Deadsville

by C. L. Bevill

  “Friday nights are snail races,” Barastyr said. “They serve popcorn and beer. Sometimes they have ice cream, but it goes quickly.”

  “You’ve got more of a sense of humor than Anubis,” Tavie said. “But I think Thana has the heart of a comedian.”

  “Thana,” Barastyr said and it was a dark sound. “We all have our pecking orders, do we not? One day you’re in the land of the living and a detective. The next you’re dead.”

  “And sometime after that I’m the sheriff of Deadsville. Oh, how the world turns,” Tavie said, and then added, “Or doesn’t turn, so to speak.”

  Barastyr shrugged. “We all have our little roles.”

  “I don’t suppose you want to tell me what happened to Darren and Minh,” Tavie probed. “Make a girl’s life easy.”

  “Do you play chess?”

  “I have played before. I’m not usually patient enough for the game. I’d rather pick up the pieces and throw them at someone.”

  Barastyr smiled broadly. “It was the Kashmiri who said that patience is as a dish of gold.”

  “Missed that proverb. Furthermore, I have no idea who the Kashmiri are.” Tavie snapped her fingers. “Anubis, or what was his other name, said something about my lacking education of mythology?”

  “Anapa.”

  “Right. I wasn’t up to date on my Egyptian and Greek myths, and there you have it, I’m not up on my proverbs.” Tavie checked her impatience. “So what about chess?”

  “It’s a game of strategy and forbearance,” Barastyr announced. “There are no limits in the event. It is what it is. Every piece plays its part. Every move is a block to be built upon another until checkmate is achieved.”

  “How about Darren and Minh? Are they pawns?”

  “Less than pawns.”

  Tavie frowned. “Office politics certainly didn’t change when I died. Everyone’s scrambling for power. Are you going to make me an offer I can’t refuse?”

  Barastyr chuckled. “I’m confident that Don Vito Corleone played chess. It’s almost a certainty.”

  “Looks like Genghis Khan. Watches classic mob movies. Did you catch Scarface?”

  “I preferred the Howard Hawks version. I also love old western movies.”

  “Anapa wanted me to know that Thana wasn’t the only game in town. His words, by the by. I’m not sure if he was in on the chess analogy. Is that what you want with me?”

  “I’m doing what most of the gods are doing,” Barastyr said. “Checking out the modish, the flavor of the month, and the voguish. Seeing what all the excitement is about.”

  “You’re curious about me,” Tavie said flatly.

  “Yes.”

  “But why?”

  Barastyr smiled widely again. “Oh, it would be dreadfully boring if I just told you. The anticipation would be over and then where would we be?”

  “Okay, will you tell me about the two deadies who died?”

  “‘Every power is subject to another power,’” he said and it sounded like another proverb to Tavie. “Look,” he added and nodded his head at the alley behind her.

  Tavie stepped back before she looked. She didn’t see anything, but when she turned her head back, Barastyr was gone. There was something else there that vanished, as well. She thought it was a large multicolored dog with folded ears.

  “Crap cakes,” she muttered. Did they all learn that trick in Being a God of the Dead 101?

  Tavie walked slowly toward the end of the alley, wondering why it was that the gods of the dead had to speak in riddles and proverbs. If they wanted something, then they should simply ask for it. It would be much easier. But then they couldn’t manipulate, she thought. They couldn’t enjoy the moment. They couldn’t draw it out because they lived such long lives. Who ever heard of a god dying?

  She was pondering whether a Glock could put some holes into the local gods when she stepped out of the alley and someone hit her in the back of the head with what she would have said was a huge, honking log.

  * * *

  Up until that point in Tavie’s existence, she couldn’t very well say life could she, she had only lost consciousness one time. She had donated a pint of blood when she was seventeen years old and she had foolishly skipped lunch. By the time dinner rolled around, she keeled over like a sailboat on a rough sea. Returning to consciousness had been the difficult part. It was an effort, where she tried and tried to make it to the surface of a sea made from the thickest molasses.

