Beaten Path

by Martin Shannon

  “Now, Adam.”

  Together with my apprentice, we unlocked the Magick of the bowl and with it extinguished the inferno. The bowl’s water washed away their inequities, and with them, the last vestiges of tar.

  Ed opened his eyes, and I saw my friend again, something I hadn’t been sure I would ever do.

  “Gene?”

  “Yeah, buddy. You gave us all quite a scare.”

  My old roommate sat up and rubbed his bald head. “I’m… what happened?”

  “It’s a long—”

  I didn’t get to finish my answer before the Swamp Witch tackled him back to the ground. “Oh, Ed. He’s gone! He’s gone!”

  “What? Who’s gone?” the confused Demon Hunter said.

  My eyes drifted to the shinning silver saber, and the broken young spirit pinned beneath it. Behind him, twin headlights appeared in the swirling mist, Private Petty’s ride was finally coming.

  46

  Complete

  The New Dead wanted a piece of Private Michael Petty, and ride or not, they weren’t going home empty-handed.

  “Behind you!” I shouted, but my young friend was too far gone to react—his soul flickered in the dark like a motel TV. The ashen limbs tore him free of the black saber, his spirit barely recognizable. The young soldier had saved my bacon too many times to count over the last few days, and now I was more than happy to return the favor.

  “Extinctus!” Magick rolled through me like an ocean wave. Resurgent and powerful, it crashed into the fiery damned, scattering them like dust in the wind. “Petty!”

  The young man didn’t respond. He only had eyes for one thing: a meticulously detailed ghostly Volkswagen bus that had pulled up next to him.

  The remaining New Dead surged. Like sharks they smelled blood, and a ride to the hereafter was more than enough to put them in a frenzy.

  “Michael!”

  The bus’s door opened and brought with it a beautiful white light. The warm glow surrounded the young man. He was lost in that aura, his flickering fingers reaching for it, and oblivious to the New Dead claws pulling him back.

  Damn it, kid. You’re going to miss your ride.

  A long and slender arm stretched out of that warm glow. The arm traced back to a stunning and ethereal beauty. Long blond hair fell gently on narrow shoulders and framed eyes of the purest blue. There was no sadness in those eyes, no pain, only love: pure, simple, and forgiving.

  She reached for him, but the New Dead had other ideas.

  Fiery claws and ashen hands pulled the lovers apart. The screaming cries of hungry damned filled my ears. They had their prize.

  Not on my watch.

  I reached deep into my Magick, past the House’s corruptive sheen, and into the core of my being. The words of power came to my lips, but I hesitated. Could I do anything that wouldn’t risk Petty in the process?

  Bam! Bam! Bam!

  A swarm of ghostly rounds erupted from the cemetery. Deadly accurate, they tore through the damned like tissue paper, sending ashes scattering in the swirling air and lost to the Hellgate. Through those spent embers and drifting Hell Fleas I found the young man’s saviors. Soldiers, tall and small, old and young alike, saluted him. In that moment, Private Michael Petty had earned his rank, every last ounce of it.

  The beautiful young woman stepped out of the bus, her face soft and her eyes full of joy. “Michael…” she said. Her voice was like a summer’s day, a soft breath of fresh air in the ash-choked cloud of death.

  “Jolie…”

  Petty’s young wife placed a hand on his cheek, her smile lighting up night. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

  “I…” Tears streamed down his ghostly face. “Jolie, I’m… I’m sorry, can you forgive me?”

  “Oh, sweetheart,” she said, cupping his face in her hands. “There’s nothing to forgive.”

  “But…” His saber drooped, its edge scraping across the broken pavement. “It was my fault.”

  “Ssh.” She smiled and let her hands slide down his arms. “There’s someone I want you to meet.”

  “But I—”

  “Daddy!” a young girl’s voice cried from the back of the bus. “It’s me, Daddy!”

  Private Petty fell to his knees as a toddler bounded out and into her father’s arms. “How?”

  “I love you, Daddy. Are you coming home?”

  Private Petty looked at me with tear-filled eyes and I nodded.

  You’ve earned it.

  “Yes,” he said, scooping up his dead daughter. “I’m coming home.”

  The private carried her to the bus and helped the young girl into the back seat, then opened the door for his wife.

  She started to join him, then stopped in front of me. “Thank you.”

  “It’s nothing,” I said. “Your husband did all the work. I just—”

  “Don’t sell yourself short, Magician. You gave him purpose, but more than that, you taught him how to find forgiveness.”

  “I…”

  The young spirit winked at me. “I just hope you learn how to find it yourself, Eugene Law.”

  Before I could respond she climbed into the bus and shut the door.

  Private Petty hesitated. “This is the end of the line for me I think, sir.”

  In the distance, New Dead wailed as the Hellgate pulled them in by the dozens, burping up a halo of Hell Fleas in the process.

  “Damn straight it is, Private. Get on that bus and go. You’ve got a family—don’t lose it. Take it from me, you can never appreciate them enough.”

  The ghost smiled and placed a spectral hand on my shoulder. “It’s been a lot of fun, sir. I don’t know if I’d ever have made it here without you.”

