CHAPTER ONE -- DEAD IS DEAD, END OF STORY

  1

  Flashing lights from emergency vehicles illuminated an intersection where a compact car sat with its side caved in. The pickup that broadsided the vehicle rested on the sidewalk nearby.

  The wrecked car’s driver, an older, frail woman, lay in the street. She remained calm despite her numerous injuries, including a long facial laceration bleeding into her greying hair.

  Onlookers gathered at the accident scene to gawk as a stoic paramedic in his thirties, Ross, examined the elderly driver. Another paramedic, Derek, hurried over after checking on the man waiting by the truck. Ross glanced up at Derek as he worked, "He will live, I assume?"

  Derek nodded. "He'll have a bad hangover tomorrow. That’s all."

  Ross shook his head. "Drunk drivers never get hurt."

  "My ice cream will melt if I don't get it home soon," the woman mumbled as she tried to sit up.

  “Please, just lie still, Ma’am,” Derek said and gently restrained her as Ross checked her vitals.

  A grim-faced man in his forties, Dodd, emerged from the crowd of onlookers. Clad in a vintage dark suit, he looked like he stepped out of an old cigarette ad. Casually leaning against the wrecked car, he watched with detachment as the woman’s breathing stopped and her eyes closed.

  Derek reported, "She's going into V-fib." He readied the defibrillator while Ross grabbed the paddles and prepared to administer a shock to the injured woman.

  After checking the time on his tarnished pocket watch, Dodd drew an unusual handgun from his shoulder holster.

  The Scythe pistol was a futuristic-looking weapon that resembles a barcode scanner gun complete with a tiny keypad, a display screen and several blinking lights.

  After pressing buttons on his Scythe pistol, Dodd pointed his strange weapon at the elderly woman. No one reacted. The paramedics and bystanders were completely unaware of him.

  Ross announced “Clear!” just before shocking the woman’s chest with the defibrillator.

  “Sorry, guys. She’s coming with me,” Dodd murmured.

  Neither paramedic noticed Dodd standing over them as they attempted to save the old woman’s life. The onlookers remained oblivious to his presence.

  After glancing at his pocket watch, Dodd fired his Scythe pistol.

  A cold, white light emanated from the gun, resembling the weak beam from a dying flashlight. The ray struck the unconscious woman and bathed her in a soft glow.

  A moment later, a bright, yellow ball of radiance emerged from the woman and flew into the small prism on the front of Dodd's gun.

  Several lights flashed on the Scythe pistol's display screen. Dodd pressed some buttons on the device and it went dark. He then returned the weapon to his shoulder holster.

  After discovering that the woman's heart hasn't resumed beating, Ross muttered, “She’s still down.” Ross and Derek prepared to use the defibrillator again as Dodd walked away unnoticed.

  2

  Morning sun shone through the dirty windows of a dingy studio apartment. The depressing room featured water-damaged furniture, rusty pipes running along the ceiling and cracked walls festooned with cheesy motivational posters.

  The front door unlocked and swung open to reveal an empty hallway. After a few seconds, the door seemed to close by itself. Though no one can be seen, a presence was obviously now in the room as a disembodied voice began speaking.

  “Morton, wake up.” The unseen visitor’s speech had an ageless, genderless quality to it. Almost otherworldly, its whispery tone had a sinister hint of inhuman power.

  The person sleeping in the bed, Morton, awakened with a start. He was a tall, wiry man with sunken eyes and long, shaggy hair of the darkest red. Still half-asleep, Morton drew a hunting knife and scanned the room for an intruder.

  “Calm down, Morton. It’s just me,” the unseen visitor said.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  “You’ve finally returned.” Morton's eyes wandered the room while he spoke, clearly unable to see the source of the unearthly voice. “I was afraid you’d never come back.”

  “You haven't started mutilating yourself again, have you?”

  Morton looked at the row of fresh slashes on his forearm. Ashamed, he crossed his arms to hide the bloody design. “A little. Do you need me to do what we talked about a few weeks ago?”

