Dead Jack and the Soul Catcher: (Volume 2)

by James Aquilone

  She laughed. “You don’t look dead.”

  “This is an illusion. This is some elaborate magic trick.”

  “You’re wrong, Jack. Ratzinger doesn’t control the tower. The tower has been here before him and it will be here long after him.”

  “What do you know about the tower and Ratzinger?”

  “I don’t want to talk about that. I want to talk about us. Aren’t you happy to see me? Aren’t you happy to be home?”

  “I am.” And I meant it. I was human, even if an illusion, and I had my Gertie back.

  “You can stay with me,” she said. “We can be together. Isn’t that what you want?” She reached down between the cushions of the couch and pulled out a gun, the same one from the dust den―a fat, cartoon revolver that could give the absolute death to a supernatural.

  “We can be together,” Gertie said. “Join me.” She placed the gun in my hand. “You’ve never been happy here. Isn’t it time to leave?”

  “You want me to kill myself?”

  “I want you to do the right thing. You don’t have a soul. You lost the homunculus. You’re alone and miserable. Now you have a chance to be with me and be human again. Why wouldn’t you take it?”

  “It isn’t real.”

  “It’s as real as anything else.”

  “I can’t kill myself without my soul. I’ll go to the depths of hell.”

  “Not if you do it here. This is a special place. You die here, you stay here. Live any way you like, free from all the horrors out there. I’ve never lied to you before, Jack.”

  Her green eyes shone in the darkness. She held my hand in hers. It felt warm, good. Very good. Gertie smiled an encouraging smile and stroked my human hand.

  She was right, wasn’t she? My existence in Pandemonium these past seventy-plus years had been torture, and the last few months had been unbearable. I had thought of killing myself before, but I had never taken it seriously until Oswald had fallen asleep. It was like I had fallen into a deep, dark hole that deepened as I struggled to escape. I had never felt more soulless. Even the dust and Devil Boy didn’t fill the void. I put the barrel to my temple. Gertie smiled painfully.

  Just a quick pull on the trigger.

  I thought of Oswald. If I killed myself, what would happen to him? How could I enjoy a life, even a fake life, with Gertie, knowing Oswald was a Nazi stooge?

  I put the gun down. “I can’t, Gertie. You’re a lie. This whole place is a lie for Ratzinger’s benefit. He’d never let me rest.”

  “Why don’t you eat, honey? I made them for you.” She held the plate up.

  The cookies had disappeared. Instead, a juicy, wet heart throbbed on the plate. Thick, purple veins crisscrossed its translucent skin. I jumped back.

  “It looks good, doesn’t it?” Gertie picked up the beating heart. She put it to her mouth and bit into it, blood smearing her lips.

  “Gertie, no!” I stood, backing away.

  “You were always a coward, Jack.” Gertie’s green eyes turned black. She tried to grab my hand, but I pulled away.

  “A fookin, no-good coward,” she said. “I’m glad I’m dead and everyone you ever loved, too.”

  I turned away from Gertie, my heart burning, and walked back into the darkness.

  She wasn’t real, I told myself, only part of Ratzinger’s mind games, and the worst part hadn’t even come yet. I knew what awaited me on the next level, and I didn’t know if I would survive it.

  I had visited Room 731 many, many times in my nightmares, reliving its terrors. But the real nightmare was up there. Ratzinger in the flesh.

  I mounted the staircase, the spotlight lighting my way to the cherry on top of this shit cake that was the Obsidian Tower.

  Suicide-inducing gray walls, bloodstained floors, the room appeared exactly as I remembered. The metal chair. The cold steel tables. The rack of surgical tools. The smell of human fear.

  Wet hands clapped, like a seal slapping its flippers together.

  “Welcome home, 1-1-3-4.”

  The voice stabbed my heart like a knife. I searched the room, but didn’t see the Nazi bastard.

  “I knew you’d return. You were always a determined creature. But don’t all zombies have to be?”

  “Have you gotten shy, Ratzinger? I’d like to see your face. It’s been awhile. Are you still as ugly?”

  Nervous laughter.

  “I’m not alone. I’ve brought a friend.”

  A shadowy figure appeared in the far left corner of the room. It unfolded itself and moved toward me with visible effort. The thing walked worse than a three-legged sphinx.

