Cosmic Undead: Contenders

Broken TV

A portal opened and a man walked out of it. He had almost every part of his body, covered in a bright silver cloth. He glanced at the black sky, with red glowing lines on it, shaped like forks of fixed lightnings. Ahead of him was an extremely tall gate. He could guess it was about a hundred feet but he couldn’t see the end of it. The sky didn’t only look a lot closer to the ground, the top of the gate seemed to be touching the sky. He looked at left and right as he approached the gate. He couldn’t see any end of the gate. It wasn’t time to bother about how wide and tall the gate was. He had been there too many times and he never stopped to think about that. He just had a confrontation with someone and he was back to the Underworld to pursue a new goal with Hades. He walked to the front of the gate and two men showed up, standing behind. They were guards.

“Open the gates!”, the man ordered the gatekeepers, who seemed to be intentionally ignoring him. “Open the gates to me, this second, or I’ll order Hades to throw you in the lake”

“You have no identification”, one of the gatekeepers replied, standing boldly in front of him. “We can’t let you in”

“Coming from this direction is no identification enough?”, the man raised his voice.

“Pardon us. Who are you? We’ll deliver the message to Hades”

“Hermen, for crying out loud”, the man replied and shrugged, realizing it was his fault. He shapeshifted, immediately, and became the Hermen they knew..

“We are very sorry, sir. Hades gave strict orders against strangers”, the gatekeeper said and they opened the gates, quickly.

Hermen nodded and walked in through the gates, staring into the lake of fire, as he walked by it. He could see Hades, far ahead. It was a long way if he decided to walk. He opened a portal and walked into it. Another portal opened in front of Hades’ throne and Hermen walked out of it. “Hades”

“Hermen”, Hades replied with a nod. “What brings you here again? It’s twice in one week”

“I was hoping to meet Rybos here”, Hermen said. “Since it’s just us, I’ll go ahead”.

“Ok?”

“I want the game to begin”, Hermen said, with a mischievous smile, and looked back at the lake. On the other side, there was another tall gate which remained slightly opened. There were guards there too and about a thousand people walked in, one after the other, and fell into the lake, as if they were controlled.

“Where should we start?”, Hades asked and stood up from his throne.

“I want the one that escaped, earlier”, Hermen replied.

“The Beacon?”

“No. I meant the one that created Somnolence”, Hermen said. “I want to witness his savagery once more”

“He has escaped once. I don’t want to see him out, ever again”

“Relax, Hades”, Hermen said. “We own their souls, now. We can control everything and he can’t escape that”

“Ok”, Hades replied and walked closer to the lake. He stretched out his hand and ropes jumped out of his scaly arm, diving into the fire. The ropes sprinted through the countless bodies in the fire and wrapped themselves around one. Hades tugged back his arm and the ropes pulled the person out of the fire. Hades suspended him in air, as he shook in pain. “It’s your lucky day, Garullon”

“Garullon”, Hermen muttered and smiled, mischievously, as he stepped closer to the suspended man. “I like the name”

Hades glanced down. Amidst the billions of soul in the fire, he could see a huge bald black man, who wasn’t wailing. He had his hands and legs chained to the walls of the lake. He tugged the chains and struggled, all day, like he’d jump out of the fire and snap Hades’ neck.

***★***

He stared at the ceilings for as long as he always did whenever he woke up in the morning. He had no other job than that, since he got back from Somnolence and Mia wouldn’t let him go out. Going out was a bad idea, anyway, if he wanted to stay out of prison. “So I had a dream”, he muttered and paused for a few seconds. “Are you guys still sleeping?”

“I’m awake”, Big Momma replied in a dull voice. “I’ve been thinking”

“Well, I’ve been dreaming of hell”, Jeremy said. “What are you thinking about?”

“We are on Earth, now”, she said, sounding reluctant to come out straight. “And I think we lost a lot of things, when we were trapped in Somnolence. I’m just thinking why don’t we try to fix-?”

The door opened, suddenly, and Mia peeked in. Her eyes met with Jeremy’s, immediately, as her head slowly crept in. “Good morning”, she greeted.

“You didn’t knock. I could have been n***d”

“n***d on your bed?”, Mia said. “Sorry. I didn’t think you’d be up, yet. If I knocked, I would have woken you up”

“It’s alright. Good morning”, Jeremy greeted and sat up. “How was your night?”

Mia stood still, for a second, without saying anything. She was staring at something beside Jeremy’s bed. She fixed her eyes on it, like she had seen a ghost, and remained where she stood.

“Mia. Is there a problem?”, Jeremy asked and looked beside his bed. The bag they had brought from the store sat there on the ground and Mia could see it already. Jeremy’s eyes opened wide, as he thought of what to say. “f**k! f**k! f**k! f**k!”, he muttered, silently.

