The Grim Spectre

by Ralph L. Angelo Jr.

“I see no way to dissuade you in this madness, Miss Thomas so I will accompany you, for your safety and protection.”

  “What are you doing here anyways?” Tammy asked, “An’ call me Tammy, willya?”

  “As you wish, Miss Thomas. I am here to see to my student’s protection.”

  They both turned and started to run up the steps to the club’s entrance.

  “Aw, you’re worried about Bobby,” Tammy said.

  “I am more concerned about him dying within this gang lord’s home, because if he does, so does my weekly fee for teaching him.”

  She looked at him, her face screwed up crookedly in disbelief at what he just said. Buraglia shrugged his shoulders and smiled then ran ahead of her easily.

  ***

  Phylo Zeus kicked The Grim Spectre hard and actually lifted him off the floor where he had been kneeling on all fours. The Grim Spectre tumbled and fell against the wall in a heap.

  Zeus advanced with blood in his eyes, ready to kill the man under the mask.

  Zeus kicked again, but this time The Grim Spectre slid to the side and grabbed the foot yanking it hard, and dropping Zeus to the ground.

  “Did you think you would defeat me that easily, you misbegotten brute?”

  “I think you more’n met your match in me, Spectre. I’m gonna prove it too.”

  Both men were back on their feet now and circling the other.

  “No more magic powers, Spectre,” Zeus taunted, “just me an’ you, man to ghost, or whatever the hell you really are.”

  “You are about to find out exactly what I really am!” The Grim Spectre shouted.

  He charged his larger foe, and immediately Zeus threw a roundhouse right punch at The Grim Spectre.

  But The Spectre dropped below it, raising his arm up in a block that sent the blow sailing above his head, and then it was his turn to strike. Right, left, right, left in rapid succession to Zeus ribs. Blindingly fast with incredible strength and an iron will behind them.

  Then Zeus backhanded The Grim Spectre across the jaw, knocking him flying across the basement.

  The Grim Spectre instantly got to his feet before Zeus could advance.

  “C’mon, Ghost! Give me whatcha got!” Zeus roared.

  The Grim Spectre charged in and feinted a right cross but instead swept the forward leg of Zeus, dropping him to the floor. The Spectre continued to spin into a wheel kick off of his back leg right to Zeus’ jaw.

  The sound of the impact was like thunder!

  Zeus fell over backward with blood spraying heavily from his mouth.

  “You sonuvabitch,” Zeus mumbled through bloody teeth, “That hurt like hell.”

  “Surrender now, Zeus and you can spend the rest of the night shackled to a nice hospital bed.”

  “Are you kiddin’ me? Do you really think I’ll be arrested here? I have an ‘arrangement’ with the mayor and the cops of Riverburgh. You’ll never get me arrested here.”

  “Maybe not, Phylo Zeus, but I am sure the state police would have something different to say. So what is it going to be, mortal? Do we continue this dance of pain and death or do you surrender?”

  Zeus crawled backward along the floor, putting some distance slowly between them.

  The Grim Spectre walked several steps, quickly recovering the gap.

  “What are you doing, Zeus? This game is over. End this foolishness.”

  Zeus pulled out the gun he had just recovered from the floor and aimed it at The Grim Spectre, “It ain’t over until I say so, Ghost. This is my town; I run it, I own it. It runs by my rules. I call the shots!” he roared, “An’ right now the shot I call is your death.”

  He began to fire the gun. The first bullet missed the Spectre, who leaped to the side, but the second winged him across the ribcage leaving a trail of blood through the air.

  “I gotcha, you sonuvabitch. Not so impossible ta shoot without yer fancy magic, are ya?”

  The Grim Spectre crawled away from Zeus; every movement elicited a new blinding hot nail of agony driven through his side.

  ‘C’mon, get up!’ he chided himself.

  “Time ta die, Ghost. This is over, finally. Wit’ you outta the way things go back to normal an’ this city gets back to doin’ business the way I say it should. Say goodbye, freak. You’re goin’ back to hell or wherever you came from.”

  Zeus raised the gun and sighted down the barrel at The Grim Spectre.

