The man in black drew near. He smiled and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce myself. I am death, and death am I.”
Al felt cold. The man in black didn’t raise his voice, he didn’t shout, and he certainly wasn’t close enough for Al to hear him without doing one or the other, but Al heard him all the same.
“Now, I don’t want to take up any more of your time,” the man in black continued, “but I have business there in yonder house, and I’d truly appreciate it if y’all just stepped aside so that I may continue forth.”
Al looked to the people around him and found that they were all doing the same as him.
“I will not ask again,” the man in black said, his eyes going dark like coal. “There are limits to my good nature. You will move, or I will gun you all down were you stand and simply step over your lifeless bodies as I have done with your constable back there.”
No one moved.
The man in black pulled both revolvers, thumbed back the hammers, and said, “I did warn you.”
“Put them down, mister!” It was Jack Horner. He had stepped out from the back of an ambulance, a bandage wrapped around his head. He had his own gun drawn. It was one of those dark and blocky hand guns that all the best special agents and cops used in all the best television shows.
Al gaped as the man in black laughed, dropping his arms to his side and affecting a relaxed and carefree posture.
“Walk on, son,” the man said, a smile on his face. “I’m fresh out of warnings.”
Jack didn’t hesitate and opened fire. Three quick shots that took the man in black once in the head and twice in the chest. The man fell. Al jumped back in surprise.
That’s it ? Al thought as the sound of the three shots echoed off into the distance to be replaced by the shocked silence of those around him. He wasn’t prepared for the suddenness of it all. He would only have to wait a few more seconds however, to see that that , was most definitely not it .
“It’s over, folks,” Jack said, turning to Al and the crowd around him. “Now,” he paused, sliding the gun back into its holder under his shoulder. “I need five officers to accompany me into Griswold House.”
Men in uniform began to step forward as something stirred behind Jack. It was the man in black, who was still very much alive.
The man in black rose in a way that would never be mistaken for dramatic. He just simply pulled himself to his feet, groaning as old men do when they pull themselves out of a recliner. He brushed himself off, his revolvers still in his hands, tsking away like being shot three times was just one of those annoying things that one had to put up with on a daily basis, like being stuck in traffic, or seeing your computer freezing up.
Jack spun, drawing his gun as he turned. His movements were fluid, it was like ballet with Jack. Al began to gain a respect for Jack Horner that just wasn’t there before. Sure, he didn’t really know the man, but Al could see that Jack was the sort of guy that he would want at his back when the crap began to fall. Like, well. Like today.
“Stand down!” Jack fell naturally into a shooter’s stance, his gun in both hands. If he was at all fazed by the man in black’s miraculous resurrection he sure didn’t let it show. Al found respect in that as well.
The man in black didn’t respond with words. His retort was quick, sudden, and final. One shot and Jack dropped, never to move again.
“I am through playing around,” the man in black said, turning to the officers who had stepped forward at Jack’s request.
The man in black opened fire. Al had never seen anything like it. The man shot, over and over, never reloading, a never ending stream of bullets flying steadily forth as the people around him scattered. No one made it far before they were shot down. Every shot hit its mark, some finding more than one as the bullets sought out their targets, going through one body and then another. Some shots even appeared to curve, turning in midair as they exited one victim to take down whomever had been running alongside them.
The air grew thick with the sound of gunfire, the whine of the bullets, and the screams of the dying. Al had dropped to the ground and covered his head in his hands as everyone around him died. He knew it would just be a matter of time before he would be next.
Then, as suddenly as it had begun, it was over. To Al it was a lifetime, but in reality, the carnage lasted no more than two minutes. One hundred and twenty seconds, and fifty three people lay dead. Wives, husbands, fathers, sons, mothers, and daughters; people who were loved, who were needed, and who would be missed. All gone. All silenced forever with the squeezing of a trigger.
In the end Al found himself alone with the man in black. Al hadn’t moved. Fear had kept him rooted to the spot. Al looked to the man in black, the man who had called himself death, and the man in black smiled, showing teeth that were as dark as his eyes had become.
The man in black pointed both pistols at Al, and Al heard the man speak one last time. “I did warn them,” the man said, and then he squeezed the triggers.
Al’s last thought as he was cast into oblivion was of Rose, the waitress at the Chicken Coup out on Route 9. He wished he’d had a chance to find out what it would have felt like to kiss that woman, just once, and then he was no more.
* * * * * * * * *
What once was an unorganized mash up of parked fire trucks, police cruisers, ambulances, first responders, and household staff, was now nothing more than a feast for the crows, maggots, and other creatures that found life from the deaths of others.
Only the man in black, who called himself Doc, was left standing.
Doc blew smoke out of the barrels of each pistol, holstered both, and started toward the house, walking casually with a feline grace as he stepped over that which he had wrought.
“I did warn them,” Doc said aloud before he began to whistle a jaunty tune that sounded a bit like the theme song to I Love Lucy .
