The Ravaging in Between (The Reanimation Files Book 3) (2 page)

The quaking was not making it easy to walk—or stay in a straight line—but I tried my best and prayed I did not fall over the edge of something I would never be able to crawl out of.

Then I imagined that a ghost monster might jump out of one of those craters. A ghost monster popping out and chasing me around forever. Was that really what I got for sacrificing myself to save everyone else from…

Renton
. The ghost of Renton Morse stood several feet away. In all my stumbling around, trying to keep my feet under me and avoid those craters, I had not seen him appear. But here he was. With the bleak, smoke spewing world, and ghost monsters shaking the ground below, this entire scenario had all the makings of the worse comprehensible nightmare. But there was no waking up from this.

“I knew I would find you,” Renton said. He had his arms clasped behind his back and his expression did not look any saner than it did when we were alive and I saw his true colors. “You killed us, Selene.” He cocked his head to the side as though he was dissecting that thought. A slow smile curled his lips. “You actually killed us. You took me away from my family. And you left Micah. Now, isn’t that something.”

“You are a psychotic, murderous son of a bitch.” I was not going to cower in fear of Renton. We were on even ground now, both ghosts, both on the other side. There were ghost monsters around, but at least he did not control them.

Renton chuckled. “It is sad how unenlightened you are, Selene. How basic your understanding of the world is. You have robbed the world of me, and now it will suffer. And you robbed my family of me, and you will suffer.”

The smile was gone and his look was all sinister madness now. I held my ground.

“I hate you more than I thought I could hate someone, for all the horrible things you’ve done. The mindless killings just to further your own unethical agenda with your poor family were horrifying. But the sad thing is that you did not even start off this way. The war and loss of your family broke you and you could never be wholly fixed. You were a brilliant man, Renton, but you were also a broken man, and that is what led to your downfall.”

“My family…you cost me my family…” Renton edged closer and I readied myself. We could fight, but how would this end? We couldn’t die again.

Run
. I’d have to kick his ass and run. Eternal dodge and weave with Renton Morse. Hell just kept throwing the good times at me.

Renton let out a ragged cry and lunged at me. I braced myself, and when he threw himself on me, I used momentum plus his body weight to fall back and send him flying over my head. He had an ungracious landing on the shaking ground, but was soon up. He punched me in the jaw, and what do you know, I could feel pain. I swept his legs out from under him as I fell. I recovered first and jumped on him, slamming his head onto the ground several times before I leaped off and ran.

Running was difficult and I didn’t get far before Renton’s nails were digging into my back and he body-slammed me back down. This time my head took a hit and I lay there stunned. Renton straddled me, and had his hands around my throat before I could regain myself and move out of the way. His hands were crushing, his face twisted into a maniacal snarl. I felt the sensation of suffocating, and it was horrible. Being suffocated but unable to die was a far worse fate than death.

I couldn’t find the strength to get Renton off me. No matter how much I thrashed his hold did not ease, and the more he choked the non-life out of me, the weaker I started to feel.

“I will make eternity miserable for you,” he snarled. “I will torture you endlessly. You will spend every moment of your Afterlife in agony. Maybe then you will understand the pain I feel because of what you’ve done.”

I was barely coherent enough to feel the terror I should feel at those words. This could not be how things played out for me, but I could not get him off.

But someone else did. I was not aware of a third party, but someone was suddenly there, Renton was flung off me, and I was staring up at a face I had never seen before. He helped me up, then without saying anything, turned around to face Renton.

“She’s mine! She’s mine! She destroyed my life so now I will destroy her!” Renton had eyes only for me, but the newcomer did not give him the opportunity to reach me. He unleashed a furious attack on Renton.

He punched Renton in the gut, which doubled him over, then slammed his head to the ground. He dragged Renton up and was rewarded with a hit across the face from Renton’s wild swings. Renton tried his choke hold again, but the new guy avoided it and slammed his elbow into Renton’s temple. One thing was for sure, this guy was a lot better at fighting than Renton was. Hell, he was better than me.

