Mystery Men (& women) Volume 1

by B C Bell

  So who, I began to wonder, would this woman be? What would be her motivation? Why would she don a disguise and go off into the shadows of the city and mercilessly hunt down those who did evil? I thought of the last story I had had released by Airship 27. It was a western featuring Wild Bill Hickok and the primary theme of the story was revenge. Revenge always works.

  I also thought of World War II and how, with so many young men off fighting and dying in Europe and the Pacific, it often fell to the women left behind to fill the factory jobs and other jobs that had been the domain of men before the war took them away.

  So, I decided, our mystery woman would have to step into a role vacated by a man, with revenge or, to phrase it more positively, justice as her guiding motivation. I came up with poor young Alice Carter, widow of a slain young policeman; finding herself suddenly alone and, to make matters worse, without any closure, any understanding of what forces had led to her husband being taken away from her.

  Love is taken away from Alice, and then the authorities, those who people THINK they can count on to help them in times of need, turn their backs on Alice and her need to find answers. That would send anyone into a spiraling descent into grief and anger and borderline insanity. At that point, I suspect, one might very well end up in a permanent state of depression, rage, and mental imbalance. The trick is to know when to stop the downward slide and turn that angry energy into something useful and even constructive. Alice Carter does that…and the Red Veil is born.

  A broken heart, an unavenged murder, unanswered questions, a police badge cut to shreds by a bereaved widow, a wedding dress dyed crimson and black, a childhood that taught a young girl to fend for herself when need be, a corruption within the police department, a dual personality, and an image designed to scare the pants off any criminal who crosses Alice’s path! I threw all these ingredients into the cauldron and the Red Veil was born!

  I had an absolute blast writing this one. There’s a wonderful beauty in this woman scorned and I don’t think she’s done confronting evil yet. I hope you enjoy this first tale of the Red Veil and I hope you’ll come back for more when I write another one. If I have my way, the Red Veil will be haunting the waking dreams of New York’s underworld for a long time to come.

  As I look back at the writing of “Hell Hath No Fury…” I can see some of the creators that went before me who have influenced me in this project. There’s a little of the Universal Horror movies in there; maybe that’s where the image of the costume that I had in my head came from. I am also, of course, indebted to those who created the Shadow and the Spider and the Black Bat and even Batman for creating the template upon which the Red Veil is, to some extent, modeled. And I should also mention the great HBO television series Rome. In an episode of the show’s first season, the character of Servilia, normally a composed, serene woman of high social standing, becomes so enraged by certain injustices done to her that she kneels before an altar, enacts a rite of vengeance form the Roman civilization’s religion, and sits there, in a voice so full of anger and hate and power as to render its sound almost otherworldly, she proceeds to lay a curse upon those who have wronged her, imploring various gods of the inferno to exact revenge upon them. That chilling performance by actress Lindsay Duncan was certainly in the back of my mind when I wrote the scenes where Alice speaks not with her usual voice, but as the Red Veil. So my story set in the 1930s was partially influenced by a TV show from the 2000’s that was set two thousand years in the past. It’s strange how those things work out.

  AARON SMITH - has had stories published in numerous books from Airship 27 Productions. His work has appeared in Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective Volume 1, Dan Fowler G-Man Volume 1, Lance Star Sky Ranger Volume 2, The Masked Rider Volume 1, and the novel Season of Madness.

  He is the creator of The Red Veil and Hound Dog Harker. He has also written a science fiction novel, Gods and Galaxies, which will soon be published. More stories by Smith are also in the works for the Airship 27 line of pulp anthologies. He is currently working on a horror novel.

  Gridiron

  “First Down”

  By David Boop

  Gridiron (grdrn) (n) - a hunk of metal used to heat things up.

  Now

  He awoke to pain. He was the pain and the pain was him. He’d known physical pain, had caused it, but not like this. This he couldn’t control, as he’d done so many times in the past. There was no drug, no workout, no therapy for the pain. He could, however, give the pain a voice and so he raged until the pain went away and the rage was all that was left.

  ***

  Sharky wasn’t a clever nickname by any stretch of the imagination. A loan shark by trade, he felt coming up with a cleverer nickname was a waste of time better spent on separating rubes from their money. When someone came to Sharky for a loan, they knew exactly what they were getting into, so he never listened to the whiners and complainers.

  “I’m a shark,” he’d say when a client would beg for mercy, “I’ve got to eat.”

  As he closed up his deli on Third, he considered giving the front up once again, as it took time away from the real moola. The local mob was taking a bigger and bigger cut of his action and the store itself wasn’t doing all that great. He had inventories to keep up and, as it was, he kept some of his stock in the case longer than recommended. That’d be all he’d need; someone to get sick or die; then all that rainy day money he’d squirreled away would be gone.

  After the door was locked and the sign turned off, Sharky took the cash drawer to the back. He opened the safe, stuck the whole tray in, and looked at the piles of Franklins above it. He wished for a moment he could just take a stack and run, but he knew there was no place in the world he could hide from The Giordanos. He was better off just trying to reduce his losses and plan for an early retirement.

