Jabberwock Jack

by Dennis Liggio

  Behind me, there was a loud bang and a screeching tearing as the metal door I entered through was torn off its hinges and thrown aside as Jack forced himself through the opening. Seeing me now suspended over water, his natural element, Jack let out a piercing screech. His long snake-like form shot forward, rising many feet above the catwalks. I noticed in a quick look over my shoulder that his head had raised twenty or thirty feet above me. Then his head darted downward, straight down at me.

  I was just coming to the ghouls when this happened. Their eyes had slipped from me and instead they stared in horror at Jack's massive body coming down at them. I used their confusion to my benefit. Without even pausing I pushed past them, slamming into their shoulders hard. Jack was coming down fast.

  Frantically I leaped forward, coming down hard on the catwalk. Behind me, Jack's body collapsed down on the catwalk where I had just been. The metal tore and broke. Jack, one of the ghouls, and half of the catwalk fell into the water with a gigantic splash. The section of the metal bridge I was on was still attached to the fallen piece, so I felt the catwalk below me being pulled downward. I held onto the metal walkway with my fingers in the holes of the grate as it changed from a horizontal surface to a vertical one. Below me I noticed that one of the ghouls had held onto the bridge as well. He had lost his spear. He looked down in fear at the water below me and then up at me and the flare I held above him. He began to furiously climb the bridge toward me.

  It was a sound idea. I began pulling myself up the catwalk by the holes in the grate, the lit flare between some of my fingers and the sparks burning my hand. I didn't know what happened to Jack. He had disappeared into the water. But I doubted that was the end of him. While the part of my brain high on fear adrenaline wanted him to have been swept away by the current, the part of my brain which could still think of the plan needed him following me. Preferably once I was no longer hanging off a half broken piece of metal.

  I had just reached the broken spot where the bridge resumed its normal horizontal orientation where there was suddenly a disturbance in the water. I was crouched just past the break in the bridge, switching the flare to one hand and shaking the other to relieve some of the pain. The ghoul below me was trying damn hard to reach me, not to attack me but to get away from Jack. I looked past him. I could barely see the water in the flickering flare light, but I heard it. Over the rush of the current I heard the water being splashed. Then the bridge started to shake, moved by the part of it that was underwater. It writhed almost rhythmically and I lost my balance. I slipped on the bridge, falling flat, grabbing at the holes in the grate again. But the flare slipped out of my hand and fell over the edge.

  I watched the flare spinning as it fell. It bounced off the ghoul's face almost comically, his head turning and his eyes closing in pain. His grip faltered and then he fell. I watch as the flare spun as it fell and after it went the ghoul. Then out of the dark water erupted a gigantic white mouth, shooting upward. I panicked, pulling myself forward away from the edge of the bridge. That gargantuan maw swallowed the flare and then the ghoul. As Jack's head swept straight up past me, all the light disappeared. I pulled myself to my feet. Before I was fully standing, I ran forward, trying to get my balance amidst forward momentum. I moved through the darkness toward the entrance to the next room. My hands fumbled for my goggles to help me see, but after that experience I was unwilling to stop moving. Jack had missed but he was still after me. It wasn't until I blindly stumbled through the access door into the next tunnel that my goggles were over my eyes.

  I was at the home stretch. There was a single tunnel that led to where we had setup the trap. If I could just get through here, then this plan might actually work. This was for the most part an unremarkable tunnel. I just needed to run straight down it, ignoring all the side tunnels. The main concern here was making sure it was clear of other monsters so nothing stopped me like the ghouls almost did.

  That had been Jericho's duty. He should have handled those other two ghouls. He also should have been in this tunnel to give me an okay or at least give a cheer as I ran past, but he was missing. At this point I couldn't hear much more than the sound of Jack behind me and the rasp of my own breathing, so if Jericho was fighting or dying on a side tunnel, I had no way of knowing.

