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Post by arcalian on Oct 8, 2011 19:08:36 GMT -5
 Jonah Hex: Shades of Gray #9
"The New Fort Charlotte Brigade!"
Story by Susan Hilliwig
Cover by Joe Jarin
Edited by Jay McIntyre |
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Post by arcalian on Oct 8, 2011 19:18:38 GMT -5
“Who the heck is Jeb Turnbull?” Boston Brand asked Jonah. “And what do you mean, you put him in charge?”
“When thet first black ring got a hold of me, it rooted through muh head an’ picked out folks Ah knew...those thet’d make fer a good army tuh invade Illumination. Then it sent out more rings tuh recruit ‘em all.” Jonah kept trying to straighten up, but could only do so for a few seconds before the pain forced him to lean on the former acrobat’s shoulder once again. “After we marched in, we split into two groups: one tuh break into the underground fortress, an’ one tuh stay topside an’ mop up anybody whut tried tuh run off. Ah put Jeb in charge of the former, while Ah stayed with the latter. Then Jeb’s descendant blew up half the damn town tryin’ tuh kill me, an’ they all got trapped a half-mile beneath the ground. After them other walkin’ corpses got wiped out, Ah just reckoned they were gone too.”
Hal surveyed the Black Lanterns gathered around them less than twelve feet away, every one obviously eager to attack but wary of doing so, due to the presence of the white ring Boston wore. “The wave of white light must have not been able to reach them down there,” he said.
“It certainly wasn’t for lack of trying,” the Black Lantern that had once been a man named Jeb Turnbull replied. “It did a damn fine job of worming its way through the rubble above us and wiping out any of my men it came across. We were just lucky enough to be sealed off from it...but that doesn’t mean we weren’t aware of what was happening above us.” Despite the dearth of skin covering Jeb’s skull, his face still managed to take on the impression of rage. “We felt every one of our brethren burn into nothingness, and we swore to dig our way out of that pit so that we could find that damnable traitor Jonah Hex and make him pay for all his crimes, past and present.”
“Why do keep calling Jonah a traitor?” Dove asked.
“Because that’s all he knows how to be. Long time back, Hex pledged himself to the Confederacy, but he later turned his back on myself and our regiment for the sake of the coloreds.” Jeb pointed at Jonah with a skeletal finger. “He betrayed us to the Union and let them slaughter us all.”
“Thet’s a lie!” Despite the pain, Jonah staggered towards his old friend. “Ah surrendered muhself, but Ah never told them about the rest of yuh! Y’all have the same damn delusion thet yer father did, Jeb!”
“And you eventually killed him too, didn’t you? The betrayal never stops.” There was a note of disgust in Jeb’s voice. “Nekron offered you a chance to redeem yourself by retrieving the wayward ring, and what did you do? You ran off with it and delivered it into the hands of the enemy! I trusted in you enough to follow you again, and so did my father, but loyalty means nothing to you, does it? DOES IT?” As Jeb berated him, Jonah dropped to his knees and clutched his chest, as if the sheer force of the words was causing him injury. Dove knelt down and put her arms around Jonah’s shoulders, which made the dead soldier say, “I suppose we’ll be doing your Yankee friends a favor, killing them before you have the chance.”
“Hate to break it to you, but there isn’t going to be any more killing.” Hal leveled his gaze at Jeb. “The war’s over, and you lost. Again.”
“You Yankees are always tryin’ to tell us the war’s over,” one of the other Rebels hollered, “and we ain’t believed you yet! Long live the Cause!” This was greeted with a chorus of whoops and cheers from his fellow corpses.
“Oh great,” Boston muttered, “the South’s risen again, just like they always promised.”
“Not for long,” the Green Lantern replied. “Lest you forget, you’re lugging around one of the few things that can take these things out permanently. I suggest you use it.”
The threat had the intended effect: almost as one, the Black Lanterns began to back away. When Boston raised the hand that bore the white ring, a few of them hissed at the sight of it. “Okay, ring,” Boston said as he pointed it directly at Jeb, “let’s clean up this mess.” He pictured a halo of pure white light bursting out of the ring, engulfing every Black Lantern that surrounded them and turning them to ash...but it didn’t happen. Not so much as a spark issued forth. “Come on, what are you waiting for? Fry ‘em!”
