A Dead-End Job

by Justin Alcala

  “Mein Freund, what the hell is taking Jumbo so long?” Adam snapped a hag-child’s back like a chicken over his knee.

  “Damn it.” Dillinger unloaded the rest of Thing Two’s clip into the conga line of hag- children. Where one fell, another two replaced it. “I almost forgot. I’m supposed to text him. Hold onto your wigs, I’ll dial him up now and he can activate—” Dillinger froze, his free hand in his coat. I watched his nostrils flare. “Oh, no. You have to be kidding me.”

  “What?” I fired Thing One’s last bullet into a hag-child before holstering her. My legs and arms weren’t getting the feeling back in them soon enough. I closed my eyes, held my breath, and tried to concentrate. I thought about the cold feel of ectoplasm that usually worked on its own, trying to beckon it. I could feel little pinpricks in my arms and legs. I opened them. A cotton like smoke steamed from my wrists and shins.

  “No freaking way,” I mumbled, arm held out like a hand model.

  “My phone,” Dillinger sizzled, ignoring me. “I must have dropped it when I was wrestling with that clown.”

  “Dillinger,” I fizzed while a hag-child with a safari suit tried to corner me. I crescent kicked the hag-boy, dropping him to his knees. “Every time you say something, I get a fierce desire to tell you to shut up again. We’re all going to die trying to get that phone.”

  Dillinger delivered a lightning-fast set of jabs before upper cutting a girl in a strawberry bonnet. She collapsed into a heap. He flashed Adam a look.

  “It’s true.” Adam knocked over two hag-kids with one swing. “It’s getting too hot down there. I wasn’t so much as rescuing you all as much as I was retreating.”

  Dillinger’s arm flashed at the speed of awesome into a hag-child, cracking its teeth with a haymaker before he adjusted Luna on his shoulder. “Well then, we need to pull out. Go back to the truck. We’ll have to fight ‘em off us until we’re safe.”

  The three of us stared at the path between ourselves and Adam’s truck. It was covered in kids that were awake way past their bedtime. We wouldn’t get but twenty feet before they smothered us. I stared at Luna’s sleeping body slung over Dillinger.

  “Luna first,” I reminded everyone. “I’ll run the distraction. Once you see an opening, go.”

  “No, Abercrombie.” Dillinger shook his head. “You’re not going to sacrifice yourself too. If we run fast enough, we can, gah—” A low crawling hag-child bit into Dillinger’s calf. Dillinger’s fangs protruded and his eyes flickered gold. I saw the monster beneath Dillinger’s skin. He grabbed at the hag-child, pulled it up to his own mouth, and bit its throat, tearing out a chunk. After dropping the wriggling body to the ground, he corrected. “Okay, fine. Let’s stop bumping gums and get out of here. Buck, do whatever it is you’re about to do.”

  I kissed Luna on her forehead and readied for the stupidest last-minute plan I’ve ever come up with. “Get me to the ledge.”

  Adam didn’t hesitate. He made like a rhinoceros and charged through a flock of hag-children. I followed behind, then put my feet on the hole’s edge. This was going to be a leap of faith. I raised the rifle over my head and cleared my throat.

  “Listen up, old-timers,” I cried out. “I killed your evil mommy and daddy. Now, unless you want to join them, I suggest you return to your Murder She Wrote. By the way, thanks for ruining social security.”

  A thousand beady eyes stared up at me. I think they understood. All at once, hundreds of tapping feet clinked along the construction site’s cement. They were coming for me, and they wanted blood.

  I stretched my arms up and closed my eyes. What the hell was I doing? This was stupid, illogical and suicidal. Then again, that summed up my life. I imagined being covered in webs of cloudy ectoplasm, acting as a conduit to the strange haunting residue. I breathed and willed it out of me. With my eyes still closed, I leaned my body forward to fall from the ledge.

  The roller coaster feeling pulled at my insides. I continued to imagine the threads of ectoplasm all around me. A chill ran along my skin, a burden of heavy sadness like when I’d entered Death’s doorway, and then a tug. Suddenly, my body jerked upwards. I felt weightless. Melancholy chilled my bones.

