by C. L. Bevill
* * *
Tavie opened her eyes again and saw…
His name was Nica and he stared down at her as she lay flat on her back. His eyes were black. In the dimness that was Deadsville, his hair was dark. It could have been brown or it might have been black. It curled around his collar and enticed her to touch the ends. But his scarred face wasn’t angry; it was concerned. His mouth moved and she realized she couldn’t hear him.
Tavie blinked and willed her hearing to return. Her head hurt again and now there was a dull ache in one shoulder. With a sudden realization came the knowledge that she was dead, she was in Deadsville, and that someone named Thana had touched her shoulder and made it burn.
It had burned like Nica’s eyes seemed to do. He was a deadie, but now Tavie could see he was something else, too. Something scratched from the inside of him and agitatedly demanded to be let out.
“What in the name of Casper’s ghost did she do to me?” Tavie gasped and in that moment she could hear again, like a switch had been thrown. She shrunk away from him and his concerned expression transformed into dismay.
Nica looked away for a moment. A muscle in his cheek convulsed. He stood up and backed away from her. “What did Thana say to you?”
“Something about television,” Tavie said. “Something about movies.” She paused and put her hands to her face, rubbing at the skin there, hoping to work the nagging hurt away. “Look…and…see…”
Tavie didn’t wait for Nica to say anything. She sat up. She had been lying on her back next to the same brick wall she had sat next to before. She braced one hand against the wall and forced herself to her feet. Then she checked under her jacket for her possessions. Everything was still there, even the Liberty Head double eagle coin. More importantly everything else was still there.
Her head came up and looked back. Thana was gone. Not even a trace of her remained. “What did she do?” Tavie demanded. “You know her. You said her name.”
“She made a trade with you,” Nica said emotionlessly. “You gave her something. She gave you something. It’s the way the world works here.”
“I didn’t give her…oh, the story about the movie.”
Nica nodded shortly. “And she gave you an ability. Thana has never given anyone anything as long as I have been here, and I have been here a long time.”
“Don’t I feel special?”
“You are special,” he said.
Tavie reached down to pull her ankle boot all the way on. She glanced back up and saw his expression. He looked serious. “So special I don’t remember how I died. I don’t know what I’m doing here and I don’t know what’s going to happen. Dang. I won the friggin’ dead lottery.”
“Things could be worse.”
Tavie knew that. Everyone knew that. Everyone with half a brain knew that. It was the stupidest ones who didn’t know that situations almost always could be worse. She was breathing. She wasn’t being tortured in an iron maiden. She still had a shot at something. What the something was, she had yet to discover.
“What did Thana do to me?” Tavie straightened up and brushed off her jacket.
“I think you can see now,” Nica said. “It’s not a comfortable gift.”
“It isn’t a bottle of wine and flowers, for sure,” Tavie muttered.
Nica smiled so quickly she wasn’t sure he had. “What do you see when you look at me?”
Tavie looked. A man with a pitted face. An ugly man who was sometimes not ugly. A man who had come looking for her. A man who she had seen somewhere before. “I know you,” she said. “I’ve seen you before this place. In Phoenix perhaps? You ever hang out in the Grand Canyon state?”
Nica didn’t move nor did he answer her. He stood there, a few feet away, and waited. Tavie moved her head and looked closer. Her shoulder abruptly blazed with an intensity that made her gasp. Then she got a glimpse of what was under Nica’s surface. Bones. Red eyes. A force that reached for those who needed guidance into other realms.
“Psychopomp,” she said before she realized she didn’t know what the word meant.
A funny smile quirked across Nica’s lips. “That’s right.”
“What’s a psychopomp?” The odd thought that it was a crazy spectacle fluttered through her thoughts before she dismissed it.
“It’s a Greek word. It means the guide of souls.”
Tavie took that with an aplomb she wasn’t certain she had possessed before that moment. “Is that what you are?”
“Yes.”
“It’s a strange place here,” Tavie said.
“Yes.”
“Were you human before?”
