Space Team: Return of the Dead Guy Read online

  He jabbed a thumb towards the sheet-covered mound. “Aren’t you going to ask?”

  Cal didn’t.

  Sinclair pretended he had.

  “I think you’re going to like it. I had it made especially for you. Technically, it’s not quite done, but after you broadcast my plans to the entire galaxy, I kind of had to leave in a hurry, so I just grabbed this and got the fonk out of there.”

  “I’m not going to tell you again,” said Cal. “Get away from them. Now.”

  Sinclair sighed. “You’re not playing along, Cal. You’re not getting into the spirit of it at all. Where are the wisecracks? Where’s that adventurer’s spirit? This is all very disappointing.”

  He plodded across the grass, throwing his arms up in a theatrical shrug. “Fine, if you’re not going to pull the sheet off, I’ll do it myself. This was supposed to be a big moment, and you’ve ruined it, I want you to know that. This was going to be epic. I was going to say, ‘Mr Carver, I think it’s time you said hello to an old friend,’ and then you were going to pull off the sheet. You’d gasp, I’d cackle menacingly, I had it all worked out.”

  Sinclair stopped by the shape, and took hold of the sheet. The light continued to blink beneath it, pulsing hypnotically through the fabric.

  “Old friend?” said Cal. “What do you mean?”

  “Aha! Now you’re getting into the spirit of it,” said Sinclair. “Still a little flat, but I’ll take it. After all, I’ve always been a sucker for a touching reunion.”

  He yanked the sheet away, revealing a monstrous mish-mash of metal and flesh. The blinking red light was fixed to a wedge-shaped piece of metal skull that was surrounded by scarred scalp.

  One eye had been replaced by an oval-shaped lens, the flesh around it burned and blistered. Despite all this, there was something disturbingly baby-faced about the figure, not helped by the strings of drool dangling from his fat bottom lip.

  “Cal, say hello to your old cell mate, Eugene Adwin,” Sinclair crowed. “Although you may remember him better as ‘The Butcher.’”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Sinclair smirked. “What’s the matter, Cal? No handshakes? No hugs for your old pal? That’s disappointing. I went to a lot of effort to get you two back together.”

  “Why?” said Cal. “I mean, yeah, presumably so he can beat the shizz out of me, or whatever, but why him? If this is supposed to be some big ‘Oh my God, not my old pal the Butcher!’ moment then sorry, but I barely knew the guy. I met him once. For five minutes. During which time he tried to kill me.”

  Sinclair’s smile didn’t change, but lost a lot of its impact. “What?” he said, then he quickly shook his head, annoyed at himself for asking. “I mean, yes. He might not mean a lot to you, but I’m sure you mean a lot to him. After all, you murdered him.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  This time, Sinclair’s smile did take a hit. “Yes, you did.”

  “I didn’t. I thought I had, but then he woke up, right before your guys came and whisked me away. Last time I saw him, he was alive.”

  “Well he died!” Sinclair snapped. “OK? A few of the infected, they got into the cell and they killed him and… In fact, why am I even explaining myself to you?” He pointed angrily to Eugene. “This was an excellent idea.”

  Cal shrugged. “Well, I mean, if that’s what you want to believe, you go right ahead. Now, if you’d transformed my parents into robo-zombies, or, you know, someone I actually knew on a personal basis? That would’ve had impact. Even Tobey Maguire. You know, the actor? I’ve never met him, and you couldn’t really have known this, so I’m not going to hold this one against you, but if you’d got him. Now that – that would’ve had an impact. And, you know, been kind of awesome. But this…?”

  Cal shrugged. “This is just some big dead guy I don’t know.”

  Sinclair’s smile had vanished now, replaced by a sort of petulant sneer that made him look like a surly teenager. “Why do you always have to ruin everything, Carver?” he spat. He tapped the face of the expensive-looking watch he wore, and the red light on the Butcher’s head stopped blinking.

  Eugene’s eyes, which had been glazed and glassy, swam slowly into focus. Cal’s finger tensed on the trigger of the flamethrower, ready to blast the Butcher should he try any funny stuff. As Eugene’s eyes cleared, an expression of recognition passed slowly across his face like a dawn shadow.

