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These are the prologue and first three installments of a series I started writing last year or the year before (can't really remember) about a man who impersonated Jack the Ripper and wound up nearly going to Hell for it. Lots of pointless violence and bad writing. I hope you enjoy.

RED JACK
PROLOGUE: “HOW I LOST MY SOUL”

“The heck happened to him?”

“He got both barrels.”

“His face…it’s like it imploded.”

“Basically. Come on, help me get him in the bag.”

“Who is he?”

“I dunno what his real name is, but his working name is Red Jack.”

*****

Dying is…interesting. It’s a lot like going to sleep, but you can’t stop yourself from drifting off. Your body feels really heavy—each part weighs as much as the whole. It’s obvious that this is the end. You can feel the life leaving you. Terrifying. Not something I ever want to experience again.

You imitate a famous criminal, you've got to be ready to accept the consequences. You've got to be ready to go all the way to make your point, and you've got to be ready to face the end when it comes. Me, I wasn't so brave as all that. I did the deed. I learned how to make the cuts, and I made sure the girls were stone dead by the time I was finished.

But you can't ever go too far. Not even once. Because if you do, you'll find yourself staring down the barrel of a scattergun, and it's only then that you realize what you've done and just how damned you really are, but at that point it's entirely too late to do anything about it.

*****

"You did it, Jack. You really did it. I didn't think you had it in you, but if you didn't we wouldn't be here now."

The Demon—I figured I was in Hell—was extremely familiar. Tallish, medium build, somewhat pale, dark, gaunt eyes and matted hair. He was wearing a purple business suit, of all things, and a matching bowler. The cane he had was ivory or something, held under his arm like some snooty businessman. I realized, with a start, that he looked exactly like me, except for his attire. I was still in the torn and bloody survival jacket, jeans, and t-shirt that I had been wearing for what must have been weeks.

“I gotta admit, though,” he said, “you look pretty good for a guy who just got his face shredded. You feel okay?”
From my position on the floor, sprawled on my back, I blinked at him several times. That he was obviously a Demon told me that I was, in fact, in Hell, but that didn’t really come as a surprise. You don’t kill that many whores without some kind of penalty.

“Say something, asstard!”

I jumped slightly, and managed to stammer out, “Who are you?” It was the first thing that occurred to me.

“Silverberg. You're Red. This is Hell. Any further questions?”

“A Jewish demon?”

“Shut your trap. Don't go pinning one of your devil-damned ethnicities on me. You can't pronounce my real name, is all, and on the off chance that you can, I don't want you to be able to look me up. So shut your trap.”

I guess it wasn't all that surprising that he was a jerk. What was I supposed to expect from a demon?

“Anyway, Jack, I gotta talk to you. It's important, so keep your ugly face quiet until I'm done.”

“My ugly face? You look just like me.”

“Yeah, because this way you don't know what I actually look like and you won't be able to track me down. Damn, you're stupid. Now shut up and listen. You did some things that the Creator would call evil. That's why you're here. Good for you. But here's the thing: you felt bad about it at the end, right before you died. That's not a good thing- not for us, at least. So to get to the point, the Boss doesn't want you around. We can't just let you go, though, you know? So you've gotta do some things for the Boss before you can get out of here and try again.”

“I get another chance?”

“That's what I said, isn't it? But only after you do some things for the Big Guy. The Creator decided that your actions were enough to get you here, but that freaking repentance thing right before we got our hands on you put you in a kind of limbo. You follow? Don't answer, I don't care. Here's how this is going to go. The Boss has some things that he wants done around here, things that he can’t do himself. You, sack of crap, have been judged able to do these things. You are going to do them. You ask questions, or you fail, and I've been given the go-ahead to blast your sorry a** to the Ninth Level. Got that?”

Something seemed wrong. I mean, more wrong that everything else. “So…that’s it? I just run some errands for your boss and I get to go free?”
Silverberg snorted at me. “Don’t make it sound so easy, Red Jackass. We have to put you through the ringer. Do not expect me to go easy on you. I hate you. Remember that. Because I hate you and want you to die again, I am going to be sending your assignments through my people. Do not talk to them, do not ask them any questions. Just take whatever they give you, do the job, and shut up.” Straightening his jacket and drawing himself up, Silverberg jabbed me with his cane. “So how about it? Ready to sell your soul again?”

