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He really hated his name. Shadow. Damn, couldn’t his folks have chosen something else?
Still, in a way, it was appropriate. He disliked the daylight. Even at night, he sort of lurked along in the darkest places. Under the trees in the park, where the street lights did not reach, for instance. Like the spot he was in right now.
Waiting. He looked at his phone again. On an impulse, he’d signed up for a hook-up site. He and the girl who answered his text sort of hit it off. She hated her name too. Darkness.
Besides, there were the photos. Almost perfectly Shadow’s type. It might sound strange, with a sexy body like what he saw, but it was her eyes that really decided him to make a quick hook-up date. Those eyes almost seemed luminous, which should have been a contradiction for the blackest eyes he had ever seen. Darkness was well named, her hair was long and black, matching her eyes. Shadow really hoped that this date for simple sex might grow into something else.
Darkness’ texts showed a keen mind and a caring personality. Another contradiction of sorts since she was just looking for a fun fuck. Still, Shadow went for her.
“Meet me in Morton Park, 10 PM,” her last text said.
He was there. Shadow in the shadows. His phone vibrated. “I am nearly there,” her text said. “I have an interesting choice for you. We can meet for dinner and fuck or we can go to my place for the night or longer. Up to you.”
With trembling fingers, he texted back, “Your place sounds perfect. Are you sure that you want to trust a stranger in your place?”
The return text was a puzzle. “I was hoping that you would want to come with me. Eventually everyone I meet comes to my place. Most just want to screw and be done with it. It is not that easy.”
Shadow was trying to sort that out when he saw a lovely lady in the light of the street lamps. Somebody jumped out from a bush and grabbed her!
Shadow was not the kind to stand by and let someone get robbed or worse. He charged out of the shadows and clobbered the guy. Hard.
The attacker staggered back and then lunged. Shadow felt like he’d been hit in the gut. Then the pain. He grabbed the attacker’s hand and twisted as he pushed. The guy’s stocking cap fell off his head as he fell onto his own knife.
His eyes opened in surprise. And stayed open, staring at nothing. The girl that he’d attacked smiled strangely and touched his heart. The body convulsed and stilled completely.
Darkness gently cradled Shadow and said, “Come, Love. You risked all for me. You are mine. Let us go home now, and be together. Forever.” She touched him over the heart. He got up and went away with her.
The uncaring street light shone down on two figures laying unmoving on the concrete of the path.
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There was this great light. I felt myself drawn toward it almost irresistibly. It was that almost that got to me. I resisted. I simply didn't want to die just yet. For one thing, I was very interested in exactly who had just punched my ticket for a ride on the One Way Express.
I tried to climb down the Silver Cord that still led back to the old corpus. No dice. Hum, - I looked at how it was attached and knew at once just why climbing down the outside of it, like a rope, didn't work. It was like a stretchy tube. I tried pushing myself down the inside of it.
In seconds, I was only feet above what was left of me. Ugh. Shotgun from behind, through the mid-section at close range. Near instant bleed-out. What steamed me wasn't even being shot from behind, though that did tend to indicate exactly what sort of rat's ass did the deed. It was the particular rat's ass who'd pulled the trigger that set what little blood was left to boiling. Stupid ol' Al Rankin was there with a smoking shotgun, doing an idiot victory dance.
He'd apparently hid back of the feed shed and stirred up my chickens with a rattlesnake. They set up a particular type of fuss when a snake gets into their run. I came out with my pistol to take care of the nuisance and Al nailed me as I went by. Damn him, literally.
From what I knew of physiology, the muscles could still move for a while, even without blood. Anaerobic cycle they call it. Brain was off line due to lack of blood pressure but nerves could still fire. Since my consciousness was now outside my body, that might not be as much of a problem as usual. I reached in and tweaked. Arm moved.
Great. I shifted my arm to put my hand on the pistol butt. Slow pull and I had it. Felt really heavy, too. Still, I took my time and got it lined up. I had to do the sighting from where I was, above the body. My body's eyes pointed the wrong way and didn't work all that well. I tried them. The squeeze was nice and even. With the odd angle, recoil was a bitch. I could live with that. Joke there.
Shot just below the heart but through the descending aorta, Al dropped like a string cut puppet. His look of surprise was all that I could have hoped for. I could hear him screaming in rage as he vanished up the same kind of cord I'd been in.
Been in? I checked about. Mine stopped where I was. Didn't go up to the light any more at all. Me and my body, seemed about it. That could be bad. I reached in to see if I could do anything besides fire nerves.
Damn. I could move scraps of my damaged flesh. I put parts back together. They would stick if I did it just right, which wasn't all that easy at first. It was a lot like sewing by hand. There was a bunch of parts missing or so messed up that I couldn't fix them properly. Still, it wasn't that bad a job. Seen field surgery in the military that looked worse.
I dragged myself inside and started to drink a ton of liquids. They absorbed OK, I guess. I began to feel my carcass as the sensory nervous system came back on line and started to do damage reports. That wasn't fun, believe you me. The headache was horrible and it was only the beginning of my hurts. If this was what Necromancy felt like to the resurrected, it was no wonder that the dead were testy and only wanted to kill off the sorcerer so that they could stop hurting. It had to be a SIN to inflict this on somebody else. Made suicide look real attractive. Both the worst and the best of it was that I did this to myself.