  “Yes. Do you still wish to serve me?”

  Morton nodded eagerly. “I want to be your avenging angel.”

  “You will do exactly as I command or I will end you.” The unseen speaker let the threat hang a moment before continuing. “I assume you still want to live. That hasn’t changed, has it?”

  Morton, looking genuinely afraid for his life, shook his head. “I don’t want to die.”

  “Good. I have a gift for you.” A pair of unusual glasses suddenly materialized on the bed. The metallic frames of gunmetal-blue were scarred with welding scorch marks and contained thick, blood-red lenses. “This is true sight. Put them on.”

  Morton cautiously donned the glasses. Once in place, they emitted a brief electronic buzz, followed by a tiny click. He grimaced in pain as blood trickled from under the glasses and ran down his face. “Something’s wrong, it hurts!” He reached up to remove the glasses.

  The ghostly voice stopped him. “Don’t take the glasses off yet. The burning sensation and bleeding won’t last long. You just need a little time to become accustomed to wearing them.”

  Morton glanced around with his new glasses on. When he looked at the empty chair by the door, he was startled by what had become visible to him. “I can see you now.”

  “I'm not the only thing you'll be able to see with those on. Now it's time to put you to work.”

  3

  Ross unbuttoned his paramedic’s uniform as he quietly stepped into his bedroom. He sat on the bed and cracked open a beer. He frowned as he took a drink, deep in thought. A foot slipped out from under the blankets and playfully poked him in the ribs. Smirking, he pressed the cold beer against the jabbing foot. Shocked by the chilly can, it retreated back under the covers.

  The blanket lifted to reveal Theda, a woman in her thirties with deep, dark eyes and a welcoming smile. “Good morning, my love,” she said between yawns. After they shared a tender kiss, Theda glanced at his beer and rubbed his back. “Bad night?”

  Ross took a sip. “I saw one of my teachers from high school die last night.”

  Theda winced. “That’s terrible. I’m so sorry.”

  “I didn’t recognize her until afterwards,” Ross said. “The only thing I remember about her was how much I hated her English classes. She'd always make us do speeches up on a stage in front of the other students.”

  Theda massaged his neck. “She’s in a better place now.”

  Ross took a long pull on his beer, nearly finishing it. “I don’t believe in fairy tales.”

  Theda sighed. “I’m not talking about angels playing harps up in the clouds, but I do believe there’s something greater that awaits us in the afterlife.”

  “With my service overseas and time here as a paramedic, I’ve seen more than my share of death. Gruesome, nightmare-fuel deaths. Sad, pathetic deaths. Even two darkly humorous ones. In every case I got a clear impression of the finality of it all. There is nothing else.”

  Frowning, Theda rested her head on his shoulder. “I hate when you talk like that.”

  Ross took Theda’s hand. “We all are born, live a hard life and die alone. We fade from existence and live on only as worm food. To believe otherwise is childish. Dead is dead, end of story.”

  4

  A slender man in his twenties, Toth, sauntered into a family restaurant. His hairstyle, skinny leather tie and pastel suit would be right at home in an early-eighties music video.

  The restaurant’s staff and customers all seemed to be unaware of Toth's presence. When he openly snatched two doughnuts from a waitress’s serving tray, she didn't even notice him.

  He plopped down at a booth where Dodd sat, sipping coffee and reading the paper. Toth pulled out a half-full bottle of red wine from his pocket and set it on the table.

  Dodd didn’t even look up from his newspaper. “You’re going to pay for the doughnuts, right?”

  Toth shrugged. “I’m a little short this week. You know how it is.”

  “No, I don’t.” Dodd moved the wine away to another table. “Toth, you can't be drinking on duty. You're already on probation. If the chief finds out you're doing it again, he'll have a meltdown.”

  Toth flashed his high-beam grin. “What’s he going to do, kill me? Besides, it doesn’t matter what we do anymore. Haven’t you been hearing all the talk?”

  Dodd folded his paper and set it aside. “Just rumors. Same as always.”

