Title: Ghosts in the Darkness (ReV 129, Universal Title Defense)
Featuring: Nova
Date: Elapsed time between East and West
Location: New Orleans, LA

Tell all the people that you see
Follow me
Follow me down

- The Doors, "Tell All the People," The Soft Parade


Hey don’t you wanna go down
Like some junkie cosmonaut
A million miles below their feet
A million miles, a million miles

- Cracker, "Low," Kerosene Hat


Nova knows he’ll pass out soon from hyperventilation if he can’t get his breathing under control.

He trembles uncontrollably as he closes his eyes tight and attempts long, deep breaths. It doesn’t work very well, but it’s a step, and right now baby steps are the only preventing him from full-on, wild panic.

Feeling around in pitch black his shaking hands trace over wood to his left, to his right, above him and below him.

"Oh, God…okay…okay…"

Air whistles through his nose and out his mouth in urgent sighs. He attempts to clear his mind of all thought, of where he is and the overwhelming obstacle of how to escape.

That’s when the ghosts in the darkness begin to sob, slowly at first and then louder...


...louder...


...LOUDER.



Port of Call (a bar), New Orleans, Louisiana, almost a week prior to ReVolution 129, nighttime

They’ve been watching him for close to an hour, though he’s oblivious to it.

They weren’t sure at first, but after discreetly calling over the barkeep (an old friend from wilder days now playing it straight), they received confirmation.

"I can’t fucking believe it," one of the three men seated at the booth hisses, a mousy gentleman with slicked back dark hair and a toothpick hanging uselessly out of his mouth, "this is like Christmas come early."

"And we’re sure, right?" the man seated to his right chimes in, an average-looking street tough with "Shit for Brains" practically stamped across his forehead, "we’re sure it’s him?"

"Didn’t you hear Charlie?" the third man says gruffly, "he said it’s the guy, Nova, right?"

This last man, a portly head-cracker who should be playing bouncer at a strip club, rubs his left shoulder and his eyes narrow as he affords a stare over at the unexpected sight of their attentions.

"Damn right Charlie said he’s the guy," the first man agrees, "used to be all over television hanging around with Dev-"

"Hey," the second man growls lowly, reaching over and thumping his friend hard on the chest with his Butterball of a fist, "you don’t say that fucking name, got it? I said you got that, Ernie?"

"Jesus, I got it, Sal," Ernie replies, rubbing his chest with one hand, "owww, fuck…"

"So what, they were tight, I don’t get it," the other man says with a shrug, "what’s the big fuckin’ deal?"

"The ‘big fuckin’ deal, Pete, is that they weren’t just bridge partners," Sal says with a tone that a parent might use to explain the mechanics of Play-Doh to their child, "they were thick as fuckin’ thieves, understand? I’ve waited three long years for some way to pay that bastard back for Tony, Mark, and my shoulder, and now an opportunity has fallen into our fuckin’ laps. We get to take a shot at him, by taking a shot at this guy, and that’s exactly what I intend on doing. Need I remind you worthless shits what happened during that job?"

"Hey, don’t lump me in with this asshole," Ernie protests, still caressing his surely-bruised collarbone.

"It was The Job, the ‘Death Wish’ as the boys used to call it," Sal begins, his eyes growing distant as he remembers for the millionth time the night that changed his life, "but we were the top in Joe Gallioni’s organization, and we were chosen to send the Crimson Angel back to hell where he belonged…"

The hallway of a dark apartment. At the door Sal’s solid frame is crouched down on his haunches, a Colt Anaconda clutched in his hands. Excellent hearing (due probably to his big-ass ears) has left Sal the assignment of staying at the door with his ear pressed to it, waiting for the sound of Angelo Deville’s approaching footsteps.

Further down the hallway, Mark crouches behind a set of shelves, a shotgun leaned over the top and point directly at the door. Tony is across from him behind a half-wall leading into the living room, snub-nosed pistols in each hand. They wait.

"We were gonna squash Joe’s beef with…with him…once and for good. We ignored the warnings from other sources about sending a hit on him, the stories about wasted hit squads. We interpreted their failures as weaknesses, as potential for more glory for our Boss."

Sal breathes slowly, deeply, and offers his comrades a reassuring nod. Hammers click in the otherwise silent domicile.

"Even today I can still hear a mouse fart in the attic of my house…but that night…I didn’t hear. A fucking. Word."