[This isn’t your fight], the white ring informed him.
“Like Hell it’s not!” He shook his fist at the Black Lanterns, as if he could knock some of the energy loose, but it did no good. “I think we need another plan, GL.”
With a raspy chuckle, Jeb drew the cavalry saber hanging from his belt. “CHARGE!” he bellowed, and rushed straight for the heroes. The other corpses did the same, howling like banshees and raising weapons of their own as they threw themselves into the fray.
Hal barely had enough time to generate an emerald shield around himself and his friends, and within seconds, cracks began to show upon its surface from the force of the Black Lanterns’ assault, some of them going so far as to climb on top in an attempt to shatter it from above. Throwing a glance over his shoulder, Hal saw that his shield extended over the diner’s entrance. “Everybody inside!” he called out. Dove and Boston both grabbed Jonah and hauled him across the threshold while Hal walked backwards, adding layer upon layer to the shield so as to keep up with the damage being inflicted upon it. Once inside the diner, Hal flattened the shield out in order to create a foot-thick wall of green energy across the entire front of the building. That did nothing to deter the Black Lanterns from assaulting it with everything from rifle butts and arrows to tomahawks and knives.
The smell of blood permeated the air within the diner. Bodies were strewn upon the floor and across tables. Jonah collapsed onto one of the stools lining the counter, and as he did so, he glanced to the side and saw the body of a woman laying not far away, the front of her waitress uniform torn and bloody. “Thet’s Rita,” he rasped. “She called me a young stud.” A look of sorrow crossed his face. “Ah warned Maggie ‘bout this...the curse of knowin’ me. Everyone here died just ‘cause Ah happened tuh pass this way.”
“It’s not your fault,” Dove replied softly.
“It is...it always is. Rita’s dead, an’ so’s Maggie. Even Jeb...if’n Ah’d never met him...” The words were suddenly cut off as a spasm rocked Jonah’s body, patches of dead flesh briefly rippling over him. “J-just let ‘em kill me, Hal. Hand me over tuh them an’ run like Hell while they rip me apart. Ain’t right fer a man tuh live like this anyhow.”
“That is not an option,” Hal answered. “You might be willing to throw your life away, but I’m not. And even if I was, there’s still the matter of that black ring inside of you. It’s obvious that they don’t want anyone living to possess it, so I plan on keeping the both of you as far out of their reach as possible.”
Gesturing towards the green barrier between them and the dead soldiers, Boston said, “Gonna be a good trick, considering you’ve got us walled in here like this was the Alamo.”
“I wouldn’t have had to do that if you’d done more than fire blanks,” Hal retorted. “What happened out there?”
“This ring does what it wants, I don’t have a ton of control over it.” He nodded towards Dove, saying, “Maybe she can wipe them out instead. Weren’t these things just falling to dust in her presence during the last big fight?”
“I lost that ability after I made contact with the Black Lantern battery,” Dove answered.
“And my own ring is only a catalyst: without a ring that works on another part of the spectrum, all I can do is hold them back,” Hal said. “And I’ m afraid even that has its limits.”
Boston warily eyed the sea of Black Lanterns trying to pound through the shield. “Is there any way to contact some of those other ring-slingers? Get them here on the double?”
“It’s taking a lot of power to maintain this,” Hal replied, “but I should be able to spare some to send out a signal.”
As the three heroes talked, Jonah stared down as his hands, which seemed to clench and unclench of their own volition. The pain that wracked his body was making it hard to think, not to mention the intermittent flashes from the Black Lanterns that crept around the edge of his consciousness. Their hatred of him was palatable, and nearly as strong as his hatred of his own self. The girl could try and reassure him all she liked, but it didn’t change the fact that, wherever he went, death and gunsmoke followed. An’ now Hal an’ the others are gonna die too, all ‘cause they tried tuh help me, Jonah thought, still staring as his hands. Why did yuh do this, Lord? Why bring back a bastard like me if’n muh very presence causes people tuh die? Another wave of pain swept through him, and he saw his left hand remain bright and vital while his right turned gray and dead.
