Dial D for Deadman: A Space Team Universe Novel (Dan Deadman Space Detective Book 1)

by Barry J. Hutchison

  “Either drop the gun, or I drop you,” Dan warned. “And when I say ‘drop’ I mean turn you into a million little chunks of crispy-fried flesh splattered over a fifty foot radius.”

  “I can help you!” Janto wailed. “I can make you better.”

  “Three.”

  “Please! Look at me! I need this. I need this.”

  “Two.”

  The gun vibrated more violently in Janto’s grip. He tightened his hands around it and drew in a sharp breath, as if preparing to fire.

  “One.”

  Janto dropped the gun and raised his hands. “OK, OK, don’t shoot me, don’t shoot me! Please!”

  “Not so tough when you aren’t dealing with little girls, huh?” Dan growled. “Mindy, stun shot.”

  The gun’s cylinder spun. “And make it hurt.”

  “What? No, don—” Janto pleaded, but a bolt of yellow light turned his body rigid, cutting off the rest of the sentence.

  Dan turned away before Janto had even hit the ground. “Artur!” he called, making for the truck. Thanks to his lack of available hands, he had no choice but to shove Mindy back in her holster before reaching for the door handle.

  A fist punched through the door, stopping just inches from Dan’s nose. To call it a large fist would be to do it a disservice. It was around fifty per cent larger than Dan’s head, each finger as thick as the wrist of his woman’s arm had been. Bone-like protrusions jutted out through the flesh at irregular intervals, like metal spikes on some kind of medieval weapon designed specifically for smashing in skulls as efficiently as possible.

  Dan jumped back, pulling his gun out again as the door was torn inwards. The hinges gave way with a terrified squeal. Dan ducked as the twisted remains of it whummed out of the truck and smashed against the road some distance behind him.

  “Mindy, explosive—” he began, but then the thing that had been in the truck slammed into him, sending him tumbling in one direction, and the gun skidding in another.

  That spiked ball of a fist fell like a hammer towards Dan’s head. He rolled sideways and the ground shattered into a spider-web of cracks.

  Kicking his legs, Dan tried to get up, but a scything arm shattered his ribs, dropping him again. He turned, scrabbling backwards, and got his first look at the thing as it threw back its head and howled at the Paparazzoid hovering above.

  He’d never seen anything like it before, but he recognized it, all the same. He’d assumed there had been two von Haff brothers, but now realized he was wrong. He had no idea where this one had come in the pecking order before Janto had done whatever he’d done to him, but he was definitely the Alpha male of the family, now. He definitely wasn’t the looker, though, and considering the only other family members Dan was aware of had either had their skull caved in, or were being digested by a fish, that was really saying something. This guy had a face only a mother could love, and a blind, masochistic mother at that.

  His face reminded Dan of an old tree, all knotted and gnarled. His eyes were set at vastly different heights, and there seemed to be a third eye tucked into a fold at the side of his throat. His tusk-like bottom teeth had been joined by a number of sharp, angular bones that sprouted from his cheeks and forehead with no sense of pattern or symmetry.

  Similar protrusions grew from his shoulders and back. It was as if his skeleton had taken one look at the rest of him, and decided to make a run for it, only to get stuck halfway.

  He had the same long hair and beard as his brothers, although neither crop of hair had grown at the same pace as the rest of him, so they looked comically undersized against his hulking, distorted frame.

  Mindy was a few feet away. Dan made a lunge for the weapon, but a monstrous hand grabbed him by the ankle. The world lurched away. Dan barely had time to figure out what was going on before he slammed, back-first, against the ground.

  “Oh, fonk,” he grunted, as he was swung over the monster’s head again. He braced himself for the impact, tucking his chin into his chest to protect his head.

  Something in his leg went pop and he felt the grinding resonate all the way into his guts. He kicked out with his other leg, slamming his boot against the monster’s wrist. It didn’t notice. Dan’s leg let out a series of stomach-churning crunches as he was swung sideways. He spiraled through the air, rolled over and over across the tarmac, before getting entangled in the remains of the wire mesh fence.