A single gunshot shatters the silence. Stunned, Sal’s eyes follow the smoking hole in the door above his head all the way to Mark, who shares a matching one in his forehead. He collapses, his shotgun clattering to the tile floor noisily as a chunky dripping blood spray marks the spot on the wall where he was waiting quietly moments before.

A second shot rings out and Sal feels the bullet rip through the door and lodge deep into the sinew of his shoulder. "Aaack!"

"AHHHHH!!" Tony screams, standing up and unloading the chambers of both pistols into the door.

"I’ll never forget the way he moved. We were there to make the hit, but that night…*sigh*…like all the others, he made the hit on us."

Click click click click.

Tony stands shaking, both of his pistols smoking as he stares at the hole-spackled remnants of the apartment door. "YEAH! YEAH, MOTHERFUCKER! FUCK YOU! FUCK THE DEVILLE! Sal, I think I got him! I think…"

He’s interrupted as the door is kicked open, revealing the silhouette of the Devil’s Don, two decidedly not empty pistols raised in the air. "I think…you missed, Anthony."

The bullets rip through the only standing hitman like a fart in church, racking his body with convulsions before his legs fail him and he falls backwards. The Deville steps over Sal and into the ruined apartment. He walks over to Tony, whose legs are still kicking against the tile as he gasps loudly for air.

"I know two in the head is kind of redundant," the cold voice of the Deville echoes, "but I’ve always had an affinity for it. You’ll indulge my theatrics, won’t you?"

"Uh-guh…uhhh…"

BAM. BAM.

The Deville walks over to Sal, who’s slumped over on the ground clutching his ruined shoulder. He crouches down, his cold blue eyes meeting those of his would-be killer.

"I’ll never forget what happened next. Never."

"Now you listen to me, fat boy. I’m about to make an extraordinary exception to my own rules and allow your worthless, greasy ass to live. You go back to Joe, and you tell him that I’m sorry things had to work out this way."

Stepping over his prey, the Devil’s Don makes his exit.

Sal rubs his bum shoulder again, and looks across the room at Nova, hatred burning in his eyes. "No. We might never have another chance like this. Word’s all over the underground. He hasn’t been seen by any of the scouts in months. We’re gonna send him a message tonight…and I know exactly how to do it."

Nova stirs his coffee idly, lost in his thoughts. Shadows cast over his omelet cause him to look up into the faces of three unfamiliar stiffs. "You guys looking for autographs?"

No reaction. The biggest of them steps forward. "Hardly. The…*cough*…the Deville wants to see you."

The Risen Star’s eyes narrow. "How do you know that name?"

The smallest man leans over the other’s shoulder. "Hey, dickhead, did you hear what he said? The Crimson Angel requests your fucking presence. Come with us."

"Now," the big man snarls.

Fifteen minutes later…

Nova stares out the car window at the trees whipping past. The Spanish moss hanging from the cypress trees is illuminated in the moonlight, giving the bayou that surrounds the traveling band the feel of a cemetery.

"So I guess it’d be a moot point to ask where we’re going?" Nova pipes up, trying to hide the increasingly nervous tone in his voice.

Nothing.

The car slows down, going over several bumps, and Nova’s forehead bounces off of the glass. He rubs the sore spot and squints out into the darkness, where rocks jut out from the muddy landscape to appear almost like tombstones.

"Almost there," comes the gruff voice of the biggest man, lodged behind the steering wheel.

With his peripheral vision Nova sees the man seated to his left shift his weight, and just as it dawns on him that those aren’t rocks but actually tombstones, and that it isn’t the ambiance of the cypress trees but the reality of the situation that they are driving through a cemetery, a blow to the back of his head creates a brief fireworks display in his head…

…and then everything fades.


"…open plot here to our…"


"…-eet dreams, motherfucker…"


------*~*~*------


thumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthump

All the work of slowing his heart-rate and breathing down to a manageable pace flies out the proverbial window as the sounds of sobbing fill the acoustically admirable confines of Nova’s wooden prison cell six feet below the surface of the earth.

His eyes widen, frantically scanning for the source of the noise, but he doesn’t have to seek it out.

It’s coming to him.

Materializing out of the thick swirling black, the image of the late Ariel Martiarra sharpens and sharpens until she is there inside the coffin with him, crawling towards him out of the void. Shock grips every muscle in Nova’s body and he can only stare wide-eyed in horror as his ex-wife pulls herself up within a foot of his face.

