Dead City Read online

  “What are you, some kind of fix-it man for the pulse-retarded? Presenting Sesame Street for the undead?” asked the spirit.

  “I'm the living liaison.”said Jon.

  “How'd we get that shitty job?”

  “There is no 'we'.” Jon insisted. “There's just me. I don't know who the fuck you are, but you're not me, we're not an 'us'.”

  “Well how'd you end up in this shitty job?”

  “I...” Jon faltered. “It's my job, It's been my job for as long as I can remember.”

  “And how long can you remember?”

  Jon didn't answer. He didn't know. He started his walk back up with a swift stride, in the hope of avoiding further questions, and their source.

  “You know I don't breath, right?” said the spirit. “You're going to get winded before I will...”

  Ignoring his stalker, Jon continued his walk trying not to listen to his unwanted companion.

  Distracted from the job at hand, he didn't see or hear the teyollocuani with its recently reattached head standing in the shadow of the doorway. It reached out with a bony hand, dislocated jaw hanging, ready to suck the life from his body. Whilst Jon was distracted, his ghost was not, and as he saw the monster lunge for his body, cried out as he tried to push himself out of the way.

  The push never happened. As he impacted with his corporeal form, he found himself sucked into his former body, finally able to feel, to move with muscle and bone. The momentum of the collision between the two pushed Jon's body out of the grasp of the creature, it caught air and turned to try again. Jon didn't know what to do. He didn't have the memories of the man who had walked in his skin whilst he was in the corridor. So he ran.

  'There were no dames to rescue, but there's always some kind of trouble out on the streets...'

  The narration played out in his head like a voice-over, whilst Jon's feet hammered on the pavement.

  'What the hell is this?' his own thought chimed in, over the top of the narration.

  'The big bad city needed someone to stand up for it, needed someone who was willing to do what it took to keep it safe.'

  'Seriously, what the fuck?'

  Jon stopped running, lungs aching, heart punching him in the chest. He relished every ache, all the pains. He had no idea how much he missed having a body, and as he felt a tickle in his nose, looked forward to the impending nasal explosion. He sneezed and found himself thrown out of the body, like a giant sentient germ.

  “What the actual, genuine fuck was that?”

  “I remember!” said Jon. “I remember everything!”

  Jon's pace was fast, but he let his spirit keep up with the strut. This time he had no need for a fictional life of narration. The memories were fading, but he still held on to pieces that were most important.

  “She needs us.” he said to his ghost.

  “Ashley? Yeah, she's needed us for almost four years.”

  “Four years? Has it been four years?” their combined memories were still missing a chunk of time.

  “Yeah, tell me about it... Where are we going?”

  “We've got to get out of here, and only one person knows how.”

  They turned the corner and walked towards the casino. The bouncer was raring for a fight, having been beaten down earlier in the day without the chance to throw a punch. Jon had him knocked to the floor, swallowing his own teeth before he had a chance to raise his fist.

  “I don't remember being so violent.” said the ghost, raising an ethereal eyebrow.

  “Yeah, we've learnt a few things since you went out for a stroll...”

  Kicking open the door of the Necromancer's lair, the creature smiled, welcoming them in despite the intrusion.

  “Always a pleasure, my dear Jonathan, and who's your friend?”

  “He's me. I need a favour.”

  “Straight to the chase, aren't you? I'm always happy to lend a hand, as well you know.”

  “Quid pro quo, no doubt.” said the ghost.

  “Not for my favourite liaison!” hissed the creature. “What can I do for you, dear boy?”

  “I need a way out.” he said.

  “Nobody leaves a Dead City, you know that.”

  “There are ways out.” said Jon. “There are always ways out.”

  “Well,” the beast said, feigning rumination. “I've heard of tunnels underground, but if you believe the stories, only the living may pass over the rivers that run beneath...”

  “Where's the entrance?” asked the Jons.

