Fiction: Tag Team

By Robert Walton

My best friend Bernie should have been a politician. It’s not just his big mouth — though he’s in line for Guinness recognition, I’m sure — it’s his pure genius at being able to irritate ninety-nine percent of the people in any given room. This makes feeding polar bears by hand seem a sane activity compared to going drinking with him. But what the hell?

I was leaning on the end of O’Toole’s nicely polished bar enjoying the first sip of my second beer — always the best sip of the night — when Bernie flew over the jukebox, crashed on a table and slid to the floor. A big, baldheaded guy jumped on him in the blink of an eye, squatted on his chest, and squeezed his neck. Bernie’s face instantly turned the color of a ripe plum. I grabbed a heavy barstool with both hands as I leaped to the rescue, bringing it down on the big guy’s head when I got in range. It connected with a meaty thunk. Blood spurted out and flowed over his left ear. I hoped I hadn’t killed him.

The guy shook his head, scattering drops of blood across the already sticky bar floor. He turned, looked up at me and blinked.

Damn! This guy has a head like an anvil, but not as pretty. At least he’d let go of Bernie’s neck. Staring at me, he rose from the floor – and rose, and rose - seven feet tall? No, but north of six and a half. Red light flickered in his eyes.

“Easy, buddy. I just wanted to get you off Bernie. We can work this out.”

He growled deep in his cave of a chest and drew his right fist back.

“Maybe not.”

His fist, easily as big as an cantelope, hurtled in. I blockedthe punch with my left forearm. The pain was deep, hard,immediate — like being hit with a well-swung sledgehammer.While pondering my dangling arm, a great left hook curled into my jaw. The stars came out. 

I came around enough to realize that the big guy was nowsitting on my chest, delivering short punches to my face. Left, right, left, right – he had a good rhythm going. 

I died not long after it stopped hurting. I know this because suddenly I was looking down on the carnage being inflicted on my visage. My poor nose!

Several of the bar’s beefier patrons pulled the guy off my pummeled corpse – too late. The cops showed up and took the guy away. I suspected that not too much would happen to him since I had introduced myself with the barstool. Still, I felt wronged. It suddenly came to me that my spirit was not headed either up or down, that I was slated to hang around and be a ghost until I could get the injustice of my death worked out. I wanted to haunt Bernie, the source of my grievance, but rules are rules. I had to go with the big guy.

I picked him up outside the jail just after his attorney sprung him. I eased up behind his right cauliflowered ear and hissed, “So what did you get, Chump?”

He whirled and stared blankly. “Who’s there?”

I was still getting this ghost gig down, so I had to concentrate on becoming visible. I knew I’d succeeded when Chumpster took two steps back. “Yeah, it’s me, the guy you pounded to paste.”

“Sorry about that. I’ve got a bad temper.”

“I noticed.”

“So what do you want?”

“Justice. I’m haunting you now until I get it.”

“This could be irritating.”

“It’s supposed to be.”

Chumpster turned and walked down the street. I floated after him. “What’s your name?”

“Go away.”

“Nope. I’m haunting you and I’ve got to call you something. You’d best tell me your name, or I’ll make something up, something like bullet-head.” 

The big guy grunted, “Herbert.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really - now go away.”

“Nope. After a year or so I might let you go to the bathroom by yourself.”

“Christ! Go away!”

“Christ won’t help. I’m Jewish.”

My psychic alarms suddenly went off. I looked across the street at a young mother, dark-haired and waif-thin, pushing a stroller. A monster visible only to my eyes loomed behind her, rearing like a black wave about to break. 

“Oh, no!”

Herbert turned. “What’s the matter?”

“There are lots worse things than being dead.”

“What?”

“I’m looking at one now.” My mind whipped through the database that seemed to have been downloaded to my mind when I died. “A soul-succubus!”

“A what?”

“A monster – it will kill that mother over there and suck herbaby’s soul to hell. Look.”

Four thugs materialized from behind a dumpster and encircled the mother and child. Metal gleamed in their hands.

“I’ll take care of this.” Herbert strode across the street and waded in. He deflected the first thug’s knife thrust with his left forearm and crushed the guy’s nose with his right fist. Swift, devastating kicks to the groins of thugs two and three took them out. Four plunged his knife into the center of Herbert’s chest. Herbert, ignoring the knife, crushed the guy’s larynx with the flat of his left hand.

Suddenly Herbert was standing beside me. I looked at him. “Shucks, you’re dead already.”

“What happens now?”

“I can’t haunt you anymore.”

“Great!”

“And that soul-succubus is going for the baby anyhow.”

Herbert nodded. “Yeah, I see it now. Let’s take care of this once and for all. You distract it. I’ll grab it from behind.”

“I don’t think that’s a great idea.”

“Why?”

“It comes to me that that thing can cause us thousands of years of pain, grief and despair.”

“Wimp.”

“Alright, alright.” I zipped across the street and began bobbing up and down in front of the creature. “You, plug-ugly, get out of here!” Succubus talons reached for me.

Herbert tore into the monster with both hands, ripping gobs of grey goo from its body. A psychic scream, like coyotes being castrated, ripped the air. Herbert finally tore its head from its body and the screaming stopped. Succubus shreds turned to mist and disappeared.

Herbert grinned at me. “Good work.”

“Yeah,” I grinned back, “it was.”

“Want a beer?”

“I do, but — in case you haven’t noticed — we can’t drink.”

“Damn.” He glanced down the street. “We could look for more monsters instead.”

“We?”

“You’re not so bad — for a wimp.”

 

So now I’m wingman for a bad-ass avenger ghost-angel. Things could be worse.

Robert Walton is an experienced writer with published stories, novels, and poetry. His Civil War novel Dawn Drums won the 2014 New Mexico Book Awards Tony Hillerman Prize for best fiction. His SF novella Vienna Station won the 2011 Galaxy Prize and was subsequently published by Rosetta Books.