“Just don’t make it disappear. Then, you’ll have too much to explain”, Greg said.

“Or you could make it disappear and act like you didn’t see anything”, Billy added

“Jeremy?”, Mia called. “Where did you get that bag?”

Jeremy stared back at her, confused of what to say. “Um…”

“Did you go out there after I asked you not to?”, she asked, angrily. “Oh my God! How can you be so selfish!? If you go out there and get caught, you know what happens to you. You’ll end up in prison and probably get sentenced to death. When will you get that to your head?”

“I’m sorry, Mia. It’s just once. I won’t do it again”

“I am supposed to trust you with that? You gave me your word!”

“I swear I won’t leave the house, anymore”

“Listen, Jeremy. I care about you a lot but I don’t want to be accused of harbouring a criminal”, Mia said and sat beside him on his bed. “That’s never going to happen if no one knows you are here at all”

Jeremy smiled at her. “You look beautiful in the morning”

“It’s not funny”, she said, chuckling, and nudged him. “I know I look great. I just came here to hear you say it”

“Whoa! Now, that has me wondering when to tell you the truth”, Jeremy teased, as she got up from the bed. “Have a nice day at work”

“Yup! I know I’m beautiful”, she said and walked towards the door.

“Mia”, Jeremy called her and she looked back. “I just want you to know if I find a way to fix all of this without troubling you, I won’t hesitate”

“Maybe I like the trouble, for now”, she replied and walked out. “I already made breakfast!”

“Thanks! I’ll make lunch before you get back!”

Jeremy laid back on his bed. He had another boring day to live through. “That went a lot better than I expected”, Patmos said.

“What more were you expecting? It couldn’t have gone worse than this”, Greg said. “Wait. What are you scared of, man!? ‘cause I’m thinking of going back to the market”

“No, Greg. We are not leaving the house, ok?”, Jeremy said. “We are going to sit at home and we are going to have fun… and we are going to do something to impress her”

“And you’ll take all the credit?”, Tupac asked.

“No. I’m just going to tell her my ghost friends assisted so she should be grateful to them too”, Jeremy replied, sarcastically. “Of course, I’ll take all the credit”

“Y’all just get your s**t over with. If I’m getting out here, it’s to read some newspapers”, Prof Adkins said.

***★***

His massive size was more than enough to pull attention. Almost everyone had their eyes on him. His muscular body and black skin was fairly attractive and he had well-shaped beards to make up for his bald head.

“Hey, man. What’s up?”, a man called him. Two men sat on a bench, in front of the man, with pads in their hands, playing a videogame. “You want to join us here? Double your money in a minute”

“No, I’m fine”, the man replied. “Thank you”

He walked towards the man sitting behind the counter at the front. “Excuse me”

“You got a complaint? Speak to whoever’s monitoring the game”

“I’m not here to gamble”, the man replied. “My name is Baron. Something happened and-“

“You’re not here to gamble, I don’t entertain strangers”, the man replied. “Unless you got something that interests me, I’ll suggest you get your a*s out of my shop”

“Something happened and I lost my memory of how I got here”, Baron continued, anyway.

“You lost your memory? How does that interest me?”

“It doesn’t”, Baron replied. “But you’ll give me an answer anyway”

The man snapped his fingers and three men showed up in seconds. Baron looked back at them. He wasn’t scared.

“I know you’re big and muscular but you can’t handle these three”, the man said. “I’ll suggest you get out of here before they lose their patience”

“I’ll suggest you tell your dogs to back off before I lose my patience”, Baron replied. He looked up at the television. The time was displayed at a corner on the screen. It was still early in the afternoon and he wasn’t ready to get in a fight. “You’re still standing there?”

They pulled out short rods and rushed at him. Baron bent his head, dodging an attack, and carried the attacker, slamming him against another. One of the men hit the rod against his head, from behind. He held the man by the neck and lifted him off his feet. The gamblers had stopped watching the game. They were more interested in the fight. One of the other men stood up, quickly, and rushed at him. He sensed the attack, early enough, and threw the man against the others. “I can do this, all day, so why don’t you save yourselves the stress and give me what I want?”

The man behind the counter glanced at his bouncers and at the strange black man. “What do you want?”

“I want to get out of here. How do I get to Ghostville?”

‘Massive blackout is believed to be connected to the wild animal attack on Elm street', the Television seemed louder, as everyone remained still and quiet. Baron glanced at the Television, once again.

**★**

“For a living human, you are the worst loser in World’s history”, Prof Adkins said, as he dropped his final card and won the game. “You’ve been a loser, all your life”

“I’m pretty sure you would have lost to Garullon, if it weren’t for me”, Jeremy replied.