No, that wasn’t true. His right hand may have looked dead, but he could still see a faint, dirty-yellow aura coming from it -- he’d never noticed an aura coming off of dead flesh before. To confuse matters even more, it wasn’t the same aura his left was giving off: that one swirled with both yellow and red, plus a line of green as he tried to fight against the pain inside of him. It didn’t make any sense for his aura to be split like that, unless...
“It’s afraid!” Jonah shouted, surprising everyone. He got off the stool and stumbled over to Hal. “The cussed thing’s scared outta its wits!”
“What are talking about?” Hal asked.
“The dead parts of me ain’t got the same colors...thet’s whut the ring’s feelin’, not me. Maybe thet’s why Ah keep flippin’ back an’ forth: it’s so scared thet it’s lashin’ out, or tryin’ tuh get free so’s it kin run away.” He held up his hands. “Ah know yuh cain’t see it the way Ah kin, but it’s the truth. The dead parts an’ the livin’ parts are feelin’ two dif’rent things!”
“Jonah, you’re delirious,” Hal said, putting his own hands on the bounty hunter’s shoulders. “The pain’s making you hallucinate, that’s all. Black Lanterns rings aren’t alive to any degree, they just latch onto dead bodies and animate them. There’s no souls inside of them, I swear. I know it seems like that’s really Jeb Turnbull and your other old friends out there, but they’re more like...like big clockwork machines.”
“Ah know thet already, dammit! Yuh think Ah couldn’t tell thet Ah was the only one still trapped inside their own corpse? Ah’m talkin’ only ‘bout the ring thet’s been ridin’ shotgun with me fer a week! It knows whut fear is, an’ it’s feelin’ it in spades!”
“And I’m telling you, that’s impossible. When you get down to it, that ring is just a very sophisticated machine. It can’t feel anything. If I had the time, I’d explain to you about computers and AI, but I don’t, so you’ll just have to take my word for it now.”
“Y’all think Ah’m ignorant, don’tcha? Just some country bumpkin thet cain’t handle bein’ dropped in the future.” He narrowed his eyes at the Green Lantern. “Ah’ve seen an’ done things thet’re too horrible tuh even voice, so don’t just dismiss me like Ah’m a guh...a goddam ch-chuh...chhhrrggghh...AAAGGH!” Jonah’s knees buckled as the dark matter surged up inside his body, rendering every inch of his living flesh completely dead within the space of a heartbeat. Hal managed to catch him and ease him down to the floor, but there was little else that could be done. Jonah’s desiccated body shook as choking gasps issued out from his throat -- whether they were more cries of pain or a feeble attempt to speak, no one could tell.
Boston came up beside Hal and pushed him away, saying, “We’ll keep an eye on him, don’t worry. Just get on the horn and call in the cavalry!”
It was hard decision, but Hal agreed: the most help he could provide for Jonah right now was to get him and the others away from this madness. He stepped away from the group and raised his ring hand, his fingers curled in a loose fist. “This is an emergency transmission from Green Lantern 2814.1 to any Corps member in the vicinity...”
“It’s okay, Jonah, we’re here,” Dove said, daring to cradle his ruined face in her hands while Boston tried to keep him from thrashing about. “Just hold on, it should be over soon.”
“Uhhh...buh...buh-back...back...” Jonah somehow managed to say.
Dove looked up at Boston, who shrugged and said, “Maybe he thinks he’s going to hurt us. Sorry, cowboy, we’re not gonna let go until we’re sure you’re okay.”
Jonah whipped his head back and forth violently. “Back...door...”
But his warning came too late: an arrow plunged through the air from the rear of the diner and straight through Hal’s upraised fist, slicing off the tips of his thumb and middle finger before exiting out the back of his hand. The Green Lantern cried out and clamped his other hand over the gushing wound, then turned to see a slim, red-haired Indian nock another arrow on his bow. “Get Hex on his feet, now!” Hal yelled, then blasted his attacker with his own weapon, using his good hand to support the mutilated one. Just as soon as that Indian went down, though, another charged at him from the darkness. Unlike the first, this new one was built like a linebacker and wore a buffalo pelt over his head like a mask. Hal tried to blast him as well, but before he could get the shot off, the huge Indian slammed straight into Hal and kept going, sending both of them through the wall of the diner and the emerald shield beyond it.
