by David Green
DEAD MAN WALKING
EXTENDED EDITION
BOOK ONE
NICK HOLLERAN SERIES
BY DAVID GREEN
EERIE RIVER PUBLISHING
www. EerieRiverPublishing.com
Copyright © 2021 by David Green
Second edition
All Rights Reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without express written permission by the author(s) and or publisher, except for the use of a brief quotation in a book review.
Eerie River Publishing
www.EerieRiverPublishing.com
Hamilton, Ontario Canada
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, organizations and incidents are either part of the author’s imagination or
are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Except all the details about Hell, that is real.
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-990245-29-9
Digital ISBN: 978-1-990245-28-2
Edited by S.O. Green and Michelle River
Cover design by Michelle River
Book Formatting by Michelle River
ALSO BY DAVID GREEN
Devil Walks In Blood
A Place Beyond the Storm
In Solitude’s Shadow
Path of War
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To Michelle for giving Nick a new home, and for Ollie who makes me proud every damn day.
A Note from the Author
Welcome to Dead Man Walking: Extended Edition.
Chances are you’ve heard of Nick Holleran and are getting reacquainted before his next adventure. Or maybe this is the first time you’ve come across Haven City’s one and only Paranormal Investigator.
Either way, Nick and I would like to say howdy. Pull up a chair, settle in, and enjoy the ride.
The original version of Dead Man Walking came out at the tail-end of 2020, the year we’d all like to forget but let’s face it, we won’t. The reviews were good, people were excited by the world created on the pages, and more than anything, readers enjoyed Nick. This pleased me for a couple of reasons: 1) it’s always amazing to see people enjoying your work and 2) me and Nick are more similar than most people realise.
Sure, I’m not American, and I don’t see the world as Nick does, nor am I a P.I. But we’re the same age, build, and height. We both enjoy grunge music, pina coladas, and pineapple on our pizzas. We’re both schmucks with our hearts in the right place, too. And if nothing else, we live for the joys of a well-timed quip that often lands us in more trouble than anticipated when the words tumble from our lips.
So this is Dead Man Walking: Extended. The original book was a novelette; a brief, fast-paced first look at Nick Holleran and the city of Haven. Soon after that books completion, I turned to its sequel, The Devil Walks In Blood, which was longer, more ambitious in scope and built on the storylines set up in book one. Somewhere along the line, Nick found a new home with Eerie River Publisher, and their fabulous owner had a great idea.
“I love Dead Man Walking, but I wanted more. Let’s say we re-release it, but you extend it. Is that something you’d like to do?”
Yes. Yes it was.
Dead Man Walking was my first book, and as enjoyable as people found it, there were things I immediately wanted to do differently. It had to be a short-read novelette too, so the word count was constrained. This extended edition is the version I always wanted to tell. It’s still a fast-paced quick read, and the same case as it was before, but now it’s double the original length; a novella, one with smoother writing, deeper looks at the characters, and more links and foreshadowing for what’s to come next in the Nick Holleran series.
For anyone who read the original and are now giving this a look before (or after!) The Devil Walks In Blood, thank you for being there from the start, and I hope you enjoy this longer look at the original story. For anyone picking up Nick for the first time, enjoy. This is a world I love to write in, there’s more to come, and I hope you come along for the ride.
See you in Haven,
Dave.
PROLOGUE
You might say life changed the day I died.
Can’t say I saw it coming, but the end comes for us all, right? Not how I’d imagined it, lying in a dirty alleyway with three gaping holes in my chest. I went from bleeding rivers in the gutter to floating above my body, draped in warm, bright light. Confusion and regret shot through my consciousness as I watched my white shirt blooming crimson and tears leaking from my own unseeing eyes.
Watching yourself die? Don’t recommend it.
Regret only grew when a woman—a complete stranger—raced to my side, her long, cashmere coat wicking filth from the floor of the alley. I watched, helpless, as she shrugged off that fancy coat and pressed it to the wounds, holding the blood inside that sack of meat and bones. Her dark eyes stayed focused, despite the panic.
Her voice called to me, told me to hold on.
The light around me grew brighter, warmer. No words, but I understood. Heaven? Me? Never thought I’d be the type. Wouldn’t say I believed, and I enjoyed my share of vices. Go figure.
Below, my body pulled at me as the woman staunched the bleeding and turned to dial 911. She wouldn’t let me die without a fight and I hovered there, between life and death. I didn’t want to go back to that broken shell, to the life I’d left behind, but I couldn’t move on. She wouldn’t let me. Hell, I wouldn’t let me. I refused to lie down among the trash and give in.
The light sang to me…right up until it didn’t. The paramedics coaxed my body back to life. They coaxed me back into my body. She’d kept me alive long enough to save me. A miracle, they told her.
I’m not so sure.
What happens to a man once he knows Heaven exists, and that he missed out? That, if it hadn’t been for the kindness of strangers and skill of healthcare professionals, he could’ve gone to that bright and beautiful afterlife and left all this behind?