The pain in my body eased as I stood there watching them fight. I guess pain was only temporary here, which was why no amount of head slams was taking Renton down for good. I wanted to help, but what could I do? Help him keep slamming Renton to the ground for eternity? He’d deserve it, but that’s not exactly how I wanted to spend my Afterlife. So I just stood there watching this stranger take blows that were intended for me as he grappled with an insane ghost.

The new guy seemed as though he’d reached his limit with Renton. Maybe he thought beating him up a bit would cause him to submit, but if we’d had a moment to chat, I would have told him Renton would do no such thing. So after he swept his feet from under him for about the hundredth time, he picked Renton up and held him in a chokehold. Then he started to drag him backward.

The fight with Renton had brought us too close for comfort to one of the craters. The beastly howls from the ghost monsters deep within it were terrifying, and I didn’t even think I could get more scared at this point. I watched with wide eyes as my rescuer dragged Renton to the edge of the crater. I knew what was coming.

“My family…” Renton’s expression was no longer bloodthirsty and his words were pathetically sad. His eyes were locked on mine, pleading for something I could not give.

Renton released a ragged sob and his eyes never left mine as the stranger lifted him over his head and flung him into the crater.

CHAPTER TWO

I stood there stunned. I knew what had been coming, but actually seeing it left me feeling…I don’t even know. Relief was one, for sure. It was good to know that I would not be spending forever as Renton’s torture victim. His screams as he fell had rung out above the ghost monsters, and when I could no longer hear him, the ghost monsters seemed to have become even more frenzied.

“I hate doing that.” My rescuer was still standing by the crater, and his voice was low. He turned around and faced me. He was maybe a few years older than me, had hair on the long side that was pulled back into a loose ponytail, and a few days’ worth of facial hair that had been his look when he died. I pegged him as Japanese. All in all, he was a good-looking Good Samaritan. His dark eyes were very scrutinizing as he took me in, as were mine as I looked him over. He wore loose pants tucked into boots, and a fitted, tunic-like shirt. I couldn’t quite place what era he was from by his outfit. History was not my strong suit, but if I had to guess I’d say he’d died several decades ago.

Now that the fight was over, the intense, ass-kicking expression had eased from his face and he gave me a half smile.

“Found you in a bit of a sticky situation, huh?”

“That’s an understatement,” I muttered. “I can’t thank you enough for helping me.”

“Why was he attacking you?” He walked closer.

“In a nutshell he was a madman who slaughtered a lot of people and the only way to stop him caused both of us to die. My life was complicated. And I guess my Afterlife is too.”

His eyes widened. “That’s some hell of a nutshell, can’t wait to hear the long version…”

“Selene,” I provided. “And who are you?”

“Kyosuke. But you can call me Kyo.”

“So, um…where exactly did you send…”

The ground had lulled a bit, but now it lurched again, throwing us both off balance. Kyo took my arm and we started jogging away. It wasn’t long before the ghost monster cries became distant and the ground stopped shaking.

I felt infinitely better now. Our jog turned into a stroll.

“As I was saying, where did you send him? I mean, I have an idea but…”

“He’s gone,” Kyo said. “Chaos has devoured him.”

“Chaos?”

“That’s what we call that area,” he replied. “Those pits are filled with ghost monsters, as I’m sure you figured out.”

“Yeah….so Renton, when you threw him in there…”

“Food,” Kyo said. “He became…food.”

“The ghost monsters…ate him? That…that’s possible?”

“It’s very possible,” Kyo said. “It’s the reason we confined the ghost monsters down there in the first place.”

“We? What are you talking about?”

“There’s a group of us who’ve taken it upon ourselves to keep the ghost monsters at bay,” Kyo said. “Because if they roam free, there is no escaping them, and they have the ability to swallow up ghosts who are never seen again. So we dug holes and embarked on the dangerous task of getting the ghost monsters into them.” He gave me a devilish grin. “I’m very badass.”

“Normally I’d roll my eyes right about now, but having firsthand knowledge of what it’s like to deal with ghost monsters, I’d have to agree that it’s very badass to volunteer for something like that. But what happens when the pits become full?”

