Dead Jack and the Pandemonium Device

by James Aquilone

  “How am I even supposed to find this stupid rock?”

  “How many rocks can be suspended over the Undead Sea? Ask around, dunzy.”

  THE SOULMAN COMETH

  Afraid of the water? I might not have minded that from anyone else. But from a homunculus?

  Who wouldn’t be afraid of the water after having been trapped in it for a week? One of the many disadvantages to being a zombie is that you can’t die—and that was one time when I would have welcomed it. Zombies and sailing do not mix.

  I was beginning to look fondly on that time. The damn wig was itching worse than the maggots on Corpse Hill, the hump was digging into my back like a drunken succubus, and my hunger was growing. I fantasized about thick waitress thighs and fat lawyer bellies and grad-student brains. I know it’s a nasty habit, but I’ve been able to control it, mostly. Of course, most zombies aren’t known for their control. So I guess I’m not your typical zombie.

  Through the window at my left, I could see the firestones pouring from the crimson sky. The weatherghoul was right again! The demons would be out now. They always come out during inclement weather, blackening the skies over ShadowShade, swooping and dipping and snatching a lonely fairy or unicorn.

  Then I saw Oswald’s head coming over the windowsill. He was smiling like a lunatic gnome. I didn’t know what was worse: Oswald failing, or Oswald succeeding and rubbing it in my face.

  He hopped into the room. He was dragging a large sack behind him.

  “I got it,” he said. His body glowed with an internal devil’s fire.

  I shouted, “What the blazes took so long? It must have taken you at least four and a half hours!”

  “For your information, there were three rocks suspended over the Dead Sea, which, I should remind you, isn’t just a hop, skip, and jump away. And did you forget the five demons?” He glowed brighter. “It was pretty rad, actually. Let me tell you how I vanquished them—”

  “Put it in your report. Now hurry and untie me.”

  “Couldn’t I have done that before?”

  I glared at the runt. Homunculi don’t know the first thing about respect. That’s why they’re little men. “Okay, okay,” he said and jumped onto the table, where he began to cut the straps with a scalpel.

  “So, anyway, I used a feather slathered with peanut butter—”

  “Peanut butter? If you used the petty cash to buy yourself food, I’m taking it out of your salary. Now stop wasting time! File a report and maybe I’ll read it. But proofread the damn thing this time and don’t embellish.”

  The sack glided across the floor.

  “Oswald?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Why is the soul gliding across the floor?”

  “There was a bit of a problem.”

  “There’s always a problem with you!”

  The homunculus finally freed me. I sat up. I was so stiff I thought my rigor mortis was acting up again. I stood and stretched. I think I heard a vertebra snap. Then I ripped off the wig and hump. I felt better then, except for the gnawing at my rotten innards. The hunger was reaching critical mass. All I could think about was fairy dust. I reached for my Lucky Dragon hellfire sticks, but they were gone. The ogre must have stolen them!

  The sack was now banging against the wall.

  “Let me show you the problem,” Oswald said and hopped down from the table. He ran over to the sack and untied the string that held it shut. Out tumbled a small, and terribly confused, white goose.

  “I was able to make the jackal puke up the goose,” Oswald said. “But it won’t work on the goose. He won’t give up the box!”

  I picked up the creature and knocked on its stomach. I heard a dull thud. Indeed, the box was there.

  “Do you have any ideas?” Oswald said.

  “Yes, of course I do!” I said and sunk my teeth into the goose. It squawked twice, perhaps three times, and then went silent. I tore through the creature, swallowing feathers and flesh. It was electric, life coursing through me and warming me. I felt like a phoenix burning back into existence. If Oswald hadn’t stopped me, I’d have eaten the box, too.

  “What has gotten into you?” Oswald shouted. “I thought you were done with that! We don’t need another episode.”

  I dropped the goose carcass, wiped the blood from my mouth. Already the rush was draining from my black veins. “I need that fairy dust, Oswald. I’m on the verge of eating all of ShadowShade and maybe even parts of the Red Garden.”

  “Just hold it together. We’ll get the damn dust.”