  The back door shattered in a million pieces as something came through it. Sharky ducked as shards of wood rained over him. He reached for the gun he had hidden in the safe for just such emergencies. He had the gun out, and reflex taking over, fired without even thinking. Six bullets unloaded into a hulking shape standing just on his side of the doorway, yet the thing still stood there. He dropped the piece and slid a holdout from inside his boot. He fired again, but the bullet just bounced off and shattered a nearby lamp.

  The room went dark, save for the light from the alleyway, casting the man-mountain in an eerie glow; its massive form a terrible visage of ruthlessness. Sharky cowered into a corner of the room as it advanced.

  “What do you want?” Sharky croaked, “Take the money, it’s not mine.”

  “I know.”

  The voice carried with it the misery of a life gone wrong. It was empty of joy and concern.

  “Then you know what’ll happen, right? You won’t get away with taking the mob’s money. The Giordanos; they’ll come for you!”

  “I hope so.”

  The man-shaped being pulled out a can of lighter fluid from under his massive midnight cloak. He sprayed the contents into the safe, making sure he coated all the dough inside. With his sizeable hand, he reached over and lifted Sharky off the floor. With the other, he struck a match against Sharky’s desk. The loan man screamed and tried to free himself, but the monster’s gauntlet was too strong.

  “Tell your masters about this. Tell them their love of money will be their downfall.”

  The giant tossed Sharky through the smashed door after dropping the match by the safe. The inferno was a fury of flames, hungrily devouring the money and engulfing the room in moments. In a pile of alley trash, Sharky watched as his life burned. The creature stepped back into the alley and Sharky could see exposed skin absorbing light like an iron pot over a campfire. Cold metal reflected a steamy rage. In place of a mouth was a half-mask sporting Satan’s smile. Words like curses came from under it.

  “Tell them,
” the thing that was once a man said, “That Gridiron is coming.”

  Six months ago.

  Gordon “Gory” Burrell struck a match on the side of his locker. He had about thirty seconds to inhale the smoke from his cancer stick before he’d have to stub it out and get on the field. He let the smoke fill his lungs until his head swam, then crushed the cigarette on the floor. Gory grabbed his old familiar helmet, the leather worn from sweat and abuse so that it fit his head just right. They offered him new ones, but why when his head was harder than any skull since the cavemen. He’d go without it all together, if the refs would let him.

  He walked down the long hallway towards the field, always the last one out. Of all his teammates, Gory was the only one dedicated to full-time professional football and liked a few moments of contemplation before the game started.

  Two men in suits waited for him about halfway down.

  “Hey, Gory. You’ve got quite a record out there.”

  Fans. Nice. “Thanks. Gotta go play ball. If you’d like, I can sign something for you after the game.”

  The one who spoke laughed. It was sinister, like a hyena in the jungle. A toothpick hung loosely on his lips, but didn’t drop even during his outburst. “Listen to him, would ya, Axe? ‘Sign something,’ he says!”

  The other man nodded and said, “Sure, Pick. He said that.” Man of few words, he was about as big as Gory out of uniform. He just stared the linebacker down from under his fedora. Gory got the idea who these guys were.

  “Okay, Mack,” explained the talkative one, “This is how it’s going to go down. You’re going to have an off day. You’re going to let them rushers get through enough that the score is going to favor the other team. Nothing too obvious. For your troubles, you’ll get a nice little present off-season. Keep it up and we’ll see you never have to take a hit in the head again.”

  Gory didn’t have time for this. “Not interested.”

  He tried to continue on his way, but the big guy impeded his path.

  “’Not interested,’ he says,” repeated the skinny one, “Listen, buddy. You get paid peanuts as it is, and we know you’ve got a dame you’re hot under the collar to marry. Don’t you want to do that in style?”

  Just the thought of them using June as leverage brought to all the thunder Gory took to the field to bear. He punched Pick, sending him sprawling against the tunnel wall. He slumped down the stone, toothpick never leaving his mouth. Before Axe could react, Gory had grabbed him between the legs, twisting the man’s heritage and bringing him to his knees. To finish him off, he slammed both hands against the sides of his neck, making sure the muscle man wouldn’t be getting up soon. He raised Pick up off the ground so he was staring the mob’s mouthpiece directly eye to eye.

  “Okay, Mack. This is how it’s going to go down. You’re going to have an off day.”

  “Don’t ever come around here again, and if you come anywhere near my family, what he got will seem merciful.”

  Dropping him to the ground, Gory went to the gridiron, ready to vent on an unsuspecting opponent.

  Now

  June White saw the flashing light before she heard the buzz. It was her goal to get calls connected before the alarm sounded. Her reflexes were getting so good, that barely a buzz— went off before she answered, “Everett Herald, where the good people of Everett get their news first. How may I connect your call?”

  She never sounded bored. “Each time is like the first time you’ve spoken it,” complimented her supervisor. June liked her job, not just because it helped her take care of her daughter, April, but because she liked to be in the know. Everything that happened in the sprawling metropolis of Everett, California came through the grapevine here. Plus, the daily grind kept her mind off the ache in her heart. It’d been months since Gordon’s disappearance.

