The Good Death Box Set: A Hard SciFi Science Fiction Series

by Doug McGovern

  Kendra tried to scream but a hand had clamped over her mouth. A dainty one gloved with white lace.

  “Shh! We don’t want to hurt you, sweetheart! We need you! See, shhh… ” Kendra struggled but the woman was superhumanly strong. That’s when Kendra realized that her arms were made of metal rods.

  “Move quietly, Miss Reagan. Or the girls will die. Yes, we know about Dexter Owens and his sister. We know everything.” The woman crunched her metallic arms around Kendra’s waist. She felt electricity course through her and went stiff. Her hands wouldn’t open. She tried to open her jaw but the electric apparatus had frozen her teeth shut.

  “See, that doesn’t hurt so much, does it? Told you, I don’t want to hurt you. We need our Lady’s favorite reporter to be there when we send Andromeda down to Hell, now don’t we?” Both women giggled and dragged Kendra from the room.

  She looked back over her shoulder reaching a shaking hand back toward the sleeping girls. The break-in had been so clean they didn’t even stir.

  In the morning, they would try and contact the authorities. By then it would be too late. For Kendra. For Jane Lewis. The World now stood on the tip of a knife. She was balancing on the poised tip of the helix. What would be her end?

  She closed her eyes as tears and mascara bled down her neck. It was over for her. They said they didn’t mean to hurt her but she was certain this was a lie. Death would find her. Death would find all of them before it was over.

  *****

  Chapter 15

  Kiara rose slowly at the prow of their speedboat. The wind pulled her hair away from her face and singed her eyebrows with its heat, as though it were a breath from the sun.

  Kingsley sat by the engine, eyes wide, lips trembling. He looked on in despair at the coast of New Orleans. Fire had erupted along the entire marina and had spread to the city beyond. Soon the whole port city would be engulfed in the fires that he had kindled. Pandora Man, without a doubt.

  “What happened here? What has she done? The sun is barely rising now. I thought for certain that…” Kiara looked back at Kingsley with a charred face and worried eyes.

  That’s when they saw them standing on the shoreline. Three men stood huddled close together, obviously discussing some plan. They’d pulled a truck up to the beach front and had obviously been gathering as much supply as possible from the wreckage sight. A lonely American flag was hoisted over the truck’s cab. The sunlight kissed it with hopes for the future of its symbolic value.

  “Halt! Friendly or pirate?” The youngest of the three men trained a sniper rifle in their direction.

  “We’ve escaped Kelley’s fortress!” Kiara stood up hands immediately shooting to the sky.

  “Damn it, Lu! Is that you?” Even with his failing vision, Joseph recognized his son.

  “Guilty as charged. What the hell is going on?” Kingsley stood up and stretched his hands to the sky.

  “Well, my wife is hosting some kind of Adolf Hitler-wannabe global political council. I think I need relationship advice!” Harrison ran into the surf and began to tow them in.

  Dexter jumped on the prow and scrambled over it, collaring Kingsley.

  “Did you see her? See Jane? Is she okay?” The men crowded around.

  Kiara bowed her head into her palm stifling a sob. Dexter went white around the lips.

  Kingsley reached into his jacket and produced the little vial of Andromeda extract.

  “She saved us. We were incapacitated. Leona has her methods. She nursed us back to our feet and went into Leona’s bed chamber stealing this right out from under her tits.” Kingsley handed the vial to his father whose face was haunted by the thought.

  “Why… Why didn’t you bring her back with you?” Dexter was trying to shout but he lacked the breath to do so.

  “She knew that Leona would know she was the one that had stolen the extract. Jane had to sneak into her bedroom to take it and they apparently spoke in the process. Would be dead already but Leona was high that night. Jane knew that if she came with us, hell would follow. That you would be targeted. She was trying to save you.” Kiara tried to smile. Dexter landed on his knees, lips quivering.