  I held up the box. It barely weighed a thing. But before I could ponder the insubstantial nature of souls, I heard a deep-throated grunt.

  The ogre stood in the doorway.

  Madgogg had to duck to get inside the room. He was green as a goblin, bald, and uglier than a vampire exposed to the sun. A gold earring dangled from one of his sharp, bat-like ears.

  “Just the man I wanted to see,” I said.

  The ugly sucker was trying to look mean—and doing a damn good job of it. Thank goodness I had this guy’s soul in my hand or I might have been petrified.

  “Listen, you overgrown gnome,” I said, flipping open the box. Inside, nestled in velvet, sat a small white egg. “The dance is over. You’ve been outsmarted.” I held up the egg between my thumb and forefinger. “Madgogg, I hold here an egg—a very special egg—that I took great pains to retrieve.”

  In my mind, I felt Oswald’s eyes roll.

  The ogre remained silent, but he huffed and his face burned a bruised red.

  “It’s gonna go like this, Reg,” I said. “You’re gonna give up this obsession of marrying a pixie—which, quite frankly, is pathetic. You’re gonna give up the girl and we’re all gonna march out of here unharmed.”

  The ogre lumbered toward me.

  “Let Willa go and I’ll return your soul,” I said. “Fair trade.”

  I backed up, but just a dozen steps.

  The ogre kept lumbering.

  “I happen to know that if I destroy this egg, you’re finished. Walk another step and I’ll make myself an ogre omelet.”

  The ogre walked another step. In fact, he walked quite a few steps.

  I gave the dunzy ample warning. “Buddy,” I said, “you’d think being eight feet tall you’d have some room for brains.” Then I reared back and hurled the egg at him. It exploded on his forehead. There was a bright purple flash of light and a release of brimstone. Madgogg stopped dead, his face covered in a thick, black yolk. It oozed down his chin and fell in fat drops onto the floor.

  Then—

  Madgogg grabbed me by the throat with his big, meaty hands and lifted me. Oswald made some snide comment about a zombie omelet, but I was too busy trying to keep my head attached to my body to pay him any mind.

  “But I just destroyed your soul!” I shouted, though it sounded more like a whisper from a frog with laryngitis.

  “Not my soul,” the ogre grumbled.

  Oswald said, “But I went to Black Rock and got the goose from the jackal, like you said in the cell.”

  “This jackal,” the ogre said, “did he have a bushy tail and a white-gray coat?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Your jackal was a coyote. I think his name is Sam.”

  I sunk my teeth into the ogre’s arm—and nearly broke them. I had never tried to eat an ogre before, and I didn’t think I would be trying that again. Their skin is tougher than petrified troll.

  I heard a sickly tear from the back of my neck. It was just a matter of time before I was beheaded.

  “Reginald Belial Madgogg, take your hands off that disgusting corpse!” a voice squealed.

  Instantly the ogre dropped me and I crashed to the floor. When I looked up, I saw Willa standing in the doorway. The ogre rushed over to her. She wagged a finger at him and he shuffled his feet.

  I stood up.

  “Willa, you’re free!” I said, too stupid to realize what was going on.

  “Of course I’m f
ree. Why shouldn’t I be?”

  “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Why would I do that? We’re getting married. Right, Reginald?”

  The ogre nodded, stared at the floor.

  I saw my fairy dust blowing into the four winds, an imminent zombie rampage in downtown ShadowShade. “But, Willa,” I said, “your mother hired me to—”

  “Listen, you stupid carcass, getting married was my idea—no matter what my bigoted mother might think. In fact, it took a bit of chasing and prodding to get this dumb oaf to finally propose. You and my mother won’t stop that!”

  “But he locked you in the dungeon.”

  “It wasn’t locked, you brain-licking ghoul. We’re in the middle of converting the dungeon into my boudoir. It’s the only room in the house that doesn’t stink like hellhound soup.”

  “Well something sure stinks around here.”

  “And what’s this talk about destroying souls?”