He held out his hand. I reached for it. What else was I going to do?

****************************************************************************

RED JACK
EPISODE ONE: “MY FIRST DAY IN THE VALLEY”

Everything in the apartment was roughly the same shade of gray. The bed, the table, the two chairs next to the table, the counter, the dresser, the walls, the carpet, the ceiling…even the bathroom was that color. Yes, even though I was dead, as long as I was in the Valley, I still had to relieve myself.

The Valley, as in the Valley of the Shadow of Death. That’s what the locals called the place. It’s where a lot of folks go when they’re evil, but not evil enough to get sent to Hell. It’s also where you go if you kill yourself but you were otherwise a good person, or if you sinned a lot while you were insane but were still aware of what you were doing—kind of complicated, in the end. Anyway, that’s where I ended up.

I was sitting in one of the chairs, looking over my first assignment, which had been slipped under the door earlier that morning. Included in the envelope was a note from Silverberg:

Jack:

This assignment’s so easy that even an asstard like you can do it. You just make the rounds for the Boss, collect his payments, and leave it all at City Hall when you’re done. Here’s a map of the area you’ll be operating in, and directions as to what specifically to do. I’ve also included a present for you.

-Silverberg

Unfolding the bundle of cloth that had somehow found its way inside my apartment, I discovered what it was that Silverberg had sent me: a knife. A good, sturdy blade of high-quality steel, shined to where it was hard to look at. The edge was impossibly sharp, the pommel was wrapped in some kind of nice leather, and I could tell from handling it that the tang was solid. One thing bothered me, though, and that was why Silverberg would send me something like a knife. I was already dead, and so was everybody else, so what possible use could I have for a weapon? Maybe it was just to make me feel more secure. More likely, though, it was a joke about my career as a murderer.

The location was a forbidding building of black-flecked crimson stone standing squarely in the middle of a barren park. The door was black iron, and when I knocked there was an echo that drained any willpower I might have had to finish my job. Unfortunately, before I could back away, the door swung open with surprising speed and I was face-to-face with a squat, obese, blue-scaled demon with one of the meanest looks I’ve seen to this day. “And what, in all the Nine, do you want?” he growled. I couldn’t quite get the words out, so I just held out the bag Silverberg had sent me to collect payments in. The demon caught my meaning and rolled his eyes. “The Boss wants his payment, I guess? Fine, wait here and I’ll go get it.” He stumped away and returned shortly (pun totally intended) with a clearish crystal, which he put in the bag himself since I was still paralyzed with fear. And for those of you who think I’m being a sissy here, let me tell you that butchering a terrified prostitute in a dark alley is substantially different than demanding money from an angry demon.

So the job went, with demons and lost souls adding crystals of various colors and qualities to my bag, and me not asking any questions because I probably didn’t want to know. As I finished my last stop and was making for City Hall, I saw her.

She was nothing like I remembered her. This wasn’t the beauty whose intestines I’d shredded while she clawed at my face, who had screamed like a banshee even to the last. She looked just like a ghost now, her eyes sunken and dead, pardon the expression, and her arms hanging absently at her sides as she floated down the street.

Her features changed instantly when she saw me. Her eyes went wide and she shrieked like she had when I’d killed her. She turned and ran, hollering, “Save me! Somebody, please, save me!” I didn’t chase after her. What good would it have done? I’d already done what I’d done, and I didn’t have the power to change that. The fact that she was there at all meant that she might have hope, but it wasn’t for me to have a hand in. By sending her here I’d done my part. To be honest, I didn’t even feel the slightest twinge of guilt.

I was such a b*****d.

****************************************************************************

RED JACK
EPISODE TWO: “BRIMSTONE BANDITS, PART ONE”

Did you know people in Hell still dream when they sleep? At least, they do in the Valley. But they’re not dreams like you normally think of them. They’re memories of the happy times in your life, and it’s like you right there, but there’s always the knowledge that you’ll never have that again. Even though I knew better, even though I knew that I still had a chance, that’s what it was like for me, and the dreams always left me cold and sweat-soaked when I came to. You think you have problems? Try spending a week in Hell.