Even though I was now back inside my carcass, I realized that I was still wrapped in my little silvery cocoon. I reached down to see how my repairs were coming along. Pretty good, really. Some of the missing parts were actively regenerating and other bits looked like they were thinking about it. I did some more tweaking and most of the rest of the pains began to recede. Not the damn headache, though. Recognized its source and there was not much to be done there, yet. Anoxia just is. Enough new blood and proper circulatory fluid would take care of it in time. If my brain didn't die first.
Prodding things showed me that the brain was still functioning, if badly. I decided to deal with that later. Right now, I needed to fake up a pair of near misses with that buzzard cannon of Al's and call the sheriff's office.
I looked at my shirt close and realized that I had powder burns on the back. The entry wound was still pretty raw and on the muscle ridge to one side of the spine, so I left it alone. Front was a bloody mess, all dirtied and my shirt was torn up by my crawl to the house. I left the raw meat of the wound surface showing, but pried it about some at the edges with a kitchen knife. Set some bloody pellets from the shot charge on the table for the reason.
Al's old monster was a twelve gage double gun and both barrels were fired when I looked. Didn't bother with shifting my body, just went out in my closed circuit cocoon to see what I needed. Interesting. It was so easy to do, now. Idly I wondered if that would last.
I called the Sheriff. It was still a pain to move but things were getting better. My breathing and heartbeat were now automatic and stable. It made the call lots easier. I had to redial twice before I got the number right. Memory was fine but my recoil banged up hand and fingers kept missing the keys.
When Deputy Bernard answered, I just said, “Bernie, this is Josh Marks. Get someone out here quick. End of North Mountain road. I've been wounded and Al Rankin is dead. Need an ambulance and the M.E. Fast.” While Bernie was trying to grill me for details, I dropped the phone onto the table and let the ol' carcass hit the floor with a meaty thump. I could still hear Bernie trying to raise me and calling units to investigate.
It took a lot of time for the first Deputy to get out here because I live a long way out. Keeping close tabs on things from my silver cocoon perch, I let my body pass out. Once it was unconscious, I used those recently found ghostly fingers and faked a stray pellet to the spleen to explain the problem. I could sort of float around and watch while the Deputy and his back up, who got there six minutes after him, sorted out the action.
Deputy Redd pulled back my shirt for evidence photos and found the “entrance wound” of the pellet. He probed it lightly with a thin rod and took a picture. Then he called Bernie on the radio and said, “Tell the ambulance to floorboard it! It looks like a spleen hit!”
Altogether, it was a merry little private circus.
I slid inside and went into sleep mode. I woke up in the hospital with Deputy Redd there by the bed. He smiled when he saw me open my eyes. He said, “This is unofficial because you are still under the influence of anesthesia. Do you remember any of what happened to you?”
“Some, Deputy. Not a lot. I heard my chickens make their rattlesnake fuss and took my pistol to check it out. Don't normally like to kill the snakes but trying to catch them alive in the hen yard is dangerous for the birds. I caught a movement out of the tail of my eye and turned just as the fricken shotgun went off. I think it caught part of my back. Not sure. I was bringing up my gun when the second shot went off. I know I caught some of that. I returned fire and saw the man fall. I fell over, dragged back to the house and tried to call Dispatch. I woke up here.”
Deputy Redd nodded, “Squares fairly well with what we know. Looked like you took two grazing hits. A stray pellet damaged your spleen. Doc says you got no business being alive at all. You had almost no red cells left. Or any other blood cells for that matter.
“Do you know who it was that you shot?”
I shook my head as if confused and said, “Makes no sense. I thought I saw Al Rankin but there's a protective restraint order on him to keep him away. I caught him in the act of vandalizing my property last month and had him run in for it.”
Dryly, Deputy Redd replied, “I remember. I picked him up and I served the order. By the by, you are right. It was him. If it helps, you are in the clear on this. Won't even need a Grand Jury, thanks to the order. He was in violation, with a firearm. You could have shot him on sight, without warning just for that.”
My body tired, just from the short exchange, I said, “Thanks, Deputy Redd. I think that I'm going to sleep again. I'm sort of sore, too. I think the surgery site hurts more than getting shot did.” I closed my eyes.
As soon as he was gone, I checked something. I was still able to get loose from my body in that silvery cocoon thing. I picked up a bar of soap on the washstand. Then I turned on the faucet. After filling a glass and setting it on my bedside stand, I turned off the water. It was easy. My ghost or astral form or whatever seemed to be plenty strong.
I pried my body's eyes open and looked. The glass was there on the bedside stand. With water in it. I could even see my ghostly body, right beside the bed. Seeing from two places at once like that nearly made me hurl, which would have been bad for the surgery site. Speaking of, I closed my body's eyes and got busy doing the kind of fix that I'd done out on my property, after Al shot me. This time, I had plenty of good blood and it was a help, believe me. Bless whoever dreamed up safe transfusions.
I was just shutting my eyes when, like the bad penny that he was, Al Rankin turned up at the foot of my bed. He began a horrid, ghostly wail of, “You murdered me, you bastard! Now I'm here to haunt you to the end of your days!”
