Deadworld

by J N Duncan

  “Fuck,” she muttered and let the now useless weapon clatter to the floor beside her.

  “It would seem, my dear agent, that real bullets have little effect in the world of the dead, but the thought is appreciated just the same.”

  Above her, Nick did nothing but stand at the ready, the handheld cannons aimed in Drake’s direction. To Jackie, it appeared comically out of place. If bullets could do nothing, what the hell was Nick going to do to him? She watched the ghostly crowd cower back from Drake’s presence as though he had some dead-repelling force field around him. Their fear was palpable. A few more steps, and Drake stopped, still a good twenty meters away.

  At Nick’s side, Gwen spoke quietly. “Nicholas, listen to me.”

  Behind Jackie, Shelby spoke to Nick with grim determination. “I’ll handle the goons, babe. Focus on him.”

  Drake, meanwhile, casually scanned the crowd, his hand tracing a slow arc from left to right. The act had the crowd of ghosts shrinking back in terror. When his arm stopped and the fingers curled up into a “come here” motion, he smiled and said, “Miranda Davenport, it is time to move on. Come, child. Come.”

  The young, faded form of a woman stepped from the crowd and walked toward Drake as though his order could not be denied. There appeared to be no hesitation in her steps. Why, Jackie wondered, would anyone willingly approach that thing? Perhaps it was some kind of hypnosis. Perhaps he had control over all of them in some way in this place. If so, they all were more than screwed.

  Miranda Davenport did not stop when she got close to Drake but instead walked right up to his outstretched hand. Her back was to Jackie, but her distance indicated Drake’s hand had pushed directly into her body. The pale, faded form shuddered, and Miranda’s head arched back, her mouth open to scream, but no sound issued forth. Her body kept bending, folding awkwardly back, quaking against Drake’s stiffened arm. For a moment, Jackie swore he was pulling the dress from her body, but as the woman’s body stretched and contorted, she realized with horror that the woman’s body was being drawn directly into Drake’s outstretched hand. The body lost shape, folding down until it appeared her back had snapped in two, and then shrank and evaporated until finally she was gone, drawn up into Drake’s body like the result of some soul-sucking vacuum cleaner.

  Jackie looked over at Laurel, who still crouched beside her. “Jesus, Laur. What the fuck was that?”

  She shook her head. “I think he just consumed her soul.”

  Drake shrugged his shoulders and gave his neck a soft, twisting pop, the smile on his face a bloodless, sinister line. “You see, Nicholas? Even in death, my victims feed me. I have more power than your morally rigid soul could possibly fathom.” He began to walk forward again with slow, deliberate steps. “I knew from the beginning your righteous constraint would keep you from ever doing what needed to be done. You’ve never had a chance, dear boy. Smart blokes know you only play games you are guaranteed of winning.”

  “This game isn’t over yet, Cornelius,” Nick grated, but Jackie could sense the lack of confidence in his voice. Who would blame him after seeing that?

  Gwen’s hands clasped around Nick’s then, finally drawing his attention away from Drake. “My love, we can help. We’re ready to move on from this. You just have to be willing to let us go.”

  He turned, the twisted sneer on his face melting away when he looked down at Gwen. “What are you talking about?”

  Drake laughed. “Are you so dense as all that, Nicholas? They accepted their fate long ago, unlike you, who has proven stubborn to a fault.” He gave a mirthless chuckle, stretching out his arms to encompass the crowd. “In the end, my friend, you cannot accept what you are, and the fact that you are here, still living, makes it so much the sweeter. Now then, Ralph Morris, come to me and accept your fate.”

  The man stepped from the crowd, approaching Drake with no resistance. Jackie turned her gaze away. Watching the process had slimy worms of dread crawling around in her gut. She would kill herself before going out like that. But, then, did it matter one way or the other? Being slowly consumed by the chill of death could not be much worse. The ache was getting excruciating, thin shards of ice being driven into the marrow of her bones. She would be lucky if she could get to her feet now.

  “Laur, if this doesn’t go well, take me back. I don’t want to die here like this.”

