Ghost Mortem (Bordertown Chronicle Book 1)

by Gavin Masters

  “Then why’d you make us sit through it,” dad asked.

  “I wanted you two to see it. I wanted you both to know what you were getting yourselves into.”

  More silence followed. For my part, I couldn't stop thinking about the gruesome scene in the mine. Something was bothering me about it. I mean, beyond the obvious. I just wasn't sure what.

  “What's with the eyes?” I said.

  “Huh?” said my dad.

  “The eyes. Vikki didn't tell you about the eyes in the cave?”

  “No? I don't know. Who cares? We can sort that out when we arrest Porter.”

  “Yeah,” I said, resigned. “I guess so.”

  I just didn't like fact there was still something I couldn't suss out on my own.

  “How did he kill the truck driver?”

  “The truck driver?” asked my dad.

  “The one Danny mentioned. The one who tried to save her. She said he just died. What…how…I just…we're still missing something. And I don't like it.”

  My dad nodded. “I hear you. Don't worry. We're on it. As long as we put our heads together, we can get to the bottom of this together.”

  I nodded.

  More silence followed.

  “Gavin, I uh…” my dad started. “I just wanted to say…I’m proud of you, you know? I mean…I know I can be kind of a hard-ass sometimes, but…well…like Vikki said. You saved that girl back there. That was all you. And as a parent myself, well…I can tell you I know how much that girl’s mother is always going to feel like she owes you. I think about how I might feel if something like that happened to you or Raven, and well…you know. You did a good thing tonight, son. A really good thing. And…I just wanted to tell you I’m proud of you.”

  “Aw, come on dad,” I said. “You’re embarrassing me.”

  “Sorry,” dad sad.

  Some awkward silence followed. I'm not sure if this is obvious to people, but I'm not so good at receiving compliments. I guess I'm just not used to it.

  “Thanks, dad,” I said. “And you know what? When I write the part about you carrying Danny from the cave in your arms, I’ll make you shirtless and way sexier than you actually are. I can even give you hair, if you want. Long hair, blowing in the wind like Fabio.”

  “You know,” dad said, “maybe I should also add how much it pisses me off that it took me ten years to catch Nefarious Darius, and you managed to catch his twin brother after reviewing the case with me in a single night and then Googling shit. Little show-off bastard. I was collaring scumbags while you were still in diapers.”

  “That’s more like it,” I said.

  Vikki burst into laughter in the front seat.

  I thought about how I might seriously write that section of the book. And in how I might describe Danny, the waifish brunette in my father's arms. The more I thought about it, the more I realized why I was so deeply protective of Danny. I was almost shocked at the realization. In a way, I wondered if, emotionally at least, we'd really been vicariously saving a surrogate for my mom.

  Chapter 48

  When we finally arrived back in Bordertown, true to his word, dad wasted no time. We drove straight to Sheriff Porter’s house, and parked just outside.

  My father sighed heavily.

  “All right,” he said, turning to Vikki. “Are you ready to do this?”

  Vikki nodded. “Four years too late. But yeah. I'm ready.”

  Dad nodded.

  “I’m ready too,” I said.

  “I don't think so, Rocky Balboa,” dad said. “You stay in the car.”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  Dad and Vikki got out.

  I watched from the back seat of the cruiser as they walked up to the sheriff's front door. Dad pointed beside the door, and Vikki drew her weapon. Vikki waited with her gun ready, back to the wall, while dad rang the bell.

  The front porch light came on, and the sheriff’s face appeared in the doorway, and eyed his visitor suspiciously.

  For his part, dad smiled back with his classic shit-eating grin. Even from the car, I could feel his brimming smugness at the prospect of arresting Porter.

  “Good evening, Deputy Masters,” I heard Porter say. “What brings you to my door at this late hour?”

  His voice was muted somewhat, due to my being thirty feet away, and inside a closed vehicle.

  “Well, that’s funny you should ask, Sheriff Porter,” said dad.

  Dad unholstered his pistol and trained it on him.

  “You see,” said dad, “you’re under arrest. Vikki, maybe you want to do the honors and cuff him.”