  “Leave him alone, ye big bollocks!” hollered Artur, jumping down from the truck. His plastic clogs clip-clopped across the tarmac as he ran at the monster, tiny fists clenched.

  “Artur, no!” Dan barked, heaving himself back to his feet. His left leg felt heavy and lifeless, but it took his weight as he stumbled along the side of the truck. “Look after Nona. Leave this thing to—”

  The monster crossed the gap between them in a single bound. Its fist connected with Dan’s face, dead center, compacting his nose and sending him stumbling backwards.

  “Oh yeah, looks like ye’ve got it all in hand,” Artur said, raising his voice to a shout.

  “Get in the truck,” Dan wheezed, the words coming out through bubbles of his own blackened blood. “Keep the girl safe. I got this.”

  “Have ye bollocks!” Artur replied. A gnarled foot stomped down at him, forcing him to zig-zag to safety. “This thing’ll rip you to pieces.”

  “Maybe,” Dan conceded. “But better me than her. I stitch back together, she doesn’t. Go.”

  Artur dodged another foot-stamp, glared up at the mutant von Haff, then let out a sharp cry of outrage. “Fine! Fine, I’ll go and feckin’ babysit. But you’d better take this bastard down, Deadman, ye hear?”

  “I hear,” said Dan. He clenched his one working fist and squinted through his swelling eyelids at the von Haff monster. “Now come on, you ugly fonk. Is that all you’ve got?”

  * * *

  Ollie followed the guard, Morrin, through a large wood-paneled room lined with a dozen or so beds. Some of the beds were empty, but many were not. Shapes moved beneath the covers, bodies tangling and thrusting together hidden, if only just, from view.

  “What is this place?” she asked, but Morrin just grunted and quickened his pace.

  They weaved their way between a group of faded and torn armchairs. Other women sat in them, eyes open, but unseeing. Flecks of foam formed at the corners of their mouths, and they groaned in pleasure as whatever was hooked up to their arms pumped a dark, oily-looking fluid inside them.

  There was something about their faces that made Ollie’s stomach knot up. Those open eyes, staring upwards through the ceiling, those guttural, inhuman grunts and moans of satisfaction. Or despair, maybe. Ollie couldn’t tell which.

  “Through here,” said the guard, punching in a key code and opening a door.

  Ollie could feel his breath on her neck as she squeezed past him. She shuffled through into a small, dimly-lit room that smelled of something she didn’t recognize, but instantly disliked.

  There was very little in the room, besides an unmade bed, a lop-sided bedside table, and a screen on the wall. Morrin joined her inside and closed the door, revealing two coat hooks on the back of it.

  “What’s this room for?” Ollie asked.

  “Sit down,” he told her. “On the bed. I’ll show you.”

  Ollie hesitated, but then sat down. Morrin reached up to the screen and flicked it on. After an initial burst of static, the image changed to show an aerial view of a street. It was dark and blurry, and hard to make out what was going on, but the guard wasn’t paying it any attention, anyway.

  He turned the volume up and the chatter of commentary crackled out from the screen’s speakers so loudly it made Ollie wince.

  “Thin walls,” the guard said. He grinned, showing off his scum-coated teeth. “Wouldn’t want anyone listening in now, would we?”

  “To what?” Ollie asked.

  Morrin snorted. He kicked off a shoe. “Man, I love the dumb ones.”

  Ollie gazed
up at the screen. The sound was turned up so high the commentary had become too distorted to properly understand. Two people were fighting. Although one of them didn’t look much like a person, and ‘fighting’ was being generous to the other one, who seemed to be spending most of his time being thrown around or slammed into things.

  There was a zzzip as the guard began to remove his uniform. Ollie didn’t notice.

  She peered up at the screen and watched as the smaller of the two figures made a dive for something on the ground, only for the larger to kick him on the side of the head. The camera swooped down to get a better view, bringing both figures more sharply into focus.

  Ollie stood up, her eyes not leaving the screen. “Wait a minute.”

  “Sit down,” Morrin instructed.

  “Is that…?”

  “Sit. Down.”

  The guard’s hand was a vice-grip on Ollie’s arm. He tried to push her down onto the bed, but a jolt of pain tore up his arm, escaping through his teeth as a hiss, as Ollie’s necklace lit up like a flame against her neck.