  “Nope, you’d still be moping about in the tall weeds over there.”

  “True, but I think you’d have joined me no less than three times if I hadn’t saved your bacon.”

  I chuckled. “Damn straight, kid. I know how to pick a winner.”

  The soldier started to climb into the driver’s seat then stopped. He turned back to me and held out the saber.

  “Where I’m going, I won’t need this anymore.”

  “Private, I couldn’t—”

  The young man shook his head, his face serious. “I’ve seen what lives in your head. You need this more than me.”

  I accepted the saber, the blood and ash on my fingers marring the brilliant silver.

  “I’ll try to live up to it.”

  “Come on, Dad, let’s go!” the private’s young daughter shouted from the back seat.

  Petty smiled and climbed into the bus. “Seatbelts everybody.”

  He closed the door and rolled down the window. “I don’t want to see you anytime soon, you hear me?”

  I nodded. “The feeling is mutual, Michael.”

  Private Petty banged his hand on the side of the van and revved the engine.

  “Go on, get out of here. Hit the road.” I pointed to the stars.

  The spirit smiled, his eyes twinkling in the Hellgate’s flickering light. “Roads? Where we’re going we don’t need roads!”

  The bus roared to life and drove off into the starry sky, leaving me staring up at infinity far longer than I should have. A shift in the Thinning pulled me away from Private Petty’s departure. The song of the Bridge Trolls must have been coming to an end as the Hellgate was shrinking.

  Cathy!

  Private Petty had just given me an idea.

  The Dad Wagon.

  I turned around to find Kaylee in tears. “Where did you send him?” She clutched at my shirt, and even with her diminutive stature, pulled me down to stare into red-ringed eyes. “Where?”

  “The Lost Button—”

  “I want to know where he is.”

  “I… I don’t know.”

  “We need to get a dog, and I’m betting we’ll find one on the other side,” my old roommate said, limping up to his ex-wife and pointing at the Hellgate.

  “How—”

>   “Because,” he said, placing his worn hands on her shoulder. “I’ve been there before.”

  That was enough to shock both of us to our core. “What?”

  “You two aren’t the only ones with sins to atone for, believe me; the tar reminded me as much.”

  “What’s on the other side? Take me with you,” the Swamp Witch demanded, pulling her shoulder away from him.

  Ed shook his head. “It’s different for everyone. You don’t know what you’re asking. Being on the other side… it changes you.”

  The Bridge Trolls song softened and their strong rumble faded.

  “Look, if you’re coming with me we need to go now.”

  I opened the Dad Wagon’s doors and let Ed and Kaylee pile in.

  “Donnie?”

  The large man shook his head. “Oh, hell no. I’m going to take some horse aspirin and call it a week.”

  “That’s the smartest thing I’ve heard today.”

  I climbed into the driver seat and slammed the door. It was good to be back in my car, even if I was about to drive it into Hell.

  Adam ran up to the passenger door. “Gene, wait!”

  “Don’t try to talk me out of this.”

  My apprentice shook his head. “I’m not. I’m coming with you.”

  The Hellgate flickered, swallowing the last of the New Dead, and burping up yet another swarm of Hell Fleas.

  “No, this isn’t your fight. You’ve got a mom to take care of. She may have charmed the pants off a Leprechaun, so that’s going to be a problem…”

  “He’s too needy,” said a new voice from the backseat. Angela had squeezed in alongside Kaylee and Ed. She had the Prussian Wedding Bowl in her lap. “Besides, this sounds like a lot more fun.”

  “No, you need to get out of my—”

  Adam climbed into the passenger seat. “Good luck telling my mom no.”

  I put the car back in park. “It’s easy. If you don’t get out, I’m going to Magick your butt to—”

  “Your swirly fire thingie is closing, sweetheart.”

  “What?!”

  My apprentice’s mother was right. The Hellgate was a fraction of its prior size.

  Cathy!

  “So you can either argue with me, or you can drive.”

  “Adam?”

  “Yeah, boss?”

  I threw the car into drive. “Do not make me regret this. Hold on, everybody.”

  The Dad Wagon exploded off the mark, racing past a waving Donnie and the chorus line of Bridge Trolls. I traded a salute with the cemetery’s speaker the instant before we hit the swirling Gate.

  I’m coming, Cathy. Hell isn’t going to know what hit it.

  47

  South Georgia

  “This is Hell?” Adam leaned against the passenger window. “It looks like South Georgia.”

  Sigh.

  “Hell, South Georgia… is there a difference?”

  My apprentice ran a finger over the hazy glass. “I guess not. I just expected more… fire and stuff. You know?”

  Ed’s head popped up between the seats. “I keep telling you guys, it looks different for everyone, but it’s still uniformly terrible.”

  Large oaks streamed by at a rapid pace, but nothing said, ‘Here lies eternal torment.’ In fact, I had to agree with Adam—it really did look like South Georgia, or at best Jacksonville.

  Is there really a difference?

  “Do you think the gate closed before we made it through?” the Swamp Witch asked, her voice strained from crying.