  Going with the assumption that the tunnel was clear, I kept running. Everything was in night vision green, the dirty tunnel and pipes looking particularly green and strange in that filter. I heard the grinding noise of Jack pulling himself into this tunnel. His bulk filled up almost all of it and I could hear his dirty white scales scraping against the tunnel behind me. I couldn't tell if he was gaining or not. I was just running for my life either way.

  When I finally hit the tunnel opening, I crossed the finish line. It was like all my hopes fulfilled. I went from a relatively narrow tunnel to a huge chamber. Lights shined in this room, but it was not yet overpowering to my goggled vision. This was the massive room in which the bridge had fallen and I had dangled from my brother's boot over a yawning abyss. This was always where we had set the trap.

  There was a narrow catwalk that circled the room which I could use to get across it. Technically that was the only way to get across the room anymore, but I ignored it. Instead, I ran across the much wider catwalk that went across the center of the room. The broken bridge.

  I had barely started across the bridge when Jack barreled through the opening, forcing the entry way larger. I'm not sure if he paused at the opening to survey the room or if his predator instinct simply had him continue pursuing me, his prey. He started pulling his body across the wide bridge. Though Jack was gigantic, in this massive room, even his size was dwarfed. As Jack pulled himself after me, we saw his length tapering to an end, a small tail that just barely came into the room. It would have been sobering if I wasn't barely evading his gargantuan jaws.

  On the catwalk, Jack was somehow gaining on me and I was running out of bridge. In another second I was going to be at the broken section. In any other circumstance, this would be a sign of panic. Luckily, that was part of the plan. Reaching the last foot of the bridge, I jumped. Jaws closed shut right behind me as I launched myself into space.

  I once again sailed through the void in this room. This time I had jumped rather than fallen. I had leaped with a sprinter's momentum, at this moment moving faster horizontally than vertically. I felt a whooshing weightlessness and some of the lack of orientation I had felt previously. There was a very vague tug on my heart from below and the slight sounds of whispering. Maybe. I could have just been imagining that.

  And then my hand came into contact with the rope and I grabbed onto it for dear life. My other hand clawed at it and pulled it close to me. The world snapped back into tight focus as I swung across the space now, right on target for the other side of the bridge. I felt like the baddest badass action hero swinging on a rope. In my mind, I was the most dashing swashbuckler or daring pirate. Maybe some sort of commando. I leapt off the rope onto the other end of the bridge, hitting the metal and stumbling forward. I caught myself in a crouch, then looked up to Meat and Delilah.

  "I'm clear, blow it!" I said.

  Pulling myself to my feet, I pulled off my goggles and looked over to Meat and Delilah. They were both staring across the chasm at Jack, who was wrapped around the other end of the catwalk, his body coiling in the smaller space, his head raised to look at where I had escaped. Delilah held the detonator which would set off the explosive charges set on the other end of the bridge near where I entered. It would rip apart the bridge and the supports anchoring it to the side of the chamber, causing it and Jack to fall into the dark abyss. The main problem in the plan had been making sure Jack was on the bridge and stayed there. My lure brought him to the center, but we couldn't guarantee he stayed. We needed to blow the charges as quick as possible.

  "Why haven't you blown it?" I asked as I walked over to them, my breathing still heavy.

  "That's why," said Delilah, almost speechless.


  Across the gap I watched Jack turning his head away from us. There was the sound of boots on metal behind him. Someone had walked onto the bridge from the other side, right near the charges. I recognized the black coat and harpoon. It was Jericho.

  "This moment has been coming for a long time," said Jericho, pointing his spear at Jack. "You've taken from me everyone that ever mattered. You've taken my leg and I've taken your eye. You and I have much to settle. It's time we ended this."

  Jack let out a snarl and a keening roar. Then that massive head lunged toward Jericho. The old man let out his own battle cry as he leapt at the beast, dodging Jack's jaws and driving his spear into one of Jack's coils. Jericho had clearly thought long about this fight. He knew Jack's jaws and mobility were his greatest strengths. So he moved in close on Jack, trying to stab Jack's body, preventing Jack from wildly biting without risking chomping down on his own white flesh.