  He’d never been able to put it into thoughts. The way Dexter felt about Jane was indescribable. If someone had told him that he would one day fall into that depth of love he would have horse laughed them. It didn’t exist, right? This cavernous depth of passion made Romeo and Juliet look like they had domestic issues by comparison. He felt his breath vacuum suctioned from his every fiber thinking now how she had sacrificed herself for him. Wasn’t it supposed to go the other way round? Wasn’t the guy supposed to protect the girl? Give his life?

  Despite the fact that it seemed like gender profiling, he still felt like it was his responsibility as the male to take this fall upon himself. How could he stop her now? For all he knew the dawn had risen on the most vicious murderer in human history.

  “I can’t! I can’t accept that!” Dexter tried to dive into the boat and turn it to facing the way it had come. It took all four of the rest of them to restrain him.

  He screamed Jane’s name to the shell-shocked air.

  *****

  Chapter 16

  The morning had come spreading a new color over the sleeping island. The Dolls had been called forward to witness this, standing in silent vigil around the seat that had been the place where Kiara had sat plugged to her apparatus. Jane stood there now, arms lashed behind her back with a roll of razor wire. At her feet, pacing back and forth, stood Leona Kelley, dressed now in Hitler’s own brownshirt uniform, assuming the costume of her new title.

  “I can honestly say that I underestimated you. Now I know that I was wrong. Congratulations, madam, you have been the first person to honestly trip me up.” Leona and the Dolls broke out in a mocking round of applause. Jane grinned for the supposed cameras and took a bow, watching as Leona’s nostrils flared.

  “Go on then. Smile like a schoolgirl caught being naughty. You have no idea what I’m going to do to you. Hell, I have no idea what I’m going to do yet…”

  “I have a school girl’s imagination, Leona. Please, don’t disappoint me.” Jane giggled affectedly. The idea was to target Leona’s anger, to drag it out and buy her friends a little more time.

  She was insane and painfully aware of it. Shouldn’t she be more terrified? Granted she was scared as hell. So how was it that she was keeping her voice so calm?

  She could still see Dexter in her mind, practicing his Italian on her. All the days of their humble lives as nurses danced before her vision a distant and safe dream now. He was on the home-front, safe and sound as far as she knew. She’d like to keep him there if she could. Drawing deeply from that love that was fathomless in comparison to whatever hell she was about to descend into, she raised her face to the light. This was the way her life would end. It would go down in history. Long after the legend of the Greek Andromeda had faded from memory, they would remember the American Andromeda and the legislation that had passed to make her the acceptable sacrifice for the rest of the population.

  “Jane… I believe I have had the most wonderful, most wicked idea! Bring forth Mama’s favorite toy, darlings!” Leona snapped her fingers to make the Dolls scurry. They hesitated, unsure exactly which of her toys was her favorite.

  “The one she swore never to play with unless she had a match, my dears!” Leona slapped the small cane against her hand. The Dolls groaned and looked at one another in terror but moved to oblige her, lest they find themselves also at the mercy of this device.

  They pushed forward what appeared to be an Iron Maiden, save the cast was made out of some white-tinged space alloy. At the bottom of this device was a tank that contained temperature regulating chemicals and something like a highly advanced Photoacoustic Spectrometer device encased behind the glass. IV lines ran down to the edges of this bottom tank, fixed with tiny appendages that looked like shower nozzles.

  The center of the Iron Maiden was circled wit
h many IV bags hung to the wall. Thousands of tiny needles jutted out of the structure, making this a basket full of thorns.

  Jane held her breath, knowing that there was more to this instrument than met the eye.

  “You are honestly courageous, girl. I’ll give you that much credit where it’s due. But you are utterly foolish. You’ll learn to regret it, won’t you? While I had the Andromeda extract in my valuable possession I had it reproduced. Just enough for this machine. This is my ultimate weapon. Do you have any idea what it will do to you?” Leona tapped her fingers along her cane, giving the girl a moment to think.