  * * * *

  Before they could leave, there were affairs that had to be put in order. Jon returned to the office and instructed Dildo to take his place and do his rounds whilst he was gone.

  “You understand what you need to do?” Jon asked Dildo.

  “Know who killed me?” asked Dildo.

  “Dildo, you know how you died.” Jon indicated to the note in his pocket.

  “Paper kill me?”

  “Pay attention.” he said, tapping Dildo on the forehead. “You must protect the city while I am gone. Do you understand?”

  “He doesn't understand.” said the apparition.

  “He does.” Jon insisted.

  “Coffee?” Dildo inquired.

  “Jesus, give me a second.” the ghost said, jumping straight at Dildo, the impact pulling him inside the zombie.

  “I real dumb. Hole in head break brain.” he said, followed by a sneeze, releasing the spirit.

  “Dildo protect city.” he said, this time of his own volition.

  “Good. We'll be back soon.” said Jon, putting his trilby on Dildo's head and making for the door.

  “Mr. G, y'aint introduced me to your sexy spirit friend.” whined Sheila, with a eyelidless wink at the ghost.

  “He's me, and even if he had a body, he's not going to sleep with you.” said Jon as they left the office.

  * * * *

  Until they entered the sewer, Jon had never been envious of a ghost before. The spook happily trundled through the tunnels, whilst his corporeal counterpart tried to quell his natural desire to vomit copiously and repeatedly. Despite being entertained by his living-half's suffering, the ghost thought it best to try and distract him.

  “What's you last memory?” he asked.

  “Before the sewer stench started melting every cell in my brain?”

  “Before all this. What do you remember now?”

  “My dad.”

  “Our dad.” the spirit corrected.

  “He was sick.” said Jon

  “I think he was just old.” said the ghost.

  “He was in bed, attached to a thousand machines, that seems like sickness, not age.” said Jon.

  “You'd think we'd remember that...” said his ghost.

  “You'd think we'd remember a lot of things.” Jon said, hearing something up ahead. “Hold up.”

  “What?”

  “I'm almost definitely going to have to vomit. And I'm going to aim it right where you're haunting.”

  “You could just say 'standing'.”

  Up ahead, amidst a tower of shit, was a Shitite.

  * * * *

  Some people die of old age, others die of sickness, and then there are those who die drowning in a toilet full of shit. Jon compared it to something he half-recalled Freud saying, that your first sexual experience digs in to your mind and sows seeds for your future fetishes and kinks.

  The Shitite, as rare as it was, was the unliving version of that. It lived in shit, it bathed in shit, and it ate shit.

  * * * *

  “I'm really glad I don't have a nose.” said the ghost.

  “I'm pretty close to cutting mine off.” said Jon.

  “Wouldn't that just act like larger, bloodier nostrils?”

  “Maybe I could punch myself in the face until I seal it shut.” Jon said, reaching to his holsters as the Shitite raised its head.

  “Lay-zon?” it said, its malformed mouth teeming with excrement. “Liaison!” it said again, excite
dly, after swallowing the mouthful.

  “You!” said Jon, with a smile and faux recognition. He turned to his ghost and shrugged, then looked back at the shit-beast, feigning a memory of the creature.

  “This'a good man here.” said the Shitite, indicating Jon to the ghost. “Save me from'a monsta'!”

  Jon couldn't recall, but was happy to accept the credit, assuming the thing didn't touch him.

  “He'sa good man.” the Shitite said again, slapping Jon on the back.

  Jon shivered, and felt a little bit of vomit crawl up his throat. He wondered if he'd ever be able to get the smell out of his coat.

  “Seen a river round here?” Jon asked, trying not to throw up in the friendly dead thing's face.

  “I gots'a river right ova'there.” it said, pointing beyond the mountain of crap.

  “Great. Let's go!” said the ghost, with enthusiasm that Jon wanted to stab in the face repeatedly.