“What? I’ve kicked Garullon’s a*s, a million times before you were conceived”

“But you weren’t able to get out of Somnolence. I win at that”, Jeremy said and glanced at the clock. “Wow! We’ve wasted a lot of time here”

“No. We’ve utilized a lot of time having fun. What else would you have done than think of Mia and fight the urge to mastur-“

“Stop!... Don’t say the word”, Jeremy said and got up slowly. “Greg! You’re not done yet?”

“I don’t have twelve arms, okay?”, Greg replied, from the kitchen. “You are playing cards. Tupac can’t cook. Billy and Lisa are busy making out in the room!”

“What now?”, Billy said, as he walked out with Lisa. “You want to join us?”

“Definitely not. That’d be a gangbang”, Tupac said. “No one likes a-“

“Billy?!! Language!” Big Momma cautioned.

“What?! It’s not me”

“Tupac?!!... We really need to cut out that tongue of yours”

“What? Everyone knows what it means. We are all grown-ups”, Tupac replied. “Doesn’t mean we’re actually going to try it someday”

Jeremy walked into the kitchen and joined them. “It’s getting late. Mia will be back soon”

“It’s almost done”, Becca replied.

Jeremy stood by the door, leaning against the wall, as he watched Greg and Becca perform their cooking magic. Luckily, Mia had all the condiments for the meal in her fridge so they had nothing to worry about. Greg stole a few glances at Becca, frequently. Jeremy caught every single one of them. He was probably happy for the two of them but he was jealous too. They had kept their feelings bottled up, for a long time, so they deserved enough fun. The thought of Hailey was fading away, a lot quicker than expected. Since he had to face off with Garullon, he’s had diverse thoughts on his mind, gently butting out his dead ex-wife.

“Guys? Come check this out”, Prof Adkins called them, from the sitting room. “I think the news is talking about us”

They walked out of the kitchen, slowly. “Hang on. Let me get this off the fire”, Greg said.

“You can’t pause the news, old man. Get your a*s out here”

There was a footage playing on the screen. Jeremy and the ghosts had been caught by the camera and the transformation was exactly the way he made them. “For a second, I thought the cameras would see something else”, Jeremy said.

Prof Adkins laughed. “I imagined that too… but you wore a hood so there’d be no difference anyway”

The thorns were clear and sharp on Jeremy’s back, in the footage. The dark unclear aura made him look like a demon. “This would be looking like a movie if I hadn’t seen worse”, Lisa said. “So they call us ‘Undead’ now?”

“No. They call ME ‘Undead’ now”, Jeremy replied. “Unfortunately, the Undead is never showing up again”

“Really? This is fun, don’t you think?”, Patmos said, staring at the TV. “You should have done something to edit our faces, somehow. If they zoom in, they’ll probably recognize one or more of us”

‘He walked in alone… and about seven people walked out of his body, like ghosts. When they were done, they walked back into him. One of them was going through the newspapers. He was about to walk out of the store so he called the last one ‘Prof Adkins'. Yes, Prof Adkins was exactly what he said. The Prof Adkins walked into his body and he left the store… before he left, the cashier called him back and asked for a name. He called himself ‘The Undead’….’

“Okay. Now they know your name, Prof Adkins”, Jeremy said.

“Just so you may know, Prof Adkins is not my name. It’s a nickname. My name is Zebulon”

“Next time, I won’t forget to leave a nickname”, Billy said. “I choose Hellboy”

“There won’t be a next time, anyway”, Jeremy said and took his seat. “As long as Mia doesn’t want us to leave here, we won’t”

“What now? You’ll just let The Undead become one of those myths”, Tupac said. “I’m sure there was one ‘Mia’ in Bigfoot’s life too. Now, nobody believes he exists”

“Bigfoot is a myth, for Christ’s sake”

“Well, someday, some other kid is going to say that about you”, Tupac said. “The Undead is just a myth and the footage was edited”

“They should argue with the news, then”

“You know what they call conspiracy theories?”

“What about conspiracy theories?”

“It is a phrase with a meaning. As long as the world knows what that phrase means, this can be considered a conspiracy theory too… You know what? They can even make it one. One guy from South Africa will just wake up, one day, and decide to make a similar video, then he’ll tell the world it’s real. Some other guy from nowhere will do the same too till people start to think it’s true. Then someone shows up and reveals how they’ve all been editing videos. Boom! You’ll become a myth”

“That sounds like an accurate chain reaction”, Big Momma said. “It’s still a promo for us. The name lives on”

“I don’t get the point”, Jeremy said. “Are you trying to convince me to go out and look for some trouble to stop? ‘cause it’s not really working”

“Stop trying, Tupac”, Prof Adkins said. “It’s never going to work, unless Mia lets it”

‘I can almost swear I saw Tupac. One of the people that walked out of The Undead looked so much like Tupac Shakur. I’m sure you’ll agree if you watch that footage’

“Okay. Tupac doesn’t need a nickname, also”, Jeremy said. “They already know who you are”

“Dumb s**t”

“Food is ready, people!”, Greg said, from the kitchen, as Becca dished the food into ghost plates.