  “It’s just a glorified electric chair. I saw what you did to the Captain.” Jane shrugged and tossed her hair out of her eyes. She had to keep her going. Entice her as much as possible, until she cracked and did something crazy. Hadn’t Dad always said that anger was like insanity, except far more slap-happy?

  “This, dear child, is your Death and Rebirth in one combined. If I can prove that this device works, then I will have opened all the doors to a revolution of Human thought. I will be the destroyer and queen of countless worlds in one moment. If I fail, it will take a few more moments after the pause, but you will die in an unforgettable way just like I promised. Which, at this point, is my only legitimate concern.” She nodded to her Dolls to have them begin the preparation. For the first time, Jane felt real panic. She remembered how it felt to die the last time, by a kind of spontaneous combustion, believed to be a hoax by many academics before she was evidence it could actually occur. If something could actually be worse than that, then God help her.

  As she was dragged away to a sterilization room in Leona’s villa, Jane felt light-headed but clung to consciousness with Dexter’s image. She’d have to keep up her bravado until the bitter end. Despite this ridiculous act that had led her to this position, Andromeda still had enough faith in her country to believe that they would develop some kind of countermeasures while she had the She-Hitler stalled. Dexter could still be saved. They all could. She closed her eyes, holding her breath to keep from crying as water ran through her hair.

  Time was running out.

  *****

  Chapter 17

  They set out for Washington D.C. over the troubled waters because that was the last place that Dr. Joseph Kingsley had been known to be. It was a hopeless venture. Desperate and dying all over again, the soldiers were only hoping that perhaps this kind physician would know how to end their pain or to just end them. Let them be gone this time where they could never be dredged back from the dead.

  The Captain studied his Sergeant. He stood at the prow, the stolen Tommy gun pressed to his chest. His skin continued its ceaseless burning. There was apparent cell reconstruction in Andromeda extract, too. How could this man stand here, burned to his bones, flaking off ashes and charred to his center, and yet not be consumed?

  Leaf craned his neck to look at the heavens. The stars gave the last of their light. Dawn was coming soon. Yet it wasn’t dark. The way before the small vessel was illuminated in the glow of his blazing bones. Flames shot from his eyelashes and his tears evaporated as soon as he’d cried them. His lips curled back around his charcoal glowering teeth, vibrating like thin strands of grass in the sun as he shrieked to the early morning sky. His hair was a torch. The remainder of it burned in a white and blue fluorescent flame that never consumed. It was bright as spotlights and cast a ring around the small boat. They could see for several hundred yards in front of them.

  He extended his outstretched hand to the sky trying to catch the balmy wind in his flaming palm. Which had been so charred that the fine rods of his hand bones were visible, the color of topaz in their ceaseless fire. His wrists were cold iron and the medial nerves glowered a cold silver in his chemical damnation. His screams begged heaven for a drop of rain. The faintest relief for his ultimate suffering.

  Captain Matheson wanted nothing more than to take this fire from him. To end this coming Armageddon before it even began. There was nothing he could do. The electric charge in him was only growing stronger. His whole body vibrated with it, upsetting the sea, keeping the boat upright with the magnetic pull the frame had to his body, but wadding the waters like notebook paper in his wake. His bones became ultra-flexible. He heard them cracking in superficial places, shaken like San Andreas in the power that only increased with him. There were no means to slow it down or stop it. This plan had been suicide. How could he carry this Hell into the nation’s capital?

  Their eyes met. They were brothers in spirit and every decision they made would have to be unified. Should they do this, or should they re-route and head for the New Orleans coast where the fight had gone?

  The sun broke the seals of the night and they saw the answer all around them. Rising from Manson’s smoke and Matheson’s tremors, many dark gray ships began to blur the sea.

  Leaf reigned himself in, gnashing his teeth. He swiveled on his heels as their exultant cry echoed from ship to ship, sliced by the roar of the water. With the harmonics of Hell, Leona’s pirates were coming for the Capital. They would plow over them, completely unaware of their presence.