  Whilst his ghost floated through the shit, unfazed, Jon tried to walk around the pile, but found himself wading deeper and deeper. The filth was soon coming up beyond his knees, then beyond his thighs, and soon nestling up to his crotch with every further step.

  “What's taking so long?” the ghost asked, prancing around in front of him, mocking his body with its incorporeal form.

  Jon grabbed his spirit, and the ghost found himself possessing his own body again.

  “Oh God I'm going to die of this smell!” said Jon.

  'At least if you shit yourself after you die, nobody will notice.' thought the voice inside his head.

  “I hate you so much.” he said to himself, as he waded to the bank of the river, throwing up repeatedly, trying not to have to walk through his own vomit on top of the shit.

  When they arrived at the river, self-possessed Jon put his legs in, trying to soak off the shit, but the stench remained.

  “We should have brought some spare clothes.” he said.

  There was no response. He wasn't listening to himself.

  “Hey! Other me! Pay attention!”

  Corporeal Jon was alert again, and unable to control his mouth, replied inside his own head.

  'What?'

  “Where'd you go? We're about to cross.”

  'I was in our memories, trying to work out what happened to our dad.'

  “Well pay attention. This is going to work, right? It's not going to make me explode or anything?”

  'One way to find out.'

  “This best not fucking vaporise me.” the ghost said to himself.

  Still possessing his own body, he dipped into the river and started to wade across.

  Both Jons were still in tact when they clambered up on the river bank.

  'It worked?!'

  “Don't sound so surprised.” said Jon's possessor, before suddenly being sneezed out directly at the river. Unable to pass through the invisible barrier, he hit it with a resounding thwack that entertained Jon to no end.

  13

  The streets of living London were like a walking through a half-remembered dream, a distant memory made flesh that despite having physical form, didn't seem real for Jon. The buildings and roads were all so clean, so alive compared to everything back behind the wall. The pre-dusk light was gleaming off windows that had actually been maintained, washed and shined, rather than left to decay like the creatures that stalked the streets back in the City they left behind.

  He fought the urge to narrate. The crutch, the fantasy, had kept him distracted for too long. He needed to be in reality, let his identity sink in, now that it had finally been returned to him.

  It was too late in the day for public transport, the last trains and buses having arrived at their destinations before the sun began to set. Curfew was in effect, albeit poorly policed, so the two Jons had the streets of London to themselves.

  The walk was going to take hours, but corporeal-Jon was used to long walks. His daily circumference of the wall was around eleven miles, so the four from where they emerged at Tower Bridge was barely a stretch. His ghost was not enjoying the journey, the two of them spent most of the time bickering about which route would be faster. As much as Jon wanted to see Ashley, he also wanted to absorb the living, breathing side of the city again. It was a revelation to see the monuments and architecture that had, until recently, been nothing more than a haze buried in a vault of memory. He navigated the two of them along the banks of the Thames, then up Shaftesbury Avenue to Piccadilly Circus. It all felt so familiar, and yet somehow didn't. As if the years in the decay and filth of Dead City had become more a part of him than the world he actually belonged – or at least the world he thought he belonged until he started being haunted by himself. Even though he had a pulse he wondered, 'Does having a disembodied ghost of myself mean I'm nothing but yet another citizen of the walls?'

  Looping around for Trafalgar Square, they cut through Soho and Fitzrovia, eventually finding the familiar streets of Camden, leading up to Chalk Farm.

  “Are you taking us on the scenic route to sight-see, or to put off the inevitable?” his ghost asked, speaking the very thoughts he was trying to ignore.

  Jon didn't respond. They were close now, and his stride slowed as they drew nearer to their destination. His borough became his neighbourhood, his neighbourhood became his road, his road became his house. They stared at the home they had lived in for years with the woman they loved.

  “What if she moved?” asked Jon.

  “She hasn't.” said his ghost. “I... checked.”

  Jon turned his head to his disembodied self, eyebrows raised.