  “If it comes to that,” she whispered, “but we aren’t done here yet.”

  “He’s going to suck us up one by one until Nick is the only one left.”

  “It’s Nick’s move right now, just hold on a bit longer, hon.”

  Above Jackie, Gwen’s voice was quietly insistent. “Nicholas, let me go. Don’t let him take me like that.”

  “I won’t let him, not again.”

  “No, love. Now.” She reached up and touched Nick’s face. “Let me go, and I can help you. We all can.”

  It took Jackie a moment to realize what she meant. Nick’s expression confirmed her suspicion. Gwen wanted him to suck them up just like Drake was doing, and the shock on Nick’s face said it all.

  His voice was barely audible. “No! Gwen, there must be another way.”

  Drake called upon another ghost to feed his twisted soul.

  “Nicholas, you’re our only hope of leaving on our own terms. Don’t let me die at his hand a second time.”

  Nick’s face went slack. The dread in his stare was painful to watch, and Jackie knew what he must be thinking. How can I destroy my wife again to stop this killer? Drake’s chuckle froze the air in her lungs.

  “Just cannot stand to step into those shoes, can you, Nicholas? Cannot dare to be like your old friend Cornelius.”

  Gwen took Nick’s face in her ashen hands. “You could never be like him, love. It’s one of the reasons I love you so much, but this is the right thing to do, and the time is now.”

  “Touching, Gwendolyn,” Drake said. “Just the right amount of sentimentality to end our little affair, but I believe it is time. Come. Come to me.”

  He motioned with his hand toward Gwen, and to Jackie’s surprise, she stepped away from Nick, her hands still held to cup his face. Nick’s jaw went slack, his eyes wide with terror. It was not a look Jackie would have ever expected to see on his face. Three steps toward Drake, and Nick holstered a gun and reached out to his dead wife.

  “Gwen.”

  She paused, looking back over her shoulder at him. “Sheriff.” Her tone had an imploring quality to it, but Jackie saw something else in her look, one of stern reminder that Nick was indeed the sheriff and still possessing those qualities that had made him so.

  Nick closed his eyes, and Jackie watched a tear squeeze out beneath one lid. He mouthed “I love you” and then opened his eyes again. “Come back, Gwen. Be with me, now and forever.”

  She smiled and turned fully back around. Jackie looked over at Drake and saw him take a stumbling step forward in surprise. “Gwendolyn! To me. Now.”

  Gwen hesitated for a moment, a painful wince on her face, and then continued toward Nick. She reached for his hand, but instead of the welcoming grasp and twine of fingers, her fingers stretched out toward his, becoming long tendrils of gray smoke that crept up her arm, until her shoulder and head began to distort like warm putty being pulled down into a funnel. Seconds later, her feet left the floor, following the rest of her rushing wisp of a body, and disappeared into Nick’s trembling hand.

  “No!” Drake lunged forward, his usual dead-calm countenance momentarily transformed by wide-eyed shock. The look vanished a second later, and Jackie could see that the man genuinely looked pissed. Nick had ruined the game plan.

  Jackie thought to smile at the small victory, pleased that Nick had overcome the weight of his burdened soul and done what needed to be done. However, stretching her facial muscles felt like thorny, cold nettles rolling beneath her skin. Her chest was so frosted with death it was beginning to constrict on itself. Breathing, she suddenly realized, was becoming difficult. />
  “Laur,” she said, her tongue feeling thick in her mouth. “I think I’m in trouble here.”

  Laurel had begun to stand with Drake’s abrupt approach but then squatted back down. The look on her face confirmed Jackie’s repetitive thought. I’m dying. “You need to hold on a bit longer.”

  Jackie huddled her knees up against her chest. “I’m trying.”

  “Boys, gather up the rest of them. I’ll handle the sheriff.” Drake waved his hands at the group of ghosts that huddled toward them, surrounding Nick.

  Shouts from the group began to go up. “Take me next, Sheriff!”