  It moved into the light. I’d like to say I took it well. I’d like to say I didn’t scream. Or bile didn’t rise into the back of my mouth. I think I tasted Fine Flanagan again. The figure didn’t turn out to be Ratzinger. It was the Duke. He looked worse for wear. The last time I saw him, he was somersaulting over the side of Skull Mountain. I assumed, as we all did, that he had died in the fall. As I looked at his ashen face and sunken eyes, I thought my assumption still correct. His once-robust body was drawn and slight, as if his insides had been sucked out. His black Nazi uniform drooped around his emaciated frame.

  “Still hiding, Ratzinger? Did you age badly? Are you fat and bald?”

  “It is much worse than that.” The voice came from behind the Duke. Was he hiding behind his new lackey?

  The Duke turned, exposing a gray blob-like mass that protruded from the left side of his abdomen, through a slit in his tunic. Like a giant tumor with a dagger slash for a mouth. But his eyes were the same―one blue-white, the other nearly black―and he still had that little Hitler mustache.

  “Sadly, I am not complete,” the thing said in Ratzinger’s voice. Tiny veins throbbed under his paper-thin skin. “Eddie was kind enough to lend me his body as I―well, as I grow. When the Children of Thule resurrected me, I was nothing but essence. But that wonderful Ilsa―what a mind on her!―had been doing such splendid work with hybrids and discovered a way to bring me back in corporeal form. In time, I will consume Eddie and have a body all my own.”

  “That’s disgusting. I might need to vomit. I’ve seen some truly disgusting things in my life, but you are the most hideous creature I’ve ever laid eyes on.”

  “Well, you are no Rudolph Valentino yourself.”

  “You look like a tumor that gave birth to a bunch of older tumors.”

  “I am not at my final stage. I will improve.”

  “You look like you belong in a zoo for tumors. You look like a tumor that ate a tumor and shit out you. You look like something a blind dwarf would have made if someone explained to him what a tumor looked like.”

  “I get it. You think I look like a tumor. As I already said, I am in the process of―”

  “Becoming a bigger tumor?”

  The thing scowled. “I have your soul, arsehole. It was jumping like a jitterbug while you were ascending the tower.”

  “Is that why you had me go through all that mental fookery?”

  “I needed to see how far you have come. You have been out in the wild for so long, you have developed some willpower. A nasty thing for a zombie. You are not meant to think for yourself.”

  “And you’ll take care of that for me, will you?”

  “Jack, you fool, you have never done any of your own thinking. I studied your little comrade before we put him to work upstairs.” Ratzinger pointed at the ceiling with a tiny finger―little more than a nub sticking out from his tumor-body. “He has come in so handy. Speaking of hands… Eddie, would you mind opening yours?”

  Still looking off into space, without blinking, the Duke held up his right fist, opened it. In his palm, he held an egg-sized vessel. I knew what was inside it.

  “All these years you yearned for your soul,” Ratzinger said, “and it was right next to you the entire time. Do you understand irony?”

  Hearing it made it real. How long did I know? Maybe from the time Oswald took up residence in
my skull. I didn’t know. Ever since he showed up, I felt like a missing piece of myself had been found. And maybe that’s why I resented him for so long. He was the better part of me.

  “That homunculus has been doing your thinking for you,” Ratzinger said. “Don’t you see? You found another master. It is your nature. It is who you are.”

  “What did you do with Oswald?”

  “He is safe. As safe as one can be inside a soul sucker. The poor thing not only held the universe’s most powerful energy source, he had to lug around your heavy soul. I do not know how he did it. But he has been unburdened.”

  The Duke placed the soul vessel over Ratzinger’s ugly mouth and the Nazi doctor swallowed it in one gulp. When he spoke, I heard the words in my mind. 1-1-3-4, please take a seat.

  I dutifully walked over to the steel chair in the middle of the room. He had no need to tie me up. I sat still like a good zombie. As long as Ratzinger had my soul, he had my obedience. I was trapped inside my own mind.

  “You have been a naughty boy, 1-1-3-4. I will forgive you, but you need to be punished. You remember our little games during the war?”

  When I saw the red gas can, I didn’t react, couldn’t react. Somewhere deep inside, I screamed.