I guess that it was supposed to be terrifying. I was pissed instead. I stepped free of the old corpus and demanded, “WHO murdered WHO, Al? I seem to remember two barrels full of seven and a half shot from BEHIND ripping through my body. I killed you right after that little disruption. Now go away, you lying asshole.”
Now it was Al who was pissed. “You are Damned, Marks! I was sent to drag you to Judgment! Nobody mortal can live through . . .” his ectoplasmic eyes went wide as he realized exactly what he'd just said.
While he was yapping his bit, I got close and grabbed his arm at wrist and shoulder. I ripped it right off. Guess having a live body made my ectoplasm stouter stuff than his. I slugged him alongside the head with his own arm hard enough to blast his head against the wall like a baseball, except that it splatted and oozed to the floor. Since I knew that both of us could go right through walls and such, I found it entertaining to watch. Apparently, Al's lifetime habit of running into solid objects was betraying him in the afterlife. I grabbed both his head and arm and shoved them up his ass, literally.
Then, I stomped him right down through the floor, which grew a red, glowing circle around him as he fell. It was a long fall to what looked for all the world like fire at the bottom. Al and the circle vanished. I went back to my body and back to sleep.
When I woke up, Deputy Redd was sitting by my bed, a pistol prominent at his hip. The nurse was shaking me awake. She said, “Time to change your dressing, Mr. Marks.”
As she was getting busy going snippy-snippy with the scissors, I asked Deputy Redd, “Why the gun? Aren't you off duty now?”
He nodded, “I am but sometimes things happen that are more important than time clocks. Both of the surviving Rankin brothers had to be turned away from the hospital. They had big hunting knives, wood stakes and a hammer. They were ranting about you being a witch-man or some sort of undead. Said that you couldn't be alive because Al centered you with his shotgun.”
While the nurse was staring in consternation at my surgical wound, I asked, “How the hell would they know that unless they saw it? It didn't happen that way. Don't think so, anyway.”
Deputy Redd nodded a bit grimly, “There's several things about this case that don't add up right. That's one of them. They do seem to know too much. Another is the amount of blood that you lost at the scene. That's backed up by the blood count they did in the ER.”
The nurse put in, “This wound is another. I need to get Dr. Hillstrom in here right away to document this!”
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PART 1 is HERE
~~ ~~ ~~ ~~
Had to wonder, you know, if folks learning to do this sort of thing wasn't the basis of the tales about witchcraft. Thinking it through a bit more, after destroying a few persistent vermin in my garden, I realized that if this was the foundation of witchcraft, those fears in the general population could be well founded. It took almost no imagination at all to see how someone with this sort knowledge could be a very real danger to the community at large. Especially if the general population treated the “witch” badly. I didn't intend to find out what would happen in a case like that.
I'd just got a pair of deer up close and doing a bit of a step-dance for a big flake of hay when I noticed the dust cloud of a truck barreling along the road from Al's place. I sent the deer away, cursing Al under my breath. Bad news only got worse when Al's pickup roared up my drive, scattering gravel as he skidded to a stop. Al bailed out with a rifle in hand, starting to aim at the retreating deer.
I glared at him. Al's rifle fell to the dirt from hands gone nerveless. Wide eyed with anger, he demanded, “Damn you, Art! What did you do to me?”
Not bothering to get up from my seat on the porch steps I replied tartly, “Me? I'm here on my porch. You are ten feet away. From here, it looked like you managed to drop your gun just in time to avoid poaching charges on top of the Felony Trespass and Protective Order violation.”
Frowning in a black faced rage, he flexed his now almost functioning fingers and retorted, “Poaching? No way! This is private land so its legal. No hunting without permission your signs says. Wasn't no time to ask first, so's I was gonna ask after I blasted 'em. Would'a given me a whole Winter's meat.”
Lips pulled into a tight line I snapped, “Only problem, Al, is I would have said NO. Those signs allow me to get game from my land. Desert game is spread thin and I don't share mine. At least not with you. I heard from Joe Sanderson how well you share yours.”
Al was looking down at his hands and flexing them. Still pissed off, he spit out, “Joe had it coming! Bastard wouldn't pay me for Neighbor Watch.”
I raised one eyebrow and pointed out, “Neither will I. Looks like your hands are better. Get into your truck and shove off. Don't come back, either.”
Al stared to bend over to get his rifle and just kept on going down. He landed in a heap on the scattered gravel of my drive. “Don't try to take that gun, Al, unless you want to leave here in a hearse.”
Twitching on the ground, Al yelled, “I knew it, you asshole! You've used some sort of evil witchcraft on me. I'll have the law on you for this!”
I smiled down at him from my vantage point on the steps. A sensible wolf would have stepped away from that smile. “One: Killing Felony Trespassers is legal, and that's what you became when you hauled out that rifle. Two: You have a Protective Order that requires you to stay at least a hundred fifty feet from my property line and do nothing to compromise my property, including discharge firearms on or across it. I can legally kill you for that violation, too. Three: Witchcraft IS legal. Four: I just sat here and watched you apparently have some sort of seizures. Five: I am calling the Sheriff's Office on your Trespass and and Order violations.”
I got on my phone and called the situation in to the County Police. I fixed a sandwich and went back out on the porch to watch Al. He was staying down. I knew that he would.