  The second time wasn’t exactly like the first time. There had been painful awareness,. She knew she was supposed to be something and unconscious wasn’t it. Cognizance was the cord of a distant light that dangled just out of her reach. If she just extended those fingers a tad more, she might make it, but the cord seemed to pull away from her.

  Before anything else happened, Tavie ascertained that her head hurt. She knew that someone had clobbered her, they’d ambushed her coming out of the dark place. They’d waited until she was one step past where they’d been concealed in a black shadow and hit her with something.

  Metal I-beam? Cannon? Extreme wiffle bat? One of the above. That was how her head felt. Bursting, throbbing, filled with pain. Wait until I get my hands on the stupid SOB who tried some crap with me.

  “Step up, bee-yotches,” she muttered and was mildly satisfied that she had heard the words. She wasn’t dead dead; she was only dead.

  Tavie opened her eyes and wished she hadn’t. The meager amount of light was two sharp knives stabbing into her optic nerves. She immediately closed them and then simply listened. She could hear water dripping somewhere. Was that wind blowing outside? She couldn’t remember any kind of wind in Deadsville.

  She took a deep breath and smelled the kind of mustiness that came from being underground or inside an old building.

  Cautiously Tavie opened one eye. It was dark but she was kind of used to that. There was a stone wall directly to her right. She could see the lines of the rectangles even in the gloom. To her left was an open area and a single bluish lantern gleamed. She was inside something. Above her was the vaulted ceiling of a cathedral with wooden beams spanning over the entire area.

  Her eyes moved around. Her head ached and she didn’t want to move it. In the front of the area was the dim outline of a pulpit and a cross standing behind it. Church. Check. Old church. Check. Me in old church. Check.

  Tavie tried to move and found she couldn’t budge. She could feel the muscles and skin straining. Her brain was telling limbs to take care of business, but nothing was doing.

  Tiredly, she looked down and discovered why. She was wrapped in miles of duct tape. Someone had hit her, dragged her to this place, and taped her to within an inch of her life. The cardboard roll juddered with her movements, as it was still joined to the end of the tape, near her ankles.

  It was then that she realized her head had stopped hurting. The basic rules of Deadsville were that one could hurt someone, but it didn’t last and if you cut something off, it came back sooner or later. Someone had whaled on her head. It had made her go unconscious. Then she got better. Somewhere Monty Python should have been squealing with joy.

  However, better wasn’t okay. Tavie was still tied up. She was tied up in a place she hadn’t seen in Deadsville before. She slowly looked around. It looked like a normal antiquated church. Not that Phoenix had a lot of antique churches around. St. Mary’s Basilica in downtown was about as ornate and vintage as one got. It was more Spanish mission with ornate columns supporting a series of dome and stained glass that reminded one of how many sunny days a year Phoenix got. The Mormon temple in Mesa was more a classic style of the Romans. Then there was the Brophy Chapel which was another Spanish style mission with a single domed tower.

  She could go on and on. It wasn’t like she had been in every church in the Phoenix metroplex. However, it was this particular church that had her undivided attention, the one she was lying on the floor of, was a small one. It could fit no more than fifty or so worshipers
inside. The pews were rotted or tilted over. Warped boards that had fallen away from the walls lay at transverse lines to the floor. The walls were dingy. No light seemed to come into the darkened windows, although she could tell they were stained glass. Regardless of its neglected appearance, there was no haphazard construction in this place. This wasn’t a building that Deadsville had constructed, using whatever odds and ends had come through the veil.

  Tavie managed to brace herself on the stone wall and sat up, grunting with the effort. Was it possible that this wasn’t in Deadsville, that she was no longer in Deadsville. What in the wide world of sports does that mean?

  She eyed the single blue light on the side of the church. Someone had left a lantern there. The ecto light made her hopes dim. An ecto light meant that while she might not be in Deadsville, neither was she in the land of the living.

