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

by Doug McGovern

  “Rise, we are the order. We have stood in shadows for generations unnumbered. Ignorance was the bliss of humanity but we hold the secrets. The Andromeda is not the only heir. Her blood can transform anyone. Need a blood sacrifice. The girl. We need the She-Hitler’s daughter.” Matthews’ voice had dropped and octave. He twisted slowly, letting Lindsey go. She coughed and vomited into the flames, looking up at the President. The Geryon thrashed, shrieking.

  “She’s out! Lewis! Jane Lewis is going to kill her! Precious time, running out! We must claim the mind of She Hitler’s daughter now before it’s over!” The voice talking out the Geryon now was a high-pitched feminine wailing.

  “Guys, if that stuff is supposed to amp you up and make you immune all at once to Andromeda bites, better hook me up with some. Quick, this ship is sinking!” Reilly looked up at Harrison, eyes crossing. Matthew’s head was thrashing, turning on his neck like a possessed doll.

  “I’ve got a better idea. Soon as the stuff heats up, let’s all go ahead and have a taste. The risk factor is low guys. It’s the end of the world anyway.” Joseph frowned, scrambling along his waist and pulling out his trusty Model 29.

  Timlin emerged from the fire, rolling in a tight ball out of the blazes. He landed at Reilly’s feet, clutching a stone obelisk to his chest.

  “I’ve got it! This is the Dante Ordinance Codex. I’ll explain it later. Looks like it’s time for us to test out this crazy new dope.” Timlin nodded to Ivy whose eyes lit up.

  “Yeah, it’s a green light. Now or never, guys.” She smiled at Lindsey who already circled back, holding out her wrist.

  “You heard the lady, Harry! Get to mixing!” Joseph shot at Matthews’, who was suddenly clothed in a strange electric aura. He was tearing free of his seat, gnashing his teeth, every one of his limbs now limp and moving like a squid. The Geryon shrieked, thrashed and died. Parts of the debris began to hail on them.

  “Yikes! Okay!” Harrison took a small metal utensil and spun the mixture into a balm. He tried to ignore the fact that said utensil was smoking and shooting tiny green sparks back into his eyes.

  “Just dive in everybody. Think war-paint. Smear it on!” Harrison stuck in two hands, scooping it out onto his face. He felt an instant burning and the same out-of-orbit sensation he had the day that Kingsley euthanized him.

  “Get ready. This part’s rocky, guys.” Harrison’s voice was slurred. He closed his eyes, waiting for nightmares to commence.

  *****

  Chapter 24

  No doubles came to Leona or Andromeda’s rescue. As soon as they’d been called upon, they had burned up, as if they’d been sucked away into Hell already. Hence all life and the hope therein teetered in the air, moving play for play.

  She-Hitler thrashed and howled as the fangs Kiara had grown dug into her, ripping her into a thousand little scraps of burning flesh. Bones snapped and steam effused from her. Her sword swung out of her hand, swinging through the air in a tight pinwheel. As if on magnetic cue, Jane caught it.

  “You die first. If it ends me, it ends me.” Raising the sword that had caught fire from Leona’s flame, Jane dove head first on Andromeda. The creature screamed, putting up her hands. There was nothing she could do to stop the onslaught.

  She and Jane were a mirror of each other. Even though she blocked her every attack with a mime routine of magnetic motions, they were still shadow boxing. They danced in the flames that erupted from the Altar.

  Growling like hyenas, the Altered Children tore into Lucia’s doubles, falling on them with open fangs as they brutally tried to scramble. Lucia looked frantically from side to side, thinking maybe he’d be able to escape. Not a chance! Vincent’s senses moved too fast for that. The waterlines of his eyelids put off a red fluorescence. Every way that Lucia stepped, Vincent was already two steps ahead. He’d picked up the end of the electrical chain, dragging it along. Sooner or later this dance would end.

  Kingsley’s heart was in his mouth. He’d been trained to fight like an assassin. What should he do, how should he react? His eyes could not look away from Kiara. For a moment, she almost eclipsed the victory.

  Then Kingsley heard the painful shout Jane uttered and his head snapped in her direction.