Her skin is paler than any shade of paint, an ashy chalky color that makes her appear as if covered in drywall dust. Thick dark rings encircle her eyes, of which the pupils are barely visibly as little gray orbs. Stringy black hair hangs down in clumps over her face.

"Uh-uh-uh-uh-uh…" It’s the beginning of a scream, or an "Oh, God," but it doesn’t matter because it never progresses beyond that point in Nova’s throat.

Ariel’s head lolls freely around her shoulders, the confines of a mortal bone structure now shrugged off. Her bony hands, each finger ending in a yellowed, dirty nail, reach up shakily to clutch his shoulders, and she leans in further. White-yellow snot is crusted around her raw nose leading down to her mouth…

…and when she opens it, there are no teeth, no tongue, no throat, only a solid stream of little white pills that pour out unceasingly into the Risen Star’s lap, accompanied by gurgling noises from the corpse of his beloved.

Pushed beyond madness, Nova’s head shakes violently and his wide eyes somehow peel themselves away from this hellish image to fly down to his side, where tiny arms the color of oxygen-less purple reach up out of the darkness and clutch at his midsection. A moment later, a small bald head save for a few dark hairs sprouting randomly rises slowly, black pits in the place of eyes turning to meet those of the "Champion."

A whooping cough racks the tiny body now mostly in view, and the corpse of Nova’s daughter snaps its neck back before lurching forward and vomiting thick, dark blood onto his chest.

The last threads of sanity snap like an old climbing rope and the screams come as Nova thrashes wildly. He begins slamming his head back into the wall of the coffin behind him in the hopes of beating these images of horror from his mind.

WHAM! WHAM! WHAM!!!

With the last one Nova’s eyes roll back into his head and he slumps down unconscious, a tiny spot of blood on the coffin wall behind him streaking down to where he now lay, unfortunately probably worse off in the land of dreams than this waking nightmare.

The ghosts of an abandoned life moan together and then with a collective shudder wash back into the blackness of isolation, and the kingdom of Nova’s conscience.


------*~*~*------


Coming to, Nova groans and rolls over, hands clutching at the back of his head and feeling the scab from his self-inflicted wound.

He breathes deep and smells the air, not musty and reeking of death but fresh, blowing against the stubble of his cheek. His fists clench around wet grass, and slowly he pulls himself up to his knees, leaning back onto his calves and opening his eyes. He stares down at his arms, covered in dirt, and then over at the gravestone, its shadow cast under the moonlight.

DIANNE WESTBROOK
(1938 - 2007)
Devoted Wife, Mother, & Daughter
Family Always Came First

"That’s how I found ya, you know."

Nova turns to see an old man standing a few feet away from a large hole haphazardly dug in front of the tombstone, leaning against a shovel stuck into the damp ground. The man takes a drag of his cigarette and exhales the smoke into the humid air.

"You…you mind if I take a pull off that?" Nova croaks.

The man laughs. "Shit, son…someone buried you alive. You can have one of your own."

He walks over to the Risen Star and hands him a Cowboy-Killer and his lighter. "See, I knew something was wrong because I work the grounds of this cemetery and Mrs. Westbrook hasn’t been dropped into the dirt yet. Her funeral is tomorrow. I been starin’ at this open plot a lot recently…I dunno, contemplatin’ my mortality or whatever, given that I’m about her age…so when I saw that it had been filled - a shitty job of it, too, I might add - I decided to investigate. Stranger things have happened in the Big Easy, son."

Nova takes a long drag of the cigarette and then utters the truest words he’s probably spoken in months.

"I’m sure glad you did, old-timer."

"Well," the man says, looking up at the sky, "looks like it’s about to open up. You better find some shelter, young man…somewhere else, don’tcha think?"

The Risen Star chuckles in spite of himself, and gives the man a grateful nod. The latter returns it before turning and walking off into the misty shadows, whistling an unfamiliar tune. Nova watches him go, an old man contemplating death who happened to prevent his acquaintance with it in a gruesome fashion.

The flash of lightning illuminates the figure of the man in the distance one last time. Ka-BOOM!

With that, the heavens open up and rain drenches the cemetery. Nova closes his eyes and feels the water wash away the dirt caked to his body before whispering under his breath:

"I’m sure glad you did."
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