The day I left the hospital—after operations, rehabilitation, and a bill I’ll be paying the rest of my second life—I discovered Hell exists too.
We’re living there.
SPECTRES OF THE PAST
SEPTEMBER 20th
HAVEN CITY, OREGON
It’s been five years to the day since I died.
Looking through my office window, two stories above Main Street, I raise a tumbler of Jack Daniels to the grey heavens looming above Haven.
“Hey, big guy. It’s Nick Holleran. Here’s to ya, you sonofabitch.”
The drink goes down smooth, and the familiar heat burning up my throat is only soured a little by the thought of the warmth I could have had. I’m not an alcoholic; I only drink on special occasions. That’s what they all say, right? But the fifth anniversary of your own death? That’s pretty special.
Liquor would be an easy crutch to lean on, and a drunk private investigator is just too perfect an image. Maybe I’ll sink towards a walking cliché at some point down the road, but not tod
ay. Have to keep my wits about me.
I don’t need the black clouds glaring down at me or that greasy feeling in the air to tell me there’s a storm coming. I can smell it, and I don’t mean the weather. Haven’s stirring, and it’s making me antsy.
With a sigh, I turn back to my cramped, dingy office. Like me, it’s seen better days. Suspicious stains, peeling here and there, full of holes, and the office ain’t much better. But, hey, it’s home.
In the corner, an adolescent girl—I call her Darcy and she’s never corrected me—stands with her back to me, staring at…something, I guess. When I got back from the hospital, there she stood, between the sofa and a bookshelf with more bills than novels on it. Her dark, pigtailed hair falls past her slumped shoulders. She could’ve stood there for years for all I know—I try not to think about it—and God knows her clothes look the part. She’s wearing a one-piece dress that ain’t from this decade.
She’s never uttered a word to me. The first day I saw her, I asked where her parents were and pulled her round to face me. Her eyeless stare sent me scrambling straight back into my desk. Congealed blood crusted her cheeks, her mouth hanging open and slack. In silence, she turned away and resumed her study of the wall and she hasn’t stopped since.
Not a lot of folks can see ‘Darcy.’ I try to ignore her now. She’s part of the furniture, though if I’m honest, I find myself watching her sometimes—nights like this especially—wondering what her story is.
“To five years of friendship, kiddo,” I call, raising my glass.
She ignores me. Of course she does.
It didn’t start with her. That first morning, staggering out of St. Mary’s Hospital, legs protesting after weeks of disuse, I ended up here, at the office. Closer than my apartment and, truth be told, I spent a Hell—pardon the expression—of a lot more time there. The streets felt jammed with people, like the population of Haven had exploded the moment they wheeled me into the ER.
It took me a few minutes to figure it out. Some detective, huh? Let’s blame the painkillers.
Everywhere I looked, I saw them. Filling the sidewalks. Standing in the street. Leaning out the windows. Ghosts. Hundreds of ‘em.
Grey shadows, with the living passing by them, even through them, oblivious. The dead just lingering, drifting without purpose for the most part. I stumbled down Main Street, mouth hanging opening. I’d have thought I’d died too if the pain in my chest and the aching in my legs didn’t remind me otherwise. Some of the ghosts looked my way, others carried on with whatever business the dead have, but me? I dragged myself straight to my office.
“I’m alive,” I told myself. Over and over.
I knew the docs had repaired the damage done to my body, but maybe the bullets had broken my mind. You can hallucinate from blood loss, right? Or maybe a reaction to pain meds?
Then I ran into him, waiting outside my apartment, and realized that Haven had more than just ghosts walking its streets.
He dressed all in black, with a cloak to match, craggy, stoic face peering from under his hood, more bone than skin. Black pits for eyes that I couldn’t bring myself to meet. The guy looked like an undead Clint Eastwood.
Charon, the ferryman, the keeper of souls. Yeah, the one from legend. The dude who carries the dead across the River Styx. Anubis. The Grim Reaper. Dulahan. All the same bastard, and that bastard’s name is Charon.
I’m paraphrasing, but that’s the same introduction he gave me. My reaction?
“I ain’t dead.”
Let me tell you a secret. The sonofabitch set a chill in my bones like nothing I’ve ever felt, before or since. And that includes my blood gushing out through three matching holes. Light seemed to bend around him, pulling my eyes to him and only him. Time ceased to matter as I waited for him to speak again. Maybe it took years, and the world just held its breath for him.
Sure as shit, I hated standing in front of him. Hated it deep.
“You should be,” Charon said, teeth bared in a skeleton snarl. “Your fate has changed. Most vexing when destiny does not follow the course.”
“Sure,” I muttered, glancing around the sidewalk. “Nothing worse.”
Regular folk passed by, oblivious. Just like I’d been. A few gave me the side-eye, and I understood. They couldn’t see him, which left me talking to myself.
Charon leaned into me and he whispered something. God as my witness, I know he did, and the words made my blood run cold, made my lungs deflate and my heart clench for a split-second. Then they slipped from my mind. Gone.