“Never happens,” he said. “Because they tend to gobble up each other too. Not much else to do in those pits, you see.”

“Monster fight club,” I said. From Kyo’s quizzical look, I knew he’d died too long ago to understand the expression.

“I had hoped ghost monsters found peace in the Afterlife, but I guess they don’t.”

“There isn’t much peace to find here, but you should especially stay away from Chaos.”

“It wasn’t my intention to end up there. I was just trying to get away from all this.” I indicated the gray nothing all around us.

As we walked further, the landscape changed again. There were areas where the ground swelled up into small hills or dipped into shallow valleys. Some of the hills had openings. Caves? In the distance I saw tall structures that resembled buildings, yet it felt wrong to call them that. We also started to see other ghosts. They were milling around in groups or alone, and they looked despondent as all hell. They were dressed in clothes from every imaginable past era. A chill went through me. This was definitely not a happy place.

I heard a snarl that sounded like a vicious dog, wolf, lion, and bear all rolled into one and quickly turned in the direction it had come from.

The sound came from a four-legged beast that had the vague shape of a dog, although it was much larger than any dog breed I knew of. Like the horse I had encountered, its body was completely consumed in dancing shadows and it had red eyes. It bared sharp, flesh-tearing teeth. It was a good thing no one around these parts had any flesh to tear into. Some ghosts in the area gave the thing a wide berth, while others paid it no mind. Some petted it.

“That thing is freakish. As is the one I saw earlier that looked like the ghost of a horse that took serious steroids when it was alive.”

“They are the ghosts of what was once a normal animal. This one was probably a German shepherd or something. Or maybe it was a wolf.”

“It sure doesn’t look like a dog or wolf ghost.”

“Things are different here. Ghosts can change in ways that might surprise you. They can evolve, grow stronger. The way they look can even change. And not usually in cute and cuddlesome ways.”

I frowned. “What is this place exactly?”

Kyo grinned. “It’s not here, it’s not there, if you think about it, it’s nowhere.”

“You’re going to play word games, really? Were you a huge fan of the Riddler when you were alive?”

Momentary confusion passed over his face. “The who?”

I recalled that he had likely died before the birth of the comic book era. “Never mind. I know we have all the time in the world, but could you quit being enigmatic?”

“We are in the In Between, Selene,” Kyo said. He looped his arm with mine like we were old buddies, and started walking again.

“What is the In Between? I thought this was the Afterlife.”

“It is part of the Afterlife, but not the good part,” Kyo said. “Paradise, heaven, whatever you want to call it, that is not where we are, and it will forever be beyond our reach. We are in between the living world, and the true Afterlife.”

I opened my mouth to say something, but I was momentarily speechless as this information sank in.

“This can’t be all there is,” I finally whispered, feeling every horrible feeling I could possibly feel. “This can’t be all there is for me…” I looked up at Kyo. “How long have you been here?” I felt numb just thinking about the fact that time was the only thing that would never end now.

Kyo chuckled. “Do you think it’s possible to keep track of time here?”

“That long, huh?”

“Longer.”

“I think I am going to lose my mind.” I was going to go insane like Renton. An eternity in this place could only lead to insanity.

“You very well might,” Kyo said, which was not comforting, but at least he was being honest. “This is not an easy place to exist in.”

“What are those?” I indicated the building-like structures. We weren’t close to any of them, but there was one in particular that looked like a large mansion with turrets and towers. I might even be tempted to call it a castle. A very sinister-looking castle.

“That is where those who fancy themselves rulers live,” Kyo said nonchalantly.

“Rulers? There are rulers here? Like…kings and queens of the In Between?”

Kyo laughed. “That’s a cute way of putting it. Ghosts here are not like the ones you would encounter in the living world. There are some who have been here longer than you might be able to comprehend. They’ve been here long enough to grow stronger, to accumulate followers, and to carve something out of the nothing that is this place.”

“Who would want to rule this?” I muttered.