  An image of Death filled my mind’s eye. I could see his flowing robes, arched skeletal hands and lanky body standing in the midst of a cloud of endless fog. He pointed to me, lurched forward, and eight sets of wings ripped from Death’s back. At once he lifted to the sky. He fluttered in place for a moment before the thought faded away.

  I opened my eyes again. My body hovered arms reach above angry children, cloaked in a cape of grey vapors. A mask of ectoplasm tendrils shaped like a skull hovered over my face. I’d taken a cloudy form of Death. Sweet. The hag-children leapt from their tippy toes, nearly clipping my feet. I focused my conscience to soar higher above the ledge. I rose up. I looked to Dillinger, Adam holding sleeping Luna, who stared in astonishment.

  “You see this shit?” I laughed.

  “You’re doing it, Peter Pan.” Dillinger adjusted Luna on his shoulder. “You’re learning to fly.”

  “Get out of here.” I wobbled in the air. “I don’t know how long I can keep this up.” Dillinger gave a half-salute with his free hand. With Luna on his shoulder, he and Adam fought their way toward the main ladder up to the surface. The hag-children hissed under me. I searched downward near the crates. Sure enough, Dillinger’s cell phone lay near his original ambush point. Several hag-children nearly stood on it. I landed on the perch of the fourth-floor balcony and waited for the children to stampede their way to me. They clambered on walls, ran along the Spiral’s floor, and anything else they could do to come get me. I egged them on.

  “Ha! I killed Dub. I killed Rosita. Daddy and mommy are gone.”

  I waited patiently, watching them climb over one another to get me.

  “Hey, maybe when I’m done here, I’ll go find out where you play bingo and burn it down.”

  Once the front line was so close they could claw me, I pushed off the ledge and directed myself to the phone. The strange ectoplasm pull whirled me past the ladder. Devil-kids leapt from the balcony, missing and plunging below. I slung the rifle back on my back, aimed my body in the direction of the phone, and focused on darting to its location.

  My body cannonballed toward the crates at alarming speeds. Midway through flight, however, the sheer magnitude of what I was doing startled me. I started losing focus. The drape of ectoplasm misted back into me. Gravity began to follow up on its responsibilities. I fell two stories and twenty feet shy of the phone. I could hear my knees pop as I tried to land feet first. The pain was unbearable, but the army of little feet rerouting their charge toward my direction told me that I didn’t have much time. I stood up, limping to the phone.

  Smash.

  A hag-child leapt on my back and bit into my shoulder. The sting caused me to reflexively grab at its head and pry it off me, taking some of my clamped flesh along with it. A second hag-child clung to my leg, ripping into my tendons with its mouth. I twirled to kick the dead weight off my leg, only to take in a wall of hag-children within fifteen yards from me. The distance between me and the phone was too great. I wasn’t going to make it.

  I kicked the kid off, screamed with everything I had to fight through the pain, and broke into a harrowing sprint. The agony nearly made me pass out. I leapt on the phone just as another hag-child clamped onto my back. I bit off my leather glove and activated the phone’s interface as another hag-child crashed on me, followed by yet another. Before long they were piled all over, taking bits and pieces from any part exposed. I looked at the screen with an eye freshly jabbed by a finger.

  Enter your six-digit code.

  “Dillinger,” I roared as something bit off my ear. “Did you forget to tell me something before I left?” There was no reply. What the hell could Dillinger’s code be. My arm snapped from the weight of the piling hag-children. I took a wild guess as a pink tutu clawed my temples.

  “Here goes nothi
ng.”

  07-22-34.

  The phone released. Dillinger had used his date of death. I head butted the girl trying to eat my brains, tugged my hand away from a boy with elephant patterned pajamas, and chose Wheels from the contact list.

  “Yo, dude,” Jumbo greeted. “You ready?”

  “Jumbo, do it!”

  “Roger that, man.”

  I heard a click from the other side of the receiver. Suddenly, the weight on top of me convulsed in all directions. I looked about as every hag-child standing over me fell to the ground, grabbing their hearts or heads as they dropped dead. Jumbo was worried that the plan wouldn’t work, but apparently he’d figured out how to use his Death program in order to kill the hag- children. I was saved!

  Well, kind of.