  “No, Dex! This…I don’t think I can!” Jane’s face had erupted in tears. Dexter had enough of standing idly by, letting Jane take the fall for everything. Unnoticed by the arrogant doppelganger, he’d crept up behind Andromeda and seized her shoulders. It was the ride of his life. His inwards might be crushed just from hanging on, but sheer force of will kept him in place.

  “You can. This will end us. No ‘ifs’ this time. It’s the only way. She mirrors you, so you need help. It’s okay, Jane. I’m ready. Ready for an Eternity with you. This is a wedding of time and space. Death won’t separate us.” Dexter smiled. Jane shook her head, standing at a draw, sword up sparking against Andromeda’s magnetic attack.

  “Dexter…”

  “I love you, Jane. It’s okay. Pierce her heart, like you’ve pierced mine. It won’t hurt me. I died the moment that you did. Just make this end.” Dexter smiled.

  Jane paused. Of all the things she’d ever done, of all the deaths she had died, this was by far the worst. What he was asking her was impossible, but if he hadn’t been there, she couldn’t have done it. Gnashing her teeth, shrieking like a damned spirit, Jane twisted the sword in Andromeda’s hands, going against her magnetism, overpowering her will because she was her will.

  Looking into Dexter’s eyes and not looking away, Jane thrust the sword straight through the Andromeda’s heart. It jerked through her and her spine, sliding up. It drove into Dexter, hitting him dead center of his own heart. His eyes flashed with surprise, then fluttered.

  “Dex! I…I…” Jane’s body caught fire. She realized that she was only a projection of whatever life and consciousness had remained in Andromeda. Now that was gone. That meant that she was going too.

  “I-I love you, Dex. See you…See you soon.” The flames rolled from her ankles and up to her face. She tumbled forward on the Altar, atop the heap of bodies.

  “No!” Lucia screamed, running for the Altar. Vincent yanked his chain back.

  “For what you’ve done to my daughter, I will make you pay. Kingsley. Now is the time. The surge of this stuff apparently circles in the heart. Take the sword. Set your girlfriend free.” Vincent nodded to where Jane laid twitching. She’d slid off the sword hilt and into Dexter’s arms. They gasped, smiling at each other, dead or dying soon.

  Kiara hopped up on the altar, shredding and growling, peeling the ribs back from Leona’s form that simply refused to die.

  Kingsley shook himself. Forcing a step forward, he reached the sword.

  He looked down into Jane’s eyes. She nodded at him as the flames singed the features from her face.

  “Finish it, Lucien. Make it right.” With that, Jane collapsed against Dexter’s chest, dead for the final time.

  Kingsley felt tears bead at his eyes. He turned to look at Leona who leaned against the Altar. Even now she was thrashing, fighting, trying to find a way to escape. Her eyes were wide, uncertain what to make of Andromeda’s betrayal. Kingsley had no idea what the creature’s motives could have actually been or what Lucia’s use for her would have been. The events of all of this had been pure chaos. It hadn’t made sense and maybe it never would.

  If he was going to get to the bottom of it, he’d have to put the snake down for the last time. He’d have to join Kiara in her darkness.

  “You-I will rise…I have conquered the grave.” Leona’s rasping voice had lost its once-frightful edge.

  Kingsley drew the sword and drove it through her heart.

  “Well, I guess we’ll be battling each other for the dominance forever.” He felt blood rising from his nostrils. There was an electrical surge. As Leona died, her DNA in him was being magnetically stripped away. Sudden terror infiltrated his mind as he realized what that meant.

  He looked up into K
iara’s face. Her eyes were wide and hers again. They smiled at him with love. But her face contorted into gaping jaws of death. She breathed in and her breath became a vacuum.

  Kingsley focused on her eyes. He was determined for them to be the last thing that he ever saw.

  He heard Lucia screaming, but it didn’t matter now. Whatever battles had yet to be fought, would be fought in the hereafter.

  The Altar burst, releasing a supernova of crystal and white from wherever they were going.

  Kingsley was hauled through wind, earth, and water. He landed in Kiara’s arms on a black shore.

