Nick stood up, hearing the crack of a second shot. This one caught him square in the chest, but since he was ready, he didn't let it throw him off balance. This time he could hear where the shot had come from. Up high. There was a rifle barrel poking out of the ship's hatch, taking aim for a third shot. Nick waited until the fabric of his tie healed closed before he spoke.
"If you're going to shoot at me," Nick shouted, "at least have the guts to come out where I can see you!"
No response but the barking of the dog. Nick strode forward with Johnnie-O right behind, clenching his fists, ready to pound their assailant into pork and beans. A third shot rang out, but missed both of them. Clearly the shooter was losing focus--maybe getting worried that they might reach the scaffold and climb up--which is exactly what Nick planned to do.
Finally a voice called down to them--the voice of a kid--their age, maybe younger.
"Get outta here! Go on! Nobody wants you here!"
"Nobody?" said Nick. "You mean you're not alone?"
"They's a whole buncha us up here. Yeah! A dozen at least. So go on, get lost a'fore we come down and make ya sorry y'got yerselfs kilt in the first place!"
"Prove it," said Nick. "If it's more than just you, let's hear from one of the others."
The kid was quiet for a moment, then said, "I don't gotta prove nuthin'! I gots the gun and you don't!"
He shot again, and the bullet caught Johnnie-O in the shoulder. Quickly, Johnnie-O reached in and pulled out the bullet before the wound zipped closed, then, holding the bullet between his fingers, yelled up at the unseen sniper. "When I get up there, I'm gonna make you eat this!"
"Yeah? Well I'm gonna make Kudzu eat you! Go on, Kudzu. Eat 'em up an' spit their chewed-up pieces down there where the sun don't shine 'cept on Sunday." The second they reached the deadspot beneath the hanging ship, however, the wild Pomerrott pooch whimpered and retreated as far as its chain would allow. So much for Kudzu. Nick grabbed the scaffold and shook it. It rattled like it might fall apart at any second. The thing was made mostly of chair legs, bicycle tires, and balcony railings-- basically anything this kid could tie together with bits of string.
"We'll climb up the left side," Nick said. "He won't be able to get a good angle on us that way. Climbing was rough at first, but they quickly got the hang of it. As they passed the orbiter's massive engines, the kid tried to shoot again, but his bullet ricocheted off a rusty bed frame in the scaffold's infrastructure. The bullet's shell casing dropped from above, bouncing off of Johnnie-O's head. "I've never seen bullets come through into Everlost," Johnnie-O said. "At least not on their own. Do you suppose they were ripped?"
Nick decided to keep his opinion to himself--although he was pretty sure that they had found Zach the Ripper.
One more missed shot, and the ripper closed the hatch, shutting himself in. Nick and Johnnie-O continued to climb, trying not to look down.
"If we fall, we'll just land on the deadspot. We'll be okay," said Nick.
"Yeah ... unless we miss."
"Maybe we can land on Kudzu," suggested Nick, since the dog had begun barking again.
As they neared the top, the scaffold became thinner and harder to climb, until they finally reached the closed cockpit door. The Ripper showed no signs of coming out. "We'll force our way in!" said Johnnie-O.
"No. It's an airtight hatch--there's no way to get in from the outside."
"So what are we gonna do?" grunted Johnnie-O. "Just let him sit in there? He'll never come out."
Nick looked up toward the orbiter's viewport, but it was out of view. There was no window on the shuttle that could give the Ripper a view of them.
"Ever watch a turtle that has pulled into its shell?" Nick asked Johnnie-O. "How do you get it to come out again?"
Johnnie-O considered it, and understood what Nick was suggesting. The question was how long could the two of them wait right outside that door? How long could they quietly cling to the scaffold?
While Afterlights tended to develop an unnatural patience for the passage of time, it usually accompanied some pleasurable activity. It could be something as simple as jumping rope, or as complex as a chess marathon; it all depended on the person. However, sitting in absolute silence on the top of a scrap-metal scaffold was enough to drive even the most patient Afterlight stir-crazy. Johnnie-O would occasionally open his mouth to ask a question, or just to complain, but Nick always shushed him before the words were spoken. Eventually Kudzu either forgot they were there, or had decided they were a part of the scaffold. Either way, he finally stopped barking.