  My body collapsed lifelessly for a moment, letting the rattling monsters atop me pass. I could feel blood flow from my body. All of my wounds hemorrhaged. I started to get cold, and my vision tunneled. I’d done this dance before. My body was dying. As my limbs went cold, my neck went slack, and everything faded into the blackness. Death had become me.

  When I woke up again, everything was still. My body was worn. My mind was tired. My claustrophobia that I didn’t know I had was in full gear. Translucent threads steamed from under my arched body. The ectoplasm was patching me up but not as quickly as I’d like it to. I heard shouting not too far away.

  “Buck,” Adam’s thick accent called out. I could see from under a claw slung on top of my head that Adam was picking up corpses and flinging them over his shoulder. “Buck, where are you, my friend?”

  Wow, friend. Life was perking up.

  I heard Dillinger’s voice, then Selena’s, and Ardicus’ too. They were all calling out for me. I blew strings of hair that looked like they belonged on the top of dirty mop out of my mouth.

  “Wrong haystack,” I moaned.

  “Buck,” Adam celebrated, crunching his way to me. I could hear the smashing of bodies beneath Adam’s boots before he reached me. He lifted the carcasses on top. “Buck, you idiot.” He dragged me up.

  “Ow,” I screamed in agony, my bones still mending. “Why don’t you stop touching me and go slip into something more comfortable.” I grimaced as my ribs throbbed. “Preferably a coma.”

  Adam roared with laughter as the group caught up. John was covered in hag-muck while Selena and Ardicus helped carry Luna. She wore a cheap rain poncho that was far too big for her. She gave a weak smile from under her wet hood.

  “Hey, Selena Gomez, Ken Doll,” I spoke up. “Do me a favor and put the kid next to me please.”

  “That’s not who I was named after,” Selena defended.

  “Yeah, sure.” I cringed while muscles readjusted under my skin. “Just put the kid down, would you?” The dynamic duo placed Luna down beside me. Luna went to lean in but stopped when she saw the gore all over me. I smiled at her hesitation, then dug in for a cigarette. The group stared as I put the stick in my mouth. “What? I earned it. Now, please, give us a moment.”

  Dillinger nodded. “Okay, everyone. Let’s get to work. There’s a lot of cleaning up to do. Ardicus, get us a room. The closer the better. Selena, put DuSable on the phone. We’re going to need to get this all removed before authorities come. Adam, did you have to leave the headlights on in the truck? We don’t want to draw any more attention than we already have. Come on, people.”

  I waited for Dillinger’s orders to fade from ear shot before facing Luna. Her face went blank as a cirrus of pearly ectoplasm spewed out from a bite mark, weaving my skin back together, before dipping back into my arm.

  “Yeah, I’m getting used to it, too.” I puffed my freshly lit cigarette. “Hey, I just wanted to say that I’m sorry I left you alone in the apartment. That,” I shook my head and wafted out secondhand smoke. “That was dumb. Can you forgive me?”

  Luna’s face turned scarlet. She rubbed at her arm and her forehead creased. After a second, she looked up at me and punched my arm playfully.

  “Thanks, kid. You’re as tough as they come. On that note, I also wanted to tell you that I’ll never leave you alone again. That is, if you wanted that.”

  Luna’s brow curled as she pressed together her lips. She looked puzzled.

  “I mean, I know that you’re a werewolf and I’m working for the Grim Reaper, so there’ll be a lot of challenges, but I,” I stuttered. I was having trouble trying to tell Luna what I really wanted. I finally spit out, “Did you want to live with me, maybe?”

  Luna blinked several times, just as I thought it couldn’t get any more awkward, she began to laugh. It was the first time I’d heard true vocals that weren’t screaming or sobbing from the girl. She covered her smile, holding onto her stomach as she continued.

  “So,” I hummed. “Does that mean yes or no?”

  Luna lifted her head, still laughing. She nodded and punched me in the arm again. Watching her giggle stirred a chuckle in my own gut. My belly tickled, and soon enough the pair of us sounded like a pack of hyenas.

  “By the way,” I chuckled. “I think you have some hag-hair in between your teeth. We’re really going to need to get you to a dentist with those eating habits.” Luna and I continued to tear up from self-amusement and relief at the bottom of that hole.

  I’ll tell you what, life can be brutal. Life can be strange. Hell, sometimes, there’s just no way to describe it.

  That night I learned two things though.