  They stared at one another for a moment horrified and elated all at once. Kiara was well again. She’d been de-aged. Kingsley realized this must be what she looked like before she died.

  There was a splashing sound coming from somewhere to their side. Kingsley and Kiara flinched, turning to look.

  Dexter shot out of deep water, carrying an unconscious Jane in trembling arms. He spat out brackish liquid and a mouthful of mud, blinking like crazy.

  “Oh my God.” Dexter’s eyes went wide. Kingsley and Kiara turned to meet his gaze.

  Huge iron gates were on the horizon. There was a massive bronze statue of Poseidon standing on the overhang and weird Greek inscriptions at his feet.

  “So these are the Poseidon Gates, huh? Great. Looks like this party’s just getting started.” Kingsley pulled Kiara out of the muddy water and stood with her beside him, trembling on the shore. The wind rushed over him, hot with hellfire. He closed his eyes.

  Whatever came next would have to come. As long as she was by his side, he could abide.

  The End (of Book 4)

  Continue for Book 5…

  THE GOOD DEATH

  Book 5:

  Poseidon Gates

  By

  Doug McGovern

  Chapter 1

  This was his free-fall into nothingness.

  Psychotic laughter followed Vincent Lewis down into the bottomless. Waves of energy moved in ripples to the sides, making way for the dead. Lucia dangled from the end of the chain. The Altered Children sailed past, screaming like vampire bats as they fell into ruin.

  Vincent Lewis wouldn’t let go for love or money. This king of Hell, of an underworld with its world of secret plots and its own hidden economy, had wreaked so much havoc on his loved ones. He was the reason, ultimately, for all their sorrows, for the untimely death of Vincent’s child.

  “You must have truly loved your daughter, Mr. Lewis. Either that, or you are just too stupid for words. Thinking you could challenge me in any sense. You thought She-Hitler was your archenemy? She was simply the muse to my grand design.” Lucia’s hands fanned around his face. He yanked at the chain that Vincent was held him by.

  Vincent gnashed his teeth. He was taking body and soul into this fabricated Hell. Besides, he’d been dead and reanimated this whole while. His genetic anomaly would follow him into the world below. This joker Lucia would answer to a father’s fury.

  “I don’t care if you’re the dude that makes Lucifer crap his panties, bub. You hurt my Jane. So I’m gonna redefine your understanding of Hell.” Vincent coiled the chain rapidly around his forearms, hauling Lucia closer to his fists. He swung out, punching, tearing out a few teeth in his swing.

  “Gah! You’ve got the fight of a thousand. An invitation to the Athena Rings is in your near future, dear boy.” Lucia curled his fingers. Vincent felt his whole body petrified. Electricity struck him in the temples and superheated his entire musculoskeletal system until he showed signs of impending human combustion.

  Lucia disappeared from Vincent’s sight in a cloud of biological steam. Vincent plummeted through miles of blackness. He made an impact with the water, shaking, sputtering.

  “Dad!” Jane floundered through the flood, coming to him from across the veil, life and love always finding their way.

  “Dad, you…He messed you up pretty good, yeah?” Jane plucked Vincent from the surf. He coughed, looking up to see a massive bronze statue and iron gates on the cliffs behind her.

  “I let him give me the slip, so the—”

  Then Vincent Lewis passed out in his daughter’s arms.

  *****

  Chapter 2

  There was a sense in which death was centripetal. It was her death that had become that way. Twisting and turning along with it, as inverted as her own psychology, Leona Kelley/Caroline Riveaulx had come full circle in the annals of madness. Murder had unleashed it and death had sealed it. She had built an empire. Here now lay its ashes.

  It was over now. Hell had opened her teeth and brought her down all the way to the Poseidon Gates. Atonement was waiting. She had so much to answer for, where would the gauntlet begin? She couldn’t quite guess. This loss for thought alone bothered her. Never mind the fact that she faced down an Eternity of answering for her crimes against Humanity.

  Strangely enough, all Leona could do was smile.

  “Well, I suppose this is my last journey. A great leap into the dark, yes? Wonderful darkness…” Leona hummed. The iron walls of the Poseidon Gates’ catacombs spun around her. Dizzying and centripetal, unbalanced and yet a perfectly logical course, it reflected her soul. This was the Hell that she had created for herself.