“Yes.”
“Not from my century. Maybe not even from the century before.”
“No.”
Tavie pursed her lips. “Bet you can’t say anything else, right?”
“Not much.” Nica shook his head. “There are rules. There are always rules.”
“It’s been my experience that rules are meant to be broken,” Tavie said and looked down to check her pants for dirt and debris. It gave her a moment to collect her thoughts. When she looked up Nica was gone. It was evidently an annoying habit of Deadsville residents.
* * *
Tavie took some more time to figure out the details of Deadsville. She could tell that there were areas controlled by specific deadies. There were enclaves of like-minded deadies. There were a few gangs. Deadies could still be hurt here.
She didn’t understand why deadies wanted to hurt other deadies here. After all, there was a reaper walking around who waited to pass judgment. Or perhaps he simply escorted people after someone else up higher had passed judgment?
In any case, she learned the edges of her new world. Tavie wasn’t aware of how much time passed, but she found that Deadsville’s brink was also its beginning. If a person walked too far they ended up where they had begun.
Tavie also explored her newly acquired “gift.” She could see under deadies’ veneers. They might be represented as Don Johnson circa 1986 with the pastel t-shirt under a light jacket with the cuffs pulled up to the elbows, but underneath they were still a twenty-something year old man who had been eviscerated and their guts tied in knots that would have made a textile worker jealous.
Tavie found that she wanted to cover her eyes more than once. Not everyone had had horrible deaths, but more did than didn’t. A few looked as if they had stepped outside to run to the corner grocery. A few more had obviously passed in a hospital bed. Others had deaths that had been mundane. But many had died violently and it was marked on their very souls.
There were others who shouldn’t have been there. They were bitter and vicious. It seemed to Tavie that their souls had slipped through a crack. Perhaps it was a matter of time before the mistake was caught and corrected.
And there were a few that watched Tavie. Once she caught a skeletal man staring at her. His eyes were so huge in his head that he resembled a gray. He watched her avariciously. When she turned around to study him, he passed behind a crowd of people and vanished. Another short dark man wore a top hat and a tuxedo. He smoked a cigar that emitted blue smoke. He puffed and looked at her in a sly sort of manner. Tavie felt like he was sizing her up. A long white scarf moved around his shoulders and she nearly gasped when she realized it wasn’t a scarf. It was an albino boa constrictor.
Like the skeletal man, he disappeared from view when she began to watch him back. The two men made her feel uncomfortable and she walked further and further.
Finally, Tavie slept under one of the many black trees in the area, using her forearm as a pillow. She dreamed about her dogs, Puddles A. Lott and Sparkplug. Her mother was caring for the animals even while she was packing up Tavie’s belongings, chuckling as she wrapped up her daughter’s collection of Pez dispensers, and then crying because she didn’t know what she was going to do with all of the plastic toys.
When Tavie woke up, there was a smile on her face and tears flowing from her eyes. The smile vani
shed when she heard someone screaming.
Somewhere a woman was shrieking for help and Tavie brushed the tears from her face with the cuff of her jacket. There was a second where she realized that the tears were ectoplasm and she huffed before she focused on the distant woman instead.
Tavie got up and trotted in the direction of the cries. She came to an alley and passed several deadies who pointedly ignored the calls for help. A few seconds later, she found three men who had cornered a teenaged girl in a blind alley. The teenager cringed against the wall of a house blocking her way.
Someone watched from a nearby window and Tavie spared a brief glare in their direction. They vanished abruptly.
The three men didn’t look out of place for a 21st century street. They had t-shirts and jeans. One wore a button down shirt and clunky biker’s boots. They all had been there long enough to know how to camouflage their deaths, but Tavie could see right through the façade. One had had his skull caved in with some heavy object. The second one had had his throat slit from ear to ear. The third had been riddled with bullets. They leered at the girl. Apparently she was new and hadn’t gotten the trick of changing her appearance. She had been strangled and the silk scarf was still wrapped around her throat. Her cheeks were black and her eyeballs still bulged, but Tavie could see that she was a pretty young woman of about sixteen years.