Everything fell into chaos after that. Some of the Black Lanterns outside grabbed hold of Hal and began pummeling him, not giving him the chance to use his ring, while the rest poured into the diner through either the back entrance or the hole in quickly-crumbling shield. Boston and Dove retreated to another section of the diner, dragging Jonah between them, but all they succeeded in doing was pinning themselves into a blind corner, without so much as a window to use as an exit. “And here I was, just beginning to enjoy being alive again,” Boston said.
“We need to put Jonah behind us,” Dove told him. “If we buy him some time, he might be able to recover and escape.”
It wasn’t the best plan, but it was all they had, so they propped him up in a booth and turned to face the advancing horde. To their surprise, none of the gun-toting Black Lanterns fired upon them, choosing instead to swing their weapons like clubs or jab with attached bayonets. An even bigger surprise came when Boston punched one of dead soldiers with his right fist: the second the ring upon his hand made contact, the Black Lantern screamed and fell to ash. The others near Boston backed up immediately, much to his delight. “Yeah, that’s right, I’m still dangerous!” he shouted. “Don’t start some and you won’t get none!” He spared a moment to glance over at Dove and smile, but that smile faded when he saw a Black Lantern reach out and tangle his fingers in Dove’s hair, yanking her into the sea of corpses before them -- she hit the one that grabbed her with enough force to shatter a brick wall, but that only bought her a few seconds of breathing-space before another half-dozen Black Lanterns took hold of her and dragged her out of Boston’s view. In a panic, Boston yelled her name, then began to move in the direction he last saw her, swinging at Black Lanterns wildly. Though he managed to take out a few more, he soon found himself overwhelmed as well. They pinned him to the floor of the diner with the sheer weight of their bodies, and two of them grabbed Boston’s right arm and held it down so that he couldn’t strike any more of them with the white ring.
It was only once Boston was trying to draw breath while being crushed that he realized he’d done exactly what the Black Lanterns wanted him to do.
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Post by arcalian on Oct 8, 2011 19:30:36 GMT -5
Don’t be afraid. Fer both our sakes, yuh’d best calm the Hell down! Jonah had been saying phrases like that over and over again in his mind ever since the moment he realized the ring’s fear. He still didn’t understand it -- why would the ring be afraid of its own kind? -- but he knew that he had to find a way to get it under control before the Black Lanterns slaughtered them all like sheep. So far, however, no amount of begging or commanding had worked, and instead the ring has been bouncing his mind from one corpse’s point-of-view to the next. By some miracle, Jonah had glimpsed Firehair and the others sneaking around the back of the building, yet he’d only been able to give the heroes a split-second warning about it. And now they were all scattered to the four winds, and Jonah himself was completely helpless, his body unable to obey his mind. It was like being trapped inside his corpse all over again. Yuh’ve got tuh let me do something, he silently pleaded. Ah ain’t willin’ tuh go down without a fight, yuh hear? Now back off a little so’s Ah kin at least make a goddam fist when they come over here tuh kill me!
Perhaps it was the choice of words, or the ring finally managed to get its fear under control, but whatever the reason, Jonah felt the dark matter recede enough to let his flesh revert back to a living state. Fighting against the pain that still wracked his body, he stood up from the booth and brandished his Dragoons as the Black Lanterns turned their full attention upon him -- despite their decayed appearance, Jonah knew all their faces, and he wished to God that he didn’t. “Bastards...all of yuh,” he gasped. “Bunch of grave-robbin’ bastards.”
“Says the man who told Nekron to dig us up,” Scalphunter pointed his knife at Hex. “Just because you refuse to rest doesn’t mean we should share your burden.”
Chako grinned like always, his sheepskin vest stained with the blood of those he’d gutted that night. “He has always been the selfish one, no? He like to kick people when they are down. You kick me many times, Hex, but I think Chako will get the last kick in this time.”
“Go ahead an’ try it. Ah’ll put a bullet in yer greasy head just like afore,” Jonah replied.