As I started to eat, Ratty popped up from his nest under the house. He did his little rat dance and got his chunk of sandwich. He settled down by my feet and happily nibbled his bread and cheese.
Al looked on in what I believe was genuine fear. Trying to point, he exclaimed, “There's the proof! You are a witch-man! That's your familiar!”
Amused, I replied, “Ratty? A familiar? The worst he could do is nip your nuts while you're down.”
Ratty squeaked firmly.
I laughed, “Right Ratty! Why should you risk lice and other crawling vermin just to bite Al's privates?”
Ratty expressed his opinion of Al by taking his part of the sandwich and retreating back under the house. With his tail up to show Al his ass.
Not too much later a deputy arrived. I greeted him, “Hi, Deputy Mustic. 'Fraid your cousin Al's in a spot of trouble. Seems to have not only broken the Protective Order, he brought a firearm onto my place. Trouble is, unless he's faking it, he seems to have some sort of paralytic neurological event. He's even trying to blame me for it. Witchcraft, no less. Can you believe it?”
Deputy Mustic closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Of Al? I'd believe near anything. I gotta call for a backup and let him do this one to be sure that everything's done right. If I try to do the arrest, Al's lawyer is sure to try for a conflict of interest or some such because we're related.” The deputy got on his radio and I overheard him giving dispatch a piece of his mind for sending him out to deal with a relative.
Soon both the backup, Deputy Jorgen, and an ambulance were on the scene. Al was duly informed of his rights and placed under arrest while the ambulance crew verified with a pin that Al really was paralyzed. Deputy Mustic took me aside, day book out and asked, “Art, why didn't you call the ambulance? Even if he is my family, we both know that Al is slime. Still, you should'a called.”
I nodded, while watching Al being loaded into the ambulance to be hauled away, “I would have, Deputy. Thing is, he pulled that stunt on Sadie Halloway where he faked an injury on her place. Since she called the ambulance, she wound up getting stuck for near enough a grand. Al did it because she wouldn't pay into his neighbor watch scam. I won't pay him either and just figured he was doing the same to me as he did to her.”
Writing in his day book and flipping a page to finish, Deputy Mustic nodded, “I heard about that. Thought it might be the reason. Needed it clear for the record is all.”
More anxiously, now that he was done being official, he asked, “Any idea what is wrong? I mean, scum or not, he is family and I'm worried for him. Believe it or not, the kids like him at reunions. He does slight of hand coin tricks and card stunts really professional.”
I shrugged, “The slight of hand for entertainment is something I'd not have guessed. Slick as he is at lifting small tools and such, I should have known something like that was behind it. As for this, no idea at all. I am sure that it's not sunstroke. The AC in his truck was on and it works. I would guess that it might be an oddball stroke of some kind. Maybe an aneurysm or bleed in the upper spine could do it. Just a guess, though.
“Al appears to be sure what it is. I heard him telling both Deputy Jorgen and the paramedics that it's witchcraft. If it is, I don't think that I'm the one. Frankly, I hope he's right. Witchcraft is legal.”
Three days later, Deputy Mustic was back. It was an unofficial visit. Looking sad, he said, “Al died in the hospital, last night, 'bout midnight, Art. The doctors did find what it was but there was nothing that they could do. Doctor Collins said that it was the fastest growing neurological tumor that she's ever heard of. It was just near to the top of his spine. Inoperable. Al died swearing to everyone there that you cursed him.”
I watched a hawk soar overhead for a moment before I replied, “Not to speak ill, but if I could have, I would have. Didn't like him at all.
“You, on the other hand are one of the best. Never heard a single bad word about you, even from folks you've arrested.”
Deputy Mustic smiled but only slightly, “Thanks for that, Art. I didn't expect any sympathy for Al but I figured that you'd want to know.”
“Indeed, Deputy. My condolences to your family.”
As Deputy Mustic drove away, My mind was in high gear. I liked it out here, but it did get pretty lonely on occasion. The ease with which I influenced animals and settled Al's hash led to an interesting line of thought.
The next time that I was in town, I spotted a pretty young lady. Checking her out by 'feel' I found that she was not only available, she didn't like being tied to one guy. She enjoyed having a variety of lovers.
All that I planted was the urge to drive out my way. The weekend was fun for both of us. Besides bed, Sally hiked around the hills with me and even liked watching a hawk or buzzard fly. We took a bunch of pictures of her around my house and up in the rocks and hills. Nice cheesecake, barely risque. Good memories.
It turned out that Sally knew a fair number of other like minded friends. After she introduced me to her buddies, neither my days or nights stayed lonely.
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For those who wish to read the whole tale at once, it is HERE.
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It was Halloween. Ghosts, goblins, witches and super villians were not as scary as the nation's latest President and his rubber stamp Congress. Combined with a Supreme Court picked by the “Religious Right,” they were really scary.
Back to the few safer monsters that were already not coming to my door to get their assorted properly wrapped treats. That was the saddest part of the holiday for me. I am old enough to remember making up popcorn balls, fudge and taffy to give out.
I live pretty far out of town so anyone showing at my door was a bit of an event.
