. The ward was still and quiet, as though it had sat empty for a thousand years. Dust and ashes had fallen over it and the sun washed through red and purple in the rarified air.
A figure appeared, and stood there for a moment transfixed. They all stared back. It was unmistakably Jane Lewis. Yet something was wrong with her image, aside from being so out of place among all this chaos. She appeared to be resonating a silver light. Her face was several years younger. In their eyes, she was 17 years old. Dressed in an ROTC uniform and a dark hood-shirt, her golden hair seemed to burn with a chemical flame, green and pale blue at the ends.
She stepped into the room looking straight at Dexter. He swallowed and his hair prickled with the surge of her sudden presence.
“Jane…” Of all of them, Dexter was the most confused. He still had yet to learn that she had died.
She froze in front of him. Her head tilted to the side and her face contorted, showing billions of little expressions at once, all of them grim and filled with epileptic desperation.
“Oh…Jane-what? My God!” Dexter’s hands went to his hair. Jane dug her heels in and her hands shot out. Shot above her head. The fire began to lift to her palms and her carpal tunnels glowed the color of white phosphorous.
She drew it into her body and began to writhe in place, limbs and head swiveling frenetically like a tormented puppet. Her teeth chattered. Blood and water flew from her. Yet somehow, grappling the air, she regained mastery over herself.
“Jane, what have they done to you?”
“Dexter…” She looked him directly in the face. Her mouth formed a granite line that lacked emotion.
“Jane?”
“I don’t have much time. This one isn’t letting me keep it long.”
“This one of what?”
“My doubles…I don’t know how to say it…” She twisted her hands around her neck to steady herself as another bout of the frenzied convulsions took her over. Forcing herself to look at Dexter, she gasped, lashed out and gripped his collar.
“You have to tell him, Dexter…You have to tell the Pandora Man.”
“Who? Who is that? Jane…” Dexter pressed a palm to her face. It was unnaturally cool. Because it wasn’t her face. It was her Doppelgänger.
“The Pandora Man…Doctor…Doctor Kingsley. I can’t! You’ve got to understand, Dexter. I’m not…I’m not here. I’m not me anymore. My body. My real body…” Jane’s head snapped back with an elastic snapping sound. She rolled it in crazy angles as her hands twisted backward knuckles facing him.
“Kingsley? He-He’s right here, Jane?” Dexter looked back at Kingsley. He pressed forward until he was standing by her side. Her eyes never found him. She studied Dexter pleadingly.
“Listen…I don’t…I can’t…Not much longer. The Pandora Man started this and only he can finish it. The cure…He holds the secret within himself…Untapped…She put it there when she had him…When she hurt him…her DNA…” Jane pushed her hands over her ears and began to scream.
“Jane? Wait, Jane? What happened to you? Please!” Dexter reached a quaking hand out to her but it was too late. Already her head, shoulders, hands and feet were rolling in their joints with the speed of a blender. Her bones began to file away her muscle tissue and skin. Blood splattered over them all, sticking to their faces, ceiling some of their eyes shut. From her tarsal tunnels water and electric sparks began to shoot. Dexter shrieked.
Jane’s body began to steam and shoot electric fields in double-helix patterns. These lashed out and killed some of the pirates.
“Move it! Move it!” Harrison had plucked himself away from the wall and was hustling everyone outside.
Kingsley and Dexter looked back once. The hospital began to vibrate as though the force of ten thousand earthquakes was isolated to it. Currents sliced through the sidewalk. The hospital was taken up in a pillar of white, hot light. It disintegrated in an upward stroke, crumbling skyward. It tumbled back down packed in a tight pyre like a termite’s hill. Smoke rose from it in curving plumes.
Then there was silence that could be felt beneath the skin. Kingsley turned back, stunned, singed, broken.
What had he done?
*****
Chapter 1
Stepping onto the street was only the beginning of the nightmare. They knew it. The others had come filing into the hospital as though the Devil himself was upon them. Now that Devil was strewn about them in many limp and dazed pieces.
The Balloon People, as Reilly called the Doppelgängers, had mutilated themselves, gouging out their own eyes, plucking free their own ribs to break inside the hospital. They had a single-minded purpose: To take them away, and snuff out any pursuit of the cure.
Kingsley froze, looking down at the bodies. The blood rushed to the top of his head and he was certain his knees were about to give way. So many of them possessed the same face. There were multiples of Libby and Annie at varying stages of corruption, some of which had ripped the outside of their skulls off to end the surge of water to their brains.
He looked up. Dexter was kneeling beside one of the bodies. Kingsley felt his stomach thrust against his bones as though the palms of his soul were trying to paddle against the rapids of his thoughts. It was impossible. She was dead.
Jane Lewis lying in over thirty places around them, dead in a menagerie of ways. Hundreds of other people laid strewn about, some broken and oozing water rather than blood, some of them boiling from the inside out, bones split and made like jelly through whatever chemical reaction had taken place inside them. The question still had to be asked: What exactly had killed all of them? All at once? They had all died with the same fe
arful expression. All looking to the sky.
Only then did Kingsley realize that the buildings’ roofs were ablaze with a white fire that put off the same stench as a crematorium. He held his breath. It was impossible for him to say for certain, but the sudden shift in fortunes on this battlefield must have something to do with Jane Lewis’ death.
Stark moments of realization come for everyone. For some, it is a sudden loud alarm, a rush of adrenaline, a spurt of sudden vigor that moves them to do the impossible. For Lucien Kingsley, it came as a quiet thought, a memory. A prayer for forgiveness from an old friend.
“Dad, I’m sorry.” He reached out and snatched both test beakers from his dumbstruck father.
“What the hell, Lul—” His father’s lecture never came. Kingsley threw up a hand.
“The Pandora Man started all of this and the Pandora Man will finish it. This is the key to our survival. Probably the last chance that Humanity has…I’m not half the doctor you’ve been, or half the man that Harrison Kelley is. But we stand a much better chance if we have this in two different places. We split up. I take half and you take half. In the event that…In the event that she comes for me, I will use the serum to keep it out of her hands.” He bowed his head. Joseph stared at him, stunned.
“Now son…You’re just talking crazy….” Joseph shook himself, trying to stave off the emotions that were flooding through him now. He had not seen this side of his son in ages— maybe not ever. Where was even the shadow of the despicable man that he had been once?
“Not this time,” said Kingsley. “As much of as this will go against your better judgment, you’ll have to trust me. Only I can keep it safe. See, there’s one thing she wants more than the serum, and that’s lasting vengeance on me. I don’t think I’ve yet paid the full penance for my sins, but I can start now.”
Nearby, Dexter was shaking, standing bowed over. “I don’t understand. What…How is she…How is Jane dead in there and dead out here? Why does it have to be you?”
The Good Death Box Set: A Hard SciFi Science Fiction Series Page 23