  I remained silent, and then Madgogg said, “Remember, honey, what I told you before about giving you my soul as a wedding gift? Well, I actually had it shipped here this morning. It was going to be a surprise. But considering what just happened…”

  The ogre retrieved the small wooden box from the front table. It was nearly identical to the one I retrieved from the goose’s insides.

  “My soul, my love,” he said and handed her the box.

  This ogre really was a smooth-talker.

  “Thanks for ruining the surprise, corpse!” Willa spat. “Reginald wants to stick your head on his trophy wall, but the idea of looking at your rotten, dead face every day gives me the willies. So get out of here before I change my mind. And tell my mother the wedding is happening whether she likes it or not.”

  “Well, it looks like our business here is done,” I said. “Good luck to the both of you. You’ll need it.” To Oswald, I said, “You’re completely useless, you know that? If I don’t get that fairy dust, I’m eating you first.”

  EPILOGUE

  “It was a lovely wedding, wasn’t it, Jack?” Oswald said.

  I took a deep drag of my hellfire stick and then threw back a shot of Devil Boy.

  “Would have been nice if they had a bottle of formaldehyde. No one considers zombies.”

  Madgogg insisted we come to the ceremony as his guests. Probably to piss off his new mother-in-law. I didn’t need much prodding to piss off Gwendolyn. That was the last time I’d take a job from those double-crossing pixies.

  “I did find the goose pâté in bad taste,” Oswald said.

  “I got my fairy dust. That’s all I care about.”

  “But there’s one thing that’s still bothering me.”

  “Oswald, you’re such a woman.”

  “Whose soul did you destroy?”

  “Listen, souls are destroyed every day. Such is the cruel world of Pandemonium. Besides, what are the odds of it ever getting back to us?” I looked out my office window and watched a black-winged nightmare glide east toward the Broken Lands, a limp elf in its talons.

  Oswald shrugged. I poured myself another hit of Devil Boy, but the intercom buzzed before I could throw it back.

  “Yeah, Lilith?”

  “There’s a rather large and angry ogress here.”

  I looked at Oswald. He started morphing into a blob. That was a bad sign.

  “Yeah, Lilith, what does she want?”

  “Something about her recently deceased husband and a coyote named Sam.”

  I wondered if the fire escape would hold my weight. It had been a while since I last used it.

  “Thanks, Lilith. Oswald will be right out.”

  Bonus Material: Incident on Black Rock

  This is the account Oswald filed after his mission to Black Rock. I don’t believe a word of it. – Jack

  MISSION: DJ-7845

  LOCATION: BLACK ROCK, UNDEAD SEA

  AGENT: OSWALD

  The RavenHawk copter cut through the Pandemonium sky like dragon’s fire through a dwarf village. The violent waters of the Undead Sea churned below, black waves thundering up toward the underside of the flying craft. I squinted toward the horizon and spied a dark speck.

  Moments later, the pilot’s voice crackled over the com line: “We have visual confirmation of Black Rock. Are you in position, Agent Oswald?”

  I stood in the open doorway of the aerial machine. “Affirmative,” I spit into the helmet mic.

  I watched as the dark speck grew like a giant rising from his slumber. This was Black Rock! The humungous chunk of obsidian sat motionless, magically floating forty yards above the water, which somehow remained calm and unmoving.

  I sat on the edge of the doorway. Now I could see that the rock’s surface was irregularly shaped, filled with deep craters and crevices, overhangs and projections.

  The RavenHawk hovered one klick from the eastern edge of Black Rock.

  “Prepare for descent,” the pilot said.

  The chopper descended. I tossed off my helmet and dove into the Undead Sea.

  I watched as the RavenHawk shot away from Black Rock. I had ordered the pilot to stay at least five klicks from its shore so as not to alert the infernal beasts. I had one hour to complete my mission and rendezvous with the copter. If I didn’t make it back in time, the RavenHawk was ordered to leave without me. Failure was not an option.

  I swam through the maniac waves until I came to the calm waters surrounding Black Rock. When I reached the edge of the suspended stone, I stretched my right arm to its breaking part. I barely gained purchase on a tiny protrusion, but it was all I needed to pull myself up.