  Terry Johnston slid up beside her desk, smiling that puppy-dog smile he thought was irresistible. Maybe to others, but June was not falling for it.

  When she caught a break between calls, she addressed him, “Hello Terrance.”

  He sighed. “Come on, June. Why can’t you call me ‘Pointer’ like everyone else does.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “That’s because no one else calls you that. Just you.”

  He leaned across her desk and his blue eyes flashed with ambition. “That’s only because I haven’t cracked a big story yet. You just watch! I’ll get the scoop and they’ll all say, ‘Hey! That Pointer, he sure knows where the action is.’ Then I’ll get off the sports beat and onto the crime beat.”

  June transferred a call before turning back to him, “It’s nice to have a goal, Terrance, but you’re a good sports reporter. I don’t see why you’re not happy with that?”

  He slumped a little, “Well, I can’t rightly ask you to marry me on a sports reporter’s salary, can I? When I’m making the big bucks, then you’ll see that I’m an upstanding sort of Joe who’ll take care of his dame.”

  She was flattered, as she always was by his awkward come-ons, but she wasn’t ready to move forward. “I’m sorry, but I’ve already lost two men in my life. I’m not ready to start down the road with another. Certainly not until I hear why Gordon left so suddenly.”

  He snapped his fingers, “That’s right! I heard something about your wayward fiancé.”

  She nearly jumped over the desk, her chair careening back. “What? What have you heard? Is he alive?”

  Pointer waved her down, trying to calm her. “Nothing like that, sugar. It’s just that this bookie I know, one tied with you-know-who?” He winked. June understood. The Giordanos had grown stronger in the recent years, monopolizing Everett’s underworld and getting their dirty fingers even into some of the higher offices of city hall… if rumors were to be believed. “Someone did a number on him and now he’s in General taking his breakfast through a tube.”

  “Poor man, but how does that tie into Gordon?”

  “Well, this bookie was the one that had carried the mob’s bet on that game that Gory—” he corrected himself, “Sorry, Gordon wouldn’t throw.”

  That game. Everything in her life changed because of that game. She lay awake at night, debating whether Gordon should have just thrown it. He was a good man, better than she’d ever met, and she loved that he took a stand against the mob, but if he had just taken the dive, he’d not have left town; a shattered remnant of the man he once was.

  “So do you think this was some sort of payback from his bosses?”

  Pointer shook his head, “Nah, that’s the crazy thing. He said he was beat up by a monster. The police thought he said ‘mobster’ and got all excited, thinking they finally had a stoolie, but he kept shaking his head and finally wrote it down. The description was to-the-moon insane. The coppers think he’s got some sort of brain damage, but there’s more.”

  June was torn between the tale Terrance spun and her duties. Something felt tight, in the pit of her stomach. She didn’t know what, something other than the connection to Gordon. She looked at the clock. She had a break coming up and told Terrance to meet her at the coffee shop across the street. That way she’d be able to focus without all the hullabaloo of the phones.

  “It’s not a date,” she had to clarify once she saw his beaming smile, “Just a talk about your information.”

  ***

  “See, this isn’t the first Family connected guy to end up in a full body cast. There was Sharky the loan shark, about three weeks ago, too.”

  “Original name,” quipped June.

  “Yeah, there’s a story there, but another time. It’s connected to the bookie like this; Sharky’s front, a deli, gets torched and, of course, everyone thought he’d crossed the mob somehow, but scuttlebutt says the mob’s money was in it when it went up. And this jockey I know says Sharky was at the track, drinking like fish in the desert,
face bandaged, arm in a sling, and ramblin’ about some behemoth that did the deed.”

  June could see where he was going now. “So, you think the two incidents are connected? Did either guy give a description?”

  “That’s why the cops won’t take the bookie serious, and Sharky’s on the outs with the mob. Their description of the thing is straight out of the funny papers.”

  She leaned in conspiratorially, “And?”

  Terry had her hooked and was deciding whether to reel her in. He leaned back, arm slung over the back of the booth in a smooth savoir-faire way. “I don’t know, Doll Face. Maybe this info shouldn’t be shared. It could mean my big break, and I really shouldn’t spill it to anyone I’m not intimately associated with.”

  June was faster than he could have imagined. Her hand shot out and grabbed his necktie. She pulled him over the table and got in his face. “I’m not your doll, and I’ll never be your doll if you keep making ‘jokes’ like that. Okay, Mister Johnson?”

  He gasped for breath as his necktie became a garrote. Terry nodded his head and June let go. She sat back smiling knowing Terry would be mighty careful in the future or lose her trust altogether. He loosened his tie and cleared his throat. He squeaked on the first couple of words, but regained his voice.

  “They said, er, they said the thing was shaped like a man, a large man, but had skin like metal; iron to be specific. It was dressed in a massive trench coat the color of evil itself. It wore a weird mask over the lower part of its face, shaped like a menacing grin. Its eyes were cold and held no emotion except anger. And when it talked, it talked like a voice from the grave.”