  Vikki revealed herself and circled around behind the sheriff.

  “What is this?” Porter said.

  Vikki holstered her weapon, pulled out her handcuffs and walked around behind him.

  “What do you think you're doing, darlin'?” he said to her. “You don’t have the authority to arrest me!”

  “That’s up for discussion I suppose,” said dad. “But the bullets in my gun? I’m pretty sure they have the authority to punch holes in you if you resist. And after all the horrible shit you did to Jessica Jennings, and Danny Dorian, and god knows how many other women, I'm just begging you to give me a reason.”

  Sheriff Porter, perhaps uncharacteristically, laughed. It was a hard, belly-jiggling laugh.

  “You think this is funny, do you?” said my dad. “You know how close I am to just ending you?”

  “Please, sheriff, just come quietly,” said Vikki. “This doesn’t need to get violent.”

  Sheriff Porter continued to laugh maniacally, his face turning redder and redder.

  “Just what the hell do you think it is I did exactly?” he said.

  “Don't play dumb,” said my dad.

  “We know about the mine, Perry,” said Vikki. “And we know what you’ve been doing to the women you abduct and take there.”

  “And so…wait,” he said, his round face red, still laughing. “You thought you could just come here, just the two of you and take me in? Ha! Ha-ha.”

  Vikki and Jack exchanged an apprehensive look. I was getting a terrible feeling about all this. That’s when I noticed the black smoke pooling from the house, dancing around Vikki’s and dad’s ankles.

  “What the hell?” I heard myself saying, mesmerized by the swirling sifting movement of the black stuff by their feet, all while dad and Vikki continued to allow themselves to be distracted by the sheriff’s maniacal laughter.

  Then, just like in the courtroom, a column of black smoke shot up from the ground, and then dissipated to reveal…

  The Oversoul? What the hell is he doing here? And why is he hoisting his scythe in the air like that?

  Then, weirdly, everything around me began to slow. I felt like I was in one of those video games or movies with bullet time. A realization hit me all at once.

  That trucker—the one who had tried to help Danny—he didn't just die. Porter wasn't some demigod who could just strike him dead with his mind. No, Porter had an accomplice. An invisible accomplice. Invisible to the trucker. Invisible to Danny. But not invisible to Porter. Nor to me, had I been there. Nor to Vikki or my dad. Because we can see ectoplasmic beings. Porter had an accomplice—one he'd even alerted our attention to in the caves. I just hadn't realized it until this moment. If you take the eyes away from the cave drawing, it would just look like the Oversoul.

  But why would the Oversoul be helping Sheriff Porter? That didn't make sense.

  Use your lizard brain, Gavin, I thought to myself. When you first looked into the face of the Oversoul, how did you feel?

  Panic overtook me. I opened the door and called out.

  “Dad, look out!”

  My voice seemed to emerge in slow motion. Everything seemed to be in slow motion.

  My father slowly spun around in my direction. Then he saw the eight-foot-tall, hooded, wraithlike creature that had silently materialized behind him. He called back to Vikki without turning away from the creature.
>
  “Vikki?” my dad said. “You said the dead can’t judge the living, right?”

  “They don’t,” she said.

  She looked up at the Oversoul. She was just as mesmerized as dad.

  “Not normally,” she added. “I don’t know about 'can’t.'”

  Sheriff Porter took the opportunity to punch Vikki hard in the belly.

  Vikki doubled over.

  Porter wrenched the handcuffs from her hand, and roughly shoved her to the ground, where he handcuffed her hands behind her back.

  “Hey,” my dad shouted.

  His voice and change of facial expression were still so ominously slow.

  Dad raised his E.D. gun at the Oversoul. He fired.

  The Oversoul simply held out his non-scythe-holding-hand and absorbed the blast.

  “What…the…hell?” said my father.

  “Jack!” called Vikki.

  She struggled under the sheriff’s fat body as he cackled.

  The next thing seemed to happen with almost-vomit-inducing slowness.

  The Oversoul swung his scythe down towards my father.