  Which would be the ideal thing if they were to steal on board and use this dying power for the good of their country. How many could they take down in the process?

  “Want to die for something better?” The Captain forced himself to stand against the grain of his trembling muscles.

  The Sergeant nodded and turned to face the coming Armada.

  “Might as well, if we have to die anyway, right?”

  Captain Matheson began to race the engine heading straight under a massive commandeered cruise ship. The shrieks of frightened women and children could already be heard.

  “Good God, we’ve got our work cut out for us.” The Captain held his breath. Even with this curse bestowed on them, he still was uncertain how they’d manage to save that many civilians from the onslaught that was about to take place in these waters.

  *****

  Chapter 18

  They were cut off from the outside. It hadn’t taken long at all for their sin to become known. Gang leaders came down from the northern part of the state and surrounded New Orleans with thousands of hot rods, rigged to blow. It was a mine-field of vintage cars, trip wires connected to the car batteries and even the powerlines.

  To muddle their situation more, the phone lines were tapped. If one so much as even tried to call in help from the outside, the programmed detonators would be signaled by the keywords. They would vibrate at these signal words, triggering a current that would pass through the cell towers and the power grids all the way up the East Coast. If New Orleans prayed for mercy, the entire Eastern Sea Board would go up in electrical smoke.

  There was no way to warn Washington. Harrison would have to deal with this himself. Using his smartphone to place an anonymous order from one of his myriad accounts, he signaled his IT teams via a numerical code to send out a mass computer virus into New Orleans. It was time for Louisiana to experience a social media disconnect. No one could Tweet or Facebook their declarations of despair if no one had internet access. Every smartphone in the City would be dead in a matter of hours, courtesy of the ultimate cell jammer. No texts, Tweets, or telephonic outcries would be heard from the aging pirate town. It couldn’t even slightly guarantee their salvation, but it narrowed down the impossible odds slightly.

  They stood deep inside the city. Man, woman, and child lined up to defend themselves. Dexter stood in between Joseph and a little girl named Reilly who was holding a rifle that was bigger than herself. Harrison had announced via the passing of paper messages who he was and what he’d come to do. This was their last stand. The people of New Orleans would fight or face extinction.

  Reilly craned her neck to look at Dexter. He was fighting tears, clenching his hands into fists. Why was he here when he should be trying to save Jane? Even though it would be pure insanity and against everything she was dying for.

  The little girl laid a hand o
n his knee and narrowed her eyes.

  “Chill, pal. Everybody’s got to die sometime.”

  “That’s a pretty bleak outlook for an 11-year-old.” Dexter flinched, almost forgetting she was there.

  “My family died in Hurricane Katrina. I’m walking proof of a time to die, and a time to survive against the odds.” She grinned and winked. Dex stared at her, stunned.

  “I heard you talking about your girlfriend, pal. Yeah, I know it’s scary to let her take the heat for you. You can’t keep her from it now. There’s no way out of here, okay? All you’ll do by clinging onto that ‘have to’ thingy is make yourself pretty dopey and crazy. Trust me, chicks don’t dig dopey-crazy. Make her proud instead. Make this crazy hoe Leona pay for what she’s done.” Reilly drew the bolt back on the Remington she was holding.

  Dexter stared at her aghast. She was right. The least he could do was burn some of She-Hitler’s strongholds as he came crashing to ruin.

  Harrison came walking their way now. He’d dressed himself in body armor that he’d salvaged from the ashes of the police force. To the horror of all, the government services in New Orleans had met with a similar fate as those in Shreveport. They, the people, were all that the city had now to face the monsters.

  He smiled as he walked by the children. Nodding to the men, he faced the women to let them see that his face was blank of fear.

  “New Orleans!” He climbed up on a stack of tires they’d piled to make a podium. All eyes trained on him. A respectful hush fell over them all.

  Harrison stood looking onward in awe for a long moment. He blinked and pressed his fist into his chest, smiling with his head bowed to the ground. The sun encompassed him, robing him in fire.