  “Hey there, Eugene!” said Cal. “Almost didn’t recognize you there with pants on.”

  “Wh-what diiiiiiid you s-s-s-s-say?” Eugene asked, his voice skipping and crackling like a scratched CD. “Diiiiid you c-call my m-m-momma a sloop?”

  “No,” said Cal, taking a single step back. “No, I did not.”

  Eugene took a lumbering step forwards, closing the gap. Cal kept his finger poised on the trigger, ready to light the big guy up. He was so focused on the Butcher, however, that he failed to notice Sinclair behind him, right up until the point the former-president buried a knife in his shoulder, right up to the hilt.

  Cal’s cry of pain rolled across the cemetery, and the grass around the barrier formed by the towers became alive with bugs. They skittered towards the three men, but stopped just beyond the square, as if held back by an invisible wall.

  Sinclair twisted the knife, wedging the wound open. Cal’s arm went limp, his finger slipping from the flamethrower’s trigger just as a fist connected with his jaw like a wrecking ball, spinning him around. He stumbled, off-balance, towards the carpet of bugs, his ears ringing from the battering-ram force of the punch.

  “Oops, careful Cal,” said Sinclair, grabbing the flamethrower’s fuel tank and pulling Cal back from the edge. “Don’t want you going out there quite yet. I didn’t come all this way just to see you infected. When I kill you, I want it still to be you.”

  He swung Cal around, yanking the straps of the fuel tank down as he sent him spinning back towards Eugene. Robbed of the flamethrower, Cal’s brain frantically tried to decide which was more important – reaching for the blaster pistols in his belt, or getting the huge fonking knife out of his back. The vote was tied, and he tried to do both at once. This, he quickly discovered, was a mistake, and he managed neither before the Butcher’s fist hammered him across the bridge of the nose, instantly dropping him to his knees.

  Fortunately, it was a position Cal knew just how to take advantage of. Half-blinded by blood, snot and tears, he drove an uppercut directly into the Butcher’s soft and dangly bits. Unfortunately, they were now neither soft, nor particularly dangly, and Cal’s fist thudded against a perfectly smooth, perfectly solid groin area.

  “Ow. Jesus,” Cal yelped, then a left cross from Eugene sent him to eat grass. He sprawled awkwardly, and there, before him, was the headstone. Their headstone. Caroline and Lily Carver. His wife and daughter. A jolt of something worse than the pain of a huge fonking knife in his shoulder passed through him as he read those names etched into the marble again, but then a hand was around his ankle and Cal was suddenly hurtling upwards, arcing over the Butcher’s head and…

  BANG! The impact of the ground exploded through his skeleton, radiating from the shoulder outwards. Dazed and winded, Cal reached for the opposite shoulder, and just managed to get a finger to the knife handle before Eugene swung him up and over again.

  Cal twisted hard. Hitting the ground was one thing, but his full weight crashing down on the hilt of the knife was quite another. His knee popped. He made a noise he wasn’t proud of, and then he met the grass face on.

  With a growl of pain and of effort, Cal tore the knife free of his shoulder, just as the Butcher flipped him onto his back. The big man’s weight pressed down on him, his knees digging into Cal’s thighs, his hands around Cal’s throat.

  “You caaallled-d-d my mom-m-ma a sssssloop.” The Butcher’s voice was a crackling hiss, his face a blank, emotionless mask of nothing. His breath – if it even was breath – smelled of oil and sour milk, and saliva hung in long, gooey strands from his fat
bottom lip.

  Cal jammed the knife into Eugene’s side, just below his ribcage. The Butcher didn’t flinch, didn’t slow, didn’t so much as acknowledge the steel as it pierced his flesh.

  Eugene’s grip tightened around Cal’s airway. The big man’s mouth opened, showing his teeth. So many teeth. Through the thunder of the heartbeat in his head, Cal heard Sinclair laugh.

  “Oh, if only Kornack could see this,” he said, then the Butcher – the most prolific cannibal serial killer the galaxy had ever seen - lunged, teeth chomping, towards Cal’s trapped and helpless face.

  Aaaaand stopped.

  No, not stopped. Froze.