  “Checked?” he asked.

  “I may have accidentally haunted her when I first got back. But I apologised after!”

  “Great. So she knows we're... she thinks we're fucking dead?”

  “Probably should have mentioned that, huh?”

  Jon rolled his eyes and approached the door. He took a deep breath, fought the urge to walk away, and tentatively lifted his finger to the doorbell, getting momentarily distracted by a nose-shaped dent in the wood, paint chipped from an impact. He turned back to his ghost, who shrugged.

  Ashley was taking her single plate, single knife and single fork to the sink. This is how it had been for the last three years, and having discovered that Jon had passed away, it was how it would continue to be until she could find a way to move on. Perhaps she'd have just a few more visits with him, she thought, for catharsis. Then the healing could begin.

  The doorbell rang, and the plate hit the floor before Ashley knew she dropped it, smashing into pieces by her feet. She jumped back narrowly missing a shard, reaching for the kitchen table for stability, only to lean on a chair, which she took down with her. The falling and caterwauling concluded and she sat up, laughing at herself. She was surrounded by the chair and smashed crockery, the knife within sight, and hidden somewhere was the fork she would knew she would inevitably step on. Whenever she discovered it – or whenever it discovered the sole of her foot – she'd laugh about it all over again. The laughter, as real and spontaneous as it was, soon gave in to tears, as she recalled how much Jon would have laughed at and with her. The tears were brought to a stop when she heard a crash at the front door. As adrenaline started pumping and instinct took over, she grabbed the knife and was on her feet. A single pair of footsteps were rushing towards to the kitchen, and she prepared herself to lunge.

  'Aim at the brain.' she told herself 'That's what they always say. Whatever manner of dead thing, they always like having their brains in-tact. It wouldn't kill the thing, but it would slow it down.'

  She hid behind the door and could feel her heart pounding in her chest as a hand came round the corner, a head following, seeing the smashed plate, kneeling down to investigate. She lifted the knife above her head and crept behind the figure, preparing to stab. Then she felt her knife-wielding arm drop to her side. Her body was no longer responding to commands, consciousness locked in the back of her mind, watching through her eyes as she put the knife do
wn on the counter, unable to pick it back up.

  'Sorry about this.' Jon's voice said, echoing in her head.

  Jon turned to see her.

  “Ash...” he said, standing up.

  “Not quite.” said the ghost, speaking through Ashley's mouth.

  “Fuck's sake. Stop possessing our wife.”

  “She was going to stab us!”

  “Get out of her. Now.” he ordered.

  Ashley sneezed, and the spirit escaped. She stared at Jon, reaching for the knife again.

  “It's me, Ash.” he said.

  “You're dead!”

  “Yes and no...”

  “But you're a ghost.”

  “And I'm also not a ghost. It's a long story.”

  “And we don't have all the pieces.” added the disembodied spirit.

  “Right.” he said.

  “What?”

  “She can't hear me.” the ghost said.

  “Of course. You can't see him - the ghost me. He said we don't have all the pieces.”

  “So you're alive, and you're dead, you haunted me, hit a woman in the face with a door and made a fish dance with broccoli?”

  He turned to his ghost.

  “Missed some of that out, huh?” he said

  “Do you know how difficult it is to be creative at haunting?” his ghost replied.

  He turned back to Ashley.

  “I annoy the hell out of me. How did you put up with us?”

  She smiled and took a step towards him, screaming as her foot became impaled on a fork.

  All three of them laughed harder than they'd laughed in a long time.

  14

  Dildo was patrolling the City walls. He was ready for anything, but also likely to forget what he was doing at any given moment. It had been a quiet night, and nobody seemed to need saving. He trundled through the streets until coming across the top half of a fellow zombie.

  “Need help!” said the zombie.

  Dildo looked at him, cocking his head with a quizzical expression on his face as he tried to remember what he was meant to do.