The sun set. The sun rose. The sun slowly crossed the sky, and by noon the next day, the rifle-toting turtle had not come out of his shell. Nick lost none of his resolve, but Johnnie-O was beginning to suspect that the Ripper had either found a coin and evaporated into the next world, or he had decided he was never coming out of his spaceship again.
Then, late in the afternoon, they heard the clunk of metal on metal, and the small, circular hatch began to open. It only opened an inch--just enough for the Ripper to peer out--but an inch was all they needed. Nick wedged his fingers in the opening.
"Grab it! Hurry!"
The Ripper tried to pull the door closed, but Nick's fingers blocked the way. Johnnie-O gripped the edge of the door and pulled with all his might. The hatch swung wide, and they both dove in, tackling the Ripper, who wouldn't stop cursing.
The shuttle's flight deck was cramped, and filled with hard metallic surfaces. It was all very disorienting in vertical liftoff position, with chairs bolted to the "wall" instead of the floor. Dim light spilled in from the darkly tinted viewport, directly overhead, like a skylight.
"Get out!" screamed the Ripper, "This here is my place! MINE!" He struggled with them, but when he saw the size of Johnnie-O's hands, his eyes went wide, and he scrambled away. In that cramped space, however, there wasn't far he could go.
"We're not going to hurt you!" Nick told him.
"Speak for yourself!" said Johnnie-O, trying to reach around a chair for the Ripper, who continued to shift out of reach.
While Johnnie-O and the Ripper played their little cat and mouse, Nick took a moment to gauge the situation. The Ripper seemed about thirteen. He wore a gray Confederate Army uniform, complete with that odd little hat. There were weapons strewn around the flight deck that the Ripper kept reaching for, but Johnnie-O kept kicking them out of reach. None of those weapons were Civil War issue. There were very modern, very efficient automatic rifles, pistols, and even a submachine gun, along with countless bullets and loaded magazines. This kid may have died during the Civil War, but now he had an entire arsenal of modern military ordinance.
"Leave me be!" the kid shouted, "or I'll ecto-rip yer arms right outta their sockets!"
"I'd like to see you try!" yelled Johnnie-O, finally getting a grip on him. The ripper tried to pull on Johnnie-O's arms, but they were too muscular. So instead the Ripper did something else--something Nick would not have believed if he hadn't seen it with his own eyes. The Ripper reached right through Johnnie-O's face ... and pulled out his brain.
Johnnie-O froze with the sudden shock of it, and Nick could only stare in disbelief.
A brain.
Right there in the Ripper's hands.
It was just like Isaiah had said.
It didn't look like a real brain; it looked more like a plastic model, with the various lobes labeled in bold lettering-- perhaps something Johnnie-O once saw in a classroom somewhere. This was Johnnie-O's memory of a brain, and the ripper now held it in his hand like an oversize walnut.
"Aaaaaaah!" wailed Johnnie-O in the kind of abject terror that can only come from seeing your brain held out before you. "Give it back! Give it back!" Painless though it was, there was something fundamentally disturbing about this--not just the fact of seeing one's own brain held up for observation, but to suddenly have one's very consciousness separate and apart from one's body, and yet still tethered as if by some weird wireless connect
ion. For Johnnie-O, the sensation was far worse than pain.
"AAAAAH!" he screamed. "Put it back in! I swear I won't touch you, just put it back in!"
"Maybe I'll just squish it beneath my feet! Squish, squish!"
"Noooo!"
It infuriated Nick to see Johnnie-O helpless and humiliated, so Nick reached for something that might give them a brief balance of power. He found a hand grenade, and held it up to the Ripper.
"Give him back his brain, or I'll pull the pin, and shove this thing in your mouth."
The Ripper laughed at that. "Won't matter!" he said. "If I gets blowed up, I'll just pull back together again, like it was nuthin'!"
"Yes," Nick said with a grin. "In theory ..."
The wider Nick's grin got, the more worried the Ripper became. "Whadaya mean, theory?"
"I mean that bullets and cuts are one thing. They heal in seconds, sure ... but if you're blown to smithereens, how do you know all those smithereens are gonna find one another again?"