“Not if I put one in you first.” George Barrow muscled his way past all the others, bearing a shotgun in his hands just like when he’d barged into that Cheyenne saloon a century ago and sent Jonah Hex to his grave -- the sight of him was enough to make Jonah feel cold down to the bone. “I killed you once already, and I’ll certainly enjoy killing you again.”
Jonah slowly shook his head. “Stay away from me, Barrow. Ah swear, if’n yuh come any closer...” He pointed his Dragoons at the man, but his hands were trembling so bad his aim kept wavering...and it wasn’t just the pain that made him tremble, it was the inescapable memory of bleeding to death on a wooden floor from the twin barrels of buckshot emptied into his gut.
“What’s the matter, old man? Are you yellow? Yeah, I can see that you are.” All of the Black Lanterns laughed at Barrow’s pun as he took a step forward. “You might be wearing a younger face, but underneath it all, you’re still a pathetic, frightened old geezer.”
“Ah ain’t afraid of yuh,” Jonah said weakly, though his right hand was beginning to dip down towards his stomach, unconsciously trying to cover a wound that no longer existed.
“Don’t listen to him, Hex!” Boston called out as the dead soldiers continued to keep him pinned to the floor. “They’re just trying to get an emotional response out of you! That’s what they...uhhh!” One of the soldiers pistol-whipped Boston across the face to make him shut up.
Barrow took a few more steps forward. “That’s right, Hex, ignore me. Keep on denying the thoughts that’ve been cropping up in your head for the past week: that you’re useless, that you don’t belong here, that your only purpose is to bring death to those around you.” He swung the shotgun around so that the stock of it was facing Jonah. “Maybe that’ll bring you some measure of comfort while you’re burning in Hell!” With that, he brought the stock down fast, meaning to smash Jonah between the eyes with the butt of the weapon just as he’d done a century ago, but Jonah still possessed enough presence of mind to block it with his left arm. The force of the blow broke his wrist, however, and the Dragoon he’d been holding clattered to the floor. Jonah staggered back, and Barrow quickly closed the gap, swinging the shotgun like a baseball bat and striking the bounty hunter hard enough to crack his skull open. The Black Lanterns cheered as Jonah fell to the floor, his right hand still clutching his other revolver, but he made no move to use it, even as Barrow continued to assault his prostrate form.
“Get up, Hex! You have to get up!” Boston yelled, but it was obvious by Jonah’s inability to fight back that he’d succumbed to the nightmare of being murdered twice by the same man. When Barrow finally stopped his assault and rolled Jonah onto his back, Boston said, “It’s just another stupid black ring! Each of you has one already, so why do you need that one?”
George Barrow looked at him and said, “A good soldier never questions his orders.” He then looked down at Hex and added, “Would’ve saved yourself a lifetime of pain if you’d only learned that.” Laying aside his shotgun, Barrow knelt down, cocked back his fist, and slammed it through Jonah’s ribcage. The bounty hunter let out a strangled cry that soon rose into an ear-splitting scream as Barrow began to extract his heart: just as Green Lantern had predicted, the ring refused to leave his body without a fight, and the tendrils of departing dark matter were shredding Jonah’s flesh from within. With a grunt, Barrow yanked on the organ until the last tendrils snapped off from the body, contracting back into the ring buried in his heart and leaving Jonah still and silent.
A roar of triumph went up from the crowd of corpses in the diner as Barrow held the heart up for all to see. He then started to dig his fingers into it like he was peeling an orange, until the black ring hiding within was exposed. “Boys, our mission is almost complete,” he announced, plucking out the ring. “Once we deliver this to our master, we...I...I’m...” Barrow’s hand closed tightly around the ring, and a look of confusion seemed to come across his desiccated features. “I’m...I’m not...I’m not...” A sob issued from his throat, and the hand holding the ring began to tremble, then disintegrate. The sob turned into a wail, and after about five seconds, George Barrow had become nothing more than a human-shaped pile of ash. The black ring he’d been holding remained intact, though, and it fell to the ground as the body lost all cohesion. Chako ran forward and caught it in midair, cupping the ring in his hands like it was the most precious item in the world, but not long after, he too looked rather distressed, and began to babble something in Spanish before wailing and turning into ash as well.