  I crawled and climbed and struggled to the surface. I stood on Black Rock and was greeted by a sign. It read: MEHMET’S SOUL SECURITY AND PETTING ZOO.

  I was in the correct place. Mehmet must be the demon in charge.

  Finding the jackal shouldn’t be too difficult, I thought. The real problem would be the five demons who guard the place. But I had a plan. A well-thought-out plan.

  1) Morph into a worm, to disguise myself from the demonic horde.

  2) Find the jackal by systematically searching the area.

  3) Use a feather coated in peanut butter to make the jackal puke up the goose.

  4) Use the same feather on the goose to make him puke up the box containing the ogre’s soul.

  5) Get off the damn rock.

  As I wormed my way down a steep grade, I noticed the quiet—even the sounds of the Undead Sea had been silenced here. Then I noticed the stench. It was a mixture of brimstone, animal waste, and impending doom. I knew I was close.

  The grade flattened for a short jog and then, over a short rise, I spotted the soul keepers.

  The animals didn’t make a noise. Pigs, ponies, goats, donkeys, and zebras languidly roamed as if sedated inside a clearing encircled by high stone walls. I didn’t see the jackal.

  I slid under a gate and entered the animal pen.

  The stench had grown tenfold. But that was the least of my problems. A worm isn’t the safest animal inside a zoo. Pigs clomped beside me and ponies peed on my back. If it wouldn’t have drawn attention to me, I would have morphed into a lion. My limited field of vision increased the difficulty in locating the jackal, as all I could see were hooves. Stick to the plan, I told myself.

  After mentally dividing the pen into quadrants, I began my systematic search.

  The discovery of a tawny paw nearly had me jumping for joy, but it turned out to be a hyena’s.

  A raven landed several feet before me and pecked at the ground. The bird seemed more animated and lively than the others. Perhaps he wasn’t one of them but had flown into the pen from the outside. Either way, I didn’t like it.

  The raven moved toward another fissure in the ground and probed it with his sharp beak. He seemed to be searching for something. Most likely food. The raven’s pecking rang out in the silence. When I remembered that I was a worm, I headed in the opposite direction as quickly as possible. The pecking stopped suddenly an
d I could feel the raven’s beady eyes on my back. I hastened my squirming, but a pig hoof clomped directly in my path. Black wings cracked like bullwhips. I tried to slink around the pig knuckles, but the raven was on me. The winged nightmare snatched me up and threw me into his yawning mouth. He swallowed me whole.

  I was correct about the raven not being a member of Mehmet’s Soul Security and Petting Zoo. There was no other animal or soul box inside his insides. Just little ol’ me. In the darkness, I felt the bird rise. The mission had been compromised! The raven could be heading for Witch End for all I knew! I had to act fast.

  I asked the bird for forgiveness and then I inflated my body, expanding like a balloon attached to a firehose.

  The bird had indeed been in flight. Fortunately he hadn’t gotten very far. Unfortunately he exploded directly above the five demons of Black Rock.

  I crash-landed on top of a round stone table, around which sat the dark figures. They resembled shadows. If shadows wore black robes and had eyes like the tips of red-hot pokers.

  “What in the name of Lucifer is that?” a demon cried as he extended a long, bony finger toward me. The other infernal creatures held playing cards. I sat on top of a heap of gold coins.

  Another demon rose and shouted, “Don’t use a distraction. You cheated me, Mehmet!”

  “Sit down, Azazel, and deal!”

  “But what of this?” Mehmet said and pointed at me with more emphasis.

  “What?” a third demon asked. “Near that slug?”

  “No, fool. The slug itself!”

  “I believe it is a worm,” Mehmet said.

  “It’s much too fat to be a worm. And where are its segments?”

  Damn! I had forgotten segments! I instantly formed them, but only slightly, so as not to alert the demons to my mistake.

  Mehmet looked closer at me and said, “I see the segments, fool! It is a worm!”

  “A pretty poor worm, if you ask me.”

  I didn’t let the slight bother me. I remained calm as Mehmet picked me up and held me in his palm, which he then held out. All five demons now stood and ogled me with infernal curiosity. I squirmed to the left and right to give the creatures a better look.