  “Where is that?” Ollie asked, still staring at the screen.

  Morrin tried to pull his hand free, but his fingers weren’t responding. “Wh-what are you doing? What is this?” he whimpered, before another shudder of pain reduced his words into a series of incomprehensible babbles.

  Ollie finally shifted her gaze from the screen to his face. She looked him up and down, as if only just noticing he was there. Something burned behind her eyes, and the guard’s legs gave way beneath him as he tried desperately to pull away.

  Pointing to the screen, Ollie asked the question again. “Where is that?”

  “Raaargh!”

  The guard jammed his electric shock-rod weapon into Ollie’s ribs. A buzzing noise filled the room, followed very quickly by a loud, distinctly moist-sounding, bang.

  Ollie looked down at her arm, then up at the guard, who was now nothing more than a haze of red mist in the air.

  “Fine,” she said, shooting the screen another glance. “I’ll just have to ask someone else.”

  * * *

  Artur clambered into the truck, scurried to the back, then made his way up the side of the bed. He stopped then, with his hands on his thighs, taking a moment to catch his breath. “Holy father, that’s higher than it looks,” he panted, before straightening up and jabbing a thumb back in the direction he’d come. “Seriously, it might not seem like much from up here, but that’s a climb and a half.”

  Nona peered back at him, saying nothing.

  “But anyway, probably not the right time to be dumping my problems on ye. Sure, we’d be here all night,” said Artur. He scratched his head and gestured to the closest of the girl’s wrists. “I reckon we get ye out of these things. What do ye say?”

  He rattled one of the two pairs of handcuffs that shackled Nona to the bed’s frame. “Ah, he’s gone old school, that’s what I like to see. The classics. None of yer energy cuff nonsense. I can work with these.”

  Something thumped against the side of the truck. “Ow,” said a muted voice, and then there followed a sound that was not unlike a scream, which rapidly got further away. “That’s me mate, he’s taking care of… whatever that thing is. So he tells me, anyway.”

  Dan flew past the open doors of the truck, upside-down. A moment later, a monstrous shape bounded after him, hissing and snarling with rage.

  “Yeah, looks like he’s on top of things,” said Artur. “Nothing for us to worry about, princess.”

  “You promise?” Nona sniffed.

  “Have I ever steered you wrong before?” Artur asked.

  “I’ve never met you before,” the girl croaked.

  Artur grinned and rubbed his hands together. “Like I say, ye’re a sharp one, so ye are,” he said, shoving an arm into the handcuffs’ keyhole. “Now then, let’s get ye out of these things.”

  He stuck out his tongue and closed one eye in concentration. His fingers found a groove in the mechanism and he gave a little nod. “See, the trick with these locks is to take yer time. Ye might be tempted – ye know, if yer best mate’s having the shoite kicked out of him by a monster, say – to rush things. But that would be a mistake.”

  As if on cue, a Dan-shaped indent appeared in the plastic wall of the cargo box, then popped flat again.

  “Here’s a tip for any situation, princess - rushing gets ye nowhere fast. I know, I know, it sounds like a load of old garbage, but it’s true. So ye have to go canny, like.” He found a spring and felt along its twisting ridges. “Take yer time. That’s the trick to it. Nice and easy.”

  He slid his hand between two intricate levers and applied just the right amount of pressure.

  “Nice and easy.”

  He adjusted the tension, just a fraction.

  “Nice and…”

  Artur yanked his hand free, his face twisting into a furious scowl. “Ah, bollocks to it,” he spat, then he grabbed the chain where it connected to the second bracelet, jammed his feet against the bed frame, and pulled with all his strength.

  “Are you OK?” Nona whispered.

  “Nng. Fine,” Artur squeaked.

  “You’re going purple.”

  “Perfectly healthy color, purple. Nothing wrong… oh, feck, that’s strong. What are these made of? Nothing wrong with turning—”

  The chain snapped. Artur exhaled sharply as he swung from Nona’s wrist by the broken links, then scrambled up onto her hand.