Grut was nicer than most other Demons in the Valley. Grut wasn’t his real name, of course, but his real name was seventy-three syllables long and unpronounceable with a Human tongue, so he went by Grut when dealing with former mortals. He was average height for a Human male, and fat but not disgustingly so. His hands were his best feature—he could crush rocks with those hands, which was what he did for a living. Grut was a Graveller, a Demon whose purpose was to kill people who were Hell-bound by collapsing various forms of rock underneath or on top of them. If somebody fell to their death when a ledge gave way, or a cave-in crushed the life out of them, you can bet it was a Graveller.

More to the point, however, Grut was the Demon Silverberg had sent to give me my assignment that day. It was the first job I’d gotten since my first one a few days earlier. It looked like Silverberg was going to drag out my sentence as much as possible before he had to let me go.

“What’s the job?” Grut inquired, not in much of a hurry to get back to his job.

“Apparently somebody stole a few hundred of those crystal things from City Hall night before last.” I handed the folder to Grut so I didn’t have to explain any more.

“That’s wild,” he mused, scanning the briefing notes. “It must be the first time in a millennium anybody’s managed to pull off a heist on City Hall. Says here the Big Guy wants you to get the cash back and ‘make the point—be creative,’ whatever that means.”

Something was bothering me about the assignment. “The Big Guy is the Devil, right? Why does the Prince of Darkness need an errand boy to do this kind of work? Shouldn’t he already know where they are?”

Grut chuckled good-naturedly. To this day, he is the only Demon I’ve ever known to be able to perform that particular feat. “He’s not the Creator,” Grut told me. “He knows what goes on in his domain, which as you know is Hell. But the Valley here isn’t quite in Hell. It’s kind of just outside. So the Big Guy doesn’t have any idea what’s going on beyond what he gets told. Up here he’s just like you or me, except that he can send us packing if he wants. Get what I mean?”

I nodded and sighed deeply, taking my folder back from Grut. “Great. So I get to track down some thieves. Does he know I’m not a detective?”

“Better question: do you think he cares?”

“Point. I guess I’d better get to work.” Grut and I went our separate ways then. Since the stuff had been stolen from City Hall, I figured I should start there and ask around. The details in the briefing notes were appallingly uninformative, and being a man of details (as my victims would, and will if you’re ever in Hell, tell you) I needed to know more.

City Hall was somewhat less imposing than the rest of the buildings in the Valley. Rather than being some enormous structure of dark stone or metal, it was a sort of off-white color and made of wood (or something that looked like wood). A pair of off-white stone statues, like Roman centurions, stood on either side of the highly-polished (and bloody) glass door.

The first thing I noticed when I entered the building was the number of bodies—Demons, mostly—on the floor…and pinned to the walls, and hanging from the ceiling, and in pieces strewn across the room. That in and of itself wasn’t so disturbing, as I myself had once left a brothel looking very much the same. What got to me was how every corpse in the room had a gaping hole in its chest; some had more. Upon closer inspection, I discovered that the holes seemed to be where the heart was before it was removed. Okay, so it wasn’t so similar to my brothel massacre. Disembowelment was never my thing.

Inside the vault wasn’t much different, except that there were significantly fewer corpses. There were also obviously quite a few things missing, as my half-briefing had indicated. Why hadn’t Silverberg told me that all the witnesses had been brutally murdered? I’d have to ask him the next time I saw him, but I already knew that I probably wouldn’t get much of an answer. Since there was nothing I could do there, I left.

It was on my way out the door that I caught a glimpse of a burly man dressed like a biker running down the street away from City Hall. I probably wouldn’t have been suspicious, except that he kept throwing looks in my direction over his shoulder. I followed.

He ran fast for a large biker in full leather, but most prostitutes ran faster than that and I had never let one get away. I quickly caught up to him and gave him a shove that sent him sprawling on the ground. Before I could react, he kicked my legs out from under me and I tumbled backwards, whereupon he jumped to his feet and took off again. He was around the corner and out of sight before I could catch him again.

I’ll tell you right now that nobody makes a fool out of Jack. I was going to hunt him down and I was going to make him suffer. To that end, I decided to ask around, starting with Grut, to find out what use the locals could be to me.

*****

“A fat guy dressed like a biker kicked your a**?” Grut chortled when I explained my situation. “That’s got to be embarrassing.”

“He didn’t kick my a**,” I asserted. “All he did was catch me off guard and knock me down.”

“And then he got away.”

“Yes, Grut, and then he got away. Do you know anything or not?”

Grut thought quietly for a minute and then gestured down the street. “Go that way until you hit the bright neon signs. Look for a bunch of biker-types standing around outside a bar. That’s where you need to go for information.”

