Acheron Highway: A Jonathan Shade Novel Read online

  “Why not?”

  “I worry that without a monitor I won’t be able to find my way back.”

  “Interesting.” I moved around to the driver’s side and opened the car door.

  Walter tapped his hands on the passenger T-top. “Before you go…”

  “Yeah?”

  “I didn’t say anything during the session, but the Chinese woman and that big guy are both killers.”

  I nodded.

  “It’s all they are,” he said.

  “It’s not all they are.”

  “They have more death in their eyes than you do, and I can tell that you’ve taken lives before too.”

  “It’s all right, Walter. They’re on my side.”

  “I hope so.” He turned to go then looked back one more time. “I wouldn’t want either one of them for an enemy.”

  I hopped into my car thinking Walter was smarter than he looked.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Miranda waited in the parking lot at my apartment complex. When I pulled into a space and shut off the engine, she raced to the Firebird before I could even pull the keys out of the ignition. I opened the door and climbed out. A cold front was moving in; I could feel the temperature plummeting. There were times when I hated Colorado. Sure, there were days in December where the sun blazed in the sky and the weather remained in the sixties, but then there were the awful arctic snaps that chilled you to the bone and the weather could switch from one extreme to the next on any given day. Variety may be the spice of life, but San Diego sounded great to me.

  “Fancy meeting you here,” I said.

  “Did you learn anything?”

  “Remote viewing is probably used to spy on women undressing.”

  She gave me a confused look.

  “Sort of astral projection. Government program for psychic spies from the seventies? Nothing?”

  She shook her head. “None of that means anything to me.”

  “Did you see the movie The Men Who Stare at Goats? George Clooney and Kevin Spacey?”

  “I don’t watch movies.”

  “I could never date you.”

  “You haven’t asked me out yet, Jonathan. I might say yes.”

  “I don’t date dead girls who don’t watch movies.”

  “Only dead girls who do watch movies.”

  “Something like that.”

  “Can I come inside? It’s getting cold out here.”

  I nodded. If a dead girl noticed the cold, it was going to be bad.

  As we walked toward my apartment, the motion detector light on the side of the building illuminated. I glanced over and saw four men moving toward us. Something about the way they moved told me they were coming for us. Call it a Spidey sense if you want, but as soon as I saw them, I knew they meant to attack. As they moved through the light, I saw that they were corpses.

  “Shit.” I pulled out my car keys and clicked off the alarm. “Get in the car.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Dead guys in party mode.”

  She ran to the car.

  “I have a sword in the backseat. Hand it to me.”

  “You’re so calm,” she said, her voice quaking. No reaction to the sword, just that I seemed calm. Like everyone keeps a sword in the car. Weird chick.

  “The sword?”

  She dug in the backseat. I took a few deep breaths and watched the dead guys get closer. They weren’t in a big hurry. I could probably hop in the car and drive away, but I wasn’t sure they wouldn’t attack other residents. Miranda handed me the sword. I pulled it out of the scabbard, which I handed back to her. I stepped toward the dead guys.

  “It’s past your grave time,” I said when they were ten feet away.

  “Give her to us.”

  “Sorry, she’s not into necrophilia.” I knew they meant Sharon, but as Miranda was the only woman here, I figured I’d feign ignorance.

  The dead guys kept coming, so I didn’t bother playing nice. I swung the blade fast and strong and lopped off the first guy’s head.

  I’d expected more resistance, but the blade chopped right through flesh and bone with no trouble at all. I swung too far but recovered quickly and spun full circle, whipping the blade around to chop another dead guy in half. The other two jumped back.

  I decapitated a guy six months ago, but he was a magically engineered assassin and it took three swings to cut through his neck. Without magic to reinforce them, the dead guys didn’t stand a chance against the sword. I wondered about myself at this point. Cutting off heads? Multiple times in a year? Shouldn’t that bother me on some level?