  “There, that’s better,” he said, nodding at her as he ran up her arm, across her chest, and down the arm on the opposite side. “Now, assuming ye hold still, and I don’t have a massive heart attack or anything, we’ll have ye out of here before ye know it.”

  Outside, Dan thumped and the monster roared. Artur risked a glance at the truck’s missing rear doors. “And not a moment too feckin’ soon,” he muttered, then he took up his grip on the second handcuff chain, and heaved.

  * * *

  Dan tried to stand, but couldn’t quite figure out where the ground was. Down, he assumed, but the world was spinning so fast that he was unable to put his finger on which direction down was at this precise moment.

  His ribs felt like they had all concertinaed together, pain screamed through his skull like a fire alarm, and no matter which direction he looked, he could see his nose. Even up.

  If, indeed, that way was up.

  One of his legs had been completely dislocated at the hip, but a subsequent impact (against the truck, he thought, but they were all kind of blurring into one now) had rammed it back into place for him.

  Lucky.

  You know, kind of.

  How long had he been fighting? A minute? An hour? He’d passed out at least twice, he was sure, although the real number was very probably much higher.

  The thing was toying with him. That was the only reason it hadn’t torn his head off yet. Dan had punched, kicked, gouged and headbutted at every available part of it, but it had brushed them all off without so much as flinching.

  And that was at the beginning, when it had been smaller. It had been growing steadily during the course of the fight, becoming more monstrous with each moment that passed. It had been the size of an alpha male pukbull when it had emerged from the truck, but now it was as large as three of them, all squished together, and its bony protrusions had grown at a correspondingly terrifying rate.

  Dan had tried to grab for his gun a number of times now, but the fonker always caught him just in time, before sending him hurtling through the air in the direction of some other heavy and stubbornly immovable object.

  Frankly, he was getting pretty sick of it.

  He heard the von Haff thing bounding towards him again, poundings its spiked fists against the ground like front legs. Hazarding a guess as to which direction was which, Dan made it to his feet just in time to avoid a crunching overhead strike. Another pothole appeared in the tarmac and the world trembled with the force of the blow. Then the monster swung with a wild backha
nd that Dan only barely managed to dodge.

  Spying an opening, he jumped in and rained a flurry of jabs in the thing’s kidneys, but its skin was now a coarse hide that did more harm to Dan’s knuckles than they did to it.

  What Dan wouldn’t have given to have his woman’s arm back. A couple of Durium-enhanced left hooks might have run this thing’s bell for it. More than he was ringing it now, anyway.

  The fist swung again. Dan ducked, then realized his mistake. The thing’s other hand caught him by the throat, its fingers overlapping at the back of his neck by several inches. It squeezed, and Dan felt panic ignite in the pit of his stomach. He wasn’t worried about it choking him, for obvious reasons, but the way the thing was tightening its grip, there was no saying his head wouldn’t just pop off like a cork.

  He punched it. It didn’t flinch.

  He kicked it where he guessed its balls would most likely be.

  Nothing.

  He tried to wedge a thumb into one of its eyes, but its face just twisted into a disturbing mockery of a grin.

  “Cannnn’t hurrrrt meeeee,” it said, the words ejecting from the back of its cavernous throat. A flicker of surprise crossed its face, like it hadn’t been aware it could still speak. “Buut I huurrrt yooouuu.”

  The monster squeezed harder, and Dan felt the pressure building behind his eyes and up into his skull. He hammered a fist against von Haff’s elbow and forearm, trying to break the grip, but the thing just giggled and snorted, its bulging eyes growing wider.

  “Hey!” called a voice from behind it. “Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?”

  The von Haff mutant threw back a fist. Dan heard a woman let out a yelp of pain as the spiked knuckles connected with her, sending her spinning to the ground in a mess of tears and blood.

  Ollie. Shizz. What was she doing here?

  “Stuuupid girrrl,” the monster spat. “You aaaare nnnot my ssssize.”

  “I know,” Ollie sniffed, shuffling shakily onto her knees. She met Dan’s boggle-eyed stare for a moment, then turned her attention back to von Haff. “But I wasn’t talking about me.”

  And with that, she caught her necklace in both hands, closed her eyes, and pulled.