  I know my dad told me to stay in the car. But I couldn't. I just couldn't. The situation was out of control, and I had to do something. I'd never seen Vikki this terrified before, and my father…I didn't know what might happen if the Oversoul's scythe struck a living person, but I was sure it couldn't be good.

  As the scythe descended, I got out. I ran to reach my father and the Oversoul, not knowing what I could possibly do to stop this apparition from swiping it through him. I only knew that the effect would likely be the same as on that nameless trucker who tried to save Danny.

  “Dad!” I shouted, running towards him. “Look out!”

  My father turned his head slowly to look back at the Oversoul.

  Why was everything so slow? Was it the adrenaline, or was something else going on?

  I ran as hard and fast as I could. I wanted to reach my father. I had to reach my father.

  But I wasn't fast enough.

  About mid-way toward him, I watched the Oversoul pass his scythe through my father.

  As it did so, it didn't so much cut my father as a real scythe would. It instead passed through him like a hand through a fog.

  I stopped running. My eyes met my father's. He looked just as baffled as I felt.

  “Dad!” I shouted, panic in my voice and tears in my eyes.

  I rushed halfway up the yard, and stopped when I saw my father slump to the ground.

  His body slumped to the ground.

  His soul, on the other hand, was still standing there, looking at the place the scythe had passed through him, and then back at the Oversoul. Dad shot me a fearful glance, and then one back at the Oversoul.

  My dad’s ghost’s torso slid off his lower half at a 45 degree angle, the way the other spirits' in court had. Then the legs then collapsed in a heap too, beside his still, corporeal, lifeless body.

  “Dad!” I shouted.

  I didn't know what else to do. I was in shock. Was my father really dead? Could the Oversoul even do that?

  But there they were; the two halves of my father’s ghost on the ground, the face on his ghost anguished and scared. The face on his body expressionless and blank.

  The Oversoul put one hand on his amulet, and the other extended forward. I remembered from court what would happen next.

  “No!” I screamed.

  I dove at the eight-foot-tall wraith.

  I passed right through him, and did a face-plant on the ground, getting a mouthful of the sheriff’s lawn.

  “Jack!” shouted Vikki, struggling to get free of the massive sheriff, but he’d already shackled her hands behind her, and had one knee planted on her back.

  “Dad…” I moaned, winded now, crawling towards him.

  The Oversoul menacingly hovered above us both. When he spoke, his voice seemed to pierce into inside of my head, like I was wearing invisible headphones.

  “Hello, Jack,” said the Oversoul. “I’ve been waiting for you. A long, long time, Jack Masters.”

  “Who are you?” my father’s ghost asked weakly.

  “Who do you think? You chased me for ten years. Then you finally caught me. And even though I outmaneuvered you in the courtroom, you…murdered me! Very stupid, Jack. Now I'm more powerful than you could possibly imagine.”

  “Darius Danko,” said my father.

  “That's right, Jack. And before I take your soul from you, I want you to know something. Something I’m sure has been clawing at your soul for the last five years. You’ve probably been wondering. Right before your car lost control. Right before your little girl lost her arm. When your wife seemed simply to die, without any explanation. Ever since that night, I know you’ve wondered. Was that just an accident? Did your wife take her own life? Or was that me? Was that Nefarious Darius, back finally for revenge? Well, Jack. To answer your question. Yes. It was. And it was so…sweet!”

  “Why?” wept my father’s ghost. “Why do all this. Why didn't you just kill me then?”

  “Because I could, Jack. I hated seeing you and your family so happy. You took my life. So I ruined yours. I wanted you to suffer. But now that you're in my way, it's time to put an end to this charade. And now I’m going to devour you. You, and your whole pathetic family too.”

  “No,” my father whimpered, pitifully now, his voice almost nothing. “Run…Gavin…Run…”

  The Oversoul extended his hand. He swept both halves of my father’s soul into the air. They swirled about, like water circling a shower drain. Only this was the great drain of eternity. The Oversoul palmed every portion of my father's soul, and compressed it into nothing in his bony hand. Then, like lightning, the energy transferred from his hand into the amulet.

  Then he was gone. My father’s spirit was gone.