It was early yet, sun not even down, when they came to my porch. Both girls looked to be perhaps twenty to twenty five. They wore veils and fairly modest blue bra like tops, decorated with fringes and dangly light weight fake coins. Their midriffs were bare to just above the hips where they had wide, almost skirt-like sash belts decorated like their tops. Below the belts, they had calf length sheer pale blue gauze skirts, slit up the sides almost to the hips. The skirts had the lower hems trimmed with the same fringe and coins as the rest of their costumes.
The girl in the lead had a pair of light weight drums and the other had a set of those finger cymbals known as zils on each hand. The one in the lead was pulling the other girl by a gold colored chain that had more blue fringes and coins dangling from it in small swags. The collar that it was attached to had fringes and coin dangles but under them it was a very solid leather, secured by a small but stout lock.
That led me to notice that both wore the collars and in addition, had strong cuffs at ankle and wrist as well, all decorated with fringes and coins.
Fascinating costumes, altogether. Even more fascinating to me was the absence of any car in my drive. Either they walked here or they flew. I was banking on foot travel.
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Copyright fair use rules for Tumblr users
Users of Tumblr.com are specifically granted the following rights. They may reblog the story provided that all author and copyright information remains intact. They may use the characters or original characters in my settings for fan fiction, fan art works, cosplay, or fan musical compositions.
All sorts of fan art, cosplay, music or fiction is actively encouraged.
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PART 1 is HERE
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I opened the door and invited, “Come in, it is a long walk from Fosse.”
The chained girl quailed away. The other actually pulled her leash to bring her into my house. “This man has spoken against the way our people have been treated, Raffa. We heard him at the Farmer's Market. Come in and do not be afraid.”
With both inside, I secured the door. They were looking at each other with fear writ large on their faces.
I ordered, “Get to the floor in front of that couch!”
I was opening a window a little and bracing a rest on the sill. I broke out a big home made rifle and put it on the rest after I loaded it with five large cartridges.
Turning to the girls, I said, “There are two trucks coming up the road. They have five men in them. I have run the lot of them off before. Looks like this time I might have to kill them.”
Raffa hugged her sister close, still fearful, and whispered, “You were right Naja. I hope that he can stop them. I do not want to be hanged like father was or burned to death like mother.”
I was watching things develop in a monitor which, besides recording the event, gave me a far better view of what those at my gate were up to. The driver of the lead truck got out and pulled stiff wire cable from his winch. He hooked it to my gate while the other four got out and made menacing poses. Only then did he hit the communication button.
“Just give it up, Mort! They is five of us. Got you outnumbered. Couple of IM-MEGRANT girls come out here. We gonna have our fun and then hang um.
“You don't knuckle under, I gonna rip your gate right out. Both gate posts, too. Then we gonna add you to the hangin! Got it?”
He turned back to his truck. My bullet slammed through his chest from behind, smashing his body against the side of the truck! His fall to a dead still tangle of limbs painted a ragged streak of gore down the truck door.
One ran around to the passenger side, staying low as he sneaked to the driver's seat. Did not wait to see what he was going to do. Punched out the engine while cursing, “TRIGGER TREAT! I wanted that truck!”
Forgot that the gate speaker was on. The four survivors yelled, “That is it! You are gonna die, Mort!”
One unwisely pulled a gun. Before he could take aim, my bullet, by luck rather than good management, hit his neck! His ripped off head bounced into the back of the truck while his headless blood spurting corpse flopped flat next to it.
Knowing that the gate speaker was on, I commented, “The odds are getting better. Only three against one, now. You boys might as well stand up and get your Trigger Treats!”
One tried to line up a pistol shot, using the back of the truck he was hiding behind as a rest. I put my round through the side of the truck bed, just below his partly visible head. He and his gun simply vanished.
I could hear the two young ladies whispering urgently back and forth.
One of the two left managed to get into the remaining truck and start the engine without being seen. As the truck started to roll back to three corner turn out of there, I punched out his engine. Really couldn't afford have any of them getting back to Fosse. They might return with a mob that I could not handle.
He wisely got out on the shielded side of his truck. His maneuver had got him closer to my gate speaker. “Drat you, Mort! Don't you know that those girls have no rights?”
I returned at once, as I reloaded, “Actually, since that idiot Supreme Court decision about the Constitution meaning only males when it uses man or men, they do have rights. The Court was clear that females could be free citizens, wives or even Chattel Property.”
He yelled back, “Right! They got no parents and nobody owns 'em! That means no rights at all!”
I snapped, “What part of ownerless female is a FREE female is unclear?”
He returned, as if it was obvious, “They is IMMIGRANTS! If they are illegals, NO RIGHTS!”
I snarled, “WRONG! One: I knew their parents before yutzes like you killed them. THEY WERE LEGAL. Two: The girls came here to be MY CHATTLES. What happens to ANYONE that messes with MY property?”
Aggrieved, he called back, “We did not know that, Mort! Now that we do, we will leave you be!”
“Afraid that I am going to call you a liar on that. I have caught you trying to steal from me before this. You always promised not to do it again. This time you were part of trying to break my fence.
“That has ALWAYS been a lethal force felony.”
I heard surprise in the voices of the two girls.
Just then, I caught sight of the other survivor trying to sneak off while I was conversing. My shot took his leg off just above the knee.
While we were chatting, I had been homing in on the last one's location. My rifle's recoil bucked my shoulder for the last time.