Clearly the Ripper had never thought of this.
"You have till the count of three." Nick reached for the pin, ready to pull it. "One ... two ..." "Fine!" The Ripper went over to Johnnie-O, who was now whimpering in a corner, clutching his intensely empty head. "Who needs it?" said the Ripper. "Probably got worms anyway." Then he pushed Johnnie-O's brain right back inside him.
The Ripper then scrambled over the vertically mounted chairs and reached up toward the spacecraft's control panel--then hit a button.
A hatch popped open like a trapdoor right beneath poor Johnnie-O, who was still just recovering from his brain-ripping ordeal, and he plunged through the open hatch into darkness. Nick could hear him tumbling down a tunnel, and crashing into whatever filled the cargo hold of the shuttle.
"Was that really necessary?" shouted Nick.
"You're next!" threatened the Ripper.
Nick was angry enough to pull the pin on the grenade and blow them both to smithereens, but he fought the urge, found a foothold, and climbed toward the Ripper.
"We're just here to talk! Why can't you calm down long enough to listen!"
"I warned you!" said the Ripper, and he reached in through Nick's chest, gripped his grubby hands around Nick's memory of a heart, and tugged.
To the amazement of them both, the Ripper did not get Nick's heart at all. Instead his hand came out covered in chocolate.
It surprised Nick as much as the Ripper, but he tried not to show it.
The Ripper stared at his hand, then at Nick, and for the first time the cranky Confederate Afterlight was truly frightened. "What ... are you ... ?"
And although Nick never, ever used the words himself, seeing the Ripper's cocoa-coated hand brought home a growing reality he could no longer deny.
"I am the Chocolate Ogre," Nick said. "And you've made me very ... VERY ... MAD!"
The look of terror on the Ripper's face was the most satisfying thing Nick had seen for a very long time. The Ripper's eyes were locked by Nick's angry gaze, and all the fight drained out of him. There was something about the Ripper's eyes--something about his face that wasn't quite right. Nick wasn't sure what it was, so he filed it away in his mind.
"What are you going to do to me?" the Ripper asked.
"Nothing. If you let my friend go."
Despite his fear of the Chocolate Ogre, the Ripper hesitated ... but he did quickly glance to a particular green button on the console--a button covered by a clear plastic flap to prevent it from being pressed accidentally.
This, Nick knew, was a "tell." The Ripper's eyes had just given away exactly which button to push that would free Johnnie-O. All Nick had to do was press it. Nick reached up and flipped open the clear plastic cover.
"No! Don't!"
Nick savored the look of terrified helplessness on the Ripper's face for a moment. Then he pressed the green button.
Upon taking up residence in the shuttle many years ago, the Afterlight known as Zach the Ripper had gotten rid of the craft's original payload--a bunch of satellites and experiments that weren't doing anyone in Everlost any good. Besides, the massive cargo hold was the perfect place for the Ripper to store Everlost's finest weapon collection.
The Ripper had weapons and artillery of all kinds. Having developed an intimate knowledge of every military base within a hundred miles, the Ripper knew exactly where to find the best arms, and was highly skilled at ripping items--even heavy, awkward ones--from the living world, and into Everlost.
Living-world news reports regularly told of weapons disappearing. "Military mismanagement," the reports would say, because the rational world demanded rational explanations. The one time an unlucky marine dared to tell the truth of what he saw (a hand that reached in through a hole in space, waved to him, then disappeared with an AK-47 rifle), nobody believed it. The man was sent for psychological evaluation, and then promptly discharged from military service.
The Ripper did not know or care about such consequences. All that mattered was the collection, which filled two thirds of the cargo hold ... until the day Nick opened the cargo hold doors.
To Johnnie-O, it began as a loud mechanical grinding, echoing in the massive hold around him. He had come down on the piles of weapons, but, still reeling from his brief empty-headed ordeal, he hadn't yet realized the nature of the Ripper's "collection." The cargo hold door opened like a parting curtain, revealing a million-dollar view of the Atlantic Ocean. Then the pile beneath him began to shift, and that's when he realized he was sitting atop a nasty rats' nest of guns and explosives.