Patmos picked up the remote control for the TV. “Let’s watch something fun”

Billy stood up and tried to stop him from changing the channel. “Wait. They might talk about me”, he said, as he tried to grab the remote.

“Sorry but the news is over for me. No one’s talking about you”.

“I melted a g*n with my hands”, he grunted, reaching out for the remote. Patmos pushed him back and he fell against the Television. The two of them turned back, in horror, as the Television fell to the ground and broke.

“Oh my God! What have you done?!!!”, Jeremy exclaimed. There was no way he could get the TV replaced before Mia gets home. “Mia is going to kill me”

“No, she won’t. Trust me she’ll forgive you”, Prof Adkins said, indifferently.

“Are you kidding? I’ll be slowly getting on her nerves. I need to fix this”, Jeremy said, trying to find a solution out of the millions of thoughts in his head. “Can’t I do the reality manipulation thing?”

“Of course, you can”, Prof Adkins replied. “Except it’s pretty late to do that. She’s already at the door”

The door opened, immediately, and Mia walked in, with a smile on her face. Jeremy forced a smile. “Welcome, Mia. How was work?”

“Work was alright. Just the same”, she replied. “Why are you smiling at me like that?”

“Why are you smiling at me like that?”

“Ok. Never mind”, she said and walked into her room.

“Get ready for dinner, babe!”, he said, loudly. “It’s spaghetti… spaghetti and meatballs”

“She didn’t see the TV?”, Billy asked.

“Yea… it’s the illusion thing but I can’t keep it up for long”, Jeremy replied. “I have to stay awake and remain here till she goes to bed”

......

The man at the gambling house had described the bus station, with details on how to get there. There was no way he could be sure the description was true but he needed to get to Ghostville, as soon as possible.

The whole place was noisy. He turned round, looking for where to buy a ticket. His eyes fell on a television on the wall, out in the open. The volume was either too low or the noise around there had choked it. Whatever the news was about, it had to deal with the ‘animal attack’.

“Hey, mate. What’s up?”, a man called, from behind him, also staring at the Television. “I bet this city’s never heard of such attack”

“Hey”, Baron greeted. “I’m a stranger here”

“I almost guessed. Those cuts we’re not inflicted by an animal”, the man said.

“Did you see the face? The attack was so brutal. Nothing else could have done so much harm”

“Nothing that you know of, you mean”

“How can you be so sure of that?”, Baron asked, feeling uncomfortable. He had a very short time to get to his daughter. He couldn’t afford getting his plans foiled, when he’s not even halfway yet.

The man stepped closer, making him a lot more nervous. “What if I told you I know what did that?”, he muttered, silently. “Or WHO did it?”

Baron stared blankly at the stranger. “Then I’ll tell you to go to the police, if you were so sure”, Baron replied, confidently. “I think I have to use the bathroom”

The man stared at him, smiling like he had something on Baron. Baron walked away but stopped, after a few steps, and turned. “Where’s the bathroom?”

“Just go around. You’ll see the door”, the man replied. “It’s a big room and there are two bathrooms for males”

“Thank you”, Baron said and walked to the bathroom. There were four bathrooms; two for males and two for females. He walked to the closest male bathroom and knocked. “Anybody in?”

There was no response. He pulled the door open and walked in. His heart seemed to have sped up. There was no way the man could have seen him that night…. Maybe he did. He turned the tap and washed his face with water, glaring into the room. He admired the reflection of his face. Every part of him was exactly the way it looked, two years ago, before his first end. His perfectly trimmed and shaped beards had remained the same. He raised his fingers and stared at it for a second. His claws were one of the few things that had changed… and the fangs. He never had that. He was slowly becoming a monster and he knew that… or he was already a monster and the tracks he left could only be compared with that of a wild beast… The reason he had accepted Hermen’s offer to return was not to escape the torments of hell. It was to get a chance to win back his daughter’s heart. He was running out of time, already. He looked up, as if he were expecting a clock on the walls. He pushed the door open and rushed out. The strange man was standing right behind the door.

“What do you want?”, Baron asked. “I got to go”

The man placed his hand on Baron’s chest. “Hold on, mate. I didn’t tell you all that just so you may go”

“What do you want? I need to get on the next bus”

The man rushed at him again. He caught the arm and threw a punch at his face. The man swung the second arm but Baron caught it again and butted the man’s head. He lifted the man off the ground and slammed him against the wall, holding him up. His eyes fell on the tattoo on the man’s arm. It had the same pattern as the tattoo on hi