“Maybe you know we can’t hurt you…permanently,” the caved in skull said to the teenager. “But we can hurt you.”
“You can just give us the diamond bracelet,” the one with the bullets said. “Give it to us and we won’t hurt you—” he chuckled “—much.”
Tavie’s eyes dropped to the diamond tennis bracelet around the girl’s wrist, just before she covered it protectively with her other hand.
“You know we could cut you to pieces,” the one with the slit throat said. He pulled out a steak knife from the waistband of his jeans. “I mean real pieces. It hurts like a bitch, but eventually you come back together. We can do it over and over and over again until you just give the damn thing to us. So save yourself a little time and pain.”
Tavie saw red. Literally red bloomed in her vision. She hated people like that. There was always someone who thought he could bully someone else. The use of force and cruelty against those who were weaker or smaller was one of her boiling points. She had seen it before and it was always the same reaction for her. It jerked on the very strings of her soul. She didn’t even think before she reacted.
“That’s not very fair,” Tavie announced loudly.
The three men spun on their heels. All three relaxed when they saw it was Tavie. “Just a lady,” the slit throat said. “Wait your turn, peaches. We’ll get to you in a minute.”
“Three big mo-tards picking on a girl almost half their size,” Tavie added slyly. “You didn’t have enough trouble in your life already? Someone bashed your brain in, Junior,” she said to the caved in skull. “And you got your throat slit, Slick, probably you ticked off the wrong person,” she said to the slit throat. “And you,” she said to the one with the bullet holes. “I guess you should have worn the Kevlar vest, am I right, Brainiac?”
“How does she know that?” the one with the bullet holes asked. Confusion didn’t do anything good for the bullet holes in his cheeks. “I’ve got my cover on. You’ve got your covers on. She can’t see that, right?”
“Who cares?”
“Maybe we should just work on her and save the little girl with the diamond bracelet for dessert?” suggested the one with the slit throat.
Tavie sighed and reached into her jacket, pulling her Glock from its shoulder holster with a smooth economical draw. The three men’s mouths dropped open. She suspected it wasn’t because they hadn’t seen a law enforcement weapon before; men like this had probably been arrested more than once before. She gripped the gun appropriately and pointed it at the chest of the man with the slit throat. He was in the middle and it would be easy to go left or right as needed.
In her best informational voice she said, “This, gentlemen, is a Glock 21, Gen 4. It’s known for its accuracy and light recoil. It’s got the stopping power in that it carries .45 caliber bullets as opposed to the .40 cal in the plain Jane version.” She pulled the slide back and seated a round into the weapon. The noise made all three men jump. “This, however, is the law enforcement version, and has thirteen bullets in it. Thirteen bullets divided by three is four for each of you plus one to grow on. The trigger pull is 5.5 pounds and I have a very strong trigger finger because I use a Gripmaster regularly, so I will have absolutely no problem plugging each of you center of mass. Then I will giggle after I have done it.” She paused for the proper effect to settle in. “This gun makes Dirty Harry’s .44 Magnum look like a whiny little pussy.”
The one with the bullet holes said, “She ain’t gonna shoot us. I don’t think guns will work here.” He lunged at her.
So Tavie shot him first.
Chapter 4
After death one becomes important. – Yiddish Proverb
~
“You have to ask yourself a question, ‘Do I feel lucky?’ Well, do ya, punk?” – Harry Callahan in Dirty Harry
~
Mr. Bullet Holes fell over like a tree in a forest and not only were there a few people to hear it, it did make a noise, thank you very much. With large eyes, Mr. Slit Throat and Mr. Holey Head looked down at Mr. Bullet Holes and then back up at Tavie. “Twelve left,” she said cheerfully. The end of the weapon twitched back and forth between the two of them. “Who’s next?”
“I’ve never seen a gun work here before,” Mr. Slit Throat said. He looked down at Mr. Bullet Holes and nudged him with a toe. “We thought it was because most people with guns come here and there ain’t no bullets left.”