  “I don’t know.” Toth emptied two sugar packets out all over his doughnuts. “If even half the stories are true, we better live it up now, while we still can.” Once the pastries were sweetened enough to cause diabetic shock, he wolfed them down.

  “My teeth ache when you do that.” Dodd sipped his coffee. “You got a busy shift ahead of you?”

  “I got three.” Toth licked sugar from his fingers. “They all look easy. Should be a quiet day.”

  5

  Ross sat on the bed, finishing his beer. Theda entered wearing a running outfit and poked at him playfully, “Want to join me for a morning run? I’ll go slow for you.”

  Ross grimaced. “No way. I’m dead tired. Are you going to the bike path in the park?”

  “Yes, just like always.” She removed her earbuds from their case. “Why?”

  Ross yawned and stretched, trying to appear nonchalant. “I just wanted to know how long it would be before you come back to bed and hog the blankets.”

  Theda grinned. “Enjoy them while you can. I'll be back in an hour. Love you.”

  “Me too.”

  Theda kissed Ross and left. After hearing the front door open and shut, he hurried to the bedroom closet and retrieved a duffle bag hidden on the top shelf.

  6

  Toth strolled into a liquor store, snagged a bottle from the top shelf and casually walked out completely unnoticed by the store's clerk.

  Toth climbed into his car and took a long gulp of his pilfered vodka. “Who’s about to have a bad day?” He opened a file folder and perused the paperwork inside.

  7

  Wearing his best suit and carrying the bulging duffle bag, Ross hurried along the sidewalk in a quiet residential neighborhood. He arrived at the crosswalk and hit the button. Waiting to cross the street, he glanced at a bus bench nearby where Morton sat, twitchy with anticipation.

  Beaming, Ross was unable to contain his nervous excitement. “Beautiful morning.”

  Morton checked his watch, barely looking at Ross. “Not yet, but it soon will be.”

  When the lights changed, Ross crossed the street and headed into a large city park.

  8

  Ross prepared a romantic picnic at a secluded spot in the park. Located on a hill, it overlooked the bike path and the road nearby. After hurriedly putting on the finishing touches, he glanced down at the path and spotted a distant runner approaching.

  Sweating nervously, Ross pulled a small black box from his pocket and opened it to reveal a modest-sized diamond ring. He put the ring away and anxiously waited for the runner.

  After a moment, Ross saw that the approaching jogger was an older, heavyset man with a flushed face. As the runner drew near, he stopped, clutching his chest and tried to catch his breath.

  Concerned, Ross muttered to himself. “Please, not now. Any other time, but just not now.”

  9

  Waiting alone at the bus stop, Morton checked his watch. Startled by the time, he donned the strange-looking glasses. Still unused to them, he grimaced at a brief, flashing pain.

  With the glasses in place, he surveyed his surroundings. From his point of view, the area was now a surreal red-tinted landscape of distorted shapes and hazy imagery.

  For Morton, the one thing that did stand out in sharp focus was Toth, who suddenly appeared at the crosswalk nearby. Startled, Morton removed the glasses and Toth instantly disappeared. To Morton's naked eye, he was utterly alone. When Morton put the scarlet-hued glasses back on, he was again able to clearly spot Toth waiting to cross the street.

  10

  On the bike path, the old jogger leaned against a tree, clutching his chest. Ross yelled down the hill to the man, “Hey, buddy! Are you okay?”

  The man wiped at the sweat running into his eyes. “Just a little winded, that’s all.”

  Ross walked towards him. “How about I check you out really quick?” Before Ross could even get close, the jogger gave him a fearful look and resumed running down the path. Ross called after the departing man, “Wait, don’t be scared! I’m a paramedic!”

  After watching the man slowly run away, Ross glanced across the street and noticed Morton waiting at the crosswalk alone. Ross then peered down the path and could barely make out Theda jogging towards him in the distance. Flushed with excitement, he hurried up the hill back to his picnic area as the sound of an approaching bus rumbled down the street.