A moment later Doc was at the front door to Griswold House. He paused a moment and pulled a thin cigar from inside his coat. He produced a small box of wooden matches from the same pocket, struck one of the matches on the side of the box, and used it to light the cigar with great puffs.
After taking a few moments to enjoy his cigar, Doc reared back and kicked the door with such force that it didn’t just burst off the hinges, two feet of the wall surrounding the door went with it. The door and wall flew into the house, the door breaking into pieces on the main staircase.
Doc crossed the threshold and stood in the foyer of Griswold House, looking about with a smile on his face. He cupped a hand to the side of his mouth and called out in a voice that could be heard in every corner of the sprawling mansion, “Oh Lucy, I’m home!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
LUCY GOODNIGHT LED THE three bears on a merry chase through the upper levels of the house. She ran and the bears followed.
She hadn’t gone far when the sound of splintering wood was heard from the front of the house, causing Lucy to stop and listen.
The three bears had just caught up to her, huffing and puffing from the run, when a voice sounded all around them. A voice that Lucy found all too familiar. A voice that filled her veins with ice.
“Oh Lucy, I’m home!” the voice cried out and surrounded them as if the very air had become sound.
“No!” Lucy cried out.
“Who was that, Mommy?” the small bear rubbed at his ears with his fists.
“Goldilocks?” the big male bear asked, reaching out to take her arm.
But Goldilocks, Lucy, pulled free as the panic set it.
“Oh, God no!” Lucy yelled. “He’s here! He’s found me! Oh, God! Please, no!” And with th
at, she turned and ran even deeper into the house.
She had no idea where she was going, she just ran. She had no plan. No scheme. No clever trick or ruse that could get her clear from this place, or from this moment. She just ran.
Her only thought, her only motivation, her sole purpose in life at this moment in time was to get as far away as possible. Far away from him. So she ran.
She couldn’t think. She couldn’t reason. She only knew panic. Panic and disbelief. She thought she had made a clean escape. She thought that she was free. She wasn’t. He had found her. Her husband, Doc, had found her. And for the first time in years, she truly remembered what fear felt like. So she ran.
She could hear the bears following her as she made her way deeper into the house, choosing paths at random. The bears were yelling her name, shouting for her to stop, but she wouldn’t listen. She wasn’t about to stop. They didn’t understand. No one understood what she had gone through all those years with him. What he had done. What she had been made to suffer. Nobody understood but her. Well, her and Doc. And the Devil too, she supposed.
So she ran. Her fear building with each step.
Fear is a great motivator and teaching tool, second only to pain. You get fear and pain together, take them out for a few drinks, let them spend some good quality time really getting to know each other, and with a team like that at your side, there isn’t much you can’t accomplish.
The team of Fear and Pain is not infallible, however. Lucy is proof of that. She had spent years under their collective thumb, guided by her husband. She had suffered under his torture, both physical and emotional. Living with the fear that made up the bars of her cage. Living with the pain that was the lock.
Yet, in the end, Lucy had found the will to resist. In the end, she had found something deep within her that had very well had enough, and so she had left. Everyone had a line. A line that they have placed between what they will and what they will not accept. Doc had crossed that line.
But the fear was still there. And so Lucy ran like a woman possessed. She made two right turns, three left turns, another right, and then two more lefts. She found a flight of stairs and went up them, turning left at the top. She ran through rooms with televisions, couches, and lamps. She ran through rooms with exercise equipment. She ran through bathrooms, a large room containing an Olympic sized swimming pool, and a library with more books on the shelves than Lucy had ever seen.
Lucy suddenly found herself at the end of a long hallway. Before her rose a door stretching to the ceiling. A door so large that one might find its twin on the house at the top of Jack’s beanstalk. The sheer size of the door intrigued Lucy, and for a time, her fear vanished. And then, for just a moment, Lucy wondered, in a whimsical sort of way, if a giant gorilla might live in the room beyond the great door. She smiled as the thought occurred to her.
Regardless, just looking at the thing, Lucy realized she wasn’t going through the door. Not without a little finesse, a bit of luck, and a thermonuclear bomb. The door gave off an air of impenetrability that even Gandalf the Grey would respect and no Balrog would dare debate. It didn’t have a handle, only a 10-digit electronic keypad. The door left Lucy with a choice to make. Go back the way she had come, or fall to the floor in defeat and just give the whole thing up.
While a part of her felt some comfort in the whole “giving up” idea, Lucy decided to soldier on. Because, while fear and pain, the two great motivators, had kept her in her husband’s clutches for all those years, the two worked just as hard now to keep her out. But before Lucy could move, the three bears came jogging around the corner at the other end of the hall, trapping her with her back to the door to King Kong’s room.
“Goldilocks,” the female bear said. “Thank God.”
“Where are you running to, girl?” asked the big male.
“You need to move,” Lucy said, trying to push past the bears.
“Now hold on there, missy,” the big male said, grabbing her by her left wrist.