  “No…”

  Maybe.

  Adam’s mom ripped out a loud snore, and I gave my apprentice’s mother a hard look in the rear-view mirror. “She can really sleep anywhere, eh?”

  “Yeah…”

  “Is she normally that loud?”

  “This is quiet.”

  Ed’s face re-appeared in between the seats. “Have either of you guys seen another car, or anything?”

  “No,” we both said in unison.

  “Hell, I haven’t seen the sun.” Adam stared out at the unending gray. “Is there a sun in Hell?”

  “Like I said, it’s different—”

  “For everyone,” I said, cutting off my old friend. I’d heard this no less than a dozen times today.

  “Look!” Kaylee poked her red-rimmed eyes through the gap in the seats next to her ex-husband. “You see that up there, in the mist? It’s a light.”

  The Swamp Witch was right. There were lights, lots of them in the distant mist. I squinted in the hazy gray half-light. “What do you think they are?”

  “Will-o-wisps?” Adam fingered his seat belt nervously.

  Ed shook his head. “Doubtful, do you hear any intoxicating melody leading you on to your doom?”

  Angela Grayson choose that moment to rip out yet another car-rattling snore.

  This time I turned my attention to my apprentice. “No.”

  “What about a boatman? Perhaps the River Styx is coming up?” Kaylee said, some sadness ebbing from her voice.

  It was possible. We’d know in a minute—the lights were coming up fast.

  “Hey, that’s a sign.” Adam pointed out a bright green sign in the rapidly approaching mist.

  I flipped the wipers on. “What does it say?”

  My apprentice pushed his face up against the glass. “Rest stop.”

  “Rest stop?” Ed leaned forward to get a better look at the letters.

  Adam hadn’t been kidding, the bright white letters reflected in the Dad Wagon’s headlights perfectly.

  REST STOP. NEXT STOP UNKNOWN.

  There was something else scribbled underneath those bright letters and it shot past almost too fast to see, but my apprentice was good enough to read it to me as we rocketed by.

  “It says… Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here.”

  Ah, Hell.

  Martin Shannon’s Weird Florida

  Short Stories

  0 - Danderous Delivery (Newsletter Subscribers Only)

  1 - Hook, Line, and Slinker

  2 - Ballroom and Chain

  3 - Bahama Blues

  4 - Plasma Pistols

  5 - Lights Out

  6 - Mourning Paper

  7 - Ignorance and Unleaded

  8 - Black Valentine

  9 - Soulless (Coming Soon)

  10 - Ten Turns (Coming Soon)

  Novels

  1 - Dead Set

  2 - Gathering Gloom

  3 - Beaten Path

  4 -Bloody Deed (Coming Soon)

  5 - No Fury (Coming Soon)

  Bloody Deed

  Pre-order Coming Soon

  Married life wasn’t supposed to be this way, but haywire Magick, crushing debt, and a chronic lack of employment has a way of leaving even the best of relationships in the tall grass.

  For Eugene Law, guilt packs a heavy bag. Haunted by ghosts of doubt, Tampa’s newest Magician must reconcile his past if he is to have any hope of seeing his future intact.

  Bad luck and poor decisions land Gene up to his neck in blood-thirsty Skeeters, eye-to-eye with the Five Star Toaster, and at the wrong end of more than one Lost Button. Through it all, he’ll be forced to learn membership in The Flock has its privileges, but it always comes at a price.

  Because with Magick, sometimes you have to be the hero, or die trying…

  Afterword

  Beaten Path takes place down the spine of the state, an interesting backwater of hidden places and mysterious locales.

  A long and lazy drive down US 301 with my trusty golden provided ample imagery, most of which made its way into this latest installment in some form or another.

  The Green Swamp a unique part of Florida and one that certainly shouldn’t be missed, but don’t take it from me, come down and see for yourself—just stay on the Beaten Path.

  Martin

  Under the Cypress

  March 2020

  Acknowledgments

  This book and all of its Magick could not
have happened without the help of the following people:

  Amber Townsend, my alpha reader—thank you for being you, and for your love of all things Weird Florida.

  Jacob Faust, my beta reader—thank you for pulling me out of those dark places.

  The Flock—thank all of you for keeping me sane, and believing in the story.

  Last but not least, thank you, reader. To know you’ve made it this far warms my heart more than you can imagine.

  About the Author

  Martin Shannon’s been using his imagination to avoid weeding since he was in short pants. His first series, Tales of Weird Florida, is an homage to the Sunshine State he knows and loves, and spent countless hours riding his bike through as a kid. It’s got mystery, mayhem, and more than a little Magick. He hopes you enjoy the supernatural side of the upside down state, but if not, he’s got a banjo, and he knows how to use it. You can find out more at www.martin-shannon.com.

  On Newsletters, Writing, and Reviews

  Thank you for making it this far. It is my sincere hope you enjoyed the story, and the opportunity to slip into the sometimes too tight shoes of Eugene Law and company. If you did, please take a few seconds to help me spread the word, and in exchange I promise to send out free short stories as well as keep you up to date with each new novel in the Tales of Weird Florida world.

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