At times, I lie awake, trying to remember what he said.
I’ve seen him from time-to-time since, and those words threaten to bloom into my mind. But they don’t. They’re always there, out of reach, just beyond my goddamn fingertips. Like I said, he’s a bastard.
“Be seeing you,” the ferryman breathed. More like a death rattle.
I raced up the stairs to my office, legs protesting every step, fumbled the key into the lock and slammed the door behind me, desperate for something normal. Something familiar. I gulped air, drank it in, then had a better idea. The bottle of Jack Daniels on my desk beckoned me, sang my name. I stumbled over, afraid to glance anywhere else, and filled a glass. I’d been dry for weeks. Figured I deserved a drink.
Crashing into my seat, that’s when I saw her. ‘Darcy’. Skin and clothes all grey and washed out, standing in the corner, staring at the wall.
You know the rest.
When my heart stopped trying to break my ribcage, I retreated to my chair, bourbon in my shaking hand.
“Ghosts out there,” I muttered, downing my drink and pouring another, “in here too. Welcome to Hell, Nick.”
When you’re right, you’re right. Each day, I ventured out to discover this new Haven I found myself in. My P.I. skills came in handy. There are folk like me out there, but I’ve had to search to discover them. Our ‘talent’ isn’t something we like to shout about. The ones who talk end up institutionalized, or worse. Funny thing though. The ones who shout are free and easy and in all the weirdest corners of the internet.
Quacks, I used to call them. Fuck me, right?
I tracked down folks like Harry and Maeve—good people who knew the truth and stopped me going nuts—and hubs like the Styx Bar where I could learn the ropes. They helped me see Hell for what it is, and find my place in it.
Thank my lucky stars I did. Hell’s a dangerous place for a curious type like me.
It’s funny. The Pacific Northwest contains the highest number of atheists in the USA. I used to be an ‘aggressive nonbeliever’—I’ve got my mom to thank for sticking that label on me.
Now, you could say I’m a zealot. The afterlife exists. Heaven is up there, waiting for some of us when we die. Thing is, Hell isn’t below our feet. Maybe there are nine layers, like Dante wrote, but I know this for sure: Hell is Earth.
I see them wherever I go. Ghosts, demons, and anything else I read about in the Bible or storybooks. Some know they’re here and can affect the living. Others can’t or just plain don’t.
The myths and legends you’ve read about? Real. Every one. Including Bigfoot. Although his feet don’t look so big in person.
Sighing, I rub at the knots of scar tissue under my shirt and turn away from the only guest at my anniversary celebration, back to the window and the streets of Haven below. The clouds have split and rain’s driving to the ground.
The ghosts don’t mind.
Scentless Apprentice by Nirvana crunches out of the speakers on my desk. An angry, ol’ song but hey, five years ago I cheated death, cheated myself out of my reward. I can be angsty if I want. My fingers drum to the pounding rhythm, and I skip back and play it again when it ends.
Listen, I’m from Oregon. Grunge music is in my blood, and I enjoy rewinding to my teenage years. I have a little stereotype in me after all. Doesn’t everyo
ne?
It’s getting dark out. Rain swirls in the air, driven this way and that by the Fall wind. Down on the sidewalk, my eyes are drawn to a woman in a black mask, hood drawn up. She pauses and glances up at my window before ducking in through the entrance. I fill my mouth with Jack Daniels again.
Sue me, it’s Friday.
I kept up the P.I. work. Why not? What else would I do, and I got bills to pay like every other living soul, though my cases veer more towards the paranormal these days. You might wonder why I’m still here at all, now I know the truth. Why not end it, disappear on through the big, old pearl gates above?
It’s like this—I want to go upstairs when I die. Can’t kill myself. I’ve seen too much to realize the priests and fanatics were correct about suicide. So, I help people, keep my slate nice and clean, and try to figure out an answer to the greatest questions: Why did humanity wind up living in Hell? Is this how it’s always been? Or did we do something to deserve our fate?
So far, I’ve got nada.
Footsteps outside my office door tell me the woman from the street is about to enter. She hesitates. They always do. I flick off Nirvana, ready to give my newest client my full attention.
I glance at Darcy. I don’t think she’s a fan of grunge. She’s never complained, but I swear her shoulders slump a little when I listen to it. Each time someone enters my office, I wonder if they’ll be able to see her too.
The door swings open and in she walks. Tall, thin, draped in an expensive coat, hood still drawn up despite coming in from the rain. It covers her hair and most of her face. Eyes shimmering like polished bronze peer at me over the top of the mask.
She’s wearing long gloves too, like it’s the height of a pandemic. She pauses next to the ghost in the corner and, for a second, I hold my breath.
“Nick Holleran?” she asks, voice muffled by the mask.
“You know there hasn’t been an outbreak for a while, right?” I say, pointing to the chair opposite. “Don’t worry though, the seat’s at least two meters away and I wipe it between clients. Old habits die hard, huh?”
