J Duncan - Deadworld

Nick closed his eyes, and Jackie watched a tear squeeze out beneath one lid. He mouthed “I love you” and then opened his eyes again. “Come back, Gwen. Be with me, now and forever.”

She smiled and turned fully back around. Jackie looked over at Drake and saw him take a stumbling step forward in surprise. “Gwendolyn! To me. Now.”

Gwen hesitated for a moment, a painful wince on her face, and then continued toward Nick. She reached for his hand, but instead of the welcoming grasp and twine of fingers, her fingers stretched out toward his, becoming long tendrils of gray smoke that crept up her arm, until her shoulder and head began to distort like warm putty being pulled down into a funnel. Seconds later, her feet left the floor, following the rest of her rushing wisp of a body, and disappeared into Nick’s trembling hand.

“No!” Drake lunged forward, his usual dead-calm countenance momentarily transformed by wide-eyed shock. The look vanished a second later, and Jackie could see that the man genuinely looked pissed. Nick had ruined the game plan.

Jackie thought to smile at the small victory, pleased that Nick had overcome the weight of his burdened soul and done what needed to be done. However, stretching her facial muscles felt like thorny, cold nettles rolling beneath her skin. Her chest was so frosted with death it was beginning to constrict on itself. Breathing, she suddenly realized, was becoming difficult.

“Laur,” she said, her tongue feeling thick in her mouth. “I think I’m in trouble here.”

Laurel had begun to stand with Drake’s abrupt approach but then squatted back down. The look on her face confirmed Jackie’s repetitive thought. I’m dying. “You need to hold on a bit longer.”

Jackie huddled her knees up against her chest. “I’m trying.”

“Boys, gather up the rest of them. I’ll handle the sheriff.” Drake waved his hands at the group of ghosts that huddled toward them, surrounding Nick.

Shouts from the group began to go up. “Take me next, Sheriff!”

Nick still had a look of shock on his face. He stared at his hand, flexing the fingers, and Jackie wondered if he could continue taking the souls. Her question was answered a moment later when an elderly woman stepped before him, inches from his extended arm, grim determination etched into her lined face.

“Kill him,” she said.

A moment of silence descended on the room, a collectively held breath, waiting to see if Nick’s self-loathing would win out in the end over the desire for justice. The creased line of the old woman’s mouth turned up at the corner, and Nick reached out to touch her. A second later, she was gone.

Before the last traces of her vanished up Nick’s arm, Drake let out an angry roar and charged. Nick drew his six-shooter with the other hand and got off three rounds before Drake crashed into him and sent them flying backward across the room.

Chaos erupted all around Jackie.

Laurel took Jackie’s face in her hands. “Listen to me. When the time comes, you’ll have to let me take you back. You’ll have to let me in there, understand?” Jackie was not sure that she did, but nodded anyway. “Shel, get her out of the way.” Laurel leaped to her feet and, without looking back, ran toward one of Drake’s goons.

“C’mon, Jack,” Shelby said, grunting as she hooked her hands under Jackie’s arms and began to pull her back toward the outer wall of windows opposite the main door, which opened into the center of the building. “Fuck, girl. We need to get you out of here.”

Jackie tried to help, but her muscles were so clenched with shivering cold that movement was impossible. It took all her effort just to force her chest to expand and let air into her lungs. Just when they needed her the most, she was failing like she had twenty years before when she sat, huddled and shivering, behind her bedroom door, listening to her mother’s pleas for help. Unlike then, having the courage to act would do little good. There was just too little life left in her.

Nick flew back across the room, slamming into the thick glass wall of windows so hard a spiderweb of cracks flared out around him. Jackie could feel the vibration clear through Shelby’s body. He dropped to one knee, managing still to keep one hand outstretched for the ghosts of his past to continue their relentless surge into his body.

“Too little, too late, my friend,” Drake barked as he marched toward Nick’s prone body. “You do not even know what to do with the power you have at your disposal.” He paused long enough to draw in another victim, but Nick was taking them in as fast as they could reach him.

To their left, Laurel rode around on the back of one of Drake’s brutes, hands clawing at his face. He spun in circles, hands pummeling backward in a vain attempt to knock her off. The other one stopped his attack on the crowd pushing toward Nick to help out. If anything, it was biding Nick a few extra seconds of time.

Jackie could only watch in mute, gasping silence, unable to do anything except force her lungs to keep breathing.

Another thud vibrated her body when Drake slammed Nick up against a cement support column along the wall. He had Nick by the lapels of his duster, pushing him up off the floor. Nick’s hands were clamped around Drake’s wrists, pulling at them to break the hold. For a moment, at least, they were locked together in an equal struggle.

“Boys!” Drake glanced over at the ongoing fight between the goons and Laurel. “You bloody fools.”

Nick let go abruptly, hands flashing out to box Drake’s ears. The move got him back to the floor but did nothing to break the hold. A smirk twitched at the corner of Drake’s mouth-appreciated, perhaps, of Nick’s effort-but an instant later his head snapped forward, butting into Nick’s nose with a crunching pop of bone and gristle. Blood erupted from the broken nose, draining over Nick’s face, leaving him sagging against the glass wall.

Still, the ghosts came, a great wall of writhing gray appendages. Jackie could not even discern solid bodies anymore. Her vision had begun to blur.

“Come to me, Laurel. Your time is now.”

Her name brought Jackie’s vision back into focus. Drake’s hand beckoned toward her best friend, whose love for her had been beyond what she had ever felt deserving of. Like the flick of a light switch, Laurel’s attack on the bodyguard ceased, and she dropped back to the floor. She did not look at Drake, her face contorted with the effort to resist his will. Her gaze was directed squarely at Jackie.

“Jackie…”

No! Jackie struggled to sit up, putting her hands on the floor to push herself up, but there was nothing. She could no longer feel anything, as if her arms had vanished from the elbow down. She could not let Drake take Laurel a second time. She could not fail again.

Let me in, hon, before it’s too late.

Laurel walked across the room now, approaching Drake in slow, resisting steps. Jackie began to cry. She could not even yell for her to stop. Be stronger, damnit!

Trust me! Just let go. Let it all go.

What had she said? You’ll have to let me in there.

“Laurel Carpenter! You will come to me now.” Drake’s voice was more insistent than it had been previously. One hand pressed tightly up against Nick’s chest while the other beckoned.

Laurel’s face contorted, lips creased into a razor-thin line, but she continued the inexorable march toward Drake’s outstretched hand.

Jackie glanced over at Nick, who struggled to shake the cobwebs out of his head. The ghosts had paused, apparently too afraid to approach the now-angered Cornelius Drake.

Shelby’s voice was an urgent hiss in her ear. She could barely feel the fingers digging into her shoulders as Shelby pushed her forward to get up. “Fucking Drake. I’ve got to help her.”