  I brandished the blade and kept myself between the two corpses and the car while I considered that.

  Nope. Didn’t bother me. I didn’t feel one way or the other about it, and that seemed strange. I made a note to check my own pulse. Maybe I, too, was dead and didn’t know it. Well, as long as I wasn’t trapped in an M. Night Shyamalan movie, I couldn’t be doing too bad. Right?

  The corpse I’d cut in half kept crawling toward me.

  “Really?” I said.

  “We’re here for the woman. Give her to us, and we’ll let you live.”

  “That’s mighty considerate of you.”

  “Give her up, Mr. Shade.”

  “Dead guys shouldn’t talk.” I let him crawl closer then chopped off his head. That brought my lifetime total of decapitations to three, and still I felt nothing. It bothered me about as much as zapping aliens in a video game.

  I rushed toward the other two. They split up, so I followed one of them. He tried to dart behind a car. I rolled over the hood to cut him off. He tried to grab me, so I lopped off his arm. Then I swung the blade and severed his head.

  The last dead guy raced to my car. I slid across the hood and kicked him in the chest. He staggered backward, bounced off a Toyota, and before he could move again, I sliced off his head.

  That was easy. Lifetime beheadings now stood at five. I checked my pulse: normal. I shrugged, wiped the blade clean on the dead guy’s shirt, and turned back to the Firebird.

  I opened the car door. “You can go on up, and I’ll toss the pieces of these clowns into the Dumpster.”

  Miranda shook her head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Why not?”

  She pointed.

  I turned and saw twenty more corpses running toward us.

  “Well, shit. Maybe we should go someplace else.” I slid behind the wheel and started the engine. I tucked the sword between my seat and the center console. As I threw the car into drive, two corpses jumped onto the hood. Another tried to tug the door open, but I locked it. He slammed his fist through the window, showering me with pieces of glass.

  Miranda screamed.

  I don’t know what she was worried about. Technically she was already dead. I was the only living person here. I stomped on the accelerator and pulled away from the corpse as it tried to grab me through the window. I practically stood on the brake pedal, and the two dead guys on the hood slid off. I bounced over them only to see ten bodies blocking the exit.

  “Hmm.”

  I didn’t want to damage the car. I know, it’s just a car, but I liked it and it had already cost me several thousand dollars in bodywork this year. My bank account couldn’t take another hit like that.

  Three bodies leaped onto the back of the car. I shifted to reverse and gunned it. I plowed into another body, sending it flying backward. I spun the wheel and skidded over two more dead dudes. The wheels slid and the car spun around, slamming into a Dodge pickup. One of the dead men flew off the back of the Firebird into the bed of the pickup.

  I glanced through the broken window and saw another thirty dead people racing toward us.

  “Fasten your seat belt,” I said.

  Miranda’s hands shook as she struggled with the belt.

  “Sorry, baby,” I said to my car. “This is going to hurt.”

  I gunned the engine and raced straight at the line of
dead people blocking the way to the exit.

  The impact threw us forward against the restraints, but the car plowed right through the bodies. Hands and legs pounded the hood and the roof. Something hit the windshield, and the glass spiderwebbed.

  One of the dead people bounced up onto the roof, and his feet hit the guy on the back of the car, but neither of them fell off. The guy on the roof rammed an elbow against the driver’s side T-top and cracked it. He hit it again and again until his elbow came through, then he grabbed hold and ripped off the T-top, breaking the locking mechanism. He tossed it behind us, where it crashed on the road then skidded against the curb.

  The guy on top tried to grab me, but I slammed on the brakes, and he flew off the car. I ran over him with a satisfying thunk, thunk.

  The corpse hanging onto the back of the car smashed out the back window and crawled inside. In my mind, I saw dollar signs adding up the damage. We had to get out of here.

  The car bolted toward the exit, and I turned hard to avoid a Datsun as I skidded onto Leetsdale Drive. I righted the car and stomped on the accelerator, ignoring the horns that blared at us.