  Nick still had a look of shock on his face. He stared at his hand, flexing the fingers, and Jackie wondered if he could continue taking the souls. Her question was answered a moment later when an elderly woman stepped before him, inches from his extended arm, grim determination etched into her lined face.

  “Kill him,” she said.

  A moment of silence descended on the room, a collectively held breath, waiting to see if Nick’s self-loathing would win out in the end over the desire for justice. The creased line of the old woman’s mouth turned up at the corner, and Nick reached out to touch her. A second later, she was gone.

  Before the last traces of her vanished up Nick’s arm, Drake let out an angry roar and charged. Nick drew his six-shooter with the other hand and got off three rounds before Drake crashed into him and sent them flying backward across the room.

  Chaos erupted all around Jackie.

  Laurel took Jackie’s face in her hands. “Listen to me. When the time comes, you’ll have to let me take you back. You’ll have to let me in there, understand?” Jackie was not sure that she did, but nodded anyway. “Shel, get her out of the way.” Laurel leaped to her feet and, without looking back, ran toward one of Drake’s goons.

  “C’mon, Jack,” Shelby said, grunting as she hooked her hands under Jackie’s arms and began to pull her back toward the outer wall of windows opposite the main door, which opened into the center of the building. “Fuck, girl. We need to get you out of here.”

  Jackie tried to help, but her muscles were so clenched with shivering cold that movement was impossible. It took all her effort just to force her chest to expand and let air into her lungs. Just when they needed her the most, she was failing like she had twenty years before when she sat, huddled and shivering, behind her bedroom door, listening to her mother’s pleas for help. Unlike then, having the courage to act would do little good. There was just too little life left in her.

  Nick flew back across the room, slamming into the thick glass wall of windows so hard a spiderweb of cracks flared out around him. Jackie could feel the vibration clear through Shelby’s body. He dropped to one knee, managing still to keep one hand outstretched for the ghosts of his past to continue their relentless surge into his body.

  “Too little, too late, my friend,” Drake barked as he marched toward Nick’s prone body. “You do not even know what to do with the power you have at your disposal.” He paused long enough to draw in another victim, but Nick was taking them in as fast as they could reach him.

  To their left, Laurel rode around on the back of one of Drake’s brutes, hands clawing at his face. He spun in circles, hands pummeling backward in a vain attempt to knock her off. The other one stopped his attack on the crowd pushing toward Nick to help out. If anything, it was biding Nick a few extra seconds of time.

  Jackie could only watch in mute, gasping silence, unable to do anything except force her lungs to keep breathing.

  Another thud vibrated her body when Drake slammed Nick up against a cement support column along the wall. He had Nick by the lapels of his duster, pushing him up off the floor. Nick’s hands were clamped around Drake’s wrists, pulling at them to break the hold. For a moment, at least, they were locked together in an equal struggle.

  “Boys!” Drake glanced over at the ongoing fight between the goons and Laurel. “You bloody fools.”

  Nick let go abruptly, hands flashing out to box Drake’s ears. The move got him back to the floor but did nothing to break the hold. A smirk twitched at the corner of Drake’s mouth-appreciated, perhaps, of Nick’s effort-but an instant later his head snapped forward, butting into Nick’s nose with a crunching pop of bone and gristle. Blood erupted from the broken nose, draining over Nick’s face, leaving him sagging against the glass wall.

  Still, the ghosts came, a great wall of writhing gray appendages. Jackie could not even discern solid bodies anymore. Her vision had begun to blur.

  “Come to me, Laurel. Your time is now.”

  Her name brought Jackie’s vision back into focus. Drake’s hand beckoned toward her best friend, whose love for her had been beyond what she had ever felt deserving of. Like the flick of a light switch, Laurel’s attack on the bodyguard ceased, and she dropped back to the floor. She did not look at Drake, her face contorted with the effort to resist his will. Her gaze was directed squarely at Jackie.

  “Jackie…”

  No! Jackie struggled to sit up, putting her hands on the floor to push herself up, but there was nothing. She could no longer feel anything, as if her arms had vanished from the elbow down. She could not let Drake take Laurel a second time. She could not fail again.