Boston watched the whole spectacle from his position on the floor, utterly baffled as to what he was witnessing. As a third Black Lantern stepped forward to catch the obviously-lethal ring, Boston heard his own ring whisper to him, [Now is the time!]
A surge of power ran through Boston Brand as the white ring flared up, engulfing the corpses that held him down in a brilliant flash of light. All the other Black Lanterns nearby screamed and tried to scramble away, but Boston, now cloaked in the garb of the White Lantern, cut them down with a blast of energy. He quickly cast his light through the rest of the diner in order to be sure that no dead soldiers would jump out when he least expected it, then he turned his attention on the pair that remained near Jonah’s body. One was a Confederate who had grabbed hold of the black ring and, like the rest, was starting to disintegrate, and the other was Scalphunter, who stood guard between Boston and the Confederate. “I will not let you take what is ours, white man,” he said.
“Going by what I’ve seen so far,” Boston replied, “I don’t think you guys will be around much longer to claim it.”
With a blood-curdling war cry, Scalphunter lunged at Boston, intent on plunging a knife into his chest, but Boston simply pointed the white ring at him and wiped him out in the blink of an eye, just as he’d done to the rest. There was no need to do the same to the last Confederate, as he became nothing but ash just seconds later, the black ring once again falling to the floor.
[Catch it!] the white ring exclaimed.
After seeing what had happened to everyone else who touched it, Boston was hesitant to do so, but he threw himself across the room and caught the black ring before it landed in the pile of ash that now covered the floor. He thought it would burn his hand, perhaps, or for some unseen force to lash out and strike him dead, but nothing of the sort occurred. It simply lay there in his hand, a dark spot in the midst of brilliance. “It’s just another stupid ring,” Boston said, echoing his earlier comment. “Those Black Lanterns want to kill us all for something that they can’t even keep a hold of! Well, not anymore!” He cupped both hands over it and concentrated all the power he could muster upon it, lighting up the inside of the diner like it was the sun itself.
[Stop it, Boston Brand!] the white ring told him. [You’ll destroy the balance!]
“The balance is already destroyed! They killed Jonah Hex, remember?”
[Jonah Hex is not the balance. The balance lay within him].
“What?” Boston eased up on his assault, opening his hands to look upon the black ring -- despite the enormous amount of power Boston had been using, it was completely unscathed. He watched as the white ring produced a wispy, thin tendril that crept across his palm and touched the sides of the black ring, which soon responded with a much-smaller tendril of its own. The two of them intertwined for a moment, and for some bizarre reason, the sight reminded Boston of an infant taking hold of an adult’s outstretched finger. “My God, what’s going on here?”
[Something new. What was once a symbol of death is becoming more than that].
“I don’t get it. Are you saying this isn’t a Black Lantern ring anymore?”
[It is and is not. It has found the balance, but it does not understand]. The tendril of white scooped up the black ring and lifted it from Boston’s hand, while another swept over to Jonah’s dead body and wrapped around him. [He does understand, but the balance was always denied him]. The white energy picked Jonah up by the shoulders, letting him dangle above the floor like a mutilated rag doll as his bloody head lolled to the side. [That is no longer the case], the white ring said, then slipped its dark counterpart upon Jonah’s left hand.
Boston expected the black ring to start putting Jonah back together -- or worse, turn him into a walking corpse -- but there appeared to be no change to his wounds at all. “Why isn’t it doing anything?” he asked, then realized that the White Lantern’s power wasn’t having any effect on Jonah either, despite the fact that he was now surrounded by a nimbus so bright Boston had to squint to look upon him. “What’s wrong? Why can’t you bring him back?”
[That is not under my control. My part of the plan is done].
“What you mean ‘your part’? I thought this nonsense with resurrecting people was all your idea.” Boston looked from Jonah’s limp body to the white ring. “Who else is involved in this ‘plan’ of yours?” he asked.
But the white ring refused to answer him.
