J Duncan - Deadworld

“Should we really be parking right out front?” Jackie said, leaning forward and staring out the front window at the church and then over at the funeral home.

The edge of fear in her voice had faded. It was resolute, determined now in spite of the fear he knew lay beneath. It was a good sign. He could count on her. “Doesn’t matter. He knows we’re here.”

“That’s a relief.”

“Where would you go if you wanted to drain a body of blood?” he asked her, getting out of the Durango and walking toward the funeral home.

Jackie caught up to him a moment later, Glock held firmly in one hand. “Funeral home would be my bet, too. Maybe we should split-”

“No,” he said, insistent. “We stay together, or you stay in the car. No choice this time, Jackie.

“What, you going to cuff me to the steering wheel?”

“If that’s what it takes. You can’t face this guy alone, Jackie. No.”

She was passed arguing the point. “Okay, we stay together. You better be right.”

Nick hoped so as well. He drew a six-shooter from its holster and held it loosely but ready at his side as they approached the house. The inside was black as pitch and was beginning to feel about as thick with the sense of the dead. He could sense ghosts in the area. It had to be the place. “I really wish you would stay back at the car,” he told her.

“There’s a girl dying in there, Nick. Let’s go.” At the foot of the front steps she paused. “Maybe we should go around back?”

Nick shook his head. He knew they were running dangerously low on time. They could only be so careful now if the girl was going to be saved. “Last chance, Jackie. Please go back and wait.”

She jabbed a finger at his ribs. “Do you want to get this guy or not?” Jackie reached for the handle and jiggled the door. “Shit, locked.”

The door was a framed stained-glass window depicting some religious symbolism Nick paid little attention to as he flicked the barrel of his revolver through, sending shards of glass tumbling inward to the floor. He reached in and opened the door. “No, it’s not.”

Jackie leaned up against the door frame, gun held up between both hands, ready to go in. Nick swung the door in and stepped inside, scanning the entry along the barrel of his gun. Jackie turned and bolted over to the archway leading into the living room on the right side of the house. Once inside, it was not as dark as it had appeared. The growing light outside provided enough to see inside, and the front of the home was empty. She peered in and then stepped into the former living room, which now appeared to be an elegant seating room filled with Victorian furnishings. Stairs in front of them went up to the second floor, while the doorway to the left opened into what looked to be the front office. Above, a delicate chandelier of gold and glass hung high up over their heads.

The smell was unsettlingly sterile.

Jackie motioned at him and pointed up the stairs and then toward the floor. Where would they have the embalming equipment? Basement was the logical choice. Nick pointed at the floor, and Jackie nodded agreement, walking across the entry toward him. From above, Nick heard a soft creak and groan, as though perhaps someone were walking directly overhead. The sound was followed by the short, sharp sound of a fizzle.

Short-circuited wiring. Nick leaped forward, shoving Jackie back toward the sitting room, and the chandelier crashed to the center of the floor, showering Nick in tiny shards of glass.

“Son of a bitch!” Jackie muttered, climbing back to her feet.

“All right?” Nick kicked off the mangled light and stood up, shaking the glass off his coat.

She nodded. “Yeah, thanks. I-”

“Oh, good show. The sheriff saves the poor damsel in distress.” Drake’s voice was hollow, echoing from out of the ventilation ducts.

Nick glanced around and caught the faint, wispy glow of a ghost drifting back through the wall in the rear of the sitting room. “The show is just starting, Drake!” Nick shouted into the room. “I won’t miss this time.”

“Well, he’s in here at least,” Jackie said, sounding a bit more like her usual pissed-off self.

“Waiting and ready,” Nick added. So far, so bad, Nick figured. Cornelius had it all choreographed, and it was up to Nick to figure out a way to alter the game plan in their favor, but so far, nothing brilliant was coming to mind. He pointed toward the office, and Jackie nodded. They approached, guns out and ready.

The room was empty of the living or dead, with a doorway leading down a short hallway toward the back of the house. Likely the former kitchen, and that meant the entry to the basement.

Nick shouldered up to Jackie to whisper in her ear. “If he’s feeding when we find the girl, I’ll try to grab her. You put as many holes in Drake as you can, and whatever you do, do not look him in the eye. There should be a back door here close by. We’ll get out that way if we can.” Jackie nodded once and kept her gaze focused on the hall.

The hall had a small bathroom on one side and an oversize closet that was floor-to-ceiling coffin samples, dozens of doll-sized miniatures to pretend your loved ones were getting buried in. Past that was the kitchen, beyond which a door in the back led to what was likely the former mud room. A door led out, and another led down. Next to the door, a small electric lift sat waiting where the dumb-waiter likely was.

Drake’s hollow, distant voice came drifting up through the vents once again. “Dear boy, you are dallying. This cute little thing is getting droopy-eyed. I would think for your last effort you would be giving it that one hundred and ten percent. Agatha deserved no less. I would have done the same for my boy, were he alive today, but, alas, he is not.”

Nick reached over and grabbed the mudroom door’s handle. “Be wary. We’re walking into a trap.” She nodded, and Nick opened the door. At that moment, the ringing thrum of Deadworld began to abate. “Damnit. He’s stopped feeding.”

The heavy, metal basement door was unlocked, and Nick shoved it open and leaped down to the landing. Jackie tried to run after.

Summoning up the bit of extra strength he could, Nick braced himself for the landing so he would keep from slamming into the opposite wall. He had both guns out pointing out across the basement floor when his feet touched down.

A single fluorescent light burned in the middle of the room, an all-too-familiar setup. Its blue-white glare cast a ghostly cone of light down on the cadaver’s table, upon which the Agatha lookalike lay. She was still clad in Winnie the Pooh pajamas, and her listless arm hung over the side of the table, fresh blood dripping from the small puncture in her arm.

Of Drake, there was no immediate sign. Guns held out before him, Nick leaped the last six stairs to the floor. Behind him, Jackie stopped on the landing, crouched down on the balls of her feet, Glock scanning across the room.

“Cover me,” he said and ran over to the little girl. Be alive! Please, just be alive! Nick picked up the dangling arm, his fingers clamped across her wrist, and he found a faint pulse. “She’s alive!”

“Where the hell is he?” Jackie said in a hushed voice.

Nick dug in his pocket for his pocketknife. The girl’s other wrist and ankles were bound with the familiar zip-ties. “I don’t…” He stopped after taking a single step. Above them, at the top of the stairs, the basement door slammed shut. It was followed by the loud and unmistakable sound of a dead bolt being slid into place. And then the light went out. “Shit.”

Jackie squeezed off two quick shots. “Fuck! Nick, it’s a solid steel door. What the hell?”

“Call Gamble now, Jackie.” The trap had been sprung. The question was just how tightly were they being held?