  "We can't blow the charges with him there," said Delilah. "We'd be condemning him to same fate as Jack."

  "Can he maybe reach the rope?" I asked.

  Meat shook his head. "Not with Jack in between."

  "God fucking dammit!" I said. "What is the fucking point of this with him there?"

  Meat looked at me. "You understand Jericho as well as any of us. Think what you would be doing if you were there."

  I understood. "He wants us to blow it with him on it. He's keeping Jack in place."

  "I'm not just killing him," said Delilah. "I can't make that decision."

  Jericho was putting up a valiant effort, causing Jack to bleed from many wounds, but there was no way he could beat Jack himself. The close range and the bridge had evened the fight, but Jericho was still one man. Without being able to use his jaws, Jack was resorting to his snake-like nature. He was trying to crush Jericho between his coiling body. The old man was slipping through the gaps when possible, but he was just barely escaping. And then it was too late. We watched as Jack's coils closed around him and started to squeeze. Jericho wasn't dead, but it looked dire.

  "What are you waiting for?" shouted Jericho to us. "Do it!"

  "I can't," said Delilah quietly. "I kill monsters, not people."

  "Do it!" shouted Jericho, pain turning his shout into a scream.

  "I can't!" said Delilah.

  I had never killed another human being. I had seen plenty die, but I had never made the decision to kill someone. I had never pulled the trigger or held the weapon. Like Delilah, I just killed monsters. A human life was not for me to decide. It was a strict rule we all had. My brother was the only one who had flirted with crossing it, something we had argued over.

  Was this a different situation? Jericho wanted us to do it. Szandor would want me to do it - I think he would. If we didn't do this, Jack could get away. The trap would fail. This had to be done.

  I reached over and gently grabbed the detonator from her.

  "I'll take this one on my conscience." My voice was soft, but I was deadly serious. I successfully hid the nervousness, the pain and the guilt. I knew what I was doing. It's not a decision anyone should make easily. I also knew the consequences. I thought I did, at least.

  She said nothing, instead she just nodded.

  My thumb felt the smoothness of the detonator button, noticing the grooves to tell an operator where to press without looking. It's funny how a button could be as powerful as a sword or a gun. In this case, it would do more than any weapon could do. I looked over to Jericho. He groaned as Jack began to crush the life out of his body. Blood was spilling from his lips, the harpoon falling from his hands.

  I would have said something noble, like Godspeed, but that didn't seem right. Not for Jericho, not for Jack, and not for this. Instead, said this: "Drag him down to Hell with you."

  I pressed the button.

  I expected a huge explosion, something with flames, something like an oil tanker exploding in the movies. But not in this case. These were expertly deployed charges set for a specific job. They were much louder than they were actually visually noticeable. There was a series of massive booms that echoed in the cavernous chamber. The bridge broke, but it wasn't a clean break. First the metal walkway lurched downward, stopping at a sixty degree angle as one of the charges hadn't completely severed the metal. The realization of what was happening rushed across the two mortal enemies. Jack's head whipped to one side, looking right at the breaking bridge. I'm not sure if we can really attribute any emotion to Jack's serpentine face, but I'd like to say there was a moment of panicked realization, that it knew what was about to happen. Jericho's face, previously twisted in pain, relaxed. Despite the agony, there was a look of calm, of peace, of relief. A second later, the bridge finally came completely free and fell.

  With a wailing scream, the twisting white mass of Jack fell into that great abyss, quickly swallowed by the darkness. Still crushed in between those coils, so too went Jericho. I heard nothing from him as he fell. I only heard Jack's scream. That went on for a moment, but then even that was lost in the dark depths of the chamber.

  "Are we sure that's enough?" said Delilah, the first to break the silence. "Maybe there's water down there or..."

  "It's enough," I said flatly. There was some deep intuition that burned brightly in me and made my scar tingle. Jack's centuries long rampage was finally over. So why did I feel so terrible?

  "Should we say a few words?" said Delilah hesitantly. "For Jericho."