Lucy swung around and punched the big bear right on the nose. He yelled in pain, but didn’t let go of her arm.
“Dangit, girl!” the big male shouted.
Lucy punched him again.
“Stop it!,” he yelled.
Lucy punched him again. Or at least she tried. This time the big male was ready. He caught her other wrist. Then he lifted her into the air. He held her there, her feet dangling off the floor, and brought her to eye level.
“Now,” the bear said, “before you get to thinking about kicking me somewhere that might seriously disappoint my wife, know that I will pull both of your arms from their sockets if you try.”
Lucy believed him. She could see by the look in his eyes that he could, and would, do exactly as he threatened.
“You ready to stop running and let us try and help you?” the bear asked, still holding her off of the ground. “If you are, I’ll let you down.”
Lucy nodded, a frown on her face.
“Okay then,” the bear said, setting her down. “Why don’t we try this all over again. My name is Burt.” He held his hand out to her.
Lucy took the bear’s hand, Burt’s hand. She could have fit two of her hands in his. They shook and she said, “I’m Goldilocks, well … Lucy. Goldilocks is a lie.”
“I don’t understand,” Burt said, his brow furrowing in thought.
“It’s really too long of a story to explain, and we don’t have time now that he’s found me. Please we need to leave,” the panic had begun to set in again.
“Goldilocks, or Lucy, or whatever, I believe in doing things right and proper. There is time for introductions and explanations,” he then gestured to the female bear behind him. “This here pretty lady behind me is my wife, Beatrice.”
Beatrice and Lucy shook hands as Lucy looked about her, wondering when Doc would turn the corner beyond the bears.
“And this handsome young man,” said Burt, gesturing for the smaller bear to come forward. “Is our boy, Danny.”
Lucy held her hand out to shake, but Danny pushed past her hand and enveloped her in a hug, just like before. The hug made Lucy feel … well, great, and for a moment, her fear vanished and she felt safe. There was something so purely genuine about the hug that she just couldn’t resist hugging back.
Then Danny let go, and went to hide behind his mother again.
“Alright then, now that we know each other, why don’t you tell us what this is all about,” Burt said. “What are you running from?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Try me.”
“Does it have anything to do with that handsome young man with the sword we saw in the Brick House parking lot,” said Beatrice.
“Him? No, that’s Tim. He’s, well . . . he was my boyfriend,” Lucy said.
“Is that who you are running from?” Burt asked.
“No, not really. I mean, yes, he’s chasing me. But he’s not who I’m running from. He’s only chasing me because I’m running.” Lucy said with a smile that showed she knew it sounded silly.
“Okay,” said Burt. “So who are you running from?”
“Doc Holliday.”
Burt laughed.
“It’s not a joke,” Lucy said.
“Wait a minute,” Burt said. “Doc Holliday? The Doc Holliday? Like, the guy with the Earps and the O.K. Corral? The guy that died over a hundred years ago? That Doc Holliday?”
“Yes,” said Goldilocks, looking down. “He’s my husband.”
“Your husband!?” A voice shouted behind her.
Lucy turned. Standing there at the other end of the hall, a
look of shock and betrayal on his face, was Tim, the Beast.
“Tim,” said Lucy, stepping toward him, guilt in her voice.
“No,” the Beast said, holding one hand out before him, the other covering his face. “No, don’t.” He staggered, took a couple of steps back, and for the third time that day, passed out, crumpling into a heap on the floor.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
JOHN HENRY ‘DOC’ HOLLIDAY died of tuberculosis at the age of thirty-six in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, on November 8th, 1887.
It was then that his new life began.
It has been said that on the day that Doc Holliday died, God and the Devil fought for possession of his soul.
The Devil won.
Doc was a man who, when alive, walked a line each and every day. A thin line between good and evil. Doc had within him the potential to do much good, but also the potential to do great evil. Doc was noble, yet cruel. Loyal to his friends, yet unmerciful to his enemies. Doc Holliday had a dark side, which was apparent to anyone who knew him. And the Devil wanted that dark side. The Devil had plans for John Henry “Doc” Holliday.
And so, on the day that he had passed from this world, Doc Holliday was taken into the fiery pits of Hell. There he spent the next fifty years in agony as Hell’s minions reshaped him. Blackened his soul. Changed him by removing from him that which was unwanted and enhancing that which Hell found desirable.
The denizens of Hell began their work on Doc by erasing his compassion, his nobility, everything in him that had the potential to make him a good man, exorcising it completely from his being. Then they upgraded those qualities within him that could, and would, be used for evil. His willingness to kill. His bloodlust. His cruelty and selfishness. All the traits that made the name ‘Doc Holliday’ strike fear in men and woman all throughout the Old West.
When Hell was done with him, Doc Holliday no longer resembled the man who stood by the side of Wyatt Earp, putting his life on the line to help his friend. That Doc would recognize certain aspects of the new Doc’s nature, but the old version would be afraid of the new. Doc was no longer a man. Doc was a creature of Hell.
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