  One, I wasn’t the guy I thought I was anymore. I’d changed for the better this last week. I’m pretty sure of it.

  And two, sometimes a good laugh fixes everything.

  25

  Luna curled herself in a hotel towel alongside me while shoving a peanut butter sandwich in her mouth. She’d already downed a soft pretzel, chicken quesadilla, and the rest my flat iron steak. The girl must have burned off some serious calories. Once she’d licked the peanut butter goodness from her fingers, she scoured the tray for anything else that was edible. Only Jumbo’s turkey club remained.

  “Holy crap, dudette,” Jumbo laughed from his scooter. He was watching in amazement. “You eat like a pothead on four-twenty. Maybe we should have gone to a buffet.” Luna wagged her eyes between Jumbo and the turkey club. “Go on with your bad self, little one.” Luna shoved the meal into her mouth.

  We’d retired to the Congress Hotel for a post rescue mission debriefing. The establishment had been a favorite of Dillinger’s in life. The room had an elegant antique look to it and was far nicer than anything I’d ever lived in. We sat within the drawing room of our Lakefront Suite and discussed the aftermath. Dillinger stared out of the window as he spoke to DuSable over the phone. He was arranging for a cleanup crew to round up the hundreds of hag-children from the Chicago Spiral’s pit. Luckily, the late hour and downpour gave us time.

  “They’re called the Forgotten.” Adam sat on a sofa. “They are the poor souls left behind in retirement homes and hospitals. A witch or warlock offers them a dark contract in order to extend their life, warping their elderly minds and bodies in the process. Rosita’s master, Collin, perfected the process and has been collecting anyone foolish enough to take his deal. Rosita and Dub had a barge full of these creatures hiding along the riverbank.”

  “There you have it, dudes and dudettes,” Jumbo sighed. “Another reason why we need to improve the healthcare system for elderly. That is some sick shit.”

  “Don’t you kill old people all day through a computer program?” I challenged.

  “So,” he shrugged. “Also man, the program lays them to rest. I just designed it. I don’t corrupt their souls or anything.”

  “Right,” I said with a blank stare. “Anyhow, so like I said. If Dub, Rosita, and their freaky family of children are all dead, that only leaves The Mad Knight.”

  “You’re saying the dude helped you shoot Rosita?” Jumbo probed. “It just doesn’t make sense, man.”

  “I’m with you,” I agreed. “Like I said before though, the guy is c
razy. He offered me a counter alliance moments after his brother left my damn front room. That should be testament to his endless unpredictability.”

  Dillinger placed his hand over his phone’s receiver. “I highly doubt he will return any time soon. The Undead Union is already getting reports from Canada’s Post Mortem Federation of a green haired man, or maybe woman, teleporting across their borders. I think he’s going to lick his wounds.”

  “Especially after you stabbed him in the knee, dude,” Jumbo whistled. “Where the hell did you get a Mayan dagger from anyhow?”

  “Let’s get back to Luna.” I culled a soddened cigarette from my crushed pack. Luna slurped her soda, eyes focused on my smoke. “You’re telling me you can make moves in the mortal world so that I have custody of her? Because if so, I’d kill whoever you want.”

  “That’s easy, dude,” Jumbo pulled open his laptop. “Seeing that none of us, even her captors, have a record of her, I’ll just create a new identity and insert it into the right departments. That is unless you want to tell us who you are, sweetie?”

  Luna took another sip of her soda and then burped. The room looked at me as if I were going to step in to coax out her name, or at least an excuse me, from her. I shrugged.

  “I think that’s a no.” I winked at Luna. She smiled back.

  Jumbo typed rapidly at his computer. “I’m on the site now. I can just make up a name with a few clicks.” He peeked over his laptop. “Or I can put her in a federal database that protects kids. We could find her a good home?”

  I leaned in to Luna. “What do you say, kid, federal institution sounds mighty tempting.”

  Luna wiped her lips with the blanket and then grunted. She took her index finger and poked it hard onto my chest. It kind of hurts.

  What happened next, I never could have expected. She opened her mouth.

  “You,” she cooed with a voice as soft as prayer. I looked down and gave her a hug. She tolerated it. It felt good. When the moment reared its awkward point, I let her go, removed my lighter, and lit up my cigarette.