  The Butcher’s face hung right above Cal’s, his mouth wide, but unmoving. None of the rest of him was moving, either, for that matter.

  “Oh, thank God,” Cal wheezed. Whatever robotic parts Sinclair had installed to get Eugene up and about again must have malfunctioned. With a not inconsiderable amount of effort, Cal managed to push the cannibal away. Eugene fell sideways, still fixed in the same position, and rolled onto his back.

  Cal jumped up, ready to throw himself at Sinclair, but the former president wasn’t moving, either. His eyes were still fixed on the spot where Cal had been pinned, his face set in a leer that – Cal was just going to come right out and say it – had a disturbing kind of ‘sexual gratification’ quality about it.

  “Hey,” said Cal. He clicked his fingers in front of Sinclair’s face. “Hey, shizznod. Wakey wakey.”

  Nothing.

  Cal grimaced, just briefly, as his knee popped itself back into place. His other wounds had mostly healed up, although there was still a dull ache around his shoulder where the knife had been. That would pass, though, and he had more pressing concerns at the moment. Namely:

  “What the fonk is going on?”

  Putting his hands on his hips, Cal looked around. As he did, he realized it wasn’t just Eugene and Sinclair that had frozen. It was everything. The carpet of bugs were completely motionless, and almost looked like toys tucked between the rigid blades of grass.

  The clouds weren’t moving. More than that, though, the tiny droplets of drizzle which had been falling now hung in the air like vapor. There was a Cal-sized trail of clear air through it, where he had walked, and as he waved a hand in front of his face, the droplets were swatted aside like flies. He could even prod them around with his fingertips, moving each little drop around in the air.

  “OK, so this is weird,” Cal said, discovering a talent for understatement he hadn’t previously been aware of.

  In the distance, he could see a couple of birds. They hung in the sky as if suspended by threads from the clouds above. The trees lining the cemetery fence were equally as motionless. It was as if time itself had stopped, but forgotten about Cal.

  He wondered how far it went. Were Loren and the others frozen, too? Was the moon? The big weird space thing they’d seen on the way in?

  Or was that responsible, somehow? None of the others had known what it was. Maybe it wasn’t a big weird space thing, after all. Maybe it was a big weird time thing that just happened to be in space.

  “Yeah,” said Cal, nodding slowly, despite having precisely zero evidence to back his theory up. “Yeah, I think that might be it. It’s a big weird time thing.”

  “Ahem.”

  Cal whipped around. Two figures stood before him, both wearing black robes with hoods pulled up so he couldn’t see their faces. One of the figures was roughly the same height as Cal himself, while the other barely reached to waist-height.

  “Uh… Hi,” said Cal.

  “Cal Carver, you will come with us,” said the larger of the two. It was a man’s voice. Quite young, Cal thought, but trying to sound older. Cal was immediately reminded of Jork, one of his co-workers from his recent spell of employment at Nana Joan’s restaurant. The little guy was around the same height as Alan, another of the guys he’d met there.

  “Jork? Is that you?”

  “Fit’s he oan aboot?” demanded the smaller figure. His voice was gruff and gravelly, and definitely not Alan’s.

  “There is no time to explain,” said the taller man. “You have to come with us. You have to stand before the council.”

  Cal reached for his blaster. “I don’t have to do anything.”

  “Aye,” said the little guy. He reached into the pockets of his robe and produced both of Cal’s guns. Despite the hood presumably making it very difficult to see, he pointed both guns at Cal’s groin. “Ye do.”

  Cal cupped his hands in front of the family jewels. “Well,” he said. “When you put it like that, how can I argue. Where are we going? Do you have a ship? We could take mine. I’m sure my friends would love to meet you.”

  “No ship,” said the bigger man. He’d given up trying to sound older, and now he was speaking with his real voice he didn’t sound anything like Jork at all. He did sound… familiar, though. “We don’t need one. Twenty-seven.”

  Cal blinked. “Twenty-seven? What’s twenty-seven? Twenty-seven what?”

  A third hooded figure tapped Cal on the shoulder. This one was a little shorter than Cal, and Cal got the impression he was frail and skinny beneath the folds of his velvet robe. If Cal had to hoof one of them in the balls and make a run for it, it was going to be this guy, he decided.