In the flight deck, Nick had, for one crazy instant, thought the cargo door motor was the boosters igniting, and that by hitting the button, he had just blasted them all off into orbit.
"Now you done it!" said the Ripper, hitting the button again and again, but the opening sequence couldn't stop once it started. "Those doors'll swing open wide--and it's all your stupid fault!" He peeked down into the hold, groaning, then ran for the entry hatch. Nick followed. They scurried down the unwieldy scaffold as the craft's huge cargo doors slowly, slowly opened. Once they reached the bottom, and Nick had a view of the cargo hold, he could see that it held a tottering haystack in shades of khaki and gunmetal gray. Gun muzzles and rifle butts stuck out every which way, but far worse than those were the rounded tips and tail fins randomly poking out of the weapon pile.
"Are those ... bombs?"
"Mortar shells, surface-to-air missiles, smart bombs," the Ripper said, with a hint of pride. "You know--the good stuff."
The pile shifted as the doors continued to swing open. Several rifles fell out and toppled to the earth hundreds of feet below. Kudzu jumped out of the way, barking madly. And on top of the pile of weapons sat Johnnie-O, looking a little bit worried.
"Don't move!" screamed Nick.
"Kudzu!" screamed the Ripper. "C'mere, boy!" The dog came running to the Ripper, its chain clanking on the deadspot tarmac. The Ripper knelt down and tried to unhook the dog from his chain, while up above, the pile swayed precariously in the wide-open cargo bay of the mystically suspended spacecraft.
"It's okay," Johnnie-O shouted down to Nick. "It's okay, it's not gonna fall."
But he didn't have the view Nick did. Nick could see the shifting of gun muzzles and rifle butts. Everything was starting to slide.
Then Nick thought of something.
"Your coin!" Nick shouted.
Johnnie-O should have had it in his back pocket. So it would be there when he finally felt the urge to move on. Right now would be a good moment to feel that urge-- because just as Nick told the Ripper, Everlost physics was not an exact science, and not even Mary had written about what happens to an Afterlight that gets blown up.
"Take your coin!" Nick said. "Hurry!"
"I don't got it! I put it back in the bucket."
"What? Why did you do that?"
"For safekeeping!"
Meanwhile the Ripper was in a panic as he struggled to free Kudzu. Nick went up to him, and the R
ipper looked at Nick wild-eyed. "You stay away from my dog!"
Nick ignored him, knelt down, and quickly unhooked the chain from the dog's collar. "Now run!" ordered Nick.
The Ripper didn't need a second invitation. He took off sprinting, putting distance between himself and the tottering stockpile of artillery, with Kudzu at his heels. "Just jump!" Nick called up to Johnnie-O, but instead of jumping Johnnie-O leaped from the stockpile to the wall of the cargo hold, and found a metal ridge to cling to--but the force of his jump set the mound of guns and explosives toppling. It all began a long cascade, out of the shuttle, to the ground below.
Now Nick was the one in danger, and he ran for cover-- afraid to dive into the underbrush of the living world, for fear that diving would take him into the ground, where he'd begin the long, slow sink to the center of the earth. And so he ran as fast as his legs could carry him.
He was barely twenty yards away when the first bomb hit the ground.
One of the basic natural laws that one learns early in Everlost is that things that cross over always do what they were meant to do. Boats float, airships fly, and appliances run even if they're not plugged in. Unfortunately the same thing goes for bombs. They explode--especially bombs that were ecto-ripped, and had no good reason to be in Everlost in the first place.
If anyone had been watching they would have thought the shuttle was lifting off. Flame and smoke blasted from the ground beneath the great spacecraft, expanding as the explosions multiplied and merged into a single massive blast.
Nick was blown off his feet, and sent soaring through the air. Shrapnel tore through him--jagged, burning pieces of metal that left huge Swiss-cheese holes all over his body-- and still the explosions grew louder behind him.
He landed, embedding in the living world so deep that he almost went under. With little more than his head aboveground, it took all his will to push himself out of the earth. Had he been in any deeper, it would have been hopeless, and all his thrashing about would have done nothing but take him farther down. But bit by bit he hauled his shrapnel-blasted body upward. Perhaps the holes helped. Perhaps they made him lighter.
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