Dead Jack and the Pandemonium Device by James Aquilone

Author:James Aquilone [Aquilone, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Homunculus House
Published: 2016-11-24T23:00:00+00:00

14. A Zombie by Any Other Name

My head felt like a balloon filled with two tons of lead. I was sure it was going to rip off my shoulders. Actually, I prayed it would.

The world blurred and spun like a mad merry-go-round. I shut my eyes, but the spinning continued. I think I puked.

Gradually, my vision cleared and the world slowed. But my troubles were only beginning. I had no idea where I was. That was par for the course because I had no idea who I was either.

I was in a strange room. (Naturally.) But other than the fact that I had never seen it before, it was strange because the torches on the wall pointed down. That couldn’t be right. I looked around as best I could with my lead-filled head. To my left was a wall of bars. I was in a prison? I didn’t remember committing a crime, but then again I didn’t remember not committing a crime.

I noticed something else inside the small cell. A woman. She stood on the ceiling and hung straight down like a bat.

“How are you doing that?” I asked, and was startled by the sound of my voice, which seemed to croak like, well, something that croaked. My ability to form similes seemed compromised by my lack of knowing…stuff.

“Doing what?” the woman responded. She wore her black hair in pigtails, but somehow they didn’t hang down as you would expect for an upside-down person. They pointed up toward the ceiling. She also wore a straitjacket.

“How are you standing like that on the ceiling? Are you a witch?”

She looked at me like I was speaking gibberish.

“I am a witch actually,” she said, “but I’m standing perfectly normally.”

I must have fallen asleep and woken up in some upside-down world. I didn’t know if that type of thing happened, but again I was short on knowledge.

“What is the name of this world?” I asked. It was probably something like Topsy-Turvy or Up Is Down or Down Is Up.

“Pandemonium.”

“Never heard of it. Does Pandemonium mean something like Upside-Down World?”

She smiled, though it actually looked like a grin. “I think I see your dilemma. You’re the one upside down.”

She was right. I finally looked at my feet. They were strapped to the wall, as were my hands and chest.

“Do you know how I got here?” I asked.

“I assume you pissed off the Duke. The dirty, rotten, lying, piece of scum that he is.”

“I wonder what I did to piss him off.”

“Oh, it doesn’t take much. Believe me. I’m surprised he didn’t kill you.”

“Why did he put you in that straitjacket?”

“So I can’t do any magic. I need to use my hands and I usually need blood.”

“No, I meant why are you in here? How did you piss off the Duke?”

“I could tell you, but what the fook difference would it make? You don’t know anything. I’d probably have to explain a bunch of basic stuff, like what a man is and what a piece of scum is and how a man can lie to your face for years and we’d be here all day.

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