  Zeus sneered, “What? Nothin’ more ta say? Too bad; I guess I’ll say g’night then, Ghosty”

  Zeus began to pull the trigger when a figure hurtled out of the darkness screaming like a banshee!

  “Raaaahhhh!”

  Zeus turned toward the sound and was tackled by the shadowed figure. A smaller man was wrestling with Zeus when the gun went off three more times, and both men fell to the ground.

  The Grim Spectre fought his way to his feet, clutching his blood red stained side, and made his way toward the two men. One of them pushed the other off of him. The limp body rolled into the light.

  “Joey DeLuca,” The Grim Spectre said.

  Zeus aimed the gun at The Spectre from the floor and fired, but all he was greeted by was the sound of empty clicks. In exasperation he threw the gun away.

  “No more bullets, murderer?” the Spectre said.

  “I don’t need ‘em. Ghost-man. I can take you out with my bare freakin’ hands.”

  Zeus lunged at The Grim Spectre, both hands outstretched for his throat.

  But The Grim Spectre was ready this time. Even though wracked with pain, he quickly side stepped the leaping brute and whacked down hard on his neck with the edge of his right hand.

  Zeus tumbled to the ground.

  “No more games,” The Grim Spectre said, rage and adrenaline empowering him, “no more guns, no more powers. We’ll finish this like men and so help me, I’ll free this city from your hellish grip, you demented madman.”

  Beneath his mask, Bobby grimaced at the pain he was feeling, but he was not going to think about it or let it show.

  He advanced on the brute, who brought his own hands up for the final battle.

  Then both men came together. The Grim Spectre feinted right, and then unleashed a powerful side thrust kick to his foes gut.

  It was like kicking a wall.

  Zeus roared and swung a powerful fist down at The Grim Spectre’s head, impacting cruelly and almost knocking him out with that one blow.

  The Spectre staggered backward. Then, recovering quickly, he sent a snap kick off of his rear foot into Zeus’ knee. The crunch of bone could be heard reverberating around the room.

  Zeus stumbled and groaned in pain, “I’ll kill you, you sonuvabitch.”

  The Grim Spectre’s only reply was a left roundhouse kick to Zeus’ ribcage, knocking the man completely to the floor.

  With a howl Zeus landed on his injured knee, and then rolled to his left, trying to avoid The Grim Spectre’s next strike.

  But he was an instant too slow. The Grim Spectre punched him in the face with the fury of a man working a bag. Hitting him left-right, left-right with no let up. Zeus tried to strike back, but The Grim Spectre merely stepped away and then continued his onslaught from the opposite side. He no longer felt the burning pain in his side, all he felt was a burning hatred of Phylo Zeus, the crime lord of Riverburgh.

  Between blows, Zeus brought both his fists together and slammed them into the Spectre’s ribs, on the spot still streaming blood, knocking him sideways.

  Beneath his mask, Bobby gasped for air.

  ‘I can’t let up, if I do for an instant, I die.’

  Zeus crawled to a workbench and pulled himself up to it. He stared with hate filled eyes at The Grim Spectre, his own face a bloody mess now. He picked up a wooden stool and, limping badly, charged at The Grim Spectre with it.

  The Spectre feebly put up a hand to fend it off, and it was smashed to pieces across his arm, head and body.

  The Grim Spectre tumbled to the ground.

/>   “I gotcha now, you bastard. I gotcha now,” Zeus mumbled through a blood filled mouth.

  “No Zeus,” The Grim Spectre replied, “I have you.”

  Zeus brought both his fists up to smash down on the Spectre’s back, but The Grim Spectre moved faster, with one last herculean effort, he put all his strength and effort into one last punch, into one last blow with his right fist and using every muscle in his body he swung his right fist from the ground up, twisting and launching himself upward, to connect with the underside of Zeus’ jaw.

  The blow sounded like a crack of thunder within the room. Zeus stumbled backward an instant, then locked a hate filled gaze with The Grim Spectre, before his own eyes rolled up into his head, and he fell face first to the floor like a tree cut down in the woods.