  “No!” I shouted, holding onto my father’s corpse, weakly embracing him and begging the Oversoul. “Give him back. Put his soul back right now. Give him back! Give me back my dad!”

  “It doesn’t work that way, son,” snickered the sheriff, hoisting Vikki to her feet.

  “Gavin, run,” cried Vikki. “Right now. Run. You have to get help now. Call Doc. Put out an A.P.B. Don’t stay here, he’ll kill y—”

  Porter punched Vikki in the stomach again

  Vikki buckled at the knees.

  “Shut-up, Vikki Valliant,” said the sheriff. “Let's find something better to do with that mouth of yours.”

  Porter held Vikki up by her collar, and brought his face so close to hers she could probably have seen the back of his wily retinas.

  “You look so much like your mother,” he said. “I’m going to have fun with you, tonight. You’ve no idea how many nights I’ve dreamt about the things I’d do to you, little Miss Valliant.”

  Porter licked Vikki's face.

  Vikki struggled and sobbed.

  “Finish that other one off, brother,” said the sheriff.

  The sheriff shut the front door, leaving me alone outside with the Oversoul. And leaving Vikki alone inside…with a sadistic serial killer.

  I heard Vikki scream in terror from inside the house as he dragged her further away.

  “No,” I shouted. “Let her go.”

  I looked back at the Oversoul to see him swirling around me.

  The Oversoul hoisted his scythe into the air, ready to slice my soul in two.

  With nothing to lose, I dove right through him. I hit the ground hard, rolled, and stopped behind.

  He turned and took another swipe at me, so I dove through him once more.

  This time, I pulled one of the two grenades off my dad’s belt as I passed it. I primed the P.K. imploder grenade the way I’d seen dad do it, and pitched it at the Oversoul.

  The loud implosion sound began, and I got ready to watch it take down the Oversoul.

  Except that didn't happen. The whirling energy seemed to tug ever so slightly at the Oversoul’s robe, perhaps no harder than a small
child tugging on his mother’s skirt to get her attention. That was it.

  The P.K. imploder burned out.

  The Oversoul simply started to laugh.

  I found myself gazing deep into the darkness where his face would be, if he had any discernable face. And I felt fear. Fear worse than anything I’d ever felt before. I thought about how I would soon be nothing. I thought about how this wraith had turned my father into nothing, and how my sister would never see either of us again. I thought about what was going to happen to Vikki inside that house, shackled and alone with a sadistic psychopath, if I didn’t do something fast. And I mean, like, right now, assuming Porter wasn’t already carving eyes into Vikki’s beautiful, perfect body.

  Oh, god! Vikki!

  I had to do something. But this thing, this…Oversoul, it was, like, unstoppable. Invincible.

  So I did what any reasonable person would do. I started running and screaming through the streets of Bordertown like a chicken with my head cut off.

  “Help!” I shouted desperately. “Somebody help!”

  It wasn’t my most graceful option, I know. But it did seem to be the only viable one at the moment. A number of lights came on in front of several homes.

  An old man I hadn’t met yet opened his door and asked what the commotion was about.

  “Do you mind, son? Some of us are trying to sl—”

  The poor old man was rewarded with a slice through from the Oversoul’s scythe. His body fell lifelessly to the ground. His soul remained standing for a moment, perplexed, before his soul slid in two, and collapsed to the ground beside his body.

  A few other house lights came on. Other people began to emerge from their homes.

  Shit! This isn't going to work. I'm just going to get more people killed!

  “Never mind,” I shouted. “Bad joke. Everyone back inside your homes. Lock your doors!”

  I wondered what good that would do anyone. Could walls and doors even slow this creature down?

  The Oversoul stopped to devour the soul of the old man he’d just cut down.

  I watched in horror. What the hell was going on here? This was all wrong. How did Darius Danko, a notorious serial killing psychopath, become the Oversoul? Like, the most powerful undead creature in the town! What had to go wrong in the netherworld for him to be sent back here to rule over Bordertown as Oversoul, of all the people they could have chosen? It didn't make any sense. The gods would have to be evil or crazy, or at the very least have grossly incompetent middle management for this to happen.