The girls watched, mystified at first, as I went out the back way. After verifying that all five were dead, I double checked the trucks. They were too. Dead that is.
Good only for scrap.
Lucky that I have LOTS of uses for scrap.
I removed the winch cable from my gate and verified that the winch was an electrical add on. It was still good. Excellent. Lots of uses for that too.
I was surprised when the girls joined me and asked, “What may we do to assist you, Mast . . . um, Mort?”
We went to get carts for the bodies and generally tidied up the scene of the recent battle until it was too dark to see.
It was Raffa, still in her collar and chain who spoke while I was still fixing dinner for three, “We know about the things that you spoke of, Mort. Without knowing us for more than a few words, you defended us fiercely. You risked your life for us.
“Will you take us as your Chattels? We know that you will do all that you can to keep us safe.”
Sort of stunned, I nodded. “That is true. I certainly do my best to take care of what is mine. I accept but are you sure? This is a one way decision. You can't undo it.”
They both chorused, “We have discussed it most carefully. We are sure. We want to be safe, but more, we want to be yours. This Halloween, you get the treats!”
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PART 1 is HERE
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Alarmed, I asked, “What's wrong? Isn't it healing?”
“Yes, Mr. Marks, it is. It's just the fastest healing surgical wound that I've ever seen!”
Deputy Redd was giving me a sideways look, a bit of a smile playing about his features. “You sure that you don't want to tell me a bit more, Josh?”
Sarcastically, I retorted, “He blasted me through the middle from behind with both barrels, just off to the left of the spine. I was too pissed off to die, in spite of a hole the size of the Holland Tunnel through me back to front. I hauled out my gun and shot him down. Then I fixed up my carcass best I could and called in. Faked the spleen injury to make it look good.
“While you were outside the door here, after we talked, Al came back to haunt me but I ripped off his ghost's arm and slugged him upside the head with it. Then I shoved both his head and arm up his ass and stomped him back to Hell, OK?”
To my surprise, the nurse said, “That makes better sense than your other story. I was in the surgery team that put you back together. We took out six stray pellets along a path between your front and back wounds. Your Aorta was under tension like after an aneurysm surgery, as if about an inch and a half had been taken out. It and a lot of the rest of the mess that we found all looked like new healed tissue. Now, you are almost ready for discharge after less than twenty four hours.”
Deputy Redd nodded, “Fits what I found out at your place and what I've seen here, too. All except for that haunt bit.”
Deputy Colsun stuck his head in the door and announced, “Redd, I need you out here. Both of the surviving Rankin brothers are out here, trying to get in.”
I closed my eyes and crawled out of the ol' carcass to look over my guests. Neither one had so much as a pocket knife. I opened my eyes and said, “Thanks, Deputy Colsun. Go ahead and let them in. Deputy Redd, have your gun ready, just in case.”
The Rankin brothers entered, full of anger, but sensibly not doing anything. I greeted them, “Will, Sandler. How you doing? Aside from that idiocy about trying to kill a man in the hospital, I mean.”
Sandler snapped, “You fuckin' murdered my brother! Al was unarmed.”
“Oh, really? How do you figure that, Sandler? I seem to recall a double barrel load of shot blasting through my abdomen.”
“Exactly! Al had a double gun and both barrels were empty when you shot him!”
“Still self defense, Sandler. He had four more cartridges in his shirt pocket and six in his right pants pocket. I just didn't give him time to reload. Fair didn't seem to be the order of the day, since he'd just shot me in the back at about two or three feet.”
Will snarled, “You lost all your rights when you got killed, damn you!”
I turned to the nurse, “You've been doing my vitals since I got here. Am I dead? Did I even code out?”
The nurse saw where that was going and grinned. “You've been alive the whole time. Too much so for my taste on occasion. Never even coded once, which, with a wound like yours, is almost a miracle.”
“Sorry, Will. Just didn't die, that's all. Al wasn't as lucky. Besides, I had that protective restraint order out on him because of that vandalism I caught him at. I know that it was served and so do you. You signed the witness to delivery line, just under Al's signature. Lawfully I was legal to kill him armed or no, just for being within a hundred fifty feet of my property line.”
I could feel relevant info trickling into my consciousness. It tickled just a bit, going in. I told them, “Of course you boys know all about how I was shot. You were on top of my south hill, watching Al ambush me. When it went sour, you two didn't hang about, did you? Didn't call for help or the Sheriff, either.
“Al's old truck is still at his place. Will's is in the shop after that stupid wreck. Not even your fault, Will. Sandler, you're famous for not letting anybody drive your rig and it left some beautiful tire tracks in that soft patch just shy of where you parked it. Your right rear has a big slash in the tread caused by that mesquite branch that you ran over last week. That tire track puts you there, Sandler.
“Will, you were in such a hurry to get out of there that you left the lens caps for your binoculars. They have several nice fingerprints on them. You are toast, too. Put at the scene by evidence left there and already found by the cops.
“Since you boys were with Al when he tried to murder me, you are accomplices before, and during the fact of attempted murder. Enjoy the State's hospitality for the next few years.”
Deputy Colsun simply put cuffs on the stunned pair. As he led them away, Sandler yelled, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live!”
A few hours later, I was released by a very puzzled doctor as fit to go home. I was riding with Deputy Redd back out to my place. Softly, he asked me, “Josh, are you a witch-man?”