“A biker bar? Are you kidding?” I was, shall we say, nonplussed by Grut’s advice.

But there it was, just as he had said, with about a dozen somewhat menacing individuals milling about out in front. There wasn’t a motorcycle in sight, because this was practically Hell, but the effect wasn’t all that diminished. They still looked like they could butcher me if they made a concerted effort. Not wanting to get into a fight with all twelve or so of them, I attempted to walk casually through the front door. No such luck.

“Werza goin’?” one of them demanded, thrusting himself between me and the door.

I am not particularly patient. My ability to speak and understand Drunken Biker is not very good. I wanted to get out of the Valley as quickly as possible. Thus, a hard kick to the stomach was my only recourse. It should have lain him out, given how drunk he was. But again, my luck decided to screw me over.

As it turns out, drunken bikers can run much faster than sober ones, or at least this group could. Fortunately I was still fast in my own right, and we made a complete circuit of that street and the one next to it and came back to the bar before I stupidly tripped and fell.

They surrounded me, and the one I had kicked stepped forward and taunted me unintelligibly. I moved to get to my feet, and felt something cold and hard press against my arm. Curious, I reached into the sleeve of my jacket and produced the knife that Silverberg had given me, which I had forgotten about. Now the field was level. I stood and faced the man who was jabbering at me. He saw the knife and grinned wickedly before coming straight at me.

In retrospect, it wasn’t stupidity on his part. He had no way of knowing that I was Red Jack. With that in mind, it’s understandable that when he looked down and saw his innards spilling out onto the street he was confused. Then I opened his throat and it was over. He collapsed in a bloody heap, gushing from the holes in his front like some demented fountain. I was comfortable now; it was just like killing those girls, except these victims planned on fighting back.

Another came from behind. He wasn’t being at all careful about it, and I could hear him stumbling forward. He let out a short holler of rage, and then my knife was buried hilt-deep in his forehead. I jerked it out as the rest came all at once, I spun wildly, slashing and thrusting until they fell back, tripping over the dead and slipping in pools of their own blood.

It was beautiful. It was glorious.

It was terrible.

****************************************************************************

RED JACK
EPISODE THREE: “BRIMSTONE BANDITS, PART TWO”

“Name?”

“Jonathan Halyard.”

“Age?”

“Twenty-three.”

“Occupation?”

“I work at a deli.”

“Worked. Try to keep it straight, Mr. Halyard. You don’t work there any more. Not after what happened.”

“Sorry. I worked at a deli.”

“That’s better. Let’s see, here…any family?”

“None that I know of.”

“How about friends?”

“They know better. We won’t be seeing them.”

“They abandoned you?”

“It’s okay. I told them to.”

“Did they know this was going to happen?”

“I don’t think so. I never specified.”

“Right. Anyway, I think we can get the judge to write this off as an accident and let you off with some jail time and a fine. How’s that sound to you?”

“Sounds just fine.”

*****

I wiped the blood off my knife on one of the bodies, and was about to leave when I heard heavy footsteps behind me. I turned to find a very large, very angry-looking biker, ginger-haired and bearded, a chain wrapped around one fist and the other clutching a curved sword, stepping out of the bar. It’s amazing, the things you see in Hell’s waiting room.

“You the one that did this?” he demanded in a deep voice that commanded respect, or at least healthy fear.

But I wasn’t about to be afraid of anything. I was still in my zone, and this was just the next act in the show. “That’s right,” I said flatly. The enormous biker surveyed the scene without obvious emotion.

“Then I guess I’m next,” he muttered, and before I knew what was happening the chain was flying through the air towards my head. It hit me in the middle of the forehead and knocked me backwards off my feet. Jumping up, I received a blow to my left cheek that spun me, and then the biker rammed his knee into my stomach.

He moved fast for an overweight Lost Soul. I was taking blow after blow to my head and gut; there was no time to get my guard up between attacks. Not that it would have made any difference, because I was terrible at blocking, but having the chance would have at least been a little comforting.

Finally, the biker knocked me off my feet again with a straight punch with the chain-wrapped fist to my throat. All I could do was lie there in the street, my blood mixing with that of the corpses I’d made, gasping for air.