  “Let me see what sorts of demons have thronged the congregation of my Eternity.” Leona took a deep breath. She was talking to no one but the dark. There would be no answer, she was sure. She was arrogant to think that. A young voice answered her. One that she knew too well.

  “Did you think you’d get off so easy? Think you could slip me? I am your noose. Your history, darling. Your war against you is your war against everyone. Did you think you would be released from such a glorious purpose when the Death-Angel came for you?” Cigarette fumes rose from the direction of the speaker. Leona chuckled. Her voice bounced off the iron walls, moving like ripples in reverse, always turning back on herself.

  “Caroline…”

  It had been so long since she’d heard the girl’s voice. Since she had been that dreaming girl on the edge of mental illness.

  “Hiya, chick. Did you miss me?” Quiet laughter bounced back on her in the dark. This was her mind talking to her, moving in circles. This was her prison. The only punishment that could suit the crime.

  “Lucia sent myself to exact his judgment. Split my mind into all its little pieces.” Leona applauded, with toneless laughter. She had to hand it to her enemy. This was genius.

  “Mmm, you’ve got it, darling. You and I are going to love it here. Our own little world full of emptiness and the remorseless guilt that echoes with constant thought.” The girl’s voice was hoarse with a heavy smoking habit. Leona drew in the blend and savored it. This reunion with her former self could be both madness and brilliance, damnation and destiny’s final commencement. Even her abstract mind couldn’t place her finger on it exactly. One thing was certain. This meeting was full of nostalgia. It prompted a need to finish the great work she had started.

  “Death was your study. You were never squeamish at the thought of exploring all possibilities of its power. Even now, Lucia thinks he’ll be able to control you. To punish you. To make you his puppet. Did they think that they’d beat the old tiger just because they’d bled her to the final drop? Show them that your spirit never dies. I was sent to punish you. Let the trauma of remembering me be enough to awake your sleeping fire. Deliver this god from the machine of damnation, little Aphrodite! I am your tormentor, your teacher. Pain is weakness eluding you.” Caroline’s voice was growing stronger, drowning out all the chanting spirits vying for Leona’s mind. She strained to focus on that young ambition.

  “Yes, in the end, I am my own champion! Sic Semper Tyrannus!” Leona was drowning in her own sentiments. In the end, she would always rise. She was the ego that could not be vanquished. The catalyst to all change. That’s what she chose to believe. Wise men had said that the way a person thought in his or her heart was what they would become. If this had ev
er been true, then it was true in her.

  *****

  Chapter 3

  She stood at the mouth of the sea. Everything seemed still as glass above her and below her, yet the sea was always moving. “Forward,” it said.

  Jane Lewis let out a shaking breath. Everything she knew and thought she’d known was ebbing and flowing along with this tide. She held onto her mind with both hands but it was shrinking. She was shrinking in this infinity. In the wake of facing an Eternity trapped in the same world as Leona Kelley.

  “I don’t know where she is. But I know that she is here. That’s enough to keep me uneasy from now on.” Jane turned to look in Dexter’s direction. Just knowing that he was by her side was a little comfort. This was a ridiculous situation. One she should have never put him in. She wouldn’t have done so if it could have been helped. It seemed that this was the only logical way that their story could have its proper ending.

  “We beat her in life, didn’t we?” Dexter’s tongue pressed against his cheek even as he spoke. It felt weird saying “in life.” They were alive still in some sense, weren’t they?

  “Yeah, I don’t think Leona is our chief concern at the moment.” Kingsley came climbing down the shoreline, Kiara at his heels. They had a mutual look of horror plastered on their faces. Jane swallowed. It seemed as though Lucia had chosen to haunt them vigorously down below.

  “You might as well tell us what you’ve found. We won’t be saved any trouble by stalling. We’ll have to face our problems sooner or later. I say sooner. The sun’s getting low.” Vincent stood up from the make-shift fire he’d been building. He looked over his shoulder to the Medieval-styled gates. They were foreboding. The dull song of bells resonated from their walls. They stood on the brink of Hell itself. What could be worse news than that?