“Tell me what one is and I'll tell you. Short answer, I don't know. Weird stuff has been happening since Al shot me. That, I agree.”
We pulled up to my gate and Deputy Redd was considerate enough to open it up with my keys and drive me on up to the house. As we parted company on my porch, he asked softly, “You know some things that you got no way to know. I saw that happen. We have two files that are still open. One is an unidentified woman from a couple years ago. Body was found after scavengers got it. We never found her skull and there are a couple of odd things connected to the case.
“The other is our county's only unsolved murder. Poor sap was just a wetback. We'd have sent him home if we caught him. Thing is, somebody else got him first and lynched him. Maybe some places they'd just say hell with it, but it pisses us off to have a killer loose even if the only guy he's killed is a wetback.”
I pretended to think it over first but it wasn't even a close call. “Can't guarantee a thing, Deputy, but I'll be glad to look. If you have a bit of physical evidence directly connected to either victim, it might help. Might not, too. This is all new to me, OK?”
“Can't ask for better. I'll bring the things by tomorrow, Josh. See you then.” He was halfway to his truck when Deputy Redd turned and asked, “Ripped off Al's arm and slugged him across the head with it? Shoved his head up his ass and stomped him back to Hell? That was a true story, wasn't it?”
“Actually. Deputy, yes it was. Didn't think that anyone would believe it is all. Why?”
He grinned a big wide smirk and replied, as he got into his county truck, “Colsun overheard the tale. When he took the Rankin brothers in, he told the whole station. Everybody except the Rankin Brothers was laughing their heads off.” He drove off in a cloud of desert dust.
I went around to my chicken run. Al's rattlesnake was still there, curled up in a corner. It buzzed nervously when it saw me. This time I had a non-lethal answer for it. I used my ectoplasmic hand to pick it up and carry it safely far from the chickens. I found it a nice hole leading to a rat den and let it go.
I went back to the chicken run and used the same technique to gather the eggs and check feed and water. All well, I went back to the house. Where I found Al waiting for me.
He tried for another “ghostly wail” but I shoved an ectoplasmic fist down his throat. Setting my eggs down in a bowl by the sink, I started to rinse them. Next to Al, a large dog-like shape began to fade into existence. A Hell-Hound.
Al began to crow triumphantly, “Might mess with me, Marks, but there's no way that you can fuck with this monster!”
Mildly I replied, “For once in your whole existence, Al, you are right.” I turned to the Hell-Hound and said, “It is my understanding that you can speak. Is this so?”
A blacker than midnight head turned to gaze at me with eyes that, though also black, gave the impression of flames. It spoke, revealing far more and larger fangs than any earthly hound, “That is true. Why do you not flee or show terror?”
“I am a bit afraid, I'll admit freely. The rest is obvious. There's no point to it. Why run from what cannot be escaped? As for terror, courage, or what we sometimes call guts, consists of facing fear and dealing with it.
“If I must, I'll go with you freely and with no resistance. First, though, I'd like to do something to entertain us both. Let me deal with Al and then let us do whatever is necessary. Did you see what I did to him last time?”
The Hell-Hound grinned, displaying a canine-shaming degree of mouth armaments. It gave a very canine bark as it said, “I did. Many had laughter after the form allowed us.”
The ghostly Al purpled and tried to grow “Nightmare on Elm St.” type razor claws. His first swipe with them was his last. Dumb roundhouse swing. I ducked under it, grabbed his ectoplasmic arm and heaved. The arm and hand ripped off. My return cut was a low line rising swing just fractionally following a poke at his eyes with my free hand. Al's own Freddy Kruger kit carved right up through his prominent gut.
I followed my slash by a grab and scoop that spilled Al's ghostly intestines on the deck. It looked like he could still feel what was happening to him because he doubled up in agony. I pulled out his large intestine and cut it free at the inside of his anus and shoved the end of his gut down his own throat. I tied his hands and feet together with the rest of his intestines.
“You are so full of your own shit, Al, that you might as well get it direct from the source,” I told him as I stomped him down through the floor. It looked like it was going to be a really long fall.
I turned to the Hell-Hound and said, “Was that as much fun for you as it was for me?”
Thumping its tail, the Hell-Hound replied, “Very nearly, I expect. Shall we go?”
“Since I agreed to, yes. Is there a particular hurry?”
“Not really. It will only delay the inevitable, though.”
“If it helps, I agree about that, too. What were you sent here to do, exactly?”
“I was sent to bring your soul to Judgment before the Three.”
“Don't I have to be dead for that to happen?”
Wagging his tail hesitantly, the Hell-Hound said, “That is so. You must be dead or alive by an unlawful resurrection.”
“Got a question for you then. Can you tell if I fit your rules or do you just grab and say, 'OOPS!' if you're wrong?”
Almost testily the Hell-Hound replied, “Of course I can tell. I just need to smell and taste your blood to know.”
I held out my hand, saying, “I hope that you don't have to do me an injury to find out. I'm fond of that hand.”
Incredulously, the creature asked, “You will trust me not to injure you?”
I shrugged, “Same as above. I couldn't stop you if I tried, so there's no point in trying. Besides, unlike Al, you have behaved with both honor and restraint, so far.”
