Kill City Blues (Sandman Slim 5)

The others laugh.

“That’s not funny,” says the inspector.

I shake the bag a few times to settle the bones.

“I think that’s it. Did I miss anyone?”

“No one who wants to go.”

“Good. Now point me to an exit.”

“No.” It’s a new voice. “He doesn’t go.”

“He’s alive. He’s an invader.”

“He has to die.”

“We had a deal,” I say.

“Not with us.”

Skeletal arms and bodies shoot up from the trash-covered floor. Grab on to my legs and the waistband of my pants. It’s jabbers. A whole pack of them. The meanest I’ve ever seen. Jabbers are just animated skeletons with a little connective tissue holding them together. They’re not very strong or solid, but I suddenly have dozens of hands trying to pull me down. A few more crawl completely out of the floor and pile onto my back. I’m covered in the stinking mummified remains of pissed-off clock punchers looking for some payback from the living.

I’m still weak from the Shoggots. The jabbers pull and push me down onto my hands and knees. I drop the bag of bones. They get my right hand under the floor debris. They want to pull me under and drown me in garbage. I relax and let them pull. Concentrate everything I have into my hand. The jabbers keep puling me down. I’m almost on my belly when I’m able to manifest the Gladius. I drag it from the ground, hacking through jabber bodies and sending a shower of burning trash all over the room. The jabbers back off fast. I swing the sword, ripping through their bones as the other ghosts and poltergeists dive-bomb them, driving them back underground. Another minute and it’s over. I let the Gladius go out and fall against the wet wall, panting and holding on to my gut. I think I’m bleeding again, but when am I not bleeding?

A poltergeist drags the bag of bones to me. I pick it up.

“Okay. Now. How the hell do I get out of here?”

“That, I’m afraid, is your problem. The ceiling collapsed over the door and there are no windows and no ladders down here.”

“Great. Can I get a small fire going?”

“Why?”

“So I can make a shadow. I can get out that way.”

“All right.”

I wrap some of the old clothes and paper around a pipe and pack it together tight. Using a cinder block as a stand, I stick my MacGyver torch on top and wait for it to catch. When it does, it puts out more smoke than light. But it’s enough. I know the corridor above me, so this should be easy. Right. Because everything’s been so easy down here. I step into the shadow and I’m out of the cemetery. Go through the Room and I’m back in the passage upstairs. I sit and pour the bones from the bag into my coat pockets. I slit the lining of my coat and drop in the handful that don’t fit. I stop and fill my lungs with air that doesn’t smell like an abandoned butcher shop.

Now that I’m out, I have no idea where the others might be. For all I know, the group following us is right around the next corner, but I can’t sit here in the dark forever.

“Hello,” I yell. I wait. Nothing comes back. I call a couple of more times. Not a peep. I’m pretty worn out. Maybe I’m not shouting as loud as I think. I take out the Colt, cock the hammer, and fire two shots into the ceiling.

A few seconds later I hear shouts and see pinpoints of lights in the distance. If it’s the other team, I’m not going to be happy. If it’s another pack of ghosts, I’m fucked. I slide behind a big concrete boulder that blocks half the hallway and cock the Colt again.

I hear her before I can see her clearly. I know the sound of her sneakers slapping on the floor as she runs. I stand and she hits me like a little leather freight train. Candy throws her arms around me. I’d do the same to her, but she has my arms pinned.

“This is because I like you,” she says. She lets go and punches me in the arm.

“Ow.”

“And that’s for disappearing again.”

“It’s good to see you too, baby.”

I kiss her and feel the others crowd in around me, hands helping me stand up straight.