  He didn’t spend a whole lot of time deciding it, though, because most of his attention was focused on the doorway-sized rectangle of blue light that now stood on the grass just a couple of feet away from the motionless Sinclair.

  No, not blue light. The outline – the lines of the rectangle – were a shade he’d describe as ‘lightsaber blue’ but within, that the light was a sort of rotating selection of shades of white, each one brighter and more vibrant than the one before.

  “Is that what I think it is?” Cal asked.

  “Depends. Fit dae ye think it is?” grunted the little guy.

  It took Cal a moment to translate the question. “A big blue and white rectangle thing,” he said. To his surprise, both the other two hooded figures also said it at exactly the same time. The third guy sounded older. Old, even. His voice was a dusty croak, suggesting someone in his eighties or nineties.

  Yep, he was definitely getting the ball-shot, if it came to it.

  The little guy muttered something below his breath, then gestured with Cal’s guns towards the big blue and white rectangle thing. “Twenty-seven’ll ging furst,” he said, rolling the ‘r’ like he enjoyed the taste of it. “Then you.”

  “See you on the other side!” said the old man, then he turned, hitched up the bottom of his robe, and ran with a surprising turn of speed into the light. He did not, as far as Cal could tell, emerge from the back of it.

  “So, what, is it a doorway?” Cal asked, but before he could get an answer a blaster jabbed him between his butt cheeks, the sudden invasive coldness of the metal propelling him forwards with an agility that surprised even himself.

  He tried to stop before he hit the glowing rectangle, but as he got closer to it, Cal suddenly felt as if thousands of tiny hands were gripping him and pulling him towards the light. His feet rasped against the solid, unyielding grass. He flailed his arms around like windmills, trying to find his balance.

  And then, the pull of the light became too great to resist, and Cal felt an electric tingle across his skin as he was dragged inside.

  For a moment, there was nothing but white, as if he’d been afflicted by snow blindness. Or was looking very close up at a sheet of paper. As his eyes adjusted to the crisp, clean brightness of it all, though, he began to see darker patches. They were like negative versions of the doorway he’d just come through – tall, narrow rectangles positioned around him at varying angles and intervals. They were light gray or beige, and their edges weren’t easily distinguishable from all the whiteness, but they were definitely there.

  Cal felt a sudden rush of acceleration. It was the same sensation he felt when the Currently Untitled went to full warp from a s
tanding start, and he instinctively screwed his eyes closed to prevent them being shoved backwards into his skull.

  The world lurched as he was buffeted violently back and forth for a few seconds, then there was another electric tingle that made his hair stand on end, before he landed heavily on a patch of hard, dusty ground.

  Cal opened his eyes and stood up. The old man was waiting for him, his robe still hitched up to reveal a pair of boots not unlike the ones Cal wore.

  “How’s the stomach?” the man asked. “That first trip can be a gut-churner.”

  “Uh…” said Cal.

  It wasn’t the most eloquent of responses, but then that was hardly Cal’s fault. His attention wasn’t really focused on conversation right now. Instead, it was focused on the amphitheater-like room around him, where hundreds of other figures sat watching on.

  There were tall ones, short ones, fat ones, thin ones. Some had beards, a few were green-skinned, and at least one was part cyborg. Despite their differences, though, there was one thing they all had in common.

  They all had Cal’s face. Or variations of it, at least.

  Cal jumped in fright as the two other robed men stepped from the doorway behind him.

  “I know, pretty freaky, right?” said the young guy. “It completely blew my mind when I was first brought in, too.” He slipped his hood down, and Cal saw his teenage self grinning back. “Welcome Cal,” he said. “Welcome to the Carver Council.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Since first being abducted by Zertex, Cal had seen what he would describe, in layman’s terms, as ‘a lot of weird shizz.’

  He’d met rock people. He’d fought a two-faced, multi-tentacled assassin named ‘Vajazzle.’ He’d been in space battles, gone one-on-one with a fire-breathing giant spider, escaped clone-freaks by hiding under a sheet, and strolled down the gullet of a five-mile-long worm. And those were just the headlines. Pretty much every minute of every day had inflicted some new kind of space strangeness on him.