The fat biker was laughing, now. “You’re not so tough,” he informed me. “Or maybe you are, and I’m just that good. Either way, there’s a reason that nobody messes with the Sledgehammer. You must be new here, or you’d know that.” He came over to where I was lying and let his sword rest on my throat. “No big deal. Just hold still for a sec and I’ll send you below.” The sword went up…

…and then the Sledgehammer found himself standing less than a foot from one of the strangest-looking people I’d ever seen. From my vantage point on the ground, I could see that he had blue overalls, a white linen shirt, hiking boots made from some kind of red leather, a short, green trench coat with a white cross on the back (the horizontal line extended to the cuffs of the sleeves), and thick, white gloves that appeared to be satin. But stranger, still, was the sort of crown he had on his head. A band of blue metal encircled his stark-white hair, with a crosspiece on the front that came down between his eyes and extended upward several inches.

The newcomer gripped the Sledgehammer’s sword arm with one hand, staring him in the eyes with the biggest smile I’ve ever seen. “Is that entirely necessary, Hammer?” he asked innocently. He looked like he was putting all of his effort into holding back Hammer’s sword.

“Necessary? You’re damn right it’s necessary. I beat him fair and square, and now I’m going to send him down below.” Despite being intent on finishing the job, Hammer dropped his arm to his side and rested the point of his sword on the ground.

“You’re absolutely right, of course, and normally I wouldn’t dream of stopping you from doing your civic duty. But really, Hammer, let me be honest with you: you don’t want to kill this one.” The newcomer squatted down and began examining my wounds, still smiling.

“Why not?” Hammer demanded, continuing to be devoid of real emotion.

The newcomer straightened up and looked down at me with his hands on his hips. “Old Man Silver wouldn’t appreciate it. Might decide to take it up with the Boss if you send this one down there.”

“He’s Old Man Silver’s boy? I didn’t think he was taking on any more.”

“Apparently he changed his mind. He’s making a special exception for this one, as I hear it.” Then as an afterthought, the newcomer said, “You can stand up now, Jack. I don’t think you were hurt that badly.”

As I was about to retort, I realized that the pain had mostly stopped. I tried experimentally raising myself up on my elbows, and it was pleasantly without pain, so I got to my feet and backed quickly away from Hammer and the other.

“That’s right, you’re new here,” the strangely-dressed man said. “You’re improved here, depending on how strong your soul was in life, for better or for worse. I guess it’s because the Boss wants there to be more of a separation between the ones he thinks are worthy and the rest.” He waved his own statement away. “Anyway, you heal faster here than back there. You’re probably a bit stronger and faster, too. If you last long enough, you might even get to be like Hammer here. But that’s assuming that he doesn’t kill you first. Not that he’s really killing you, of course, because you’re already dead, but—”

“Shut up a minute,” I interrupted, retrieving my knife from the ground. Then, turning to the two of them, “I don’t really care who you two are. I don’t care what your jobs are or how many people you’ve killed, because I’ve probably killed more. All I want to do is get back the…whatever it is that was taken from the bank. Money or whatever. Somebody said that the bikers knew something, so I came here.” I gestured at the dead bikers lying in the street. “I wasn’t counting on this. Now somebody is going to tell me what I want to know or there’ll be trouble!” I jabbed the air with my knife for emphasis. They just stared at me.

“You sure about that?” Hammer said in a tone of honest questioning. “I did just pound you pretty hard.” He pointed at the bar. “If it means that much to you, the stuff’s in there. You can have it.”

“There, now,” said the newcomer. “Isn’t that better? We’re all friends here, right?”

The knife flew from my hand and sunk itself into Hammer’s right eye. He gave a noncommittal grunt and toppled over onto his face, oozing blood onto the ground. “No,” I informed the newcomer, “we’re not all friends here. But thanks for stopping him from cropping me.” I rolled over Hammer’s carcass with some effort and extracted my knife, wiping it on the biker’s jacket before replacing it in my sleeve, and stalked over to the bar.

*****

“How do you like that, Mr. Halyard? Not guilty because you were just defending yourself, and not even a fine.”

“Good enough.”

“You don’t sound very excited.”

“I’m sorry. Should I be?”

“They could have given you the death penalty, you know.”

“I guess.”

“Well, fine. Be that way if you want. As for me, I’m going to go home and spend some time with the wife, if you know what I mean.”

“I can figure it out, I think. I’ll be seeing you, then.”

“I sure hope not.”