  Meat nodded. "He was a good man, though his obsession often got the better of him. Despite his single-minded focus, he had saved many lives over the years."

  "He, uh, seemed like he was a good hunter," said Delilah.

  "He got the moment he waited thirty years for," I said. "That's all he ever really cared about." I turned and walked away.

  Sky

  No matter how much you walk away, your actions come with you. I wanted to leave my decisions buried in that chamber far underground. But they stayed as close to me as my skin. My hands were stained with blood, even if Meat and Delilah didn't mention it on the way up to the surface. I knew it. I wouldn't let myself forget.

  Even if it was the right thing to do, even if he himself wanted it, I had still killed someone. And that was not sitting well with me. It was not okay. I wasn't okay.

  When I had grabbed the detonator and pressed the trigger, I knew that it was a decision with weighty consequences. I knew that it would change things. But I had still thought that it was the right thing, that it needed to be done, and that justifying it would make it okay. I thought the right reasons would allow me to deal with the aftermath easier. I felt that if the action was just and necessary that would make it easier to handle.

  It didn't.

  "Just" and "necessary" are foolish words. Those are words of misplaced hope or self-deluding regret. No matter what the reason, when you cause someone's death, you carry that with you. A weight on your shoulders, an ice in your veins, a sickness in your stomach, and tears behind your eyes which can never be shed. It's a consequence you can't give back. It's something you may learn to live with, but it's not one you ever forget.

  I realized that for all my thoughts of vengeance, of doing what my brother would have wanted, I had been wrong. I should have stayed above ground. I should have stayed in that hospital room at the side of my brother's bed along with the woman I loved. I had risked everything going underground to kill Jack: my life, my love, even the chance to be there the moment my brother passed on. And I was no better off, no more satisfied. I didn't have a sense of justice being served. I had a new pain I'd carry with me until the end of my days. The death of the serpent did nothing to ease that burden.

  All these feelings weighed heavily on me in the silence in which we made our way up to the surface. We talked little, which was probably intentional; Meat and Delilah were giving me space. For once, I couldn't wait to get above ground. I had been down under the city too long, especially now that I knew I should have been above ground with my loved ones the entire tim
e. I just wanted to see the sky, to not feel so claustrophobic, to not feel my emotions pressing on my heart like the dark walls around us. I felt dirty, uncomfortable, and alone, despite my company.

  Above ground, the city was in the middle of a downpour. Normally I'd complain about the rain, but I found I wanted the rain. When I pushed the manhole cover open and heaved myself up into the alley, something inside me felt like it was a new birth. I wanted it to be a new birth. I stood in the rain for a moment, just letting the water cover me, letting it drench me. I wanted it to wash away the pain. To wash away my actions. I realized that I carried more than just personal pain. There was also shame. I was afraid of what Szandor would think of me. What Carly would think of me. The rain was cold but the pain remained.

  I helped the others put the gear in Meat's SUV. Their moods were better than mine. For them, this was a success. They were sad about Jericho's loss and they knew I was dealing with things, but they weren't the ones who killed him. They had survived Jack and helped kill the beast. The great cost was mine and mine alone.

  I looked in the direction of the hospital. It was time to face the music. Would my brother still be alive? Would Carly still be there? And what would they think of me when they found out what I did? I had been so excited to get up the surface to be where I should be and see the sky. But rain clouds covered everything. I was suddenly afraid to go to the hospital.

  My phone finally connected to the nearest tower and I felt it buzz in my jacket. I pulled it out and found I had a bunch of text messages. There were ones from Lem, Dickie, and Paulie, but it was the one from Carly that I stopped to read.

  Come to the hospital!

  Something must have shown on my face when I read the text. "Go," said Meat. "We can finish up here."

  I nodded and took off. I didn't even bothering trying to hail a cab in rain like this. I just ran. We had come up in Southend again, so the hospital was not that far away. I ran through the rain, knowing I needed to be at the hospital. It felt right, despite my fear and shame. My brother and Carly were there and there was nowhere else I should be. Nowhere else I should have ever been.