That made sense to Tavie. One would presume that they had fired their loads at the person attempting to kill them and brought an empty weapon to Deadsville. Or maybe the powers that be didn’t like severe firepower in the kingdom of the dead. Or possibly she was the exception to the rule. After all, she was a legitimate law enforcement official, even if she was dead.
Mr. Bullet Holes continued his motionless state.
Mr. Holey Head looked at Tavie. “To hell with this, you can have the bracelet.”
Mr. Slit Throat glanced at the knife in his hand. “She can’t shoot us both. Charge her.”
Mr. Holey Head appeared reluctant. “Let it go,” he said to Mr. Slit Throat.
The teenage girl choose that moment to dart past them, ducking under Tavie’s elbow as she dashed. It distracted Tavie just enough so that Mr. Slit Throat made a move. He raised up the knife and barreled toward her. Tavie shot him. Then just as Mr. Holey Head started to run toward Tavie’s side, she shot him, too. Mr. Slit Throat got it in the chest like Mr. Bullet Holes, but Mr. Holey Head got one in both upper thighs because Tavie had a moment to be creative. He screamed loudly enough to pierce an eardrum, but during a pause where he gasped for air, Tavie said, “If you keep making that much noise, I will shoot you in the head. I have nine left. One should be more than enough for your little pea-sized brain.”
Mr. Holey Head rolled around the ground, grasping his thighs and grunting while he tried not to scream.
Tavie took a few steps back. She considered the situation. “Is it too late to yell, ‘Police!’ and show you my badge?”
“You’re a police officer?” Mr. Holey Head screamed/asked.
“I’m sure as hell not Scarface.” Tavie drew the edge of her jacket aside so he could see the badge connected to her belt. It wasn’t fake. She was a certified member of the Phoenix Police Department. She had five commendations and a picture of the mayor shaking her hand at a ceremony. She didn’t have to make anything up.
“This is Deadsville! There’s no police here! You got no right to shoot us!” Mr. Holey Head went on and on. Tavie really wanted to shoot him in the head just so he would stop yelling. Finally, his head dropped to the ground and he stopped moving. She had
an idea he had passed out. Apparently getting shot in Deadsville was as painful as getting shot in the real world.
“Your gun worked,” someone said from behind her. Tavie turned her head to make certain she wasn’t trapped by people who meant her ill will. The teenager with the bracelet stood at the entrance to the alley and nervously stared at the three men lying on the ground.
“Yeah, it’s a gun. It’s supposed to fire bullets,” Tavie said. She took a moment to remove the magazine. She cleared the weapon by pulling the slide all the way back and engaging the slide catch. She wanted to make sure she did have nine bullets. Since her memory had a big lapse in it, on account that she couldn’t remember how she had died, she didn’t want to assume anything. She blinked as she felt the weight of the ejected magazine. It felt full. God knew she checked her service gun twice a day and sometimes more. She knew what a full magazine felt like.
Glancing at the three downed men, Tavie decided to count the bullets. She put the weapon in her holster for a moment. She took the magazine and efficiently pulled the bullets out. The ammo was nearly the size of her fingers and filled up the palm of her hand, including the one she had cleared from the barrel. Eight. Nine. Ten? Eleven? Twelve? Thirteen. Thirteen.
She had fired four, yet thirteen rounds had come out of the magazine. Deftly she popped the bullets back into the magazine, using the right hand’s thumb to push them down into the unit and the left hand to guide them. Pulling the Glock back out of the holster, she inserted the magazine into the well and pulled the slide back to seat a round. Then she returned the weapon to her holster. Typically she wouldn’t walk around with a weapon that was ready to fire, but it seemed apropos in Deadsville.
What did having all the bullets here mean? Mr. Slit Throat had said, “We thought it was because most people with guns come here and there ain’t no bullets left.”
“Hey,” Tavie said to the teenager. “Did I understand them correctly? You can’t just take anything from anyone, is that right?”