  “Take the wheel,” I said.

  In the rearview, I saw the corpse in the backseat reaching for me.

  “Miranda! Grab the wh—aaccck!”

  The son of a bitch gripped me from behind and dug his fingers into my throat. I tried to pull his hand away, but his grip was too strong and I couldn’t get leverage.

  I tried to reach back to the corpse’s face, but he pulled me hard to the side. I couldn’t breathe. I also couldn’t drive like this. The car bounced over the curb. More horns honked and cars screeched away from us. I caught the steering wheel just in time to turn away from a street lamp. Too close, though. I heard the crack and watched my passenger side view mirror rip away from the door.

  Miranda tried to pound on the guy’s arms but ended up hitting me in the face.

  “Wheel,” I croaked.

  She finally grabbed the steering wheel. I pulled the sword from between the console and jabbed it back, stabbing the bastard through the chest. I drove the blade as hard and far as I could, and he finally released my throat. I pinned the dead guy to the backseat. I rubbed my throat with one hand and took the wheel. I guided us back into the road and turned on the first side street we came to. I wheeled over to the curb.

  Fortunately no police cars followed us.

  Someone flipped us the bird as we left Leetsdale.

  Once the car stopped, I shut off the engine and turned in the seat. The dead dickhead tried to pull himself free, but I punched him in the face a few times to get his attention.

  “That doesn’t hurt,” he said. “We’re going to keep coming. We are Legion.”

  “Blow me. You’re just a damn zombie.”

  “Give her to us, and we’ll let you live.”

  “Just kill it,” Miranda said. She leaned as far away from the corpse as she could.

  “It’s already dead.”

  “Cut its head off.”

  “Soon.” I turned back to the corpse. “What’s your name?”

  “I was Andronicus.”

  “Right. I’ll call you Andy.”

  “Set me free.”

  “You don’t like being skewered?”

  “Not especially.”

  “Can’t say as I blame you.” I opened the car door, stepped out, and pulled the seat forward.

  “What are you doing?” Miranda asked.

  “Get out of the car for a minute. Stand on the sidewalk just in case numbnuts gets loose.”

  I placed a foot on Andy’s chest. He grabbed my leg with both hands.

  “Let go or I’ll cut off your arms.”

  He didn’t let go. He tried to pull me off balance.

  I gripped the sword and pulled it free.

  The dead guy lunged, as I knew he would, but I kept my foot on his chest so he didn’t get far. He tried to dig into my leg with his fingers.

  “I warned you.” I placed the edge of the sword against his shoulder and leaned into it. His left arm dropped to the floorboard.

  “Damn you!”

  I pulled my leg free, and he tried to attack me again.

  Naturally I knew it was coming, so I punched him in the face. It hurt my hand, but it also pushed him back. I brought the sword down hard and chopped his legs off just above the knees. There wasn’t much blood. The sword cut into my car seat too. I cut off his right arm then reskewered him to the backseat.

  My poor car.

  I did a quick walk-around to assess the damage.

  The hood was dented, and the sides were scraped. The remaining T-top was cracked, and the windows were all either shattered or cracked. The passenger side was dented where I’d hit the pickup and scraped a bit since we must have been closer to the lamppost than I realized. The mirror was gone.

  “Well...shit.” What could I tell my insurance company? The truth was out of the question. Vandals. That would have to do.

  I hopped back into the car and started it up.

  Miranda climbed in and cast a nervous glance at the armless and legless corpse stuck to the backseat like a shish kebab.

  “He can’t hurt you,” I said.

  “He can bite.”

  “If he tries, I’ll punch his teeth down his throat.”

  “Nice to know you’re such a pacifist.”

  If she could make jokes, I figured she’d be all right.

  As I pulled back into traffic on Leetsdale, it began to snow. Snowflakes landed on my head thanks to the missing T-top. Wonderful. Just another Tuesday night in Denver.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Kelly and Brand met us in front of the dojo on 32nd Street.