  The Grim Spectre stood there warily, fists still held up and at the ready when he heard a moaning from nearby. He limped over to Joey DeLuca, who was gurgling blood now. It ran down his face into a puddle near the side of his head.

  “D-did you get ‘im?” DeLuca asked weakly.

  The Grim Spectre nodded, and then said, “Yes, he is down. I don’t think he’ll be getting up anytime soon.”

  “G-good. T-thanks by the w-way. Thanks for givin’ me a chance, when no one else would.” DeLuca choked and coughed, and then continued, “Did I do good, Grim Spectre? Did I help ya out?”

  “You did DeLuca, you saved me. I could not have defeated him without you. You redeemed yourself.”

  “Good, that’s what I was hopin’ for, ta make up for all the bad things I did. I’m glad I helped ya.”

  Then Joey DeLuca gurgled once more and the light in his eyes went out for the final time. With a saddened sigh, The Grim Spectre closed the dead man’s eyes.

  “Why didn’t you just shoot him?”

  Bobby turned toward the voice and saw Tammy and Buraglia approaching him from the doorway.

  “I said, why didn’t you just shoot him?” Buraglia reiterated.

  “Because he had to be beaten, mortal. He had to be defeated genuinely and completely; and he had to know it.”

  Both Tammy and Buraglia looked at him curiously, and he pointed at the downed gangster.

  They nodded knowingly.

  “Grim Spectre, what are you going to do with him?”

  “He is going to a state police barracks as the police in this city cannot be trusted.”

  “I understand,” Tammy said.

  “What about his chemicals on the rooftop?” Buraglia asked.

  “It was not regular ice. It was taking far too long to melt. I believe the melting point of those chemicals affected it as a whole. In any event I will contact Professor Morris at the university immediately upon our leaving here. He will know how to deal with those dangerous blocks of frozen chemicals, and if he does not, one of his colleagues will.”

  The Grim Spectre moved to the inclined examination tables both he and Tammy had been strapped to, and quickly stripped two straps off of them. He grabbed the unconscious Zeus’s wrists and wrapped them up tight, and then he took the other strap and tied it around Zeus’ ankles, hobbling him.

  “Now what?” Buraglia asked.

  “Now I take you both out of here and return for this.” He looked disdainfully at Zeus.

  “What are you waiting for?” Tammy asked.

  “For my magic to return, to be able to fly again. This thug used some of Baron Popadoo’s voodoo powder on me and my abilities disappeared.”

  As if in response to his comments The Grim Spectre suddenly floated into the air and began to glow brightly.

  “Come, it is time for you to go,” he said to them both.

  Chapter 44

  Bobby and Tammy sat in the same outdoor café they had breakfast in a few short months ago and watched the pedestrian traffic go past.

  “The city’s different now,” Tammy said, “it’s brighter somehow, less fearful. It’s, I don’t know, happier?”

  “Mmm-hmm,” Bobby agreed while drinking his coffee.

  “Is that all you have to say?” she asked angrily.

  “What do you want me to say, Tammy? The city is different, The Grim Spectre cleaned up the corruption, but so far only half the job is done, and we both know it.”

  He placed his coffee mug down and while he did, Tammy removed a paper from her lap. She had it hidden and waiting there from the moment they sat down five minutes earlier.

  “Maybe more than you or The Grim Spectre know, trumpet man.” She slid the paper across the table to him; on the cover was a picture of the mayor being led from city hall in handcuffs, with the cover blurb reading ‘Mayor arrested on racketeering charges.’ The byline was by Tammy Thomas.

  Bobby looked at the cover a moment and laughed, “So it looks like you got your story and old Phylo turned on his co-conspirator in the end.”

  “That’s what it looks like at least,” Tammy agreed.

  “So I guess all’s well that ends well then, except for the next corrupt politician to take Winston’s place.”

  “And the next gangster to fill Zeus’ shoes,” Tammy said.

  “Hey, whatever comes, I’m sure The Grim Spectre will be ready for it,” Bobby said.

  “I hope so; I’d hate to see this town revert to what it was before he got here.”

  “Not going to happen, not while I-I mean the Grim Spectre’s around,” Bobby answered.