  The Duke crossed the room and picked up the gas can. Ratzinger rubbed his little nub hands together.

  The Duke/Ratzinger hybrid stood before me. Ratzinger looked more hideous up close, his skin alligator rough and bumpy. His tiny veins pulsed.

  “You should thank me for burning your filthy suit and hat,” he said. “We’ll fix you up with a new Children of Thule uniform.”

  The Duke lifted the gas can, but before he could dump its contents over my head, something came whistling through the air, struck the gas can, and sent it flying.

  The distraction was enough for Ratzinger to momentarily lose his grip on me, and I gained the ability to turn my head. Zara stood beside a steel table, her silver hammer in her hand. Ilsa Hellstrom’s head rolled to a stop at my feet, her little Nazi hat still affixed to her skull. She winked at me. The bodiless bitch lived.

  “What the fook happened to you, Eddie?” Zara said.

  “Eddie isn’t home,” Ratzinger said.

  “Who the fook are you? What the fook are you? Screw it.” Zara charged, her hammer leading the way. The Duke ran toward his ex. She leaped, swinging the hammer at the Duke’s head. He moved with surprising swiftness, sidestepping at the last second.

  “Jack, why are you just sitting there!” Zara shouted.

  I wanted to answer her, I wanted to move, but I couldn’t do a damn thing.

  The Duke picked up an electric bone saw. It whirred to life, the small circular blade spinning as he made quick jabbing motions at her.

  “This time I’m going to kill you dead,” Zara said, “and that giant pimple of yours.”

  “We have not been introduced,” the malformed man said in a calm voice. “My name is Dr. Josef Ratzinger. And you must be Zara Moonbeam. From the looks of you, you must have one healthy, delicious soul. I am going to enjoy sucking it up.”

  “How many psycho Nazi doctors are there in this place?”

  The Duke hurled the saw at Zara and it tore into her left thigh. Blood shot out in short, violent bursts. She stumbled back several steps, but managed to remain standing. The Duke grabbed a long scalpel and lunged at Zara. Before she went down, she raised her hammer handle sideways to block. He landed on top of her, pushing down the hammer handle, the scalpel still in his right hand. Ratzinger bent down and, like a leech, attached his lipless mouth to her bleeding wound. Zara howled in pain.

  As Ratzinger drank, he again lost his grip on me. I didn’t hesitate. I jumped out of the steel chair and kicked the Duke as hard as I could in the ribs. He flipped onto his side, crushing Ratzinger. The doctor cried out in pain. The scalpel fell out of the Duke’s hand and stuck in Zara’s upper chest.

  “Ratzinger is controlling the Duke,” I said. “Cut him loose.”

  The pixie/witch yanked out the scalpel and slashed Ratzinger. He let out another sharp cry. Zara gripped the scalpel tighter and dug deep into his flesh, dragging the razor-sharp tool down, until she severed Ratzinger from the giant body. The little tumor-man vomited up my soul egg, which rolled across the room.

  Ratzinger scurried away like a bloated worm and hid under a surgical table. Without his Nazi tumor, the Duke didn’t move. Zara jumped to her feet and brought her hammer down onto his head. His skull caved in with a sickening crunch, his right eye popping out and dangling from its stalk. Screaming in rage, she brought the hammer down again and again, until only a bloody pulp remained.

  Apparently, she wanted to make sure they didn’t re-resurrect him.

  Something clattered. The talking tumor was on the move. Ratzinger had climbed up the wall, blood dripping from his bottom half. I scooped up my soul jar and stuffed it in my pocket. Then I grabbed the gas can and approached him from the left. Zara took the right.

  “You don’t really want to live like an abomination, do you?” I said. “You should see yourself. People will laugh at you and you seem to have a fragile ego.”

  “You will pay for this,” Ratzinger said.

  “Is that the best you can do?”

  “The things I did to you will be nothing compared to what I will visit upon you and that witch.”

  The overgrown Nazi zit scurried farther up the wall, its slimy body sticking to the surface like glue.

  “Fire good,” I said, and drenched the Nazi. The sickly sweet smell of gas filled the room.

  Ratzinger went nuts, crawling onto the ceiling and hightailing it away from us. I frantically searched for my lighter, found it, and flicked on the flame.