  I parked and stepped out. The snow fell harder. I brushed snow out of my hair and off my jeans.

  Kelly laughed. “T-tops are for summer, Jonathan.”

  “Now you tell me.”

  Of course, I’d filled her in on the phone as we drove over. Miranda got out of the car, and I introduced her to Kelly and Brand. They nodded to her.

  “You have a few garbage bags and some duct tape?” I asked.

  “Probably. Check the bathroom. Should be garbage bags under the sink. Might have some tape too.” She looked at Brand. “You want to carry the zombie inside?”

  “Sure,” he said.

  “His name is Andy,” I said.

  Brand leaned into the car and pulled the dead guy out. He carried him in on the sword since he didn’t want to touch the guy. Or maybe he was showing off for Miranda. It’s hard to tell with Brand.

  He gave me a smile. “Based on the mess he made on your backseat, you should call him Mark.”

  “My name is Andronicus,” Andy said.

  Brand laughed. “I think I’ll hang you on the wall and call you Art.”

  “Keep the lame jokes to yourself, dickless.”

  “Oh, come on,” Brand said, “you lost your sense of humor when you lost your legs and arms?”

  “You’re gonna lose your life, moron.”

  “We could go water skiing, and I’ll call you Skip.”

  “Fuck you, asshole,” Andy said.

  “I’ll put you on a podium and call you Mike.”

  Kelly sighed and shook her head.

  I know he kept going, but fortunately I went into the dojo and the door closed behind myself.

  Kelly was right about the supplies. I grabbed the box of garbage bags and a roll of duct tape and headed toward my car. As I left the back room, I saw Brand swinging the sword with Andy still skewered to it.

  “I’ll knock you over the fence and call you Homer.”

  “Please kill me,” Andy said. He was talking to Kelly, not to Brand.

  “At least you don’t have to sleep with him,” Kelly said.

  “Neither do you,” Andy said.

  Kelly grinned. “Good point. Brand, if you make any more bad jokes, you’re sleeping on the couch.”

  “Oh, come on. I’ve got a million of these.�
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  “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  “Kelly,” I said, “want to help cover the windows?”

  “Anything to avoid more of his grade-school humor.”

  Kelly and I stepped outside.

  “You’ve got some pretty major damage here,” she said.

  “Tell me about it.”

  We brushed the snow aside and taped the bags over the windows. As we worked, I told her about the meeting with Walter and his friends.

  “What about the girl?” Kelly asked.

  “She’s dead.”

  “Well, she’s heartless.”

  “You’re as bad as Brand.”

  She laughed. It was good to hear her laugh. As much as I hated Brand, Kelly did seem to be happy with him. I’ll put up with almost anyone if it’s good for my friends.

  “Since magic is involved, is there any chance her heart is still beating?” Kelly asked.

  “Hell if I know.”

  “If it is still beating, it could be returned to her, right?”

  “Again, color me clueless.”

  “Is she single?”

  “Yeah.”

  “She’s cute.”

  “I make it a point not to sleep with my clients.”

  “Finish the case first.”

  “About that, what are the odds that this Zach guy is working for Persephone?”

  “Raising the dead and letting spirits from the Underworld inhabit the bodies?”

  “While they search for Sharon.”

  “This last batch was after Miranda, though, right?”

  I taped the last bag down and leaned against the car. “No. I don’t think so. They never reached for her. They came at me.”

  “So? You’re the one destroying them, so they had to deal with you first.”

  “Andy never even looked at Miranda. He just said to give them the woman, but why wasn’t he specific? Persephone knows what name Sharon is using. In all the excitement, I didn’t think much about it, but why didn’t he talk to Miranda at all?”

  “We can ask him.”

  “If he’ll talk.”

  “We can leave him with Brand and his stupid jokes for a few days.”

  “A few hours might suffice.”

  We went back inside.