“You are very different from the usual among the Damned. I will not harm you.” He sank the point of one of his canines into the back of my hand almost to bone and pulled it back. As blood began to well up, he ran his tongue across my hand. It left a trace of first degree burn redness but healed the hole without a trace.
The Hell-beast looked almost disappointed. He pronounced, “You are not my prey. To kill in self defense is lawful. You used no sorcery to live through the mortal wound. You simply refused to fully leave your body and found a way to repair the damage before the death of the body. I must go back.”
I sat and put a hand on his back. “I wish that you wouldn't. Think. You were sent to get me. Was there a time limit set?”
“No. You want a Hell-Hound to stay with you?”
“Sure. I like you. You have been absolutely fair with me and that says a lot. Since no time limit was set, I'd like you to accompany me to my proper place of Judgment when my time comes. Be it Hell or Heaven, I said I'd go with you, and I will. In the meantime, stay here with me. You'll still do your duty but get a bit of a vacation, if you want it.”
The creature simply sat down next to me and said, “We might be together for a long time. The things that you have learned can be used to keep you young, you know.”
I patted his back and replied, “I sorta figured that out. So, you staying, then?”
“For so long as I am welcome, I shall be your friend, Josh Marks.”
“You need a name while you're here. How do you like Hellfang?”
“That is a good name for me. I never had a name before.”
“Say, Hellfang, if Al really is going to haunt me, we could have a lot of fun. You must have some purely delightful ideas.”
Tail thumping on the floor, Hellfang said, “You are right. I do.”
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I read an item in the SCI-NEWS that I personally found amusing. A lot of people, especially the other Desert Rats like me, would have said, “So?” For them, they'd be right. Me, I'm the odd one, the duck that swims in the desert.
The item? Somebody found and totally documented that the human brain's neurons use electrons to transmit information, which everybody already knew. The new bit was that the neurons and the so-called white matter, the glial cells, also used protons to carry information. The positive charge wasn't there just for balancing potentials.
Like I said, odd man out. I already had a working headset that used passive electrical pickups to read brain activity. In the past, and the reason that I built it, I used it to locate the speech processing center. My plan for riches was simply to use the headset to read subvocal thought for controlling a computer or word processor. Like many great notions, this one ran aground on the reef of reality. It barely worked at all and was prone to massive errors. Apparently it couldn't read the necessary brain center finely enough.
I looked over the equipment and began to rewrite my software to take into account the positive charges as information along with the negative ones. Wow. Dullsville, according to my few friends out here. I shut up about my experiments.
Al Martin was a particular thorn all the way through the paw. After I caught him cutting my gate lock chain to come up “for a friendly visit”, I got a Protective Order put on him to keep him away. He took to calling me Dr. Freakenstein and making 'hilarious' jokes about creating monsters and EVIL SCIENCE.
Al Martin aside, I kinda like it out here. The natural silence of wind, bird, coyote howl and such like, combined with the sheer joy of waking to the desert sunrise and watching the day unfold, lets me have both the time and the peace to think. Sometimes I tinker with the things that I think about. Unless Al finds a way to be a nuisance.
The last few months, he's been running a “neighborhood watch” scam. He got a telescope and started trying to charge folks for keeping an eye on their places. By a pure coincidence I'm sure (NOT), the places on his watch list get robbed by burglars more often than the ones that he doesn't watch. He even watches my place, which isn't on his watch list. Caught him in the act several times. I have a telescope, too.
Sorry about the digression. Back to my idea of fun stuff. The result of looking at both sides of the charge equation was a complete surprise. Much of the mystery of brain intercommunication simply fell apart. Most, if not all, of thought was processed as fractal interfaces between “clouds” of positrons clustered about various brain centers. Still sounds dull, I guess.
Point, set and match occurred when a rat wandered near, under my house. The sensor setup on my head spotted the interference of ratty's little “mind clouds” at once. I personally hadn't noticed. The computer showed me why, too. My mind was automatically blocking the signal.
It took both concentration and help from the computer to open up to it. As the little critter moved about, I started to get a feel for it. If I could feel it, could it respond to me?
That took quite a few tries and failures. After somewhat over an hour, I got the rat to come out from under the house and sit up on my porch in full view. He was a dusty gray with lines of white spots down his back. His tail was long but fluffy. Some sort of ground squirrel perhaps. Not really a rat after all.
Now that I had him in sight, I experimented more freely because I could see how Ratty responded. I needed the computer for the first few hours while I was learning to use my 'clouds' to influence his 'clouds'. I kept blocking the signal by old habit. With some work, I finally got Ratty to stand up and do a little rat-dance on his hind legs.
When I realized that Ratty was hungry from all of my experiments, I gave him a chunk of a peanut butter sandwich. A few curious little birds landed on my porch rail while Ratty and I were munching. I tried reaching out with my 'cloud' and encouraged them to hop up close. More of my sandwich disappeared into little birdie craws.
By the end of several days of practice, I knew that my maximum range was about fifteen feet. Inside that distance, I could simply execute small vermin like fleas, mites, lice, ticks and flying bugs. Larger critters were harder but not much. I didn't harm many of them though, it was more fun to control them and simply send them away. Ratty was the exception, of course. He was both a kick as a pet and a great little test subject.