  “Wish me luck,” I muttered to Zara.

  “Luck,” she said.

  I chucked the lighter at Ratzinger, the flame spinning end over end. It hit the ceiling and skipped right into the little bugger. Whoosh! He squealed as the flames cooked him. The tumor bucked and twisted, finally dropping to the floor. Somehow, he still moved, a flaming ball of hate, scurrying on the ground like, well, a man on fire. He crashed into a wooden chest, which went up in flames like dry newspaper. Then he ran into a cabinet, which also went up in flames. Pretty soon, flames engulfed the entire room.

  Ratzinger disappeared into the billowing smoke.

  Zara ran toward the smoke.

  “We need to get to Oswald,” I said. “Forget Ratzinger.”

  Zara turned back. “Where is he?”

  I pointed at the ceiling.

  But there seemed to be no way out of the room. I didn’t see a staircase leading to the top of the tower, and the one leading to this level had vanished once I entered.

  “We can’t get up there,” I said.

  “You just have to imagine a staircase,” Zara said. “The tower conjures up your thoughts. That’s how I got up here.”

  “How did you get in the tower in the first place?”

  “Ilsa told me. She was friendly after I chopped off her head.”

  Ilsa? I had almost forgotten about her. I scanned the floor for the Nazi’s severed head, but it had disappeared. I had no time to worry about her. I thought of a staircase, concentrated, closed my eyes, and when I opened them, there appeared a flight of stone steps leading to the top of the tower.

  “Good work, Jack,” Zara said.

  We mounted the stairs, black clouds of smoke rising with us, flames licking at our feet.

  If I had conjured the stairs, did I conjure all the other things I faced in the Obsidian Tower? Was I torturing myself, not Ratzinger? What was I going to find atop the tower?

  A red glow bathed the top floor up ahead. At first, I thought the flames had somehow gotten ahead of us, but when we emerged from the stairwell, I realized that the upper level had no roof, and the crimson glow came from the bloody Pandemonium sky.

  In the middle of the roof sat a fifty-foot soul sucker. Heavy chains, anchored in the ground, were lashed around its legs. The c
reature looked like a cross between a giant vulture and a seagull, its great mouth thrown open at an ninety-degree angle, its sharp beak pointing straight up at the sky.

  Orbs of purple and yellow and blue light streamed from all over Pandemonium directly into the creature’s waiting maw. Its bloated brown belly grew fatter and fatter with souls.

  “Where exactly is Oswald?” Zara said.

  “Inside that thing.”

  I circled the eyeless creature―it didn’t seem to notice our presence―and discovered a red, swollen scar in its chest.

  “Do you still have the scalpel?” I asked Zara.

  “Right here.” She handed me the surgical tool.

  I cut around the scar, the scalpel catching in the soul sucker’s rough, leathery skin. The creature didn’t stir as green blood seeped out of the wound. It kept on eating up souls as if it felt nothing. I cut a hole as big as my head in the sucker’s chest and punched my fist through the opening, feeling around its warm insides. My arm was nearly elbow deep when I touched Oswald’s smooth, rubbery skin. I grabbed him by the foot and yanked, but didn’t get far. My arm stuck as the creature’s wound sealed around it. I tried to pull it out, but it wouldn’t budge.

  “Zara, gut this fook.”

  I went to work with the scalpel on the soul sucker to free myself.

  Zara lifted her hammer―and fell flat on her face. The soul sucker had awoken and swung its thick, fleshy tail into the back of the witch’s head.

  She rose onto her hands and knees, and the creature’s tail slammed into her stomach, sending her under the soul sucker.

  I slashed and tore through the monster, green blood showering me. I pulled out my arm as the soul sucker bucked and thrashed.

  I held Oswald, green goo dripping off him. The Jupiter Stone burned brightly inside his limp and lifeless body. The behemoth let out a piercing scream as it jackhammered its tail into the floor. The tower shook and I backed toward the edge.

  Then soul sucker whimpered, slumped, and fell on its side. The beast’s mouth shut like a steel trap, and the lights in the sky disappeared. Its underbelly glowed bright white, then tore open in a torrent of multicolored light pouring from its body.

  Zara emerged from under the creature, holding a wet dagger. A huge smile spread across her face.