  Of course, it was possible when someone had died, they had brought an entire church with them into the land of the dead. After all, she’d seen part of the Hindenburg, a steamboat, and an Avenger. Why not a church?

  Tavie looked down at herself. Someone had done a job on her. Tape everywhere except on her mouth. Clearly they didn’t think someone was going to hear her yell for help. But it was an amateur’s job. Duct tape only looked good in the movies. They should have used her cuffs and zip ties. Preferably both of them together. She knew how to get out of those, too, even without the key to the cuffs, but it would have been harder.

  As it was, it was difficult. Tavie was used to jogging. She did two miles a day. She didn’t smoke. She ate her five servings of vegetables every day. But twisting around, trying to get the best vantage, while opening and closing her fingers under the duct tape was like wrestling in a heavy morass of the thickest mud. She methodically stretched her fingers out and then clasped them, forcing the tape apart. Painstakingly she repeated the motion until one hand burst free of the tape. She repeated it with the other hand until that hand was free. She was practically mummified with duct tape.

  Using her fingers to pick away at the tape wrapped at her thighs, Tavie pulled and tugged until a large section jerked loose. She had to stop to catch her breath. Dead or not, she could still be winded. That didn’t seem like it was right. She didn’t have to eat or drink, but she had to breathe. After a long minute she began to tug and pull again.

  Systematically she cleared the tape away from her legs. When she had exposed her legs she pulled up one leg of her Levi’s and popped open the case of the Leatherman attached in a special sheath above her calf and just below her knee. She had to struggle more to bring her hands close enough together to open the tool and unfold the knife. But after that, it was easy enough to slice the tape into pieces. Even if she hadn’t had the knife, she knew that she could have wriggled out of the tape wrapped around her. Eventually.

  Tavie stood up and patted her jacket, sparing a moment to viciously kick the pile of duct tape away from her. The Glock was missing. So were the badges. She glanced around and saw them sitting on a table next to the podium. More proof that she wasn’t in Deadsville. In this place, personal possessions could be removed without permission. However, it was stupid of whoever had done it not to thoroughly search her. Every cop with a brain in their head kept backup weapons. Furthermore, they knew how to escape their own cuffs. She had gone through a special class on how to break zip ties, using the pressure point of the tie to split them. It was a matter of leverage and keeping the pressure of the entire tie over one’s wrists by tightening them consistently over the surface area of the skin, almost to the point of distress. The same technique worked on duct tape wrapped around one’s wrists.

  She moved to the table and checked the Glock. All thirteen rounds were still present. She loaded one in the chamber and replaced it into her shoulder holster. The badges were clipped to her belt once again. She returned the Leatherman to its sheath. She might not be in Deadsville, but she was still the sheriff, or until God found a better person to do the job.

  Tavie knew she needed to figure out where she was at and how she might get back. She took a moment to gather mental strength. She thought of her mother and her father. They were sleeping and dreaming painless dreams. It was such a peaceful moment that she felt a calmness that she had not felt previous to that moment.

  Her head snapped up as she heard the creak of the front doors of the church.

  Someone was there.

  ​Chapter 15

  Until death there is no knowing what may happen. – Italian Proverb

  ~

  “Shizz happens. Then you die. Or shizz happens after you die.” – Common saying in Deadsville

  ~

  The creaking door was as loud as the bells of a church ringing on Sunday. Tavie glanced upward where the bell tower would typically be located. Once this church had been in the living world and the bells would have been rung daily. Focusing on the door once again, she swiftly extracted the Glock and held it in a professional grip, pointing it toward the front of the church. No one was going to bitch-smack her again, not without some hot lead being spilled in the process.

  Tavie took a step backwards into a deep shadow, not wanting to stand out like a target. She might be a dead cop and the Deadsville sheriff, but she hadn’t lost her brains when she had died.

  A tall black shrouded figure moved into the church. There was only a moment where it was outlined by the only slightly lesser dark behind it and then it was inside. Tavie saw the scorch of the eyes; banked flames burned there in fiery display. A glint from the bluish light revealed the curved blade on the scythe that it held.