  Then Bobby Terrano, professional musician, leaned forward and kissed her, and with a heartfelt smile Tammy Thomas, ace reporter, returned that kiss.

  ***

  The image of Bobby and Tammy seemed to waver and finally clicked off completely, leaving only blank air. The back of a man’s blonde haired head stood staring silently at the empty space when a voice intruded on his thoughts.

  “Sir? Are you all right?”

  “Hhmm? Yes, yes I’m fine,” the blonde haired man answered.

  He turned and faced the woman in his doorway who had posed the question.

  “A-are you certain sir? I-it’s just that you don’t seem fine. I-I’ve seen you watching and re-watching that holo clip over and over this past week.”

  “Do I have to remind you Ms. Dawson that this is not a holo clip but that I am actually watching that section of time as it happened?” He paused a moment and shook his head in reproach. “I’m sorry Jesse. I didn’t mean to snap at you like that. Since I created this technology that actually allows me to not only see a specific date in the past but travel to it I’ve been obsessed with this particular era. An era of thugs and criminals running rampant over cities and their citizens.”

  “I understand, Sir. I’ll let myself out, Dr. Terrano.”

  “Please Jesse, I’ve told you time and time again, when we’re alone you can call me Bobby.”

  “All right, Bobby, good night.”

  “Good night, Jesse. Make sure you lock the door on your way out. After all, even in the modern world of 3038 criminals still exist, and we have to be wary of them. Even in such a crime-free place as Riverburgh. I’ll watch you on the monitor as you walk out to your coupe.”

  Jesse turned and with one last smile left the office. She placed her hand upon the door and it automatically disappeared, allowing her to walk through the portal where the door had been to appear directly beside her air car. She touched the door handle and the door disappeared. She slid into the air coupe’s seat while the door reappeared and sealed up behind her. The air car floated upward and flew away out of the parking garage.

  Dr. Bobby Terrano, scientific visionary of the 31st century watched her disappear and shut the holo monitor off. He swiveled in his floating chair and looked at a showcase he had against the wall. In it was a blackened, wide metallic belt that was unmistakable and next to it was an ancient trumpet.

  Bobby Terrano walked over to the showcase and touched the glass. Instantly it disappeared at his touch. He fingered the metallic belt once and then walked away. Instantly the glass of the showcase reappeared.

  He walked b
ack over to his desk and sat down in his floating chair once more. Then he tapped a floating screen before him and said, “Dr. Robert Terrano, scientific visionary and futurist report on initiating ‘Project: The Grim Spectre.’ All is proceeding as I remember it happening. The nanite infused belt is now in my younger self’s hands. He, or I won’t discover that it is scientific in nature and not magic for some time yet. Still, He/I will face true magic users many times between then and now, and if all continues along apace I will be here to report on it every step of the way, as I remember it. Now that my time portal has been completed and is working I can not only visit myself in the past, as I have already done, but interact with myself, giving myself lifesaving advice along the way. The possibilities are endless now. My past self won’t discover for some time that the nanites can not only heal him but are also making him immortal as they fuse with his body on a sub-atomic level.”

  He looked at the display case and the burned metallic belt within and then continued, “By the time He/I do he will face the first real loss of his young life. I can, of course, move forward in his timeline to the moment of his/our loss, but I prefer to watch all of the events leading up to it unfold before I return to aid and tutor him for what will come. It is best he has no idea who or what the glowing man in the disk is who saved his life in that alleyway so many months ago (to him). I do not believe my own mind at the time in 1937 would be ready for such a revelation as My/Himself still being alive eleven centuries in the future, or even more implausible, that He/I came back in time to save His/My own life and give him the nanotech belt. It is a revelation that both of us will take time to discover.”

  He touched the virtual screen hanging before him and it winked off. Then he leaned back in his floating chair, steepling his fingers before his face pensively, in deep thought.

  The End

  The Grim Spectre appendix

  Bobby Terrano-The Grim Spectre

  Carl-One of Zeus more trusted thugs.

  Carson-Captain of the police force in Riverburgh and the crooked Mayor Winston’s chief enforcer.

  George Kowalski-Editor in chief of the Riverburgh Gazette.