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Post by arcalian on Oct 8, 2011 19:44:18 GMT -5
He knew he was dead again. There was no period of shock or confusion like he went through the first time he found himself floating in the darkness. In fact, he took a small degree of comfort in its presence, rather like a prisoner might take comfort in his cell after many years pass and memories of the outside world fade. It was a logical reaction for someone in his predicament, seeing as how he had been dead longer than he’d ever been alive...and who was to say that his brief respite from death had actually happened at all? All that strangeness of the past week -- the magic rings, the rainbows dancing before his eyes, the long-departed friends and enemies confronting him, all topped off by that bastard Barrow returning him to the darkness once more -- none of that could have been real. More likely that it was just a dream, an intricate fantasy his mind cobbled together in an effort to stave off an eternity of torture for a short while. He didn’t know for sure, nor did he care. Jonah Hex was dead, now and forever. That was his reality, and what came before was no longer of any consequence. There was no way to mark time in the darkness, but he was aware that, slowly, his surroundings were beginning to fade from black to gray. This didn’t strike him as unusual, and he expected to soon be looking at the world through the glass eyes of his stuffed and mounted corpse, just as he’d been doing for the past century. He possessed no curiosity about what his limited view would present to him, as he’d passed beyond caring about such things long ago -- the world had chosen to forget about him, so he in turn chose to forget about it -- but when the dark veil fully parted this time, Jonah couldn’t help but feel a little puzzled. Instead of a dusty warehouse or rinky-dink carnival tent, he saw a wooded glade dotted with tombstones. What’s more, everything around him was rendered in various shades of gray. A cemetery was the last place he expected to end up, and his surprise at the scene caused him to take a step backward, which led to an entirely new level of surprise: he could move. He raised his hands, which were just as gray as the world around him, and touched his face to discover that the old scars were still gone. “But Ah’m dead,” he whispered, and the sound of his own voice shocked him back into silence. This has tuh be another dream, he thought, but that didn’t stop him from walking into the cemetery and looking about. Many of the graves had been ripped open, and the smell of damp earth hung in the air. None of the names upon the tombstones were familiar, so he kept on walking, an odd sensation of having his footsteps guided by an unseen force coming over him. At the far end of the glade lay a pair of pedestal-shaped grave markers, each topped with a statue of an angel. No, they ain’t angels, Jonah thought, but those are definitely wings on ‘em. The grave for the one marked as Hank Hall was in disarray, yet he gave it only a cursory glance, instead focusing on the other grave and the inscription chiseled upon its pedestal: IN MEMORIAM
DONALD HALL
R.I.P. “Don Hall of Earth is at peace,” Jonah said under his breath, and indeed, there was no sign of disturbance to either the grave or the pearlescent marble statue watching over it. The only thing amiss about the scene was the Black Lantern ring nestled in the grass covering the grave. Getting down on one knee, Jonah brushed the grass aside so he could see the ring more clearly. It seemed so insignificant laying there, nowhere near as threatening as it seemed when it had been trapped inside his chest and causing him all that pain. It wasn’t a dream, he realized. The whole thing, it really happened. Ah was brought back tuh life, an’ Ah walked about in the world like a normal human being. But now Ah’m dead again, an’ Hal an’ the others are still in trouble ‘cause of me. He squeezed his eyes shut, a look of anguish on his face, and said, “Please, Lord, Ah’ll do whutever penance Yuh have left fer me without complaint, but spare muh friends. Let muh sins be muh own. Ah’m beggin’ Yuh, if’n there’s an ounce of mercy within Yuh...” “I think He has more than enough mercy to go around,” a voice beside Jonah said. He opened his eyes to see a young man standing next to him, wearing a costume similar to Dove’s. The young man smiled at him, saying, “Hello, Mr. Hex, it’s good finally to meet you.” “Who...” Jonah began to say, then his eyes darted over to the statue. “Yo’re the fella they made thet cussed ring fer. ‘Bout time y’all showed up fer it.” Jonah stood up and waved a hand at the ring still sitting upon the grass. “Go on, yo’re welcome tuh it.” “Thank you,” Don Hall said, bending over to pick it up, “but this ring doesn’t belong to me anymore. In fact, it doesn’t belong to anyone but itself.” “Whut in the blue Hell is thet supposed tuh mean?” “It means I’m here to offer you a job, Mr. Hex.” He pinched the black ring between his thumb and forefinger and held it out to Jonah. “And if you take me up on it, the reward for doing so will be your life.” NEXT ISSUE: “Requiescat In Pace”
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