  Let me in, hon, before it’s too late.

  Laurel walked across the room now, approaching Drake in slow, resisting steps. Jackie began to cry. She could not even yell for her to stop. Be stronger, damnit!

  Trust me! Just let go. Let it all go.

  What had she said? You’ll have to let me in there.

  “Laurel Carpenter! You will come to me now.” Drake’s voice was more insistent than it had been previously. One hand pressed tightly up against Nick’s chest while the other beckoned.

  Laurel’s face contorted, lips creased into a razor-thin line, but she continued the inexorable march toward Drake’s outstretched hand.

  Jackie glanced over at Nick, who struggled to shake the cobwebs out of his head. The ghosts had paused, apparently too afraid to approach the now-angered Cornelius Drake.

  Shelby’s voice was an urgent hiss in her ear. She could barely feel the fingers digging into her shoulders as Shelby pushed her forward to get up. “Fucking Drake. I’ve got to help her.”

  The pressure on her released, and Jackie slumped over to the floor. This was it. She was going to die alone on the stone-cold floor in this wretched world of the dead, no peace, and no comforting hand holding hers as she faded away into darkness. This was not how it was supposed to be, not at all.

  Laur, I love you. Just take me out of this place.

  The blessed relief of her friend’s touch welcomed her into the end.

  Chapter 58

  Laurel vanished. One moment she was there, struggling against Drake’s coercive pull, and the next she was gone.

  “What?” Drake appeared to be as perplexed as Nick was angry.

  The distraction was all the time Nick needed, however, as the crushing weight of Drake’s powerful hand eased from his chest. Pulling together the raw, spiritual energy that had been surging into his body, Nick was able to bring his left arm across his body with hammerlike force to Drake’s elbow. The reprieve allowed much needed oxygen back into his lungs.

  If Drake had not taken Laurel, where in hell had she gone to? She was their way back. If she was gone, they were as good as dead, and all this was moot.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Nick saw Shelby come barreling at Drake. She must have realized as well the seriousness of Laurel’s disappearance. Behind her, Jackie lay prone on the floor, curled up in the fetal position, unmoving. It occurred to him then that Shelby was not hell-bent for Drake because of Laurel, but because Jackie had finally died. The one truly living being in this cold and barren Deadworld, and he had let her slip away, unable to overcome the fear of what he was. Too little too late.

  Drake turned back; the hand once outstretched to get Laurel balled into a fist to smash Nick in the face. The half second Nick s
pent staring at Jackie’s unmoving body would have been enough for it to land, but Shelby took Drake out at the knee, buckling him to the floor.

  The ghosts, ready for the opportunity, rushed in upon Nick, flowing up his arm in a mad rush of energy. It was almost enough to fry his synapses. The kinds of things possible with such power were limitless, far more than he had imagined back in the days of drinking real blood. The prospect was terrifying. Shrouding it all in a smoldering, dark haze was the image of Jackie’s dead body. Such power meant nothing now. He had wanted only to save her, get her back to the world of the living where she might be saved. She deserved no less. It was his fault for letting her get dragged into this mess. He should have forced her out, broken the law, tied her up, or taken whatever means necessary to ensure her safety. He should have done a lot of things that had been necessary. Now, however, only one necessity remained.

  Nick leaped on top of Drake, funneling the raw energy into his clenched fists, burying them again and again into the pale, haughty face. The rage and frustration of the decades suffered at the man’s relentless vengeance poured out of him, finding release but little solace or satisfaction in the rupturing of skin and cracking of bone his fists inflicted.

  After the seventh or eighth punch, Drake’s broken mouth twisted into a smile. “You can’t kill me here, Nicholas. Your friends are dead or dying. Good show, though. I did not believe you had it in you.”

  Nick clamped his hands around Drake’s head, thumbs digging into those soulless gray eyes. “You’ll die, you fucking bastard, even if I have to twist your withered head right off your body.” He began to bear down, pushing against the force of Drake’s will that worked to pry his fingers free. “Even if I burn myself away, you’re going to burn up with me.”