  Reaper.

  Dread congealed inside Tavie’s body. It was her turn. It was her time. She’d been judged. No, if anything was something she had done wrong, it was taking the law into her own hands on a completely different occasion. She had only done that once and she would take responsibility for it.

  Furthermore, what could she do to a reaper? He had the powers of whatever it was that was running the afterlife. All he had to do was touch the end of the scythe to her.

  “Tavie?”

  And wouldn’t he call her by her full name? Octavia Glynnis Stone? The reaper would know that and use it in his judgment. She’d been named after two grandmothers and it had taken her two decades before the names had grown on her.

  The Glock was getting heavy in her hands as she stood there. A smidge of a lecture by an arms master popped into her head. No one was meant to hold a weapon of this size up until the muscles in her arms began to shake. Fire, subdue, and incapacitate, in whatever order was best for the law enforcement officer. Don’t fire a single shot. Fire as many as it took to get the job done.

  “Tavie!”

  There was a bark from behind the reaper. Pudd charged past the black cloaked figure and shot toward Tavie. The dog rammed her leg and attempted to climb up her body, whining fretfully the entire time.

  Tavie let one hand down so he could sniff at her fingers and she could scratch him under his chin in his favorite location. After she did that he sat on her foot and tried to meld with her calf.

  “Did you just use my dog to find me?” Tavie asked, a surge of anger pouring through her.

  “The animal knew right where to go,” the reaper said. It should have been a hollow echoing voice but it was only the voice of a large man. It didn’t sound right coming out of a skull with blisteringly red eyes.

  “I’m not in Deadsville,” she said.

  “No.”

  “What happened to the two deadies, Darren and Minh?” she asked. Why waste an opportunity? She might not be able to go back and tell the elders in Deadsville, but she would know what had happened.

  “You need to figure it out,” the reaper said.

  “And I get the prize kewpie doll?”

  Pudd whined.

  “It’s bigger than that.”

  “Who brought me here?”

  “I’m not allowed to see everything.”

  “You’re not allowed.” Tavie lowered th
e Glock. She didn’t think a handgun would amount to anything against a supernatural scythe, but she wouldn’t have minded trying. “That’s just crap. Why are you here if you’re not allowed to see? You saw someone hit me, cover me with duct tape, bring me here, and where the farp are we?”

  “This is a dark place,” the reaper said. “I felt it when you left Deadsville.”

  Tavie put the Glock back into its holster and felt around for some of her other implements. She had the canister of pepper spray and she touched its holster with yearning fingers. However, she knew that if she went around pepper spraying reapers good things weren’t apt to happen to her. That wouldn’t be a mark checked on the positives side of her eternal list.

  “Can you just…” Tavie flattened her lips and started again, “Can you just change back, Nica? Those red eyes are freaking me out.”

  * * *

  Nica didn’t need to ask the question. Tavie just answered it anyway, as she picked off remnants of duct tape from her pants and jacket. “Thana, remember? She gave me something and I can see everything. Under the reaper you’re Nica. Under Nica I can see the reaper. How you go from about five-ten to seven feet really makes me go ‘whoa.’ Basketball players everywhere are jealous.”

  Nica sat on a pew. He was dressed in black again. All human like for the moment. T-shirt, pants, and Dr. Martens, all black. She thought it was nice coordination, even if it was predictable. He was all Nica again. No glowing eyes. No cloak whipping backward in a wind that didn’t exist. No scythe that could have made everyone very sorry if he felt like wielding it in anger. Where does the scythe go?

  “And black?” she asked. “Can’t you go with another color? I’m not saying white, but maybe blue, navy blue if you have to, or a nice salmon. I gave a nice salmon polo to my father last Christmas and he’s a manly man. He wears it once a week. He wanted to know where I’d gotten it so he could stock up. It’s not the color; it’s the ‘tude.”